The Death Beans … And My Views on Death

I first spoke about the Death Beans in a video I published in summer of 2023. Many people commented with sincere curiosity, requesting me to share more about the Death Beans and my views on death. I am grateful to share my views with you here.

The original video sharing the Death Beans

Resources

• Aid-in-dying in USA
• Thaddeus Pope, JD
• Kathryn Tucker, JD: End of Life Liberty Project
• International right-to-die movement, World Federation Right-to-die Societies:

• Caitlin Doughty (Ask a Mortician)
• Green Burial Project

• Francis Weller (book Wild Edge of Sorrow):
• Martin Prechtel (book Smell of Rain on Dust, youtube lectures):

 

Transcript of video:

Hello Dear Friends,
Today I am going to talk about my death beans and with this my views on death. These are the death beans, and eating just one of them could kill me. So why am I carrying this jar of death beans with me for the last two years? Today I’m going to talk about the death beans and through them, my views on death.

So I am talking about death here, and this is something that we don’t talk about on a daily basis, and that the way I’m going to be talking about it might be charged for some. There might be some judgment for some. There might be just some difficulty around this. So before we start, I would like to take an opportunity. I want to invite you to open up your mind.

So I want to take three deep breaths together or alone to just set the intention that we’re here to listen, we’re here to be together, we’re here to open up our minds to another perspective.

All right, so right off the bat, who am I to be talking about death? I’m 38 years old, so I’m relatively young, and I’m in really solid health. There’s no signs of me dying anytime soon. So a lot of people would say, why would you be talking about death? How naive of you to be talking about death. To go even further, I don’t even have too much experience being around death — very minimal overall. Why? Because I am part of a society that is designed to keep death behind closed doors, to not talk about death. I am part of a society where death is considered bad, where death is wrong, where death is what you avoid, where the most valuable thing you can do is save a life and prevent a death from happening. I am part of a society where there is an incredible amount of disconnection around death.

So with that said, I am still going to talk about death because I believe that my perspective is valuable and I believe that we need to talk about death a lot more. In 2023, I did a video where I showed these death beans as part of everything that I owned in a little outdoor shelter that I was living in, and hundreds of people commented, please tell us about the death beans. Tell us about your views on death. So here I am. You can take it or leave it. You don’t have to listen to this. This is my perspective, and I’m here to share, and I invite you to be here in this perspective with me.

The reason that I’ve seen a lot of people over the last decade of me talking about death be interested is because my viewpoint on death is quite different from the US American society and from the Western society, what I often call the Dominator Society. It is a very different take and viewpoint on death from what you will see in the mainstream, and that’s one of the reasons that I’m happy to share this with you, because I believe that we need to reconnect with death. We need to have a different relationship with death if we are going to enjoy our lives.

So first, what I want to share is that I simply do not believe that death is a bad thing. I don’t believe so much in concepts of right and wrong, good or bad altogether. I don’t believe that death is a bad thing. To me, this comes quite naturally to say, but compared to what? The way billions of people are living, this is a hard thing to wrap our heads around. So to put it very simply, I do not believe that death is bad. I am not afraid of death. I accept that death is a part of life, that it is an inherent part of life. I am quite accepting of death.

For a long time, I’ve had this idea that I’m not going to live to be really old. I’m not pursuing living to be 100. I’m not pursuing living to be 80. I’m pursuing just to be alive as long as I’m alive for. I have an acceptance that death is merely a part of life, and I’m not latching on. I’m not holding on like so much of our society is designed around ekeing out every last day, month, year and believing that it is a loss when one dies. I know that this might sound absurd to some people, but I don’t believe that death is a loss. I believe that death is it. It just is, just as life is. On the contrary, I see that it is our aversion of death that is our real suffering, not the death itself, but our aversion to death.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Ram Dass lately, and something that he said that really gravitated toward me was a relation to how our society thinks about death. Imagine this: you know, it’s fall. The leaves are falling from the trees as they do every single year. Everybody comes out and they say, “The leaves are falling from the trees, we must put all the leaves back on the trees. They can’t fall.” So they take tape and put it up to each leaf and then tape each leaf right back to the tree. That’s how we’re treating death. We’re saying this natural thing that’s just going to happen, we can’t let it happen.

