Welcome to Death Knells

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You see me apparently functioning. 

In reality, I only look. 

Whatever is done, is done on the stage. 

Joy and sorrow, life and death,

 they all are real to the man in bondage; 

to me, they are all in the show,

 as unreal as the show itself. 

I may perceive the world just like you,

 but you believe to be in it, 

while I see it as an iridescent drop

 in the vast expanse of consciousness.

Roy Melvyn

The Essential Nisargadatta

The whole fear about death has come 

simply because you have no idea what it is.  

You have formed ideas about everything. 

 But it does not matter what ideas you have formed about life, 

when you are confronted with the moment of death,

 you really do not know anything

.That is one space of life 

which has remained uncorrupted by the human mind. 

 Everything else we have corrupted. 

 Whatever was supposed to be sacred,

 all these things are hugely corrupted by human minds. 

Love, relationships, God, Divinity--

everything they have corrupted 

and twisted out whichever way they want. 

 Death is one thing that they are still clueless about--

though a lot of people would like to talk authoritatively about it.  

They know they are going to heaven; 

 they are dead sure about it. 

 If they are so sure, 

I don't see what they are waiting for! 

 They are doing everything not to go to heaven.  

Why?

Sadhguru

Life and Death in One Breath

There is nothing wrong with death;  it has to happen.  

Only because there is death, there is life.  

You need to understand that the moment you are born, 

you have a death sentence upon you.

 When, where, and how is the only question,

 but you are on death row.  

Your death is confirmed. 

 We do not know whether you will get educated or not; 

 we do not know whether you will get married or not; 

 we do not know whether you will know joy or not; 

 we do not know whether you will know misery or not;  

but we know that one day you will die. 

 That one thing is guaranteed.

Sadhguru

Life and Death in One Breath

Fixating on the idea of a “good death” 

can paradoxically prevent one.

 If we think that our death will follow a prescribed order, 

and that perfect preparation leads to a perfect death,

 we will constrict the wonder of a mysterious process.

 Surrender is more important than control.

 A good death is defined by a complete openness to whatever arises. 

So don’t measure your death against any other, 

and don’t feel you have to die a certain way.

 Let your life, and your death, be your own. 

There are certain things in life that we just do our own way.

Andrew Holecek

Preparing to Die: Practical Advice and Spiritual Wisdom from the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition 

The death of the individual is not disconnection,

 but withdrawal.

 The corpse is like a footprint or an echo,

 a dissolving trace of something 

that the self has ceased to do. 

In another connection, 

we say we are not born into the world,

 but out of the world. 

This statement is true,

 because the eternity of the world 

is at the base of our existence,

 so the universe is ultimately our own created body.

Lama Surya Das 

Richard Power

The Lost Teachings of Lama Govinda: Living Wisdom from a Modern Tibetan Master

The aspect of life which most stirs my soul 

is the ability to share in an undertaking,

 in a reality, more enduring than myself; 

it is in this spirit and with this purpose in view 

that I try to perfect myself and to master things a little more. 

When death lays its hand upon me 

it will leave intact these things, these ideas, these realities

 which are more solid and more precious than I;

 moreover my faith in Providence makes me believe 

that death comes at its own fixed moment, 

a moment of mysterious and special fruitfulness

 not only for the supernatural destiny of the soul

 but also for the further progress of the earth.

Teilhard de Chardin

Hymn of The Universe

Jesus did not see those who crucified him as evil. 

He didn’t say from the cross: 

I curse you all, you miserable, evil people, you rotten sinners. 

I hate you all for killing me unjustly. 

No, these were not the words found on the lips of Jesus in the Gospel accounts.

 Instead he said, “Father, forgive them, they have no idea what it is they are doing.” 

He didn’t even see his own murderers as malicious, 

but simply as misguided and ignorant.

This great lesson was the true sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

 His death on the cross saves us 

because it teaches us how to allow what is, 

to accept what is and eventually to actually love what is.

 This is more than a superficial, passive milk-and-water acceptance of fate—

it is a profoundly dynamic allowing,

 a deep acceptance.

 Ultimately, in loving what is,

 we are loving God Himself, 

we are loving our own true Self.

