How do you really accept death?

DadOnDabs · 2017-03-01T17:49:01+00:00

To be honest I'm terrified of death. Not religious so the concept of my consciousness just ended and there being nothing after that. No blackness, no whiteness, literally non existence is terrifying. Even writing this post makes me feel terrified of dying. I just try not to think about it and enjoy every moment I have on earth.

Willkuer_ · 2017-03-01T12:01:39+00:00

You know stoicism. Every example you mentioned belongs to the outer sphere. They are out of your control. If you try to control what happens in the outer sphere you'll be unhappy.

'The food you just got' - I don't think we are talking about food here
'the relationship you are in' - She's not yours, it's just your turn. You can not control her. It's absolutely impossible. The more you try the less you'll earn. Just enjoy it as long as it lasts but don't make her to be the center of your life.
'the fries you are eating' - some more food? What kind of food blog is this?
'the vacation planned next month' - the vacation you'll barely remember in 20 years? Enjoy it. That's the point of vacations. Not to give them a never-ending absolute value. Flight is canceled? You'll get sick? Who cares? It's just vacation. It's a part of your life not your whole life that ends.
'sex' - To put meaning into sex is a fault you only do as young man I guess. It's basically meaningless. You have bad sex? Who cares? You have good sex? Who cares? You are not going to remember it. Neither your children.
'your car, your house, your dog' - This is something you own. And it is something you can replace. But again this is not your life. And you always need to keep in mind that everything that you own can break.
'your friendships' - if you grow older you'll see that friendships is something limited in time. Funnily we often accept that but don't do the same for relationships. And again: friendship does not dominate your life.
'your family, your kids' - This is the real tough one here. The other stuff is simple but to accept that the family, especially kids, belong to the outer sphere is something hard. Epictetus is specially mentioning this problem. A child can die, yes. It will make you grief. This is just how we humans work. But a child is human as well. It will die at some point. The probability is higher that it will die after you are gone but it's clearly not certain. You need to embrace it. Everyday. A plate will break, a glass will break, a dog will die, a child will die. They all belong to the outer sphere. There is nothing you can do against.

Trying to control something out of your control is the easiest way to be emotionally imbalanced. Meditate over it and see how everything vanishes when you are not thinking about it. You are the only thing that stays during meditation. You are the only thing you can control. There is no point to grief over stuff you can't control.

Willow-girl · 2017-03-01T16:09:29+00:00

"The universal nature out of the universal substance, as if it were wax, now moulds a horse, and when it has broken this up, it uses the material for a tree, then for a man, then for something else; and each of these things subsists for a very short time. But it is no hardship for the vessel to be broken up, just as there was none in its being fastened together." - Marcus Aurelius, from "Meditations"

veganishell · 2017-03-01T12:38:12+00:00

Stoicism is the way you empty yourself to accept a new balance, taoism is the way you deal with balance

boscoist · 2017-03-01T17:55:50+00:00

You dont. You just understand that it's inevitable and do what you can to avoid it. It shouldn't be front and center in your thoughts

mrpoopistan · 2017-03-01T18:19:03+00:00

Count me in the "time moves slow" department. I'm 38 years old, and the prospect of living another 38 seems almost horrifying to me in terms of how long it will take.

AwakenedSovereign · 2017-03-02T01:26:12+00:00

Brad Pitt, Achilles, Troy

"The gods envy us. They envy us because we are mortal. Because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we are doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again."

coloredzebra · 2017-03-01T17:01:12+00:00

Drop some lsd. Experience ego death, realize the concept of "I", "me","you" does not exist.

Without death, there is no life.

Without pain, there is no joy.

Don't worry about what happens in the end, enjoy the present moment day by day.

dawnlander · 2017-03-01T22:03:09+00:00

I've engaged this question under the influence of psilocybin mushrooms and during years of personal meditation practice. The shamans and zen masters of old had a saying, to "die before you die". I will go into some detail about my experience with how this takes place.

There are 2 halves to that equation : Cognitive and Physiological (emotional).

