In Zen we say, “Life and Death is the great matter.” This is a kind of exhortation to take spiritual practice seriously, but as my teacher used to say, “Don’t be too serious.” There is a little ego in being too serious. Anyway, life and death are two sides of the same coin. They arise together. This is the Buddhist view. And so the fear of dying is also fear of living. Fear arises toward both.
So what is this fear? What are we afraid of?
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