Maraṇasati (mindfulness of death, death awareness) is a Buddhist meditation practice of remembering (frequently keeping in mind) that death can strike at anytime (AN 6.20), and we should practice assiduously appamada and with urgency in every moment, even in the time it takes to draw one breath. Not being diligent every moment, is called negligence by the Buddha (AN 6.19). In the Earliest discourses of the Buddha, the term Maranasati is only explicitly defined twice, in those two suttas AN 6.19 and AN 6.20. Later Buddhist schools have expanded the meaning of maranasati to include various visualization and contemplation techniques to meditate on the nature of death. The cultivation of Maranasati is said to be conducive to right effort and also helps in developing a sense of spiritual urgency (Saṃvega) and renunciation (Nekkhamma). Theravada Buddhism Mindfulness of death is a common practice in Southeast Asian Buddhist monasteries. Buddhist monasteries such as Wat Pah Nanachat will often have human skeletons on display in the meditation hall. In the Pali Canon The Satipatthana Sutta (MN: 10) and the Kayagata-sati Sutta (MN: 119) include sections on the cemetery contemplations which focus on nine stages of corpse decomposition (Pali: nava sīvathikā-manasikāra). These are: A corpse that is "swollen, blue and festering." A corpse that is "being eaten by crows, hawks, vultures, dogs, jackals or by different kinds of worms." A corpse that is "reduced to a skeleton together with (some) flesh and blood held in by the tendons." A corpse that is "reduced to a blood-besmeared skeleton without flesh but held in by the tendons." A corpse that is "reduced to a skeleton held in by the tendons but without flesh and not besmeared with blood." A corpse that is "reduced to bones gone loose, scattered in all directions." A corpse that is "reduced to bones, white in color like a conch." A corpse that is "reduced to bones more than a year old, heaped together." A corpse that is "reduced to bones gone rotten and become dust." The Satipatthana Sutta instructs the meditator to reflect thus: 'This body of mine, too, is of the same nature as that body, is going to be like that body, and has not got past the condition of becoming like that body.' According to the Maranassati Sutta (2) a monk should reflect on the many possibilities which could bring death and then turn his thoughts to the