Thinking About Death: Liberating or Imprisoning?
Photo by David W. Levin; Vietnam, 2025
“Death does not need to be an enemy in order for you to delight in life. Keeping death present in your consciousness, as one of the greatest mysteries and as a moment of incredible transformation, imbues this moment with added richness and energy that is otherwise used up in denial. Death is not an error. It is not a failure. It is taking off a tight shoe.” — Ram Dass, as featured in the documentary “Becoming Nobody”
I had coffee with a friend earlier today. He’s a few years younger than me, but we’re both in the same mid-phase of life (I say with hope of having a long lifespan). His grandmother recently passed away and he says, “I find myself recognizing there will only be X number of days left, only a set number of birthdays or holidays before it’s all over. You ever have thoughts like that?”
Not one to thoughtfully pause before speaking, I exhibit an unusual, thoughtful pause before speaking. These few silent seconds are not in service of gathering my thoughts so much as figuring out how to best be succinct so as to not turn his innocent, almost offhand question into an unwelcome, friendship-risking deep dive.
“Oh yes,” I reply, as I thank him for sharing his observation with me and attempt to share a brief reply.
His prompt helped me recognize how much my thoughts about death have evolved in recent years — from dreadful to open-minded, even curious; frequent and threatening to occasional and helpful. It also illuminated for me the degree to which thinking about death often creates starkly polarizing experiences and outcomes for different people.
Have I become a person who now appreciates and is even beginning to believe great spiritual teachers and enlightened beings when they say death is not to be feared? …and beyond just “not to be feared,” actually embraced as a reminder of the preciousness of life and a tool to more fully experience the joy of the present moment?
I have.
My old way of thinking — death as suffering, threatening, final
At the time of this writing, nearly 2/3rds of my lifespan has been lived having each of my parents, at different times, experiencing and ultimately passing away from terminal illness. My mother was first diagnosed with cancer when I was in elementary school; my father diagnosed with a number of cancers beginning in my early 30s. My childhood, early- and mid-adulthoods were amply filled with active, real-world, hands-on concerns and stresses about death.
It’s no surprise that such circumstances not only led me to develop a visceral fear of death itself, but of the road(s) leading up to it as well. I imagined it happening to me as I saw it happening in front of me - years filled with fear, stress, anger, and considerable discomfort, both physical and emotional. Admittedly and fortunately, my childhood/teen/young adult years were not consumed with fears of death. My parents and family handled things in a way that didn’t overly interfere with a young person’s natural instincts that death, if it happens, occurs so far in the future that it doesn’t seem worth worrying about.
But when I hit young adulthood — with a spouse, children, a household to secure and responsibilities as a sole breadwinner — those early memories coupled with my father’s diagnoses led me to view death as a fresh, omnipresent enemy. It was something real, something always lurking under the surface. Something that could wipe out all that I was working so hard to build and fortify (and, in my darker moments, I thought probably would).
The content of my thoughts about death and the road to it were dark enough, but even more injurious was the atmosphere these thoughts created in my mind and thus in my immediate life experiences. It’s accurate to say that when I wasn’t hyper-focused on a task at hand (my livelihood, my family, my home and overall upkeep of life), thoughts about the end of life had thick carrier waves of vulnerability and suffering. And when someone feels they are under a constant low-level threat of extinction, they’re not always the most pleasant person to be around.
To be sure, I had a tremendous number of joys in my life during this time. What accompanied many of those joyful moments, however, was an ever-increasing sense of vulnerability and exposure. More happy moments, people, and experiences equaled more that could be taken away should illness, disease, or death come for me. On the surface, I celebrated the “wins,” but inside I tabulated how much more I feared to lose.
My newer way of thinking — death as impermanence, transition, a helpful tool to help me appreciate the here and now
During the years referenced above, I didn’t have the benefit of spiritual teachers and practices equipping me to wrap these fearful thoughts in a positive or constructive context. There was no faith beyond the compulsory need to lock-down as much in the material world as possible. I didn’t have the awareness or tools to help transform feelings of sadness and threat into an appreciation of the preciousness of life. I’m so grateful that I do now.
Please make no mistake: I don’t relish the idea of dying any more than I did before. The difference is that I no longer think of death as often or in the same way, and either because of that or in addition to that, I no longer carry around with me an atmosphere or mood of being under constant threat. I’m happier more of the time and, I’ve been told, a bit easier to live with as well.
