Death with Noah Levine

Death with Noah Levine

What drives someone to seek a life that fully accepts impermanence and death? Against The Stream founder Noah Levine brings his raw, punk-flavoured Buddhist teaching style to one of the most avoided subjects around: the fate of the body. Rather than offering comfort clichés, Noah walks the group through a traditional Buddhist meditation on death and decay, using direct passages from the Buddha.

You’ll hear him calmly invite people to picture a corpse on a charnel ground, swelling, rotting, being eaten by animals, breaking down into scattered bones and finally dust – all while repeating the line: “This body of mine also has this nature, has this destiny, cannot escape it.” He explains that this isn’t meant to be morbid. It’s a way of breaking our tight identification with the body and waking up to impermanence.

From there, the talk shifts into how this kind of practice can change daily life: creating urgency to forgive, to make amends, to be kind now rather than someday. Noah answers questions about medicine, life extension and assisted dying, contrasting strict Theravada precepts with his own more forthright view on end-of-life choice.

He shares stories from his teachers, like Ajahn Chah’s “already broken glass” teaching and Ajahn Amaro’s habit of saying “goodbye forever” instead of “see you soon” as a reminder that future plans are never guaranteed. The tone moves between stark honesty and dark humour (yes, including a comment about being a heavily tattooed corpse), keeping the subject human and strangely relatable.

Anyone interested in Buddhist practice, mortality, or bringing more urgency and appreciation into sober, present-moment living is likely to find this talk both challenging and clarifying. What might change in your life if you treated every body – your own and everyone else’s – as already temporary?