Now, the reason that I am comfortable with sharing my viewpoints on death is because the reality is that my viewpoints on death are not unique. In reality, my viewpoints are in alignment in many ways with billions of people around the world. There are many cultures that do not fear death, that do not have such a strong aversion to death, that have such a craving to being alive. And so when you look at our global humanity and you also look at our tens and hundreds of thousands of years of being a human and you zoom out, what you see is that there are cultures that actually respect death, that have beautiful connections with death, that see death as a part of life, that can see death as a gateway. There are cultures that do not cry but actually feel joy when death takes part. There are cultures that celebrate it, that revere it, and that bring life right out into the open.

So because of this, I know my views are not really unique. They may be unique within this little bubble that I live within, but the truth is that my views are very much in alignment with billions of human beings who have lived and who live today. My views on death really root into my way of existing in this life.

So one of the ways that I choose to live is in a way of impermanence. Our society, we often design things in a way where we have this belief that we are permanent. We build these cities, we build the structures in a way where we think that they’re going to last forever. We design them in a way where they get destroyed by the natural happenings of the earth — through rain, through fire, through all of these processes. And then we call them natural disasters. But these are not natural disasters; they are natural happenings. Of course, there is a disaster aspect to them because of the way in which we have our relationships. However, these are natural happenings. These are natural flows of life.

I have designed my life more around the natural flow of the Earth, and with that, I have designed my life to be ready for death. So impermanence and non-attachment are very deeply a part of my life.

So a couple of ways that I go about that: First, I have designed my life so that nobody is actually dependent upon me. I had a vasectomy when I was 25 years old, deciding not to have kids. I’m not married, and I’m not going to get married. So I’ve designed my life really so that I can go at any moment. This just gives you a little window into the depth in which I have really incorporated impermanence into my life. Now, this isn’t right or wrong, good or bad — you don’t have to practice this in order to have a beautiful relationship with death — but for me, I’m sharing that impermanence is deeply incorporated into my life and that plays a role in my level of acceptance of death.

Because I’m not holding on, I haven’t designed my life in a way where ending it creates problems. Secondarily to that is that I look at my physical possessions. What you see on my body here, this is wool and natural fibers, and I could fall to the ground and I could die in these clothes that I’m wearing. It’s natural dyes. All of the thread is natural; that can return to the earth just like a deer. I could go to the woods, and I could simply die, and I could return to the earth.

I am working towards as much of the possessions that I have, as much of the designs in my life, are all designed in an impermanent way in order to be able to return to the earth. I would say that I think about returning to the earth probably every single day. The concept of returning to the earth is something that I am absolutely in love with, enamored by. I have such joy and gratitude with this idea of returning to the earth. You know, composting is a basic way of practicing that and being a part of death in life on a daily basis. So I really, I really am excited about the concept of returning to earth.

And I hear that for some people that might sound pretty out there, but it just is — that’s just my reality. I’m very, very, very passionate about this concept of designing my whole life around the concept of returning to the earth.

So why do I carry the death beans? Well, there’s a few reasons. One, I love beans. I love brightly colored and multicolored beans — whether they bring life or they bring death, I love beans. So they’re a natural part of my life. I have many jars full of plants and food at many different times of my life.

So I love them. They bring great value into my life. The next reason is they serve as an opportunity. Well, of course, one of the main reasons is that they are here in case I ever actually chose to use them, which I’ll talk about a little bit later. But another reason is because they have become a talking point, an opportunity for me to be able to talk about death. They are an entry into a world that talks about death so little and has a disconnection from death — to be able to talk about death.

