Contemplate death in order to embrace life (quotes)

Contemplate death…

A free man thinks of nothing less than of death; and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life. Baruch Spinoza
It is better to spend one day contemplating the birth and death of all things than a hundred years never contemplating beginnings and endings. Gautama Buddha
Whenever death occurs, whenever a life form dissolves, God, the formless and unmanifested, shines through the opening left by the dissolving form. That is why the most sacred thing in life is death. That is why the peace of God can come to you through contemplation and acceptance of death. Eckhart Tolle
The contemplation of one’s mortality, the fleetingness of life and the impermanence of form is a deeply spiritual thing to do. It is a liberating act that makes life feel considerably less heavy. Eckhart Tolle
So the first thing: become aware of death. Think about it, look at it, contemplate it. Do not be afraid, do not escape the fact. It is there and you cannot escape it! It has come into existence with you. Rajneesh
In life you may be poor or rich, but death is the great equalizer. The greatest communism is in death. Howsoever you live, it makes no difference; death happens equally. In life, equality is impossible; in death, inequality is impossible. Become aware of it, contemplate it. Rajneesh
Everybody should do in their lifetime, sometime, two things. One is to consider death…to observe skulls and skeletons and to wonder what it will be like to go to sleep and never wake up-never. That is a most gloomy thing for contemplation; it’s like manure. Just as manure fertilizes the plants and so on, so the contemplation of death and the acceptance of death is very highly generative of creating life. You’ll get wonderful things out of that. Alan Watts
Do not contemplate on death; it is just an incident in life; contemplate on God, who is the master of all life. Sathya Sai Baba
Isn’t this the perfect image of the noblest selflessness, and thereby presents an example and a model? It should be inspiring: like them, we are the units of a great social body, like them, we can serve and contemplate death with equanimity, subordinating our individual consciousness to collective consciousness. Leo Errera
Never forget that you must die; that death will come sooner than you expect… God has written the letters of death upon your hands. In the inside of your hands you will see the letters M.M. It means ‘Memento Mori’ – remember you must die. John Furniss
What if we were taught to ponder it and reflect on it and talk about it and enter it and rehearse it and try it on? What if, rather than being cast out and defined by some terminal category, you were identified as someone in the middle of a transformation that could deepen your soul, open your heart, and all the while-even if and particularly when you were dying-you would be supported by and be part of a community? Eve Ensler
You have to remember one life, one death–this one! To enter fully the day, the hour, the moment whether it appears as life or death, whether we catch it on the inbreath or outbreath, requires only a moment, this moment. And along with it all the mindfulness we can muster, and each stage of our ongoing birth, and the confident joy of our inherent luminosity. Stephen Levine

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…and meditate on death

The whole life of a philosopher is the meditation of his death. Marcus Tullius Cicero
This is simple meditation, nothingness and everythingness, the color and the form, death and the void, the end and the beginning, a beginningless end with an endless beginning, Pretty clever if you ask me. Frederick Lenz
Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day when one’s body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one’s master. And every day without fail one should consider himself as dead. Yamamoto Tsunetomo
It is necessary to meditate early, and often, on the art of dying to succeed later in doing it properly just once. Umberto Eco

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Be aware of death…

Embrace your death. . . . Cherish your awareness of death as a gift from the universe. Brian Swimme
Ritual disposal of the dead speaks clearly of an awareness of death, and thus an awareness of self. Richard Leakey
Man is the only living being who has a developed self-awareness and death-awareness. Theodosius Dobzhansky
To me, man means awareness of death. I am not saying become afraid of death; that is not awareness. Just be aware of the fact that death is coming nearer and nearer and you have to be prepared for it. Rajneesh
Awareness of death is the very bedrock of the entire path. Until you have developed this awareness, all other practices are obstructed. Dalai Lama
Only one who has achieved immortality of awareness can laugh with life and laugh with death. Frederick Lenz
Awareness of approach to death can be a beautiful thing, a frame into which we can put the work of art that is our life, our personal masterpiece. June Singer
When you see that you are not the body, that the body comprises only a small fraction of the aggregate of your awareness, then death is no fear, life is no fear, there is no fear. Frederick Lenz
As we grow old, we become aware that death is drawing near; his shadow falls across our path; the realities of life seem less crude than of yore, they touch our senses less intimately, and they lose much of their poignancy. Stefan Zweig
Nothing makes a man more aware of his capabilities and of his limitations than those moments when he must push aside all the familiar defenses of ego and vanity, and accept reality by staring, with the fear that is normal to a man in combat, into the face of Death. Robert S. Johnson
No matter what, I want to continue living with the awareness that I will die. Without that, I am not alive. Banana Yoshimoto

