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Not thrilled to be alive? Try Death Meditation

Deborah Netburn, LA Times, 7/20/23; Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Wow, consciousness carries on into the afterlife. We're reborn over and over again!

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Want to feel thrilled to be alive? Try death meditation

Deborah Netburn

On a recent Saturday night, the scene was serene inside Tac-tile Mountain, a small, carefully curated shop in Pasadena.

Meditation cushions were laid out on the concrete floor. A sea of white candles was flickering in the window. And then the restaurant next door started blasting “Umbrella” by Rihanna.

The six of us who had gathered inside laughed nervously. We were already excited and a little hesitant. After all, we were there to contemplate our own deaths. Tac-tile Mountain was hosting “Death Reflections,” a two-hour, $55 workshop led by Marifel Catalig, a trained death doula [birthing assistant] and breathwork instructor.

I hoped death meditation would ease my fear of dying (Jeffrey Decoster/Los Angeles Times).

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It had been advertised on Instagram as “a breath guided meditation intended to contemplate death in many forms.” The description ended there, so no one knew exactly what to expect.

Going into the workshop, I hoped that spending an hour meditating on my inevitable demise would ease my fear of dying. What I didn’t anticipate is that I would walk out feeling profoundly grateful for all the ordinary, messy, glittering life I’ve been blessed to live so far.

• Struggling to calm the mind? Buddhist monastics in Hacienda Heights offer meditation tips

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This overwhelming feeling of gratitude is not unusual after a prolonged death exercise, said Ines Testoni, a social psychologist who directs a course on death studies and end of life at the University of Padova in Italy.

“What I have been seeing for 15 years now is that knowing one has to die allows one to value life and feel more grateful for what life allows us to do and enjoy,” she said.

Welcome

What I really need is Mind-Cleansing Meditation. But where to get it? (Meditation Town)

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Marifel Catalig, 40, greeted us at the door wearing a white blouse and wide-legged jeans, then asked us to find our seats.

After lighting the candles that were placed at the head of each of our cushions, we began with a gentle movement to release the tension of the day, then focused on our senses — paying close attention to what we could see, hear, taste, feel and smell.

Death meditations are wildly variable. In the Buddhist tradition the practice of maraṇasati, or "mindfulness of death," is designed to remind practitioners that death might come as soon as the next morning, the next meal or even the next breath, and encourage them to act accordingly.

Another Buddhist practice focuses on a detailed visualization of the body’s eventual decay to help relinquish [clinging] attachment to the material world.

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I thought it would be scary.

Catalig once attended a death meditation at which participants were wrapped in a white sheet to mimic the shroud they might wear after they die. Another time she led a living funeral workshop where participants were asked to write a eulogy for themselves that she read out loud to the group.

The meditation I attended was simpler. The focus was primarily on the type of life review many people undertake before they die.

Accompanied by a playlist of instrumental music that was more evocative than annoying, Catalig asked us to imagine our earliest memories and consider where we were, who was there, what we felt like, what it smelled like, and what sounds we heard.

We did the same for our early childhood, pre-adolescence, adolescence, early adulthood, and so on. As she spoke, memories of the many lives I’ve lived flashed through my mind. Most of them were mundane, but they filled me with a sense of tenderness.

There I was playing with a Fisher-Price barn on a green carpet, walking to school in new saddle shoes, riding bikes on the sidewalk with my sister. I saw sleepovers and middle school dances, late summer nights wandering around my hometown, blissfully bored and aimless.

Nobody has lived your life but you. All of your experiences, everything that got you here,

that belongs to you

 — Marifel Catalig, breathwork instructor

I saw scenes from my adult life before kids, my life as a new parent, my life with small children and, finally, my life now — my husband, my teenage sons, my colleagues, my friends, all the different and distinct lives I’ve lived.

“Nobody has lived your life but you,” Catalig said. “All of your experiences, everything that got you here, that belongs to you.”

Then the music shifted, and she asked us to imagine that we were nearing death. Our eyesight was fading, our hearing becoming more muffled. Food didn’t taste as good as it once did, and we were eating less.

In my mind I felt myself receding from the immediacy of life — a fog of gray between me and the world. As my experience of the world became more muted, I felt less afraid of leaving it.

Then Catalig had us imagine our last days. Who would visit us? What would they say? And then we pictured our last breath.

The Buddha was right all along!

“What do you want to breathe in?” she asked. “And what do you want to breathe out?” We imagined hovering above our lifeless bodies, what they would look like, and who would tend to them. For a brief moment, we imagined what might be next. In a society that rarely encourages reflections on death and dying, many of us respond to our innate fear of death with denial, Testoni said.

Carving out time to visualize and imagine our own passing can help us face that fear in a productive way. “Reflection makes us realize that we are afraid of something we do not know,” she said. “Knowing that we don’t know but we can know a lot is definitely reassuring.”

Sharing

When the meditation was over, Catalig invited us to share about the experience. One participant said the meditation helped her reframe the times in her life when she thought she was a bad person. Instead, she saw herself with more compassion.

Another participant said she felt that her higher self had been with her all along and was still with her. This brought her great comfort.

As for me, I walked out of the store in a state of elation. I was less afraid of dying, but mostly I felt so thrilled to be alive.

ABOUT: Deborah Netburn covers spirituality, joy, and faith for the Los Angeles Times. She started in 2006 and has worked across a wide range of sections including entertainment, home and garden, national news, technology, and science.

