[Skybird]

Originally Posted by mapuc

I will say thank you a lot, for your answers in my thread and especially thank you to Skybird.

Fear or worried is not the correct word when it come to death itself. I know that death is one thing that is very certain in our life.
The only thing I'm worried about is how will I die. Will I be in severe pain weeks before death comes at take me or will I die right on spot, not feeling anything.

My grandma died of Cancer in her stomach and was, despite painkiller in severe pain weeks before she died-That is something I hope will not happen to me and if it does, I hope they have better treatment today then they had when she lived and died.

Or as the elderly man who, day before Christmas fainted and died on spot while he was walking on boardwalk. he was hit by what the paramedics called acute cardiac arrest. Of course it's a sad story when you think about the day he died on.

Another thing was. I didn't just had some thoughts about death and then posted here in our GT.

I had some thoughts around it. If I post a new threads about death, will it turn into a religious discussion.

It didn't and that I'm thankful for.
My thread shall be seen more like a psychological discussion people have about death and what they may be worried about.

Markus

Markus,
again I see it a bit stoical there. Is it worth to be worried by something that you cannot avoid: that is the circumstances of your dying? You will die the way you do when your time has come, and nobody can tell you in advance what it will be like. The issue must not concern you, because what will be - will be, and the time until then will be of the same length, no matter whether you spend it worrying, enjoying life, laughing, or fearing.

Also,and I do not say this easymindedly, you owe nobody to suffer to full lengths what awaits you, you are always free to prepare yourself while you have time left, and if fate does not knock you out and render you helplessly all of a sudden, you have any right a born being can have to decide yourself when and how to leave the show on stage. Nobody has any claim for you, you can decide freely - I just recommend to not decide for it easily and too early - but then, also not too late. Some will say this is cowardly, or weak, or that it is against any god's law, and that we must fight until last breath, and bla and bla and blablabla, on, but you are not competing in a sports championship, it is not them living your life but yourself is living your life, and it is your pain and suffering if there will be pain and suffering, and finally there have been many cultures and traditions where the dishonour lies not "opting out early", but in holding out until the last breath possible, showing no courage to discover the "undiscovered country". I claim this right for myself, and thus I must accept and will it for others as well. I urge you only to not form final decisions of this kind in any state of emotional arousal, may it be positive or negative, may it be enjoyment of anger, fear or hate. Decide such things with a clam and peaceful, balanced mind.

Personally I live with the prospect of most likely going early, due to health issues. I decided that the likely natural end will be such that it means only misery and a pityful sight, and so I claimed this my birth right to leave one day by my decision, self-determined. Believe it or not, but I live freer since then, since accepting that, I lost quite some sorrows and found greater freedom from others' claims for my acts and responsibilities. Its a tricky balance, however, for when I wait too long, I may get struck and then being so helpless that I cannot carry out what I want, and the others will not help me to do so: the older I get, the riskier the gamble to wait longer becomes. Well, so is life. There are no certainties, but even the dying does not last forever.

I think we modern people in the West have a very pathological relation to death, and it does not serve us well, nor is there dignity in it. We run away and pretend to be young, and behave like younger people - that we are no more since long. That is very immature, imo, and is a life driven by fear, fear of death and fear to miss something. But our life will never be complete, and there will always be a plethora of things that we miss and will not finish. One wave shows up and disappears, or it simply turns into another wave that it meets, opens up in it, or the ocean just flattens out for a moment.

Its all just one, Markus, and time is only a function of the mind: t=f(m). Its an illusion. The things being, the experience of ours, do happen, we notice it for sure: but they show us unreal imagery only that we cannot really own, or hold, or even just touch. To me, it all is a dream that dreams itself, its all one circle, or better: one point, without anything second. We dream this conception of energy, and like freezing water turns into snow and ice, this lended energy for a limited sequence in this dream's ever running images condensates into a more solid format, making it the matter of things and the word being. But when the sequences is over, we have to give it back , and the million things vanish again into the never-ending flow of the images. Some people may have fear of this and think they can save themselves by trying to stop this, trying to grab the images they associated with their life, their "self": but we are not the images, nor is our life the images: its is the images moving on, that is what life is. Hang to your life, therefore means loosing it.

Thus my advise to you is: take note of your worries and concerns, but do not hang on to them, let them flow on and watch them come and go. Do not desire to speed them up or to slow them down, do not emotionally react. The flowing pictures is the nature of our mind, there is no sense in seeking calm places and wishing for a contemplatory lifestyle, or meditating in quiteness without moving and trying to bring the flowing images in your mind to a standstill. In Zen they call this misled understanding of spiritual practice the trap of the dead void. And many people fall for it, believe me, I had to deal with this a lot (I taught meditation for 15 years and counseled on spiritual crisis and questions). A good teacher will notice it and will not let his student get away with that, and do anything needed to crash him and get him out of that false understanding of "meditation": its only a lifeless standstill where the air becomes stale and the brain starts rotting and turning green and black. There were occasions where I turned extremely rude just to break into and shattering the cosy nest somebody had created for his dozing mind (twice I even hit people ). There is no pardon, not when it comes to life or death! An enlightenment that only lasts in the stillness of one's own cabin or the meditation hall, but fades when turning for the noise and dirt and stress and action of the "world", is no enlightenment at all, but just another dream of the last night that fades when the sun goes up. Beware teachers wanting to lure people into spiritual practices and secluded lifestyles! There is nothing that can be gained by that, and there is no different kinds of mind, freedom, there is no separation between profane and sacral, there is nothing "holy".

Live on your life and do not mind for what your end may look like, Markus. You have all the present moment there is, and there is nothing beyond that: for what you remember to have been, is no more, and you remember it only in the present, and what you fear or hope for, is not yet, and you hope for it or fear it in the present. It is not so much the things that troubles our minds, but our expectations of them. Answers find him who is open and ready for them, and who is not, can ask as much as he wants, they will avoid him. You cannot be early and you cannot be late. You can only be right on time.


25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:25-34)


Bon voyage, Markus. This quest is for you. Avoid it, and you will regret it. Take on it, and you might get delightfully surprised.