Francis Bennett

I Am That I Am 

In the teaching of Ramana Maharshi and others,

 there is mention of a fourth state

 beyond the states of waking, dreaming or deep, dreamless sleep. 

This fourth state, or turiya,

 is in reality, not a state at all, 

but is rather an idea or teaching 

that points to the one reality of the pure, clear awareness

 in which all the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep come and go. 

The awakened person is always abiding in this state

 that is not really a state at all. 

States come and go,

 but this awareness that is our true nature 

has no comings or goings.

 It is immutable, birthless, deathless. 

All appears and disappears within it. 

It alone remains. 

This is living the awakened life.

Francis Bennett 

I Am That I Am 

Most interestingly, he quibbled with the idea

that death was something that lay ahead of us in the uncertain future. 

“This is our big mistake,” Seneca wrote,

 “to think we look forward toward death. 

Most of death is already gone. 

Whatever time has passed is owned by death.” 

That was what he realized, 

that we are dying every day 

and no day, once dead, can be revived. 

Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman

Lives of the Stoics

The end of the world for a caterpillar is a butterfly for the master. 

Death is resurrection. 

We’re talking not about some resurrection that will happen 

but about one that is happening right now.

 If you would die to the past,

 if you would die to every minute, 

you would be the person who is fully alive, 

because a fully alive person 

is one who is full of death. 

We’re always dying to things.

 We’re always shedding everything 

in order to be fully alive

 and to be resurrected at every moment.

Anthony de Mello 

 Awareness

And it is so beautiful,

 so indescribably beautiful 

that only one thingcan be said about death: 

it must be that experience multiplied by millions.

The experience of meditation multiplied by millions 

is the experience of death.

And when you pass on you simply leave your form behind.  

You are absolutely intact,

 and for the first time out of the prison

 of physiology , biology, psychology.

All the walls are broken 

and you are free. 

Osho

The Rajneesh Bible, Volume III

Those who know meditation, they know something of death--

that's the only way to know before dying.

If I am saying there is no more significant experience in life than death, 

I am saying it not because I have died and come back to tell you,

 but because I know that in meditation 

you must move into the same space as death--

because in meditation you are no more your physiology,

 no more your biology, no more your chemistry, no more your psychology. 

 All those are left far away.

You come to your innermost center 

where there is only pure awareness. 

 That pure awareness will be with you when you die 

because that cannot be taken away. 

 All these other things which can be taken away, 

we take away with our own hands in meditation.

So meditation is an experience of death in life.

Osho

The Rajneesh Bible, Volume III

Remember that you are immortal,

 and that you who go out of life will come back again,

 strengthened by the rest in the invisible! 

For a change of place is a rest of consciousness. 

To those whose nerves are weary, wise doctors prescribe a change. 

A rest in the invisible worlds is more refreshing

 than a summer in the mountains.

 Do not fear death.

 I passed through death, 

and I am more rested now than a strong man in the morning. 

I would not go back to my old body.

 When I want a body again 

I shall build a new one. 

I know the process of building, 

having built so many before.

Elsa Barker

  Last Letters From The Living Dead Man 

Our true, essential being is utterly simple,

 present moment consciousness of just being, or simple existence, 

before we experience ourselves as existing as anything specific or particular—a

 woman, a man, old, young, black, white or brown, 

Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, atheist

. Hasn’t this simple I am been always here, 

silently watching our many experiences and changing roles? 

It was there when we were in a little baby body 

gazing wordlessly out on the strange new world we suddenly found ourselves in 

after the quiet, dark world of our mother’s womb.

 The same I am will still be silently watching through these eyes 

as we lie on our deathbed,

 and it will look around at all the familiar things in our bedroom one last time 

before we stop breathing and our heart stops beating.

 When our busy, thinking, conceptual mind 

that identified with all the temporal characteristics of this body

 quiets down a little,

 we can actually become conscious of this silent witness to our life, 

the I am, 

our most basic sense of simple presence here and now.

Francis Bennett

I Am That I Am 

There are times when cells refuse to respond

 to the command of programmed cell death,

 and they flee from the messengers of death. 

Their unwillingness to die causes immense damage to the body.

 These rogue cells are the basis for disease and cancers; 

their rebellion can cause the death of the whole.

