Guided Meditations

Walking into Death

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• Get into a comfortable seated position, and focus for a moment on your breath, watching the air as it passes out and then into your body.
• Picture yourself walking along a road. Along each side are houses. You walk by them until you are inexplicably drawn to one of the houses, where you turn off the road and walk up the path to the door.
• You enter the house, and find yourself in a big living room. The walls are covered with portraits of people you have know who have died. You stop to look for a moment into the eyes of each face, remembering.
• In the middle of the room is a big pile of bones, with a human skill on the top, staring at you. It is a portent of your own future.
• Stop now and feel the bones beneath your skin. Think of the flesh now covering them—even now it is already in the process of rotting away, getting older by the minute. Picture how it will be in the future—see your flesh fall off and return to the earth, leaving only the pristine white of this pile of bones behind.
• There is a door at the back of the room, and you walk through it to another, smaller room.
• In the middle of this room is a glass case. Inside the glass case is a large hourglass, and 2/3 of the sand has already poured into the bottom half.
• You realize that each grain of sand still in the upper half of the glass is the amount of breaths you have left in this body, before you die.
• You think to yourself: “If I could only turn back the clock, if I could only stop this speeding train I’m on that’s rushing towards my death.” You try to break the glass case to get to the hourglass, but it is no use—the case is made of sheer diamond.
• You realize then that there is no way to stop this inexorable process; death is coming, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Focus on this for a moment, until you get a slight feeling of fear inside.
• Sitting next to the glass case is a stand, with a wooden box on top. Inside the box is a slip of paper, and on it is written the day of your death.
• You try to open the box to find out when you will die, but the box is locked.
• Think now for a moment what this means: you have no idea when you will die, you could die at any moment.
• Think of the plans you have in mind for your future: tomorrow, next week, next year. None of them are certain. You have no idea how much time you have left.
• Will you wake up tomorrow? You don’t know. Try to feel the distinct possibility that you may not see another day.
• If you do wake up, what will you do with the time? Start to grasp how each and every moment in this life is precious.
• There is a door at the back of this room, and you walk through it into a hallway with glass walls.
• In the middle of this hallway is a concrete slab. You go and lie down on it.
• This is the moment of your death. Everything is fading away.
• Where can you turn for help?
• Behind the glass wall to your left are all the things you spent time to accumulate in this life— possessions like a car or house; money; position, authority, recognition. And you look at them and realize that all of them are absolutely worthless, for none of them can help you.
• Think about how much time in your life you have spent to collect these things—time you can never retrieve.
• Then behind the glass wall to your right are all your friends and family, your loved ones. They have their hands pressed up against the glass, but they can’t reach you—they can’t help you at this moment either.
• There is a table to the right of your death bed, and on it is a book, entitled: How to Stop Death. But you have lost the use of your limbs, and you can’t pick it up; your eyesight is fading, and you can no longer read. Your mind too is fading—you can no longer meditate. It is too late—you waited too long, and now there’s no more time.
• Come back now to the present moment, of yourself, still alive, still able to meditate. Rejoice in this precious time, this precious opportunity.
• Then, before you end the meditation, think about the day ahead and make a pledge to use your time today as if it were the last day you had left.