The proper way to face death?
zenguitar
Bad BuddhistNew England Veteran
Good afternoon, hale and hearty Sangha. Not to put a damper on things, but let's consider the following extreme, highly hypothetical situation: in 5 minutes' time, you will be dead, and you are fully aware of this fact. Faced with this grim and inescapable scenario, what would you do with those last 5 minutes of your life? Would you pray? Meditate? Tell your family you love them? Call your annoying boss and tell him off? And how would this differ from your everyday practice?
I am really curious because I honestly don't know how I would handle this situation. I like to think that when the time comes, I will conduct myself like a real samurai in the face of death. But the realist in me just scoffs because it knows I will probably end up acting more like Woody Allen (but without his sense of humor).
Comments
I do not really understand what is so fictional about it?
With all the certainty we can muster in this life we are all 5 minutes away from death all the time. Or 2 seconds. Take your pick...
There are no guaranties in this life. But most people choose to disregard this simple fact and as you say behave as Woody Allen when the possibility that has been there all along surfaces and becomes tangible.
Crazy in my not so humble opinion. And I am not sorry if I burst any bubbles.
:crazy: .
'POP'
just dies and now alive;
and yet again bang pop, alive again
death is not 5 minutes away, it's just happened again
and where was the pain!
life - death
I'm not being sarcastic here
but there seems to be this widely held belief that the chain of events that you have come to know as your life ENDS
Well
Yes they do in a way,
but a little prep and
step by step
we enter breath by breath
Yes, life is very fragile. I think it's a very good argument for making a will, saying the things that need to be said, doing the things that need to be done, in other words being as prepared as possible for the inevitable.
I think we are discussing the other kind of death @anataman.
. Twack, twack!
You know the kind that people fear mortally?
@SpinyNorman Done and done...kind of. At least I think the spouse and children will be able to live on in the house. The rest is just icing.
>
This is not the right way to approach death.
The right way to approach death is to approach it, minute by minute, breath by breath.
Right Now.
Every minute is one minute closer to you dying.
Every breath in/out, is one breath in/out, less.
Embrace it.
You Are Dying. Right now.
The 'when', is immaterial.
The time to prepare is here.
Oh - it's gone.
Never mind, here comes another moment....
Take tea with Yama every day.
Dammit, have breakfast too.
Double dammit, just give him house-room.
He lives there anyway.
And one day, as he links his arm through yours, and says, "C'mon... let's take a walk...." you will not be able to refuse.
Instead of waiting, put your coat on now.
No idea! Good question though.
Probably curl up in the foetal position on the floor and cry like a baby knowing me!
I'd like to think I'd spend my last 5 minutes enjoying the beauty of the world and remembering all the great times and people in my life.
Or perhaps I'll spend the last 5 minutes screaming in terror as the plane falls out of the sky.
I guess I'll find out eventually.
Me too @Cinorjer, I would run outside so I could die with nothing between me and . . . well, everything. Silly though, how I knee-jerk see the walls of my house as being between me and the world
. Ah, the limitations of human perception. I think I need to tell my children this. Casually, of course.
death is death @victorious so please don't think I'm playing it up or down or for amusement - its the end of the end for the self we regard as ourself!
So the proper way to face death, even in the last 5 minutes if you had an advance warning, is to have lived life as you wanted to!
I'll let you know when the time comes...No wait! it would be too late by then...Oh well....
I would like to think the habitual practice would kick in as I kick the bucket...Being mindful that it's just another experience and being present ie, staying with it moment to moment...
"Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth!"
Pema Chödrön
This short youtube clip by Sadhguru sums it up...
"If you're rooted in reality, there would be no fear!"
No Fear In The Now
Here is how itI'd like it to end for me:
http://www.thezensite.com/ZenBookReviews/Zen_Women.gif
The proper way I am not sure . . . :buck: .
However personally death is treated the same way as if the question was asked like this:
What would you do if you had five minutes more of dying left?
Live perhaps? The ever present option?
In other words I can not count on living or death as being the correct basis for questioning existence.
then don't count on life or death!
@zenguitar
The amount of times that one has sincerely meditated, is the same number of times that one has meditatively faced ones own death.
What is meditation but us practicing the art of not to hanging onto or pushing away..... anything.
Can you think of a better way to greet death.
A much more entertaining possibility as a hope for the manner in which one meets ones death was given by Tyrion Lannister of the Game of Thrones....... but that's a Google moment as I will not be the one to assault some of our more delicate flowers here with it's retelling.
