Death be not proud

Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe, For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow, Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee. From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee doe goe, Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie. Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell, And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well, And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then?

John Donne

Middle Aged Gentleman Surrounded with Flowers

Death Doesn’t Lie

Death -awareness is the universal spiritual practice.  What we have sought in books, and magazines, in teachers and teachings, in ancient cultures and foreign lands, has been breathing down our neck the entire time.  It’s not just another mood-making spiritual technique that you dabble with for a few weeks and blame yourself when it doesn’t deliver.  Death always delivers.  Death is your only true friend, the only friend that will never abandon you and that no one can take away.  It slices through every lie, ridicules every belief, mocks every vanity and reduces ego to absurdity.  He’s sitting with you right now.  If you want to know something, ask him.  Death doesn’t lie.

Jed McKenna

Black Gentleman in his Coffin

The certain prospect of death

Death. The certain prospect of death could sweeten every life with a precious and fragrant drop of levity- and now you strange apothecary souls have turned it into an ill-tasting drop of poison that makes the whole of life repulsive.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Middle aged gentleman