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Originally Posted by gotspirits
Hi Wabisabi,
The fear is, losing control of what appears to be reality. The fear of the unknown. I know I have lead a life in which I have tried to be free of doing bad things. I've really tried to be kind to everyone and everything. The ultimate fear and sadness is dying and then what if there is nothing afterwards. I would be so disappointed. I want to know that working hard in this life to be a good person will have some merit after we pass. No, I am not perfect and far from it. But, my ultimate intentions are being good and spreading kindness.
Material-wise, I do not fear losing posessions. I really could care less.
I think that I need to get in touch with my spiritual being. I am not sure how to go about this. I've gone to church and was confirmed Catholic. I stopped going because I do not believe in supporting an organization that was hiding abuses of children.
I feel a huge pull and connection to Chinese culture. I studied Chinese when I was in college. I've always joked with my family that I believe God made a mistake in making me. God instead should of made me Chinese :) With that in mind, I wonder if exploring a Chinese/Asian spiritual belief system would help with my anxiety of death? I have a very open mind about most anything.
"My recommendation is to take up a practice of mindfulness, something that grounds you in the present moment." Yes, I tend to either live in the past or have anxiety about the future. It has only gotten worse as I've gotten older.
Thanks again for your comments!
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I cannot force you to believe in something that you have not directly experienced, nor can I give you a 'how to' guide on having such a spiritual experience that would dissolve your fears. I can, however, tell you that death is not an end, it is simply a transition, and that there is nothing to fear but fear itself... but even fearing fear is silly, for fear is an important tool, a method of keeping us alive. And so you shouldn't fear fear, you should instead observe it and try and see it for what it truly is, not a thought of your own, not something you give rise to, but a spontaneous happening.
As for death, think of it this way. For much of the Western world, death is scary, because so many people believe that death is an end all of sorts, and that after you die there is simply nothingness, nonexistence. But the thing is, you cannot fathom what an experience of nonexistence would be like, by definition it is not an experience! And so western minds conjure up a prison of sorts in their minds, a dark void like being buried alive, where they still have all of their thoughts and emotions, and they think "that is scary, I don't want to go there. I don't want to die." But if you do really cease to exist after death, then there will be no you to be disappointed! It's a wonderful paradox really, one of my favorites.
When you go to sleep, are you ever afraid that you won't wake up? I mean, you know that a majority of the night will simply be gone, you won't remember it, almost as if you never really experienced it. And yet you are so sure that you are going to get up the next morning. And the same goes for being put under general anesthesia for surgery, one moment you are there going under, and the next moment you are there waking up. You cannot experience the in-between. You cannot experience nonexistence. You could be 'out' for a million billion years, and yet from the moment you went to sleep to the moment you wake up, it would feel as though no time has passed at all.
You see, what we call life is simply a string of present moments, a string of experiences. We can only ever be aware of experiences. And so, in Buddhism, there is a term used to describe this continuity of consciousness called 'mindstream' (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindstream). Basically, when you die, you cannot experience the void between death and life, and so the only thing that can happen to you is that you 'wake up'!