Before beginning the analytical meditation, stabilize your mind as usual with a breath meditation exercise.
- Contemplate how your death will definitely come and you can do nothing to prevent it. Consider that your lifespan is constantly declining, and how quickly the past year, decade, or several decades have passed by.
- Think how the time of death is uncertain. Your lifespan is unknowable and there are more factors conducive to death than to life. You could die any day from any number of causes. Around us, on planet Earth, death is occurring constantly.
- Imagine that you were told you had only a few days to live. Who or what would be important to you? Is there anything you'd seek to change or "put right"?
- In view of this analysis, how well does your life reflect your real priorities and values?
- Consider the possibility that your consciousness continues after death. Given that you would be leaving your body, family, friends, and belongings, the only thing with continuity would be your state of mind. To what extent are you creating the conditioning, or karma, for this continuation to be a positive experience?
- Reflect how Dharma practice could be the only thing of value to you when you die. Hold on to this thought single-pointedly.