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Afraid of the Idea of Dying
One thing we may find as we begin to penetrate this subject is that we’re not really afraid of dying; we’re afraid of the idea of dying. This sounds like an overly subtle distinction, but it’s an important one.
When death actually comes it will be a moment like this one, an experience like any other, which we will try to stay awake for. Our body and our breathing will feel a certain way; particular things will be coming up in our mind. But right now, looking ahead to death we have elaborate ideas about dying, which probably bear little relationship to the experience we will actually go through.
It is like many other experiences in life; the anticipation is worse than—or at least different from—the actual event. In the practice of death awareness, what we are trying to do is arrive at a place that is beyond thought, because it is thought that creates so many of our problems. We don’t actually know what lies beyond death. Death is the great unknown, and thought—which is an expression of what is known—cannot know the unknown. There is nothing deep about that; it is just a fact. We call it the unknown because we don’t know.
If fear comes up at the thought of death, I’m all for that; it is our fears that we contact intimately. But the cascading thoughts we have as those fears arise are not of much use. And in contemplating death, we are not trying to get beyond any knowing that we might have right now. We are just trying to be with what is here now. Death is here now. …
Aging and sickness are aspects of change. They are perfectly natural. Death, too, is perfectly natural. The body wears out over time, sometimes—depending on circumstances—a short time, sometimes a longer time. Finally it gives out altogether.
(Larry Rosenberg with David Guy. Living in the Light of Death: On the Art of Being Truly Alive)