This evening we began to bring death into the meditation hall and explored its clarifying power.

I find that when I keep death close at hand….I say I love you more often. I take myself a little less seriously and learn to not hold to opinions so tightly. Maybe we let go a little more easily. Curiously, I find we become a bit kinder to each other.

In this sense, the reflection on death is a beautiful, life-affirming practice. In its light, what matters most becomes evident. Death cuts through our treasured beliefs, well-protected identities and clarifies and illuminates the tendencies that lead us toward wholeness and those that contribute to separation and further suffering.

I know that I will die one day, although I don’t know how, or when. There’s a place deep inside me where I know this….all of us know this…. We know we will have to leave the people we love, unless, of course they leave us first. It is an immense mystery, a great question mark that we carry in our very marrow.