[Buddha-l] Being unable to imagine dying and living

[Ben Carral]

On Saturday, June 26, 2010, 10:16:17 PM, Richard wrote:

> Many years ago I wrote a piece in which the principal
> argument was that the Buddha probably knew that death
> is   a   complete   and  irreversible  end  to  one's
> consciousness  and  that  the entire Buddhist path is
> designed  to help people come to the realization that
> the oblivion that follows the end of consciousness is
> not  at all a dreadful thing. [...] I correlated this
> acceptance  to  the  final  of  the seven stages that
> Kübler-Ross outlined in her work on the stages people
> go  through after being told they are terminally ill.
> [...]  I  showed  the  essay  to  a  few  people, and
> everyone  I  showed  it  to  said  they thought I was
> making  a whole bunch of unwarranted assumptions, the
> principal  one  being that death really is a complete
> and irreversible end to consciousness.

   I  have  enjoyed  your story. It's quite funny and I
appreciate  that.  I  think  that you should definitely
publish  it. Then I know that you like to aesthetically
think   that   death   is   a  complete  end  to  one's
consciousness, and I suppose that you hold and agnostic
view  about it philosophically. Now I would like to ask
you  what you think (aesthetically, philosophically and
humanly)  about,  for instance, Brian Weiss's past life
regressions or the near-death experiences registered by
Kübler-Ross.

   Some  time  ago  I had a lucid dream where my father
said  to  me:  "I  didn't  want  to  go  without saying
goodbye."  I  woke up to my partner and share the dream
with  her. Next morning I discovered that my father had
suffered  a  heart  attack and was brain dead. Two days
after  doctors  stopped  the life-support machines. I'm
well aware that this doesn't proof anything about death
but made me think again about it. And I wonder why past
life regressions or near-death experiences are not more
more  widely  discussed and taken into account--I think
it would be quite interesting.

   Best wishes,

   Ben (Oviedo, Asturias, Spain)