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What **really** scares you?
anataman
Who needs a title?Where am I? Veteran
At the moment of your death, what is the worst thing that you could possibly imagine?
Seriously...
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The feeling when I hold my breath and panic to breath.
But what is it about that feeling of holding your breath that is so scary that you panic to breathe?
Try it right now and you will feel it.
I have done it and it becomes very uncomfortable, but I know that I can put myself in a situation where I can breathe. Now put me in a situation where someone is stopping me from breathing and I might well be in a panic-stricken state. But is that the worst thing you can imagine?
Hmmm...most frightening. I feel it is intentional ignorance.
The future.
Darn, I didn't read your post properly; what thought frightens me most at my time of death? Will my family be okay without me?
Is it what I imagine then at the time of the death? Or is it what I imagine and fear right now in contemplation? @anataman
More to the point: To be frightened at death, one must fear death. Before I began to practice Buddhism, I feared life and death as I understood neither. If I were to have a great fear, it would be to have a lack of appreciation for life and the cycle which is life and death.
It is a contemplation, as right now you are alive. But I am asking you really about the thoughts (and emotions) that might arise when you think about the moment of your death and that might concern you.
That's very close to the point that I'm getting at...
its a diffrence between fear of death and fear of pain. When you are dead you are dead, thats ok, and a wonderfull place to be I belive. People in near death experiences are always telling its a nice place to be (they are on the edge between two worlds), and its a bright light coming towards them, and they can see family members welcoming them to the "new world".
If is it true or not, I dont know.
But right before your death it can cause a lot of pain. Pain is part of life.
Worst thing that can happen beofre you die? You are full of drugs and dont know nothing.
I don't look forward to the suffering of death, but I know that has a beginning and an end. It is passing. As far as being dead I love life and I want to be here. But if I can't be here then either I will reincarnate or I will 'be at peace' in non-feeling. If I go to heaven that'd be cool, but not too keen on going to hell. If I reincarnate somewhere in between then just make the best of it.
My dad says he hates obituaries how they say "Jeffrey left to be with his heavenly father". He says he wants his to say "Jeffrey left his heavenly home to be dead".
I think people are afraid of going to hell, Iam! Because we dont know, its uncertain what happens, thats the scary thing.
I guess like most fishermen I fear falling off the boat and watching it running away from me. It's happened enough times so I know that guys have suffered it, but I've never talked to someone who survived to tell the tale.
I talked to a guy the other day who had survived drowning three times. He said that it's pretty easy when the time comes. Not painful.
It depends, drowning is maybe not so painfull? But being burned alive in a jail by the Islamic State, like the pilot from Jordan, that have to hurt. Not so much you can do about the situation.
To find myself in the afterlife that the Maitlands did in the movie Beetlejuice.
Very painful for sure. I hope his suffering was short.
I'm thankful that there is no possibility of that ever happening to me.
Maybe having someone around me who'd ask me this question at the moment of my own death.
Yeah, like a news reporter or a therapist asking, "How does that make you feel?"
Maybe the scariest thing at death could be not being ready to die... in other words, not being ready to completely let go. I think that would cause the biggest mental suffering (although I can think of lots of horrible things that would cause physical suffering at death - many of them are mentioned above).
We tend to pretend it doesn't happen often and when it does happen it's a tragedy.
When it's obvious we are all going to die, could even be today.
So let's get all our affairs and attachments In order !
With metta
Oh no not again
Carrying on living.
My only fear would be to leave this world before my son is ready to live without me.
Or knowing that my beloved ones will be suffering.
Otherwise, I fear nothing.
If I am born, I must pass away.
If I don't see death coming and it takes me by surprise that will suck but it's another reason to be mindful.
I guess I'll know what scares me most when I get there.
This requires speculation squared.
First to speculate about an unknown future event and then upon that speculation to speculate a subjective speculation.
I stand corrected - speculation cubed.
Seriously....
The party's over. Seriously. We are not here just to feel and face the shitty emptiness.
To answer @ Zero first:
Fear is something we all can experience now. It is a fact that we have been/are ignorant of the life-death cycle for most of our lives as we have been indoctrinated with a view that death is 'bad'. (good-bad cycles are essential for us to exist in our current situation, but at some point it must be realised they are one and the same and neither - I refer you all to the keg on if you can be bothered!).
To take this to the next level beyond speculation cubed requires another dimension of thought which brings me to bring you into the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers - like the square root of -1 which is i (...\lol/...).