 Programmed cell death is essential,

 and each cell is aware of its purpose and dies selflessly, 

programmed to respond to a greater plan: 

the plan of life, which is inexorably interwoven with death.

 The selfish response of a cell and its unwillingness to die

 causes destruction that goes against the harmonious pattern of life and death.

 Nobody knows why a cell responds in this way.

Kristoffer Hughes 

 As the Last Leaf Falls: A Pagan's Perspective on Death, Dying & Bereavement 

The process of apoptosis 

causes every single cell in our bodies to commit suicide,

 and it does so for a single purpose: 

to enable new, healthy cells to develop. 

A messenger is released from the brain and directed towards a cell 

that is either damaged or nearing the end of its natural cycle of living. 

The messenger attaches itself to the cell and, 

in simple terms, commands it to die. 

The cell immediately responds. 

Its systems are switched off and it dies;

 its remains are cleaned up by other cells, 

then transported to the spleen and removed from the body.

 New cells are created to replace it that, in turn,

 will be called upon to die when their allocated time has lapsed 

or they are damaged in the throes of their work. 

Without this programmed death of cells,

 the entire body would cease to operate, 

and it would die. 

In truth, in order for us to live,

 we must continuously die.

 Your entire body is renewed by the process of apoptosis; 

almost every single physical particle within you is dying 

in order for you to live.

Kristoffer Hughes 

 As the Last Leaf Falls: A Pagan's Perspective on Death, Dying & Bereavement 

Every single part of our body is governed

 by a peculiar process called apoptosis. 

This word comes to us from the Greek, 

meaning “the dropping off of petals or leaves,” 

and it is a term that is used in medicine 

to describe programmed cell death, or PCD. 

Its etymology in the Greek language relays a profound teaching: 

the leaves and petals of flowers and trees must drop off and die

 in order for new growth to develop and evolve;

 without this dropping off, 

life would become stagnant. 

Kristoffer Hughes 

 As the Last Leaf Falls: A Pagan's Perspective on Death, Dying & Bereavement 

Something dies before you die. 

What you are can’t die, 

but the idea of yourself is destined to die. 

There is absolutely nothing that will take the place 

of really stopping and dying before you die. 

This is not a physical death.

 This is a death of who you think you are,

 of your past and your future.

 All of that exists only in imagination.

Adyashanti

Falling Into Grace

One day the force that holds your body and spirit in unison will fail, 

and separation will occur. 

Your human body will perish,

 and nature will at once attempt to break it down, 

returning it to its original state of molecules and atoms 

that dance in search of a new form.

 Whether by process of disease or accident,

 the dying of the body causes massive shifts

 in the lives of those left behind.

 We are bereaved; 

we grieve the loss of touch, of caress, 

of the deliciousness of human interaction.

 In life we are constantly in the midst of death.

Our bodies, broken down to their constituent atoms,

 will be recycled to bring new and different shapes to the universe. 

Nothing is truly lost; 

the power of nature is too great, too wondrous. 

She is the ultimate recycler. 

The function of death in the realm of necessity

 is to transform; 

it does not seek to destroy,

 for nothing in nature can be truly destroyed—

instead, it simply changes its form.

Kristoffer Hughes 

 As the Last Leaf Falls: A Pagan's Perspective on Death, Dying & Bereavement 

I came to realize that what I really feared 

was being left behind by the people I loved, being without them.

 I also began to understand 

that spending time being afraid that this would happen was of no use. 

It was going to happen.

 I did not know when or who would die first,

 but I was not facing uncertainty.

 Slowly, I began to allow myself to think about the deaths of my loved ones. 

Instead of chasing these thoughts away,

 I learned to welcome them.

 To meditate on the death of my father 

was to help me experience his death in advance. 

This meditation was a way of preparing me

 for the deep sadness I would feel when he really did die. 

I came to a point where I became comfortable

 accepting that the people I loved would die, 

and that it would be difficult,

 but that I would be able to face it.

 People are going to die.

 This is beyond your control. 

To be in a constant state of agitation over this truth 

will only ruin the time that you have.

 Denial will just make the moment of their deaths more difficult. 

It is better for you to live 

with the knowledge and understanding that death will come.

