Death as a Mirror for Living

January 23 · Essays, Retreats, Zen Training · death, life, Nine Contemplations of Atisha, Trudi Jinpu Hirsch-Abramson

by Theresa Braine

The room was dim. About sixty bodies arranged themselves wall-to-wall in rows, eyes closed, supine on zabutons. Imagining themselves dead.

“How did you die?” intoned a voice. “How old were you when you died? Where were you when you died? Who was with you, or not, when you died?”

The questioner was Zen priest and chaplain Trudi Jinpu Hirsch-Abramson, who conducted the retreat Death & Dying: Using Death to Teach Us How to Live, on January 13 at Zen Mountain Monastery. What was most surprising about the weekend was the degree to which we did not talk about death—at least not about our fear of it—but about our lives.

“The prospect of death,” Hirsch-Abramson said, “can launch you into you.”

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