I think since having become divorced from religion (at least with Christianity, I still find Dharmic spirituality interesting, but I still don’t believe in the supernatural), the idea of death has become a bit more difficult for me.
I tell myself that I am okay with dying, since it’s inevitable, and out of my control, but I think deep down, when I really think about the end of my existence, there is some deep terror there, perhaps related to the fear of the unknown. I can think of all kinds of fantastic quotes about death and finding peace with it, but when I think about what it will feel like to die, it instills great terror within me.
It’s not even a fear of the pain or anything. Just a fear of what may or may not be next. I think part of it too is some sort of fear of missing out. A fear of not getting to see the great things that are to come in this world. A fear of not having the time to learn the innumerable interesting things that there are to learn. So much to learn, and so little time. I think it also has to do with the thought of being forever separated from my loved ones. From my partner. From the person who I share my life with and have created my life with. Imagining being separated from her for an eternity, it brings me to tears.
Interestingly, this is a fear I’ve always had, ever since I was a child. I remember being 4 or 5 years old and asking my dad what happens after death, what death feels like, where my friends will go after death, and remember him becoming almost frustrated with my questioning, because these are obviously answers he doesn’t have and are honestly fairly strange thoughts for a child so young to be pondering.
For some reason, death has always been something on my mind since I was a child, and a very emotional thought at that. I think my brief stint of being religious from early childhood into mid-teen years was an emotional ‘band-aid’ of sorts, but since I’ve come to the conclusion that I truly don’t know what death will feel like or what will happen after death, these thoughts have again started racing through my head, giving me moderate emotional discomfort.
Have any of yourselves come to term with death? How have you managed to find peace with it besides “just don’t think about it”?
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In terms of afterlives I think it’s best to be agnostic. Maybe a will be reincarnated as someone feeling the affects of my karma, maybe not. I don’t think hell exists because that’s kind of evil and arbitrary to lump someone who wasn’t good enough with someone who was the worst person ever. It’s absurd that everyone who hadn’t heard of a religion is damned to eternal suffering.Though, there are some Christian groups that think Jesus abolished hell and now there’s just heaven. It also could be that they are just states of mind, maybe the Buddhist heavenly and hellish realms are also states of mind. However, we can’t know everything, so whether there’s an afterlife, we’re stuck in a Bergsonian loop, or there’s a void, it’s good to do good things and try to affect the world positively. If there is a heaven a dedicated communist is going there.
In terms of afterlife, I would say I’m agnostic. When i say I have appreciation for the Dharmic religions, I don’t mean that I believe in the supernatural aspects of those religions, more that I appreciate the philosophical undertones present within them. Specifically stuff like Indra’s Net, or anything that stresses that “things aren’t really things, but things are the relationships between things”, if that makes sense. Just the stuff that stresses interconnection and nuance, i find that I can really appreciate and see a lot of crossover with systems science and Marxism. Also, Swami Vivekanda has written some very interesting texts on Socialism based on his time in the USSR, which I found pretty interesting.
I do agree religion isn’t the end all, be all, and i generally have disdain for religion, i do find that those philosophies have a lot to be appreciated, especially when compared to the purely black and white thinking of abrahamic religion.
Basically same. I’m reminded of some very good episodes of revleft on how Buddhism and Marxism can complement each other.
Any specific ones i should check out?
From shoeless in South Dakota: ‘shoeless in samsara,’ (talks about death) and ‘death anxiety and overcoming life’s tragedies’ (warning: long and random, you your choice whether to)
From Revolutionary left radio: ‘dialectics & liberation: insights from Buddhism and Marxism,’ ‘zen Buddhism and social transformation,’ ‘Hegelian dialectics: contradiction, Marxism, & the Freudian unconscious,’ the whole ‘dialectics deep dive series’ (long), ‘Karmic law and mutual aid: insights from Buddhism and anarchism’…
Honestly, every time I go through the revleft backlog there are many more I want to listen to, so I suggest you do that if you finish all of these and want more. (Btw I didn’t link anything because there are too many podcast apps and I didn’t want to assume anything).
From the Buddhist tradition, I’d say you can use meditation practice to realize for yourself that the notion of a coherent self is an illusion, and you are losing nothing in death. I’d suggest you listen to Revolutionary Left Radio and Shoeless in South Dakota, because Breht has a lot of episodes about Buddhism and stuff. He often tells the story of when his spiritual practice led him to have a crisis where he obsessed about the fact he was going to die, but he eventually realized he was just mourning the human condition.
Edit:
A fear of not having the time to learn the innumerable interesting things that there are to learn.
I found that relatable, and I guess I think you can’t regret anything if you don’t exist. I think it’s good to try and learn as much is you can, but what matters is that you try to affect the world in a net positive way. I’m still trapped in the illusion of self, but theoretically with how your consciousness is constantly changing there is no need to regret anything, just be present with experiences as they come, and try to be good, but in the end it won’t matter.
What is meant by “coherent self”?
You are not the same person from one moment to the next, nor over your lifetime. Your emotions constantly change; your opinions constantly change; you physically constantly change; what does the little baby you once were have in common with you? Genes? You share 99.9% in common with everyone anyway. There’s also a dialectical approach where you say “where does my body end and other things begin?” Even the atoms don’t technically touch each other so, who’s to say that whatever you are sitting on isn’t a part of “you?” Who’s to say the bacteria on/in you is truely a separate entity when they outnumber you ten to one in cells? Who’s to say the plants around you aren’t part of your respiratory system?
I figure I am going to die one day but also I don’t want to die yet so I’m gonna try to not die… I do fear death but that fear is to remind me I’m not ready to die yet. On the other hand I know it will happen eventually so when the time comes and I know there no real chance or reason to fight it anymore then I figure I will let that at fear go. At least that’s what I say now. Not sure how it’ll play out when the time comes.