A Year to Live

A Year to Live: How to Live This Year As If It Were Your Last 

by Stephen Levine

Bell Tower, New York, New York         © 1997      170 pp.

At age 58 the Dalai Lama said it was time for him to prepare for his death. The author, being the same age, decided to follow his example. Having decades of experience working with dying people as well as with meditation practice, he had some awareness of the types of problems which arise and ways to pursue completion. With the start of a new year, he began a year of dying practice, refining as he went and discovering benefits together with complications (such as the necessity of planning his schedule a minimum of a year in advance while living as if he would not be in the body by then).

In this volume, Stephen Levine offers meditations, mindfulness practice, journaling approaches, methods for finishing business, and living ever more in the present. From his experience he describes emotions that arise and dissolve -- holdings and releases -- and the softening into life that can develop when entering fully into these practices. Ultimately, A Year to Live is about living and releasing one moment at a time -- being with whatever arises. Good advice for anyone.

 -- reviewed by Dawn Kurzka

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