This scholarly, insightful work integrates history and philosophical wisdom to span the gap between life and death. It introduces us to the meditative art of Eastern and Western sages who transcended the fear of death. The inspiring examples cited from various cultural traditions draw us away preoccupation with our own mortality and toward a deeper enjoyment of the life process itself.
“Death cannot be denied by repeating that death does not exist. Death will have to be known, it will have to be encountered, it will have to be lived. You will have to become acquainted with it.” —Osho Why are we afraid of death? How do I relax in the certainty of death? Is the theory of reincarnation true? How can I celebrate death as you suggest? With depth, clarity, compassion, and even humor, Osho answers these questions and many others, shedding new light on this most sacred of mysteries and providing practical guidance for meditation and support. In The Art of Living and Dying, Osho not only reveals that our fear of death is based on a misunderstanding of its nature, but that dying is a tremendous opportunity for inner growth. Death is not an event but a process—and one that begins with birth. Each exhalation is a small death; each inhalation, a rebirth. When life is lived consciously and totally, death is not a catastrophe but a joyous climax.
This “comforting…thoughtful” (The Washington Post) guide to maintaining a high quality of life—from resilient old age to the first inklings of a serious illness to the final breath—by the New York Times bestselling author of Knocking on Heaven’s Door is a “roadmap to the end that combines medical, practical, and spiritual guidance” (The Boston Globe). “A common sense path to define what a ‘good’ death looks like” (USA TODAY), The Art of Dying Well is about living as well as possible for as long as possible and adapting successfully to change. Packed with extraordinarily helpful insights and inspiring true stories, award-winning journalist Katy Butler shows how to thrive in later life (even when coping with a chronic medical condition), how to get the best from our health system, and how to make your own “good death” more likely. Butler explains how to successfully age in place, why to pick a younger doctor and how to have an honest conversation with them, when not to call 911, and how to make your death a sacred rite of passage rather than a medical event. This handbook of preparations—practical, communal, physical, and spiritual—will help you make the most of your remaining time, be it decades, years, or months. Based on Butler’s experience caring for aging parents, and hundreds of interviews with people who have successfully navigated our fragmented health system and helped their loved ones have good deaths, The Art of Dying Well also draws on the expertise of national leaders in family medicine, palliative care, geriatrics, oncology, and hospice. This “empowering guide clearly outlines the steps necessary to prepare for a beautiful death without fear” (Shelf Awareness).
An eerily dreamlike memoir, and the first work of nonfiction by one of our most inventive novelists. Aurelia, Aurélia begins on a boat. The author, sixteen years old, is traveling to Europe at an age when one can “try on personae like dresses.” She has the confidence of a teenager cultivating her earliest obsessions—Woolf, Durrell, Bergman—sure of her maturity, sure of the life that awaits her. Soon she finds herself in a Greece far drearier than the Greece of fantasy, “climbing up and down the steep paths every morning with the real old women, looking for kindling.” Kathryn Davis’s hypnotic new book is a meditation on the way imagination shapes life, and how life, as it moves forward, shapes imagination. At its center is the death of her husband, Eric. The book unfolds as a study of their marriage, its deep joys and stinging frustrations; it is also a book about time, the inexorable events that determine beginnings and endings. The preoccupations that mark Davis’s fiction are recognizable here—fateful voyages, an intense sense of place, the unexpected union of the magical and the real—but the vehicle itself is utterly new. Aurelia, Aurélia explodes the conventional bounds of memoir. It is an astonishing accomplishment.
Beyond the mind, what are we? And what is the potential inherent in this life? Relax, Trust, Let Go examines these questions, while telling a delightful and touching story of love and the fulfillment that can be found in living with death.The love affair of Melissa and Nadeen is born in "Buddha Grove," a marble expanse in Pune, India, crowned by stars. Naming it the "Center of the Universe," they meet there to meditate, and from the beginning, Nadeen knows their relationship will be unique. Powerful and wise, Melissa is clear that she wants to live consciously, in trust and expansion. As a life-long seeker of truth, Nadeen shares her desire. Suddenly, life offers a challenge: Melissa is diagnosed with a brain tumor. While continuing to live in day-to-day reality, she rises above the concerns of the mind, or ego, and becomes simple presence, emanating the innocence and light of a child. Meeting the challenges of her situation head-on, Nadeen experiences the essence of life and embraces the mystery of death. Together, Nadeen and Melissa discover they truly are dancing at the Center of the Universe.
As mystics, healers, and travelers to the netherworld, female shamans continue to impact the spiritual lives of the Bhutanese. These divine messengers act as mediums for local spirits, cure diseases through prayer, and travel to the realm of the dead. They are sometimes referred to as “sky-goers,” “reincarnations,” or “returners from the beyond,” and their stories are intimately connected with the Buddhist ideas of karma and rebirth. Journalist Stephanie Guyer-Stevens and anthropologist Françoise Pommaret traveled to the Himalayas to meet seven living Bhutanese female shamans and to help make their stories known. Stephanie and Françoise offer an intimate narrative of these shamans’ spiritual experiences and important roles in society. This book also provides an overview of the history of this tradition and a translation of an autobiography of the famous eighteenth-century divine messenger, Sangay Choezom. This insightful and sensitive account is a rare look inside the world of these brave women.
Examines how each of the major religions looks at death by including stories, teachings, and rituals that present a comparative religious meaning of death and afterlife. Written in textbook style with journal exercises at the end of each chapter. +
