Death Meditation

[Amur]

Relax into your usual meditation, except this time prepare for physical death, make your mind believe that you are actually dying and notice the results, make your body believe that you are actually dying and notice the results. You might also want to conjure up a Death character to work with in a sort of dream-time/astral space.

If you are having trouble finding the Death vibration, think about animals dying, flowers wiltering, entropy, gods dying, goddess' dying, universes dying, your families dying, your relatives dying, your entire culture dying, extinction etc.

Btw, thinking about an afterlife is not doing Death Meditation. Death is about death, nothing more nothing less.

[AfterViewer]

:DVery interesting, have never thought of meditating on the outgoing process. Seeing how it seems to be inevitable in "the continuing saga" I guess it could'nt "hurt". AV. Great avatar "eye of Nine".

[m1thr0s]

Btw, thinking about an afterlife is not doing Death Meditation. Death is about death, nothing more nothing less.sure but...what the hell does that actually mean? :laugh:

I suppose we could say this is the point of the meditation? What I do know is that Death comes in more than one kind of package...there are different kinds of Death...some unspeakably exalted...some more or less rudimentary...some having to do with transformation...some having to do with recycling...:o_O:

m1

[MythMath]

Great avatar "eye of Nine".

http://forums.abrahadabra.com/image.php?u=21&dateline=1270218824

I like that avatar also,
but I must point out that is a...

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:Pm3lrm9-g8s2dM:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Decagram_10_4.png

Unicursal Decagram (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decagram_%28geometry%29)

_______________


When I first saw Amur's avatar I thought of yours, AV...

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q48/MythMath/decagramavatarscopy-1.jpg

Also a decagram...

:p

[MythMath]

Segue back toward the topic:


Death, be not proud (Holy Sonnet 10)
by John Donne (http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/243)

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy'or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

[Amur]

sure but...what the hell does that actually mean? :laugh:

I suppose we could say this is the point of the meditation? What I do know is that Death comes in more than one kind of package...there are different kinds of Death...some unspeakably exalted...some more or less rudimentary...some having to do with transformation...some having to do with recycling...:o_O:

m1

Well I'm sure some of the meditators would gladly fantasize up an after-life where they fuck virgins and eat grapes, it's not really fluent with this type of meditation and only serves to create another fantasy, but then again can one do it without creating another fantasy. But I think that Death is so imprinted into each and one of ours consciousness that it should have an impact by just meditating and approaching it.

The only true Death I can describe is Void and not much can be described about it, even Black Holes got more information about them :)

[Il Cinghiale]

There is an old tantrik notion that says "to die while still alive".

Are you familiar with the bardo thodol of the Tibetans?

Actually, according to vajra lore, the process of death takes place all the time. Physical death is just a special case of the general theme. Each split of a second the mind dies. And each split of a second the mind is reborn. But this happens so fast.

To simulate death there is a praxis in falling asleep while the mind is still aware. The process of sleep is likened to death. When you die, according to vajra lore, you first experience the loss of the outer world and the loss of the senses. Then your inner world dies too. And just at the moment where everything is gone there is a brief flash of the unmanifest reality behind all phenomena - before the tendencies that once constituted 'you' are reborn as a mental body in some afterworld stumbling around looking for a new flesh-body. Just like falling asleep only to find oneself in the dream-body. Point is of course to perceive and experience that brief flash between the state of life and the state of afterlife, between waking state and dreaming, believed by tantriks to be the gate that leads out of the cycle of birth and rebirth.

[Samyama]

Here another way of meditate on a certain form of death.

A little while ago I was attemting Ayahuasca but couldn't go through with it. The reason for this is interesting.

I tried the combination Peganum Harmala and Mimosa Hostilis to be exact and started with making a brew of the Harmala, which is the MAO-inhibitor. This brew I drank before starting on the Mimosa Hostilis.

Didn't expect this inhibitor to be so powerful. It made me dizzy till where I hardly could stand upright and being lightheaded, thinking became 'painful'. I started to get really sick of it and vomited way beyond anything I've ever done. It was horrible! All I could do was lying down on my bed and stare to the ceiling (which prompted an astral projection with open eyes). Anyway I still got to feel sicker and sicker and had to puke more than five instances, well spare the details. The body reacted like it was badly poisoned.

While I was lying there came this sequence of memories, moments and situations that meant something to me. Lessons to be learned and mistakes to remember. All of this while feeling this overwhelming nausea. Then 'I' started to feel repulsive to any desire that I normally have, till the point where I had no more desires for anything.

So the sequence of memories leading to shedding the desires of I (the ego) was a kind of small death. The poisoning tricked the body and the mind started it's death meditation. I felt relieved afterwards and also got awfully high.

[m1thr0s]

Contemplating Death is good for the Mind. Death is a stark reality none of us is likely to avoid. Western society has a childish fear/contempt of Death as echoed in John Donne's emotionally charged poem, penning Death as the enemy of Life when in practice they are business partners in the balanced ecosystem trade...also the evolution game generally. Creation & Destruction have long been recognized by other cultures to be flip sides of the same coin. Here in the west we have the nervous arrogance to think we can thumb our noses at Death and pretend as though our make-believe Redeemer is somehow *mightier* than Death. And still Death marches on, unabated and unimpressed...

The Death card in Tarot can be another window on Death, particularly when paired with other cards may serve to broaden our sense of its natural connectedness. The hebrew letter *Nun* is assigned to the Death card which rather brings to Mind the Egyptian Nu/Nun regarded by many scholars to be the oldest of the Egyptian gods - father of Ra and so on... In the Ningishzidda TwinStar meditation formula the letter Nun comes to occupy the Apex of the Triangle alongside Gimmel, which corresponds to the Priestess card. Thus the fusion of Death + Priestess (NG) form a visual alliance in this meditation practice that places Death in the position of *the Highest Crown* in the Tree of Life... This is appropriate considering Ningishzidda's historical role as *Guardian of the Gate* etc...

In general, I think that Death can be a very balancing sort of focus where it can be reflected upon even-handedly without reliance upon makeshift defenses...superficial deflections at best that do nothing to inform or further us.

m1

[Kath]

you could just get yourself into a very dire accident and then stare at a huge truck bearing down on your little compact neon at 55mph without hitting it's brakes...

but that's likely not as relaxing as meditating on it.

I found the scythe to be forceful and violent myself, accompanied by an altogether ill feeling in the pit of one's stomach resulting from the realization that you can't dodge it.
But the moment was instructive... a thousand preconscious and unconscious chains of attachment, all suddenly pulled taut, so that they are consciously felt and realized.

as for meditating on 'void'... well i do that all the time, it's my 'home base' so to speak.

~ The abyss is a mirror ~