Are you afraid of dying?

[connda]

Am I afraid to die?

That's sort of a "yes" and "no" question.

From a purely physical sense, the body and mind are wired for survival.  That's just the nature of it.  When the body and mind face an extinction level threat - it goes into high-gear.  Think of situations where you almost died.  How did your body and mind react?  

Then comes the rational and metaphysical sense for those who have cultured it.  Especially as a Buddhist practitioner who has done a whole lot of mediation in my life-time.  Now note - I didn't say a "follower of Buddhist religion."  I said I'm a practitioner.  There's a difference.  So I don't necessarily buy the Buddhist cosmology hook, line, and sinker.  Buddhism is not my 'religion.'  Christianity is my religion.  That should confuse a lot of people <laughs>.  

If you dive deeply into your inner being, then you understand a lot of the sign-posts that someone like the man Siddhārtha Gautama hung out for us to see and practice.  Just like the man, Jesus of Nazareth.  
My feeling is that if you have done a significant amount of deep introspection, you arrive at a gnosis - an understanding - and therein - fear of death dissolves.  

But at the moment of death - those inner instinct may take over.  There are people who can see through that fear and beyond.  I'm not there yet.  Few are.  But I have enough experience to understand the gross nature of the 'fear of death' and how/why it arise.  Not being a Buddhist arahant (people who can actually see through the fabric of what appears to be 'reality' but is not).  
From that perspective?  I don't fear death.  In the throes of death?  Well I hope I can apply insight as I release this mortal form.  But rationally - I don't fear death.  It's part and parcel of birth and life.

[BritManToo]

I'm ready for death.

Done more that I possibly imagined, nothing really left but death.

[zzaa09]

Should be looking forward to the next life and what it might or might not bring.

[clivebaxter]

No just don't want to be there when it happens ????

[RichardColeman]

I do not think any of us are 'scared' of dying - just the manner of our death.

 

Knowing my luck Buddhists would be right and I'd be born into a future totally woke world I'd be happy to have left previously

[ChaiyaTH]

I never said to fear death until I got hit by a corrupt lawyer and was suddenly on the road, to then have an attempted setup at the hospital. Yeah I did fear death for a moment there, but the will to be alive is the reason I am still here today. Fear surviving life, not death itself.

[WhiteBuffaloATM]

Afraid of Any Pain, Fear or Family Grief preceding my Death.

Slow/Extended Death:Torture, Maiming, Laceration, Battering, Falling, Drowning, Fire, Freezing =Terrifying. 

Quick / Instant Death : Bullet, Explosion, Car Crash = Fearless

 

[CharlieH]

Not at all, just hope it is quiet and painless.

 

[1FinickyOne]

 

i find myself looking towards a peaceful transition... a way to painlessly fade away

[KannikaP]

I do not fear death, but the actual dying process if it is going to be a long drawn out thing. 

If I do get into that situation, there are ways and means of easing it through.

Once done, there is no afterlife, re-incarnation, just smoke up the temple chimney and some ashes in the garden. 

[473geo]

I am hoping by the time I arrive at death it will come as a release rather than some desperate need to cling on to life 

[Gottfrid]

29 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

I'm ready for death.

Done more that I possibly imagined, nothing really left but death.

Same here! Actually, I am more afraid of keep on living like the world is turning out. ????

[mfd101]

We all fear the process of dying: pain, long-drawn out suffering, loss of bodily control etc.

 

But once dead, there is nothing to fear, it seems to me.

 

Either there is nothing after death: You have simply ceased to exist so there is no longer a 'you' that can do or suffer or think anything.

 

Alternatively, if there is an after-life (which seems pretty unlikely but it's rational to have an open mind), we can only hope it's pleasant. In any case there's nothing we can do about it and we can't even imagine what such an after-life would be like so there's no point in worrying.

[Nojohndoe]

Not afraid of death because have lived long enough to come to terms with it as an inevitable.

My fear is that it will not be quick and suffer the ignominy of extended disfunctionality and being burdensome .

[BE88]

If death means leaving peacefully no I will not be afraid, the only fear is to return as an incarnation in another life, and restart again.

[Zikomat]

Yes, I am afraid to die. Life is all we have. Death does not exist : it is what we call when there is no life anymore. It is not a transition from one state to another, it is a transition from everything to nothing, from 1 to 0, something our mind is not ever able to grasp, accept or reconcile with. I try to be honest with myself and not to claim understanding or wisdom where there cannot be any.

[ezzra]

Die in my sleep, best outcome i can hope for...

[Will B Good]

I'm afraid of how I will die.

[jak2002003]

No......not of dying.

 

If I could just die of 'old age' in my sleep.

 

I am afraid of pain and long suffering from a disease or health problem though....but not of the dying part at all.  

 

I hope when I get older they will have legalised euthanasia and have some nice hotel style place I can go when I think the time is right....where I can say goodbye to friends and then down a bottle of fine brandy and eat chocolates then take a pill, go to sleep and not wake up. 

