Tool for death meditation

fivebells

... there's a new product called Tikker, a wristwatch that counts down your life, so you can watch on a large, dot-matrix display as the seconds you have left on Earth disappear down a black hole.

Your estimated time of death is, of course, just that — an estimate. Tikker uses an algorithm like the one used by the federal government to figure a person's life expectancy. But the effect is chilling, a sort of incessant grim reaper reminding you that time is running out.

DairyLama

Do they do one that counts the total number of future births before I get enlightened?

fivebells

They do, but they couldn't fit the number on the screen.

DairyLama

fivebells said:

They do, but they couldn't fit the number on the screen.

BhikkhuJayasara

My body is getting older, my family members bodies are getting older, their mental faculties are weakening, hair is Grey, back is bent, teeth falling out, skin shriveling, pain increasing.

These are our tools. Death is around us every second of every day. we just refuse to recognize it until we are forced to and have no other choice.

genkaku

In an essay, a Zen teacher once wrote that he wished people in the United States would find a better word than "death" -- a word that often carries with it either the suggestion of completion/loss or inflames the imagination with all sorts of heavenly or hellish or other-worldly scenarios.

The teacher favored, if I remember correctly, the Japanese word "senge" (I think I've got that right but welcome correctives). "Senge" is the word used for a monk's death and means roughly, "to change the place from which the Dharma is spoken." Since the place from which the Dharma is spoken is always changing, the word "senge" seems to carry with it a sense of continuum ... nothing fancy or holy or wise or scary or elevated ... continuum is just continuum. Fearing death and making up stories about what is called the "unknown" is just one expression of fearing life. I guess everyone addresses that issue in his or her own way.

MaryAnne

I heard someone say the word "transition" instead of 'death'.... I kinda like it.
As in: "There will come a day when I will be ready to 'transition' both physically and mentally..."

Yeah. No obvious positive expectations, or negative doom involved.
Just........................ "transitioning".

BhikkhuJayasara

"the act of dying; the end of life; the total and permanent cessation of all the vital functions of an organism."

The definition of death has nothing to do with anything that may happen after, only with this current body and mind.

We have such an aversion to death that goes way beyond coloring gray hair and using anti aging cream.. We dont even like the name and seek to change or lessen it.. So we say silly things like "they passed away" instead of they died.

fivebells

@genkaku, sometimes it's useful to contemplate impending physical aging, illness and death, too, though.

vinlyn

Nothing really that new. There have been online calculators for such for many years. According to one I did several times, I have been dead for several years.

lamaramadingdong

DharmaMcBum

vinlyn said:

Nothing really that new. There have been online calculators for such for many years. According to one I did several times, I have been dead for several years.

So this is actually your next incarnation? Technically :thumbsup:

vinlyn

DharmaMcBum said:

vinlyn said:

Nothing really that new. There have been online calculators for such for many years. According to one I did several times, I have been dead for several years.

So this is actually your next incarnation? Technically :thumbsup:

Whew, that was close. I could have come back "born again".