Since I was born

I have to die

and so….

Kisei

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon

is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered

to help me make the big choices in life.

Because almost everything—

all external expectations, all pride,

all fear of embarrassment or failure—

these things just fall away in the face of death,

leaving only what is truly important.

Remembering that you are going to die

is the best way I know to avoid

the trap of thinking you have something to lose.

You are already naked.

There is no reason not to follow your heart….

Death is very likely the single best invention of Life.

It is Life’s change agent.

It clears out the old to make way for the new….

Your time is limited,

so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.

Don’t be trapped by dogma—

which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.

Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions

drown out your own inner voice.

And most important,

have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

They somehow already know

what you truly want to become.

Everything else is secondary.

Steve Jobs

Stanford University Commencement Address, 2005

If you study death at all,

if you read accounts of near death

or channeled books from those who have died,

you find incredible consistency in terms of what happens.

And it is always beautiful and peaceful.

Every account of near death I’ve read

includes a description of a peace that is beyond understanding.

A full, complete sense of peace.

No one ever wants to come back here

after a near death experience.

If that doesn’t tell you all you need to know about death,

what will?

Melissa O’Brien

The Little Book of Living and Dying

MORE RANGE

We are friends with the one who kills us,

who gives us to the ocean waves.

We love this death.

Only ignorance would say,

Put it off a while,

day after tomorrow.

Do not avoid the knife.

This friend only seems fierce,

bringing your soul more range,

perching your falcon on a cliff of the wind.

Jesus on his cross, Hallaj on his—

those absurd killings hold a secret.

Submit to love without thinking,

as the sun this morning rose recklessly

extinguishing our star-candle minds.

Rumi

The Big Red Book

On such a clear day it is possible to believe

that we will live forever,

that death was something we once invented,

long ago, on a lazy summer afternoon

when we had nothing better to do—

a way to add texture, dimension,

a way to change the pace of our lilting lives.

On such a day it is possible to believe

that sorrow will turn into one great vapor

and blow off and be gone forever;

that the childhood dream of fire

will turn out to mean nothing in the end;

and that our deaths,

if they must be,

will be timely,

after eighty,

and while we sleep.

Carole Maso

Ghost Dance

In the Platform Sutra,

we read that when the Sixth Patriarch announced to his disciples

that he was about to die,

all of them broke into tears except Shen-hui.

Whereupon Hui-neng declared that it was only he

who truly understood his teaching.

If we truly understand the emptiness of the self,

there is no death

and no one who dies.

And yet, as Dogen says in Genjokoan,

still flowers fall

and we are not unmoved by their falling.

We can express our understanding

either with silence

or with unrestrained tears.

Barry Magid

Nothing Is Hidden: The Psychology of Zen Koans

Death, as the human consciousness understands it,

pain and sorrow, loss and disaster, joy and distress,

are only such because man, as yet,

identifies himself with the life of the form

and not with the life and consciousness of the soul,

the solar angel. …

The moment a man identifies himself with his soul

and not with his form,

then he understands the meaning of the Law of Sacrifice;

he is spontaneously governed by it;

and he is one who will,

with deliberate intent,

choose to die.

But there is no pain,

no sorrow,

and no real death involved.

Alice A. Bailey

Esoteric Psychology II

For as long as you are alive in this body,

you will have a mind,

which means you are always dreaming.

Don’t be afraid to dream,

but also don’t be afraid of the end of the dream.

Enjoy it all!

You are alive,

but your body is already dead.

So, there is no need to be afraid of death.

Instead, go and conquer the fear of being alive.”

don Miguel Ruiz Jr.

don Miguel Ruiz’s Little Book of Wisdom: The Essential Teachings

“You’re afraid of death

because you won’t be able to do this anymore.”

That’s the thing about memento mori.

This idea, remembering we will all die someday,

really makes things clear.

If you thought you had all the time in the world,

maybe wasting two hours in traffic

or spending too much time online

or dealing with endless emails

wouldn’t seem so bad.

But if you knew your time was limited—i

f you only had a few months or years left—

what would you stop doing right away?

What is the “this” Marcus Aurelius talked about

that you would cut from your life?

Start now.

Drop those things before it’s too late.

Ryan Holiday

I had this dream after my illness in 1944.

It is a parable:

My self retires into meditation

and meditates my earthly form.

To put it another way:

it assumes human shape

in order to enter three-dimensional existence,

as if someone were putting on a diver’s suit

in order to dive into the sea.

