craschworks

Furthermore, in moments when you are taking delight in something, call to mind the opposite impressions.  What harm is there if you whisper to yourself, at the very moment you are kissing your child, and say, ‘Tomorrow you will die’?  So likewise to your friend, ‘Tomorrow you will go abroad, or I shall, and we shall never see each other again’? (Disc. 3. 24. 88)

This is what you ought to practise from morning till evening.  Begin with the smallest, the most vulnerable things, like a pot, or a cup, and then advance to a tunic, a paltry dog, a mere horse, a bit of land; next yourself, your body and its limbs, your children, wife, brothers.  Look about on every side and cast these things away from you.  Purify your judgements, lest something not your own have become fastened to you, or grown together with you, and cause you pain when it is torn loose. (Disc. 4. 1. 111-12)

“Rather than working to fulfill whatever desires we find in our head, we need to work at preventing certain desires from forming and eliminating many of the desires that have formed.  And rather than wanting new things, we need to work at wanting the things we already have.” –