So given a tangent elsewhere I am curious about this topic. Then again I often am given my whole fear of death thing. Just kind of curious about how everyone here views death and what happens after it. That and what general purpose there is to life, if any. I'm exceptionally nervous about death. The idea that it might just be nothingness is very terrifying to me. Like at least burning in Hell you're still conscious. In pain but conscious. Nothingness though is the destruction of my illusory self. Belief wise to me death is an inescapable thing. It will happen and nothing we can do will ever stop it from happening. There's nothing really bad about death nor is there anything good about death. Death is death. Many people happen to be terrified of it. At least in part due to a deep attachment to the aforementioned illusory self and the not really comprehending that, yes, it will happen to you. I myself strive not to fear it and to view it as something that doesn't need mourning or joy. It's an inevitability and while deaths should be prevented as we can manage, there's nothing to really grieve about them. Now managing that is the hard part and not a thing I have come close to! Following death there is rebirth. The exact mechanics of this are a batfuck mess. To keep things short and basic though following death your stream of consciousness breaks into four distinct parts. One of those parts happens to carry your particular stream of consciousness and karma. The others carry memories and they go elsewhere and join with other soul bits, if you will, and create a whole new being. So you join up with three new bits, create a new thing, and are then reborn in the context that your karma defines. Karma itself being a whole other basket of madness. This sucks. Everything about it sucks and even happiness is just a subtle form of suffering. One that comforts us and cons us into believing that there's something of actual worth in life. Which I don't believe there is. Everything is too fleeting to have actual worth. So the purpose of life is to escape it via Enlightenment, and we're all driven to that at our own rates by the Bhavanga (the stream of consciousness basically). As to why it even exists I don't know nor do I care. What I do care about is getting the fuck out and helping as many people I can, especially in the getting the fuck out bit. So basically life's a bitch and then you die and die and die and die and die and die and die some more. I am a grim woman with depressing thoughts of woe and despair. What about you all though?
I'm fairly sure you already know this, but in case you are interested/don't know: As for the meaning of life - I think that life is pretty awesome. That isn't to downplay the amount of terrible that it can be, but I think that just being alive is about finding all the joy you can, even if you have to fight for it, and even when everything is terrible there's a grim satisfaction in looking at the amount of shit life has given you and deciding 'fuck this, I'm going to keep going and I'm going to make some good out of this'. It might not be easy or obvious, and it probably involves a lot of swearing and effort, but at the end there's a lot of joy and enjoyment to be gotten out of life. (Yes, this is very hedonistic.) I don't find death a big deal. I mean, I don't want to die any time soon, because I have plans and that would be inconvenient and annoying, but when I die, I get to go to Tír na nÓg for a while, and maybe learn to steal the houses of the Fair Folk, and generally learn stuff, and then I most likely get reborn and get to fight and enjoy life again. So - I hope that I don't die of something excruciatingly painful or suchlike, but the actual mechanism of death itself doesn't bother me, because it's more like going (to another) home.
I am still so undecided on whether or not I want to continue getting out of this hell without intrinsic worth or if I want to get fucking blitzed and be like "FUCK IT. WE'LL JUST KICK LIFE IN THE NADS." I mean I could reach Enlightenment and never suffer again...Or I could learn to steal houses like Donn did. You know. Either or.
