Fear Of Death Inquiry - (Please Read Warning)

During this meditation,

You will be asked to imagine your own death,

And some people may find this kind of inquiry disturbing or frightening.

Please proceed only if you feel like you are emotionally and mentally stable enough for this sort of inquiry right now.

Before we begin,

Make yourself comfortable.

Gently close your eyes and take a few slow,

Deep breaths.

Feel yourself being pulled down into your seat,

Deeper and deeper with each exhalation.

Feel gravity anchoring your feet and bottom to the ground or chair.

Welcome the stability that the earth provides,

And see if you can summon a moment of gratitude for it.

Not everyone can feel their heartbeat unassisted,

But if you can,

See if you can feel it slowing down slightly with every out-breath,

And enjoy that sense of easy relaxation.

If you can't feel your heartbeat,

Just focus on the slow,

Steady exhalations and the feeling of your muscles relaxing and growing heavier.

When we fear the inevitability of death,

It illuminates our inherent assumption that there has been a singular process that has been going on for the entirety of our life.

It began somewhere around the moment of conception,

And will continue until it hits a designated cut-off point,

When suddenly the process will cease and we'll never be able to start up again.

Of course,

Many believe that there is something that can continue on after that cut-off point,

And that is quite comforting in the face of the unknown.

But for those who do not hold that belief,

The idea of utter annihilation can be either a huge relief or utterly terrifying.

But this terror often exists not for the reason we assume.

Usually we think we fear oblivion.

We fear our disappearance.

And for some people this is true.

But for many of us,

We don't actually fear annihilation.

What we fear is that something might remain conscious even in the nothingness.

We picture ourselves floating eternally in the most lonesome,

Boring,

Cold,

Dark void.

The self that this implies is often completely overlooked.

The prospect is so unpleasant that it's often rejected quickly enough that the root of the fear beneath it goes undiscovered.

No matter whether you believe in life after death or not,

And no matter whether you fear death for these or any other reasons,

You will likely get something out of this inquiry.

I also want to assure you that the point of this inquiry is not to instill in you another belief.

It is simply to look into your experience to see if you can find any reason to continue fearing or avoiding thoughts about the prospect of death.

We'll start by doing a short scan of the body from the top of the scalp.

And as you are moving the attention very slowly down through the head,

Notice if anything stands out as a sort of central point where your experience is located.

Is there a focal point that feels like you?

Continue scanning down through the head,

Then down through the neck,

The shoulders,

And scan all around the chest.

Notice any sensations that are there.

It doesn't matter whether you could describe them as glowing awareness or a tight contraction,

Or perhaps you're noticing a floating image of your body somewhere in the mental visual space.

Just notice whatever it is.

As you continue to scan through the torso,

If you find one of these sensations,

Question,

Is that something which you can identify with?

If you're having a hard time finding something that might be considered a self,

Say your own name,

Either silently or out loud,

And see what lights up.

Do you feel a gentle flare someplace in response to your name?

A little brightness?

An enhanced tingling?

Maybe something else that I haven't mentioned?

Once you find something,

Regardless of how it appears,

Rest your attention on that spot and find if it is really the location of you.

Is that a being that feels like you can name it your name?

Is there something that feels like it's always been there?

If so,

Is it found as a physical sensation?

Does it take a thought to tell you that that physical sensation is you or has anything to do with you?

Let go of the identification thought and just be with what's left.

Is there anything there that seems to be you?

Are there other places that seem even more likely contenders to be you?

If so,

Just switch your attention over to that place and see if that one is really you.

Don't fall into the bypassing trap of thinking that you know the outcome without needing to really look.

And don't just say,

Nope,

I already know there's no self and I can't find one,

Without taking the time to settle into that realization.

That's a very important realization for this exercise.

What did you find?

Could you identify with anything?

If not,

Again,

Allow that realization to sink in.

If you cannot find anything like a self or a me,

Then why would you still believe that one must be there?

Now we're going to repeat the scan through the body from the top of the head to the bottom of the feet.

See if anything worth identifying with jumps out at you.

We want to make sure that we are completely convinced that we haven't missed anything.

As you're scanning this time,

You can think,

I am here,

And see if anything responds to that prompt.

If that doesn't work,

Try saying your name again.

Can you find anything at all in your direct experience that is clearly discernible as you?

Okay,

Let's change directions.

Have you ever experienced your body as just a variety of sensations appearing somewhere indefinable?

Whether you have or you haven't,

Let's see if we can feel into that now.

