“We can smile, breathe, walk, and eat our meals in a way that allows us to be in touch with the abundance of happiness that is available. We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive. Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity. We need only to be awake, alive in the present moment.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step
“Where are we trying to get to with our incessant activity? To the stars? But we’re already as among the stars as we will ever be. Better quality of life? The quality we seek is lost in the seeking. Truly we have it backward with our continual striving for what we don’t have and avoidance of what we do. What we crave most deeply we have always had.” ~ Robert Kull, Solitude
“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.” – Diane Ackerman, via Blog of Jonathan Fields
“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” ~ George Bernard Shaw, via Blog of Jonathan Fields
“People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.” ~ Joseph Campbell, via Solitude
“Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved.” ~ Adrian Van Kaam, via Solitude
The Art of Living and Dying [Book]
Book Overview: Why are we afraid of death? Should we tell someone they are dying? Is reincarnation true? With depth, clarity, compassion, and even humor, Osho answers the questions we all have about this most sacred of mysteries and offers practical guidance for meditation and support. He reveals not only that our fear of death is based on a misunderstanding, but that dying is an opportunity for inner growth. When life is lived consciously and totally, death is not a catastrophe but a joyous climax.
Post(s) Inspired by this Book:
“Old age is tremendously beautiful, and it should be so because the whole of life moves towards it. It should be the peak. How can the peak be in the beginning? How can the peak be in the middle? But if you think your childhood is your peak, as many people think, then of course your whole life will be a suffering because you have attained your peak – now everything will be a declining, coming down. If you think young age is the peak, as many people think, then of course after thirty-five you will become sad, depressed, because every day you will be losing and losing and losing and gaining nothing. The energy will be lost, you will weaken, diseases will enter into your being, and death will start knocking at the door. The home will disappear, and the hospital will appear. How can you be happy? No, but in the East we have never thought that childhood or youth is the peak. The peak waits for the very end.” ~ Osho, The Art of Living and Dying
“Once you understand that death is not the opposite of life but part of it, an intrinsic part of it, which can never be separated from it – once you accept death as a friend, suddenly a transformation happens. You are transfigured, your vision now has a new quality in it. Now there is no fight, no war, you are not fighting against anybody, now you can relax, now you can be at home. Once death becomes a friend only then does life become a friend also. This may look paradoxical but it is so, only the appearance is paradoxical. If death is the enemy, then deep down life is also the enemy, because life leads to death.” ~ Osho, The Art of Living and Dying
“You start dying really when you start breathing, at the same moment. It is not right to say that death comes in the end, it has always been with you from the very beginning. It is part of you, it is your innermost center, it grows with you, and one day it comes to a culmination, one day it comes to flowering. The day of death is not the day of death’s coming, it is the flowering. Death was growing within you all this time, now it has reached a peak; and once death reaches a peak you disappear back into the origin.” ~ Osho, The Art of Living and Dying
“What is the secret to the art of life? The secret is this – live in full awareness. Don’t grope in the darkness; don’t walk in sleep; walk in awareness. Whatsoever you do, no matter what it is – even if it is as insignificant as opening and closing your eyes – do it thoughtfully, do it with awareness. Who knows, everything may depend on that tiny action, on opening and closing your eyes. You may be walking along the road and see a woman, and you may spend your whole life with her! Even opening and closing your eyes, stay alert.” ~ Osho, The Art of Living and Dying
“A man is really a mature man when he has come to this conclusion: ‘If death is happening to everybody else, then I cannot be an exception.’ Once this conclusion sinks deep into your heart, your life can never be the same again. You cannot remain attached to life in the old way. If it is going to be taken away, what is the point of being so possessive? If it is going to disappear one day, why cling and suffer? If life is not going to remain forever, then why be in such misery, anguish, worry?” ~ Osho, The Art of Living and Dying