Like others have said before, it is not being dead, that I find scary. It is the dying part of death that is frightening.
Ever since I was a child I would imagine myself in the throes of death. I would visualize myself being ripped apart by machinery, or suffocating, hit by cars, trucks or trains, hacked to bits by machetes, eaten by lions, tigers or bears, my lungs filling up with water while I was drowning, etc....I never told anyone this when I was growing up.
It wasn't until I became Buddhist and started to practice Chod, that I realised how useful my contemplations as a child were. It took away some of the innocence (...is bliss? - read ignorance) and naïveté of my Western upbringing and childhood experience. It's not to say that I have transcended death, hardly! But, my contemplation of impermanence and suffering primed me for an easier comprehension of The Four Noble Truths of Buddhist doctrine. Western society tends to shelter itself, especially the children, from this eventuality. I think it creates undue devastation and shock at the impersonal nature of existence. Even the Judeo-Christain values that the West tends to uphold serves only to placate anxiety with the promise of paradise after misery.
Buddhism has helped me deal with death and impermanence, but I have a long way to go before I can truly be at peace with dying. Especially now, as a mother, I have an incredible attachment to my corporal form. Although now, I have much more concern for my son's suffering and death/dying than my own.
For all the instinctual(?) repulsion that I have felt/feel toward death and dying, I find it amazing how many times I have thought of actual suicide. Not just myself for that matter, but humanity on the surface, seems to have this conflictual attitude. Perhaps the allure of death is it's natural eventuality, while the repulsion is the natural event of living.
Bah, I'll shut-up now. |
