1.
We barely understand what life is.
Who can say about death?
Therefore, live this life well.
2.
Where does a wave on a lake go when the wind ceases to blow?
Where does a cloud go when it has moved across the sky?
That's where life goes when there is no more breath.
3.
I am gathered from the dust of the universe.
I become myself when I am born.
I become my non-self when I die.
4.
There was no me before my birth, for I am made in relation to others.
Therefore, death is the returning to the not-me.
I will be the not-me that existed before my birth.
5.
There is no me after death.
Therefore, there is nothing to fear in death itself.
It is a returning to the non-me.
6.
You are like a ripple on the water.
You come.
You go.
You are forever.
7.
The great mystery is not death but that we have been born.
8.
The great mystery is not that those who have been here are now gone
but that they have been here at all.
9.
To be alone in grief is misery.
To be with another in grief is life sanctified.
10.
Pain held privately is biology.
Pain shared is a form of healing.
11.
Pain isn't a good in and of itself.
However, it is inevitable.
Therefore, use pain in such a way that it increases the awareness
of the important things in life.
12.
Tragedy is unavoidable.
We suffer fates through no fault of our own.
Still the sun shines and flowers bloom.
13.
Let go of a past too tightly held.
14.
In the face of tragedy, there is darkness and light.
Choose the light.
15.
Death is real; aging is real; loss is real.
To deny reality is to live in illusion.
Therefore, accept reality fully.
Live the life you have been given.
16.
I cannot control chance; I cannot prevent tragedy.
Hurricanes blow; the sea swells high.
Still, the sun comes up and the songbirds sing.
17.
Everything changes.
The person who refuses to accept this is in danger of breaking
as surely as the tree that cannot bend in the wind breaks in two.
18.
On both side of our existence is the un-nameable:
The infinite past, the infinite future.
Today we have our names, so let us speak to one another.
19.
We are always in the now.
Already it is gone.
20.
What you are doing right now is the most important thing.
Therefore, pay attention what you are doing.
This may be your last moment.
21.
When your time comes, you, too,
will take your place once more amongst the soil and the stars.
22.
Death is real, but no more real than love.
23.
Who can rejoice at death?
Who can celebrate destruction?
Who can dance at times of desolation?
Look into the eyes of a child and see what love there is.
24.
A child is born.
A child dies.
To acknowledge this is to accept the one reality that is certain --
you are part of the natural world.