Change – and everything is change; nothing can be held on to – to the degree that you go with a stream, you see, you are are still, you are flowing with it. But to the degree you resist the stream, then you notice that the current is rushing past you and fighting you. So swim with it, go with it, and you’re there. You’re at rest.

And this is of course particularly true when it comes to those moments when life really seems to be going to take us away, and the stream of change is going to swallow us completely. The moment of death, and we think, ‘Oh-Oh, this is it. This is the end.’ And so at death we withdraw, say ‘No, no, no, not that, not yet, please.’

But, actually, the whole problem is that there really is no other problem for Human beings, than to go over that waterfall when it comes. Just as you go over any other waterfall, just as you go on from day-to-day, just as you go to sleep at night. Be absolutely willing to die.

Now, I’m not preaching. I’m not saying you ought to be willing to die, and that you should muscle up your courage and somehow put on a good front when the terrible thing comes. That’s not the idea at all.

The point is that you can only die well if you understand this system of ways. If you understand that you’re disappearance as the form in which you think you are you. Your disappearance as this particular organism is simply seasonal. That you are just as much the dark space beyond death as you are the light interval called life. These are just two sides of you,

But the propogation of vibrations, and life is vibration, it simply goes on an on, but its cycles are long cycles and short cycles.

So then, you see, here’s the principle: when you don’t resist change, I mean over resist. When you don’t resist change, you see that the changing world, which disappears like smoke, is no different from the Nirvana world. Nirvana, as I said, means breathe out, let go of the breath. So in the same way, don’t resist change; it’s all the same principle.

So the bodhisattva saves all beings, not by preaching sermons to them, but by showing them that they are delivered, they are liberated, by the act of not being able to stop changing. You can’t hang on to yourself. You don’t have to try to not hang on to yourself. It can’t be done, and that is salvation.

‘Memento mori,’ ‘Be mindful of death.’ The most important thing for anyone to realize is that you and every person you see will soon be dead.
In other words, from the first standpoint, the worst is going to happen: We’re all going to die. And don’t just put it off in the back of your mind and say ‘I’ll consider that later.’

It’s the most important thing to consider now, because it is enables you, it is the mercy of nature, because it’s going to enable you to let go and not defend yourself all the time, waste all energies in self-defense.