Helen Tworkov: Dying Every Day

Helen Tworkov, co-author of In Love with the World with Mingyur Rinpoche, sits down with James Shaheen, Tricycle’s publisher and editor, to discuss how she helped her teacher tell his story, the near-death experience that transformed his life and teachings, and how seeing the small deaths we experience each day can help us alleviate our fears of dying. They also discuss Tworkov's role as founding editor, the origins of Tricycle, and how the Western Buddhist landscape has changed over time.

Reviews

Excellent and interesting talk. I just stumbled on this and know very little about Buddhism.

I struggle with thr heartbreaking disappointments on a daily basis. I've been in an environment where catastrophising was around me on a daily basis. So I jump when I see my own shadow at times.
Even distancing myself from my toxic and negative parents, it is so familiar that it draws me there.
It's almost like a mourning process of my parents, even though they are still alive and very much sitting in that reality.
So I can't process where I'm meant regain the new way of living. I can see and feel it but the old rotten ways are still very alive and pushy, both in reality and in my memories.
Retraining mu brain is not easy.
My dad even sat there just the other day when I had to visit them, had to being the appropriate word, and talked about someone else, how they should reflect on themselves, really look and see themselves.
The mental abuse I was subjected to was a slow trickle, he did it like a professional.
I nearly died inside.
I journal most days and that helps massively. But seeing past them. Looking past that familiar yet toxic culture, is fear.
I so want to put my big girl pants on and not just face it but develop it into positive things.
I've been institutionalised within my own family. That's a hard one to face, like it was my awfully painful secret.
I want to reach out and cry that they did wrong. But they are so in their own delusions that they wouldn't accept it anyhow.
So what do I do with the residue?! Meditation yes, journal yes, acceptance, yes I can to a point. But I can't trust, not even myself. I must practice trusting in myself.
The change can only happen in me. I'm great at saying it, seeing it. But I'm still hiding behind all the mistakes and reactions that I made before, after experiencing this abuse , that wasn't fault, and regrets that I didn't keep running at 18 years old.
Knowledge is great until you know too much and you are not ready for it all.
My dad obsessively brain washed me to not spend money to save and to live simply. But to the extreme.
So I've spent a lot of my life living with nothing, seeing how good I can be at not spending too much and although it has taught me how to be disciplined, it has trapped me too in fear of what might happen. Won't I be able to stop when I buy a few nice things, that trusting of myself issue again.
So this talk, of the Buddhist monk living with nothing, I relate in a very strange kind of way.
I must practice not just loving myself, but allowing myself to live in better standards.
I don't care about me. I don't think I deserve it. I must practice actually being honest with myself. All the spiritual stuff is lost on me otherwise.
Thank you so much for these insights 😍

I have read Mingur Rinpoche's book and found it has been instrumental in getting an understanding of the deathless state. Broadening my understanding of a universal state where death in this life is almost insignificant. Thank you for this discussion.

Interesting, thank you🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Very nice. Awesome book as well.