Welcome to Death Knells

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It's not an easy process. 

A lot of times this transition 

from the old style to the new style of being can be miserable. 

You get to a place where nothing makes sense anymore,

 and you go through a dark night of the soul. 

And then, just at the last moment

 when you think all the lights are going to go out, 

you'll make a connection that keeps you going.

 At that point, things start making sense. 

Then all of a sudden 

you know how to connect with the world automatically—h

ow to feel it, rather than think about it.

 And when you start feeling that connection, 

you start opening up.

 And when you start opening up,

 you really begin awakening the heart. 

And then your world is no longer like you thought it was before.

Ken Eagle Feather

quoted in:

Hillary  S. Webb

Traveling Between the Worlds: Conversations with Contemporary Shamans 

You have to blast yourself out of complacency

 and realize that you are going to die. 

I don't care if you believe in reincarnation or not—

you are going to die. 

Then you take that power and decide 

how you are going to use your death to bring yourself to life. 

This is what don Juan taught as “Using Death as Your Advisor.” 

You ask yourself,

 “If I am going to die today, what is it that I want to be doing?”

 At that point, you start examining everything all over again

, and all of a sudden going out and partying, getting high, 

getting drunk, doesn't make it anymore. 

That's not worth dying for. 

As soon as you start asking yourself, “What do I have to do?” 

you allow yourself to become quiet.

 As soon as you allow yourself to become quiet,

 you start hearing outrageous things. 

Good stuff! 

Crazy stuff! 

Stuff that awakens your heart 

and makes you feel connected with the world. 

Ken Eagle Feather

quoted in:

Hillary  S. Webb

Traveling Between the Worlds: Conversations with Contemporary Shamans 

The Taoist master Chuang-tzu 

describes the death of Yu, a Taoist who went before him.

His heart was calm and his manner carefree. 

He limped to the well, looked at his reflection in the water and said, 

“My, my! How the Maker of Things is deforming me!”

 Szu asked, “Does this upset you?” 

“Why would it?” said Yu. “. . . 

I was born when it was time to be born, 

and I shall die when it is time to die. 

If we are in peace with time 

and follow the order of things, 

neither sorrow nor joy will move us. 

The ancients called this ‘freedom from bondage.’ 

Those who are entangled with the appearance of things

 cannot free themselves.

 But nothing can overcome the order of nature. 

Why should I be upset?”

Sushila Blackman

Graceful Exits: How Great Beings Die 

The individual who now insists,

 “I am this body, I am Mr. So and So,”

 will someday throw off the shackles of ignorance 

and rise into the knowledge of his true Being.  

This is the real resurrection—

when we can rise out of the grave of ignorance and materialism. 

 Life does not hold much joy for us 

if we are constantly fearful, driven by selfish desires, 

and constantly overwhelmed by physical consciousness. 

 Real joy comes when we have a new and bigger vision. 

 For one who has gained that, 

the gulf between life here and hereafter is destroyed.

Swami Paramananda

When I came to in my body it was dreadful, so dreadful….

 The experience had been so beautiful 

that I didn’t want to come back. 

I had wanted to stay there…

and yet I came back.

 From that moment it was a real struggle

 to live my life inside my body, 

with all the limitations I experienced at the time….

But later I realized

 that this experience was in fact a blessing, 

for now I know that the mind and body are separate

 and that there’s life after death.

Pim van Lommel

  Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience  

Maybe our physical death 

is just sort of a ‘milestone’ for a particular lifetime —

 and then we go into a transition stage.

 We go ‘on vacation’ between lives. 

This is what I think happens. 

This is what I have some recollections of. 

We go on vacation. 

Some in our culture may want to call it “Heaven.” 

You can call it whatever.

 Any label works. 

The folks who are ‘minding the store on the other side’ 

don’t care what we call it,

 and they will use whatever term we like 

to make us feel comfortable, 

because I think it’s just a comfort zone 

to hang out in, so to speak. 

And then we can choose to stay there or not. 

We can come back into physical form

 in another lifetime if we want.

Kelvin H. Chin

 Overcoming the Fear of Death: Through Each of the 4 Main Belief Systems 

Even if we don’t achieve immortality in our lifetime,

 the war against death is still likely to be 

the flagship project of the coming century.

 When you take into account our belief in the sanctity of human life, 

add the dynamics of the scientific establishment, 

and top it all with the needs of the capitalist economy,

 a relentless war against death seems to be inevitable. 