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…and its inevitability…

You can cry about death and very properly so, your own as well as anybody else’s. But it’s inevitable, so you’d better grapple with it and cope and be aware that not only is it inevitable, but it has always been inevitable, if you see what I mean. David Attenborough

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…in order to be aware of the transitoriness of life…

In youth we take egregious risks because death has no reality for us. Youth goes caparisoned in immortality. It is only in middle age that we are shadowed by the awareness of the transitoriness of life. P. D. James
A lot of my songs are about death and the fleetingness of life. It just feels good to remind myself about that a lot. For whatever reason. And it’s a beautiful thing, actually. It seems to me like it’s a beautiful way to live in the world and to relate to things, with an awareness of temporality. Phil Elvrum
Remember that life is short and death is long. Fritz Scholder
Knowledge is not wisdom: cleverness is not, not without awareness of our death, not without recalling just how brief our flare is. He who overreaches will, in his overreaching, lose what he possesses, betray what he has now. That which is beyond us, which is greater than the human, the unattainably great, is for the mad, or for those who listen to the mad, and then believe them. Euripides
In contemplation of ruins, one contemplates one’s future, the fragility of the present, and the futility of the past. Alexander Creswell
The world is impermanent. One should constantly remember death. Ramakrishna
By contemplating the impermanence of everything in the world, we are forced to recognize that every time we do something could be the last time we do it, and this recognition can invest the things we do with a significance and intensity that would otherwise be absent. We will no longer sleepwalk through our life. Some people, I realize, will find it depressing or even morbid to contemplate impermanence. I am nevertheless convinced that the only way we can be truly alive is if we make it our business periodically to entertain such thoughts. William B. Irvine

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…in order to be aware of yourself as the awareness that is beyond death…

At Death we are aware that we are more than just our physical bodies. James Van Praagh
The purpose of meditation is to awaken in us the sky-like nature of mind, and to introduce us to that which we really are, our unchanging pure awareness, which underlies the whole of life and death. Sogyal Rinpoche
Only very few people are born with awareness. Those are the people who die in awareness. If the death was conscious, then the birth will be conscious, because the death is the one side and the birth is the other side of the same coin. Rajneesh
You exist in time, but you belong to eternity. You are a penetration of eternity into the world of time-You are deathless, living in a body of death. Your consciousness knows no death, no birth. It is only your body that is born and dies-But you are not aware of your consciousness-You are not conscious of your consciousness-And that is the whole art of meditation;Becoming conscious of consciousness itself. Rajneesh

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…in order to transcend the fear of death…

No culturally constructed symbolic belief system is ever powerful enough to completely eradicate the anxiety that is engendered by the awareness of death. Sheldon Solomon
Meditation is not for everybody. When you meditate you become conscious. Most people don’t want to be too conscious because they are afraid of awareness, of death, and of being happy. Frederick Lenz
To me, man means awareness of death. I am not saying become afraid of death; that is not awareness. Just be aware of the fact that death is coming nearer and nearer and you have to be prepared for it. Rajneesh
Self-awareness is a supreme gift, a treasure as precious as life. This is what makes us human. But it comes with a costly price: the wound of mortality. Our existence is forever shadowed by the knowledge that we will grow, blossom, and, inevitably, diminish and die. Irvin D. Yalom
It’s not easy to live every moment wholly aware of death. It’s like trying to stare the sun in the face: you can stand only so much of it. Because we cannot live frozen in fear, we generate methods to soften death’s terror. We project ourselves into the future through our children; we grow rich, famous, ever larger; we develop compulsive protective rituals; or we embrace an impregnable belief in an ultimate rescuer. Irvin D. Yalom

