Living in the Light of Death

On the Art of Being Truly Alive

This book presents the Buddhist approach to facing the inevitable facts of growing older, getting sick, and dying. These tough realities are not given much attention by many people until midlife, when they become harder to avoid. Using a Buddhist text known as the Five Subjects for Frequent Recollection, Larry Rosenberg shows how intimacy with the realities of aging can actually be used as a means to liberation. When we become intimate with these inevitable aspects of life, he writes, we also become intimate with ourselves, with others, with the world—indeed with all things.
"Living in the Light of Death is an invaluable primer for virtually anyone who has a body and is old enough to read. Larry Rosenberg dives right to the core of what it takes to be truly alive and, with the lightest and kindest of touches, shows us simple ways to wake up to our lives while we have them to live. A true vehicle for exploring the profound question of whether there is life before death."—Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Full Catastrophe Living and Wherever You Go, There You Are
Larry Rosenberg is founder and resident teacher of the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a guiding teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts.

About

This book presents the Buddhist approach to facing the inevitable facts of growing older, getting sick, and dying. These tough realities are not given much attention by many people until midlife, when they become harder to avoid. Using a Buddhist text known as the Five Subjects for Frequent Recollection, Larry Rosenberg shows how intimacy with the realities of aging can actually be used as a means to liberation. When we become intimate with these inevitable aspects of life, he writes, we also become intimate with ourselves, with others, with the world—indeed with all things.

Reviews

"Living in the Light of Death is an invaluable primer for virtually anyone who has a body and is old enough to read. Larry Rosenberg dives right to the core of what it takes to be truly alive and, with the lightest and kindest of touches, shows us simple ways to wake up to our lives while we have them to live. A true vehicle for exploring the profound question of whether there is life before death."—Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Full Catastrophe Living and Wherever You Go, There You Are

Author

Larry Rosenberg is founder and resident teacher of the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a guiding teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts.