Stephen Levine

First published in 1979 and a perennial favorite since, A Gradual Awakening was poet and teacher of meditation Stephen Levine’s first public book.

In his long career as a poet, Buddhist teacher, spiritual advisor, and writer, Stephen Levine has deeply changed our understanding of death and dying—and living.

One of the great modern dharma classics, Healing into Life and Death shares Stephen’s vision of healing acquired during years of working with those who cam to him to die, but found his techniques for finishing business and opening the heart capable of healing their bodies as well as their minds.

When the heart goes dry, the world goes flat—aching for spirit’s warm rain. Until something in the marrow stirs: a new beginning, a reawakening, a rising intuition. As rain revives parched soil, so from deep in our longing a merciful grace upwells. The heart overflows.

“Stephen Levine has captured the spectrum of emotions and problems which emerge around the dying process in a very clear manner, and one that has practical application for everyone. This is a book on life, a book that integrates death into the context of life.

While many books have dealt with the “stages of dying,” and particularly the stages of acceptance of death, this is the first to demonstrate how to open to the immensity of living with death. Who Dies?