Death Awareness Practices

Maranasati meditation is an ancient Buddhist practice focused on the mindfulness and awareness of death. Memento Mori is another philosophy recently popularized with similar intentions. It is a Latin phrase meaning, ‘Remember that you [have to] die’. Death awareness practices are rituals with the intention of bringing our own impermanence into consciousness regularly. This practice allows us the opportunity to become acquainted with our own mortality. We can sit with any fears we might have, explore any questions that come up and dissipate discomforts of unfamiliarity as we get to know death a little before the big day.

 Many of us do have moments of death awareness organically but it often comes as a result of crisis, either in our own life or that of a close loved one, or when we get into old age. When a crisis hits our lives, we don’t have the capacity to thoroughly process such an extraordinary and significant theme of life, as death. If we are blessed with healing and are able to pull out of our survival responses, we may ponder the impact and shift our way of being in the world but if we don’t consciously revisit our revelations they often will fade with time. If we are privileged and lucky enough to enter old age, death increases around us, the truth is, the longer you live the more loss you accumulate. Unfortunately, not all our life stories have the gift of longevity and in either case we have missed so many years of the benefits practicing death awareness can bestow.

Death is certain, the time of death is uncertain. When we bring this to awareness regularly it allows us to explore and contemplate these truths. We all live alongside this reality but by acknowledging it we are taking our blinders off. It shatters tunnel vision and expands our peripheral view awaking us to the entirety and wholeness of our lives, and that includes the fact that we are going to die, and we don’t know when that will be. Keeping this close to our hearts and in the forefront of our minds we develop a deep recognition and appreciation for how precious and fleeting this life is. When this is continuously revisited it is a reminder to ourselves to live a meaningful life, to align our daily and monumental decisions with our values, and to live to our fullest and truest capacity with the indefinite time that we have left. It gives us a deeper understanding of our humanity and what it means to be alive.