With your eyes still closed,

Try to sense the outlines of the body.

Can you feel any border?

At this moment,

Can you feel your arms?

You might feel a little bit of pressure if they're pushing on your legs or a chair,

But can you feel any part of your arms that aren't in direct contact with something else?

And now see if you can actually feel if there is a chair or a leg that is in contact with your arms.

Take in the raw sensation.

If you notice that images pop up of your arms lying on your legs or against the chair,

Just recognize that this is just an image.

Your eyes are closed,

So it can't be a real sight.

It's merely a trick of the mind predicting what might be going on.

The only thing that's real right now is this feeling of sensation that's appearing.

And as you stay with that,

Notice if it gets gauzier and begins to shift,

Becoming less and less distinct until there's no boundary left at all.

Take a few moments to do this with all the different points of contact that you feel.

Feel your back against the chair,

Or your bottom on whatever it is you are sitting on.

Can you tell where your bottom and the seat begin and end?

Do the same with your feet on the floor.

Continue observing anything that feels like it still has an edge.

Now observe what is left of the boundary of the entire body.

Does it feel completely borderless?

If so,

In that borderless space,

Scan through from what might still feel like a top to a bottom as you again say,

I'm here to yourself.

Does something special show up in this borderless space?

If something does show up,

Again,

Witness it just as it is,

Just as a sensation floating in borderless space.

How would you know that this sensation is you without a thought labeling it as such?

And if any other thoughts about it arise,

Just recognize them as thoughts and let them float off into the nothingness.

Keep coming back to the sensation and observing it as it changes,

Accepting with curiosity as it feels less and less like a distinct point of view.

So far in this inquiry,

We have unsuccessfully looked for an abiding self and what we have thought of as our body has dissolved into an amorphous cloud.

Sitting with this vast openness,

I would like you to consider your death.

I want you to consider both the death of your body and the death of your personality.

Depending on how strong this feels for you,

You could either start with just a general idea of the earth continuing without you living on it any longer.

Or perhaps envision what your funeral will be like,

Who will be there and what will they say about you.

Or envision the vacancy left in your home or the experience of your presence being missed by your family.

If any of that pulls up an uncomfortable amount of emotion,

Then that's okay.

Don't go any further.

Just stay with that emotion.

Allow it to be and hold it with compassion and care for as long as you can.

Also be curious of not only what the emotion is called,

But what the actual experience is of the emotion before any labels are attached to it.

For instance,

Is it really sadness or grief?

Or is it tension or tightness or a feeling of wanting to cry?

Also notice if envisioning your death or the outcome of it causes the spacious feeling of unbounded openness to contract and to feel more like a body.

What do you make of that?

If you seem to be okay with all of the fantasies we've mentioned,

If you only feel a little sadness or nostalgia,

Then we will strengthen the visualization.

I would like you to bring to mind an image of a way that you might die,

Preferably one in which you are conscious and know that the end is coming.

And I want you to picture it happening with as much detail as possible.

Embody the experience.

But don't jump right to the dying.

Put yourself in the moments before death occurs.

You are sitting or lying there right now,

Knowing with every fiber of your being that this is inevitable,

That you are not going to escape this situation.

There is literally nowhere for you to turn.

You cannot get out of this.

This is going to happen no matter what you do or don't do.

You can't make a bargain with a higher power.

You can't reason yourself out of it.

You can't bribe somebody.

You can't choose a different spiritual path and just put it off for a few more decades.

You can't even commit suicide to stop this from happening because that would lead to the same end.

There is absolutely no way out but to go through this.

Fully embodying those realizations,

What comes up for you?

If you feel a sense of fear,

That's perfectly natural and perfectly okay.

I want you to feel into what shows up as this thing we call fear.

We usually won't touch the idea of our death because that fear seems so unbearable and so unmanageable.

But let's see if it really is.

Put yourself again right on the threshold of that moment of death,

Knowing that there are no other options for you.

And then feel whatever arises and let whatever happens in the body happen.

If it wants to cry,

Cry.

If it wants to shake,

Shake.

If it just wants to sit with this weird discomfort,

Sit with this weird discomfort.

Without the idea that this is fear and without the idea that death is only a moment away,

What is the actual experience felt in the body?

What is this thing we call existential fear?

Is it really the worst of the worst?

The monster that has been lurking under our bed since the time that we first learned that death was a possibility?

If you find that you're diverting from the sensations with distractions like thinking or fidgeting,

Just come back to the feeling of fear.

That fear is telling us that there is something that needs to be protected.

