Gratitude for Life through Mindfulness of Death, with Sean Fargo

Speaker 1 · 0:05We take many things for granted, especially our own lives. In truth, being alive is a miraculous gift. What would change for us? And how might we live if we spent just a few minutes every day, remembering that each breath could be our last? Mindfulness of death is a rarely taught, advanced practice that can help open our hearts to gratitude and appreciation for each and every moment. In this episode, Mindfulness Exercises founder Sean Fargo shares how meditating on the inevitability of loss can illuminate the preciousness of life. He offers practical advice regarding when and how to teach mindfulness of death and what we might practice to prepare for our own transition. Teachers and practitioners alike will benefit from the reminder that each and every breath is worthy of our gratitude and awe. Please remember that mindfulness practice is not a replacement for therapy. Listen with care and self-compassion and practice within your window of tolerance. If this or any other episode triggers overwhelming, uncomfortable feelings, please contact your healthcare provider.

Speaker 2 · 1:35Some traditions they say that the most powerful mindfulness practice there is is mindfulness of death, which is the practice of sensing into each inhale as if it could be your last. So you're very present for this breath, this precious breath, because we're not guaranteed that we're gonna have another, which is true. You just never know what might happen with brain hemorrhages, meteors, unfortunate events happen all the time. This breath is extremely precious and beautiful, and this practice helps wake us up to this truth of uncertainty of when we will transition. It's simply sensing to this breath right now, just with us knowing of the fact that it could be your last. And it's not theoretical per se, like it's just true. Just remembering that we're mortal, remembering that this is inevitable to all of us, is one of the five daily reminders that a lot of traditions invite people to remind themselves about. This is sort of a daily practice that a lot of teachers encourage people to have. It's not taught that much, and I wish it was more. I've shared this practice several times, and I have some recordings. You do have to be careful with it, and I have different versions of it depending on who I'm teaching or who I'm guiding it for. Typically, it's taught to more advanced practitioners who have quite a bit of teachings around the context of it. In the tradition I was in, you know, we would meditate next to decaying bodies. We would regularly meditate on the stages of decay of corpse. We would go to cremations. You know, this is a huge part of what the Buddha did, like studying anatomy, sensing into the body, sensing into its changing nature, reflecting on aging and illness, not to be dark or macabre or negative or fearful or anything like that. It's just what happens, what is happening? You know, we can do it with care and love, but also just more understanding. A lot of people, especially in the West, myself included, are relatively sheltered from death and aging. The elderly go off to a retirement home. As soon as someone dies, an ambulance picks them up. I'm not judging any of this, but we're not around this much, and oftentimes we have a lot of fear and judgment, and we think things are wrong when someone dies, even at 95 years old, like, oh, but it's just the way it is, and it can be really hard to accept, especially if it's a loved one, and especially if it's ourselves. And so this practice is helpful to help us to like inch our way closer to the the truth of the way things are for this lifetime with all living beings, you know, animals and plants and trees. For people starting this practice, you know, if there is no anxiety around this or fear, I would wonder like if you're really paying attention, because our natural tendency is to not want it, and so it takes practice to open to this truth over time. You know, can we bring this gentle caring awareness to the fear? Hold that very, very lightly, you know, even just for a couple seconds a day, like, oh yes, that's that reaction. I'm like sensing into it millimeter by millimeter, day by day, because anxiety and depression, and even suicidal thoughts may come up, angst and judgment, and so part of the practice is to notice that and to be with it and to feel it within your window of tolerance and to notice that anxiety and to open to the anxiety of it, and then to come back to this breath, this is possibly your last. Some people will start with say, like one year's worth of breath and see what comes up, and being with that and working with that, and softening judgments around, and then one month worth of breath, and then one week, and then one day, and then moving down to this breath, this inhale. But working with the reactivity is part of the practice, and oftentimes our breath can be quite rigid and tight if we react to this, and so softening the body, bringing care to the body, and the breath can be helpful. A lot of this practice, there's this invitation of letting go, and that's really a lot of the point. Here is to love this with this gentle, caring, spacious awareness without holding on to it or trying to control it or without ignoring it, but rather holding it lightly with care, allowing it to change or intensify or to go. Can we be with it as it changes? You know, I would not advise teaching this as a practice unless you're very well adapted at knowing how to teach this practice of mindfulness of death. I've heard that the people who usually react to this practice the most are new mothers, you know, and I think that that just makes sense. And so I wouldn't necessarily teach this practice to new mothers. For those who kind of slip into depressive tendencies, I would not advise going all in on this practice. I would kind of touch this practice very lightly, and also just kind of more emphasize the preciousness part, the gratitude for each breath part, the sort of celebratory nature of this practice. Oh wow, like each breath is a gift, may there be many more, kind of emphasizing that side of things. But you know, you can pair this practice of mindfulness of death with loving-kindness by sensing into this very breath as possibly my last, but sensing into it with love. You know, it's not really like a dry awareness, kind, heartfelt awareness of this inhale, really surrendering to the expectation that there should be more, or that I have to have more. That's one of the fruits of this practice. If we really surrender to this truth that each breath could be our last, then every new breath is like wow, you know, it's almost like a second life. I could have died on the last breath, I could have died a hundred breaths ago, and I'm here. It's like we have this new opportunity, this new moment. It's like there's this awe, like we're really opening to how amazing it is to be alive right now, because this might not have happened a million times, a million breaths. Wow, we like open with this awe, and all of a sudden, things that we used to take personally we can laugh at. The Dalai Lama is always laughing because he holds it in this wide perspective. You know, I'm always careful of around mindfulness teachers who don't have a sense of humor or gurus who don't laugh. This sense of awe and wonder and novelty awakens the more we surrender to the fleetingness of life, and so a lot of this practice around mindfulness of death and aging and decay and illness and stuff kind of helps cultivate the wisdom side of things to see the transient nature of everything, and this is classically a part of like wisdom teachings. But if we're too focused on this part, it can get quite heavy and quite dry and kind of head-based, and can create this imbalance in us, and so the trick is to balance the wisdom teachings of suffering and transience and emptiness or allness with heart, love, compassion, joy, generosity, gratitude, forgiveness, equanimity to find that balance. And ultimately, wisdom is compassion. That's my personal take. They're not actually separate, but sometimes if we're focused on say the transience of things, it can feel very imbalanced because there's not also the heart to it, and so it's knowing how to navigate both. We're all heart-based with no wisdom, then we can be quite sappy, reactive, just unwise, hyper-emotional. And so there's this perspective we need too. And there's this balance, two wings of awakening, but mindfulness of death classically kind of points to the wisdom side of things, but we can bring some heart to it as well if we feel like we're imbalanced. I mean, hopefully we're bringing heart to everything, but kind of upping the heart if we feel like that might be balancing. Some people pass away when they're 90, but may not have been present for two. Some people pass or they transition at 20 years old, but they were present for most of it. How much are we actually present for our life? How much of this time were you present? That'd be kind of interesting to see. You know, if you could count the days and years for how much you were present, like what age would that be for the stuff we like, stuff we don't.