It's denoted little i because to be a multi-dimensional being (let's speculate that that might be something we might call 'I' Big I that gives BIG THOUGHTS that might become bigots at the periphery, especially if they are a little deaf to everything thats happening all at once everywhere and everyplace... Hmmm
Anyway to answer @Pöljä now:
What is so shitty about being empty? And I dismiss the soteriologistic view - the philosophical view of saving everyone and everything! Seriously? You can't have concepts like being saved and heaven and hell littering the purity of the saviour! Think about it?
Thanks for the stimulation and debate. I am alive! Yeah! and so are YOU...
Back to the retreat...
x
Me too @iamthezenmaster, me too!
Seriously?
Messing myself.
I hate to tell you, but it's highly likely you will.
It happens, most - if not all - the time....
yep - but it'll be the first time I won't be able to do s_ _ t about it!
now, even if unintentional - that's funny.....
Reverting to Catholicism...
It's amazing how many people who have been atheists and theosophists -I have a friend in this group- all their lives, all of a sudden revert to Catholicism on their deathbeds.
Going to Heaven sounds better than having one's skandhas shred apart in the ether?
"Bless me father, for I have sinned, it has been 45 years since my last confession so we may be here for some time....."
Seriously....
So, the point is this: I'm living a life I believe is being lived well, or reasonably well as I see it from a relatively UK objective (lol) viewpoint. The media shows me lives, the circumstances of which I could only dread. I'm not just talking about barbaric beheadings in front of children in war-torn parts of the world, nor the excesses of depraved politicians indulging themselves in children in the past - both of which I find deplorable, but there is the potential slow and painful end with cancer, or the slow increasing forgetfulness of Alzheimers (something my children witnessed recently with their 86 year-old great grandmother, who could not remember my wife nor me and was hitting out at them and being verbally abusive...)
The world contains many polarised points of views of the meaning of a human life. But if it does have any significant meaning, what underlies it is scary!
But in a controversial opposition, that scary being is probably just all in my mind... Isn't it?
Even if there's nobody else around to commiserate with or get a hug, the love we know is there in the others if they knew what we've been through has the potential to avert the scaries. (If that makes any sense)
I've looked at this thread so many times, and I just cannot wrap my head around it. I guess maybe because I've already almost been there —not in the moment, but in the final weeks. It was nothing of a lethal nature. I was just laid up in constant pain and agony awaiting a back surgery. I remembered and anguished over nearly every misdeed of my life. It was so wretched, so scary, and so unending —like Hell.
Anyhow, as I'll never be able to answer this question while still living, I'll choose the runner up: Either someone jumping out in front of my car when I'm going too fast to stop or, worse, if it was my fault. Now that scares me much more than any thoughts I'd have right before I flew the coop.
@Nirvana I hope the surgery goes well for you. My wife had major back surgery a couple of years back, and has done well, and as an affected observer it wasn't pleasant to experience...
Leaving my wife (and four legged family) behind with no-one to take care of them, I'm a full time carer (as well as working full time) and our babies are all rescue animals.
My thought on death is whatever happens or doesn't I'm not really bothered but I need to know they're taken care of.
(I also worry that I use brackets too much!)
I tend to use euphemisms, aphorisms, allegorisms (probably created a new word there) and poieses too much as well, but without being bracketed it probably all adds up to an educated geis in the end...
...\lo/...
Rather ego-driven, but just prior to death, where it to happen right now and I knew it was happening would be "No! My kids need their mother. They are not ready for life without me." That comes from 2 of them already having lost their father and seeing the effect it has had on them. We have so much more life to journey together, the thought of losing that is terrifying to me. When we are separated and we or they are traveling, it's very stressful for me. Though I am not afraid to fly, I had random thoughts while we were on our recent trip (we all flew together for a vacation) of "well, at least if our plane wrecks in a giant fireball, we all die together and none of us has to suffer without the other." It was quite comforting to realize that, so I wasn't afraid of anything bad happening. When my husband and I are going somewhere without the kids, I am always afraid we will die and leave them without parents and it's quite stressful and anxiety-inducing for me.
Outside of the moment of death experience, my biggest fear is telling everyone who I love about some big idea I have, and then having it not work out. Letting people down is my worst living fear. So I stay quite private and share very little about my plans and dreams, even with my parents or my sister, because the thought of sharing it and then having it not happen is scary.
I'm an atheist till the day I die! ..........then I'm open to offers
Fortunately God is very patient.