You meditate. The first meditation class I ever took was a Shamatha course. Right off the bat, the teacher told us the purpose of learning to meditate is to prepare for your own death.
In subsequant years I fouund that the Tibetan traditions tend to take death seriously and all offer opportunities for students to get death and dying training - how to die, basically, but also how to attend to the dying. You're encouraged to attend to members of the sangha who are dying in such a way as to surround them in an container of practice. It's really wonderfull/
just like any other day.
But what would I do? I'd visualize my Guru, sitting, cross-legged before me, smiling.
Don't worry about death! None if us will be there to experience it!
Death is an illusion. You can't die!
Hmm not really. Or there would not be all those rebirth threads popping up would there?
The ending of a moment of consciousness and the beginning of the other is one thing that is observable in this lifetime and the end of the carnal body and the beginning of the next is not currently accepted as observable and a totally different deal.
This is evident in the meditation practice as well. Considering the meditation objects of the beginning and passing away of mental formations as opposite to the body as meditation object.
Now if you consider the question of this thread. Which of these two processes do you think it is about?
EDIT: But I think that your way to see things is a good approach to life.
Kindly
Victor
Before becoming awakened, having the above idea is not a good idea, but rather knowing that the only certain thing in our life to happen is that we are going to die - is a helpful idea.
After awakening, there is also no need to think the above idea, as then the things will be seen 'just as they are'.
Figuring out the proper way to face Life keeps me entertained enough, so I'll deal with my own death when the moment comes.
It is already too sad having to deal with one's beloved ones death.
I think the proper way to face death is to live your life skillfully right now. How you live now will have an effect on how you're going to face it when there's only 5 minutes left. When there's only 5 minutes left, that's already too late!
@seeker242,
I agree with you, based on what I hear from my mom telling me a story. The story is about two Buddhist friends. One of them asks other to go to temples, to meditate etc. Basically, he is just asking his friend to walk the path. But the other one gives an excuse of not having enough time and busy with his own life. One day, that friend who postpones pass away and the other one say to himself "You are gone because you have time to do so, friend". Death comes at a time which is unpredictable to us.
I guess the fictional part is that here you know exactly when you will die. Whereas most people do not know that in real life.
Thanks everyone for your great responses...food for thought.
The proper way to face death is the proper way to live life.
It is within the context of life that death is faced.
I'm not sure how anyone can predict how they shall react to every possible situation in life - one can assume in the present based on recollection of the past but until it happens, one cannot know with any more certainty.
Given that the mechanisms of subjective certainty are no longer coherent upon death, the issue seems approachable only in the context of life, being that it is born of the mechanism of this particular experience of life.
Since there is no other option, I figure the proper way to face death is to die.
Pretend that I'm at my workplace. Should be the longest 5 minutes ever.
Say goodbye to my loved ones and then I'd find a nice place to hide the body.
Why not see things as they are now?
I am not the body, I am not the mind. Who dies?
When you go to sleep at night, where do you go? Do you die?
These are questions I ask myself.
I am not waiting for enlightenment as if it's something to achieve.
Everyone teacher tells me we are the deathless, we are already that which is.
What are we waiting for?
Dying is an illusion, why not try and see through it now.
"One hour and then another.
Inexorably march, step by step.
Whenever I meet you, we each smile.
But who is it who drags your corpse around?
~ Chan Master Hsu Yun (Empty Cloud) "
I am not waiting for enlightenment as if it's something to achieve.
What are we waiting for?
That's fine. All well-and-good from the perspective of ultimate truth, but we are beings who live within a relative world and will continue to do so through many more lifetimes until we realize liberation.
This is not the same as an intellectual understanding.
Who dies? YOU die. Your parents dies. Your children die. Your friends die. Your dog dies.
You can rationalize about death and dying and the self all day long, but it won't change a thing. You're still going to die. Even the Buddhaa died.
Yes the person dies, but do YOU die?
Tell your heart to stop, Tell your mind to stop thinking, You can't.
How can that be you? So yes everything will die, but that that is truly who we are never dies. How can awareness die?
People have moments of awakening from all religions all around the world.
Why not you? Why lifetimes? Why not be that which you already are.
You are not the body or the mind, the problem is we feel like we are. The goal is to see through the illusion.
call 911 and watch the show.