Speaker 3 · 15:08Can we bring this just kind awareness to it? Love.

Speaker 2 · 15:16I've done this practice quite a bit, and this practice actually led me to become a monk earlier in my practice because I didn't know how long I had, and I felt like really diving into monasticism was something important for me, which is why I didn't delay my ordination. But I've done this practice a lot, and I've had moments where I've fully, fully, fully let go to this truth, and it's really interesting that as soon as I do that, something in my consciousness shifts in like a very profound way, where kind of surreal things happen in moments where I've kind of had these interesting experiences of what could be past life or a direction that my next life is headed to. I don't know, I'm not sure, but it was kind of on that level where it felt extremely visceral and very vivid and very out of left field, things that would sound quite unordinary. But there's nothing where we have to believe in anything or be adept at any certain spiritual tradition. We don't have to believe in reincarnation or karma or anything like that, it's just really just opening to the truth and accepting that we don't know how many more inhales we have. And so, can we be present for as many of them as we can? I've been taught that if you think your time is coming soon, that it can be very helpful to do some amount of reflection on your past of the moments that have say brought you great joy or gladness. So these would be wholesome events that really brighten the mind, open the heart. These are moments that perhaps you may believe that you've developed some really good karma, brownie points, things that are just generally wholesome, beneficial for you and/or others, acts of service. I was taught to create a top ten list in my head that I could kind of quickly go to to reflect and feel the goodness of these experiences of service, generosity, moments of meditation that felt quite peaceful, loving, you know, breakthrough moments and your quality of presence with what is moments where you've said, I love you to people, when people conveyed their love to you that felt quite meaningful, certain kinds of achievements that felt quite positive, holding your newborn. So reflecting on those moments can help us to find a sense of peace and gratitude, but also just appreciation for this life, and it can help us to surrender to the transition. I was taught this, and then, like, literally, like one or two days later, I had a premonition that I was going to die any minute, and then I like rolled down a mountain in a bus and was in the hospital for a week, and one of my friends passed, but right before the bus rolled down the mountain, I started recalling these types of moments, and I was very, very at peace with it. You know, this is the type of meditation today that I would probably do if I felt like my time was near, which is really just loving what is, whether I like it or not.

Speaker 3 · 20:27Can I love what is?

Speaker 2 · 20:31That's a big part of the essence of presence. Not resisting what is, but rather opening to it with a sense of care. The main thing I would probably change is the duration and frequency. I would increase duration of formal practice and increase the frequency so that I'm in this state of being more and more as much as possible. I would want to say thank you and I love you and farewell to my loved ones, wrap up some loose ends, but as much as I could, I would try to cultivate the sense of loving awareness and also concentration through increasing the duration and frequency. I would honor my grief, allow myself to feel these things. Actually, another thing I would do actually is forgive and ask for forgiveness. You know, is there anything that I can forgive myself for? Is there anything I can ask for forgiveness from? Is there anything I can forgive others for? So I'd probably make it a point to do that if I had time and the wherewithal. And then some people will say that forming an intention, adhitana, an intention for whatever comes next can be quite useful. Kind of have like an anchor for your being or your soul or your chitta or whatever you want to call it. Having an anchor of intention to hopefully carry through can be helpful as well. I hope and I want all of you to have full, long, healthy, joyous lives. And may we all have long, happy, present, loving, joyful lives.

Speaker 3 · 23:00And we never know. We can't control it.

Speaker 1 · 23:09Thank you, Sean, for that heartfelt advice on how we might better live by spending just a few moments each day, remembering that although our death is certain, the time and date is not. If you'd like to practice a guided mindfulness of death meditation, listen to the episode Death Awareness Meditation with Sean Fargo. May remembering the truth of impermanence encourage us to practice mindfulness and meditation and to love and embrace the entirety of our human experience. Free from attachment or aversion.