'So one of the Fair Folk killed me... and I went to the afterlife and killed it back and stole its house' Can't really say he is not a role model for me. >_>
This is the sort of philosophical question best answered by snazzy Ray Troll t-shirt designs: Spoiler More seriously, I love life and I love living, but I genuinely don't want to live or otherwise exist forever. I try to make the most of my time here, in terms of my own happiness and in terms of compassion to those around me, and then I'll be done. Hopefully later rather than sooner, but I think when I'm done, I'm done. There may not be enough time to get everything done that I'd like to, but so it goes. I do genuinely hope that there is no sort of afterlife or reincarnation. Like I mentioned in the other thread, the idea of existing forever terrifies me existentially in the way that I image the idea of ceasing to exist terrifies most other people. I try to keep some awareness in my mind of my own mortality and the mortality of everything around me. Like not dwelling on death, as such, but just keeping in mind that everything ends. Which I think is a healthy thing to remember, I think. And it's not like things lose the worth they had by ceasing to exist. Don't be sad because it ended, be happy because it happened, and all. It's a miracle I exist at all, and I plan to exploit the hell out of it while I can. (It's probably relevant that my biggest interests are all long extinct and that I generally think of time in units of millions of years. We're all extreme-slow-mo monkeys here, and it's frankly amazing how slowly we experience such an utterly infinitesimal amount of time. We live so fast that we use the flickering, bursting growth and death of trees as a symbol of immobility and talk about rocks as changeless. Like really, what the fuck.) #actually aradia megido #ssshhh dont let acey know
My beliefs about life and death are kinda influenced by my religious beliefs (or are my religious beliefs influenced by my beliefs about life? It's a mystery). Personally, I believe that life should be lived in make life the best we can for ourselves and others. We should try to spread as much joy as we can, and we should try to live the best lives that we can. We should help others, but not to the detriment of ourselves. We should create a better, more peaceful and harmonious world for those who will come after us. About death, I definitely don't want to live forever, but also the thought of ceasing to exist entirely also terrifies me. People physically living forever would also be terrible for the planet and the natural cycle of life. Death is a natural part of life. New life cannot be brought about if there is not death. So, death is necessary. My personal beliefs are that, when you die, your body returns to the universe by decomposing, and your soul returns to the universe, and it's job is kinda to watch over and help out your family. Some people I've talked to who are part of my religion also believe in reincarnation, as you're technically still in the universe, even though the religion officially says it's not a thing. (The fun thing about it is that it's very syncretic with other belief systems, so you get Christians, Buddhists, Shintoists, uh that's probably the main people, who also follow it.) (I should probably say which religion I'm referring to *coughs* Uh it's a probably weird Japanese new religion called Konkokyo. It has some similarities to Christianity and Buddhism, and it rose out of Shinto traditions, so there's offerings and ancestor worship all thrown in there. We believe that God is Literally The Universe and everyone is connected as being a part of the universe, so we shouldn't be dicks to each other and we should support each other and work towards living in peach and harmony and understanding with all people. I like it because it focuses more on life rather than death, which is a feature of Shinto as well, so what the afterlife actually is is pretty vague and open to interpretation. You get a lot of good discussions happening about things. Okay religion is one of my sperg things so I'm going to stop now.)
I don't believe in any afterlife. As soon as somebody takes a camera there, I'll start believing. I think death is very much a negative thing. It's like burning the last copy of a book times a million. I'm holding out for technology to let me stay long past my natural lifespan. Though I also think a large part of life's value is in sharing it with others, so there's not much point staying alive past the age of humanity/sentience.
The concept of an afterlife is a pleasant one, but not one that I really subscribe to- I don't think anything really happens, except that your body decomposes, and since the sum of you(personality, feelings, etc.) is located all in your brain, it just stops happening. When I was little my mom used to assure me that animals went over the rainbow bridge and that I'd get to see them again one day, but again, nice thought but I never really believed it. But I don't really feel like death is really a bad thing, I just feel sort of bad if the animal or person dying suffers. And I don't really think there is some point to life, other than basically to continue society whether that be reproducing and so continuing the human race or contributing to knowledge via research or something, or making society better even if only in some very small way like through making art or music, or working in any sort of job because basically any job makes other people's lives a little easier.
Here's a question for the people who don't think death is bad: do you or do you not think murder is actually wrong? If so, why, since all it is is causing a death? If your reasons have to do with the people who love the victim, what if the victim is a hermit whose relatives are already dead? Is that wrong?
Life is good, death is not bad, but you only get one life to a whole lotta death, and needlessly truncating someone's experience of existence is fucked right the hell up and eliminating who knows how many awesome things they could have experienced and will now never get to.
But there's always more awesome experiences. Currently, books are being produced faster than humans can read them. Same with YouTube videos and fanfiction and all kinds of stuff. It seems every month a new hobby sprouts up. How can death be bad up until people turn 80 or so, in which case it becomes okay?
