Amazon.com's Best of 2001
In the opening section, Lief's insights are plentiful, showing readers how we all experience daily reminders of birth and death in the form of routine transitions, or helping readers examine the ways they hold death at a distance either though false reverence or media-driven numbness. At the end of every chapter, she offers contemplative exercises, such as pondering the mystery of birth and death or paying attention to one's breath and noticing the turning point between inhale and exhale. When she moves into the middle section on "Mindfulness Meditation," her teaching experience shines through as she explains how to understand and then meditate upon the Buddhist virtues of simplicity, acceptance, kindness, and compassion. In the final chapters, she shows how the theory and meditation can be applied toward taking care of someone who is dying. But don't be misled--this is really a book for everyone who wants to be more fully immersed in living, not just those who are tending the terminally ill. As Lief points out, "cultivating an awareness of death is at the same time cultivating an awareness of life. We are reconnecting with the spirit of actually living a life." --Gail Hudson