 It will be difficult, but you will be OK.

 Love your friends and family,

 and enjoy your time with them while they are here. 

There is, in fact, nothing to fear,

 because death is coming.

 There is no reason for you to live in fear of something that is a certainty. 

Live in acceptance of that certainty and prepare yourself. 

Of course, this is easier said than done.

Margaret Meloni

Carpooling with Death: How Living with Death Will Make You Stronger, Wiser and Fearless

Clairvoyant observation shows 

that much of what is good, spiritually good, in our Movement 

proceeds from those who have taken our Christian spiritual science into themselves,

 and then, having passed through the gate of death, 

send down to us the fruits of this Christian spiritual science. 

The Christian spiritual science which those souls have taken into themselves 

and are now sending down to us from the spiritual worlds 

is already living in us. 

For they do not keep it in their own karmic stream 

for the sake of their own perfecting; 

they can let it stream into those who want to receive it. 

Comfort and hope arise for our spiritual science 

when we know that our so-called “dead” are working with us.

Rudolf Steiner

Christ and the Human Soul:  Lecture IV

When it comes time for death, welcome that, too.

 Do not let anyone make you feel bad if you express that it is time.

 A friend said to me, “He went so fast. It is too bad that he went so fast. 

It seems like you two just went into hospice mode.”

 “Yes,” I replied, “but sometimes faster is better.” 

To which my friend replied, “But I am sure you wanted

 as much time with him as possible.” 

“He was starting to suffer.

 He was at a point where he was never going to get better.

 It is good that he is at peace.” 

Insistently my friend replied,

 “But you did not want him to die. I am sure you wish that he was still alive.”

 At this point, I changed the subject.

 We had different opinions about what it meant for it to be someone’s time to die. 

For me to try to explain this

 would probably only result in this person thinking that I wanted my husband to die. Knowing that he could not live,

 what I wanted was for him to have a good death. 

Not in a fatalistic way,

 but to live knowing that death is coming

 and to stop raging against it. 

If there are medical treatments that make sense, by all means, try them.

Margaret Meloni

Carpooling with Death: How Living with Death Will Make You Stronger, Wiser and Fearless

You’re holding on to it [the physical body] for dear life.

 I am trying to point out to you 

that you really don’t want to be this Unlimited Being; 

you really don’t want to be totally Free. 

You want to have this limitation 

and you want the limitation to be nice, delightful, entertaining,

 and it just can’t be, 

and you struggle your entire life trying to make it so, 

and you die—

you have a vacation on the other side 

where you’re far better able to think

 and immediately have things happen, 

and you come back to a physical body,

 and you keep working through this physical body 

until you’re able to Free yourself from the physical body 

while you’re in the physical body. 

You can never get Free of it anywhere else 

but from within it.

Lester Levenson

The Ultimate Freedom

This is how it is in life. 

If you spend your life with worldly thoughts, 

these will be the thoughts 

that fill your mind at the moment of your death.

But if your life is devoted to attaining an inner peace, 

then, at the moment of your death,

 this will be the state that you die in.

Sri Annamalai Swami  

Final Talks 

Keep your body in good condition if you want to,

 but don’t ever believe that it is you. 

You can keep your car in good working order

without ever believing that you are the car.

 Have the same attitude towards your body. 

You are not your car and you are not your body. 

Both will perish, 

but the Self will continue because it is always there.

 When you identify with transient things that pass away or perish,

 you too will pass away and perish,

 but when you identify with the Self, 

you will not pass away or change in any way.

 The Self has no birth, no death,

 no bondage, no misery,

 no youth, no old age, and no sickness. 

These are attributes of changing bodies and minds,

 not the Self. 

Be the Self

 and none of these things will ever happen to you.

Sri Annamalai Swami  

Final Talks 

It may be argued 

that nobody can talk about death with authority who has not died;

 and since nobody, apparently, has ever returned from death,

 how can anybody know what death is, or what happens after it? 

The Tibetan will answer: 

“There is not one person, indeed, not one living being, 

that has not returned from death.

 In fact, we all have died many deaths, 

before we came into this incarnation. 

And what we call birth is merely the reverse side of death,

 like one of the two sides of a coin, 

or like a door which we call “entrance” from outside

 and “exit” from inside a room.

