For Sufis, death is not a transition; it is stepping across a threshold and being given another chance to reawaken. Life, as well, offers a spectrum of opportunities, that, if taken, allow one to recover awareness of one's full identity.

Huston Smith calls Sufis the "impatient ones," those who are not willing to wait to be reunited with Divinity at death but hunger for union now. "Why the rush?" the rest of us might inquire. Who looks forward with equanimity to his or her own death?

If you accept the premise that life and death are both gifts, then the prospect of death can become more a source of wonder than a cause for fear.

James Fadiman, Robert Frager, Essential Sufism by James Fadiman, editor, Robert Frager, editor