Nothing is more therapeutic than to ponder one's inevitable death in great detail, to gut one's denial systematically. It's all in the literature. Imagine the various systems of your body-mind shutting down, like the long slow howl of Hal in "2001: A Space Odyssey," only this time with teeth because it's you. The point of this practice is to find the real captain of the ship, and to recognize that he was there all along.
Why is life such a bitch? "It serves to break down mental pride. We must realize how poor and powerless we are. As long as we delude ourselves with what we imagine ourselves to be, to know, to have, to do, we are in a sad plight indeed. Only in complete self-negation is there a chance to discover our real being." (N.M.)
Pregnant, fulsome emptiness. Consciousness without content. Right there where stasis surrenders to transition, before even "I am," "am" intones like the open E of a Fender jazz bass. When all systems shut down with what are we left? Nothing. The most pregnant word in all of Shakespearean canon. I've got to reread him from an enlightenment standpoint.
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