If you have a problem with death,
You're in big trouble.
Because you're gonna die.
I'm gonna die.
And none of us know when.
And that might sound scary,
But it doesn't have to be.
We get to choose what we think,
In fact we're choosing what we think all the time,
It just doesn't seem like it.
With mindfulness practice,
We can gain more and more influence over our thoughts,
And so more and more influence over our feelings.
Even our thoughts and feelings about death.
We know this is true because some people are happy on their deathbed,
Some people are in perfect acceptance about death.
Some of these people hold certain beliefs about where they're off to in the next moment.
Others are perfectly happy with not knowing.
And here's the deal,
No one knows.
Some people think they know.
Maybe they've had some experience,
Something like a dream,
A premonition,
Something they might call a prophecy.
And there's no disputing that.
There's probably no proving it either.
I like the fact that I don't know what's gonna happen when I die.
It's a huge mystery.
It's a huge mystery.
What I do know is that if I have a problem with the fact that I'm gonna die,
I'm not gonna live so well.
There's gonna be an underlying fear beneath everything I do.
This doesn't mean I'm gonna run into oncoming traffic and not be cautious.
Being unafraid of dying doesn't mean that you don't value life.
In fact,
Accepting death,
Coming to terms with death,
Makes life more valuable.
Many of us are taught to live in denial about death.
Death is something that we push under the rug.
We don't talk about it.
We prefer not to think about it.
But in my experience,
The more I have faced death in my mind,
The better life has become.
The more I can value each moment of life knowing that it's a limited time offer.
So that even mundane things,
Like taking a drink of water,
Looking at a tree,
These experiences all become so much more valuable when we're aware that we only have so many of them.
There's a lot of talk about productivity and motivation,
Finding your purpose,
Reaching your dreams.
This is all good,
But it has the characteristic of getting behind oneself and pushing.
There's another way to do wonderful things with your life.
And that's to celebrate each moment fully.
To celebrate each thing you do,
Each activity,
To celebrate each person that you come across,
Each conversation you have,
Each meal you eat.
These things sound kind of very fairy when we hear them from someone else a lot of the time.
Yeah,
You should really value each bite of food you take.
It really has to be something that we discover for ourselves.
And the way that I discovered it was to face death.
And I had ample practice at this,
As we all do,
In the form of other people dying.
People who are close to us,
If we're lucky,
Will die before we do.
Now,
Maybe you want to flip that around,
Maybe you'd rather be first to go,
And that's noble.
But let's use other people's death as an opportunity to work with death.
Let's really face up to all of the feelings that arise,
Usually fear and sadness.
And I think that there's often some component of,
When's it going to be my turn,
In the mix.
This is good stuff.
This is really good material for dealing with thoughts and emotions.
Of course we can all deal with it in our own way.
One way that I've found to be uniquely appropriate for dealing with all of this is of course the mindfulness practice.
So that as these thoughts and feelings arise of fear,
Of sadness,
Of worry,
Of anxiety,
I see them.
And I say,
I see you fear,
I see you anxiety,
I see you worry,
I see you sadness.
I see these things as not me.
They're just objects arising in the mind.
I certainly didn't opt in.
This is deep programming.
That due to the miracle of the prefrontal cortex,
I can observe,
I can be self-aware as this stuff happens.
I can see it,
And smile at it.
Oh wow,
Okay,
I'm scared about death.
And I've found that the more that I watch and accept all of that stuff,
The easier it gets.
Now I still don't know what's going to happen for me when the time comes.
I don't know,
And I don't care.
And there's the clincher is,
I'm not spending time worrying about death.
Neither mine nor others.
It's kind of similar to if you've got a problem with the rain.
If you allow bad weather to put you in a bad mood,
You've got a problem.
Because there's going to be bad weather,
And there's going to be death.
The more you can make peace with this,
The more you're going to be able to enjoy life in each moment.
