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I get very afraid of dying

dsesesy said:
I would love to be at peace with my own death. But I feel very afraid of dying and for it to just be nothing. .
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Jesus. I'd *love* for it to be nothing. No, what I fear is the phase shift where your consciousness gets torn to shreds and you enter a state of pain and suffering that we can't quite yet comprehend. I really wish i had never done ayahuasca and could keep somnambulating through life in blissful ignorance of what comes next :(
 
A famous German philosopher, Nietzsche, proposed an idea of perpetual reoccurance. The idea that we are doomed to repeat this one life over and over for all eternity.

If that is true, I'd just try to make this life the best one possible.

Personally I find the idea of death moving me to a great nothingness more reassuring that repeating this one forever.
 
Flickering said:
Some great responses in this thread.

You are dead only once there is nothing left to remember you from your own point of view. Consciousness is everlasting and there is nothing outside of it. What happens beyond the death of the self will probably always be beyond human comprehension. So fear of death is fear of the ultimate unknown; and as others have said here, it's only when you stand before the absolute certainty of it that you will feel that fear in full, and realise you have never completely defeated it.

It makes me wonder about life before the knowledge of death. The moment it clicked that my life would end one day, I was five, and I still remember the terror. Sadly, most of us aren't able to remember what it was like to never have considered that this all might stop one day. It sounds eternal.
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I like what you mentioned "fear of death is fear of ultimate unknown." You have conveyed the message perfectly.
 
bit_pattern said:
Jesus. I'd *love* for it to be nothing. No, what I fear is the phase shift where your consciousness gets torn to shreds and you enter a state of pain and suffering that we can't quite yet comprehend. I really wish i had never done ayahuasca and could keep somnambulating through life in blissful ignorance of what comes next :(
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I remember being very afraid after reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead at 17. When I re-read it after my son died it just pissed me off. So much fear-based mythology! But, I have since re-read it again (glutton for punishment?) and I related it to how this life has been a process of embracing and moving through fear and I think maybe the process of dying and the initial entrance into some further realm of being will be more of the same--learning to relax out of fear.

I've always felt pretty lucky to love this life, to love people and animals and nature and food and sex and music and humor. I relish all my attachments because I know how brief they really are. I also know that letting go of this whole paradigm, when my time comes to do so, is going to need a very sad soundtrack.;)
 
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What scares me more than how my death affects me is the loss others may feel in my absence. I almost wish I was more of an asshole just to make my passing easier on my children.

That said, I have already given clear instructions that my eventual passing needs to be marked by a celebration of my life, not a funeral.
 
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Azure Cloud said:
What scares me more than how my death affects me is the loss others may feel in my absence. I almost wish I was more of an asshole just to make my passing easier on my children.
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Nah, you don't really want that. The people that I have known that had bad relationships with their parents have a far more difficult time after their deaths because the chance to make things right is completely and finally obliterated. Children, even when they become adults, want acceptance and love and respect from their parents--when they don't get it because their parents were incapable of providing it, the wounds never stop being re-opened, even after death. I know that when my mom, my hero and friend and the person who I have counted on for love and support for 60 years, leaves this life that I will be devastated by grief but I will heal and be fine because of the love she gave while we were together.

I read a poem the other day by a guy that was in the first stages of grief after the loss of a mother he was very close to. The poem ended with him thanking his mother for teaching him how to see the beauty in the world--he knew that is what would pull him even through the experience of losing her. That is one of the best things a parent can give IMO.

Still, I know what you mean. I think about my older son all the time, about how, when my husband and I are gone, he will be all he has--no brother to help hold the memories. For him I want to live many, many more years.
 
Herbavore, of course you are right.I was making light [of death] with that particular comment.

Of course we teach our children how to maintain loving relationships so they do have the support of loved ones, be they family or friends, after we pass.
 
Since life feels natural to experience, and death is a part of life (in its termination), then perhaps in death there is a feeling of normality.

Sometimes I think: How can someone fear something when they know nothing about it? What if I am dead now? -How will I know? It almost seems like death is personally subjective in the sense that you dont know if you will know that you are dead. First time I smoked DMT, I realized that life/reality is an elaborate illusion facilitated subconsciously by your psyche.

There is a 100% chance that you will "die". You don't know the circumstances of how or when it will happen. The best thing you can do is explore the world, do what pleases you, mitigate misery & suffering and, if possible, help others do the same.
 
Waffle Sock said:
Since life feels natural to experience, and death is a part of life (in its termination), then perhaps in death there is a feeling of normality.