It's letting us know that there is danger up ahead.

But that danger is a perceived danger.

That fear is coming from a biological imperative to keep the body alive and functional at all costs.

So that fear is a friend.

That fear is a helpful protector.

In small doses,

It's been keeping you safe all these years.

So we can actually feel grateful for that fear when it comes up.

And having that gratitude for the fear can also,

Ironically,

Allow it to settle down.

It doesn't need to be on full guard all the time.

Be grateful that it's there.

Be grateful that it keeps you from putting your hand on a hot stove and from walking in front of traffic.

But it doesn't need to be there at a strength that doesn't even allow you to think about difficult times in your life,

Like periods of shame or concerns about the future.

The fear is just a guard dog that's gotten a little bit overly sensitive.

And now it barks at everybody walking along the street,

Even if they're nowhere near your house.

So thank it for trying to protect you.

And then let it just lie down and chew on a bone for a while.

But right now,

I want you to continue feeling that sensation we call fear.

So if it is gone,

Or mostly gone,

I want you to try to spark it again.

I want you to imagine the same,

Or maybe an even worse scenario,

In which you are about to die in the next few seconds or minutes.

Make it scary.

Lean into your greatest fear of how you really don't want to die.

Do you feel the fear raging again?

See if you can just let it be there for a bit,

As we try to discover who it is that's going to die in the next few seconds.

We have seen that even if fear is there,

That it's not an impenetrable boundary to keep us from imagining or looking into our experience of anything.

We can simply be aware of its presence.

Next,

I want you to find that place in the body that felt like you at the beginning of this inquiry.

If you need to,

Scan through your experience again,

And see if you can still find something that feels like a point of being,

A me that needs to be protected.

You might recognize it as a location where all experiences are seemingly being pulled into.

It's the point that we knew to be ourself.

Take your time scanning through the body,

And see if you can still find one.

And if you do,

Again,

Take the me label off of it,

And feel what is actually presenting itself.

If we try to find a center to experience,

A place where I am,

And every time we find it,

It just dissolves,

Leaving nobody at all,

Then what is that aspect of your experience that could be enduring?

Search all around inside of this boundaryless,

Empty vastness,

If it's still being experienced that way.

If it feels like the form of the body is back,

Just give a bit more attention to anywhere where it feels like there's a boundary,

And allow it to loosen.

And then look into anything that feels like a contraction of existence,

And see if there's anything there which is being protected.

What is that guard dog trying to preserve?

Is it a feeling of sensation in the throat?

Is it tingling in the body?

Is it the sense of open vastness itself?

What part of that could possibly be worth protecting?

What part of that is an indication of a continuous self who has been existing for a certain number of years,

And who has friends and loved ones,

And who has done wonderful things and made terrible mistakes?

Who is that one in that experience?

Where can that continuous person be found?

Wherever that person is,

The fear thinks that it needs to be kept safe.

Can you find it?

And if you can't find it,

Then what still feels like it should be able to continue after the death of the body?

Is it what we call awareness?

Is it the one who seems to be sensing the boundarylessness of the body?

I want you to really look into what this awareness is when you talk about awareness,

Or the feeling of knowing,

Or the feeling of being an observer.

Does that come with a very subtle image or feeling about the continuity of that self who has been knowing,

And who has been aware?

And do you perhaps believe that it will always be aware?

Notice if even that vast awareness seems to have a point of view.

Does it seem to be localized in a way that still indicates that there is a unique seer,

Observer,

Or perceiver?

If awareness is completely non-localized,

If awareness is really something independent of the ego self,

Of the narrative self,

Of the small-s self,

Then how is it recognized?

How is it known to be eternal or finite without memory or thoughts about time?

It's experienced moment by moment as the experience of sensations.

But is it known to be awareness or known to be a knower without another layer of thought which calls it so,

Or that determines its function?

For a moment,

Shift your attention to any given sound in the room.

Really pay attention to just the raw sound,

Not the labels of what is creating it.

What is creating the sound?

The sound sensation is appearing,

But the implication that there is a point or even a field of awareness that is perceiving this sound sensation is itself another assumption.

It's another manufactured layer.

All that exists is the sensation.

The idea that there is an experiencer of it or an awareness of it is a thought which has concluded something after the hearing has happened.

If there is sensation,

And there are memories of that sensation,

And there is recognition of that sensation,

Then it is assumed that there is an awareness,

That there is a recognizer,

That there is a censor.

But none of that needs to be true.

