We are only able to live in a large part because of Death. Our bodies are constantly dying and being born at the same time over and over again. Our worldly material life is actually made up of a billion+ little births and slightly less little deaths. As we age we begin to notice that the billion little deaths start catching up with the billion+ little births and we take longer to heal and recuperate. Eventually the billion little deaths will win and overtake the less than billion little births and something new and wonderfully fascinating in its own right will consume our bodies and make room for the next, what ever that may be.

I've read that in humans, the number of non-human cells, cells that have different DNA from ours, is actually larger than the number of human cells, cells which have the same human DNA. This always reminds me that what I think of as ME physically is actually a community. I like to believe that my thoughts and my feelings are mine alone but in reality they are shared by an entire host of other creatures.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_flora

And then I like to remember the Cordyceps fungus and how it is known to enter creatures and control them. The fungus enters ants, spiders and other insects and actually directs their actions, making them do things they would never ever do under their own direction.

www.youtube.com/watch
(I love science because it is another area where the more we know, the more we understand how little we know.)

These ideas I use as tools, like crowbars, to loosen my grip on what I think I know and even who I think I am. Who just thought this thought? Me, the bacteria in me, the fungi in me or all of us together. I really don't know. And when I fear death who is it that is really fearing it? Perhaps its the quadrillion bacteria.

- "Anyone who says it's all perfect would need to include in that perfection how much they dislike death. If they say it's perfect that they deplore death, I'd say maybe it isn't."

I think there may be some people who see it truly ALL as perfect but they are few and far between and for the rest of us it is just an ideal, an archetype of surrender, but not a sorrowful surrender, a surrender of awe.

- "If they say death is all good, that it's natural and therefor not a problem, I'd think they are either being detached from their feelings or placing their ideas about life in a higher category than their feelings. You can intellectualize the idea of death to death and it will never be okay on a feeling level. it will never be devoid of grief and upset."

I not sure I agree. I believe that over time we are able to modify our emotional responses with our beliefs. Imagine how people view the killing of a young chicken for dinner and then imagine how most people would view the same treatment of a young dog. It really depends where you grow up as to what you might feel. Move to a place where dog is considered a gourmet offering and eventually you will loose your disgust. So are we able to work with fear. Slowly but surely, as we learn more and experience more, we are able to modify our emotional response through understanding and wisdom. Death is really the Great Unknown and although we live in a universe of a zillion little unknowns we often have trouble with the big one, myself included.

I'm not recommending what some would call detachment or "stuffing", ignoring feelings until they become overwhelming or even ruin one's sleep. I recommend practicing perspective, gaining a meditative view of one's feelings, thoughts, what goes in and what comes out. Its like being alive and experiencing everything twice, once in the body and then again from a directors chair.

I agree that Life and Death are not opposites; I think they are stops on an infinite spiral train track of energy. And I also agree that the world isn't necessarily what IS, especially if what IS is what most people agree on what IS. Allthough on the other hand the world is exactly that!

Isn't this fun!