Growing older, getting sick, and dying are tough subjects we usually like to avoid - even if we've admitted to ourselves that they're inevitable. The Buddhist practice of maranasati, or death awareness, helps us to confront these hard realities head-on, as a paticularly powerful means of liberating ourselves from the attachments that cause us to suffer.
This book is the fruit of Larry Rosenberg's years of practicing and teaching death awareness. Using a text known as the Five Subjects for Frequent Recollection, he shows how intimacy with aging and mortality can be a means to liberation: when we become profoundly intimate with ourselves, with others, indeed with all things.

Living in the Light of Death, Larry Rosenberg, Shambhala Publications, $22.95

Larry Rosenberg, founder and resident teacher of the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of the most prominent trachers of Insight Meditation in America. He leads classes and retreats nationwide.

Acknowledgments	xi
A Note on Terminology	xiii
Introduction: Aging and Death, Our Lifelong Companions	1
The First Messenger: Aging Is Unavoidable	21
The Second Messenger: Illness Is Unavoidable	48
The Third Messenger: Death Is Unavoidable	78
The Fourth Messenger: Heirs to Our Actions	122
The Practice: Intimacy with Living and Dying	141
Meditation and the Practice of Awareness	165
Glossary	171
Bibliography	173
Resources	175