The universal experiences of birth, sickness, old age, and death can serve as our teachers, interrupting assumptions that are not helpful in our journey  •  they can open our eyes to the ways in which we can either increase or reduce our suffering  •  birth refers to our literal physical birth, but it also refers to being thrust into new situations  •  we feel vulnerable but fresh; it is exhilarating but scary  •  the more rigidly we hold on to the assumption that our world should go on in a familiar, predictable way, the more we suffer  •  what is interrupted as we get older is the assumption of youthful vigor  •  another quality of aging is staleness; we begin with freshness, but eventually we lose interest  •  sickness challenges the assumption that we should always be able to enjoy full health  •  it provides the opportunity to investigate on the spot our state of mind when we encounter an illness  •  more generally it speaks to the sense that things just strike out of nowhere  •  "Why me?" What about "Why not me?"  •  Death refers to our literal death, and also to the fact that nothing lasts; it interrupts our assumptions of eternity  •  death also relates to our fear of the unknown, to the pain of wanting things to last