Posted on 05/26/2016 9:36:43 PM PDT by Cronos
..I was having a panic attack.
What I wanted to know was: why now – my life was going uncharacteristically well – and what could I do about it?
“You need to think about death for five minutes every day,” Ura replied. “It will cure you.”
“How?” I said, dumbfounded.
“It is this thing, this fear of death, this fear of dying before we have accomplished what we want or seen our children grow. This is what is troubling you.”
“But why would I want to think about something so depressing?”
“Rich people in the West, they have not touched dead bodies, fresh wounds, rotten things. This is a problem. This is the human condition. We have to be ready for the moment we cease to exist.”
...Actually, by suggesting I think about death once a day, Ura was going easy on me. In Bhutanese culture, one is expected to think about death five times a day. That would be remarkable for any nation, but especially for one so closely equated with happiness as Bhutan. Is this secretly a land of darkness and despair?
..Unlike many of us in the West, the Bhutanese don’t sequester death. Death – and images of death – are everywhere, especially in Buddhist iconography where you’ll find colourful, gruesome illustrations. No one, not even children, is sheltered from these images, or from ritual dances re-enacting death.
..Ura’s lesson, meanwhile, stuck with me. I make it a point to think about death once a day. Unless I find myself especially stressed, or engulfed in an unexplained funk. Then I think about it twice a day.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Christ in me is to live; to die is to gain.
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If we give our deaths to the Lord, then we live. If we keep them ourselves, we die.
Refresh yourself daily with the contemplation of your death, was a bit of advice from the way of the sword.
I used to despise such talk, but then I grew up. Some.
Just go to India. You can wash in the Ganges as corpses drift by. That ‘enlightened’ appreciation of death that the demonic East enjoys.
What "demonic East," exactly?
Hebrews 2: 10In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. 11Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.g 12He says,
“I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters;
in the assembly I will sing your praises.”
13And again,
“I will put my trust in him.”i
And again he says,
“Here am I, and the children God has given me.”
14Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. 16For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. 17For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. 18Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
Thinking about ageing, let alone death, is a big no-no in the US.
Everyone here wants to be a kid forever - a fact reflected amply in society and politics - and many, if not most, folks prefer to act like teens right into their eighties.
“You must not procrastinate. Rather, you should make preparations so that even if you did die tonight, you would have no regrets. If you develop an appreciation for the uncertainty and imminence of death, your sense of the importance of using your time wisely will get stronger and stronger.” - Dalai Lama
Such as putting all the ethnic Nepalese into camps and exterminating the non-Bhutanese minorities in Bhutan.
“We have to be ready for the moment we cease to exist.”
Sorry, Bhutan, but my existence does not cease with the death of my body. My spirit goes to be with the Lord.
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