Sometimes I think: How can someone fear something when they know nothing about it? What if I am dead now? -How will I know? It almost seems like death is personally subjective in the sense that you dont know if you will know that you are dead. First time I smoked DMT, I realized that life/reality is an elaborate illusion facilitated subconsciously by your psyche.

There is a 100% chance that you will "die". You don't know the circumstances of how or when it will happen. The best thing you can do is explore the world, do what pleases you, mitigate misery & suffering and, if possible, help others do the same.
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^This
 
You feel so unease with the idea because you are an eternal being.

By the way, I feel a sense of euphoria imagining taking my last breath. It hasn't been imposed on me from the outside. It's just innate.
 
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I don't understand why people feel so attached to these "flesh-suits" and feel they define them, never mind their existence being dependent on them.
 
Ninae said:
I don't understand why people feel so attached to these "flesh-suits" and feel they define them, never mind their existence being dependent on them.
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Interesting. Though the 'flesh suits' as you say (I like that btw), are what we have to carry us through this form in the time we have been given.
When you were very young and you first found out that we all die, how did you take that? I wonder.

Personally, I became a very depressed little three year old but then found a very strong appreciation layered with a sadness of all living things.
Our bodies are what carries us through. And so long as the body is not hurting, life can be good. They can be our prisons or our salvations in the time we do have. Life is precious. So is Death. Existence is a poetic display and we are all a part of it on this rare gem of a globe just the right distance from our local Sun to house life.
I hope we all realize just how special this place is. Perhaps that is part of the human lesson.
Then again, I'm just one and know not of these things in fact.
Anyway, hope your well
 
Well, they're obviously temporary either way. They're not what's going to keep us alive forever. Some just spend a very short time in them.
 
Others have pointed the obvious truth ; There is no real death ;

Life is an illusion created by one super organism/Intelligent being.

Human life is far from the real reality that we come from ;

Deep down inside all of us is The one and only god in drag enjoying a temporary human experience for the mere thrill of play :-)

Who we really are is just a temporary aperture In which the whole cosmos or consciousness looks out of . There is only 1 awareness or consciousness which our lives looks out from and it is divine and eternal

There is no real death for the ultimate identify of everyone is the sole consciousness that was and will ever existed fabricating this glorious illusion of human existence for the mere fun and joy and to show it's own magnificence

The best way to loose fear of death is to take a massive dose of IV dmt ; However this isn't necessary .

You will experience undeniable truths about your true identity, life, and the universe .


Deep deep down underneath every human is the true self which is one heck of an amazing thing once you realize it.

Words don't come close only experience can show you truth .


We are all one consciousness having 6 billion subjective human experiences ;
 
Great post. Much like what Jesus originally came here to teach. As opposed to the doom&gloom of much of Christianity.
 
You cannot have life without death. Is there a cure for death? No. Can a person escape death? Perhaps, but not with their desire and ego in tact. Buddhism as a practice and education is all about ending birth and death and reaching Nirvana, and that is really the only thing I can provide you with to ease your fear.

There's really nothing to be afraid of, it would be wiser to be more afraid of not living right and having to die with regrets.

 
I think there is a world of difference between fearing death (the unknown existence or nonexistence beyond the body) and fearing, or mourning, the loss of life. People struggle so much with loneliness in life, deep existential loneliness. We make profound connections with other human beings, with nature, with pleasures and sensations, with creativity and all of this very human activity distracts us from our troubling sense of being ultimately alone. Death--because though each of us will die, each of us will die alone--threatens to sever all those connections and it is that very human trait of anticipating the future rather than living in the present which causes us so much discomfort around death.

Over my lifetime I have observed that many young people do not fear death because it simply is not real to them and many elders do not fear death because life has lost so many pleasures (loss of peers, loss of health and independence) but that it is those in between that seem to fear death the most. I can accept all my feelings about my own death--from sorrow to fear to a certain anticipatory excitement--but I don't dwell on them too much; it is my feelings around the death of my loved ones that is so hard to encompass sometimes. All the psychedelic, religious or even enlightened insights in the world cannot touch the day to day aching, the missing, of someone you truly loved.
 
Ninae exactly right Jesus is one of many awakening beings who's messages has been confused with religion . Jesus never said create a religion after me ;

He was and is teaching the same thing all the great realized beings have taught ;

The Daila Lama and That Nich Hahn and great examples of continuing true wisdom for all humanity ;

If anyone wants more info on truth check what they say and have yur own experience of truth
 
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