After muddling my way through the ideas expressed above, my coffee pal asked me the question I most struggled to answer succinctly: “What’s made the difference?”
Wishing to extend the same courtesy of brevity for you, dear reader, I’ll offer the following as a purposefully high-level summary of the gifts I’ve received in terms of time, guidance, and insight.
First are the practical, time- and physical life-based things that changed naturally and thus led the way for greater ease:
My kids have grown and I’ve had the great joy of seeing them develop into wonderful young adults. Of course I hope for many more years with them, but those early fears of if I die young, will they even remember me? have naturally subsided.
Along with the above have been 24+ years of a healthy, positive marriage. Of course I’d love as many years as possible, but we’ve now had the privilege of having enough years together to appreciate so many wonderful times and be grateful to have two grown kids living independently as university students. Fears of dying so young that I leave my spouse to raise two small kids on her own have understandably faded.
I’ve had several decades of working and earning enough to establish a degree of financial resilience for my family. During leaner, earlier years as an entrepreneur and sole bread-winner, financial stresses related to my sudden passing were far more acute than they are now.
These are just a handful of the practical, family- and material-based reasons that my formerly frequent and negative thoughts about death have eased. Beyond them, however, are two arenas of spiritual teachings that have made a tremendously positive impact on me. I’ll provide only brief summaries here, knowing the each of these are worth myriad posts (indeed blogs) on their own:
The nature of death itself. For good reasons, the question of what happens when we die? is a primary “Dharma door” (ie, pathway into spiritual seeking and understanding the nature of the universe, of reality) for so many people. While literally no one can, with credible certainty, offer a first-hand account of what actually happens, I’ve now read, heard, and seen enough teachings from enlightened beings and teachers I admire to feel comfortable reducing my anxiety surrounding the actual experience of death. Buddhist Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of “No Birth, No Death” (and wrote a superb book on the subject), that there is only transformation. Ram Dass spoke on the subject countless times, sharing a wealth of teachings an example of which is the quote shared at the beginning of this post. Richard Rohr has similarly, countless times, referenced and taught how the death and resurrection of Jesus is not something that only happened to that individual person but is something that happens to all of us and everything. Am I certain of any of this? No. But as Rohr often says, the opposite of faith isn’t disbelief, it’s certitude. And I am fully, 100% comfortable allowing my intuition, my deeper sense of knowing, guide my heart and mind with a genuine faith that my experience of life, my true self, continues in some mysterious way after my physical body dies. “Be not afraid” is one of the most frequent passages in the bible and I’m comfortable applying its teaching here.
How the awareness of death can lead to a deeper experience and appreciation of life. This second area of study and understanding has perhaps had an even deeper impact on my day to day life. As I shared above, most “good things” I experienced in life were accompanied by an unhelpful dose of fear that the more I had, the more I had to lose should something befall me. One of the greatest blessings of the spiritual teachings I’ve come to seek and know is that there is a much better, more positive and uplifting attitude to have in such situations. Understanding the buddhist teachings of impermanence — that literally everything in the material/observable universe can and will change — is not only immensely freeing (freeing one from the presumed responsibility to control everything and prevent change), it is also highly instructive: if nothing is permanent, how much more important and joyful it is to celebrate the good things fully in that moment and not introduce injury by worrying about what negative changes the future may bring.
The “Five Remembrances” as created in the Plum Village tradition of buddhism articulate these ideas beautifully: 1. I am of the nature to grow old, I cannot escape old age. 2. I am of the nature to get sick, I cannot escape sickness. 3. I am of the nature to die, I cannot escape death. 4. All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them. 5. I inherit the results of my actions of body, speech, and mind. My actions are my continuation.
I realize that to some, the Five Remembrances will be met with aversion. Not long ago, that’s certainly how I would have responded to them. But when accompanied by such solid teachings — teachings that, for me, resonate as deep truths within my heart and intuition — they are of incredible value. They are a source of incomparable comfort.
As Richard Rohr often says, “All great spirituality is about letting go.” Experiencing bodily death is arguably the biggest “letting go” there is. These teachings, along with life’s natural progressions, have given me the gifts of healing and a previously unimaginable, newly formed bedrock of serenity.
I hope you find this helpful.