For those of us who accompany others through the terrain of dying and loss, language can be one of the most powerful tools we carry. Not just the clinical language of charts and symptoms, but the deeper, quieter language of presence, poetry, and soul.
One of the books that has profoundly shaped my understanding of this subject is The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche. At first, the book felt intimidating. It had a reddish-brown cover and felt thick and heavy in the hand, like a brick daring me to open it. But I was in the midst of a long, dark night of the soul, a time when I was consumed by questions: Why am I here? What is the meaning of life?
It was that spiritual hunger that gave me the stamina to push through the density of the book’s early pages. And then something remarkable happened: the book began to pull me. It sank its teeth into me, not letting go until I had absorbed what I came to believe is its central message, one that has stayed with me ever since.
I learned that in Tibetan belief, the final breath, the moment just before death, is of profound importance. It is the pivotal point that determines whether one enters the cycle of reincarnation once again, or transcends it altogether. If we can remain fully present with our breath in that final moment, we may ride that breath like a vessel across a stormy river, passing beyond the cycle of death and rebirth. But if we meet that moment unconsciously, gripped by fear or attachment, we risk being pulled back into the current of samsara, repeating the cycle of birth and death until we learn how to meet it differently.
In essence, the purpose of life is to learn how to die. And if we can be present with each breath, each sorrow, each joy – truly alive in every moment – then perhaps we will also be present in that last, sacred breath. And in that presence, find liberation.
This teaching changed everything for me, not only in how I viewed death, but also in how I began to speak about it and sit with it. It deepened my belief that language spoken gently, intentionally, and with heart, can be a vessel through which we help others find presence in the midst of pain, clarity amid fear, and even beauty within grief.
This book is an offering to those who sit at the bedside of the dying, who witness the long goodbyes, and who seek to bring meaning, comfort, and peace through words. May language continue to be a balm – for the dying, for the grieving, and for those of us who serve them with love.
Here’s another poem to honor the theme of this post.
At the Edge of the Breath
At the edge of the breath, where silence begins,
The soul slips loose from the cage of skin.
Not with a cry, but a whispering word—
A sound so soft it’s barely heard.
If we speak with care, with heart made still,
Our voices become more than thought or will.
They cradle the fear, they soften the flame,
And call the dying gently by name.
For each breath we hold with mindful grace
Is practice for meeting that sacred place—
Where the river runs swift, the crossing wide,
And presence alone is the boat we ride.