The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully

by Frank Ostaseski

Imagine if we regarded dying as a final stage of growth that held an unprecedented opportunity for transformation. Could we turn toward death like a master teacher and ask, “How, then, shall I live?”

Death is much more than a medical event. It is a time of growth, a process of transformation. Death opens us to the deepest dimensions of our humanity. Death awakens presence, an intimacy with ourselves and all that is alive.

Death is the elephant in the room. A truth we all know but agree not to talk about. We try to keep it at arm’s length. We project our worst fears onto it, joke about it, attempt to manage it with euphemisms, sidestep it when possible, or avoid the conversation altogether. We can run, but we cannot hide.

Everything is vanishing before our eyes. This is not a magic trick. It is a fact of life. Impermanence is an essential truth woven into the very fabric of existence. It is inescapable, perfectly natural, and our most constant companion.

Just as there is constant “dissolving,” there is also constant “becoming.”

Without impermanence, life simply could not be.

Why wait until we are dying to be free of struggle?

Coming together inevitably means parting. Don’t be troubled. This is the nature of life.

Nothing is holding us back from change and transformation—and nothing ever was.

The present moment could best be described as the flow of life.

non-waiting. It is the antidote to the trap of expectation—an open, receptive quality of mind. In non-waiting, we allow objects, experiences, states of mind, and hearts to unfold, to show themselves to us without our interference.

Loving and letting go are inseparable. You can’t love and cling at the same time. Too often we mistake attachment for love.

whatever we give space to can move.

Pema Chödrön, who wrote, “The problem is that the desire to change yourself is fundamentally a form of aggression toward yourself.

When compassion is truly present in the room, a great deal of pain and suffering is likely to show up in response. That is because the pain wants to expose itself to the healing agent of loving kindness.

Gradually, we learn to trust that while there is endless suffering in this world, there is also endless compassion to respond.

We want to spin plates, juggle balls, and live two dreams at once. Anything else sounds boring. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” we say. As a result, we end up addicted to busy. We confuse rest with non-productivity and laziness. “No time to waste!” we chide ourselves as we race from one activity to the next. Yet we do it all in a continuous state of partial attention, imagining we’re accomplishing more, when in reality we are living less.

Idleness is not an indulgence or a vice so much as it is indispensable. Nearly all plants go dormant in winter. Certain mammals hibernate, slowing their metabolisms dramatically. All are guided by inner clocks to emerge again in the fullness of time, when conditions are right. This period of rest is crucial to their survival. We, too, need to heed our instincts and find a place of rest.

the only choice we have really, is to be open or closed.

“It’s true all things change. ‘Sad’ is the story you tell yourself.” The way we end one experience shapes the way the next one arises. Clinging to the old makes it difficult for something new to emerge.

We’re “still crazy after all these years.” The object of meditation isn’t to change ourselves, to throw out the old and bring in the new. It’s about making friends with ourselves, meeting each and every part of our lives with curiosity and compassion. This doesn’t mean simply that we must tolerate the difficult stuff that comes up in meditation. It means that we have to explore it in order to become deeply familiar with our inner world.

our fears boil down to the stories we tell ourselves.

“Where are you going in your life? Why do you think being someplace else will be better than where you are now? What is the purpose of all this searching?”

the best preparation for death is a life fully lived.” —Ram Dass, international