Curious to try one of Catalig’s death meditations? Find future offerings on her Instagram page or contact her through her website breathtodeath.com. More + VIDEO

Thrive: "The Reality of Truth" (video)

Thrive Movement, April 12, 2017; Crystal Quintero, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The Reality of Truth

(#TruthAwaits) The film offers a front row seat on an around-the-world exploration of how people, groups, and entire cultures tap into an alternative “true reality” through spirituality, meditation, and plant medicines. The movie features thought leaders from around the world -- including Bruce Lipton, Deepak Chopra, Ram Dass, Marianne Williamson, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Foster Gamble...

• VIDEO: (official) "THRIVE: What On Earth Will It Take?"
• To  stay informed, subscribe to THRIVE’s mailing list
• Learn about Foster and Kimberly's journey with Ayahuasca
• What is the Thrive Movement community doing?
• Check out Rythmia

THRIVE: What On Earth Will It Take? (video)

Pat Macpherson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; ThriveMovement.com

The world is waking up, but what on Earth will it take to finally THRIVE?

The Fastest Enlightenment in History (audio)

Audio: Sangharakshita (DhammaCity), Text: Seven (Wisdom Quarterly)

Many jokes and much confusion surrounds enlightenment. Can it be sped up? Or does it come about on its own?

In ancient India there was a radical wrong view that seems to be alive and well in America today with our feelgood New Age views (Guru Oprah, Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie, The not-so Secret, and clinging to our own wrong views by habit over countless lives).

That radical wrong view is that samsara (the sense of separate or independent existence and suffering in the long cycle of rebirth) is like a ball of yarn: It will unravel and run out by itself. The view is that things will resolve themselves by themselves with no necessity of good effort on our part. But it will not run out on its own.

Samsara, in a sense, is endless. That is not to say that it will never end, but only to point out that it will never end on its own. How is this possible? Imagine a hamster on a wheel. When will the wheel stop turning, stop cycling -- when will the hamster stop "wandering on"?

Never, because there is no end to cycling to such a wheel. Or right now, just as soon as the hamster stops causing the wheel to turn. Samsara does not cycle by itself. Nirvana is available right now.



In ancient India in the Buddha's time, Bahiya of the Barkcloth (Daruciriya) did not know that. He assumed he was enlightened. A deva corrected him. Bahiya was surprised and retorted, Well if I'm not, who is? The deva told Bahiya about the Buddha. Bahiya did everything he could to get to the Buddha right away.

Thus must you train yourself:
In the seen, [let] there...be just the seen
In the heard, just the heard
In the otherwise sensed, just the otherwise sensed
In the cognized, just the cognized [by the sixth sense, mind]...

The Buddha with this one cryptic stanza -- releasing his heart from craving/clinging -- gave Bahiya just what he needed to gain enlightenment right on the spot. It happened so quickly that the monks living with the Buddha, who were not enlightened, were confused.

When did Bahiya have time to gain the liberating vision, knowing-and-seeing things just as they are? The Buddha explained to them what happened to Bahiya and uttered a famous inspired verse of uplift (Udana) partially defining the inscrutable term "nirvana."

Where water, earth, fire, air no footing find
There shine no stars, no sun is there displayed
There gleams no moon, no darkness there is seen
So when the sage, a noble one, by wisdom
[From illusion] hath pierced unto the Truth
From form and no-form, pleasure and pain
S/he is freed!

• Bahiya's enlightenment explained (sacred-texts.com)
  

What happened to this World? (Thrive)

Thrivemovement.com, Wisdom Quarterly, OccupyWallStreet.org

(WorldUnitedInPeace) Coming on 11-11-11.

Who? The Thrive Movement. What? The movie "Thrive" lifts the veil on what is really going on in our world. When? Nov. 11, 2011. Where? Online at Thrivemovement.com. Why? To uncover the global consolidation of power in nearly every aspect of our lives (economic, educational, political, etc.) How? By following the money upstream, "Thrive" weaves together breakthroughs in science, consciousness, and activism. It offers real solutions, empowering us with bold and unprecedented strategies for reclaiming our lives and future.

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• Occupy Wall Street protests spread across the country
  

"Thrive" the Movie (trailer)

(Thrive)

"Thrive" is an unconventional documentary that lifts the veil on what's REALLY going on in our world. It follows the money upstream -- uncovering the global consolidation of power in nearly every aspect of our lives. Weaving together breakthroughs in science, consciousness, and activism, "Thrive" offers real solutions, empowering us with bold and unprecedented strategies for reclaiming our lives and our future.

Interviews

Duane Elgin, Nassim Haramein, Steven Greer, Jack Kasher, Daniel Sheehan, Adam Trombly, Brian O'Leary, Vandana Shiva, John Gatto, John Robbins, Deepak Chopra, David Icke, Catherine Austin Fitts, G. Edward Griffin, Bill Still, John Perkins, Paul Hawken, Aqeela Sherrills, Evon Peter, Angel Kyodo Williams, Elisabet Sahtouris, Amy Goodman, and Barbara Marx Hubbard.

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Cancer survivors thrive with yoga

Text: Valerie Berenyi (Calgary Herald, Aug. 21, 2009)

CALGARY - Chilling out in an innovative yoga program for cancer survivors was the highlight of Gale McCombie's week. But the program, which had grown out of a small research study by a University of Calgary kinesiologist working with a local yoga instructor, was offered only at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre and difficult to get into.

Now McCombie, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2007, is thrilled that the program, newly christened Yoga Thrive, is branching into the community and across Canada.

"I've just loved it," said McCombie, 50, of the gentle, seven-week yoga program that takes the special physical, psychological, and social needs of cancer patients and survivors into consideration. More>>