Are a person's perceptions and values altered when facing the end of life?

Are a person's perceptions and values altered when facing the end of life? Do the dying see the world in a way that could help the rest of us learn how to live? This book takes us into the lessons of the dying. Through the words and circumstances of the terminally ill, we become immersed in their wisdom and in our own mortality. The dying speak to us in direct and personal ways, pointing toward a wise and sane way to live.

In everyday language we can all understand, Rodney Smith extends the conversation about death to people of all ages and states of health. Through exercises and guided meditative reflections at the end of each chapter, the lessons of the dying become a blueprint for our own growth.

Rodney Smith, a guiding teacher for the Insight Meditation Society, has taught insight meditation since 1984. He is a former Buddhist monk and worked in hospice care for seventeen years. The author of Lessons From the Dying and Stepping Out of Self-Deception, he founded and guides the Seattle Insight Meditation Society.