2009.08.15 01:00 - Life & Death

The Guardian for this meeting was Scathach Rhiadra. The comments are by Scathach Rhiadra.

Gaya asked the question "if one is afraid of death, one is also afraid of life?"   This question  occupied us for the session...

Scathach Rhiadra: Hello gaya:
Gaya Ethaniel: Hello Scath :)
Scathach Rhiadra: How are you today?
Gaya Ethaniel: How are you?
Scathach Rhiadra: snap!
--BELL--
Gaya Ethaniel: :)
Gaya Ethaniel: Doing well, got a bit done this morning. Yourself?
Scathach Rhiadra: just really waking up now!
Gaya Ethaniel: :)
Gaya Ethaniel: How was your week?
Scathach Rhiadra: not bad, yours?
Gaya Ethaniel: mm ... got a bit frustrated but think I got over that.
Gaya Ethaniel: Lots of breathing :)
Scathach Rhiadra: oh, how so?
Gaya Ethaniel: I need to make some 3D models for work ... it's a lot of work!
Scathach Rhiadra: ah!
Gaya Ethaniel: :)
Gaya Ethaniel: Well, I just keep at it and see.
Scathach Rhiadra nods
Gaya Ethaniel: Hello Pila :)
Scathach Rhiadra: Hello Pila
Pila Mulligan: hi Gaya and Scath
Gaya Ethaniel: How are you?
Pila Mulligan: I'm fine thanks -- enjoying an evening bowl of popcorn
Gaya Ethaniel: ah :)
Pila Mulligan: how are you (both)
Gaya Ethaniel: We are waking up :)
Scathach Rhiadra: fine thank you, yes just waking up
Pila Mulligan: Saturday morning
Gaya Ethaniel: mhm :)
Gaya Ethaniel: Pilia and I were talking about life/death the other day.
Scathach Rhiadra: oh?
Gaya Ethaniel: I think if one is afraid of death, one is also afraid of life?
Pila Mulligan: I shared an emial with Gaya I had just gotten from an old freind
Gaya Ethaniel nods :)
Pila Mulligan: the frined's mother had died at age 92 and the friend and her duaghter were holding her hand as she smiled and passe don
Pila Mulligan: very tuoching message
Pila Mulligan: yes, Gaya, morbidity is a big form of going
Scathach Rhiadra: agree with you Gaya
Gaya Ethaniel: Please say more?
Pila Mulligan: this popcorn is yummy
Gaya Ethaniel: :)
Gaya Ethaniel: oh now I'm hungry :)
Pila Mulligan: sorry :)
Pila Mulligan: wow
Pila Mulligan: Bert's rainbow
Scathach Rhiadra: some seem to think putting off living will put off death too
Gaya Ethaniel: 'Ts ok. Hunger is inevitable but suffering is an option heheheh
Gaya Ethaniel: oh?
Pila Mulligan: hey mr colorful
Scathach Rhiadra: Hello Bertrum, nice entrance:)
Gaya Ethaniel: Hello Bertrum :)
Bertrum Quan: hi everyone
Pila Mulligan: radiance
Gaya Ethaniel: What do you mean by 'putting off living' Scath?
Pila Mulligan: not spending time?
Gaya Ethaniel thinks.
Scathach Rhiadra: Bertrum, we are talking about life/death Gaya Ethaniel: I think if one is afraid of death, one is also afraid of life?
Bertrum Quan: Inteeresting topic.
Pila Mulligan: death is one of the most profound parts of life
Scathach Rhiadra: putting off living as in always planning to do things in some future time
Gaya Ethaniel: ah yes, why people do that?
Pila Mulligan: being stuck maybe
Gaya Ethaniel: It's sad ... life is passing them by I'm sure rather than being lived.
--BELL--
Pila Mulligan: a paradox of life is finding happiness in a world full of suffering ... fear is one of the great companions of suffering
Gaya Ethaniel listens.
Bertrum Quan: question for you all: do you feel the universe is a meaningless expanse or do you feel that it is sentient?
Scathach Rhiadra: interesting question:)
Pila Mulligan: I thnk it is full of sentience, but mostly empty
Scathach Rhiadra: I would say it is cognizant, knowing
Gaya Ethaniel shakes her head. I don't know.
Bertrum Quan: Does your feeling about this bear on your feeling about death?
Pila Mulligan: yes
Bertrum Quan: In what way?
Pila Mulligan: well, I am satisifed that we don't disappear entriely
Pila Mulligan: ever
Bertrum Quan: And?
Bertrum Quan: How does that shape your feeling about death?
