I began to face death and its implications very young. I could never have imagined then how many kinds of death there were to follow, one heaped upon another. The death that was the tragic loss of my country, Tibet, after the Chinese occupation. The death that is exile. The death of losing everything my family and I possessed ... for we had been among the wealthiest and most famous in Tibet.
I think that when I die, I can breathe back the breath that made me live. I can give back to the world all that I didn't do. All that I might have been and couldn't be. All the choices I didn't make. All the things I lost and spent and wasted. I can give them back to the world. To the lives that haven't been lived yet. That will be my gift back to the world that gave me the life I did live, the love I loved, the breath I breathed
To die gracefully is to live fully.
All that matters is what you love
and what you love is who you are
and who you are is where you will be
when death takes you across the river.
My religions is to live and die
without regret.
With their last breath
those we love do not say good-bye --
for love is timeless.
Instead, they leave us a solemn promise
that when they are finally at rest
they will continue to be present to us
whenever they are called upon.
Let us fear not, nor grieve beyond letting go
the departure of those we have greatly loved,
for in the Tree of Life their roots and our own
are forever intertwined.
Her eyes filled with tears, but she said quietly, "I could die in peace, I think, if the world was beautiful. To know it's being ruined is hard."
Then, in the loss of all the world, when I might have said the words I had so long wanted to say, I could not say them. I saw that I was not going to be able to say them. I saw that I was not going to talk without crying, and so I cried.
She looked at me and held out her hand. She gave me the smile that I had never seen and will not see again in this world, and it covered me all over with light.
Grandmother spoke. "For eighty winters I have lived among you and now the World of Spirit is calling me to the other side. As winter brings to a close each cycle of seasons, so death brings to a close the cycle of our lives. I have loved all of you as my children and you must remember, after winter comes spring; also, after death comes birth and a new beginning.
If physical death is the price that I must pay to free
my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death
of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.
Do not fear your death. For when that moment arrives, I will draw my breath and your soul will come to Me like a needle to a magnet.