Our ideological commitment to human life

 will never allow us simply to accept human death.

 As long as people die of something, 

we will strive to overcome it.

Yuval Noah Harari

  Homo Deus 

In the twenty-first century humans are likely 

to make a serious bid for immortality.

 Struggling against old age and death 

will merely carry on the time-honoured fight 

against famine and disease,

 and manifest the supreme value of contemporary culture: 

the worth of human life.

Modern science and modern culture

 have an entirely different take on life and death. 

They don’t think of death as a metaphysical mystery,

 and they certainly don’t view death

 as the source of life’s meaning. 

Rather, for modern people 

death is a technical problem that we can and should solve.

Yuval Noah Harari

 Homo Deus 

We need to honour the dying experience

 and nurture it by paying it full attention, kindness and love,

 emptying our minds 

and really concentrating on what is unfolding. 

As we do this, we naturally become softer, 

more compassionate, peaceful, loving and kinder

 and able to really reach out to the person who is dying 

with an open and loving heart. 

Intimacy is sacred –

 a secret trust – 

a soulful commitment. 

Don’t go in with your own baggage,

just observe the mystery of the other person. 

People ask me if I experience fear or sorrow while I work – 

none of that manifests when I’m with the dying person. 

It’s their time, not mine.

 Any burden or sorrow or wounds of your own disappear. 

You hold the person and keep vigil 

while they quietly, almost invisibly,

 shimmer an indescribable membrane of light.

Shauna Ray

quoted in: 

Felicity Warner

A Safe Journey Home: The simple guide to achieving a peaceful death

"I would like to think that when my time is ready,

 I’ll know, and I’ll be glad to go. 

I have an expiration date, and I want to honor that.” 

Talking to Derianna about death and dying 

became as commonplace as talking about the weather.

 She had spent more than half her life

 breaking down the taboos and barriers 

that kept people from engaging meaningfully with their own mortality. 

As a hospice nurse and later as a volunteer, 

Derianna had shepherded hundreds of people 

over the threshold between life and death. 

And it was assisted deaths specifically 

that left an indelible impression on her. 

“I got to see a window into the other side.

 I could watch patients let go and be at peace 

and know they were free from suffering, free from angst. 

The first time I watched an assisted death,

 I thought, Oh my God, it’s just like a good birth. 

It felt just like a good birth.” 

Her exposure therapy worked:

 in the autumn of her life, she had made friends with death.

 “I have no fear now, no fear whatsoever,” she told me,

  “In fact, I look forward to it.”

Anita Hannig

The Day I Die: The Untold Story of Assisted Dying in America 

Everybody is afraid of death 

for the simple reason that we have not tasted of life yet. 

The man who knows what life is never afraid of death;

 he welcomes death. 

Whenever death comes he hugs death, 

he embraces death, 

he welcomes death, 

he receives death as a guest. 

To the man who has not known what life is,

 death is an enemy;

 and to the man who knows what life is,

 death is the ultimate crescendo of life.

Osho, 

Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen, Talk #12

I died a mineral, and became a plant.

I died a plant and rose an animal.

I died an animal and I was man.

Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?

Yet once more I shall die as man, to soar

With the blessed angels; but even from angelhood

I must pass on. All except God perishes.

When I have sacrificed my angel soul,

I shall become that which no mind ever conceived.

O, let me not exist! for Non-Existence proclaims,

”To Him we shall return.”

 Rumi

quoted from:

Aldous Huxley

The Perennial Philosophy: An Interpretation of the Great Mystics, East and West 

The concept of a good death 

can put unbearable pressure on dying people and caregivers, 

and can take us away from death’s mystery

 and the richness of not knowing. 

Our expectations of how someone should die

 can give rise to subtle or direct coerciveness. 

No one wants to be judged for how well they die!

Andrew Holecek

Preparing To Die

Dying is the most important thing you do in your life.

It’s the great frontier for every one of us.

 And loving is the art of living 

as a preparation for dying.

 Allowing ourselves to dissolve into the ocean of love 

is not just about leaving this body; 

it is also the route to Oneness 

and unity with our own inner being,

 the soul, 

while we are still here. 

If you know how to live and to love, 

you know how to die.

Ram Dass

Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying

It’s a mad world 

and when you become slightly detached 

it seems even more mad than usual. 