Pila Mulligan: well, it doesn't really answer thiings
Pila Mulligan: it just seems to be
Pila Mulligan: but my feeling about death is affected by the sense of continuity
Bertrum Quan: Does that confort you--that feeling of continuinty--that hint of meaning...
Bertrum Quan: comfort
Pila Mulligan: not entirely, but it kind of poushes nihilism out of the picture
Bertrum Quan: How about Scath and Gaya?
Pila Mulligan: life and death are alike to me, in the sense that they are what you make of them
Gaya Ethaniel: Well I don't have an answer to your initial question Bertrum so it's kind of difficult to answer this one too.
Scathach Rhiadra: mmm, I think we have a fear of losing our sense of self, or personality, no matter what we feel reallity is
Gaya Ethaniel: Sense of self as life or ...?
--BELL--
Pila Mulligan: identity maybe
Bertrum Quan: Not having an answer is an answer..That sense of continuity that Pila mentioned.. would that reassure? make one less fearful?
Gaya Ethaniel: I'm not entirely sure it would.
Pila Mulligan: how do you feel about these ideas, Bert?
Bertrum Quan: I think the Buddhist notion of connection and a sense of sentience--if you believ that, give one a feeling a peace...that one is connected in a meaningful way to something larger than themselves...
Pila Mulligan: reminds me of looking up on a star-filled night
Gaya Ethaniel: 'Belief' is a tricky word here for me ...
Pila Mulligan: :)
Bertrum Quan: You can substitute feel for believe for the sake of discussion. Perhaps that will help..if you feel that the universe is a meaningless, however, those styars in the sky are of no comfort...
Pila Mulligan: :)
Bertrum Quan: sorry for the typos
Gaya Ethaniel: Why not?
Scathach Rhiadra: if you could experience or be aware of that connection in life, maybe strengthen it and loosen the fear?
Gaya Ethaniel nods.
Pila Mulligan: 'connected in a meaningful way' may be the value part
Bertrum Quan: if you feel the universite is meaningless, how do you loosen the fear?
Bertrum Quan: universe
Gaya Ethaniel: I don't know doesn't apply meaningless though ...
Scathach Rhiadra: you don't?:)
Gaya Ethaniel: imply*
Pila Mulligan: The Meaning of Life
Scathach Rhiadra: but if you feel the universe is meaningless, do you not also feel life is meaningless?
Pila Mulligan: 'pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space 'cause there's bugger all down here on earth' ... Monty Python
Bertrum Quan: That is important. But where does attachment come from? Is it the attempt to hold on to the meaning in life in the face of its absence?
Gaya Ethaniel guffaws.
Pila Mulligan: I got the sense that meaningful somehow implied happines in this context
Gaya Ethaniel: Because people don't think much about meaning of death?
Gaya Ethaniel: Hence my original questions, if fearful of death possibly so of life.
Scathach Rhiadra: mmm, yes Bertrum, that is a very good way of putting it!
Gaya Ethaniel: Viewing death in self-centred way is problematic in this sense I think.
--BELL--
Bertrum Quan: I've been struck by some of my reading of Buddhist concepts... (and it has been mentioned many times in various ways in PaB--attachment causes suffering). I'd make the case that fear equates to suffering...
Scathach Rhiadra: can you say more?
Pila Mulligan: fear is close to suffering, certainly
Gaya Ethaniel: Hello Nymf :)
Bertrum Quan: If you fear death, you suffer...
Pila Mulligan: hi Nymf
Nymf Hathaway: Hello everyone :)))
Bertrum Quan: Hi Nymf
Scathach Rhiadra: Hello Nymf:)
Nymf Hathaway: sorry Pila :(
Pila Mulligan: no problem, you're light as a feather
Gaya Ethaniel: :)
Nymf Hathaway: :))
Pila Mulligan: we are talking about life/death Gaya Ethaniel: I think if one is afraid of death, one is also afraid of life?
Nymf Hathaway: Nice Gaya :)
Gaya Ethaniel: :)
Scathach Rhiadra: and the attachment to identity in life is the fear of not existing, if we let it go?
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: if you fear emptinss you may be disappointed
Gaya Ethaniel: ?
Pila Mulligan: hi SophiaSharon
SophiaSharon Larnia: hi all :)
Gaya Ethaniel: Hello SophiaSharon :)
Bertrum Quan: Hi Sophia
Scathach Rhiadra: Hello sophiasharon
Gaya Ethaniel nods @ Scath. Appreciating life is certainly different to being attached to it.