But awareness "dies" all the time. It goes from one object of awareness to another. It arises and falls many times in one second.
This is the death anatama spoke of and is described in the Dependent Origination.
I can stop thinking any time I want day or night, that is normal cultivation.
Nobody can wish the heart to stop but it can be slowed (I can), divers slow it for instance. And when the body dies it will stop beating. No? Which was the point.
To top it of this what you are describing is eternalism which is in contrast to Anatta and is explicitly classified as a wrong view in the texts.
Just some food for thought.
Kindly
Victor
Why not you? Why lifetimes? Why not be that which you already are. You are not the body or the mind, the problem is we feel like we are. The goal is to see through the illusion.
The problem is this.
If you try to see the you that does not die, something other than the body and the mind, you are perpetuating the illusion that there is a you that does not die. An eternal soul perhaps. Or that somehow you will recognize yourself after you die.
It doesn't get to the root of the clinging.
What has not been born cannot die. That's us. Nothing was born. Just a temporary self cobbled together by the senses. We are the illusion that sees through itself and finds nothing there.
In the mean time, the whole package is like an illusion that we are all bought into. Pretty hard to not take it for real when the going gets rough. Time and experience will tell if each of us can stay cool when dying time comes for us or our loved ones.
@Victorious and @robot thanks for the words guys,
I agree totally.
At Victorious I think my point with the heart experiment was the lack of ultimate control. Over anything really. The things that die tend to do so by themselves.
Yes you can slow your heart. But you and hear are different in your description. Therefore heart is not you. So heart dying is not YOU dying.
You have awareness of your awareness. Who is that? It's so hard to put these into words.
Do you see what I'm pointing at?
@robot the person who is writing this is going to die, I am trying to kill off the "I" before he dies "tongue in cheek"
At robot, I think you are right with the eternal soul to some degree but it's more important to see through the ego right?
Once the sense of self goes how can there be an eternal soul, there just is that which is.
All I'm trying to point to is a fire burning inside to see through this illusion. I can't find "I" the one which dies can not be found. When in I Amness there is no past or future. Birth is a memory. Death is a concept.
I don't mean to upset people, I am still learning, I don't know anything anymore. The only thing constant is the sense of existence. I can't find i(.ego) I can't find beginning or end.
Obviously I would mourn over anybodies death. Hopefully I die before I die.
My plan too. Death is a good friend.
"The proper way to face death?"
Here we go again...Oh well such is life!
I think I would handle it better that I did the last few hundred(or perhaps few thousand) times...I like to think I'm more prepared this time round...Well....Fingers crossed .
..
I think on this site you are up on the top 5 of people least likely to upset others
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For me I think we are here to learn and also to share. I just wanted to point out something that I think is pretty important on the path and that has helped me a lot. And it also remains one of the most difficult topics to discuss. Much can be misunderstood.
The sense of existence normally feels constant. It is true. But right now I am at a place when being mindfull I can discern individual strands of awareness and the comings and goings on them. And then it appears that the continuity is not continuity but a discrete process. If it is serial or parallel I do not know yet.
Maybe I will change my mind when I progress further. I do not know. But that which I see rimes very well with my understanding of the DO.
Just to let you know. If you have some thoughts and input on this I'll be happy to evaluate it. I am also still learning.
Kindly
/Victor
Without using Pali words and in my limited understanding, it is crucial to see the phenomenal world as process.
Underneath and above the process is another process and this is infinite. There is no core, no beginning and no end that we can see.
Thoughts, feelings, perceptions are clusters of processes. The physical body can be seen in a similar way.
Realizing this is death; the Great Death. I suppose it happens when the process in which we identify ourselves loses its last station and crumbles.
Personally, and I know this isn't exactly Buddhist canon, I consider death to be tantamount to a Final Boss fight that we'll never win. There are no cheat codes or hacks that will help you to cheat death in the end. I'll stick to offering a cup of tea to Yama when that time comes.
Like anything else, death is just nature's way of providing human beings with the fodder of fairy tales.
And just imagine how many different representatives of death must have to be on call to match everyone's different ego preconceptions about life beyond death. I mean has anybody ever heard complaints about Jesus or the Buddha or whoever showing up for the wrong meet & greet beyond deaths door.
My preconception is that** either** we stop supporting our ego's dream of it's own eternal essence and address the cause of our ignorance or
suffering cause will remain our closest friend where ever we are.