The aeroplane brings death; 

the radio brings death;

the machine gun brings death; 

the tinned goods bring death; 

the tractor brings death;

the priest brings death;

the schools bring death; 

the laws bring death; 

the electricity brings death;

the plumbing brings death; 

the phonograph brings death; 

the knives and forks bring death; 

the books bring death; 

our very breath brings death, 

our very language, our very thought, 

our money, our love, 

our charity, our sanitation, our joy. 

No matter whether we are friends or enemies, 

no matter whether we call ourselves 

Jap, Turk, Russian, French, English, German or American, 

wherever we go, 

wherever we cast our shadow, 

wherever we breathe,

we poison and destroy. 

Hooray! shouted the Greek. 

I too yell Hooray! 

Hooray for civilization! 

Hooray! 

We will kill you all,

everybody, everywhere.

Hooray for Death! 

Hooray! Hooray!

Henry Miller

Into the Heart of Life: Henry Miller at One Hundred 

One of the people I interviewed 

told me about a near-death experience that he had during his fifties. 

Richard, now in his seventies, told me that while undergoing tests at a hospital, 

he went into cardiac arrest, and his heart stopped for a period of time. 

He can remember vividly “being outside” his body 

and watching from above as the doctors and nurses tried to revive him. 

He could hear the monitor making the flat-line sound 

and could hear the doctor say “Richard, stay with us, come on stay with us.”

“You know I had always heard that when you are dying 

your whole life passes before your eyes.

What I found is that it’s not your whole life 

but images of your life that you see.

In that moment I realized that the images of my life felt right,

like I had been true to my self. 

Ever since that moment I have not had any fear of death.

I am comforted by those images 

because what I discovered is that if you feel good about those images

you will not be afraid to die.” 

This, I believe, is what we all hope for—

to know that when we come to the end of our life, 

we have been true to us, 

to who we are.

John Izzo 

The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die

There are headaches and surgeries 

and love affairs and break-ups 

and births and deaths and endless horrors 

unfolding on the news 

and astonishing beauty and acts of love and kindness 

and disappointments and successes and failures

and thoughts arising and vanishing 

and people coming and going 

and decades passing by.

What is it all about? What does it all mean?

Perhaps we don’t need to figure it all out,

to know with certainty what it all is 

or how it all works. 

Perhaps we can’t.

Perhaps we can simply be here as this whole happening,

present and aware,

enjoying and being 

and beholding the whole show. 

Noticing the thoughts we have about ourselves and others,

noticing the desire to be free 

from all ambivalence, doubt, uncertainty, 

pain and imperfection,

and then maybe relaxing 

and being exactly as we are—

flawed, imperfect, sometimes restless and contracted, 

sometimes in pain, sometimes upset and unkind,

sometimes filled with awe and love and wonder—

never the same way twice.

Joan Tollifson

substack.com/joantollifson

If you fight death,

refusing to consider an illness fatal, 

delighting when someone minimizes your illness 

and hating when someone says it is serious, 

fussing with doctors, 

making impossible prayers and vows,

thinking in a confused manner, 

making no final statement 

even though your illness gradually worsens,

this is like the death of a dog or cat. 

To spoil your one and only last hour like this 

is a slovenly way to die,

resulting from failure to keep death in mind at all times. 

Hating to hear when someone dies, 

feeling that you will be in this world forever, 

being deeply desirous and greedy for life—

if  you go onto a battlefield with such a cowardly attitude, 

there is no way you can die a splendid death 

in the cause of loyalty and duty. 

This is why those who cultivate warriorship 

refer even to dying in bed of sickness 

as the“once-in-a-lifetime major event.” 

Thomas Cleary

Code of the Samurai

In developing awareness of death,

you need to think about how unpredictable it is. 

This is expressed by a popular saying: 

"Tomorrow or the next life, you never know which will come first." 

We all know death will come one day.  

The problem is that we always think 

it will be some time in the future.

 We are always busy with our worldly affairs. 

Therefore, it is essential to meditate on death's unpredictability.

 Traditional texts explain

that the life-span of the people of this world is uncertain,

particularly in this degenerate age.  

Death does not follow any rule or order. 

Anyone can die any time, 

whether they are old or young,

rich or poor, sickly or well. 

Nothing can be taken for granted in relation to death.

The Dalai Lama

The Joy of Living and Dying in Peace

The teachings fundamentally become you.

This is what you take with you when you die,

because it's fundamentally lodged in your subtle body, 

 In terms of benefit for others, 

for someone who's really done the deep inner work

 of full embodiment and incorporation,

 your mere presence can be transformative.

