To Come to Terms with Death

It’s natural to be afraid of death.

Some of us are brave about it, but we all feel the same fear deep inside. The Buddhist teaching is that death is as natural as life itself. We don’t need to be brave about it. We just need to understand. The sooner we grasp the meaning and concept of death, the sooner we can direct our lives to whatever higher purpose we want to make of it.

Death in itself doesn’t have to be as frightening as a lot of us tend to believe. It is the fear of it that makes it so terrible in our minds; and a lot of fear and inner stress is caused by our refusal to accept the reality of it. But life is limited. And really shouldn’t be spent in fear. We can’t choose a suitable time to die. But we know it will happen.

 A way to get around this fear is to not let the present moment escape us. Go out now and fulfill our obligations to families, friends, country, religion, desire and all else that you want to, because near the end of our lives, the fear of having not completed what we want done will be the biggest fear of all. Those who have allowed time to pass away will look back and fear death, and those who have fulfilled their hearts and desires won’t... or at least, not as much.

My dad works in a retirement home. He will tell you that, more often than not, when they’re ready, they go peacefully. Only once in a while will there be one that feels unready – because he or she had done a loved one wrong and has run out of time to set things right.

We spend too much time deluding ourselves into thinking that death is far from our lives. But it’s not. It happens and that’s that.

Every waking moment counts. So go out there, do what you need to, do what you want to do, live it up and fulfill whatever you need fulfilled.