And then third, they have become a reminder for me of death and impermanence. I have carried these with me for the last two years, and they are just an opportunity for me to remember my death, to ponder my death, to think about my death. And one more piece of transparency: you know, one of my objectives is to deeply analyze my own mind, to self-observe, to question. And I would say with no doubt part of the reason that I have these beans is because I like attention. I have ever since I was a little kid, and there’s no doubt that at the baseline, I’m still operating somewhat from a place of ego. I do things that I know are going to be interesting to people, to be a meaningful part of people’s life so there’s the aspect of just the basic need that all of us humans have for attention, for belonging. And for me, that’s through educating, that’s through creating critical thought, self-reflection, and just connective points.

So in full transparency, I’m sure that plays a role in me having the death beans as well. Now I’d like to talk a little bit about my views on what happens after I die. You know, what happens after death? And so for that, you know, I have no religion. I have no labeled spirituality. I have no — basically I have no afterlife belief system that this particular thing happens, like you go to heaven or hell, or that you come back as a new human being, or a new soul moves on to someone else. I don’t have any religion or any belief system in that regard.

There are a couple of belief systems that I have learned from that I gravitate towards the most: many of the indigenous belief systems of indigenous cultures that had a deep connection to the land and felt not a separation from the land but an interconnectedness with the land and all of life. This is a spirituality that I gravitate towards more. Also, a lot of Buddhist philosophy. Now, I’m not saying Buddhism — the religion. At the heart of Buddhism is just the teachings of the Buddha, which are just basic universal truths; it’s not a religion. So a lot of what I’ve learned is very in alignment with Buddhism, but not a religion. Again, just a way of thinking, a way of being, a philosophy of life.

And there’s plenty of Buddhism that, you know, isn’t me. There’s the belief of karma and reincarnation, for example — that could be true; it very well may be. But it’s not my belief system. I’m open to that possibility, but I don’t know, really. I don’t say definitely not to any of these, but I am fairly doubtful that we as humans actually have it figured out. I definitely don’t believe that if we don’t listen to a particular God that we will burn in hell for eternity. I definitely don’t believe that if we listen to a particular God that we will be entered into an eternity in heaven without suffering. I believe these to be stories; I don’t believe them to be reality.

I simply don’t. Any of these religions that have these strong “this way only, that way no, design,” I see those as more to be constructs that are designed to control people — not a connection to the absolute depth of our being. Now, I am open to … for example, there’s the simulation theory, which is basically the concept that we are actually — that humanity is actually — well, we’re not what we think we are, that some other life form, other intelligence, or computer system out there — that we are just a simulation and potentially one of countless simulations, that they have a snow globe that can be shaken up, a petri dish, a computer program. I’m open to these being possibilities. I don’t shut out anything as an absolute no. They are all possibilities.

But for the most part, my belief system is that we just don’t know — not that we can know. I think it’s possible, but that we just don’t know. That’s where I’m at. Now, part of my openness to other possibilities in which I haven’t even touched, and the belief that it’s unlikely that it is something that we’ve figured out, is because in many ways we do see that our reality is largely a state of delusion.

So to give an example of this, here I am, what appears to be an individual entity. I am me; I’m Robin Greenfield. I’m a human being. These are — this is my hand, this is my nose, my hair, my forehead. I am a being, right? Like most people watching this would agree, I’m an individual entity.

Now, what we’ve come to realize is that we are actually more bacterial cells than we are human cells. So again, there’s more bacterial cells that make me up than there are actual human cells. Bacteria is in every nook and cranny of my entire body, inside, outside, and it actually makes my existence possible. I am a co-existing culture of human bacteria and all sorts of other creatures. For example, there are different species of mites I’ve learned that live on this eyebrow than there are on my chin.

We are an incredibly interconnected life form, and without this bacteria, we actually cease to exist. So when you think about that, you realize that this perspective that we’re living each day — that we think we’re an individual form — well, that’s actually largely a delusion.

My overall philosophy is definitely one of an interconnectedness with everything — that we aren’t so separate after all. That separateness is a concept. Separateness is what has created this incredible disconnection and is what ultimately leads to such a level of destruction and exploitation. So I, at my core, have this overall belief system of an interconnectedness and so, because of that, I actually have less attachment to my own individual life because my own individual life isn’t an individual life. This helps a lot to release the attachment to death and the fear of death.

