Meditation as Preparation for Dying

Meditating on death helps us to appreciate both the preciousness of life and its precariousness. Thinking about death and the dying process serves to motivate us to live our lives more fully and more aligned to our true purpose in life.  Much as we might like to, death is not something to be swept under the carpet – it is an every life reality.  Meditation itself can help us to prepare for death by helping us to face up to its reality and consciously build the capacity to die peacefully, with acceptance and equanimity.

The reality of our death

Irrespective of our belief about the existence of an afterlife, there are some inescapable facts about death and dying that we each have to face (not deny or ignore, despite cultural “taboos”):

  • The certainty of our death
  • The uncertainty of the timing of our death
  • The unknown about how we will die – there are so many potential internal and external causes of our death
  • The remaining span of our life is decreasing with each day (we are getting closer to death with each day we are alive – our life is inevitably running out, like the waters in an outgoing tide).

We can live our  life in the light of the lessons from death and dying or continue to ignore death’s reality.  One of the lessons Frank Ostaseski learned from observing the dying and practising meditation is that meditation is itself like the dying process.

What meditation and the dying process have in common

Frank identified a number of common elements between the dying process and meditation:

  • Stillness and silence
  • Being fully in the present moment
  • A focus on our inner life – “profound inquiry into the nature of self’
  • Accessing our inner wisdom
  • Progressive release from attachments
  • Deep sense of humility
  • Deep sense of expansiveness and connection to nature and everyone

The benefits of meditation for the dying process

The dying process is a solitary event – no external person or possession or power or wealth or physical beauty can assist us in the process of accepting the inevitable.  What can help us to make the transition easier at the time of death is release from all attachment, comfort with deep self-exploration and reconciliation with ourselves and with others.  What will help too are the positive states that we have formed through meditation – compassion, self-forgiveness and forgiveness of others, patience, wisdom and peace.  The more positive our life has been, the better we will be able to accept all that is happening to us at the time of death. 

Frank suggests that we should aim to replace guilt with remorse – not drowning in our guilt but expressing remorse for having hurt others.  Remorse then motivates us to do better and avoid hurting the people we interact with.  Forgiveness meditation is a powerful aid in this transformation.

Reflection

Once we accept that life is running out like the tide, we can value and appreciate every moment that we are alive, develop loving-kindness and build positive experiences where we contribute to the welfare of others.  As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, and especially by meditating on our death, we can create the positive states of acceptance, peace, tranquillity and compassion that will assist us in the dying process.  Meditation helps us to understand and accept the reality of our death and to prepare us for the inevitable (but uncertain) end to our life.

Frank’s book, The Five Invitations: Discover What Death Can Teach Us About Living Life Fully, can provide us with insights into the dying process and the lessons we can learn and, in the process, build our motivation to develop and sustain a daily meditation practice.

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Image by sabri ismail from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

A Reflection Meditation to Access Your Inner Wisdom

Diana Winston provides a reflection meditation podcast to enable us to access our inner wisdom.  We are so often absorbed with thinking our way through issues and challenges that we block access to our inner wisdom.  She suggests that if we shut down our thinking and just listen to our inner wisdom, we will arrive at creative insights and a way to move forward, ideally in line with our life purpose.  The reflection meditation is offered as one of the weekly meditation podcasts provided by the Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) which aims through research and education to promote the practice and benefits of mindful awareness for people of all ages.

Reflection meditation for accessing inner wisdom

Diana’s 30-minute reflection meditation podcast basically has two phases – (1) relaxation and (2) opening to inner wisdom:

  1. In the first phase, you are introduced to a light body scan followed by a focus on an anchor of your choice such as breath, touch or sound.  You are encouraged to avoid entertaining distracting thoughts and to return to your meditation anchor once you are conscious of being distracted. 
  2. In the second phase, the emphasis is on listening to your inner wisdom while focusing on an aspect of your life that you want to improve, e.g. how to improve your relationship, how to enhance your well-being or develop your creativity.   The challenge here is to avoid thinking about the question – avoid trying to resolve your question cognitively.  This requires settling your mind, quieting your brain.  You are attempting to access your intuition rather than your rational, logical thinking.  Whenever your mind wanders, bring your focus back to your anchor and your inner wisdom.

To access the deeper levels of our inner wisdom takes time and lots of practice over a sustained period.  Karen Brody maintains that a quicker way to access deeper levels of consciousness is by using the Yoga Nidra Meditation discussed previously.

Reflection

We spend so much of our time trying to think our way through issues and life challenges and ignore our intuition and inner wisdom.  As we grow in mindfulness through various forms of meditation such as the reflection meditation, we can develop ways of accessing deeper levels of consciousness and bring our inner wisdom to bear on the questions that challenge us in our daily lives.

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Image by Eric Michelat from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.