Personal Narrative - Contemplating Death
"Then, just like that, she was gone. I couldn’t hold back the tears, and I don’t think my sunglasses hid them well. I’ve gotten used to my emotions and I only let it all out when they can’t be stifled, so you know this wasn’t a sigh-I’m-gonna-miss-her moment. The sunshine and warm breeze of Friday afternoon was frustrating; dreary, cold, typical-March days are fitting, appropriate for feeling this way, and how nice it was outside was a slap in the face. I later recalled how just a year prior I reversed the phrase A sunny day is no match for a cloudy disposition on a day like this one. I thought I was okay with everything, so what was it that hurt me? She left so easily; she never thinks about how lucky she is to still see me, not because she doesn’t deserve to, but the fact that I am still here for her to see. If she knew what I’m going to tell you…well, speculation is useless.
I died this morning on my way to school: the guy behind me tried to stop but he locked his brakes out of panic and only slowed to forty five miles per hour. Of course, this isn’t what killed me; the trauma sustained by my face hitting my steering wheel as the opposite reaction of my head whipping backwards upon impact was my demise. The road to my college is only two lanes, and often there are stoppages as a result of cars waiting to turn left, since the shoulder does not provide sufficient room to pass on the right. The only way to avoid speeding too excessively to stop in time is to pay careful attention to the car in front of you, something the gentleman following me failed to do. He was preoccupied with the midterm he was trying not to be late for, the source of the stress he had calmed with the potent co...
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... you forgot your feelings? If you didn't know they were there or that you ever had them, wouldn't your existence end?"
"I don't think it's possible to forget your feelings - you can try to ignore them, but you can't control when your emotions begin and end. And you can't 'forget' them either. Love, hate, happiness, sadness, satisfaction, disappointment...these are not ideas created by the mind, they are sensations you must deal with."
"So what, she just doesn't deal with them? She pretends they aren't there?"
"I guess so...you see that cardinal up on the top branch?"
"Yeah...?"
"If you only wanted to see the blue sky, that is all you would see. You could know that bright red bird is there right in front of you, but if you didn't want to see it, you wouldn't."
"Just like we choose to see light because that's what we want to see..."
"It's just easier that way."
Yu, Han. “Memorial on Buddhism”. Making of the Modern World 12: Classical & Medieval Tradition. Trans. Richard F. Burton. Ed. Janet Smarr. La Jolla: University Readers, 2012. 111-112. Print.
In Pablo Neruda’s poem If You Forget Me, the speaker explains how he feels to his partner if she were to forget him. On a deeper level, the speaker reveals the fickleness of the human heart.
Larry A. Samovar, Richard E. Porter, Edwin R. McDaniel, “Buddhism”, communication between cultures, pg 139-145.
Crying, I recall when I said to myself, “I will die!” I couldn’t think of anything else. I was locked in a small and dark room for two consecutive days, I was starving, and there was no one there to help me. Simply, I was frightened and worried about how I am going to get out of this room alive, although there was a war going around the whole city.
The Northern Region of Sudan, mostly made up of Muslims, who are Ethnically Arab, have had strained relationships with the South of Sudan Citizens who are mostly Christians and Animists for decades-The Sudan Government, compromising mostly of Muslims have been focused on raging war on the Africans living in Darfur. The Africans in Darfur had for years been in control of some ...
... be casting stones, or holding a conversation. The speaker of the poem does not move on from this emotional torment, yet I do feel as if in his quest for closure he does resolve some of the tumultuous feelings he does have in regard to losing his love.
Death’s whisper traveled in my ear, wrapping around my mind, “I can take you away from this madness. Beyond this hell, that is life.” “Will it be more peaceful there?” I asked. “As serene as heaven above.” Possessive Depression responded. My heavy heart fluttered at the thought of serenity. No more painful days, or lonely, restless nights. No more of this living death. Anxiety murmured all my insecurities tempting me to make the decision, as every tick-tock from the clock he held, echoed in my brain, putting fear in me of things that will never happen. I thought about the invitation to eternal sleep, “I would finally be able to extract this smiling mask…” Thus, I decided to join the dance of death, done dealing with my dilemmas.
Buddhism is slowly becoming one of the most popular religions in the world, and is estimated to have about 300-400 million followers at the beginning of 2014. The numbers of followers have declined in the countries where Buddhism originated, due to the arising of “New Age Religions” in that part of the world.
Freiburg KG Herder, Verlag. Trans. Heinrich Dumoulin, and John C. Maraldo. Buddhism in the Modern World. New York: Macmillan Co., Inc, 1976. Print.
The study of Buddhism over the past century or so has resembled the encounter of the blind men and the elephant in many ways. Students of Buddhism have tended to fasten onto a small part of the tradition and assume their conclusions held true about the whole. Often the parts they have seized on have been a little like the elephant's tusks a striking, but unrepresentative, part of the whole animal. As a result, many erroneous and sweeping generalizations about Buddhism have been made, such as that it is 'negative', 'world-denying', 'pessimistic', and so forth.
I did not know it at the time, but in November of 2005, I was knocking on death’s door. I was living in Naperville, IL with my girlfriend and her family. It was a few days before Thanksgiving, and the family was preparing for the holiday celebration. I was starting to feel a bit under the weather, but it was flu season.
"What is Buddhism? | The Buddhist Centre." What is Buddhism? | The Buddhist Centre. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2014. .
"Isn't it funny how you can think you're completely over someone, but if you drive past his house, stumble upon a meaningful song you both shared, or even catch a glance of him on the street, just in an instant, it can change all that, and you start to remember the pain. And that hollow space is feeling more and more like the Grand Canyon with every second that goes by. But you bury these feelings deep down, so deep that you're sure no one will be able to tell. To the outside world, you smile and act like nothing is wrong or will ever be. Everything's just perfect. And you go along your merry way, all the while home realizing how much you do miss him, how much you still love him... and it sticks with you for days, weeks, maybe months, until fate decides to hand you another one of these unexpected moments. And then you finally understand the worst feeling in the world is when the person you love the most is standing right next to you, yet you can never have them."
I remember it as it were yesterday, the morning of October 31 1986, I heard my dad’s voice early in the morning; “Mike, get up! Your grandpa died!”