And because I just, overall, I don’t know, overall, that’s the reality of the situation. I don’t know what life is, I don’t even — I don’t know what I am, I don’t know what you are, I don’t know what humanity is. I simply don’t know. And because I don’t know that, of course, I don’t know what’s going to happen to me after I die. I just don’t know, and I don’t need to know.

For a long time, I haven’t needed to know. Would I like to know? Sure. Would I love to actually understand what this all is? Absolutely. But I don’t need to know in order to live a purpose. I don’t need a religion to guide me to being of service. I don’t need a religion to tell me what’s good or bad. I can just follow the flow of life. I can just learn from what’s around me and learn how to live a deeply meaningful and connective life on this Earth, and that works for me.

I don’t live in fear of death. I accept it, and I’m just open. Now, of course, I forget that one of the reasons that people fear death so much is because they adhere to a religion that puts this belief that you can be a good or bad person and that you can actually go to hell or go to heaven. And so, of course, if I don’t believe any of that, I’m just not going to have the same fears that other people have.

And I forget, but I know billions of people — that’s where they are. But I don’t believe in any way, shape, or form that it is inherently bad to just be a human. I don’t believe in any original sins that cast us into needing to repent. I believe that I am a whole and complete human being just the way that I am.

So what I think when I die is that I will become a part of Earth. That’s what I think. Now that is a way of carrying on as life. So if I fall to the Earth in the forest or if I’m buried into the Earth, what this allows is the natural energy that is inside of me to continue on. We know that there’s the concept of energy, say, of calories, but we know that there’s something here. There’s something more to all of this than we can actually see, and one term that’s often used is energy. There’s energy in numerous different ways that we can look at it.

Now, when I return to the earth, I could be eaten by, let’s say — well, I could be eaten by insects. Those insects would then get that physical energy from my body, and they would carry that forward, and then say, let’s say birds would eat them, and then larger animals would eat them. So my body and the energy within my body can move from life form to life form to life form. So, in a sense, yes, I continue to exist — not as an individual entity, but from the bacteria all the way up to apex predators — into the earth, to the soil, to the mushrooms, to the mice, to the squirrels, to the trees. I can continue on. My life can continue on, but I’m not attached to that being as an individual entity.

Now, that’s not a guarantee, though. It is at the heart of my being to want to return to the earth. And some people will say, “Well, you’re going to return to the earth either way.” But if I am embalmed with chemicals, like formaldehyde, put into a casket, and then that casket is sealed, that’s not returning to the earth the way that I’m talking about. That’s actually designed to keep you separate from the earth. If I am splattered on the concrete in New York City by being hit by a car, brought to the hospital, and then put into one of those caskets, that’s not for me being returned to the earth.

For me, being returned to the earth means that my entire body — all of me, the essence of me can just … the fluids … can seep into the earth. The nutrients can move through the cycle of life. Even within that, it’s nuanced. So for example, I could fall into a cold creek, a cold, beautiful, clear creek — in my death, I’d be, in a sense, returning to earth. But that’s not what I want, because if that’s what would happen, for weeks I would be decomposing into this creek and making that water less pure and undrinkable and actually potentially harmful to humans down the creek.

So that’s not how I want to return to the earth. I want to return to the earth in a way that nourishes the earth and nourishes life. This is at the core of my life design and who I am and who I want to be.

So returning to the death beans: why do I actually have them? Well, another reason is for the actual physical purpose, if I chose to eat one for the purpose of dying. That’s the physical purpose of having them in the first place. So, now I want to talk about that a little bit, and a lot of people would say, “Well, isn’t that suicide?” And “Isn’t suicide bad, horrible under all circumstances?” I want to break that down and talk about that a little bit.