When it renounces existence in the hereafter,

the self assumes a religious posture,

as the chapel in the dream shows.

In earthly form

it can pass through the experiences of the three-dimensional world,

and by greater awareness

take a further step toward realization.

Carl Gustav Jung

Memories, Dreams, Reflections

I had dreamed once before of the problem of the self and the ego.

In that earlier dream I was on a hiking trip.

I was walking along a little road through a hilly landscape;

the sun was shining and I had a wide view in all directions.

Then I came to a small wayside chapel.

The door was ajar, and I went in.

To my surprise there was no image of the Virgin on the altar,

and no crucifix either,

but only a wonderful flower arrangement.

But then I saw that on the floor in front of the altar, facing me,

sat a yogi—in lotus posture,

in deep meditation.

When I looked at him more closely,

I realized that he had my face.

I started in profound fright, and awoke with the thought:

“Aha, so he is the one who is meditating me.

He has a dream, and I am it.”

I knew that when he awakened,

I would no longer be.

Carl Gustav Jung

Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Once we meet death and keep it near,

it ceases to threaten us,

ceases to be alien.

Death, when embraced,

can be the means to healing

and to progressing through grief for the living.

It can also be our greatest means of connection.

Brandy Schillace

Death’s Summer Coat

My best friend’s mother, a breast cancer patient,

tried repeatedly to talk about the looming possibility of her own death

only to be told that she should not speak of it.

It is a strange irony:

the last thing we are supposed (or allowed) to do

when preparing to meet death is talk about death.

Can you imagine the inverse?

We would not plan for the birth of a child

without addressing the subject of labour.

Major events demand adequate preparation –

more than that, they require solemnity, significance.

These make up our cultural rituals,

and rituals have enormous power.

Brandy Schillace

Death’s Summer Coat

My six and seventy years are through.

I was not born, I am not dead.

Clouds floating on the high wide skies

The moon curves through its million-mile course.

Yakuo Tokuken

When Grandfather Abraham was gone

Grandmother had a brief moment of Victory,

as if by outliving him she could lay down her cards

and declare that she’d finally won the Game of Marriage.

It wasn’t until the long evenings of the following winter,

hounds gnawing on the stringy twines of the Indian rug

and developing the first stages

of what my father said was curry-scented incontinence,

sash windows rattling like denture laughter,

and the fire blowing down these great black puffs,

that she realised he might be the one laughing now.

Niall Williams

History of the Rain

You create a world around you of illusions.

You go on getting attached to things

which are not going to be with you when you die.

You go on being identified

with things which are going to be taken away from you.

Hence, the Hindus call the world “illusion.”

By “the world” they don’t mean the world that is there –

they simply mean the world that you have created out of your sleep.

That world is maya, illusion.

It is a dream world.

Only that which is eternal is true;

only that which is going to be forever and ever is true.

That which is momentary is untrue.

The momentary has to be watched

and not to be identified with.

Osho

Why Should I Grieve Now?: facing a loss and letting it go

I’ve had a lot of people pass away in my life.

I guess it’s all a matter of how you deal with your mortality —

and recognizing that you are mortal.

I’m trying to see what a gift life is

and how quickly it can be extinguished,

without any warning.

Timothy B. Schmit

I know you are very ill.

Like a good Zen student,

you are facing that sickness squarely.

You may not know exactly who is suffering,

but question yourself.

What is the essence of this mind?

Think only of this.

You will need no more.

Covet nothing.

our end, which is endless,

is as a snowflake dissolving in the pure air.

Bassui, addressing a dying disciple

Sushila Blackman

Graceful Exits: How Great Beings Die

When Thich Nhat Hanh talks about nirvana,

I cannot help but hear Eckhart talking about the Godhead,

Says Thich Nhat Hanh:

“In the phenomenal world, we see that there is birth and death.

There is coming and going, being and non-being.

But in nirvana,

which is the ground of being equivalent to God,

there is no birth, no death, no coming,

no going, no being, no non-being.

All these concepts must be transcended.”

Eckhart teaches that the Godhead,

from whom we all come and to whom we shall all return,

is of such unity that “everything within the Godhead is unity,

and we cannot speak about it.

And when one returns to the Godhead,

“no one asks me where I’m coming from

or where I’ve been.

No one has missed me.”

Matthew Fox

Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior for Our Times

Death is not like a person.

It is rather a presence.

But one may also choose to say

that it is nothing

and yet it is everything.

One will be right on every count.

Death is whatever one wishes.

Carlos Castaneda

Journey to Ixtlan