Tibetan Buddhism places a particularly strong emphasis on instructions concerning death, and Tibetan literature is full of admonitions to be aware of the inevitability of death, the preciousness of the opportunities that a human birth presents, and the great value of mindfulness of death. A person who correctly grasps the inevitability, of death becomes more focused on religious practice, since he or she realizes that death is inevitable, the time of death is uncertain, and so every moment counts.
An example of this attitude can be found in the biography of Milarepa, who began his meditative practice after having killed a number of people through black magic. The realization of his impending death and the sufferings he would experience in his next lifetime prompted him to find a lama who could show him a way to avert his fate. His concern with death was so great that when he was meditating in a cave his tattered clothes fell apart, but he decided not to mend them, saying, "If I were to die this evening, it would be wiser to meditate than to do this useless sewing."
This attitude epitomizes the ideal for a Buddhist practitioner, according to many teachers. Atisha is said to have told his students that for a person who is unaware of death, meditation has little power, but a person who is mindful of death and impermanence progresses steadily and makes the most of every precious moment. A famous saying of the school he founded, the Kadampa, holds that if one does not meditate on death in the morning, the whole morning is wasted, if one does not meditate on death at noon, the afternoon is wasted, and if one does not meditate on death at night, the evening is wasted.
--from Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, by John Power
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