First though, I want to share I will not be eating one of these; you don’t have to be worrying about me. Two reasons: One, it turns out, after I learned more about these, this is not an ideal form of choosing death. It’s actually sounds like very excruciating and somewhat long drawn out — maybe a day or a couple of days of extreme pain. I didn’t look at all the details; I didn’t need to look at all the details to know this is not something that I would actually use, except for under a very extreme circumstance, which we’ll talk about.

I’d also like to go ahead and just help to alleviate maybe anyone’s concerns about me out there. I don’t know if you can tell, but I am happy, healthy, and elated to be alive. So you do not have any need to be concerned about me. That would not be an effective usage of your time, energy, or resources to be concerned about me. I have a healthy relationship with life and a healthy relationship with death. You do not need to be concerned about me actually using one of these to kill myself, except under an extreme circumstance, which we’ll talk about.

So for people out there who are saying that choosing to end your life is suicide, I’d like to talk about that for a minute. Suicide is a human-made concept; that’s a concept that has come into existence at some point because of human thoughts. It is not inherent that choosing to end one’s life is suicide, and this goes into the realm of my whole way of existing, which is stepping outside of unquestionable and unquestioned societal norms and societal stigmas.

So just to give a few examples of ending one’s own life that is not suicide that can help to enter this realm: And to give a little preface, the reason that I’m doing this is because so many people were in the comments of that original video saying, like, “Oh, this dude is going to commit suicide,” or that “he’s so casually speaking about suicide.” That’s one of the reasons why this is also important to talk about.

I want to clear that up. So first, two examples that I think are more likely to be understood. First, let’s take the example of a Buddhist monk who, as an act of standing in the strongest way they know against injustice and exploitation and the destruction of our earth, they sit down in a state of peace and they light themselves — or they are lit on fire — they burn to death sitting there unflinchingly in this moment for something that is so deeply important to them, for something that they believe — without probably most, I would imagine, without a doubt — that this is the best way in which they can use their life to serve life.

They are in a state of internal peace; they are in a state of balance, and they are dying by their choice. Is that suicide? For me, that’s very clearly ‘no,’ it’s absolutely not suicide. It is killing themselves; it is ending their life in this way. But it is not suicide. For many people who start to understand that we are not even individual entities, the concept of whether or not we’re actually dying is even questionable, but we won’t get into that at the moment.

Now the other scenario that I would like to talk about is choosing to end one’s life because of the circumstances in which one is living in the body. And so there are many people who choose an assisted death. Now, another example that I think a lot of people would understand would be people that are in their elder years that choose to end their life of their own accord.

And this could be for numerous reasons. It could be because they have a physical condition in which they would be dying soon and would result in an excruciating end-of-life experience. And they could choose to end their life now in a place of balance, in a place of contentedness, in a place of more peace rather than these excruciating last years. It could also be because they don’t believe in using an incredible amount of resources to get those last years of life. Maybe it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and you use lots of resources like chemotherapy in order to keep them alive for just a couple more years.

And they say, you know what? I’m content with my life. I’ve lived a life that I feel beautiful connection with, and I can end it here, and I can be okay with that. This very clearly is not suicide, right? I think almost anybody out there would see that this is not suicide. I think now it doesn’t have to be people who are in their elder years. Some could get a diagnosis at the age of 20 or 30 or 40 and say to themselves, I am not going to one, use these systems of destruction that I don’t support, systems like a lot of the Western healthcare systems. Well, a lot of the elements within the Western healthcare system are a part of systems of incredible destruction of the Earth and exploitation that ultimately take the lives of others.

And there are some people who have a value system that say, I’m not going to exploit others for me to be able to continue this life, whether it’s one year more or 50 years more. So that’s a time when some people would potentially choose to end their life. It could also be more of an access to resources. Let’s say that continuing to live would bankrupt the entire savings and decrease the quality of life for their entire family. That’s a time when the question is: “Does it make more sense?” Is it more in alignment for me to end my life or to continue my life?”

And for a lot of people — for many people — the answer there is to end their life. So these are examples where choosing to end one’s life are not suicide. Another point that I want to share, and this was actually something that really came from listening to Ram Dass this summer, which I would like to mention … if you are looking for resources in exploring death in a very radical way outside of the Western US American societal norms, Ram Dass is a really, really powerful resource for learning. I’ve learned so much from him.

