The "Deathbed Prompt"
This protocol helps find clarity and happiness.
I’ve found whenever I’m feeling off, uncertain, or in a rut the fastest way to breakout is through what I call the “Deathbed Prompt”.
This is writing from the perspective of your older self — your self when you will be an old man or woman nearing your death. And addressing your present self with observations and advice.
Importantly, this should felt. It should be visualized. It should be embodied. Experience yourself growing old, taking a deep breath, and looking back on your life.
From this embodied perspective everything tends to fall into perspective.
I’ll share with you a personal sample that will likely have some lessons for you too…
2024 Jackson,
The most important point to keep in mind, I think, is from Teachings of Don Juan.
Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore, you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary.
This question is one that only a very old man asks. Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long long paths, but I am not anywhere. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.
In this old life I mine I can say this is true.
I have walked many paths — and there are infinitely more paths I could have taken — but they all went into the bush: straight to old age, sickness, and death. All roads leading to the same place.
So why take anything seriously?
Now this question is to be approached carefully: your health, your relationships, and your psychological state are the most serious of matters. They should be tended to like a mother watching over her infant. But what I’m talking about here is more the feeling of seriousness: the lightness or heaviness of being.
Do you notice that at times the very experience of being can feel light, aimless, and effortless? It is best role modeled by the white cloud. The cloud just floats on, being its essential self: free of ambition, desire, or aims. For the cloud, the act of being is itself the path.
And at other times being can feel like an armless man trying to keep his head above water. There’s weight, confusion, and feeling that you just have to get on top of things.
This is where we come back to the question: why take anything seriously?
So you grow your company and you make millions and you help millions to be happier. So what?
That is, I think, a very good thing. Especially the part about happiness. As Joseph Campbell said, if you really want to help the world what you’ll have to do is show people how to live in it.
But should all this be taken seriously? In 500 years you’ll be a collection of letters on a screen somewhere (or carved on wood the way society is heading). The physical material that made up this body you call “Jackson”, the people you love, all the things you’ve ever owned, will be dust and dirt and rocks. If you’re lucky the atoms that comprised your being will be taken up into plants and animals carrying on in this beginningless and endless etch-a-sketch of being we call life on Earth.
You will be forgotten to everyone and everything.
So… Why take anything seriously?
As Ecclessiates so brilliantly taught (and I think this is the most important lesson in that book!) everything is meaningless.
Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
The purpose of this reminder to you dear one, is not pessimism — just truth. And to point you towards the freedom that comes with living close to this truth.
Can you feel it even now?
The breeze that rises up when the great burden is laid down… As Zen Master Fayan said.
No path, no meaning, and no achievement.
All roads lead to nowhere — lead into the bush. There is no meaning of life, only the experience of being alive. The great achievements of the world are snowflakes melting on fire; accomplishments that move oceans are but dew disappearing in the glare of the sun (Seongcheol).
This is freedom.
This is touching the lightness of being. Put down the great burden to practice the aimlessness of the white cloud. Just carrying on: free of fear and ambition. Can you feel the breeze that rises up?
It is always right there with you.
Respectfully,
Deathbed Jackson
To try this protocol the following steps may be helpful…
Hold at least 45 minutes of private uninterrupted time with a pen/paper or word processing program (notifications off!).
Visualize yourself passing into old age. How will your body look? Can you see your wrinkled hands? Who will you have lost? Can you see death approaching like the lengthening shadows of the evening? Can you experience the inevitability of this passing?
Write as a mentor to your young (present) self. As your deathbed self, what do you wish you would have known then that you know now? What does your younger self need to hear right now?
Get writing.
Your happiness nerd,
Jackson