death

[foolsknight362]

I am in complete agreement with Zhou Yu. If I were in a situation in which both my honor and my life were in jeopardy, I would sacrafice my life to fulfill my honor. This might sound like I would be giving up life, but the way that I look at it is this:

Honor is more important than any other value one could hold, because it is related to so many things. A mans god, a mans country, a mans family, all of these are based upon honor, and mans ability to uphold it.

Life is a small segment of time, in which one can live however they choose. If you live honorably, and you die honorably, you will be remembered as the person who died for a greater cause. And by dying in honor, your death was not in vain.

To continue on the topic of "fear of death", all you must do is percieve something higher than fear, pain, or death. Once again honor. To me, there are two goals in life. To live with honor and to die with honor. You live with honor as long as you can, and once you can no longer live, be sure that you die with honor.
-Just one mans opinion.

[Stigma]

I dunno man... i beat the reaper got some mad moves going with that scythe ^_^ Scythe-kun-do!

-Stigma

[Zhou Yu]

In regards to who ever it was that was saying stuff about the grim reaper...

I wouldn't really want to be meeting him anytime soon, but if you were going to die anyway, and he was just coming to collect you. How many of you would give up the chance to fight him, I know I wouldn't.



and seeing your going to die, you can even do really cool suicidal finishing moves

[Zhou Yu]

I'm not sure whether I fear death or not, however I probably fear losing my honour more. Therefere death takes 2nd place to honour.

This might seems a little strange, I mean for most people how can anything matter more than life cos everything becomes irrelavant once your dead ( not taking into account the possiblilty of heaven and hell ).

I seem to belive that life is pointless, hence honour is the only thing left that matters to me. Which probably allows me to look at situations without bias. However when a life or death situation comes my way, my human instinct becomes a lot stronger. So even if I know that fearing death could make me hesitate and lesson my chances of survival I still probably hesitate.

Either way having an extreme fear of death is not good, and if you don't fear death it doesn't mean that you want to die it just means you don't let death make your decisions bias.

[grubbogoppoly]

Woohoo

Only one more post and I will be able to buy a soda!!

[marko_b]

I'm new here so hi. Anyway,
What I think he meant(you shouldn't be afraid to die in order to live.) is not to have death in the forefront of your mind. If you are constantly thinking of death, you are not experiancing life, you are in a future that does not exist at the present time. Be mindful in the now for now is all that exists.
To be successful in battle(idealy), one accepted death as a reality and then with meditative experiance attained no mind; a blank slate of a mind with no thoughts or emotions that would cloud and distort the events in battle and slow reaction times.
It is not that the Samurai class did not fear death, to not fear death would be rash. It is just that they feared dishonor more,and so would rather die than be dishonored. Death for honor was a noble cause.
My inexperianced 2 cents.

[Stigma]

Yes, thats the point. They are still motivated to attempt to live, but having accepted ones life as allready forfeit would make it possible to fight at full potential by not beeing hampered by fear for ones own safety.

It probably takes both a very special person and a very special situation in order to achieve this kind of mindset, but i am convinced that it has occured many times in larger wars, like WW2, based on accounts of soldiers who where in the thick of it, and survived the war.

The mind is a peculiar thing, and overcomming or supressing ones instincts is not something that can be done easily (if its even at all possible to gain full control).

[Kosh]

Originally posted by Stigma
and the only thing that would bring them back to life is victory over the enemy.

surely in this example they are motivated by a fear of death - the fundamental fact still remains...their motivation is to avoid death.

[Stigma]

I think he confuses a mindset that has been used by warriors through the ages.

When faces with overwhelming odds, and a large chance of dying, leaders have sometimes asked their warriors (or soldiers) to fight as if their lives were forfeit, and the only thing that would bring them back to life is victory over the enemy.

Thus, for those who are actually able to accept death, they can fight without fear at their fullest, but still be motivated to win. You can fear to loose something precious you posess, but its something completely different when you accept that it is allready gone, but and that you can fight to posess it again.

[Kosh]

Originally posted by eXcessiveForce
If you forget about consequences then there is nothing you cannot do.

A person who lives by this philosophy is truely a dangerous individual.

A person who lives by that phylosophy is by definition a phsycopath.

