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Death and dying cultural reactions
How different cultures react to death
Different cultures death and dying
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It is understood that all roles on planet Earth are only temporary. Whether it is in Eastern or Western culture, we do not prepare for death while still alive because it something we do not want to discuss and we know we cannot give a quick fix to it or change it. Death is approaching us as we grow older. (Excluding heart attacks or accidental death where death occurs instantaneously.) It is always there in our mind, in our shadows, regardless of our beliefs about what happens after death. Even in the present millennium, we still discuss death less willingly and perhaps we still have a kind of fearful feeling when we meet our final count-down.
Fear of death comes from the unknown, unless we have a near-death experience, as that could possibly calm us and clear away the fear of death. If we have an experience of dying here, then we will be willing to die over and over again, because there is nothing to fear–as each breath ceases, then a new breath is coming in. It is a cycle of birth, old age, illness and death. When one’s dead, a new life comes about almost instantaneously. But, while we are still alive, we fear death as it is a mystery: nevertheless we do not like talking about it in a way parallel to discussions about ill-health. We avoid talking about it and view it as abhorrent or bad luck. It is a natural process that no one can deny or avoid, yet we all exist in the same way, whence we come and depart.
Perhaps in the 21st century we will learn that there is no illusion of the fear of death rather by letting it go into the space of emptiness and returning to where we come from in the void, the purity, as the Universe is our home. Then we know there is nothing to be afraid of and begin to relax and believe...
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...reathe in mindfulness, compassion and kindness and breathe out contentment, joy and blissfulness, stirred into the air and transcended into the invisible black space of the Universe with your positive emotions and vibrations: you connect with the collective consciousness’s soul of resonating people and benefit them. You enjoy the present moment and never look back to the departed past and you live happily and die happily. Life is precious and we should enjoy every single moment of our time and try not to miss one moment: when that moment is gone we cannot get it back. When you look into your life, you should always give and let go of everything without reserve, that is really giving. You live a full life with nothing left that needs to be done, then, when the time you need to go comes, you will die a happy man on Earth. You go with a smile on your face.
When people ponder death they wonder about the unknown with trepidation. As a young man, William Cullen Bryant wrote the "Thanatopsis." His thoughts progress from the fear of death to the acceptance of the event. People should not fear death because everyone dies and becomes a part of nature.
Lucretius and Marcus Aurelius, have both similar and different views on the role that death plays in life and philosophy. They both believe our fear is due in some part to the uncertainty that surrounds the process of death. However, both philosophers have dissimilar approaches on why we shouldn’t fear the unknown concept of death. Drawing from these reasons and explanations, they arrive at the way this fear affects our lives and what we should do to change it.
Is it possible to live without fear of death? If you can, does it change your life and who you are as a whole? Lindqvist believes so. Early in the book he proposes the idea that with fear of death life has a deeper meaning. That only with the fear of death do...
When the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2011 rocked New York City, Pennsylvania, and Washington D.C., the word “tragedy” was used on a grandiose level around the world. For the people who lived close enough to experience the events first-hand, they may not have even called it a tragedy; perhaps they called it a misfortune, retaliation, lack of a strong government, unreal, or maybe even rebirth. In the coming years after the attacks, everything between standing united as a nation to declaring a war had flourished; but how has that left us - the land that has no distinct ethnicity - feel about each other? Why is it that fear is usually missing in the affective mnemonics of memorial sites, which, after all, are signifiers of some of the most horrific violence in human history? Do memorials dedicated to these attacks bring us together in terms of understanding, or is it just continual collective grief? This paper will cover the global complexity of the 9/11 attacks, the Empty Sky 9/11 Memorial in Liberty State Park, NJ, and factors and theories that memorials do influence a sense of complexity. The ground of public memory is always in motion, shifting with the tectonics of national identity. I chose the Empty Sky 9/11 Memorial as my topic of observation as I, personally, visit a few times throughout the year to pay respects to people I personally knew who perished in the attacks to the World Trade Center. I was in the 5th grade when this happened, and had absolutely no clue what was going on until my father did not return home until two days later with a bandage wrapped around his head and his devastating recollection of what happened just before he arrived to his job. The emotions that I feel within myself compared to others will...
