More on Death
For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.
When I hear it contended that the least sensitive are, on the whole, the most happy, I recall the Indian proverb: “It’s better to sit than to stand, it is better lie down than to sit, but death is best of all.”
The living wander away, we don't hear from them for months, years—but the dead move in with us to stay. They exhort us to greater faithfulness, forgive us our inertia, comfort us in our agitation.
Philosophy first commands us to have death ever before our eyes, to anticipate it and consider it beforehand, and then she gives us rules and caveats in order to forestall our being hurt by our reflections!
Reflect on death as in Jesus Christ, not as without Jesus Christ. Without Jesus Christ it is dreadful, it is alarming, it is the terror of nature. In Jesus Christ it is fair and lovely, it is good and holy, it is the joy of saints.
Blaise Pascal Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)
Of no distemper, of no blast he died,
But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long —
Even wondered at, because he dropped no sooner.
Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years,
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more;
Till like a clock worn out with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.
I don't care when I die, when you die, you die. What I don't want is to die in my bed. To be killed in an accident or to be shot is my preferred way to die.
Ashraf Pahlavi In Bitter American Exile, the Shah's Twin Sister, Ashraf, Defends Their Dynasty (1980)
If your mind is constantly preoccupied by your money and possessions, you are in reality only preparing the ground for rebirth as a spirit tortured by hunger and thirst. If your thoughts are obsessed with your family and loved ones, you are only strengthening the pangs of separation you will suffer when you die.
Dilgo Khyentse The Hundred Verses of Advice: Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on What Matters Most (2005)
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