One of the chief reasons we have so much anguish and difficulty in facing death is that we ignore the truth of impermanence.

In our minds, changes always equal loss and suffering. And if they come, we try to anesthetize ourselves as far as possible. We assume, stubbornly and unquestioningly, that permanence provides security and impermanence does not. But in fact impermanence is like some of the people we meet in life — difficult and disturbing at first, but on deeper acquaintance far friendlier and less unnerving than we could have imagined.

—Art of Dying Gracefully and the Afterlife