Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Sign In Register
Examples: Monday, today, last week, Mar 26, 3/26/04
Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.

For those who fear death

TreebeardTreebeard
edited August 2006 in Buddhism Basics
There may be something after death, there may be nothing, I don't know. But think of it this way; A forest is a forrest, and a thousand years later we'll still call it the same forest, even though non of the original trees inhabit it. But the forest continues to exist, and the trees don't care, because they have no ego. The ego will make you believe, whether you know it intellectually or not, that your existence is the only existence. When the only means of percieving the world is through your own eyes, it is impossible to percieve existence when you are dead, and the mind cannot therfore comprehend existence continueing on when your own brain doesn't see it. The illusion of self is what truely frightens us.

I've had some radical changes in perspective on life lately, and have now come to understand things through a more taoist view as well. maybe I'm a taoist-buddhist, maybe I'm nothing, I'm not particularily concerned about it and I don't particularily care for a title right now. But I've been realizing lately that taoism and buddhism seem to be seeking the same universal truth through different perspectives, and I've been seeing the wisdom in both more and more now. Hence, i came to this perspective on death lately, and I thought I'd share it with you all since I'm sure everybody has thought of death and worried about it at some point.

There is a flow to the world, a harmony between all life, just let go and be part of it.

Comments

  • not1not2not1not2 Veteran
    edited April 2006
    A quote from Ram Das (though I'm not sure its origins):
    There are two waves drifting along in the ocean, one a bit bigger than the other. The bigger wave suddenly becomes very sad and upset. The smaller wave asks what's wrong. "You don't want to know," the bigger wave says. "What is it?" the small wave asks. "No - really - it's too terrible. If you knew what I knew, you'd never be happy." The small wave persists. Finally the big wave explains: "You can't see it, but I can see that, not too far from here, all of the waves are crashing on the shore. We are going to disappear." The small wave says," I can make you happy with just six words, but you have to listen very carefully to them." The big wave doesn't believe it -- what does the small wave know that he doesn't -- but he's desperate. After a while of doubting and mocking the small wave, the big wave finally gives in, and asks the small wave to tell him. And so the small wave says: "You're not a wave, you're water."


    _/\_
    metta
  • not1not2not1not2 Veteran
    edited April 2006
    and this snippet from Deepak Chopra on the same link:
    The fear of death is the fear of the unknown, and yet, the fact is, we live and breathe and move in the unknown all the time. The unknown is from this moment onwards—you're already living there. You have the pretend game that you're living in the known, but the known doesn't exist anymore, it's already gone. Everything you know is about the past. So you have to both intellectually and experientially be willing to embrace uncertainly, ambiguity, and step into the unknown. The known is a prison of past conditioning. The unknown is always a fresh field of possibilities.

    _/\_
    metta
  • dawnmike_239dawnmike_239
    edited April 2006
    Even the concept of death is misleading from a Taoist/Buddhist point of view. What exactly is there to be a end of?
    Mike
  • MakarovMakarov Explorer
    edited April 2006
    For those who fear death? Hmmm, well...I can honestly say that I do not fear death but I DO fear HOW I will die. Death will eventually get us all and I have accepted this fact despite having no desire to die anytime soon. It's HOW I meet my end that I fear. I guess like most of us I hope I will go peacefully in my sleep or at least without much pain and in the company of those I love.
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    edited April 2006
    Makarov wrote:
    .....I DO fear HOW I will die. Death will eventually get us all and I have accepted this fact despite having no desire to die anytime soon. It's HOW I meet my end that I fear. ...... hope I will go peacefully in my sleep or at least without much pain and in the company of those I love.

    I do not even fear this, because it is in these moments (assuming one is conscious and aware ) that one can be completely awake and Mindful of the transitory nature of this lump of aggregates.... Dying - and all it entails - is the perfect opportunity to practise everything we have to date put our effort into...
    Ask Brigid how pain helps her focus her mind wonderfully.... How her discomfort and difficulty is the very flagship by which she is guided in her meditation and Awareness....