Cognitive: Realize the body has created a persistent 'ego-sense' for survival ("I put the food in my mouth when I feel hunger"); it is a very perceptible illusion meant to get you to protect yourself, avoid life-destroying stimuli (fire, predation, sharp things, poison) and repeat life-sustaining behaviors (eating, fucking, grooming and playing). It works pretty well except in humans we can have awareness of our own demise, so suddenly we've lost the 'innocence" of the animal-self and find ourselves grief-stricken and in panic.

Physiological (emotional): realize the physical sense of self when combined with the knowledge of death, creates a neurochemical storm when we surrender to this awareness of our doom -- fear, panic, anger, depression, anxiety, sadness...all sorts of powerful emotions at the realization that "you" are going to die. Muscle tensions in the vulnerable areas of your body (throat, diaphragm, eyes, groin, armpits, stomach, et. al.), shortness of breath, constriction, etc. are the feedback loop of the body responding to the mind.

The potent "trick" (I hesitate to use that word because this isn't some kind of on/off lightswitch) is to go into meditation (taking the space to simply be aware of what exists without trying to change it) and fully allow these terrible feelings to come to full foment. Normally we distract, suppress, intoxicate or ignore these feelings as the fear is too much for us to handle. The sense of separate self (ego) knows its going to die and fights it with all its skill. Let it experience the dread and terror, welcome it. You will likely experience palpable tension, muscular tremors, and intense emotion. Keep breathing in deeply, exhaling slowly. There are layers to this and it won't all go away in one sitting. You may find your fear of death has left you, then a year later some new panic takes you over as a deeper part of your psyche comes to grips with the demise.

This is cathartic and will allow you to resume living from a place that recognizes the 'doom' (inevitable breakdown of the body) without believing in the story the ego is telling about it (the emotional-cognitive reaction to death). Your "true identity" is a borrowed conglomeration of elements set in union with the forces of ecology-natural law-physics-reality (you're a multicellular amalgam of organ tissue and bacterial systems living in dynamic homeostasis with inorganic elements of the Earth, its soil and plant life, its atmosphere, its physics in relation to the Sun and solar system, the continued protection of the ozone layer from radiation, the barrier of asteroid belt & Jupiter's gravity drawing in "planet killing" asteroids so that we don't just get pulverized, etc. etc. etc.).

You can be a complete atheist and start to realize this truth on deeper levels -- The Buddhist "3 marks of existence": Anatta, Dukkha, Anatman ('impermanence', 'suffering' or "unsatisfactoriness", and 'non-self'): Otherwise stated, "everything is in constant change" (therefore, no birth, no death, just continually changing 'appearances'), "Life is non-satisfactory" (nothing in a permanently changing reality can ever "satisfy" the permanently changing demands of our body...hunger, fatigue, lust, envy, etc...), and there is no "True Self" amidst this cloud of changing forms and elements (your body's cells completely die and are replaced every 7 years or so; your thoughts/attitudes/beliefs are constantly evolving and may even exist in opposition to each other). This is not to say that we can't follow our selfish instincts, intuitions, and create goals, lifestyle choices, or grand missions to use our life for; It is more important to realize that we are attempting to see reality for what it is, without resisting it, before we re-engage the "active" aspect of our life. The morality of your decisions is irrelevant here. The point is to allow our inner experience to come into alignment with the outer reality without being a drone living in unconscious patterns based on pretty lies.

The ego is like a pet demon capable of a great many things. Use it for what it is and don't sweat it, it doesn't really permanently "go away" it just changes and becomes more free and less entangled in delusion -- "enlightened" teachers that are honest will tell you that the ego is just there, free to be as it is, they just no longer believe it. Normally we believe everything about it and completely operate from 'behind the veil' sort of speak. Used carefully, substances like psilocybin mushrooms, can help you see that 'ego' and its fears and aspirations are just biological patterns that can dissolve their 'hardness' with true introspection.

I know this is all far out but comes from a grounded place in alignment with science/reality and my personal experience with meditation practice for over a decade now. PM me if you have any questions or just want to dialogue because some of what I'm talking about is subtle and is not well-suited for a generalized forum discussion.

Title	How do you really accept death?
Author	nostupidquestions111
Upvotes	6
Comments	14
Date	March 1, 2017 10:46 AM UTC (9 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/askTRP
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/asktrp/comments/5wuy19/how_do_you_really_accept_death/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/askTRP/how-do-you-really-accept-death.83463 https://theredarchive.com/post/83463

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