We go to sleep every night, Jack Kornfield points out, and after a hard day we actively hope for a good one. Which means we willingly drop our entire identity and go unconscious, and none of us finds that frightening. Set that beside how we feel about dying, and something does not add up. He spent close to a year and a half in silence in Asia, speaking to almost no one but his teacher, aside from the full moon and new moon ceremonies where the vows were recited aloud. People dread silence before they have tried it, he says, and it turns out to be one of the easiest things, because silence opens a gateway. You see the light in an oak tree you had never noticed. You feel your own step in the crunch of autumn leaves. Whole dimensions of ordinary life become available simply because you are no longer busy. It was during that retreat that something happened he had not expected. Exhausted after hours of sitting and walking, he lay down on the bare wooden floor rather than his mat, reasoning that the discomfort would get him up sooner. He fell asleep. Then he rose, walked to the window at the end of the hut, looked out towards his teacher's hut in the distance, turned to walk back, and stopped. There was a body on the floor. His first out-of-body experience in meditation, and his reaction was less awe than recognition. As he came close and paid attention, he fell back into it and was lying there again. What convinced him was checking afterwards: everything he had seen through that window was exactly as he had seen it. People have these experiences constantly, he notes, catapulted out of a body during an accident and later describing watching the ambulance arrive from above. But we are so trained toward the material that we have no mental room for what it might mean, so we explain it away. His own conclusion was different and, to him, self-evident. We are not this body. What we are is consciousness itself, and it is not separate. He speaks too about sitting with people as they die, and the unmistakable moment the spirit leaves, when what remains is clearly no longer that person. He sat with his own father at the end, having done the inner work to make peace with him first, and told him gently that his guess was that his father would find himself floating free of that broken body, into a sense of well-being. Remember I told you so. He closes with the Zen poet Issa, quoting a few lines of exquisite tenderness about dew and how briefly it lasts, and then tells you what makes them almost unbearable: Issa wrote them on the death of his daughter. Held in those few words are both the beauty of a life and the fact that it forms and disappears. Something deep in us already knows this, he suggests. As Blake had it, we are not here only to toil, but to celebrate the mystery, even in the trenches, even in the sorrow. Want to go deeper with Jack Kornfield? Join Sounds True One for more teachings like this. Get your first month FREE at https://bit.ly/4ctecMn Subscribe to Sounds True's YouTube Channel ► https://bit.ly/SubscribeSTYT Sounds True is a mission-driven learning and media company, and a recognized leader in wellbeing, personal growth, and spiritual transformation. Partnering with the world’s foremost wisdom teachers and best-selling authors, the company reaches millions worldwide with its unique programs, digital learning experiences, and worldwide events. The company also features a variety of original series, weekly shows, and live online experiences on Sounds True One, its global platform and community with members across more than 125 countries. Sounds True is a Public Benefit Corporation and also the home of the Sounds True Foundation. Connect with us: ▪️Facebook: http://bit.ly/2XFIIeE ▪️Instagram: http://bit.ly/2UlEoiH ▪️Website: http://bit.ly/2tOl02d