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…in order to love and embrace life more…

Odd thing about death … it reaffirms life. Rita Mae Brown
An awareness of death encourages us to live more intensely. Paulo Coelho
Love of life is born of the awareness of death, of the dread of it. Ian Fleming
To not think of dying, is to not think of living. Jan Arden
Without death there would be no awareness of life, and the recurring selection and renewal that has caused life’s progress would be ended. Charles Lindbergh
Death is an endless night so awful to contemplate that it can make us love life and value it with such passion that it may be the ultimate cause of all joy and all art. Paul Theroux
Usually the threat of death makes people a lot more aware of their lives. Paulo Coelho
Thinking about death… produces love for life. When we are familiar with death, we accept each week, each day, as a gift. Only if we are able thus to accept life bit by bit does it become precious. Albert Schweitzer
Still, being fragile creatures, humans always try to hide from themselves the certainty that they will die. They do not see that it is death itself that motivates them to do the best things in their lives. They are afraid to step into the dark, afraid of the unknown, and their only way of conquering that fear is to ignore the fact that their days are numbered. They do not see that with an awareness of death, they would be able to be even more daring, to go much further in their daily conquests, because then they would have nothing to lose- for death itself is inevitable. Paulo Coelho
What the angel of death can teach us is how to be truly alive. We become aware that we can die at any moment; we have just the present to be alive. The truth is we don’t if we are going to die tomorrow. Who knows? Don Miguel Ruiz
The reality of the Life Review is becoming part of our every day understanding. We know that after death, we have to look at our lives again; and we’re going to agonize over every missed opportunity, over every case in which we failed to act. This knowledge is contributing to our determination to pursue every intuitive image that comes to mind, and keep it firmly in awareness. We’re living life in a more deliberate way. We don’t want to miss a single important event. We don’t want the pain of looking back later and realizing that we blew it, that we failed to make the right decisions. James Redfield
For those who seek to understand it, death is a highly creative force. The highest spiritual values of life can originate from the thought and study of death. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Normally we do not like to think about death. We would rather think about life. Why reflect on death? When you start preparing for death you soon realize that you must look into your life … now … and come to face the truth of your self. Death is like a mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected. Sogyal Rinpoche
I was taught to confront things you can’t avoid. Death is one of those things. To live in a society where you’re trying not to look at it is stupid because looking at death throws us back into life with more vigour and energy. The fact that flowers don’t last for ever makes them beautiful. Damien Hirst
Be happy now for you’re a long-time dead! Scottish Proverb
You have to die a few times before you can really live. Charles Bukowski

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…in order to live well and make the right choices…