And so this perspective is: One could choose to end their life from a place of aversion or craving. So a place of trying to avoid something; run away from something. From a place of latching onto something or pushing away from, or one could choose to end their life from a place of where they’re peaceful inside, where they are content, where they are in a state of interconnectedness with it all. And those are two very different things.

If I was to label this concept of suicide, I would gravitate towards the concept of suicide gravitating towards the first part, where it’s from an aversion or a craving, an avoidance of suffering, etc. The second part I would not label as suicide, but for me, I’m just not going to label it either way. It just is, and that’s my objective here, to have a more well-rounded exploration of this topic.

So when it comes to suicide, I am not of the belief that ending one’s life is inherently suicide. And bringing it back to some of the comments on that previous video, there were people that actually made comments saying like, “How dare you glorify suicide?” which I hadn’t even talked about suicide. I just have these death beans. But people saying, “You’re putting people at risk! Like people who might be considering suicide are going to see your video and maybe kill themselves.”

And, of course, I take that seriously. However, I don’t agree with that perspective whatsoever. I don’t agree with that perspective at all. Here’s why: because when I’m talking about death, I really don’t think people that are leaning towards committing suicide due to being in such pain and suffering are going to be thinking about that.

I truly believe that by me speaking about life in a way that creates more of an understanding and an openness and an interconnectedness that actually people are less likely, if they’re suffering, to commit suicide, because instead, they’ve actually had an opportunity to look at life in a different way. So I think that people have grouped me into what they’ve seen. They haven’t seen people talking about death in this way, and they have maybe experienced suicide in their life. And I feel deeply for people who have lost someone from suicide. But me speaking about this, I really don’t think that this would lean in that direction. I really don’t, and that’s why I feel comfortable talking about this.

These reasons that I’ve mentioned for choosing to end one’s life, whether it’s that you’re actually — there’s something that’s so meaningful and so valuable that you want to contribute to — that ending your life is the most meaningful and valuable way that you can do that to be of service to humanity — or choosing not to exhaust expansive levels of resources or hold on and latch on to life.

These are reasons that I am very in alignment with myself that I would — that may be a time when I choose to end my life. It’s very possible that in my lifetime I choose to end life on my own terms for these reasons, and that could be at a younger age or it could be at an older age.

Now, there’s one other reason for choosing to end one’s life, and that is the only reason that I would see myself eating one of these death beans. And again, I learned that these are not an ideal way to end life, and so it’s highly unlikely that I would. And there are people who have written me emails to ask, “Is this me saying that this is not an ideal natural form of ending one’s life?”

The other reason that I have these and that make a practical potential usage is under the rare circumstance in which, for example, a war breaks out, and it’s like I’m going to become enslaved by a society where I know that I would live decades of suffering and the alternative would be choosing to end my life. Now that would be the potential circumstances in which I would actually use these.

Now for me, I absolutely want to end my life in a natural way, to have a natural death, not by a chemical poison, not at the hands of a gun, for example, or jumping onto the concrete. For me, there are other ways of ending life that don’t involve the death beans that would be a natural way of returning to the earth. And that’s what I would like to do.

But, if, under the rare circumstance I had to — that the only way that I had to die was that I had this available to me and I could eat it, I didn’t have a cliff to jump off of or a woods to go to or a mountain lion to eat me — then these are here for that. It’s not a likely circumstance. However, we tend to experience this state of normalcy around us and fall into this lull of thought. But when you look at the long-term experience of humanity, it’s one of a lot of chaos, a lot of war, and it’s not unlikely at all in my lifetime that we end up in a situation where society breaks down fully or where some sort of other system — I’ll say a dictatorship for lack of an expanse of words — takes over and decides to fully exploit our society.

