Preparing For Your Own Death
The first minute or so of the class (mostly informal conversation) was not recorded. Apologies.
Home practices:
- Mindfulness of impermanence and death. Write yourself a note – “Impermanence” and bring your attention to it several times a day. Ask yourself “At this moment how do I experience impermanence?
Eg. As you awaken, watch your dreams fade. As you drink coffee or tea, watch it disappear, enter your body, become urine, be returned to the earth, become streams, evaporate, become clouds, rain, return to wells, come out faucets, be heated for tea and coffee again. Watch the impermanence of body sensations – become aware of an itch, stay with it.
You can also spend a meditation period with full awareness of impermanence. - Recite the FIVE REMEMBRANCES each night (3 times). Put a copy on your pillow to remind yourself.
- Do the meditation practice of “I just died” one more time and write what you noticed. It will be recorded and added to the right, below the video recording.
- Watch a video about death. If you haven’t seen the Academy Award winning movie from Japan, Departures, I recommend it.
Music in the “What We Leave Behind” meditation by:
Chad Crouch – “Field Report Vol. III: Steigerwald Lake (Instrumental)”
Due to unexpected technical issues there won’t be a recording of this week’s class. Apologies