Death and Dying

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the idea of death and dying is abhorrent; yet, in the case of the author's father, his dying and death was a process of renewal for him, for the author, for the author's mother, and siblings and members of the vast family of seventeen children into which his father was born. The author points out that he does fear death, not the actual act of dying, but knowing of the incompleteness it brings. The paper explains that Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's formalism on the stages in death and dying helped him to put his grief in a better context and to categorize his feelings.

Table of Content
Introduction
Individual Coping Strategies
Differential Treatment from Others
The Will to Live

From the Paper:

"The concepts of heaven and hell have evolved over time. This extends for all major religions. Practitioners are admonished to seek good over evil for fear that they might face the fires of hell in the scary and graphic detail elaborately laid out by Dante in the "Inferno." It is not the hell fire and brimstone of the time of the awakening as Christian dogma evolved in the United States. Even the pope has spoken about heaven and hell actually being experienced here on earth, through how a person conducts his or her life. Going back to the differences between eastern and western thought of dying can be summed up in the concepts of Sogyal Rinpoche. In his "Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" he puts forth the idea that Tibetans believe that the best way to live ones life to the fullest is to spend every waking moment of it preparing to die. Such a morbid fascination with death would have no place in the western thought. And yet there is some truth to it."

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