I want you to really observe in your experience if you can find a continuous censor or experiencer or something that we call awareness.

We're reifying something out of nothing when we call it awareness.

There is no perceiving happening.

There is just sensation.

Don't believe me or anyone else who says this.

Experience it for yourself right now.

So,

If there is no stable,

Enduring thing called awareness,

And if there are no experiences outside of sensation,

Again,

What is that guard dog of fear protecting?

You have cut your toenails and your fingernails and your hair,

And those clippings have been tossed in the garbage and left to die without a second thought.

So it's not the fact that aspects of the body are dying that is the problem.

The body has changed cells inside and outside so many times over the course of your life that there's only a continuity of habit maintaining anything that can even be recognized from one second to another.

Your body has not existed in the way that it does now at any other point in its history,

And that has been true at every other point in its history.

So the change of the body isn't a problem.

The seeming personality inside of this body,

On the other hand,

Where is that?

We may feel that there's no self,

And maybe there's not even an awareness as such,

But there is something which I deem to be my personality.

This is something that we consider to be a recognizable,

Unique,

Identifiable aspect of a person,

Though it remains elusively intangible.

So let's try to make it tangible.

What is this thing we call our personality?

Can we find it?

Once again,

Scan through whatever is appearing in your experience.

Even if you have an open,

Vast,

Bodyless,

Boundaryless nothingness where there's not even a feeling of a self available,

See what still arises when you think about your personality.

Can that personality be found in the felt sense field?

Can the personality be heard?

Can the personality be seen?

If,

When you considered your personality,

You heard your voice,

Or saw a picture of your body,

Or remembered interactions with others that highlighted your sense of humor,

Or generosity,

Or irritability,

Just recognize that those are not your personalities.

Those are just memories of what a voice sounded like,

Or what a body might have looked like,

Or memories that are actually projections of how others perceived what you took to be you.

But none of that is personality.

Continue searching your sense of smell,

Your sense of taste.

Can you find anything that could be possibly considered a personality?

How about in the thought space?

Notice that any time you have a sense of your personality,

It's only coming up as a thought.

It's only coming up as short snippets of memories and judgments,

Emotions,

Attitudes towards the supposed creature,

Towards the supposedly existing person.

There is no such thing as your personality,

And there never was any such thing as your personality.

Just like there never was a body that has stayed consistent from one moment to another.

Your five-year-old body looked nothing like your current body.

They are completely indistinguishable,

And yet we would still look back at that and say that that was me.

Your five-year-old personality is nothing like what you would consider to be your current personality,

And yet you would still go back and take ownership and say that that was me,

That I've always been like that.

Have you always believed the same things you do now?

Have you ever changed an opinion,

A political stance,

Gone from eating meat to becoming vegetarian,

Changed your dress style,

Your friend circle,

Your career path,

Or hobbies?

Where is the continuity that we assume to be there?

If you believe that you have a great sense of humor,

Are you always funny or are you sometimes sad or anxious?

If you think of yourself as a constantly depressed person,

Then do you never laugh?

Do you ever experience moments of joy?

We might sense and create patterns based on habits of thought,

But where is the true personality that cannot be allowed to die?

We are recognizing that all of the experiences that are here are just processes undergoing constant flux.

That includes what we take to be awareness,

Personality,

Selfhood,

The full continuity of our experience.

All of that is thought.

Every bit of it is a mental overlay.

Every bit of it is an assumption that helps us to function in the world or has helped us to function in the world,

But that has been taken to be true without us ever observing for ourselves if it is in fact a self-existing thing.

And so picture one last time that you are on the precipice of death.

You are mere moments away.

There is no escape.

It's inevitable.

So what is it now that that guard dog of fear is protecting?

Is it the body that has never been static and unchanging?

When did the body begin?

Was it when it was a sperm cell in an egg?

Did it start even before then when your mother's and father's bodies were formed?

But they were also formed of eggs and sperm,

So how far back must we go to find that beginning?

If you believe it was the moment when your parents' cells combined and the first flurry of commingling and expansion happened in the egg cell,

Was that your current body that the fear is protecting?

Is the fear protecting the personality that has never been a tangible thing?

Is it protecting a collection of memories and arbitrary judgments and assumptions?

Is it protecting that unexamined felt sense of self that often shows up in contractions and tingly sensations in the body,

But that has never been stable?

It has never been just one thing.

It has always come and gone and has always diverted from one location to another as soon as you've tried to focus your attention on it.

Is the fear protecting the awareness of being aware?