Ask yourself these two questions: Do I remember at every moment that I am dying, and that everyone and everything else is, and so treat all beings at all times with compassion? Has my understanding of death and impermanence become so keen and so urgent that I am devoting every second to the pursuit of enlightenment? If you can answer “yes” to both of these, then you really understand impermanence. Sogyal Rinpoche
Death teaches us to live; it gives us a boundary to map our living within. Death’s hammer breaks through the mirror separating us from light. David Meltzer
Ancient Egyptians believed that upon death they would be asked two questions and their answers would determine whether they could continue their journey in the afterlife. The first question was, “Did you bring joy?” The second was, “Did you find joy?” Leo Buscaglia
Healing and positive life change comes from having the courage and spiritual conviction to look squarely at life’s impermanence. Meredith Young Sowers
I feel strongly, because a man who will himself die one day in the not too distant future and, also, as a psychiatrist who spent decades dealing with death anxiety, that confronting death allows us, not to open some noisome, Pandora’s box, but to re-enter life in a richer, more compassionate manner. Irvin D. Yalom
If one does not remember death, one does not remember Dharma. Thubten Zopa Rinpoche
It is not desirable that we should live as in the constant atmosphere and presence of death; that would unfit us for life; but it is well for us, now and then, to talk with death as friend talketh with friend, and to bathe in the strange seas, and to anticipate the experiences of that land to which it will lead us. These forethinkings are meant, not to make us discontented with life, but to bring us back with more strength, and a nobler purpose in living. Henry Ward Beecher
It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world. John Steinbeck
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. Steve Jobs
The constant recollection of death is the test of human conduct. Marcus Aurelius
Think about death. You do not know how much time remains to you. And remember that if you do not become different, everything will be repeated again, all foolish blunders, all silly mistakes, all loss of time and opportunity – everything will be repeated with the exception of the chance you had this time, because chance never comes in the same form.You will have to look for your chance next time. And in order to do this, you will have to remember many things, and how will you remember then if you do not remember anything now? P.D. Ouspensky
When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity. George Eliot

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…in order to get perspective…

Death is our eternal companion. It is always to our left, an arm’s length behind us. Death is the only wise adviser that a warrior has. Whenever he feels that everything is going wrong and he’s about to be annihilated, he can turn to his death and ask if that is so. His death will tell him that he is wrong, that nothing really matters outside its touch. His death will tell him, ‘I haven’t touched you yet.’ Carlos Castaneda
How long am I going to be dead?’ With that eternal perspective, you can now make your own choice and leave the worrying, the fears, the question of whether you can afford it and the guilt to those who are going to be alive forever. Wayne Dyer
It is good to have a reminder of death before us, for it helps us to understand the impermanence of life on this earth, and this understanding may aid us in preparing for our own death. He who is well prepared is he who knows that he is nothing compared with Wakan-Tanka, who is everything; then he knows that world which is real. Black Elk
Some aspects of success seem rather silly as death approaches. Donald A. Miller

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…in order to prioritise…

If you are fully alive to the prospect of dying, you really start reprioritising your life. Mitch Albom
It is a painful thing to say to oneself: by choosing one road I am turning my back on a thousand others. Everything is interesting; everything might be useful; everything attracts and charms a noble mind; but death is before us; mind and matter make their demands; willy-nilly we must submit and rest content as to things that time and wisdom deny us, with a glance of sympathy which is another act of our homage to the truth. Antonin Sertillanges
Memento mori – remember death! These are important words. If we kept in mind that we will soon inevitably die, our lives would be completely different. If a person knows that he will die in a half hour, he certainly will not bother doing trivial, stupid, or, especially, bad things during this half hour. Perhaps you have half a century before you die-what makes this any different from a half hour? Leo Tolstoy
Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life. . . . If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing. Teresa of Avila

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…in order to let go of attachments…

There would be no chance at all of getting to know death if it happened only once. But fortunately, life is nothing but a continuing dance of birth and death, a dance of change. Every time I hear the rush of a mountain stream, or the waves crashing on the shore, or my own heartbeat, I hear the sound of impermanence. These changes, these small deaths, are our living links with death. They are death’s pulses, death’s heartbeat, prompting us to let go of all the things we cling to. Sogyal Rinpoche

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…in order to experience peace

