Imagine for a moment. The year is 2013. You’ve just turned 36 and nearly completed a decade worth of study at Stanford to become a neurosurgeon. You’re excited to soon be able to use the skills you’ve honed to improve (and possibly save) the lives of countless patients. Suddenly, a sore back and difficulty breathing take you to the doctor, where after a series of scans you are diagnosed with Stage IV Lung Cancer. You never even smoked.
This is the true story of Paul Kalanithi, detailed in his memoir ‘When Breath Becomes Air’. It follows his arduous journey coming face to face with his own mortality. Despite being surrounded by death, the personal reality of it had never sunk in. What do you do when your future loses its certainty? What gives life its meaning? How do we wish to leave this Earth?
Questions such as these are rarely ever spoken about, or even considered in the mind. One of life’s great taboos. We go on planning our life, full of desires and goals, racing to the finish line. With little thought of what awaits there.
Each of us are likely to have been touched by death at some points in our life. Despite the sadness and sorrow, it often brings with it a renewed sense of clarity. Crystallising what really matters in life, the magic of every moment. As if awoken from a dream, we see life in all its glory.
But can we learn to live like this, without being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness? To live a life without regret. And arrive at our deathbed ready and prepared, not caught unaware.
These three practices I believe can help prepare both body and mind for the inevitable reality we each face.
Life is uncertain, death is certain ~ Buddha
LETTING GO
Death is the ultimate letting go. We let go of all earthly possessions, connections, relationships and even the body itself. By practicing small acts of letting go we can become more comfortable and at ease with larger acts.
This can be done both physically and mentally. Physically you may give away excess items you no longer use to charity. Mentally you might let go of expectations of how things should be, or you wish them to be.
When we lose loved ones, we can use it as an opportunity. An opportunity to meet the situation with both gratitude and acceptance, instead of anger and sorrow. Gratitude for the joy they brought and was shared, and acceptance that the nature of reality is of constant change.
An axiom to remember in difficult times that can help with the process is:
“This too shall pass”
It reassures us in the hard times knowing that the pain and discomfort we feel are only temporary and will come to an end. While also reminding us during good times that this too will end, so not to cling to the current reality.
It is important to note as well, that a mindset of letting go, is not a mindset of detachment. To live life means involvement, not to distance ourselves and remain numb in fear of attachment.
When we let go of our fear of death, our wishes and our desires. When we can accept and realise our own impermanence. No longer struggling with death but accepting as part of our lives, we free up energies previously used in resistance that gives our life renewed vigor and freedom. It allows us to pursue and investigate what is meaningful and worthwhile, not distracting ourselves in temporary hedonistic pleasures.
SHAVASANA
If you’ve ever attended a yoga class before, you’ve likely heard the word Shavasana announced by the teacher at the end of a class. It marks the final stretch of the class, where after an hour or so of making tricky and demanding postures with the body, you are free to relax on your back and rest.
However there is more to this relaxed supine posture than you may think. Often described as the most difficult yoga pose to perform. It translates from Sanskrit to mean ‘Corpse Pose’ and allows us to practice the very act of dying at the end of each class.
The bulk of a yoga class, with its many shapes and tempos, is a great mirror of our lives. The warm-up as our childhood, the flowing postures our mid life career and family, the cool-down our retirement. However the class goes, we all come to finish in Shavasana.
Here it is common that you may find your mind still spinning through the weeks events, or latest gossips. Or perhaps find your mind so exhausted, you doze off and only wake after the class has finished and others left.
It is considered one of the most difficult poses because of our struggle to deeply relax whilst retaining full conscious awareness.
To assist in the relaxation process it can help to take a few cleansing breaths. Breathing deeply and rhythmically will signal to the body to engage the parasympathetic nervous system. To rest and digest. We can also contract the muscles of the body, starting at the toes moving upwards. Until we reach the crown of the head, and then fully relaxing all the muscles.
Practicing Shavasana with conscious intention, gives you training for the eventual day that your soul leaves your body. In yoga, our aim is to maintain consciousness, and bring total awareness to the moment of death.
When a fruit comes to be fully ripe, it falls from the tree effortlessly. So too, can we each aim to meet our own mortality with such ease and grace.
MEMENTO MORI
Literally translated “Remember you will die”. A practice that dates back to ancient times. It has a renewed image in the public consciousness, regularly shared and promoted in all manner of personal development books and seminars.
This key tenet of many philosophies and religions, states that we should regularly remember and meditate on our own mortality. And that by doing so we will not fall into sorrow and morbid thoughts, but instead be inspired to seize each moment and make the most of our life.
Keep death and exile before your eyes each day, along with everything that seems terrible — by doing so, you’ll never have a base thought nor will you have excessive desire” – Epictetus
How you choose to do this can take many forms. Some popular forms include:
- Imagine you are at your own funeral. Floating around as an invisible ghost. What would you want said as your eulogy? How would you like people to have remembered you?
- The Buddhist mindfulness meditation practice of Maranasati. Using visualisation and contemplation techniques on the nature of death.
- Pondering questions such as:
If I had one day left to live I would…
If I had one month left to live I would…
If I had one year left to live I would…
We all know we are going to die, but we all presume it to be so far in the future that we live with no urgency. Allow the practice to fuel you to live a meaningful, engaged life. To not squander the hours and the days.
SUMMARY
The body we each inhabit is not ours to keep. It is merely rented, and nature is the landlord. One day we will have to vacate. How easy or difficult this process is, comes down to how prepared we each are.
The practice of letting go helps cultivate the mindset required to move on to the next stage of life after death. We each come into this world with nothing, and all that we amass are merely gifts of the divine.
Through the yogic hatha practice of Shavasana we can train the physical experience of death. Maintaining conscious awareness through deep relaxation of the body.
Keeping the reality of our own mortality at the forefront of our mind will help us to live a life true to our highest self, and with immediacy. Not putting off to tomorrow, what can be done today.
The modern spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle teaches us that death is the stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of living is to ‘die’ before you die, finding that death does not actually exist.
Hi, I am Matt. I am a passionate student of health and wellness. The science of yoga is the most effective system I’ve yet found for bringing about physical vitality with mental clarity. By blending a Western approach of anatomy and alignment, with Eastern philosophies and meditative techniques. My mission is to share these modern and ancient teachings to help others find harmony in their life.