A Good Day to Die

"There is a Native American saying, 'Today is a good day to die for all the things of my life are present.' This embodies the possibilities of a life reviewed and completed. A life in which even death is not excluded. I am speaking here of a whole death that succeeds a whole life. A life caught up to, and lived in, the present, that rides the breath and knows the power of thought to create the world, experiencing itself in its fullness and emptiness.

"The more mindful we are the less there is to crowd us in our deathbed. When we are living our life instead of only thinking it, nothing remains undone, and if we should die that day we are pleased that our death can be so complete. When everything is brought up-to-date, and the heart is turned toward itself, it is a good day to die."
A Year to Live

The Naturalness of Grief

"Nothing is more natural than grief, no emotion more common to our daily experience. It's an innate response to loss in a world where everything is impermanent. We don't know what to do with our pain, and we never have. We have been told to bury our feelings, to keep a stiff upper lip to 'get over it and get on with our lives,' as though loss were not an inevitable part of life. As a result, our sorrow goes unattended and manifests itself in many unexpected ways."
Unattended Sorrow

The Knowing of the Heart

"I may not know my original face
but I know how to smile.
I may not know the recipe for the diameter
of a circle but I know how to cut a slice
for a friend. I may not be Mary or the Buddha
but I can be kind. I may not be a diamond
cutter but I still long for rays of light
that reach the heart.
I may not be standing on the hill of skulls
but I know love when I see it."
Breaking the Drought

Detachment

"Gratitude is the state of mind of thankfulness. As it is cultivated, we experience an increase in our 'sympathetic joy,' our happiness at another's happiness. Just as in the cultivation of compassion, we may feel the pain of others, so we may begin to feel their joy as well. And it doesn't stop there. We begin to feel a growing sense of gratitude for whatever happiness, great or small, that comes to those around us.

"Practicing gratitude increases our appreciation for life. It brings balance to those parts of the self that have cultivated attachment to our suffering, causing us to feel victimized by life, making God's imagined dial tone all too appealing. Although we might suspect that gratitude would cause us to tarry, to grasp at more, it actually potentiates our letting go into life and death with an open heart.

Gratitude is the highest form of acceptance. Like patience, it is one of the catalytic agents, one of the alchemist's secrets, for turning dross to gold, hell to heaven, death to life."
A Year to Live

Second Guessing God

"Some years ago, sitting next to a fifteen-month-old child whose cancer had begun in her mother's womb, as I prayed for her life, something very deep inside told me to stop, that I didn't know enough to make such a prayer. It said that I was just second-guessing God. That I could not comprehend what her spirit might have needed next, that only this pain in this fleeting body, which was being torn from the hearts of her loved ones, might teach her as she evolved toward her ceaseless potential. That she, like us all, was in the lap of the Mystery, and that the only appropriate prayer was, 'May you get the most out of this possible!' "
Unattended Sorrow

Walking

"Walking, much like singing, steadies the mind. When we place one foot in front of the other, we can feel the body lean and sway as we move forward. The first steps may be slow, but gradually we find our gait. Though we may require effort to break our inertia, our willingness to move is soon requited. At first, we notice the mind doing the walking; then the body soon takes over, and with that, our thoughts are free to flow."
Unattended Sorrow

Lovingkindness

"Loving kindness is a liberating, nonjudgmental state of clarity that accesses the heart and calms the mind. It inhabits thoughts with grace and actions with mercy. It softens the deeply imprinted hurtful compulsions of our ordinary mind and offers other options. It lessens hard judgments and affirms a whole new level of responsibility. It is recognizing that responsibility is the ability to respond instead of the necessity to react."
Unattended Sorrow

Following Our Life Force Inward

"Aging, for that part of each of us that identifies with an agile body and an unforgetful mind, is loss. In our resistance to change we are overlooking one of the greatest preparations of all for death, and one of the great teachings in impermanence.

"Aging teaches us to follow our life force inward. It is an object lesson in how awareness is gradually drawn toward the center, as in death, leaving the extremities (including the outer senses) to fend for themselves. Perhaps that's why so many people of advanced years speak of feeling like youngsters in their heart.

"The gradual decline of the body is fascinating. It is a slow cemetery meditation. It's our reflection in the funeral parlor window. It reminds us how short life may be and how sweet it might become."
A Year to Live