sree

F**cking is pointless too. Is there anything in life that has a point? You've got to eat your greens and not just dessert. Didn't your mom tell you that? So, you have reasons to live and death is not to thwart your mission? I hope the Grim Reaper is paying attention. Does your mission last more than one lifetime? Your body doesn't have a mission and needs to go when Lord Yama comes a calling. What will you do then? What's so good about living among people of other cultures? It's different matter in a university campus or a business corporation where people of various cultures come together. Society is something else. The pressures of life foster conflicts among people who don't dance to the same tune. Such conflicts are not cause by intolerant bigots as you seem to insinuate. Helsinki? Never been there. I will hop over there from Amsterdam on my next stop-over just to get a better understanding of your mind-set.

If you don't think or worry about digestion, then you are taking too much for granted. Your body is one treacherous sonovabitch. You've got to watch it because it can really screw up your Yang. If you have no fear, then you are probably too young and have not hit the wall of life yet. When you get a few hard knocks or miss a footing and stare into the abyss, you won't be so cocky. Anyway, why are you curious about death?

Medical technology enabled you to suffer your conditions; otherwise, you would have bungy jumped Home. Would that not have been a better way out? 42 lbs weight loss is considerable. Were you overweight? You spent a lot of time in the hospital. You must have racked up a huge medical bill. Do you have free health care in the U.K.? Have you recovered well enough to walk about now? I don't see how you can ever hold down a job if you have to spend 5 hours everyday emptying the pouch on top of waking up more than half a dozen times to go to the toilet every night. There is no good way to commit suicide because our values are against it. Maybe one day our attitude will change. If "going Home" is fun, I don't understand why we see suicide as a bad thing. It's a tough life even for people who don't have a medical condition. Every baby born has a life of toil ahead till release in death. And it gets tougher as the pace of life increases all the time. People can no longer keep up with the productivity rates of manufacturing goods. Robots have replaced people in factories. The only people who can keep up with robots are the Chinese. They are plentiful and their labor is cheap enough. When one Chinese worker falls, another Chinese takes over to keep up with the pace of the robot. You know what? I would rather not learn any lesson. Given the choice, I would rather not be alive. What's the point to life? Can you tell me? If you were given a preview of your fate as a human being before you were born, would you still have chosen to become you? I may not believe in invisible helpers, but that doesn't mean I don't believe what you say. I accept that your invisible helpers are real to you and that is all that matters. There are many things real to some people while other people have no access to them. The reason why I have no invisible helpers is because my life is problem-free and I don't need helpers invisible or otherwise. When problems confront me - and they will sooner or later - I plan to bungy jump out before those problems even step through my front door. This is why I have to learn the Tao of dying. Yes, dogs are the best. I would never let my dog suffer and would sent it home to God before the Devil gets to its body. Why won't God put people down and take them Home before the Devil gets to their bodies? I am sure there are many paranormal things out there to be discovered. But right now, I have to deal with the problems in the normal realm - a veritable hell of a reality where life is really bad and people are trying to escape to find the eternal Dao. You are a Christian (a Catholic?). How come you prefer the companionship of Daoists here?

Shared with a departed loved one? To grieve is part of being human. You cut out the bad and keep the good? I am interested in everything abnormal. How are you going to avoid interruption to being alive? So, you are for multi-culturalism and embrace foreigners? It is easy for you on two accounts: firstly, you are a monolithic culture with 95% Finns - just like the Japanese and the Chinese. Foreigners will never be a social threat. Secondly, nobody wants to go to Finland. If I have to live six months in darkness at a time, even I would learn to like parks even if they were prison yards. It would be like being let out of solitary confinement without windows.

I know what you are talking because I did check out your ileoanal problem quite extensively on the internet. I wish I can say I empathize with you but that would be lying. Nobody can ever be in somebody else's situation. I wish we can share your experience to make it easier for you. For instance, Vaina can take your place physically for six months to give you a break so you can be in his situation in Finland staring at trees in parks and breathe deeply. Six months with that ileoanal pouch and Vaina will stop looking for shared experiences of a deadly kind for the rest of his life. Being money-oriented, as you put it, is not a matter of choice. I too am not money-oriented and wanted to devote my life to finding out the meaning of life. So, I quite my job and decided to turn my mind away from material concerns. This pissed everyone off because it was financial suicide. My determination to go my way ended my relationship with my girlfriend and my family. Who cares, right? I liquidated all my assets and decided I could live a spartan life on the interest my money would earn in the bank without having to work so my mind could be free to stare at trees and seek eternal life. You know what? The 5% interest bank normally paid back then dwindled to zero. Worse still, with Central Bank money printing, my US Dollars deposit was getting thrashed against Indian rupees and Thai baths. Even the option of living on the cheap as a monk in Bangkok was gone? My girlfriend was right. I was a bloody fool. So, I decided to get money-oriented again. The Buddha did the same thing. he gave up asceticism because it was madness. I don't have invisible helpers. People don't have invisible helpers. If you were my dog, gentlewind, I would put you down. And that would be done out of deep affection. It is the pain of seeing what you have to go through that I seek the Tao of dying.

If that is the case, then your painkillers must be effective. How do you deal with managing your life? Doesn't your physical condition stops you from having a regular job? I can't stop thinking about making enough money to go on living my life. How do you deal with this on top of managing your abnormal bodily functions? What kind of painkillers? Heroine? You are making the ride amazing. I hope we can keep up with you.

We are going along with you on this ride, my friend. Vaina and I want shared dying, near-death and death experiences - the whole nine yards. You are in the driver seat and we are sitting right next to you as you zip into the twilight zone. I need to check your vital signs every step of the way. Apparently, you are in remission? How do you feel right now, physically? Any pain or discomfort? Are you taking medications? How do you feel right now, psychologically?

So, fear of death is not the issue to you. It is the annoyance of an untimely exit that bothers you. What is it that you are doing that must not be interrupted? Where is "here"? All parks, not including wild life sanctuaries, are outdoors made civilized and designed for very specific purposes. The only park where no one cares if you stare at trees is on Shutter Island. My legs are as good as my dog's and my horse's. It was a fine morning and it struck me that I had never set foot in any public park for as long as I could remember. So, I decided to break the pattern, do what other people do, and go stare at trees in the park. I could take in a lot more surveying the surroundings sitting still on the bench and not walking about. The park wasn't my cup of tea, man; and neither was the public library.

Apparently, our friend gentlewind is better than Ross at studying death and dying.

It doesn't matter only if you have some other venue of escape; like another realm, for instance. When the time comes, Lord Yama will claw you and drag you out from your cubby hole: that state of sleep in which you are awake. He's going to bang on that body till you wake up. So, where are you along that path from dumbo to bozo? I hope you are not homeless. The only way to watch the trees and breathe deeply without coming on like a bum is to pretend you are a dragonfly. I tried sitting on a park bench once to watch the trees. It felt good until my elation started to slide as I became aware of the company: squirrels, birds, baby-minders with kids, old folks with walkers, a bozo on his laptop, and a bum breathing deeply and sound asleep on the next bench. None of them work; and except for the squirrels and birds, all of them were economically non-viable.

You took a long time to come to this frame of mind: head towards Mother Nature. Considering that you have a long track record of relying on doctors and hospitals, making a shift away from them is a big deal. Is it Ross's Stage 5 (Acceptance) or a sudden change of heart? Did you discuss this with your wife? You sound pretty upbeat for someone battling with health problems.

Forget about Hell. Even if 72 virgins await me on the other side of death, I am still fearful. You know why? It's all BS, that's why. You know it, I know it, and sounds like even the Three Pure Ones know it. Are you saying that right action in an expression of truth is possible without the Tao Te Ching? Sure, if you are a monkey. Humans are something else and they need a manual to sort themselves out. In Tao heaven, there are no insurance and drug companies. Squirrels don't invest in Pfizer and Humana. What's the matter with you? Don't you have any pro-active, preventive measures against debilitating diseases? What's your health plan?

Right on, sister! I haven't had my blood pressure checked in 15 years. As long as I can pound the pavement or the treadmill at nice steady clip for half an hour a day, I am ok. We mustn't let them get us. Look at the lilies in the fields, they neither sew nor spin. We've got to find the Tao of dying, the way out of this prison of fear that is meant for the Devil and his angels.

You mean like the team of physicians (who were attending to Dr Eben during his coma) riding that butterfly wing along with Dr Eben? So what if that happened? Then, you would have half a dozen neurosurgeons attesting to proof of Heaven on top of the Pope and 1.2 billion of his flock.

Facing death without squirming seems to be a universal cultural value. Fear is not the main thing that bothers me; and so, coming on as a warrior is not my schtick. For me, the over-riding disturbing feeling is curiosity. I need to know what is the purpose to being alive. I've got to know before I die So, please try and understand that the Tao of dying is not about finding the courage to face death. It is the search for meaning in our foolish way of life. Think of life as a test for finding out what it is about. Coming on macho when you get a zero for the test is to be left behind. And I am for no child left behind.

You are opening a can of worms here, figuratively-speaking. Are you now citing encounters of a third kind to back up your "near-death experience" claim of an afterlife? Let's leave Grandma be, bless her soul. I want to know more about that off planet being back in 1983. What did it look like?

It is we who create the national health system to pander to our fear of incapacity and death. And it is we who create the health insurance and drug industries to exploit the opportunities to keep us going as long as we want on pain-killers, prosthectics, wheelchairs, transplants, and life-support machines. Have you noticed that, in nature, animals live without hospitals and health insurance? In that sense, animals, other than humans, are true Daoists. Talking about what's wrong with us, I just read that Angeline Jolie had a double mastectomy. She had both breasts removed because she reckoned she had an 87% chance of getting breasts cancer as that disease ran in her family. I don't think this is something that fits in with the Tao of dying. Naturally, women in her situation don't want to take the chance and prefer to cut those damn things out before they show the first trace of cancer for fear of cancer cells spreading elsewhere. I guess it's a case of damned if you do it too late and damned if you do it too early. What do you say?

These are comforting words, even fighting words, to drum up courage to face death. I am not questioning the veracity of your near-death experience. I am quite convinced that near-death experiences are very real, as real as experiences of people on LSD. Such experiences are not like those we go through in our daily lives tending to practical matters. Dream states - during sleep - are real too. The reason why we put faith in near-death experiences and regard them as authentic evidence of an afterlife is to give continuity to ourselves when the body dies. This boils down to a need to go on living - not as before but in better conditions - after the death of the body.

Holding on out of fear, my friend, is like clinging on desperately to the handrails on a flight of stairs due to a fear of heights. The Tao of dying is living in freedom from fear. Naturally, such a way of living protects you from being exploited and preserves your dignity that comes with self-sufficiency. 含德之厚 says the Tao Te Ching in Chapter 55. This Chinese meaning is not captured in any western translation. It takes cojones to 含德 and no beast dares harm you. Even the Grim Reaper would give you a wide berth.

Scary to go alone. That says everything. This is the reason why we push death off till the last moment and make dying so horrible. Why can't we have that "Thelma & Louise" moment, step on the gas and go over the cliff when the doctor tells us that we need a new knee? Working with the old and the sick must have giving you a close-up view of bad situations. It's not just the physical pain. There is also the emotional anguish and the financial anxiety. Medical expenses is like ransom money paid to keep people alive. What's the point to coming home in a stretcher with $100,000 bill to pay? You sound like a sane person. Can you tell me what's wrong with us?

Ok, let's do it. The first step in this venture is to prepare for defeat in this battle with the tiger. There is no guarantee that we will succeed. This does not mean that we give up. The Tao Te Ching teaches that the way to victory is through the horror of defeat. Sun Tsu said that we must know the enemy. What is the nature of this enemy, this tiger we are talking about? Is this not the fear of death? To know the enemy is not to run away; it is to run towards, immerse ourselves in this fear and grapple with the tiger. This means we must prepare for death, not tomorrow when the body is old and worn but right now when the body is fit and healthy. What do you say? Is your tiger-boxing taichi up to speed?

Why do you think I am not doing it for myself? I started this thread because no one else has the courage to deal with the question of death and dying. Others would rather deal with harmless Taoist kittens but not tigers. You know why? I don't know how to deal with this tiger but I am not running away. Yes, it is out of self love that I am dealing with the tiger. If I don't face it, I am going to be torn to pieces and chewed up by this beast of death. Do you know how to deal with this tiger? I am not asking you to show me. I am wondering if you have the guts to go into the cave with me. Don't worry, I will go in first. If I get killed, will you promise to keep fighting and don't run for your life?

People who are into spiritualism, in the right mind, would write this stuff. People who are an economically relevant part of society, in their right mind, would not write this stuff.

Not really, Self-consciousness is not a mental disorder. Wearing clothes, something that you and I do, is a peculiar cultural behavior Hindus put a dot on their foreheads. Is that a mental disorder or a peculiar cultural behavior. Is homosexuality a mental disorder or peculiar cultural behavior?

The monk said that there is no death. That may be true but this is a truth that has to be discovered before I die. Otherwise, I am going to be fearful like a convict being dragged to the execution chamber screaming "I don't want to die!" By the time, I am strapped down in the electric chair, I would have given up the struggle. By then, I would not give a damn because I would have died a thousand deaths. One more would not make a difference. Do you get my point? I need to know now, not because that monk said so or you think so; I need to know, and that knowing has to be reflected in the way I live now. So, how does a person live when he knows for real that there is no death, that death is not a part of life. Sure, the body will die. I am not disputing that. But how do I live if I know that death is a fearsome belief of those who are damned by this superstition? Would I still behave like everybody else unwilling to give up the body even though it is well past its prime - old and disintegrating with disease - pumping it with drugs to dull the pain? How did that monk die? He sounded old and his voice was breaking up. Action speak louder than words, doesn't it? If death doesn't exist for me, I should be able to junk the body and lay it to rest the way I change out my sports car without any qualm, trading it in for a new model to stay forever young. To me, ok ? (as Bruce Lee would say)...to me, that would be the Tao of dying.