Sitting With the Reality of Death: Impermanence and My First Meditation Retreat Experience (Part 1)

A blog in two parts by Buhlebenkosi Chinhara

Authors own image

I first became curious about death during the COVID-19 pandemic. Maybe ‘curious’ isn’t the exact word, but that was when I finally became open to facing its inevitability, as it was the first time in my lifetime that it felt potentially imminent.

Seeing the then growing number of mortalities on the news and hearing of friends and family members losing loved ones to the virus, death felt like a looming threat in ways that it hadn’t before, at least for me.

Up until that point, besides older family members and family friends, I had only experienced two close deaths. One was of my best friend in 2013, and the other was of my younger cousin when I was about 9 years old. The reason I distinguish the deaths of my elderly relatives from those of my young friend and cousin is that, for whatever reason, the latter seemed like mistakes at the time. Deaths of older people were, in my mind, more expected, while these seemed like cruel, unlucky misfortunes that were never meant to happen to people so young. They stood out as tragedies — almost accidents — that betrayed the natural order of things.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, it became clear that death does not discriminate. I was hit with the reality that death coming suddenly, unexpectedly, and at any age was a feature, rather than a bug, of our fleeting existence. This realisation prompted me to speak to a death doula about what death is and how to prepare for it, and I  was also fortunate enough to come across the Buddhist book, “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying”, by Sogyal Rinpoche. Though I didn’t finish it, the chapters I read held so many illuminating truths about the reality of our impermanence, and the imminence of death. Of course, however, the pandemic came and went, and, with it, much of the heedfulness and perspective around dying that I had briefly cultivated. But a small, undeniable shift had happened and, little did I know at the time, that brief spell of initial curiosity would prime me to be open to the invitation to Dave Sheehan’s meditation retreat on death that took place in Juliusdale, Nyanga in August 2025.

A view of Susurumba

The retreat centre is located at the foot of Mt. Susurumba in Nyanga, surrounded by lots of nature. It’s a serene, picturesque environment; perfect for immersing oneself in their meditation practice, away from daily distractions. When we arrived we settled into our cabins and received the programme for the retreat:

7:00AM — 8:00AM Meditation

8:00AM — 9:00AM Breakfast

9:00AM — 10:30AM Meditation & Talk

10:30AM — 11:00AM Tea

11:00AM — 12:30PM Meditation

12:30PM — 2:15PM Lunch

2:15PM — 3:30PM Meditation

3:30PM — 6:00PM Walk/Personal Time

6:00PM — 7:00PM Soup

7:00PM — 8:PM Meditation/Metta Loving Kindness

‘That’s a lot of meditation’, I thought to myself; but, being grateful for the opportunity, and perhaps a bit overconfident in my ‘spiritual capacity’, I felt excited to dive head-first into the process.

In our first session, Dave introduced us to the concept of the two minds, which he would continue to refer back to throughout the retreat. One mind is the dualistic, thinking mind, which creates the notion of a ‘me’ that is separate from others. This ‘me’ is a collection of stories and deeply ingrained habits that create the illusion of a separate self, with its myriad dramas, desires, attachments and aversions. The view of a ‘me’ that this mind creates ultimately stems from ignorance.

The other mind is the absolute, omniscient mind, which is pure awareness— free from delusion and obscuration. This mind is unburdened by the thoughts and subsequent suffering that come from identifying with a ‘me’. It brims with compassion and an understanding of the true, non-dual nature of reality, and the view from this mind generates an experience of peace and happiness.

The idea of the ‘thinking mind’ or one’s distinct self being an illusion is extremely hard to conceptualise —  let alone accept —  when one is so used to filtering, and responding to, reality through the idea of an ‘I’. We have all been deeply conditioned to understand the world around us through the lens of our thoughts, feelings and experiences. If there is no ‘I’, then who, or what, experienced all the circumstances and events from the past that seemingly contribute to my present reality? What is experiencing my reality right now?

If ‘I’ am not real, then what IS?

Well, this is where meditation comes in.

During the retreat sessions we learned that through meditation we are able to observe our minds and the mental fabrications they generate. When one is starting out in their meditation practice and attempting to focus their awareness on sound, the breath, or sensations in the present moment, it’s almost jarring to see how easily thoughts hijack our attention. While sitting still on a meditation pillow somewhere in the mountains of Nyanga, the mind is still able to conjure up stories that transport one’s attention and emotions to a time and place that have nothing to do with present circumstances.

Meditation helps to illuminate how the thinking mind creates stories about the past and future that do not reflect absolute reality. These stories become our truth despite them not being real in any tangible way — the past consists of memories that are rarely reliable or representative of what actually happened, and the future, quite frankly, does not exist.

Yet, we believe, with unwavering faith, in almost everything the mind presents to us.

If our mind tells us we have been wronged, it makes us angry. If it tells us we are inferior in some way, we feel shame. It can tell us we have done well by some external metric, so we feel accomplishment and pride, but the feeling is precarious because in an instant it can shift to one of inadequacy or low self worth when failure comes knocking. During our sessions, Dave would implore us to reflect on how all of these emotions arise because of the belief in, and self-centered obsession with, ‘me’. Think about it: if you cared a lot less about ‘you’ and how everything affects you, you would have fewer problems. Without an ‘I’ to interpret things as good, bad, unwanted or wanted, the events that unfold in our lives become neutral: they simply ‘are’. We don’t have to struggle against them or make up stories about how they positively or negatively affect us. And if we push this idea to its most radical limits, it becomes possible to see that even death is nothing to fear.

So what is death? I will explore this in Part 2.