What We Talk About When We Talk About….
Mirabai and Ram Dass have just written a new book: Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Death and Love (which is coming out soon), so of course we talked about this while I was visiting with her.
And (as I posted last week), Bhikkhu Analayo has just come out with a new book: Rebirth in Early Buddhism & Current Research, so we talked about that too.
Also, a friend of Mirabai’s had recently died (Bobo Legende, who had also written a book just before she died: Not What I Had Expected).
So as you can see, there was kind of a theme going on. Which was quite wide-ranging. And not in any way at all sad.
For example, we also talked about this little gem: The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Make Your Loved Ones’ Lives Easier and Your Own Life More Pleasant (by Margareta Magnusson).
Here’s an excerpt:
“Death cleaning…it is a term that means you remove unnecessary things and make your home nice and orderly when you think the time is coming closer for you to leave the planet…
“I have death cleaned so many times for others, I’ll be damned if someone else has to death clean after me…..
“I am now somewhere between eighty and one hundred years old. I take it as a responsibility of my old age to tell you about my experiences, because I believe this philosophy of death cleaning is important for all of us to know….
“Do not ever imagine that anyone will wish–or be able–to schedule time off to take care of what you didn’t bother to take care of yourself. No matter how much they love you, don’t leave this burden to them.”
***
Sadhu. Sadhu. Sadhu.