  Lama Anagarika Govinda

Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert,  Ralph Metzner

The Psychedelic Experience 

The Art of Dying is quite as important as the Art of Living (or of Coming into Birth), 

of which it is the complement and summation;

 that the future of being is dependent, perhaps entirely,

 upon a rightly controlled death.

The Art of Dying,

 as indicated by the death-rite associated with initiation into the Mysteries of Antiquity, and referred to by Apuleius, the Platonic philosopher, himself an initiate, 

and by many other illustrious initiates,

 and as The Egyptian Book of the Dead suggests,

 appears to have been far better known to the ancient peoples

 inhabiting the Mediterranean countries 

than it is now by their descendants in Europe and the Americas.

W.Y. Evans-Wentz

The Tibetan Book of the Dead

The last three bardos refer to the time periods between death and rebirth:

4. Bardo of Dying—The time period when our body is in the process of dying.

 All the physical elements of our body dissolve,

 and only pure awareness remains. 

During this period our mind can become very clear

 and can recall all of our past positive and negative actions.

We feel at peace as we remember the positive actions, 

 fearful as we recall the negative actions. 

5. Bardo of Luminosity—Our body and brain are dead. 

We experience visionary and auditory sensations—

not unlike the dream state while sleeping when we are alive.

 This can include the appearance of ghosts, demons, gods, 

as well as a judge of our karmic account—

all created by our state of mind.

 There can also be a “feeling” of peace and heartfelt, intense awareness. 

6. Bardo of Becoming—The time between when our consciousness (karma) 

enters the mother’s womb until the time we are reborn. 

Entry into the mother’s womb

 results from the habit of the consciousness 

to grasp for a physical body for its identity, or a sense of self.

Lama Lhanang

Mordy Levine

The Tibetan Book of the Dead for Beginners:  A Guide to Living and Dying

The consciousness of the  vast majority of those who die 

and do not return to their body,

from a Buddhist perspective,

 experiences an intermediate, transition-like state

 until it is reborn in a new body.

The experiences in this state, or period of time until rebirth,

 are known as the Intermediate State, or the bardo. 

The English translation for the bardo, appropriately enough, is “gap.”

Tibetan Buddhist lineages map our life cycle 

in terms of six bardos (time periods).

 The first three bardos relate to while we are alive, as follows:

1. Bardo of this Life—The time period of our lives as we are experiencing it now. 

2. Bardo of the Dream State—The time period when we are asleep and dreaming. 

3. Bardo of Meditation—The time period when we are meditating

Lama Lhanang

Mordy Levine

The Tibetan Book of the Dead for Beginners:  A Guide to Living and Dying

Being able to raise the dead 

is a deep fascination for most people. 

For  them, that is the ultimate test of someone’s spiritual powers.

 Most people  are living like the dead anyway

 because they are unconscious of many  things within themselves. 

If people are living unconsciously, 

it is as good  as death. 

So, in a way, the whole spiritual process 

is about raising the  dead. 

In that sense, raising the dead is my work, 

but that is not what  people are asking about. 

They are very interested in knowing

 if I can  make a corpse come alive again.

 This is a very immature desire...

Sadhguru

Death; An Inside Story - A Book For All Those Who Shall Die

He whom we think we have lost, 

has only been sent on ahead.

Seneca

Most people, it is affirmed, 

find the transition and the awakening on the other side

 more natural than they had expected,

 and they soon become aware 

that they are in a real world among real people,

 and are as much alive as ever they were on earth.

"The spirit body is as actual, and real to the spirit," says one communicator, 

"as the old earth body appeared to me, 

and its environments are as palpable to its perceptions—

 it has simply passed from one plane of conscious existence to another."

 The invisible has become visible, 

and the formerly visible things invisible.

A.P. SINNET,   ANNIE BESANT

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER DEATH 

All individuals die.

Only those 

Who are no longer individuals

Live forever.

Wu Hsin

  In the Shadow of the Formless

A dying man cannot lose anything:

 death is going to shatter everything. 

It is better you drop your consolations by your own hand

 and die innocently, 

full of wonder and inquiry,

 because death is the ultimate experience in life.

 It is the very crescendo.

