"Death is one thing that requires no planning or effort"
what is this "thing" death?
is not life composed of nothing but birth and death of emptiness?
as long as there is a process of perception that becomes a cause for suffering then, it is foolish to not prepare
do you play a game of snooker by hitting the ball in a random direction?
Needing to believe in some kind of afterlife is an unconsciously egotistical and selfish mind"
that statement shows that you have a strong belief in something called death
and as long as there is phenomena of myopic self, then there will continue to be.
and what is wrong with a selfish mind?
the more truly selfish one becomes, the more one would care about others
because what you do unto others, you are really doing to yourself.
for example,
if you play or sing in a band, you want the band to sound great
so you realize that in order for you to sound really good, you must consider all of the band members and expand the sense of self to include all of the band members
you can also see this in schools of fish and flocks of birds that move as a transcendent entity
reason not need be lost, as in the case of a mob of soccer hooligans
one can choose to depart at anytime - but it will not be the same one that initially joined
one way of putting this, mythically, is that God made itself ignorant, and the illusion of duality ensued
but loaded the dice in it's favour, so that ultimately it would win.
there is free will - but only up to a point
there is no way that these thoughts can be adequately expressed using the english language, because the language and associated habitual conceptions are quite often extremely misleading
again,
"Needing to believe in some kind of afterlife is an unconsciously egotistical and selfish mind"
when finished cooking veges, the cook has died, and then an eater is born
when taken off overalls and come out of the garage into the house to watch tv, a mechanic has died and a couch potatoe is born
so, extrapolating - when joe blow dies, something else is born.
[conceptualization of] birth and death is a relative truth
noise dies and then silence is born
as long as there is a sense of suffering, then religion (re-legare > re-read > re-do > habits > rituals) is essential, from several perspectives
we are all deeply religious
how do you think you become so conditioned?
conditioning can be for better or worse