Sogyal Rinpoche stated “When you start preparing for death you soon realize that you must look into your life now.and come to face the truth of yourself. Death is like a mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected.” Death is imminent. Many people today fear death for various reasons. Some people are able to accept it, while others deny its existence.
Fear of the unknown, and fear of what is to come in our lives, has generations of people wondering what will our lives be like tomorrow or the next day. Death is always there and we cannot escape it. Death is a scary thing. Our own mortality or the mortality of our loved ones scares us to the point that we sometimes cannot control how we are dealing with such a thing as the thought of death. Why do we fear such a thing as death? We don’t know what happens after we don’t how it feels. The fear of death is different for most but it is most certain to come and we cannot hide from it. For death is just around the corner and maybe it’s will come tomorrow or the next day! We fear not death, but the unknown that comes from death, that is the
nsciousness after death, or maybe a combination of both, which creates this fear. The fear felt is undoubtedly universal. However, the ways in which it is dealt with are varied and diverse. The concept of human mortality and how it is dealt with is dependent upon one’s society or culture. It is the society, which has the greatest impact on an individual’s beliefs.
When preparing for death Buddhist generally agree a person’s state of mind while dying is of great importance. While dying the person can be surrounded by friends, family and monks who recite Buddhists scriptures and mantras to help the person achieve a peaceful state of mind. Buddhism asserts that all being live beyond the various fluctuations of this life. Death is merely a passage to rebirth in another realm such as the human world, a pure land or the flowering of the ultimate nature of the mind.
Intro : Introduce the concept of death, and how the concept of death is shown to be something to be feared
The concept of human mortality and how it is dealt with is dependent upon one’s society or culture. For it is the society that has great impact on the individual’s beliefs. Hence, it is also possible for other cultures to influence the people of a different culture on such comprehensions. The primary and traditional way men and women have made dying a less depressing and disturbing idea is though religion. Various religions offer the comforting conception of death as a begining for another life or perhaps a continuation for the former.
Death is part of the circle of life and it's the end of your time on earth; the end of your time with your family and loved ones. Nobody wants to die, leaving their family and missing the good times your loved ones will have once you pass on. In the Mercury Reader, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross “On the Fear of Death” and Joan Didion “Afterlife” from The Year of Magical Thinking” both share common theses on death and grieving. Didion and Kübler-Ross both explain grieving and dealing with death. Steve Jobs commencement speech for Stanford’s graduation ceremony and through personal experience jumps further into death and how I feel about it. Your time is on earth is limited one day you will die and there are many ways of grieving at the death of a loved one. I believe that the fear of death and the death of a loved one will hold you back from living your own life and the fear of your own death is selfish.
...e for many in the modern Western world. Without getting in to the various medical definitions of death that exist, death can simply be defined as the absence of life. This is where the true fear stems from for most people, the idea that their existence will be known to this world. The uncertainty about what happens after death also plays a large role for many people as there is obviously no way to prove what happens after someone passes. It is clear that those who have this fear of death will have a hard time overcoming it, same as Jack. The point is not to get hung up on how to best push the fear out of your mind, but to instead find an alternative. That alternative is not clearly defined just as nothing is clearly defined in the novel, however it does give one the opportunity to see what happens when you let death control your thoughts instead of focusing on life.
Death is the one great certainty in life. Some of us will die in ways out of our control, and most of us will be unaware of the moment of death itself. Still, death and dying well can be approached in a healthy way. Understanding that people differ in how they think about death and dying, and respecting those differences, can promote a peaceful death and a healthy manner of dying.
Preparing for Death A lack of preparation for our deaths is a serious problem whether it is because we don’t know the exact time or just don’t want to face death. In an article in Time magazine by John Cloud he writes “We will spend more time getting ready for two weeks away from work than we will for our last two weeks on earth” (Cloud,2000,p.60). We should prepare for our deaths to show our wishes concerning treatment and life support, as well as other aspects. We should make choices while we are still well, so that we are treated properly before we die.
No one wants to think about dying or death in general. However it is important to face reality and plan for the inevitable future.