In contemporary thanatological writing, we often encounter the injunction to “practice death,” an idea based on the assumption that by reflecting on mortality one can overcome a fear of it. The same idea appears explicitly and implicitly in numerous ancient philosophical and religious texts, such as the Bardo Thodol (known to the English community as The Tibetan Book of the Dead), Plato's Phaedo, the writings of Epicurus, and certain segments of the Old Testament. This article explores the prescription to practice death in these sources in an effort to locate its inherent rationality.
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References
1.
Evans-WentzW. Y. (ed.), The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1957.
2.
Kubler-RossE., On Death and Dying, Macmillan, New York, 1969.
3.
Epicurus, Epicurus: The Extant Remains, BailyC. (trans. and ed.), Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1926.
