Customer Reviews

A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Stephen Levine has worked with the Dying for several years, and wrote this book as an exercise to prepare to die by preparing to live. He relates his personal insights of the dynamic process of dying, and suggests an exercise to be undertaken by one who knows they have... only one year to live.

This is an exceptionally difficult book to review. On the five-star side, the author has some exceptional credentials and the work has been well-reviewed by people with a wide variety of perspectives. Some of his exercises (such as his "soft-belly" meditation, his advice to carefully observe our thoughts-as-they-arise, and his suggestions to recall and bid farewell to our most pleasant memories and to forgive our worst ones) are simply wonderful. They have aided my own practice immensely. I commend his gentle assurances that, despite our fears, All Should Be Well (most religious leaders have said the same thing). I think the author has made a noble effort to tackle a hugely difficult subject.

On the dark side, however, I wouldn't give this book to someone imminently facing the Great Gulp unless they were pretty comfortable with the New Age view of Death. Many good people feel preparing for death requires much regret, repentance, suffering, uncertainty, angst, fear, etcetera, and this book might provoke outrage from those people at a sensitive time without any corresponding redemptive value (I indeed respect a terminally-ill reviewer who trashed this book). The author seems to feel death should be kind of a peaceable, emotionally blissy, blend-with-the-infinite, far-out sort of experience. I wouldn't exactly say he views death as the spiritual equivalent of a trip to Disneyland but ... you get the picture. I'm sorry to again be so totally crass, but you have several financial and material responsibilities in preparing your loved ones for your after-death experience, and this book glossed over them pretty darn quickly. The book is New Age Ambiguous -- I looked over one section and put negatives in place of the positives, and it read pretty much the same either way. I'm skeptical the author's theology or ontology improve on the Buddha, who was silent regarding The Ultimate Question. I also agree with other reviewers who pointed out the twelve-month exercise is ultimately artificial and can degenerate into shallowness. Finally, no bibliography, no index, and no backup data for some Pretty Big Assertions-As-Facts.

I finally suggest four stars as a compromise. I also gave a respectable rating because of the sheer value of some of his meditational exercises, and suggest the book for those reasons alone.

We're all going to die. Levine's book helps us to view life and death from a broader perspective. Levine has spent considerable time working with terminally ill clients. According to him, people on their death bed commonly mourn their unfinished business. Be it unfufilled dreams, broken promises, or unresolved conflicts, life regrets are one of the most troublesome aspects of dying.

Levine's book gave me motivation to begin living each day as if it's my last. It made me consciously aware of the importance of not putting life on hold.

This book also encouraged me to be more accepting and conscious in daily life. Many of us do all we can to avoid pain. Levine believes that accepting and moving through discomfort is actually less painful than tensing up with fear. I believe this applies not only to physical pain, but also mental and emotional discomfort. Many times the events I've resisted and resented the most are the ones that offered the greatest satisfation and personal growth once I got to the other side.

Levine's book made me feel more comfortable with the ideas such as acceptance and humilty. In general, life is simpler and more peaceful when I live in line with these virtues.

Having suffered a near death experience myself it makes me realize how uncertain life is and how soon it can come to an end. One never knows when Basil will pay us a visit.
Living your life as if each day is your last really makes you live life to the fullest and you learn to appreciate the little things in life. As a person who tries to follow the spiritual path this book was truly enlightening for me. It truly puts a new meaning to life. Stephen Levine's 'A Year to Live' is truly an inspiration

250,000 people die each day, like "deciduous leaves piled at the foot of the great tree" (p. 110). This is a wise book about reclaiming "our lives one step at a time" (p. 5) through the practice of dying. "I offer an experiment that amplifies your potential for healing by living the next year as if it were your last" (p. 3), Stephen Levine writes, "a year to live as consciously as possible, a year to finish business, to catch up with our lives, to investigate and deal with our fear of death, to cultivate our true heart and find essential wisdom and joy" (p. 4).

Levine knows death. He is a Buddhist meditation teacher who works with terminal patients. He tells us that we should not wait for a terminal diagnosis, though, "before opening to the potential grace and wonder of this living moment" (p. 17). His book offers several guided meditations on embracing the mystery of death, including "soft-belly" (pp. 32-33), fear (pp. 49-50), "life review" (pp. 82-86), forgiveness (pp. 89-92), gratitude (pp. 96-97), body awareness (pp. 104-5) and "original face" (120-21) meditations. "Trust the process" (p. 63), Levine advises us. "No one can afford to put this work off any longer" (p. 17). In the end, as the book's title makes clear, this is not so much a book about death, but a book about conscious living.

G. Merritt

Levines book differs from most books on death by providing some experiential exercises so the individual can gain personal insight rather then be directly fed the pre-digested great wisdom of so-called experts on death.This along with some of Sylvia Brownes books and 18 Mortal Acts could be used to learn more about ones own mortality and put it in a personal journal. In addition, Mr. Levine makes some sharp penetrating insights into how people deal or don't deal with death. The exercises he advocates are interesting and well constructed. A valuable book for those actively and openly exploring their mortality and who want to go beyond conforming to ideas from experts.

I am currently almost halfway through my "Year to Live." My mother, her best friend, and her best friend's oldest daughter are among a larger group of people all over the nation who are actually trying to do exactly what this book discusses: Treat this year as if it were your last. It is easier said than done.

I will say that it has brought my mother and I closer together, which I did not think was possible, and it has forced me to examine one of my deepest fears: losing her. This work is deep, intense, and harder than you might think... but the rewards are great.

This book has potential but it does not spell out very clearly what to do, How to Live This Year As If It Were Your Last. It is mostly poetic and full of jargon that the average person will not relate to. Maybe if one knows his language from being more familiar with the author it would be more clear, but this book on it's own is not easy to "grok". I like the premise but it's not a very useful book. It might be improved if there were a "workbook" with which to pair the poetic with the practical "how to" aspects of such an "experiment".

A Year To Live by Levine proves the old saying: "There's nothing new under the sun." This book, which claims to be on the cutting edge, might offer something to someone who has never given the subject of dying a second thought, but the banal, maudlin, self righteous approach left this listener - I bought the tape - begging for silence. On top of that, Mr. Levine reads his work as though he were trying to induce a hypnotic trance or s p e a k i n g to the mentally impaired.

"Meditating on death in order to fully live " could be the sub-title of this book. In dealing with illness and approaching death in our family, I've read almost all of Kubler-Ross's books and while they have been inspirational and her work certainly groundbreaking, I found this book more helpful in terms of describing the experience of dying in a way that allows me to be more able to be at the bedside of our family memeber. Simply in reading it gives one a profound yet extremly practical perspective on dying and of one's own eventual death.

Levine is a Buddhist and his book 'A Year To Live' reflects that. It's not a book that will appeal to those who bask smugly in their own self-sufficient world and think not of others. It is a book that can provide deep insight into the true nature of the human condition -- that all life is suffering with occasional happy moments. I'd recommend 'A Year To Live' to anyone suffering from a bereavement, or expecting one; to those struggling with elderly parents or relatives; to those trying to find some meaning in the life process and interested in 'what comes after' and above all, to all who are frightened of death.