Graceful Exits - How Great Beings Die (Sushila Blackman)
OVERVIEW
On the heels of “On Death and Dying” by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, I picked up “Graceful Exits – How Great Beings Die” because I’m so fascinated with the details of how people face their mortality. Graceful Exits is a compilation of the final thoughts/poems/teachings from 108 Hindu, Tibetan, and Zen Buddhist practitioners (compiled and edited by Sushila Blackman). The snippets are very short and are completely non-secular (and I do mean completely).
Even if I could set aside the religious and fantastical tone, I’m most interested in how humans die, and these ‘spiritual masters’ are presented as supra-human. I found very little substance or value for atheists or secular thinkers. Given this, I won’t attempt a “what now” list like I usually do for my summaries. But I do have some random musings.
Here’s one: Sushila Blackman offers up an alternative term for the “soul” in this book, which is psychospiritual substratum. PSYCHOSPIRITUAL SUBSTRATUM. I’m dead. Please everyone use this term moving forward.
Here’s another: Has anyone ever compiled a book of final thoughts from dying atheists? Because I’d read that book. Someone needs to make this happen. Title ideas? How about “Thoughts of a Dying Atheist – not the Muse song” or “Contemplations from the foxhole.” Don’t you dare steal those titles.
IN SUM:
Is this book entirely secular? Noooo.
If you had to describe the book in one sentence? 108 Hindu and Buddhist gurus died and here are their (very brief) stories.
Who should read this book? Anyone who is Hindu or Buddhist, interested in death, and immediately resonated with the phrase “psychospiritual substratum” (like if your first thought was “whoooa, groovy” and not “that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard”)