Fearing Death

 

“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” 

(unknown, but definitely not C. S. Lewis) 

 

When I was a little girl I saw a glossy magazine with pictures of King Tutankhamen's treasure.  And there were pictures of mummies.  I wasn't really horrified until I was at church and we got to the bit about "the resurrection of the body and life everlasting."  The Church was backing the zombie apocalypse?  Eewwww.

Our species has always been obsessed with achieving immortality -- perhaps because we can not accept our own impermanence.  The massive tombs of antiquity, filled with unimaginable wealth, often to the bankruptcy of the kingdom were meant to be passports to immortality.  The fact that most of the tombs have been looted puts  meaning into "you can't take it with you."  

 

We all know death is inevitable, but how many of us truly accept that and understand it?  The greatest gift any faith can give is lessening the fear of death.  Sadly Christianity in particular has focused on scaring the bejesus out of adherents with threats of eternal damnation if they dare have a thought that does not comport with the accepted church view.  Rather than stressing how how to be a good person worthy of Heaven, they have instead stressed that every little mistake and socially condemned sin leads us to the fires.  Christianity never gave me a sense of peace.

 

It was Buddhism that took away my fear of death.  I am actually looking forward to it, but am in no rush, of course.  I don't believe in either eternal reward or eternal suffering.  All the suffering I have every known of was here on Earth in this reality.  Every evil deed ever done was done here.  Because of my childhood in a haunted house, I never questioned that there was something outside of our reality.

 

Losing one's fear of death is truly liberating.  I do not mourn anyone's passing these days, but I do miss them.  It is no longer a crushing sense of loss, but a more bewildered wondering when will I see them again.  I look at my lover, my child, my family, my friends, my cats and know that there is a separation in the future so I appreciate them more while they are here.  

 

The fear of death is the attachment to life.  Buddhism centers on the ideal of non-attachment to everything because all of it is impermanent.  It doesn't mean I don't love, don't feel, don't care.  It just means that when the time comes to say goodbye to someone or something, I make my peace with it and move on.