Dying with Confidence: Contemplating impermanence

From Anyen Rinpoche's book, Dying With Confidence, come these practices for creating a Dharma Vision for ourselves.

Contemplate Impermanence from the Outer Point of ViewReflect on how your outer environment has changed during the past year. Recall how the seasons changed: how the plants, flowers, and trees transformed over time; how the daylight increased and decreased. Think about it both in your own personal living environment and throughout the globe as well. Think about the natural catastrophes that occurred around the world. Reflect on all the births and deaths of people, animals, and insects. Allow the enormity of these changes to reach you on the deep level until you feel with certainty that not even one thing remained the same.

Contemplate Impermanence from the Inner Point of ViewImagine yourself as a small baby. See the physical changes you have gone through until now. Sometimes looking at photos of yourself from childhood to the present can be a poignant way to examine your own physical impermanence. Look at the transformation that has occurred in you physically. Then think about your physical being from last year until now, from last month until  now, from yesterday until today. See that your body is changing even from moment to moment.

Contemplate Impermanence from the Secret Point of ViewReflect on the wild  nature of your own mind. Remember yourself as a child and how your intelligence developed over time. Look at how your  mind changes moment by moment as it fills with entertaining distractions or follows after different sensory experiences. Contemplate how you are constantly transforming mentally and how the mind is also impermanent.

Contemplate the Impermanence of Things to Which You Are AttachedIf you are attached to material objects in the world around you, reflect on their changing nature. If you are attached to a person, reflect on him or her growing old and dying. Actually envision his or her physical and mental changes. If you are attached to your own life, as we all are, go through your body from the ends of the hair on your head to the tips of your toes and try to find anything that is lasting or permanent in your body. Do a very thorough examination, looking from outside to inside to see if you can find anything that is unchanging. Do this until you are confident that you, too, are actually going to die, and that you cannot hold onto this life forever.