Key points

Listening deeply to the dying honors their journey into a frontier that we will all eventually enter.

Systematic curiosity respects the experience of death and deepens our understanding.

Document exactly what the dying report, without immediate judgment or interpretation.

Sergei Rachmaninoff lies dying in his Beverly Hills home. Family and friends surround him, the room suffused with that particular stillness that often accompanies life's final hours. Then something unexpected occurs. The composer opens his eyes and asks those present: "Can you hear this beautiful melody? The enormously beautiful music?"

The response from those at his bedside is immediate: "No, there's no music here."

Rachmaninoff insists: "Yes, but can't you hear this beautiful melody? It's so..."

They m

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