Death is inescapable. All beings, you and me, are heading straight into its mouth. What kind of optimism can be born from such a raw truth? “Learn to cooperate with the inevitable,” Jonas Salk once advised me. In the bright light of the inevitable, how do we sustain buoyancy, optimism, and the heart to help others? Simple, but not easy: We abandon our fixed ideas of outcome. The radical optimist does not invest in the future but in the present moment, free of design.
—Joan Halifax
From Being With Dying by Joan Halifax (Shambhala, 2009).
It seems necessary that the dying person should be told he is dying. It may be difficult to actually take such a step, but this is the greatest opportunity of really communicating trust. It is a delightful situation, that at last somebody really cares about you, somebody is not playing a game of hypocrisy, is not going to tell you a lie in order to please you, which is what has been happening throughout your whole life. This comes down to the ultimate truth, it is a fundamental trust, which is extremely beautiful. That is the finest and best demonstration of friendship and communication, it presents tremendously rich inspiration to the dying person.
—Chögyam Trungpa
From the “Commentary” section in The Tibetan Book of the Dead Translated by Francesca Fremantle & Chögyam Trungpa (Shambhala, 2003).
Let me respectfully remind you, life and death are of supreme importance. Time passes swiftly and opportunity is lost. Each of us must strive to awaken. Awaken! Take heed, do not squander your lives.
Traditional Zen Exhortation recited at Zen Mountain Monastery
We want to know if there is life after death, and that is certainly a valid concern. But the real question is whether there is life before death. Are we living now? It is only once we live with the awareness of death that we truly are.
—Larry Rosenberg
