“This earthly existence of ours is more brittle than the glass bangles that ladies wear.” ~ Gandhi, Harijan, February 2, 1934

When Death comes to take us, we return our bodies as dust to this beautiful earth. Nonviolence requires that we keep this in the back of our minds as we move throughout the day, our conscious existence: All life is a part of the whole. My life is not separate. Keeping the inevitability of bodily death in our minds can be difficult, but it allows us to steady our hearts on giving back to life for however long we have left. Our job, as it appears, is simply to give ourselves over to Death when it comes for us; while at the same time, never sending others in our place.

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About Daily Metta

Stephanie Van Hook, the Metta Center’s executive director, launched Daily Metta in 2015 as a way to share Gandhi’s spiritual wisdom and experiments with nonviolence.

Our 2016 Daily Metta continues with Gandhi on weekdays. On weekends, we share videos that complement Michael Nagler’s award-winning book, The Search for a Nonviolent Future: A Promise of Peace for Ourselves, Our Families, and Our World. To help readers engage with the book more deeply, the Metta Center offers a free PDF study guide.

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