meditation · 15 min · presence
The Counterweight — Death Contemplation
Not morbid — clarifying. This practice borrows from traditions as old as humans and uses the book's framing of death as the counterweight that makes life mean anything.
The Practice
- 01
Sit somewhere private. Set a 15-minute timer.
- 02
Take three slow breaths. Let the body settle.
- 03
Bring to mind the fact — not the feeling, the fact — that this life ends.
- 04
Picture today as the last day. What suddenly matters more? What suddenly matters less?
- 05
Do not try to act on the answers. Just let them surface.
- 06
When the timer ends, write one sentence about what changed in the weighting.
Death is not the opposite of life — it is what gives life its outline. Sitting with it, briefly and regularly, sharpens the line.