100 Books Like Living is Dying

“What is this?” I asked myself on first reading. “Fiction?”

Each short piece contained a moving story that was like a jewel to view and think about, but something was strange, in a wondrous way. It seemed like fiction posing as journalism, like the great classical Chinese tale “A Record of the Peach Blossom Land” by Tao Yuanming (6th century) that inspired my most popular play.

It upended my concept of short story, and of art, opening doors to ways of writing. “Fiction in disguise.” Astonishingly creative, yet peaceful and profound. Wildly creative themes and twists narrated by a quiet objective voice. Maestro Borges taught me that you can shock an audience through very calm narrative, and how profound creativity starts with format.

A master class in creativity that ends with compassion.

It’s not enough to know that Godot is a modern classic blah-blah-blah. I found that learning why was a crash course in creativity.

This play taught me so many profound lessons/strategies: Inaction is action; you cannot be inactive unless you have an active motivation; silence is brimming with sound; you can write a great play, and your characters can be anything but great; you can make a great philosophical statement through the most mundane of scenes.

Greatness comes with the overall synthesis of all the elements of the theatrical art – dialogue, story, stage, costume, etc. “Godot” is the most incredible name/metaphor. Can be anything, can be nothing.

I directed this play twice, and am still learning from it. I bow down to you, Samuel Beckett.

I have treasured this book since college days, as a concise summary of the truth of existence. 

That’s a lot to say, but try it. Eternal truths are so simple! Yet so profound! I was blown away by the first line – a book with its topic as “the Tao” says that if you can explain it, it’s not it! Then why did he write the xxx thing?

Ah, only through time can I start understanding. I feel this precious book gives me an anchor to view the world, life, people.

“Like the eternal void filled with infinite possibilities,” Lao Tzu is the master of oxymoron. He is tricky, challenging, cool. Sooo creative. Nothing I have ever done even approaches his toes. He doesn’t need to talk about creativity. He IS creativity.

These 3 continuous comics from 1966 (Fantastic Four #48-50) were a master class in creativity for me, even before I started out as an artist.

I grew up an avid collector of Marvel comics in the 60s, in Taiwan, where they were not for sale anywhere, and I had to scrounge and search the streets of Taipei for used copies.

I accumulated a massive collection that I later sold for a Martin guitar. These 3 continuous comics from 1966 were a master class in creativity for me even before I started out as an artist.

They taught me: how to tell a story brilliantly; how to embed a twist in the inner core of the story: the villain Galactus, who has the power to destroy Earth, is just another guy who is tending to his needs – he is hungry, and Earth can provide a meal for him. Wow. What… show more.

I recommend this book to everyone I know, because it really is as the subtitle suggests—a way to be more fully alive by remembering that we are all going to die! Something that really helped me was the chapter on how to “find rest in the middle of things.” I don’t know about you, but my life is filled with a lot of responsibility, including being a caregiver for my 94-year-old mom. Then there’s everything happening in the world that adds to increased stress levels. Since reading this book, I’ve had more rest, from getaways to 10-minute walks to one simple but conscious breath. The stories shared are profound, and Frank’s gentle manner and wise teachings have been a true inspiration to me. 

There are many books about what dying has to teach the living. This is the one I keep on my bedside shelf. When I talk to people about my own experiences with hospice and dying, they sometimes wax ecstatic about the subject. I believe they’re right to see the possibilities for joy and spiritual growth, but I also think it’s crucial to look at death with clear eyes. As a former Buddhist monk and hospice director who has worked with dying people, Smith does just that. Again, and again, he emphasizes that death does involve suffering. But he also writes movingly—and honestly—about the experiences he’s witnessed, helping readers to face our own mortality and learn how to live better and more joyfully.

This book rattled and awakened me in a place that seemed taboo to tickle. Studying death and dying can be driven by ego (what are you going to wear at your funeral? Do you have your music picked out?) Not to say there is not some good in the ego-driven work-- contemplating that can be done no matter what angle you study. However, Being With Dying cuts to the chase. If you feel ready to dismantle your illusion of living forever (or, if think that you’ll only die on your own terms, but only when you’re ready) this book is for you. 

Loy's path has been unusual. He is an American who studied Zen in Hawaii and is now a Zen teacher in Japan and a professor at a Japanese University. In this book, he adds existentialism to his study of Buddhism and psychotherapy. His thinking was key for me on my own path of becoming a psychologist. The main lesson I took from him is the importance of how the feeling of lack affects our understanding of what death and nothingness mean to us. He also discusses the meaning of compassion in Buddhism, something that informed my own understanding of how compassion is central for psychotherapy.

When it was published in 1992, Rinpoche’s superior translation replaced the first English translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead from 1927. This has been a go-to for anyone preparing for their own death or that of a loved one, when the Western way of dying falls short. This book is an indispensable guide to the process of life and death. 

James Hillman is the kind of writer you sometimes have to stop, think and re-read, to work your way into what he is trying to say, but it repays the effort because what he says is always interesting. This book, about fantasy and imagination, explores the idea that we are more than our personal story, more than ego and self. For me as a writer, it changed the way I see the creative process, with imagination not being something we need to spark and drive, but a space we already inhabit. Imagination is our essence; we are the dream.