This Mortal World: A Buddhist Physician on Life, Impermanence, and Better Ways to Die

A reflective and compassionate meditation on “death awareness” for anyone who quietly believes death is for other people. With wisdom and humor, a palliative care physician challenges cultural taboos surrounding death and encourages us to embrace impermanence as a transformative lens for living. Most of us live under what Dr. Leslie Blackhall calls the “immortality illusion”—pretending death won’t happen while missing opportunities for authentic living. A leading palliative care physician with more than forty years of experience, Blackhall reveals how our cultural denial of mortality creates unnecessary suffering and obscures us from recognizing life's true meaning. Combining perspectives from Western and Tibetan medicine with Buddhist philosophy, Blackhall offers a radical perspective on death awareness—not as a morbid preoccupation, but as a pathway to fearless living. Through powerful patient stories and personal experiences, Blackhall exposes the flaws in our approach to end-of-life care, revealing that accepting impermanence can liberate us from anxiety about the future and help us focus on what truly matters now. Moving beyond familiar advice about advance directives and hospice care, This Mortal World challenges readers to fundamentally reconsider their relationship with mortality. Blackhall shows how death awareness can radically change your perspective and clarify your true priorities. This book will change how you think about living, dying, and finding purpose in our beautifully impermanent world.