How do you to get over the fear of death?

[Shoki]

Hi Mr. K,

Awesome questions! Here's how I feel about it:

Oh, well, life and death are easy. Look all around you, look to the natural world, all the answers are right there, out in the open. There is no beginning, no end, only transformation, only flowing. All in accordance, all in balance, all moving and becoming, arising and passing and transforming together as a whole. Do you also fear the growth of grass, or the bee making honey, the stars shining, or the dry leaves on the ground becoming soil? There is no death.

When the moment comes to “die”, your only task is to breathe out one last time. You already know how to do this. You can just let this body go. It's ok. It was never yours anyway. Death takes care of itself. If you want to worry about something, worry about your birth! How do you get over the fear of life? Have you come to peace with your birth, have you made the proper provisions for your life? Do you know what happens after you are born? Is there a real life after birth? What will your place in it be?


Stop resisting and the fear vanishes. Fear = resistance. In the case of aging, resistance is truly futile. Embrace your life and live it, as it is, making the best of things as you go.


Buddhist ideas and Zen ideas are not the truth. They only point to the truth. Yes, they help if you use them to look deeply and see the truth about life and death.

Gassho
Lisa
sat today

Raindrop, Your comment about worrying about your birth and the getting over the fear of life sums it all up. It really struck me. Thanks.

Gassho
Sat Today
James

[Kokuu]

Hi all

I had no fear of death until it became rather more present. Tibetan Buddhist practice has many meditations on death which I have done numerous times in the spirit of Milarepa:

"In horror of death I took to the mountains, and meditated on the uncertainty and the hour of death. Now capturing the fortress of deathless, unending nature of mind, all fear of death is done and over with."

Intellectually, I understand death and impermanence but now my body is failing the presence of death is much more real. I don't fear the moment of death but, for me, it is the progressive deterioration of my body that is scary. Perhaps this is indicative of the immature state of my practice but I have found that the reality of progressive illness is far different to the notion I may die someday. Breathing in, breathing out, the fear is present and I live (and die) with that. Fearing death, not fearing death, both are part of life. No pat answers here from one in an advanced state of physical illness but much compassion for all those staring death in the face.

Gassho
Kokuu

[Tb]

How do you to get over the fear of death?
How do you to get over the fear of became old?

Can we help using Buddhist idea and Zen idea?

Hi.

Difficult questions, and i believe it is up to each one, individually, to find their own way over that hurdle.

Personally i have no fear either of doing or getting old, Its all part of life, Its all good practice.
That being said, what i do fear Around those issues is the problem, and in a sense, the hardship, of me doing those things to others Around me and what they have to face.
And yes, i know, silly me, thinking of others in these issues, but do remember the Buddha did the same when he awoke and saw the dukkha in others....

Thank you for your practice.

Mtfbwy
Fugen

#Sat2day

[Kokuu]

Hi all

An interesting radio programme (which I think can be listened to outside of the UK) with a conversation about the process of death from long-term illness with a palliative care consultant: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06nnqlj

Also available as a download here:http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018...odes/downloads

Gassho
Kokuu

[Mp]

Hi all

An interesting radio programme (which I think can be listened to outside of the UK) with a conversation about the process of death from long-term illness with a palliative care consultant: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06nnqlj

Also available as a download here:http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018...odes/downloads

Gassho
Kokuu

Thank you for the link Kokuu. =)

Gassho
Shingen

#sattoday

[Jyukatsu]

I was very fortunate to be present with both my parents when they left their bodies ( 2004 & 2013 ) A miracle really, as I live in Canada and they lived in Holland and somehow, on both occasions, I knew when it was time to step on that plane.
both times I was given 10 days to be with them and care for them as they made that transition. To be present when they breathed their last breaths was an amazing gift, the gift that there is nothing to fear.......and I can only compare it to the experience of giving birth to my children : THE GREAT MATTER IS LIFE AND DEATH indeed.
Gassho,
Marina sat today

[Yugen]

Marina, thank you for this.

When we realize in every second, with every breath, breathing in and out, that there is a beginning and an ending, that cells in our body are born and die constantly, we become more comfortable with the idea of change, impermanence, and ultimately our death.

You might even revel in the wondering what you might become - nourishment for a scavenger? Enrichment for the soil? Part of the endless cycle..... It's humbling and at the same time gratifying, if we can get over our own self-importance. The fact that I am no different than the tree I stand next to - sapling, bearing leaves, providing shade, thinning out and bending over with age, falling to the ground and decomposing, blending into the surroundings - very liberating.

