Bhutan's dark secret to happiness
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This is a common oversimplification of reincarnation. I had the opportunity to study with a Buddhist scholar in India a year ago who corrected a lot of my misconceptions. Reincarnation is neither reward nor punishment. It's a long cycle with the end goal not being immortality but escape (or exit) from the cycle through moksha[1]. A possibly more accurate oversimplification is "do good, increase karma until you win the game, and stop being reincarnated."
If there's any link between belief or interaction with death and happiness, it's most likely due to simply increasing daily gratitude[2] which does have scientific benefit.
I'm headed to Bhutan in a month and will report back if I learn anything interesting on this topic.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moksha
[2] http://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/giving-thanks-can-m...
A general way of ending the cycle (that works across different schools of Buddhism) is that the Buddha was trying to teach us to focus on understanding human suffering. And only by understanding suffering can we ultimately dislodge it and move forward. You don't even have to be Buddhist to believe in that!
Ironically Buddhism has now come very far from original teaching of Buddha.
Which one?
I'm admittedly no proper scholar of the subject, just a former armchair enthusiast, but when I read texts from the Pali canon it seems clear to me that from the earliest recorded times Buddhism has considered itself a living tradition. In the stories it tells, Gautama Buddha often refuses to weigh in on those sorts of matters. Fast forward a couple thousand years and you've got things like a letter in which a major Zen patriarch explicitly refuses to offer any opinion on a point of "theological" disagreement between Pure Land Buddhism and his own sect. And in between, plenty more stories of leaders encouraging flexible thinking on these kinds of matters. It's really not like Abrahamic religious traditions where there's this tendency toward obsessing over orthodoxy.
One may wonder if this isn't the origin of most "paranormality" found in religions.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9260286
to being at my uncle's bedside as he passed away earlier this week. There was undeniable pain in watching him go, even though I barely knew the man - we were all still rather struck by watching someone breath their last breath.
But in the end (and yeah, it's anecdotal) I find I've been spending more time considering what I want the remainder of my life to be, if the end is randomly assigned to be sometime between moments after I submit this comment to say, 60 years from now. It's focused my thinking. I've been more forgiving, less likely to take offense, kinder to my wife, more in awe of my new kid. Politics bothers me less, and I'm less likely to get hot and bothered about the latest scandal.
It's been a bit cathartic, while being intensely scary. I'm not looking forward to leaving this life (see comment thread linked above) but having the idea be so in-my-face in the recent past has, in some way, made me more thankful and reflective on the life I do have right now.
As someone in his late twenties, it hit me hard. Even today, I cannot seem to enjoy anything since I feel the void of my parents, both of whom I was deeply attached to.
A friend who saw how broken I was gave me the book, "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tibetan_Book_of_Living_and.... It changed my perspective on death. It made me realize that nothing is permanent and it's best not to be afraid of death. A must read for anyone suffering from loss of their loved ones.
To live without the fear of death and to accept what happens, sets you free in many ways.
I get the desire to unplug from politics. It seems such a waste of very precious time, with one's impact on it being minimal at best.
Yet I can't justifying unplugging because of the lives I've seen ruined due to bad politics. Consider just the damage done from the war on drugs.
For some people, "focusing their thinking" means acknowledging their powerlessness and becoming unbothered by it, narrowing their scope to the things they can actually do something about. For them, politics was never useful, because they never believed they had any influence.
For others, such focus means pushing out their influence to encompass more things, so that their concerns are something they can do something about. For these people, politics is inevitable and necessary, because influence will naturally touch more and more lives and consequently, more and more politics.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0195374614
Had a part about negative visualization where one would contemplate the negative aspects of life as much as the positive as a sort of counterbalance to hedonic adaptation. One would fall into a good life as being the norm and start to become overly negative about inconsequential aspects of it and hope for the next step up where the cycle would repeat. Instead, using this negative visualisation thing, one would contemplate how life would be without a paying job or a family or arms which I suppose leads to positive thoughts about having such things.
[1] http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/art... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhutanese_refugees [3] http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e487646.html
[1] https://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/countries/asia-and-the-p... [2] http://thediplomat.com/2014/04/bhutans-human-rights-record-d...
For a nation that issues citizenship based on race and origin [2]
and "categorizes" them
As we are talking about buddhist country it would be much wiser to look at what buddhists think (as almost the whole religion is about happiness) than just look at one tiny part and think that is the "thing" to be happy. It's just part of the buddhist "impermanence".
One interesting thing: Have you noted that Buddha is almost always laughing or smiling?
I soon realized why such a comment would make people unhappy.
From my perspective though, I see death (due to natural causes) as a happy necessity. I insisted that my position on death is that death is an absolute truth. It is going to happen sometime or the other. Let's live this journey of life as well as we can and make sure that we are prepared to handle death (of ourselves and loved ones).
Since I give death so much thought, I'm not shocked or traumatized by death when it actually happens (I've seen 8 deaths of close friends and family). I am also better prepared to deal with the inevitable emotional, legal and financial storm that this event might bring. After handling all these issues, I'm also able to respect and reflect on that persons life much better.
