Saṃsāra refers to the cycle of death and rebirth. It is the natural cycle of creation, maintenance, and dissolution that all material things undergo.
There’s something that you will never forget in your life. I know I haven’t. It’s the first time you see a dead body—the first time you meet Death.
Death plays a pivotal role in the history of yoga—the original objective of practice was ending rebirth. At some point between the earliest Vedas and the time of the Buddha a thousand years later, the doctrine of karma changed people’s priorities.
In more than one contemplative tradition, the crossroads signal literal and metaphorical death. They symbolize a crisis or a point where a shift must be made to claim an alternate future.
Buddhism has a number of practices that directly prepare you for death. In many ways, the entire path is death in slow motion, where “letting go” in meditation is a euphemism for death.
In shamanic practice, there is a deep sense of union with the Earth. Shamans strive to know all her expressions and recognize her as a guide toward wholeness and integration.
In the Bhagavad Gītā, Sri Kṛṣṇa offers insights throughout the text and explicitly addresses death in some key passages.
In Love With the World (hereafter In Love), was written by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche with the help of Tricycle magazine’s…