...and if you fight as though you are already dead...why would you fight? You wouldnt care either way. If you truely had no fear of dieing there would be no motivation for anything - you will probably argue that a love for life keeps you alive. But how can you love something yet have no fear of it being take from you?

[Stigma]

I think a lot of people here confuse "fear of death" with self-preservation. Lets do a very simple breakup of different types of people in a given situation.

You are cornered one evening on your way home by a bulky person wielding a sizable (potentially deadly) knife. The person is obviously high on some drug, and you quickly realize that talking sense into him, or just surrendering your wallet won't do you any good. While you desperatly try to assess the situation he lunges at you with (what you percieve to be) intent to kill. You have a split second to react before he reaches you.

A "normal" person would either panic (be overwhelmed by fear), be useless, and probably get stabbed. Likely a result of never having to had confront such fear before in our modern lives.

Other "normal" person that could keep their cool would try to defend themselves. While either trained or untrained in a martial art, a normal person would fear the blade, not only because it would cause pain, but also because you know it would be deadly to get stabbed by it. This fear would cause the person to hesitate, and play all his movements safe, likely keeping his distance from the blade whenever possible. In the end this would reduce his chances of defending himself, and likely he would also end up getting stabbed.

A person with no self-preservation instinct (who is mentally disturbed IMO), would just shrug his shoulders and accept death, or perhaps just ignore the threat completely instead. He would likely also end up stabbed (unless the weird unexpected behaviour would have confused the agressor enough that is).

A person who has "no fear of death" would act like the calm and collected normal person, but hewould not be inhibited by the fear of pain and death. Instead he would accept the possebility of beeing injured or killed as an inevitability in this case, and be able to fight at his full potential. When he dosn't fear the knife, the effect of the knife is also lessened a great deal. He dosn't throw his life away, he WANTS to live, but he does not let the natural fear hinder him.

IMO this is what many try to achieve.

[Stigma]

Originally posted by reyjrar
...Even more enticing was the appearnace, or disappearance of scars on the subjects faces between personalities. Some ppl may think this is all freaky and disturbing, but for me it is proof of the amazing powers of the mind...

To me it sounds more like the amazing powers of bullshitting... But of course, by all means, if there is any real evidence or scientfic studies to back this up, feel free to correct me (with a link to a serious article or something). Certain things just arent physicly possible for the human body to do, such as this example...

[grubbogoppoly]

I never said that I wanted to die. Simply said I was not afraid of it. There is a separation. I still have the survival instinct. I just do not fear death. When the time comes for me to die then it will happen. I will do everything in my power to try and stop it. Not because I am afraid of death. But, because I value my life.

[adacas]

Well I for one am afraid of death. I know its coming I know its inevitable but I can't help but feel that there has to be something I can do to avoid it. I like that part. I like the fact that when a tough situation comes I would not just sit there and accept it but I would keep trying to overcome it. I guess that is hope. Also fear of death really isn't bad so long as it doesn't interfere with everyday life. A soldier going into battle is afraid of death but he does not allow it to interefere with what he is doing. The fear of death keeps him alive by not letting his senses go dull but when you fear death too much though it will interefere with your reflexes and thought process. Someone who wants to die seems like a zombie right before they walk in front of a bus. Just read about all of the descriptions of the Vietnam War when wave after wave of vietcong deliberately ran into opposing fire. The looks on there faces were emotionless and still. They felt that death could not possibly be any worse than the life they were living and so did not care too much and felt that the glory they thought they would receive after their death was more than enough. This is also part of the mentality of a suicide bomber. Lets face it their lives suck. They feel they don't have much to live for. So why not off themselves and get their faces put on a piece of canvas for all of their troubles. While a man who does not fear death seems like the ultimate weapon he is more likely to make a mistake much like a man who fears death too much. A balanced man on the other hand who respects death will get the job done much better. I am not quite there yet but perhaps with time I can get there.

[grubbogoppoly]

No. .Not really. .The knife in my gut is separate from death. If I have a knife in my gut am I dead? No. You are dead when you cease to breathe anymore(loose definition). Yes the knife in the gut leads to your death. But, I don't fear that part I fear the part where I have an intense pain in my gut. Not like those butterflies in the stomach lol.