Osho 

The Art of Living and Dying: Celebrating Life and Celebrating Death

You may think your individual life began in 1900 something, 1890 or 1880 something, 

but it never did. 

True, you may have become aware of it at that particular time,

 and that awareness constitutes your present experience. 

But as you meditate now, 

you are going to learn the true meaning of immortality; 

you are going to learn 

that long before you became consciously aware of this world,

 you were alive, 

living fruitfully and harmoniously 

just as you will live eternally and immortally

 after what is called “the passing” from this plane of existence.

Joel S. Goldsmith

Conscious Union With God

May you be at peace; 

the peace that comes to all of us 

from accepting that we have done the best we could in our lives;

 the peace of knowing that you were loved 

and have freely given your love to others;

the peace of letting go of the body that sustained you 

but must be left behind; 

the peace of moving into the fullness of your communion

 with the God you know.

Henry Fersko-Weiss

  Caring for the Dying: The Doula Approach to a Meaningful Death

Reading to a dying person may  help them to relax

 and put them in touch with the spiritual dimension of their being.

 Many people want passages of scripture, the Psalms,

 or other spiritual material read to them.

 It may remind them of beliefs they hold about the dying experience 

and what happens afterward. 

This can reassure a person 

as the approach of the unknown looms larger and larger.

 It may also help the person to hold on to the values and beliefs

 that have guided them in life 

and that they believe will still serve them in dying,

 at the moment of death, 

and during what may lay beyond this life.

Henry Fersko-Weiss

 Caring for the Dying: The Doula Approach to a Meaningful Death

Often when someone we love dies

 and we are not there at their bedside

 to hold their hand and say a final goodbye 

we feel as if we have failed both them and ourselves.

 But hospice staff who have seen many deaths 

say that although many people in their care

 seem able to postpone their time of departure 

until they have had a chance

 to say a final goodbye to the people they love, 

others choose a moment when they are alone 

to take their final leave.

 So it's worth remembering 

that this may have been their choice.

Elizabeth Fenwick

 The Art of Dying

All Buddhists encourage everyone to prepare for death while they are still alive.

 But it is never too late.

 Mind at the moment of death

 is the clearest it has ever been 

and becomes clearer still once the body is dead. 

So if you can attract a dying person’s attention moments before they die—

make them look at you and listen to what you have to say—

the chances of them grasping what is happening 

and what is about to happen

 are very good indeed.

Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse

Living Is Dying: How to Prepare for Death, Dying and Beyond 

He is drawn to human life,

 to human beings in the intense vibration of union. 

There is sympathy here—

perhaps the sympathy of past experience

 with the souls of those whom he now contacts,

 perhaps only sympathy of mood or imagination. 

Be that as it may, he lets go his hold upon freedom 

and triumphantly loses himself in the lives of human beings.

 After a time he awakes,

 to look with bewildered eyes upon green fields 

and the round, solid faces of men and women.

 Sometimes he weeps, and wishes himself back. 

If he becomes discouraged, he may return—

only to begin the weary quest of matter all over again. 

 If he is strong and stubborn,

 he remains and grows into a man. 

He may even persuade himself 

that the former life in tenuous substance was only a dream,

 for in dream he returns to it, 

and the dream haunts him and spoils his enjoyment of matter.

 After years enough he grows weary of the material struggle; 

his energy is exhausted.

 He sinks back into the arms of the unseen,

 and men say again with bated breath that he is dead. 

 But he is not dead. 

He has only returned whence he came.

Elsa Barker 

LETTERS FROM THE AFTERLIFE 

Everything that happens to us in life and death

 depends entirely on our accumulated causes and conditions.

 As each of us will experience physical death 

and the dissolution of the body’s elements quite differently, 

our journeys through the bardos will be unique. 

Therefore, any and all descriptions of dying, death and the bardos 

can only ever be generalizations. 

Nevertheless, once the process of dying has begun, 

to have a rough idea about what is happening 

not only goes a long way towards allaying our worst fears,

 it also helps us face death calmly and with equanimity.

Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse

Living Is Dying: How to Prepare for Death, Dying and Beyond 

Why must death be the topic of study?

Because NonDual requires it. 