Deep bows
Yugen


sat2day

[Seishin the Elder]

Well one way is to almost die yourself, or believe that it is occuring; let me explain, and I am sorry to repeat this for those of you long enough here to recall this story.One Sunday summer morning about six years ago I rose rather early because I knew it was going to be a scrocher that day and I wanted to get a little work done in the relative cooler early morning in the garden. I finished my work and took a shower before prayer. As I was drying off from the shower I felt as though my left loer left was tingling and "going to sleep". I thought that perhaps I had knocked my knee on the tub edge or something. By the time I was threw dryiing myself the numbness had spread up my thigh and over my hip, and was was getting axious. I began to walk up and down the hall rather quickly, to "walk it off", but the numbness just spread up my side. I thought I'd lie down and perhaps that would help, but as the numbness reached my chest I thought ,"what if this numbness causes my hearts to stop ...I'll die!" That thought was peak for about two seconds, the numbness was already there and I was already thinnking "Well, I guess that will be okay, I'm ready and okay with whatever happens". Obviously I did not die, but after that I can honestly say I have no "fear" of death.

Gassho

Seishin Kyrill

Sat today

[Jakuden]

Well one way is to almost die yourself, or believe that it is occuring; let me explain, and I am sorry to repeat this for those of you long enough here to recall this story.One Sunday summer morning about six years ago I rose rather early because I knew it was going to be a scrocher that day and I wanted to get a little work done in the relative cooler early morning in the garden. I finished my work and took a shower before prayer. As I was drying off from the shower I felt as though my left loer left was tingling and "going to sleep". I thought that perhaps I had knocked my knee on the tub edge or something. By the time I was threw dryiing myself the numbness had spread up my thigh and over my hip, and was was getting axious. I began to walk up and down the hall rather quickly, to "walk it off", but the numbness just spread up my side. I thought I'd lie down and perhaps that would help, but as the numbness reached my chest I thought ,"what if this numbness causes my hearts to stop ...I'll die!" That thought was peak for about two seconds, the numbness was already there and I was already thinnking "Well, I guess that will be okay, I'm ready and okay with whatever happens". Obviously I did not die, but after that I can honestly say I have no "fear" of death.

Gassho

Seishin Kyrill

Sat today

What happened?? Was it a venomous spider bite or something?

Gassho,
Sierra
SatToday

[Kyonin]

Hi guys,

A very important part of who I am is my grand mother. She was a an artist and she planted in me the hunger for books and art. She was my best friend and my buddy when I wanted to misbehave. She was awesome.

But she died.

Everyone in my family spent months in grief and, 5 years later, they still blame me for not crying a tear of for not being sad being miserable with them.

What they can't understand is that I was sad indeed. My best friend had gone! But I understood that it was the end and I came to terms that I was not going to see her again.

But death was her deserved rest after years of depression, anxiety and depression. I was happy for that.

And happy that some parts of her get to live within me. I don't have a photo of her. No videos, no mementos. I am her.

Death and life are part of the same thing. Understanding that life is fleeting and impermanent helps to take things calmly.

Gassho,

Kyonin
#SatToday

[Jakuden]

Thanks for sharing that, Kyonin. I feel similarly about my mother.... I'm sure my family wonders about why I do not visit her grave... but I don't see the point in visiting her body under the ground. I have her DNA in my body and her voice and image in my memory, "I am her" just as you said about your grandmother.

I like Myosha's idea about being plant food. Not sure about being eaten as a tomato, though. Maybe one of those things where they put you in the root ball of a tree. Then I can really be the tree underneath which other buddhas sit...

Gassho,
Sierra
SatToday

[Jundo]

A traditional image of the Buddha's passing ... some disciples crying, some with a loving but peaceful smile ... all good and appropriate to the Wise and Compassionate Heart ...



Platform Sutra death scene of the 6th Ancestor, in which the 6th Ancestor commends the disciple who does not cry ...

The Master said: "Come close. In the eighth month I intend to leave
this world. If any of you have doubts, ask about them quickly, and I
shall resolve them for you. I must bring your delusions to an end and
make it possible for you to gain peace. After I have gone there will be
no one to teach you."

Fa-hai and the other monks heard him to the end and wept tears of
sorrow. Only Shen-hui was not impressed, nor did he weep. The Sixth
Patriarch said: "Shen-hui, you are a young monk, yet you have attained
the [status of awakening] in which good and not good are identical,
and you are not moved by judgments of praise and blame. You others
have not yet understood: what have you been practicing at this temple
these several years? You're crying now, but who is there who's really
worried that I don't know the place to which I'm going? If I
didn't know where I was going then I wouldn't be leaving you. You're
crying just because you don't know where I'm going. If you knew
where I was going you wouldn't be crying. The nature itself is without
birth and without destruction, without going and without coming.

http://ww.satrakshita.com/Books/Plat..._Yampolsky.pdf

From a later version of the same ... here "Nirvana" means his passing from this visible world ...

After the master spoke this verse he announced, “You may all stay here,
but after my nirvana do not become upset and cry tears like rain. Those who
accept condolences from others or wear mourning clothes are not my disciples
and are not [following] the correct Dharma. Just recognize your own
fundamental minds and see your own fundamental natures, [which are] neither
moving nor still, neither generated nor extinguished, neither going nor
coming, neither correct nor false, neither abiding nor going.
“I am afraid your minds are deluded and you don’t understand my meaning.
I will tell you again, in order to make you see your natures. After my nirvana,
practice in accordance with this just as if I were alive. If you go against
my teaching, it would be no use even if I were alive.
http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachin...ranslation.pdf

And my own story about my foolishness and my first teacher, Azuma Ikuo Roshi of Sojiji ...

