Information extracted from an article entitled 'To live before I die' by Stephen Levine in New Age Journal (USA; March '97) monitored for the Natural Death Centre by Roger Knights.
When someone asked the Dalai Lama what he would like to do next, he answered that he was 58 years old and felt that it was time to complete his preparations for death. Stephen Levine read this Dalai Lama's words and decided to commit himself to living for one year as though it were his last, to practise dying and to investigate the dread of, and resistance to, life and death. He has now prepared a book on this theme entitled Live this year as if it were your last Published by Bell Tower, April '97). The essence of his advice is as follows:
- Become more mindful, practise a 'soft-belly' meditation to soften the
abdomen and open to the moment without resistance.
- Carry out a life review, starting with a grateful meditation for all the
past and present good people and times you have had. Follow this by imagining
speaking to those you feel you have hurt and hearing their imagined response.
Repay old debts, real or figurative. Keep a journal of your states of mind
and levels of being - for instance, Levine writes that "when I began
to realise that the only way of becoming more loving was by exploring what
causes me to be unloving, I did not relish the task."
- Every day chant a healing or death chant of your own choosing.
- Practise the phowa meditation, which, "when perfected, is capable
of initiating a conscious death". Visualise the light of consciousness,
send waves of mercy and compassion into the mind and body, chant your chant,
and let the light emanate through the top of the head like a sparkling fountain.
A sidebar to the New Age Journal article contains a one-day version of the above one-year preparation for death.
There is a Native American saying, "Today is a good day to die, for all the things of my life are present."
The exercise 'Taking the Day Off' is a day-long contemplation of seeing the world without ourselves in it. It speaks to that place within us that asks, "How can I not be among you?"
Walk the streets as though you were not there, as though you had died yesterday. See the world in your absence.
Act as if you were already dead and this was the last chance to visit the world you had left behind.
Grieve your self and go on.
This webpage forms part of the Global Ideas Bank (www.globalideasbank.org).
Book Orders: To order any of the other Natural Death Centre or Global Ideas Bank books.
To make a comment or to send an update, please e-mail the Global Ideas
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