# If you read nothing else today, you should read this. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 31, 2001, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-read-nothing-else-today-you-should-read-this/90751 "2001-10-31T17:49:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-read-nothing-else-today-you-should-read-this/90751/1 "2001-10-31T17:49:53Z")
[The Soul’s Professor](http://www.kokopellistreasures.com/soulsprofessor.html) > [@](#): > > Death urges us to be real because it reminds us that our time is short. In order to be real, we must die a little every day. What must die? Our ego, our shortsightedness, our cruelty, our denial, our willingness to skim the surface, rather than dive down to the depths of life. If we really want to touch the heart of life, we must embrace death and let it assume its natural role within our family and culture. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-read-nothing-else-today-you-should-read-this/90751/2 "2001-10-31T18:14:49Z")
Good point. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-read-nothing-else-today-you-should-read-this/90751/3 "2001-10-31T18:50:49Z")
I’m rubber, You’re glue, Whatever you say bounces off me And sticks to you. ---
**Author:** ![Maple\_Syrup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/839c29/32.png) [@Maple\_Syrup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maple_Syrup)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-read-nothing-else-today-you-should-read-this/90751/4 "2001-10-31T19:06:23Z")
Ahh, what book expounds the glory (or shame) of death greater than the Hagakure? “The way of the samurai is found in death. Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Everyday when one’s body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease, or committing seppuku at the death of one’s master. And everyday without fail one should consider himself dead. There is a saying of the elders’ that goes “Step from under the eaves and you’re a dead man. Leave the gate and the enemy is waiting.” This is not a matter of being careful. It is to consider oneself dead beforehand.” ---
**Author:** ![CheapBastid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8baadc/32.png) [@CheapBastid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CheapBastid)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-read-nothing-else-today-you-should-read-this/90751/5 "2001-10-31T19:43:39Z")
\*"The man who, being really on the Way, falls upon hard times in the world will not, as a consequence, turn to that friend who offers him refuge and comfort and encourages his old self to survive. Rather, he will seek out someone who will faithfully and inexorably help him to risk himself, so that he may endure the suffering and pass courageously through it, thus making of it a “raft that leads to the far shore.” Only to the extent that man exposes himself over and over again to annihilation, can that which is indestructible arise within him. In this lies the dignity of daring. Thus, the aim of (spiritual) practice is not to develop an attitude which allows a man to acquire a state of harmony and peace wherein nothing can ever trouble him. On the contrary, practice should teach him to let himself be assaulted, perturbed, moved, insulted, broken and battered - that is to say, it should enable him to dare to let go his futile hankering after harmony, surcease from pain, and a comfortable life in order that he may discover, in doing battle with the forces that oppose him, that which awaits him beyond the world of opposites. The first necessity is that we should have the courage to face life, and to encounter all that is most perilous in the world. When this is possible, meditation itself becomes the means by which we accept and welcome the demons which arise from the unconscious, a process very different from the practice of concentration on some object as a protection against such forces. Only if we venture repeatedly through zones of annihilation can our contact with Divine Being, which is beyond annihilation, become firm and stable. The more a man learns whole-heartedly to confront the world that threatens him with isolation, the more are the depths of the Ground of Being revealed and the possibilities of New Life and Becoming opened."\* [sub]The Way of Transformation by Karlfried Gras von Durkheim[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-read-nothing-else-today-you-should-read-this/90751/6 "2001-10-31T19:43:56Z")
Man, that’s original. Oh, wait, it’s not original at all. Anyone could have written it 300 years ago. Oh well. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![tiny\_ham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a183cd/32.png) [@tiny\_ham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tiny_ham)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2001, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-read-nothing-else-today-you-should-read-this/90751/7 "2001-10-31T19:47:48Z")
You’re born, you go on some diets…you die - Opus the Penguin