Peace!
That actually sounds like a great idea. It's basically like AA's 12 steps, but for learning to cope with someone dying in your family.
like the article said, pain and suffering shouldn't be avoided but should be accepted as a normal part of life. and when you're going through it, it's heartening to look at your suffering as a down payment for greater joy and appreciation later on.
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One simply transitions from being to non-being. In a state of non-being one cannot worry, influence, toil, think, experience, or suffer.
I look at death very straightforwardly: it is irrelevant to me. I will never experience death. I will therefore, from my perspective, never die. My experiences are bounded by my being and non-being, and self-referentially we are each immortal within the bounds of our own experience.
I may one day experience the act of dying, but one does not know one is dying unless one is terminally ill. More often than not one simply either goes to sleep and does not wake, or one goes "gosh, what's that thing that's about to hit my head?".
Of course one might worry for those one leaves behind - but in most cases, this does the living a disservice, as to think one essential in the life of another is egoistic at best, and controlling and damaging at worst.
Hare today, goon tomorrow, and the world will keep turning.
If not, what is it that stops you, and why is it irrational for that same reason to make people not want to die of other causes?
But, I'm a little confused, because
> The OP's net present value of future earnings is likely to be much bigger than $10
would seem like an argument against playing. So I'm not sure if you were trying to say something that went completely over my head?
I didn't say that not wanting to die is irrational, but that fearing death abstractedly is. Not wanting to die is rational from an anthropocentric/evolutionary biology point of view, as continuing life increases the odds of genetic and memetic propagation. It isn't rational, however, as an external observer might see it. I suppose it depends on what the "goal" of human life is. If it is simply "to be", then it's a self-fulfilling goal and of null value in an objective argument.
So - what stops me is that same instinct for preserving the self and/or ones genes. It does not mean, however, that I have not accepted the fact that I will, one day, die, and the fact that it really doesn't matter. I won't be here to care.
You are in a firefight. There are two sides to it, and you are on one of them. Your side comprises multiple people. You are shot in the head. The probability that the others on your side will also be shot has just increased.
Recognizing this is neither egoistic, controlling, or damaging.
It is not difficult to abstract this scenario to the entire world. What you do, and what is done to you, has consequences. These consequences do not evaporate upon your death, unless you are very purely solipsistic. You can choose to not care about these consequences, of course, but such apathy can fairly easily be framed as egoistic, controlling, or damaging.
This is probably the healthiest belief to have, but it's still an unfounded belief. How would one know this?
It doesn't bother me any more, as my premise was wrong. I came to realise that the only way the universe can know us is through us - and that the best record of any moment is that perception of it lent there and then to those who lived through it - but ultimately the retrospective reminiscence of a gone past is but a pale shadow of the real, the here and now.
Cherish life, and strive for the future for its own sake - but never forget that what matters is here and now.
Come to think of it, I think what most fear is not death, but having never lived.
I mean, what's the difference between "It's OK if I die, my family will survive" and "It's OK if I run away with another woman and stop supporting my children, my family will survive"?
I also doubt your assertion that "more often than not" death comes quickly. Of the friends and loved ones I've had die, the vast majority went through a long decline first. In fact, I can't think of anyone I know who went quickly.
The difference between the scenarios you present is voluntary action. I'm absolutely not proposing that you should pop off and go for a Burton, and actively try to leave your nearest and dearest in the lurch - rather that people are resilient, and life goes on, and that we must believe in those we are closest to. I have life insurance to at least ensure the financial safety of my family should I cease to be.
I'm sorry for your experiences - most of my loved ones have met violent ends or have died of mercifully swift illnesses. Some have lingered, painfully, and wished for but could not have euthanasia.
Perhaps there's an argument for voluntary euthanasia being legal purely in the idea that it comforts the living with the knowledge that they need never suffer a slow death in the future.
If you just want to say that your loved ones will survive, that life goes on without you, and you shouldn't be overly concerned about how the world will get on after you die, that's reasonable. But I completely and utterly disagree with going from that to "Fearing death is utterly irrational." Fearing death because of the negative consequences it will have on people you care about is completely rational.
> If you know you’ll get another shot at life, you’re less likely to fear the end of this particular one.
This should not be the reason to value and enjoy life! This is no different than any other superstitious tradition that is put in place to comfort people who cannot face the reality: we get one and only one shot at this. Beyond that, whether you believe in reincarnation or in 72 virgins waiting in heaven, it is the same delusion.
If you take it many steps further, you can see how it connects to Carl Sagan's idea: "The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.".
Your life, your death is merely one part of the cosmos, transforming into another. One door closes, and many more doors open.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/546469190/the-urban-dea...
1. Grandma's funeral. You stole her glasses. Tee Hee. Boy was she cold.
2. Soccer. But you bit the other guy too.
3. That sandwich in the rucksack, left over the weekend. Eww.