Nymf Hathaway: Hello Sharon :)
SophiaSharon Larnia: *smiles* sorry to come so late
Pila Mulligan: :)
Scathach Rhiadra: :)
Gaya Ethaniel: np :)
Nymf Hathaway: RL happens :)
Bertrum Quan: I think one's sense of meaning outside of themselves helps to lessen their fears about dying. Religion (most of them that I know of) asks for a leap of faith that there is meaning, that there is connection to something greater than oneself...
Bertrum Quan: Some promise a resurection. Others a rebirth in some form...
Bertrum Quan: But those who find all of that nonsense... well, then what? do they get stuck in an "attachment mode"?
Scathach Rhiadra nods
Scathach Rhiadra: or maybe a depression mode
Pila Mulligan: a lot of life is just getting use to the day to day mundane part -- finding happiness in boredom
Gaya Ethaniel: :)
--BELL--
Bertrum Quan: But depression is not about boredom. It's about feeling that whatever you do doesn't really matter in the end. It's also feeling that you are alone.
Pila Mulligan: true
Scathach Rhiadra nods
Gaya Ethaniel: Depression has a lot to do with supressing one's natural state.
Scathach Rhiadra: and is there also not the related question, how some people seem to feel that whatever is greater than themselves is the only thing worth having, so this life is not worth living, they have to go somewhere else, if that makes sense?
Pila Mulligan: yes, it does and it is
SophiaSharon Larnia: yes it does Scath
Bertrum Quan: That makes good sense. That who go through live with the object of getting to the next one!
Gaya Ethaniel nods.
Gaya Ethaniel: It's a question of balance then?
Gaya Ethaniel: Or seeing the whole including oneself?
Bertrum Quan: Balance is a value judgement to some extent in this context.
Bertrum Quan: A Christian, for example, who believe everything is about the next life... and being welcomed into the Kingdom of God may not agree with you about balance...
Gaya Ethaniel: Well it was a qeustion Bertrum. I really don't know.
Gaya Ethaniel: Should get going ... hungry :)
Bertrum Quan: For that person the universe has meaning, rules, and outcomes if you follow those rules.
Gaya Ethaniel: Enjoy your weekend :)
Bertrum Quan: Bye Gaya
Pila Mulligan: bhye Gaya
Nymf Hathaway: Bye bye Gaya :)
Scathach Rhiadra: bye Gaya, see you later:)
Gaya Ethaniel: oh I'm not so sure about that one either Bertrum.
SophiaSharon Larnia: :) bye Gaya
SophiaSharon Larnia: what about thinking there is nothing beyond this, and therefore no rules, what then?
Pila Mulligan will slip off also -- bye for now :)
Nymf Hathaway: is living such
SophiaSharon Larnia: smiles
Nymf Hathaway: Have a good night Pila :)
Bertrum Quan: Bye Pila.
Scathach Rhiadra: seing the connection in this life , the inclusivness of all right now, gives meaning?
SophiaSharon Larnia: bye Pila
Pila Mulligan: bye
Scathach Rhiadra: bye Pila
Bertrum Quan: Scath, does it for you?
Scathach Rhiadra: seeing*
Scathach Rhiadra: mmm, yes I would say so:)
Scathach Rhiadra: how about you?
--BELL--
Bertrum Quan: Scath, you said ealrier, that fear stemmed from feeling that one would be losing themselves...so in that sense the connection to life is attachment to life? One must hold on to life to attain meaning?
Scathach Rhiadra: mmm, no sorry, I meant connection to the sentience of the universe, it must be there always and included in everything, us as well...
Scathach Rhiadra: so if we see that connection in this life, now, we could lose the fear of its absense, or not existing
Scathach Rhiadra: the self or identity we cling on to is the cause of our suffering, fear that it is the only thing there is, so if we lose it?.....
Bertrum Quan: I agree with you.
Nymf Hathaway: Needs to log off, wishing everyone a lovely weekend :)
Bertrum Quan: Bye Nymf
SophiaSharon Larnia: bye Nymf, you too :)
Nymf Hathaway: Bye bye everyone :)
Scathach Rhiadra: you have a great wekend too Nymf:)
Nymf Hathaway: Thanks :)
SophiaSharon Larnia: I need to go as well, take care :))
Bertrum Quan: Bye Sophia.
Scathach Rhiadra: bye Sharon, nice to see you:)
Bertrum Quan: If we agree on what causes the fear, to eliminating the fear is not based on intellectual understaning, is it?
Bertrum Quan: eliminate
Scathach Rhiadra: no, it would have to be really seeing what is in the moment, awakening to our true nature, as they say
Bertrum Quan: That get back to my sense of one of the underlying explorations in PaB.
Scathach Rhiadra nods