Came across a quote by Epicurus this weekend that I think matches the spirit of Zen and Buddhist notions of impermanence:

...death is nothing to us. For all good and evil consists in sensation, but death is deprivation of sensation. And therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not because it adds to it an infinite span of time, but because it takes away the craving for immortality. For there is nothing terrible in life for the man who has truly comprehended that there is nothing terrible in not living. [Death] does not then concern either the living or the dead, since for the former it is not, and the latter are no more... That which gives no trouble when it comes, is but an empty pain in anticipation.
Gassho,
Matt