And you know, there’s less charm in life when you think about death–but it’s more peaceful. Leo Tolstoy
As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relationships with this best and truest friend of mankind that death’s image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling, and I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity…of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness. I never lie down at night without reflecting that —- young as I am — I may not live to see another day. Yet no one of all my acquaintances could say that in company I am morose or disgruntled. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Each separate being in the universe returns to the common source. Returning to the source is serenity. If you don’t realize the source, you stumble in confusion and sorrow. When you realize where you come from, you naturally become tolerant, disinterested, amused, kindhearted as a grandmother, dignified as a king. Immersed in the wonder of the Tao, you can deal with whatever life brings you, and when death comes, you are ready. Laozi
When you go deep enough into the formless, the dreadful is no longer dreadful, it’s sacred. Then you will experience the two levels, when somebody dies who is close to you. Yes it’s dreadful on the level of form. It’s sacred on the deeper level. Death can enable you to find that dimension in yourself. You’re helping countless other humans if you find that dimension in yourself – the sacred dimension of life. Death can help you find the sacred dimension of life – where life is indestructible. Eckhart Tolle
Whenever death occurs, whenever a life form dissolves, God, the formless and unmanifested, shines through the opening left by the dissolving form. That is why the most sacred thing in life is death. That is why the peace of God can come to you through contemplation and acceptance of death. Eckhart Tolle
Whenever ego suffers from fear of death and your practice turns to seeing impermanence, ego settles down. Tsoknyi Rinpoche

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…and in order to have a conscious death

Unless you become alert and aware in life, unless you change the quality of your living, you will not die consciously. And only a conscious death can bring you to a conscious birth; and then a far more conscious life opens its doors. Rajneesh
Age is nothing but death that is conscious. Ouida
Only very few people are born with awareness. Those are the people who die in awareness. If the death was conscious, then the birth will be conscious, because the death is the one side and the birth is the other side of the same coin. Rajneesh

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Rehearse death from time to time

Meditation is a dress rehearsal for death. Adyashanti
Rehearse death. To say this is to tell a person to rehearse his freedom. A person who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. He is above, or at any rate, beyond the reach of, all political powers. Seneca the Younger

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Smile at death and embrace it

So love the thought of death, love it. Anthony de Mello
Death smiles at us all, all a man can do is smile back. Marcus Aurelius
Death when unmasked shows us a friendly face and is a terror only at a distance. Oliver Goldsmith
The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation. Hermann Hesse
If you can love death you become deathless; if you can understand non-being then your being becomes the very ground of being-hood, the very ground of God. If you can love non-being then nothing can destroy you, you have transcended time and space. Then you have become one with the total, and this is what holiness is – to become whole is to be holy. Rajneesh
Nothing can happen more beautiful than death. Walt Whitman
To put it concisely, we suffer when we resist the noble and irrefutable truth of impermanence and death. Pema Chodron
Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else. Marcus Aurelius
To be a druid is to embrace death, dance with it a while, and finally fall prey to it. Darren Shan
Embrace your death. . . . Cherish your awareness of death as a gift from the universe. Brian Swimme
Embrace the probability of your imminent death….and know there is nothing I can do to save you. Suzanne Collins
If you embrace all things in this life as coming from the hands of God, and even embrace death to fulfill His holy will, assuredly you will die a saint. Alphonsus Liguori
Whatever happens to you, embrace it, the good and the bad equally. Death is just one more thing to be embraced. Kate Atkinson
Our greatest prejudice is against death. It spans age, gender and race. We spend immeasurable amounts of energy fighting an event that will eventually triumph. Though it is noble not to give in easily, the most alive people I’ve ever met are those who embrace their death. They love, laugh and live more fully. Andy Webster
When I totally embrace this process, this life/death, and abandon myself to it, I transcend all this meaningless gibberish and hang out with the gods. It seems to me that that is worth the price of admission. Hubert Selby, Jr.
When death finally comes you will welcome it like an old friend, being aware of how dreamlike and impermanent the pheneomenal world really is. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Don’t be afraid to take a chance, to jump. Because death will always swallow you up anyway. Death is a friend; it encourages us to become aware, to become free. Frederick Lenz
Our greatest prejudice is against death. It spans age, gender and race. We spend immeasurable amounts of energy fighting an event that will eventually triumph. Though it is noble not to give in easily, the most alive people I’ve ever met are those who embrace their death. They love, laugh and live more fully. Andy Webster
Life is impermanent and in the face of that impermanence, cavort! Look death in the eye, tell him you’re as cute as a button, flash a little deviant guile his way, and tell him to go feast on somebody’s else’s sweet flesh. Nancy Milford

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