death 2 - death 3 - death 4

Master Tanzan, on the day of his death, called upon his assistant
to send a batch of identical postcards.  Each one said simply:
"I am departing this world.  There will be no further messages.  Tanzan."

traditional Zen story

He is not dead, this friend; not dead,
Gone some few, trifling steps ahead,
And nearer to the end;
So that you, too, once past the bend,
Shall meet again, as face to face, this friend
You fancy dead.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Our creator would never have made such lovely days
and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above
and beyond all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

I am not going to die.  I'm going home like a shooting star.

Sojourner Truth

Winter is on my head but eternal spring is in my heart.  The nearer I approach the end,
the plainer I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me.
It is marvelous yet simple.  For half a century I have been writing my thoughts in
prose, verse, history, drama, romance, tradition, satire, ode and song--I have tried all;
but I feel that I have not said a thousandth part of what is in me.  When I have gone
down to the grave I can say like many others, "I have finished my day's work," but I
cannot say, "I have finished my life's work"; my day's work will begin the next morning.
The tomb is not a blind alley.  It is an open thoroughfare.  It closes in the twilight but
opens with the dawn.  My work is only beginning; my work is hardly above its foundation.
I would gladly see it mounting forever.  The thirst for the infinite proves infinity.

Victor Hugo

Death teaches us--if we want to hear--that the time is now.  The time
is now to pick up the telephone and call the person that you love.  Death
teaches us the joy of the moment.  It teaches us we don't have forever.
It teaches us that nothing is permanent.  It teaches us to let go, there's
nothing you can hang on to.  And it tells us to give up expectations and
let tomorrow tell its own story, because nobody knows if they'll get home
tonight.  To me that's a tremendous challenge.  Death says, "live now."

Leo Buscaglia
Living, Loving, and Learning

Death stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear;
Of his strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear.

Walter Savage Landor

People living deeply have no fear of death.

Anais Nin

The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the
feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar
to him or her alone and is therefore absolutely and irretrievably lost.

Artur Schopenhauer

If some persons died, and others did not die,
death would indeed be a terrible affliction.

Jean de la Bruyere

Science says: "We must live," and seeks the means of prolonging,
increasing, facilitating and amplifying life, of making it tolerable and
acceptable; wisdom says:  "We must die," and seeks
how to make us die well.

Miguel de Unamuno

So proud she was to die
It made us all ashamed
That what we cherished, so unknown
To her desire seemed.

So satisfied to go
Where none of us should be,
Immediately, that anguish stooped
Almost to jealousy.

Emily Dickinson

We find by losing.  We hold fast by letting go.  We become something new
by ceasing to be something old.  This seems to be close to the heart of that
mystery.  I know no more now than I ever did about the far side of death
as the last letting-go of all, but now I know that I do not need to know,
and that I do not need to be afraid of not knowing.
God knows.  That is all that matters.

Frederick Buechner

Death is simply a shedding of the physical body, like the
butterfly coming out of a cocoon. . . .  It's like putting
away your winter coat when spring comes.

Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross

I do not want to die until I have faithfully made the most of my talent
and cultivated the seed that was placed in me--until the last small twig
has grown. . . . Everyone who is vouchsafed life has the obligation of
carrying out to the last item the plan laid down in them.  Then they
may go.  Probably that is the point at which most people die.

Käthe Köllwitz
Diary

We treat death as a tragedy, as an ending of the good times.  But what
if we could think of it as it really is in nature, a process of physical change,
an inevitable transformation, something you cannot alter and so must
accept?  Then it's possible to look directly at it instead of turning away
in fear, to examine it instead of shunning it in denial.

Mark Forstater

Do not fear death, but welcome it, since it too comes from nature.  For just as
we are young and grow old, and flourish and reach maturity, have teeth and
a beard and grey hairs, conceive, become pregnant, and bring forth new life,
and all the other natural processes that follow the seasons of our existence,
so also do we have death.
   A thoughtful person will never take death lightly, impatiently, or scornfully,
but will wait for it as one of life's natural processes.

Marcus Aurelius

No one's death comes to pass without making some impression, and those
close to the deceased inherit part of the liberated soul
and become richer in their humaneness.

Hermann Brock

All of life is interconnected and ongoing.  There is no death to the
spirit of those I love.  As I mourn the physical passing of my beloveds,
I open to meet them anew in an ongoing spiritual connection.  Subtle
but resilient, our relationship goes forward.  As I open my heart to
continued connection, I encounter the spark of intuition, the lamp of
guidance which signals the shared ongoing path.  Those who leave
me do so only in body.  The physical vehicle falls away but the beloved
spirit continues to live and even to prosper.  Ours is a journey of shared
hearts.  Death is a passageway, not an ending.  As I open my heart to
continued connection, my beloveds are carried forward by my love.

Julia Cameron
Transitions:  Prayers and
Declarations for a Changing Life

Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has
not come, and when death has come, we are not.

Epicurus

That day, which you fear as being the end of all things,
is the birthday of your eternity.

Seneca

Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stopped for me
The Carriage held but just Ourselves
And Immortality.

Emily Dickinson

death 2 - death 3 - death 4    

We are born for a higher destiny than that of earth; there is a realm where
the rainbow never fades, where the stars will be spread before us like islands
that slumber on the ocean, and where the beings that pass before us
like shadows will stay in our presence forever.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton

The moment comes when the great nurse, death, takes a human, the child,
by the hand and quietly says, "It is time to go home.  Night is coming.  It is
your bedtime, child of earth.  Come; you're tired.  Lie down at last in the
quiet nursery of nature and sleep.  Sleep well.  The day is gone. 
Stars shine in the canopy of eternity."

Joshua Liebman

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We enjoy some gratification when our good friends die; for though their
death leaves us in sorrow, we have the consolatory assurance that they
are beyond the ills by which in this life even the best of people
are broken down or corrupted.

Augustine

When death comes, it respects neither age nor merit.  It sweeps from
this earthly existence the sick and the strong, the rich and the poor,
and should teach us to be prepared for death.

Andrew Jackson

An awareness of death enables us to live each day each moment--filled
with appreciation for the  unique opportunity we have to create something
of our time on earth.  I believe that in order to enjoy true happiness, we
should live each moment as if it were our last.  Today will never return.
We may speak of the past or of the future, but the only reality we have is
that of this present instant.  And confronting the reality of death actually
enables us to bring unlimited creativity, courage and joy
into each instant of our lives.

Daisaku Ikeda
Buddhism Day by Day

It was not until after the coming of Christ that time and humans
could breathe freely.  It was not until after him that people began
to live toward the future.  Humans do not die in a ditch like a
dog--but at home in history, while the work toward the conquest
of death is in full swing; they die sharing in this work.

Boris Pasternak