All right. So by not bad in regards to death I mean that there is no real reason to mourn death. Everything has to end at some point and everything is lacking in intrinsic self qualities and substance. There's nothing to mourn because we should understand that, yes, things will die and they have to die. However due to our ignorance and clinging we feel pain at losing something. Because even though most of us know that people die we don't truly believe that. We say we do, but we do not understand or accept the fact. It's a distortion on how reality really works. However pain is a very real fact of life and pain sucks. If pain didn't suck there would be no need for the Eightfold Path. Nor would things like mercy and compassion be important virtues within Buddhism. Hell look at the list of moral precepts we have. The first five and most basic ones all deal with not causing other living beings pain. Murder is wrong because murder causes pain. First off you're causing the person dying pain. It hurts physically and scares them. Then you are causing that person's family and friends pain. You're also causing pain for the people investigating the case, the juries, and so on. In general the murder has caused lots of problems and many people are upset for some reason or another. Even if it is just some hermit in the middle of nowhere with no family you have caused the hermit some sort of pain and thus committed a wrong. All killing is considered a moral wrong in Buddhism, even if death is something we cannot escape. Because death causes pain. Even killing ants is wrong. The ants have a right to life and you are no different from them. Humans just feel that they are due to conceit and ignorance. Pain is a fact of reality and not something we can ever remove from reality. But we should do our best to prevent, mitigate, and resolve pain as much as possible because pain hurts. The Eightfold Path is simply the greatest way to prevent pain since it ends it entirely and forever. Also I guess by killing someone you're also putting them back a notch possibly with the Path. Now they have to start over in a new life with conditions based on their karmic fruits. Which could fuck people up. And as a final note jesus christ does Buddhism sound judgmental as shit. I really don't have a better word for avijja other than ignorance though? And it's a pretty central fucking concept that gets mentioned all the time...
I do think that in most cases, murder would be considered wrong. I am putting most cases because assisted suicide is not legal in a lot of places and would be considered murder. But I think that it has it's place- people who are dying of something incurable and that have the capability to choose assisted suicide should be allowed to end their life on their own terms if they so desire, especially if actually dying from whatever they have would cause them a great deal of pain and suffering. I consider it wrong because it's harming other people, and even if the person who is killed does not suffer, their death will still cause suffering to their family and friends, and those around them even including coworkers and classmates. At this point I don't really think it would be possible for someone to completely be a hermit as in have absolutely no human interaction. and even if there was, what reason would another person have to kill them except possibly for survival? If not then I suppose it would be wrong because it is unnecessary? Because I consider needless killing wrong- basically, live and let live.
Assisted suicide is a thing. Yes because it is killing it is something that will net you negative karma. There is no way around that. At the same time though there is the consideration of the person's suffering to take in mind. Basically is killing them less awful for them than letting them live. But then there are friends and family who need to be thought of as well. Their pain needs to be taken into consideration as well. In the end though someone is going to be suffering somewhere and we're not Yama so we can't weigh this shit perfectly. So I suppose I feel towards assisted suicide the same way I do abortion (life begins even before conception because confusing bullshit). It's a necessary evil at times and something I feel that should probably be legalized. Tightly controlled and regulated, but legalized.
@Aondeug Sorry if you took that to be a reply to your post, I was just replying to the original person asking about murder and by the time I was done writing mine, you'd posted yours haha
Oh no I didn't take it that way. I just like responding to things and assisted suicide is a thing I have feelings about because REASONS. It's a neat and tough subject for Buddhists though the general stance seems to be THIS IS NEVER RIGHT EVER.
Ahhhhh I see ^^ that totally makes sense. And regarding your post, I could definitely see where abortion falls into a similar category, as it's sort of about deciding the best way to mitigate suffering. A baby born to someone who is unable or unready to care for a child is likely going to have a less than happy life as well as cause caretakers a great deal of distress. So while abortion may be regarded as a bad thing, it would likely be less bad than the total amount of harm caused if the mother is forced to carry the baby to term. For the record I absolutely think abortion should be legal, and that everyone should have access to the option. And I suppose I would consider life starting at the point where the fetus is developed enough to be able to feel pain, because that's something that can be concluded definitively, while it's not currently possible to determine when conscience develops.
It's also taking away someone's agency, most of the time, which I do see as a bad thing. (Thus, places where that's not the case, or where the other person is already restricting your agency (such as self-defense), it isn't necessarily a bad thing.)
Oh now I want to talk about agency and free will. I don't believe in either, however I also don't believe in determinism. Instead there is what we could call conditional determinism, I suppose. At least this is what I have been calling it. Karma is not a set in stone done deal because you are always generating more of it. So while at one moment you can say that cause x may be likely at another moment that wouldn't be so. So divination, which I think is a thing that does work, isn't some sort of exact science even for gods. It's a guessing game of what will be the most likely course of things or the most desired course and so on. There's also the lives of other living beings to take into account. Those lives have their own karma and society does affect how we behave. However we cannot say that people don't have at least some ability to act. We do each have the ability to consciously affect our karma. If we didn't we couldn't make use of things like loving kindness meditation and merit transference, and we certainly wouldn't be able to escape from Samsara. Our capacity is limited though, especially when we haven't figured out that skillful behavior thing. Agency is a fun topic.
