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defying death
genkaku
Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
Of possible general interest was this Washington Post article passed along in email by a friend today.
Gazillions of dollars are apparently being thrown at extending life and/or defeating death. The implications -- should the wish come true -- are enormous.
My feeling about the article was that if you cannot adequately and precisely identify the alleged problem -- "death" -- then any solution is likely to be fuzzy at best. But that's just me.
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Comments
4NT & 8FP isn't fuzzy.
While identity is god, suffering will be your life's due, no matter how long or short that life is.
If identity is transcended, then deathlessness offers sufferings cessation.
Hmmmm What to choose?
@how -- Are you implying that the aim of Buddhism is to defeat death?
Where the ego sees death as it's defeat, the deathlessness that Buddhism offers is showing that this ego was no more alive, to be able to die, than a dream is.
Life & death being two passing moments in time with no individual to defeat either.
@how -- I repeat, are you implying that the aim of Buddhism is to defeat death? I'd be interested in what you think.
I agree with you. Death is usually seen with fear — perhaps because it is unknown —, and what is seen with fear must be avoided, and ultimately, defeated.
** No!**
Why do think what I wrote is not what I think?
If I am missing some nuance of your question, please rephrase it.
Birth, old age, disease &** death** results in pain.
Our rejection of that pain is sufferings cause.
Buddhism shows the way to transcend sufferings cause, not by defeating birth, old age, disease and death, but by not being attached to them.
Here you can then ask what is death/ what really dies, just as you should ask what is defeat and what is really defeated?
This is not regurgitated scripture. This is simply a current meditative observation.
While I realize the motivation for all this research is based on attachment, does it not offer the potential to alleviate much suffering?
I agree @genkaku the implications of immortality or vastly extended life spans are enormous.
Addressing what constitutes a life worth living will become an issue. Interesting times.
"Death" is not the problem.
How we deal with the unavoidable reality of "death" is the problem.
Or how attached we are to life.
Identities view of death is just karma's paean of ignorance.
It is like asking where a song goes when we stop singing it.
Associatively ...
-- My teacher's teacher, Soen Nakagawa Roshi, once commented during a Zen retreat: "There is birth and there is death. In between, there is enlightenment."
-- The English Buddhism writer, Christmas Humphreys, once observed approximately: "The opposite of 'life' is not 'death.' The opposite of 'death' is 'birth.' The opposite of 'life' is 'form'."
-- From a purely personal point of view that comes out of Buddhist practice, I would say that one of the great favors that a Buddhist practice bestows is that it is impossible to lead a complete and relaxed life that recoils from or fails to investigate or declines to live in the realm of death. As a way of speaking, death is life and life is death ... sort of like the old ice and water metaphor.
In "The Dhammapada," the Buddha is said to have said, "All fear dying./ All fear death." Buddhist practice lends a hand with the matter of living a less fearful life.
Just a little noodling.