One final question

Good point, Sturgis. I just needed to use the question mark on my keyboard so I don't forget where it is.

???

Okay.

You know, the intrinsic problem I have with that, is you might as well a plant, and from my wife's perspective you be better taken care of too.

Chumly,

Nice point !

.....Freud of course made a similar one with his concept of "death wish"...."we strive to return to a quiescent state".......

....and we might also consider Hamlets view of life ....."A tale told by an idiot - full of sound and fury and signifying nothing".....

...but meditators would argue that it is not quite as vacant or negative as these imply. The experience is one of attempted observation of one's mental life without judgement. Thus the "importance" of any mental activity like questioning is "examined as a curiosity".

True objectivity within the severe confines of our innate selves?

It's no go the Yogi man
It's no go Blavatsky
All we want is a bank balance
And a bit of skirt in a taxi.

Yes, because nothing is taken for granted, nothing is assumed.

I have to disagree with your idea there. We are fortunate NOT to know the hour of our demise. Knowing when we will die would ruin our entire lives for us because that is all we would be thinking about. Not knowing allows us to live life to the fullest and teaches us not to hold back. Our whole existence is based on the premise that we must live as best as possible for we could drop dead at any second. That, i feel, is true fortune.

one final question...
"Will it hurt worse if I let go of everything or if I keep holding on?"

That cannot be if you do not know what "nothing" is, and "under the severe confines of our innate selves" I consider that to be beyond the ken of man.

Yeah. I would say thats ranks pretty high on the OFQ scale. Seems in those final moments everything gets pretty simple. A lot of the terms in the equation just cancel out.

Yes, that is so true. But I was thinking more in the short term, not years, months, or even days. An example would be people with a terminal condition in a hospital bed. You really see it in their eyes; they know their time is short. It is something that goes unsaid.

chris,

We are all waiting like vultures for your answer !

I would like to know my time, even if it is years away, I could have lots of fun for the last few years!

There is a short story set in France (I believe) in which a middle aged quite average gentleman takes all his monies, enjoys a fabulous few months of the finest wines, restaurants and woman, and then commits suicide. He does it all without depression or ill intent.

I will give you the whole scenario to the best of my writing ability. But not yet.

It takes a great deal of concentration (meditation if you will) to go back to that state of mind. In my case, it is an old experience and seems kind of surreal at this time. My one final question just seems too trivial, foolish and corny right now.

I have to prepare myself for some pretty intense ridicule. Let me get out my book entitled Humility Exercises: Pump it Up While Others are Laughing. Pretty good book.

What do you mean, "the severe confines of our innate selves"? What confines? Sometimes we can be confined by thoughts, but what is there to confine when there is no thinking going on?

Severe as in strict. Confines as in bounds. Innate as in inborn. Selves as in particular being of a person. Does that help some? OK1) I assert your premise of "no thinking going on" is prefaced on knowing nothing.
2) I assert that nothing is the absence of everything.

1) I now argue that the mind cannot do this, unless the mind can recognize nothing.
2) I further argue that the only way the mind can recognize nothing, is to be able to identify everything so as to exempt it.
3) Therefore unless the mind can identify everything, it cannot know for sure if the mind is knowing nothing.

That is why I say "the severe confines of our innate selves" because we cannot know everything (and hence by default we cannot know nothing).

After considering the thesis again, the "One Final Question" is best presented framed within an anecdotal account of a person's passing. It is never easy to draw on personal experience that is decidedly traumatic and difficult to reconcile within the framework of our normal, everyday lives and routines. As such, I will elicit the help of my fictitious friend "John" who has passed on to the next plane of existence (if, in fact, that is what happened). How much of his account reflects my own personal experience I cannot say. Though not a psychologist, this may be as good an example of transference as any.

Here is a short, fictional account about John and his wife Stephanie. Married for twelve years now and living in a basement apartment, they were trying to save enough money to buy a house someday. John was never good with his feelings and was always a bit short tempered with his wife over the most unimportant things. He was up and off to work by five every morning, went to college in the afternoon and played in a band at night. He was a few months past his fortieth birthday and would often think how lucky he was to have reached that age considering the abuses of his wild youth.

Stephanie was his tireless supporter; she loved John unconditionally and would often try to get him to control his drinking and smoking. She was the closest thing to a guardian angel that John had ever found in his life but he had such a manic personality and his excesses were the rule of the day. Everything was going along fine until someone or something hit the pause button on his life.

Today was like no other day for John. Today was the last day he would be alive. Today was the proverbial moment of truth for him, and his wife Stephanie. This is the day that John asked himself one final question.

John's Final Question...

Chumly--
A thing is a thought that has been defined. The mind can recognize this defining activity, this judgement. The mind can then discover why this judgement is occurring, and this may cause it to stop.
(I agree with you that we cannot recognize nothingness.)