    You are dying Now. Right now. Nano-second by nano-second... Are you at Peace, both inwardly AND outwardly? Are you in Pain, physically or mentally? Are you in the company of those you love? Are you asleep? Or are you Awake.....?

    Because if you cannot answer yes to those questions now, then what are you waiting for?
    "will die" and Eventually" just don't cut it,: it's no good projecting to a visualised 'then'....the important, is NOW.
  • twobitbobtwobitbob
    edited April 2006
    Hi mr-devious, all

    following your post about the fear of death i just wanted to ask you a question or two.

    i too am somewhere between buddhism and taoism, and though on an intellectual i know such lables are meaningless i feel i need to choose just one of these paths.

    i still struggle at the first noble truth - some say all existence is suffering (samsara is all of existence including the serene bits, right?), while others say life contains suffering. At the moment i see more truth in the latter, which is why i guess taoism appeals to me. It does not seem to deny simple pleasures, like listening to music, which ordained buddhists free themselves of (is to deliberately go out to listen to music the same as attachment to music or is denying yourself such pleasures attachment to a particular practice?)

    i'm not sure if it's just my Western mind looking for a compromised version, my own version, of buddhism but some of the stricter followings that buddhism requires seems like an attempt to remove oneself from the world (is this the same as removing oneself from samsara?). Taoism, however, seems to me to suggest a fundamental connection with the world - one that cannot be severed (though maybe forgotten).

    Forgive my ramblings, as you can tell i'm still a little confused, and i apologise mr-devious if i have hijacked your thread but you provided the catalyst for these thoughts.
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    edited April 2006
    TwoBB....
    It's important to remember that the word 'Dukkha' may well be translated, principally, as 'Suffering' but that other translations or interpretations have variously given it as 'unsatisfactory, hard-to-bear, off the mark, frustrating and up-and-down.
    So I think you are right to consider that Life is suffering some of the time...

    Remember that the Second Noble truth elaborates upon the first...It gives a reason... and the reason is that we grasp, we cling, to wanting the good to be permanent, and the desire to eliminate the negative.. to make it IMpermanent... the aversion of the second Noble Truth is the aversion to the reality that everything, without exception, is transitory.

    If you decide to become an ordained Monk in a specific tradition, there are sacrifices to be made, but these would be explained to you... But even then, there's no point being 'anal' about it... The wonderful tale of the two monks travelling together, one of whom helps a lady in distress to cross a river (thereby breaking the rule of abstention from physical contact with a female) is a classic example... His companion berates him, hours later, for the 'faux pas' to which he responds... "Good grief, Bert! I put her down ages ago! You still got her on your shoulders, man?!?" (It may not have gone quite like that, but you get the gist - !)

    The West will always give you a version of Buddhism that is prevalent in the West, and practised in a way that the West practises and learns Buddhism. it can be no other way.
    If you were to travel to the East, you might witness Buddhism being practised differently... but that is not to say that one is good, the other bad, that one is right, the other wrong. Application of the Kalama sutra will be of utmost value to you.....
  • contactcontact
    edited August 2006
    If you look at the first sentence of the tao te ching it reads something like this: the tao distinguished is not the tao. An identical statement can be found in the abhidhamma. This is why the two are so much alike.
  • MagwangMagwang Veteran
    edited August 2006
    mr-devious wrote:
    ...think of it this way; A forest is a forrest, and a thousand years later we'll still call it the same forest, even though non of the original trees inhabit it. But the forest continues to exist, and the trees don't care, because they have no ego.

    Take a closer look at your forest, mr-devious. You have a lot in common with it.

    The "forest" you see is no more than arising (sprouting) and falling (decomposing) elements called trees, which themselves also consist of elements all dependent on previous conditions to arise.

    The forest has no intrinsic self, is empty of anything permanent, and arguably, suffers.

    All dharmas are like this, including your mind.


    ::
Sign In or Register to comment.