When there is full awakened awareness, there is no identification with the body or with conditioned factors of mind…. the body and mind are not-self, so the heart remains serene through all life’s ups and downs, its many psychological births and deaths, triumphs and failures, as well as the ‘big death’ of the body’s ending. As St Teresa of Avila put it when expounding on this same theme: ‘We die before we die so that when we die, we won’t die.’
Ajahn Amaro, What does ‘I am the Way’ mean