I remember how shocked I was when I saw Azuma Roshi, my first "real Japanese Zen Master", crying one day soon after his wife died. I had just come to Japan, and thought Zen teachers were supposed to be above all that. I said to him directly (and a bit coldly) "I thought 'life and death' are but a dream, so why are you crying?" He responded, "Life and death are but a dream. I am crying because beloved wife died."

Stupid, foolish me. Death is like a dream ... but a sometimes very bitter dream.

To feel grief at the death of someone we love, even great and prolonged grief, is natural to the human condition.

We cry with joy, we are joyous amid our tears.

Gassho, J

SatToday

[Anchi]

Hi all ,


The nature of reality is flux itself.
As Heraclitus famously said, "All is flux".

Gassho

[Kairu]

What is death? I had the impression that everything just passed into another form. Are we ignorant?

Kyle,
Sattoday.

Sent from my LG-D851 using Tapatalk

[Jundo]

What is death? I had the impression that everything just passed into another form. Are we ignorant?

Kyle,
Sattoday.

Sent from my LG-D851 using Tapatalk

Two or three old Zen stories on this ...

Dogo and Zen-gen went to a house [holding a funeral] to show sympathy. Zen-gen hit the coffin and asked, "Alive or dead?" Dogo replied, "I won't say alive, I won't say dead." Zen-gen demanded, " Why won't you say?" Dogo repeated, "I won't say." On their way home, Zen-gen cried, "Tell me right now teacher, alive or dead; if you don't tell me, I will hit you." Dogo said, "You may hit me, but I won't say." Zen-gen hit him.

Later after Dogo died, Zen-gen went to Seki-so and told him the foregoing story. Seki-so said, "I won't say alive, and I won't say dead." Zen-gen said, " Why won't you say?" Seki-so repeated, "I won't say, I won't say." At these words Zen-gen came to awakening.

One day, Zen-gen took a hoe into the Buddha hall and crossed back and forth, from east to west and west to east. Seki-so asked, "What are you doing?" Zen-gen said," I am looking for my teacher's relics." Seki-so said, "Vast waves spread far and wide, foaming billows flood the skies - what relics of our late master are you looking for?"

Zen-gen said, "It is a way of repaying the kindness of my old teacher." Fu of T'ai Yuan said, "The late masters relics are still present. "

Blue Cliff Record 55

In a lighter vein ... a story attributed to Hakuin by some ...

Somebody asked Hakuin, "what happens after we die?" Hakuin answered, " I don't know." The man said, "Well, what do you mean, I don't know. Are you not a Zen master?" Hakuin said, "Yes but not a dead one."
http://www.zenmontreal.ca/en/teacher/aliveordead.htm

The Buddha is said to have often refused to answer such speculative questions, not conducive to Practice now and mere philosophical speculation. They were not vital to the central issues he was addressing. These unaddressed question include ...

Does the Tathagata (Buddha) exist after death? ...or not? ...or both? ...or neither?
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipit....063.than.html

Now, I must caution that, in the Mahayana, dropping all divisive categories from mind such as "coming and going" "start and finish" and "birth and death" is not necessarily just a refusal to answer. "I won't say" can be a shout from the mountain top. Where does one "go" when one has never quite "left"?

Uchiyama Roshi wrote three poems (though not very poetical sometimes ) which touch on this ...

Life-and-Death
Water isn't formed by being ladled into a bucket
Simply the water of the whole Universe has been ladled into a bucket
The water does not disappear because it has been scattered over the ground
It is only that the water of the whole Universe has been emptied into the whole Universe
Life is not born because a person is born
The life of the whole Universe has been ladled into the hardened "idea" called "I"
Life does not disappear because a person dies
Simply, the life of the whole Universe has been poured out of this hardened "idea" of "I" back into the universe

Just Live, Just Die
The Reality prior to the division into two
Thinking it to be so, or not thinking it to be so
Believing it to be so, or not believing it to be so
Existence-nonexistence, life-death
Truth-falsehood, delusion-enlightenment
Self-others, happiness-unhappiness
We live and die within the profundity of Reality
Whatever we encounter is buddha-life
This present Reality is buddha-life
Just living, just dying---within no life or death

Samadhi of the Treasury of the Radiant Light
Though poor, never poor
Though sick, never sick,
Though aging, never aging
Though dying, never dying
Reality prior to division---
Herein lies unlimited depth

http://global.sotozen-net.or.jp/pdf/...hogen07_07.htm

I might say ...

If after death, we "pass into another form" ... chop would and fetch water, live gently in this life, live this life well.

If after death, we do not "pass into another form" ... chop would and fetch water, live gently in this life, live this life well.

Whatever the case, we find ourselves with this life ... best to live this life and treat it well.

As well, learn to live right beyond and right through "passing" and "not passing", "form and formless", "life" or "death".

One may then findlessly-find True Life, the Life of Buddha.

Something like that.

Gassho, J

SatToday