 Remember the Dalai Lama's Tibetan name "Kundan"

 literally means "Presence.

This becomes of tremendous benefit

 if you're working around end-of-life, 

hospice, palliative care situations,

 or being at the side of someone who's transitioning, 

because your mere presence,

without saying a word, 

can be a benefit.

Andrew Holecek

Preparing To Die Online Course

Week Six Live Session

As an illustration of how interconnected our world is,

 the chaos theorists say that a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon

 affects the weather in Europe. 

Just like that, our state of mind affects the world. 

We know how it affects the people around us. 

If you scowl at someone, 

they’re more likely to scowl at another person.

 If you smile at them, 

it makes them feel good and they’re more likely to smile at others. 

Similarly, if you become more at ease 

with the transitory quality of life 

and the inevitability of death, 

that ease will be transmitted to others.

Pema Chödrön

How We Live Is How We Die 

A contemporary manifestation of memento mori 

can be found today in New Orleans’s Mardi Gras,

 as part of the festivities of the Black Masking Indian krewe. 

Their annual procession begins at dawn 

when the so-called Skull and Bones Gang—dressed as skeletons—

knock on the doors of neighborhood homes 

to remind them of the transience of life 

and invite them to join the festivities. 

In a similar vein, 

Tibetan Buddhist festivals often incorporate so-called cham dances. 

These are devotional performances

 that often feature costumed skeletons 

intended to remind revelers of the presence of death.

Joanna Ebenstein

Memento Mori: The Art of Contemplating Death to Live a Better Life 

https://www.joannaebenstein.com/

A memento mori—Latin for “remember you will die”—

is a practice, object, or artwork created to remind us that we will die,

 and that our death could come at any moment. 

By evoking a visceral awareness of the brevity of our lives,

 it was meant to help us remember to make choices in line with our true values. 

This use of memento mori, which seems so counterintuitive today,

 is a practice that was found in cultures all around the world

 and for many millennia; it even lives on today.

Memento mori were a part of life in ancient Egypt, 

where dried skeletons were sometimes paraded into a feast at its height

 to remind the revelers of the brevity of life. 

They were also frequently encountered in ancient Rome, 

where it was common to see skeleton mosaics 

on the floors of dining rooms and drinking halls. 

And, if you attended a feast, 

you might be gifted with a tiny bronze skeleton

 called a larva convivialis, or banquet ghost. 

In both cases, these memento mori were meant to express 

the well-known Latin adage carpe diem—meaning “seize the day”—

reminding viewers to eat, drink, and be merry, 

for tomorrow they might be gone.

Joanna Ebenstein

Memento Mori: The Art of Contemplating Death to Live a Better Life 

https://www.joannaebenstein.com

You have to get to the place 

where you are no longer running for your life, or rather, 

where you are no longer running from death. 

You have to start choosing life. 

And that is the hardest thing for people 

in terms of living their soul's purpose—

 because most people only have skills to run from death.

 But you have to be willing to choose life

 if you are going to live out your soul's purpose. 

And that is a whole different skill set. 

And let me tell you, 

it is way scarier than running from death!

Christina Pratt

As quoted in 

Hilary S. Webb 

Traveling Between the Worlds: Conversations with Contemporary Shamans 

In shamanic traditions and tribal cultures, 

death is not seen as just the end to everything. 

Most shamanic traditions would say

 that the soul doesn't just disappear completely. 

Shamans always feel connected to the people who have lived before,

because the ancestors really haven't gone anywhere.

 Their spirits are still around, 

or can be around if we call upon them.

 As people who practice shamanism, 

the work we do is, in many ways, preparation for death 

and dealing with the question of what comes next. 

When you ask people who have been working in shamanism a long time 

how has it changed their lives,

 one of the things that has come up over and over again 

is that they feel less fearful of the universe and, 

therefore, less fearful of death. 

The “something” that happens after death 

is a part of the other world that the shaman journeys into 

and comes back with information and stories about. 

It's not quite as unknown 

as it is to people who are not involved in this kind of work. 

 Shamanism can provide hope for people

 that death is not as disastrous or as final as it might seem.

 And if the shaman can cast some new light 

on the questions of life and death, 

that might be one of the greatest contributions anyone can make.

Tom Cowan

Quoted in 

Hilary S. Webb 

Traveling Between the Worlds: Conversations with Contemporary Shamans 

Since I was born

I have to die

and so….

Kisei