To be in your life and simultaneously not be attached to your life 

is where NonDual Reality resides. 

Being in your life is already a challenge,

 but it is an even greater challenge to not be attached to your life,

 to experience that nothing is really about you 

in the way that you believe you are.

 That is the holy grail of NonDual

Liam Quirk

The NonSense of NonDual

For Christians, 

one’s last thought should be the sober commending of one’s soul to God, 

not a blissful “Aaaaah …” 

Montaigne’s own experience apparently included no thoughts of God at all. 

Nor did it seem to occur to him 

that dying inebriated and surrounded by wenches 

might jeopardize a Christian afterlife. 

He was more interested in his purely secular realization 

that human psychology, and nature in general,

 were the dying man’s best friends. 

And it now seemed to him

that the only people who regularly died as bravely as philosophers should 

were those who knew no philosophy at all: 

the uneducated peasants in his local estates and villages.

 “I never saw one of my peasant neighbors

 cogitating over the countenance and assurance

 with which he would pass this last hour,” he wrote—

not that he would necessarily have known if they did.

 Nature took care of them. 

It taught them not to think about death

 except when they were dying,

 and very little even then. 

Philosophers find it hard to leave the world

 because they try to maintain control. 

So much for “To philosophize is to learn how to die.”

Philosophy looked more like a way of teaching people 

to unlearn the natural skill that every peasant had by birthright.

Sarah Bakewell

How to Live: 

Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer

If you don’t know how to die, don’t worry; 

Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately.

 She will do this job perfectly for you;

 don’t bother your head about it. 

“Don’t worry about death” became  Montaigne's  most fundamental, 

most liberating answer to the question of how to live.

 It made it possible to do just that: live.

Sarah Bakewell

How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer

Coming to terms with the moment of death

 is important for every human being.

 Thinking about mortality is something that most of us avoid and fear, 

which impacts the way that we live. 

Even if you’re a person who doesn’t believe in reincarnation, 

finding peace with the fact that you’re going to die 

is incredibly important for everyone. 

Of course for Buddhists who do believe in reincarnation, 

it’s especially important 

because at the moment of death the course elements,

 afflicted emotions, and habitual tendencies have dissolved, 

and it’s a very special opportunity for practice. 

But I don’t think that it’s necessary for anyone 

to have any particular belief system 

to want to face death peacefully and courageously.

Allison Choying Zangmo

In addition to ancient spiritual teachings,

dramatic evidence obtained from out-of-body explorations 

provides a new perception of death and dying. 

The ultimate journey and destination of soul

 is not a simple predestined event that we must endure, 

but a highly creative process.

 At death we are not powerless victims,

 but rather interactive participants 

in a wondrous and natural transition of consciousness. 

Let us awaken to a new vision of death and dying.

William Buhlman

 The Secret of the Soul

The reason why you lower your levels of aliveness

 is because in death there is safety and tremendous security. 

Though people are afraid of death,

 they are always seeking it,

 courting it in many ways,

 because death is such a relief. 

They do not have the courage to simply step into it,

 but they are courting it all the time.

 They want it,

 because that saves them from all the turmoil and struggle of life.

Sadhguru

Don't Polish Your Ignorance...It May Shine

One of the best ways to prepare for death

 is to acknowledge that we really are going to die.

 We are falling in the dark 

and have no idea when we will hit the ground. 

Buddhist scholar Anne Klein says, “Life is a party on death row.

 Recognizing mortality means we are willing to see what is true. 

Seeing what is true is grounding. It brings us into the present.”

 We all know that we’re going to die.

 But we don’t know it in our guts.

 If we did, we would practice as if our hair was on fire.

Andrew Holecek 

Preparing to Die: 

Practical Advice and Spiritual Wisdom from the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition

What would you do if you had six months to live? 

What would you cut out of your life?

 What would you do if you had one month, one week, one day? 

The Indian master Atisha said,

 “If you do not contemplate death in the morning,

 the morning is wasted.

 If you do not contemplate death in the afternoon, 

the afternoon is wasted.

 If you do not contemplate death in the evening,

 the evening is wasted.” 

The four reminders remove the waste. 

Andrew Holecek 

Preparing to Die: 

Practical Advice and Spiritual Wisdom from the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition