The Process Called "Death"

[ToP-fan]

Every year at this time, my own mortality is brought to the forefront with the celebrating of another birthday.........Since getting into spiritual studies and self development, the question of death and what it is, puzzles me..........................After reading numerous books, looking at different religious belief systems and having personal experiences(energetic phenomena and involuntary out-of-body experiences, I find the subject even more confusing.....................My intuiton tells me that even though the physical shell is temporary, the "real me" is immortal and does survive in some capacity.................One of the spiritual systems that I've studied,(Scientology and I am not a Scientologist) has clarified some confusions for me and that is we are "immortal awareness units" with the ability to create our own personal universes and experiences to get to play a game and that it's all really a game............We continue to "pick up" bodies or reincarnate and do it over and over and over again......Not just here but in other dimensions and energetic systems................................Not to be too morbid, but I recently read a quote by a Zen master whose name escapes me on what he thought birth and death was and he said(paraphasing)................"Being born is like getting on a ship..........and as the ship is leaving the dock to begin it's journey,......... it is sinking." Fellow Tao Bums, please share your theories and comments.

[Yoda]

If you want to feel good about croaking, Abraham is the bomb.

 

Check out: http://www.abrahamfreemp3downloads.com/

[mYTHmAKER]

Every year at this time, my own mortality is brought to the forefront with the celebrating of another birthday.........Since getting into spiritual studies and self development, the question of death and what it is, puzzles me..........................After reading numerous books, looking at different religious belief systems and having personal experiences(energetic phenomena and involuntary out-of-body experiences, I find the subject even more confusing.....................My intuiton tells me that even though the physical shell is temporary, the "real me" is immortal and does survive in some capacity.................One of the spiritual systems that I've studied,(Scientology and I am not a Scientologist) has clarified some confusions for me and that is we are "immortal awareness units" with the ability to create our own personal universes and experiences to get to play a game and that it's all really a game............We continue to "pick up" bodies or reincarnate and do it over and over and over again......Not just here but in other dimensions and energetic systems................................Not to be too morbid, but I recently read a quote by a Zen master whose name escapes me on what he thought birth and death was and he said(paraphasing)................"Being born is like getting on a ship..........and as the ship is leaving the dock to begin it's journey,......... it is sinking." Fellow Tao Bums, please share your theories and comments.

 

On my birthday I always remember what was once told to us by a wise man as a wake up call.

"Why are you celebrating - you are a year closer to death."

To know the answer one has to sit and meditate.

The answer is beyond mind

[Cameron]

My understanding is quite small but it seems that there are many different experiences to have. I think(from my puny understaadning) that the zen or Dharma thing is to basically dissolve the barrier between "you" and "the universe" to the point that there is no longer twoness, only oneness.

 

I think if your living at that level of oneness issues like life and death, male and female, this and that, sort of resolve themselves.

 

I am nowhere near that level so can only speculate.

 

And of course Alchemical Taoists like michael Winn talk about Imortality as the process of fusing the different shen spiritus of the body into one and this is like a yang vehicle or something theat you can use and take with you after death.

 

Again, my experience is quite puny. I think if you follow a path you FOLLOW IT. you don't DABBLE. You know, some alchemy, some zen, whatever .That doesn't mean those things or those practices may not spontaneouly arise but to really resolve this issues I think it has to be a burning question that attracts you to the right teacher to resolve the question.

 

That question, according to some, is pretty much the same question Sakyamuni Buddha asked on his spirituals earch. Why do beings suffer? Why do beings die? What is death?

 

In a way..it's kind of like motivation

 

Cam

[TwoTrees]

I'm excited to live.

I'm excited to die.

I try not to overthink, theorize, and speculate. (Although at times this can be entertaining and educative).

I just try to remember applying appreciation to everything in between ...

 

lessons come to one from everything, and in my experience overthinking it causes hesitation.

 

love that old saying - "Live and let live, love and let love, flower and fade, and follow the natural curve, which moves on ... endless"

 

-M

[rex]

Got no theories or comments but can quote someone else's view cited in The Secret of Everlasting Life:

 

"The idea of everlasting life has nothing to do with hankering after life. The truth is that actually there is no death.

How can there be no death? Because actually there is one single energy, one all-encompassing motivating force which lies at the root of all life's activity, not two. The Great Void which is the common ground of all life is there already, with life continously being born within it. So what need is there for life and death?

It is because our desire for things assumes undue importance that we go astray and begin separation of life and death. If we view them from this space of quiet and tranquility we can see there has never been any life or any death. Evidently there is only this one single energy flowing and circulating about."

 

From the Preface to Can Tong Qi Shuliu, 1564

[Ian]

Only one thing to say, and not sure how useful it is.

 

As follows:

 

Life and death are not opposites. Birth and death are opposites.

 

Life has no opposite. Life includes death.

 

Happy friday.

I

[三江源]

I am excited when I think about the moments of death happenng to me.

[Smile]

Death will come as soon as you finish paying all your bills. Silly Death...

[neimad]

from the moment we are conceived, we begin dying.

each moment to die a little.

yet each moment to live.

a delicate balance,

that never ceases to exist.