In many cultures, death is a taboo topic while in some communities, it is celebrated; yet, most of us have a conflicting relationship with it. Experientially, we see it all around us, in nature and in our personal lives. We have all grieved, been held by our many sacred rituals, and discovered myriad expressions of resilience. Intellectually, too, we understand its inevitability but death still feels like a "peekaboo" trick we are playing on ourselves. We see it and then we don't. The mere risk of losing something as fundamental as our identity fills us with fear. Thich Nhat Hanh famously said, "We don't suffer because life is impermanent, but because we want it to be permanent."

In this talk, Nipun Mehta will explore how acts of service can be an unsuspecting antidote to reframe our relationship to death -- and all transitions. In giving, as we move from me to we, our sense of identity opens into a much more expansive container -- a web of relations that can embrace arrivals and departures with grace. Not only does a heart of service invite us to celebrate impermanence, but life's impermanence equally invites us to celebrate a heart of service.