And so that’s the reason. That’s the only reason that I really can think of in which I would actually choose to eat one of these death beans. So I would totally understand if some of you out there watching this are thinking, “Wow, this guy is just totally delusional.” I mean, he’s talking about non-delusionalism. And, “This guy’s just totally lost” and, “He’s just totally delusional.” I would understand that.

I hear that perspective, and I accept that you have that. That’s okay. That’s okay if that’s your belief system. That’s completely fine with me. I don’t need you to think anything about me; I’m just sharing my perspective. But I have embraced that I am impermanent. I am impermanent. I came, and I’ll go. It’s as simple as that, and I don’t consider that to be delusional.

I have really not such a level of attachment to my own life. Some people would say, of course you do. That’s delusional. You get to decide what you believe. I decide what I believe, and I know that I am just not nearly as attached to this life. I do believe that there is a time in my lifetime that I may choose to end my life that won’t be suicide — that I will not be doing it from that place. It will, if I ever did, be from a place of a deep understanding and connection with life, from a place of being of service to life, from a place of being in flow with life.

For those out there who are concerned about me, I would take the time to ask yourself, to go inside of your mind and ask why are you really concerned about me? I’m thriving; I’m incredibly happy. It’s not something I necessarily like to say out loud: I’m incredibly happy, because people hear it and then they almost get unhappy with you. They get, you know, “Who is he to be happy?” But I truly am a very, very happy person. I’m very content with life, and yes, of course I have depression. Yeah, we all have depression.

Although I actually take that — I wouldn’t even go so far as to say I experience much depression — just sadness sometimes. We all have sadness. I experience happiness; I experience sadness. I experience a wide range of emotions, and I accept this as a part of life. I love it as a part of life. I can love my pain; I can love my sadness; I can love that I am alive; I can love that I will be dead one day.

So for those of you out there being so concerned, I would ask, what’s your relationship with death? Where is that fear or that anxiety or that stress coming from inside of yourself about your relationship with death? For those who are concerned about this concept, those who are labeling this conversation to be one of suicide, I ask maybe if you want to dive deeper into that question, your thoughts in that area, to just think about your thoughts in that area.

When it comes to this whole area where there are people confusing me with suicide, I think that it’s very simple. It’s that our conversations around assisted death and choosing to end life under different circumstances — there is such a level of taboo; there is such a level of hush-hush about not talking about it, that I’m maybe the only person that they’ve heard talking about this from a personal stance who is in a place of happiness, contentment, and joy. Whereas they have experienced people who are talking about this because they are so depressed and so disconnected that they would die by suicide.

So that’s just a standard psychology of our mind — that we group things together; we fill in the blanks. If we have five experiences with someone ending one’s life and it all being suicide and we see one more, we’re going to assume that’s the case. So this is my welcoming to all of you who are experiencing that — to deprogram your mind, to observe your mind, to self-observe. Two practices that I love for that are Vipassana, which you can read about on my website at robingreenfield.org/vipassana, and nonviolent communication. These are two really helpful practices in letting go and embracing our life.

I’m really grateful to have had this conversation with all of you to share some of my perspective around death and dying, and my relationship with these death beans, which by the way, they’re not actually beans — they’re peas. And I have … oh yeah, how could I not tell you? They’re called Rosary peas, and they grow all over Florida. That’s where I harvested these. They’re considered a weed; they grow all over Florida. They’re very common, there are millions and millions and millions of them.

So this is my holding on to these is merely a manifestation of a plant that’s growing wildly and abundantly all over Florida. So I’m grateful to the Rosary pea, to what I call the death beans, but are actually a pea because they gave this opportunity for us to talk about death. I hope that this has actually helped to bring some peace into you, some critical thought, some self-reflection. And if you’re looking to explore this topic a lot more, I have an article that has a whole bunch of resources that a death doula who I met on my walk from Canada to Los Angeles shared with me.

So if you want to really dive into this, go to that — it’s robingreenfield.org/deathbeans. And in there, you’re going to find a list of resources where you can explore this further. So, and lastly, it turned out that this makes a really joyful musical instrument.

So let’s take three deep breaths together.

I love you very much, dear friends. You are loved.