Edited October 16, 2021 by jak2002003

[StreetCowboy]

20 minutes ago, ezzra said:

Die in my sleep, best outcome i can hope for...

I hope to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather, not screaming in horror and terror like his passengers

[StreetCowboy]

But in all seriousness, death has no fears, though potentially some unfulfilled obligations; the prelude to death - life’s the last few moments, minutes or years; that is what I am afraid of.

[KhunLA]

1 hour ago, BritManToo said:

I'm ready for death.

Done more that I possibly imagined, nothing really left but death.

Yea, I'm kind of there myself.  Certainly done more than I originally thought I would as a youngin'.  Did all the thrill seeking things I chose, thrill / danger assessment.  Did more than enough stupid things, and amazing I didn't kill myself.  Quite  enjoying my 'winding down', and don't think I missed out on anything.

 

Think if a multi multi USD millionaire, I'd bore myself to death after the first year of frivolous silliness.

 

Actually though I was dying a few years back, in the middle of nowhere, and hours from any hospital that could actually help.  Thought I was having the big one, made sure the wife knew all my pins / passwords, and was quite relaxed with the thought of cra pping out.

 

Hours of chest pains passed, and now can say, I know what bad night of shingles feels like ...

????????????

 

The residuals for 5+ yrs was annoying.

[KhunLA]

44 minutes ago, mfd101 said:

We all fear the process of dying: pain, long-drawn out suffering, loss of bodily control etc.

 

 

Screw that.  I know how I'm dying, quickly in an accident, in my sleep, or suicide ... ????

[CharlieH]

If you think about we die every night, hence the expression "dead to the world" only difference is whetherr you wake up in the morning.????

 

I hope I dont drag on, watching the body fall apart, ever increasing restrictions and possibility of losing functions and mental capacity, possibly a burden to others.. That to me and I think most people would be the nightmare.

 

My Dad died at 94 in his sleep, great way to go but I really dont want to go on that long.

 

[Jerno]

Fear a slow painful death. Hope i go quickly when the time comes. Will also be easier on those around me after the initial shock perhaps.

[peter zwart]

I am not affraid as i have already a full life and the world is turning into a sh1tty place.. But a piece of mind i need to die peacefull. I have to be sure my kids and wife are fine for the feature. 

I do love life but when you get older (53) and see how full of <deleted> most of the people are.......... i think that the best years are behind me. The years that your kids grow up, you make a career, still have dreams etc etc. The absolute will of living flows away. You dont have the will and energy anymore to play the game. So i hope that the years that i have left are full of fun and meeting nice people. 

[zzaa09]

49 minutes ago, Zikomat said:

Yes, I am afraid to die. Life is all we have. Death does not exist : it is what we call when there is no life anymore. It is not a transition from one state to another, it is a transition from everything to nothing, from 1 to 0, something our mind is not ever able to grasp, accept or reconcile with. I try to be honest with myself and not to claim understanding or wisdom where there cannot be any.

Or......what we are considering to be life, isn't really there - same applies to what we see as death. 

It's possible that we might exist, one cycle after the other, in a false time continuum where all is perceived as real - but truly isn't. 

Nature and the phenomena of dimensional forces are having their amusement. 

 

....and we'll never know, one way or another.

[G Rex]

I have had/am having a fantastic life - and I honestly have no ‘bucket list’.

As my body physically deteriorates , I may enact protocols to speed up proceedings.

Both of my parents died with dementia. I do not want to play that game.

In my working life I euthanised thousands of patients - so I have a more blasé attitude to the sanctity of life.

I am all about Quality Of Life.

 

[bbko]

My father is 84 and still going strong, living alone without assistance, mom passed at 77 from cancer.

I figure if I make to 80 years I lived a full life

if I make it to 85 I'll be at peace,

if I make it to 90 I reached the finish line.

 

Afraid of dying? What's that line in the movie Plattoon?

"Everybody gotta die sometime"

 

[ballpoint]

I'm more <deleted> off at the thought of dying than afraid of it.  I always want to see around the next corner.  I want to see my grandson grow up, get married, have children of his own.  I want to see what new discoveries will be made in physics, aiding our understanding of life, the universe and everything.  I want to see how it all ends.  I also agree with Christopher Hitchens that the thought that the newspapers will come out the next day, people will go about their everyday business, but I won't be around to see it, is a scarier thought than death itself. 

 

I was involved in a traffic accident a number of years ago and blacked out before impact, waking up in hospital with serious injuries which could very well have ended my life. Should I have died at that time, I wouldn't have known a thing about it, and certainly wouldn't have been able to care about how my loved ones in particular, and the world in general, were getting on without me in it, so I do know better than most that the actual moment of death is nothing to be afraid off, but the anticipation of it could very well be.  In short, I will not go gentle into that good night, but will rage against it.  I like to think that I did so while unconscious following my accident, which is why I'm still around today.