What does it mean to totally trust in life, to trust our practice? Simply a willingness to let it carry us through all these stages, which it will inevitably do, if only by finally making us face our own death.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him For the first time in six weeks. Paler now, Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple, He lay in the four foot box as in his cot. No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear. A four foot box, a foot for every year.

Thou bear's thy heavy riches but a journey, And death unloads thee.