Guided Meditation: Overcoming The Fear of Death
Nov 16, 2022Death is the one thing we can all be certain of. Each day, each hour, each minute we draw one breath closer to our last. In certain yogic traditions, it’s believed that the practice of meditating on death not only helps us to prepare for the inevitable, but it has a more immediate purpose of forcing us to look at our lives and in so doing, find meaning in each and every moment. As Sogyal Rinpoche says, ”Death is a mirror in which the entire meaning of life is reflected”...
The Tibetan Book of The Dead, also known as The Great Book of Natural Liberation Through Understanding In The Between was composed by Padma Sambhava in the 8th or 9th century for Indian and Tibetan Buddhists. After he wrote it, he hid it and its contents remained unknown for another 5 or 6 centuries when it was discovered by Karma Lingpa in the 14th century.
The teachings found in the book have since been used by practitioners to learn, contemplate and meditate on the mysteries of death… The following meditation is inspired by Robert Thurman's brilliant translation of the book: The Tibetan Book of the Dead, as well as my own experience of contemplating and meditating on death within the view of non-dual Saiva Tantra as I have learned through my teacher, Christopher (Hareesh) Wallis.
We’ll begin with contemplation in a seated position and then move into mediation in lying position.