If so,

Does that mean that there are two awarenesses instead of just one?

And what of the one who is aware of being aware of being aware?

Isn't that all just self-referential mind noise?

One thought commenting on another?

Is it the awareness of being alive?

What does it mean to be alive?

And how is it known separate from whatever is arising as sensation?

Again,

None of this can be found outside of our thoughts.

Thoughts happen as memories.

Thoughts happen as projections of the future.

Self-referential thoughts about the moment happen,

But they're all just individual thoughts appearing like snapshots and then disappearing again.

The assumption that all of those combine into something permanent is the illusion.

So without that binding thought pulling the full illusion together,

What is left for that fear to be protecting?

What is it about dying that is worth being fearful over?

What could possibly endure?

What could possibly be what we assume should be or could be protected?

Have you found anything that has ever been stable and that will at some point cease to be stable?

Or has everything always been a continually changing process?

Following this recognition of impermanence,

Have you stopped to consider what exactly is death?

Isn't it just a concept for another stage in an ongoing process?

When we were young,

We learned that such a thing as death or something called death exists.

But since we have not experienced it,

How do we know what it actually is?

We only see the external effects of it,

That a person who we once knew is no longer with us,

That their body has changed or decayed or been incinerated.

But isn't that all a change in state?

A change in matter?

Everything that we believe about death,

What happens before,

During and after,

Is only borrowed knowledge.

It's something we have heard,

Latched on to,

Believed,

Often from a very young age,

And then assumed as truth.

But we have no idea what happens.

And that is where so much of our fear comes from.

The monster we see in a film is never as scary as the one which is only implied.

Just off screen,

Lurking right behind you.

So going forward,

Any time that you feel this fear of death,

Look again into your experience.

Are you afraid of something real or something imaginary?

Is it the haziness of the imagined story that creates the resistance and fear?

Then try to find exactly what it could be that you are expecting to die.

What will undergo a change that is so different from any changes that are occurring moment to moment,

Day to day,

Right now?

What will exist then that will be different than it is now when a you are no longer there?

Has that you ever been there?

And if not,

Then what is going to change?

And if the fear comes back,

And if the fear is strong,

Remember that it's okay.

Remember that the fear is good.

The fear is fine.

You can thank the fear because the fear has kept you safe for all of these years.

The fear has been beneficial,

But the fear could also chill out for a little while and get a much-deserved reward.

Then make use of that reprieve to explore the illusion that makes you feel like there is anything there to be afraid of.

And feel free to even look into the assumption that what you are experiencing is actually fear.

Try to peel the label off of it,

Because labels are only conceptual add-ons.

Without the well-worn label fear,

Just what is there?

Where in the body is it being expressed and experienced?

Doing this can sometimes allow the sensations to dissolve because we are no longer reinforcing them with new stories.

But what is there?

Are there sensations in the body?

Are there images of dead bodies,

Suffering elderly people,

Or mangled flesh flashing on an internal visual screen?

Where is the thing we call fear?

Where is the fear when it's not present?

We've been personifying it for the sake of this inquiry,

But now question,

Does it go somewhere to wait until it's needed again?

Where is your fear when it's not being experienced?

Is fear really the unbearable ghoul,

Or even the scary but well-meaning guard dog we make it out to be?

Remain with the sensations and see what happens to them when they are simply left alone.

Taking your time,

We're going to gradually come back to the body.

But in this process,

Don't lose any of the insights that have come through the inquiry.

If you recognize that there was no self,

Then as we come back to the body,

Keep noticing that the sense of self is still nowhere to be found.

And even as you feel the sense of boundaries closing back in,

As you sense the skin once again encapsulating a body,

Remember that what you are feeling is not the only truth.

Remember how illusory this felt only minutes ago.

See if you can experience both truths at the same time.

Now feel the weight of your bottom on the chair and your feet on the floor.

Can you feel that you're back in a body without it being inhabited by anyone?

Can you even feel that there is no inside or outside of the body?

That there is simply this right here,

Right now?

Come back into the moment.

Back into the room.

And then very,

Very slowly,

When you are ready,

Start to open your eyes.

But stay present to just what is appearing.

Is there really anyone looking out from them?

Did a seer suddenly materialize?

Or is a seer just an assumption because there seem to be sights appearing right here at zero distance and it just makes logical sense that there must be someone seeing them?

Stay curious about how much thoughts are skewing and directing your perception of the world.

Take nothing for granted.

Even the certainties around what you consider to be life and death.

And now,

Go out and enjoy it all.