UPCOMING COURSE
CONTEMPLATING LIVING AND DYING
Discovering wisdom in the cycles of living and dying
An eight-week live online course exploring life’s natural cycles such as birth, aging, sickness, dying, and death as gateways to deeper understanding and compassion.
Through guided contemplative practice, discussion, and two one-on-one mentoring sessions, you will learn to meet impermanence with clarity and courage.
Wednesdays · March 4 – April 22, 2026 · 12:00–1:30 PM ET (New York) · Online
When you have accepted your own death in the midst of life, it means that you've let go of yourself, and you are therefore free.
Alan Watts
INTRODUCTORY GUIDE
DEATH AWARENESS: A PRIMER
Freely Available
Death Awareness: A Primer invites you to explore the foundations of death awareness through simple reflections and practices. Offered freely, it provides a gentle yet meaningful starting point for engaging with these themes ahead of the full program planned for 2026.
WHAT IS DEATH AWARENESS?
BACKGROUND
Death awareness is a contemplative practice with deep roots in both Buddhist and Stoic thought. In Buddhist traditions, awareness of death is considered essential to waking up from distraction and living with compassion and purpose. In ancient Greece and Rome, Stoic philosophers encouraged reflection on mortality as a path to clarity, presence, and moral integrity. Across cultures and centuries, these traditions have invited us to turn toward death as a mirror that reveals what truly matters.
PERSPECTIVE
Death awareness begins with an intentional shift in perspective. The dawning of the fundamental recognition that all things are impermanent—our bodies, our relationships, even our thoughts and emotions. Rather than avoid or deny this reality, we are encouraged to see impermanence as a teacher. Death is not an interruption to life but the essence of its very fabric. From this point of view, contemplating change and death becomes a doorway to wisdom: it sharpens our priorities, loosens our attachments, and opens the heart to a more expansive compassion. This view is not passive or resigned—it is the ground from which meaningful action arises.
CONTEMPLATION
Contemplating the ever-present nature of change and death is the central practice of death awareness. These practices are not meant to provoke fear, but to dissolve the illusions that keep us asleep through life. We might visualize our own death, reflect on the certainty and unpredictability of death, or contemplate the dying process of others with tenderness and clarity. Contemplations are often structured to support insight into four key truths: that death is inevitable, its timing uncertain, that all possessions and relationships must eventually be left behind, and that only our actions truly belong to us. These reflections ground us in reality and help us respond to life with deeper presence.
APPLICATION
Death awareness is not only something we reflect on as formal practice—it is a recognition that we strive to embody. When we carry the awareness of death into our daily lives, we find ourselves more attuned to the preciousness of each moment, more forgiving, more courageous in our choices. We want to align our actions with the truths we’ve seen in contemplation. This might mean resolving conflicts, expressing love more openly, simplifying our commitments, or engaging in service with greater sincerity. Death awareness, in this sense, is not about dying well—it’s about living fully.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
The Death Awareness Project is built on a simple premise: when we face change and death with courage, we open a pathway to wisdom and compassion. By accepting impermanence, we can cultivate equanimity. By reflecting on mortality, we can deepen our appreciation for life.
Starting in 2026, the Death Awareness Project will offer a range of opportunities for contemplative engagement, including courses that explore teachings on change, aging, sickness, and death; workshops that distill key insights from the courses into practical, single-day events; and practice groups that provide space for guided contemplation and discussion.
Death is life's common denominator. It is something we all share—across cultures, backgrounds, and beliefs. Instead of ignoring it or pushing it away, what happens if we turn toward it? The Death Awareness Project is an invitation into this exploration—not to dwell in fear, but to awaken to a richer, more meaningful life.
By opening ourselves to death, we awaken to life’s true riches—love, compassion, wisdom, and equanimity.
The project's director, Ryan O'Connell, has been interested in questions of life, death, mind, and reality since he was a teenager. After twenty-five years of spiritual practice, he wanted to offer a course of study and practice specifically focused on change and death, as these themes transcend differences in belief, culture, and all other things. Ryan believes that human fears are rooted in the fear of death, and that engaging with this fear can help individuals live freer and more compassionate lives. Ryan has trained as a meditation teacher and end-of-life care specialist, and has studied applied Buddhist philosophy at the Tergar Institute.
Death is not waiting for us at the end of a long road. Death is always with us, in the marrow of every passing moment. She is the secret teacher hiding in plain sight. She helps us to discover what matters most.
Frank Ostaseski
THOUGHTS OR QUESTIONS?
CONTACT US
Please use the messaging feature in the bottom-right corner of the screen or send us an email at info@deathawareness.org.