暖冬cool夏
這裏一年四季溫暖如春，沒有酷暑沒有嚴寒......
One day, my daughter, at the age of 6 or 7, pulled the Children’s Bible off her shelf, turned to the page where there was a picture of shining gold-adorned palace, and asked me in tears if it’s true that this would be place where people reside in their death. I remember that I replied something like wasn’t it wonderful to live our afterlife in such a beautiful palace? This did not quell her at all. She burst into crying harder no matter what I said. I did not know what she was taught at the church, and what made her so scared? She did not know how to express herself, but tears were streaming down constantly whenever this topic came up. This continued for a while until I stopped sending her to the church completely.
We never talked about it ever since, but it remained a question in my mind what roiled her little mind when death was so far away? What made her believe that however magnificent the heaven looks like, it is a dreadful place?
Almost everyone in this world is afraid of death, young or old, to a certain level. However advanced today’s technology is, death still remains a mystery. No living people will tell us what death feels like, or if there is really an afterlife, revival, undying soul or heavens. Death is imperceptible, unknown and out of our hand. From the moment we were born, we are traversing on the passage from infancy to adulthood, and from maturity to ultimate death. However strong the yearning for an eternal life, life is finite, and death is inevitable. We are like the speck of dust that will one day return to the world in ashes, holding on to nothing and taking nothing with us the moment we are buried.
Poignant the fact is, it reminds us to” live more in each moment”, to consummate our life and fulfill our potential, so that little regrets are left behind when our time is running out. This is the highlight of the book Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death, written by Dr, Yalom, a psychiatrist and professor at Stanford University, a book I borrowed from the library and finished it less than two weeks.
In the book, I surprisingly found a poem I learnt and recited at the middle school in China:
Good better best
Never let it rest
Until good is better
And better is best
From youth, we were educated to live positively and meaningfully, pursuing the dreams in our life. However, the older we get, the more we know, the more diminished we are at attaining the goal. Sometimes we are easily baffled with the meaning of living. Then when we are aging and deteriorating, we are inclined to be reminiscent of the old golden days, wishing to re-live life from the start. But our hourglass can never be reversed; neither can the clock be rewound. With more than half of our life gone by, we are no longer privileged to lament over the unfulfilled dreams, but to live every moment to its maximum.
夏安！
— 我想這兩者之間最重要的區別是一個後麵跟著生 （這就是希望）， 一個後麵是虛無。
我的病康複後，我看淡了很多身外之物，在有些事情上，我變得比以前膽大了，也變得更樂觀了，常常想得最多的是如何在有生之年抓緊做自己喜歡的事，不至於到死的時候太遺憾。
謝謝暖冬分享好書。這是一個很大的話題。當今世界有多少人力物力是花在戰神死亡的恐懼上？
也和水沫一樣，我可能對病痛更加恐懼。我覺得死亡其實輕鬆的，死了就是睡著了，所有的糾結都煙消雲散了，子女，財產，名譽地位都不care了，沒有任何痛苦。但是活著如果經受病痛的折磨更可怕。
> With more than half of our life gone by, we are no longer privileged to lament over the unfulfilled dreams,
I wish I learnt that truth before reaching mid-life.
> but to live every moment to its maximum.
Be careful here. Chasing fulfillment itself might be the root cause why we are unhappy.
暖冬寫得好！
說到死亡，我總會想到人是否有靈魂這個問題。曾經讀過一個故事：“有一個老太太在做手術時大出血，醫生們竭力把她搶救了回來。在搶救時，有位醫生的鋼筆掉到窗台底下了。後來醫生與老太太聊天，老太太說當時她能看到醫生們搶救她時的焦急，她想開口安慰他們沒事的，但沒人能聽見。醫生不信，說當時她處於全身麻醉的狀態，老太太說她看到醫生的筆掉在窗台下，醫生驚得目瞪口呆，因為老太太已經失明二十多年了。所以看到這一切的肯定不是她的身體，而是她的靈魂。”
如果這個故事是真的，靈魂就真的存在。那麽人死後靈魂去哪裏了呢？我願意相信靈魂是存在的，願意這樣來假設：靈魂存在於我們現在還無法探知的維數裏。時間是四維的，靈魂存在於更高的維數裏，因為我們無法探知收集，人死後一段時間，靈魂沒有了載體，不得不散掉了，一旦散失就再也無法聚合在一起，所以死去的人，沒有一個回來的。但是人短暫死去，身體又被救活，靈魂還遊離在不遠處，仍然是完整的，就又回到了原來的載體。這就解釋了老太太的故事。
生老病死是人的正常生命軌跡，沒有什麽可以悲歎的。可怕的是那些小小年紀就得絕症的孩子，這才是生命中最大的遺憾。
生死的斷離舍，說起來和聽起來挺瀟灑的，其實有誰做得到呀？ 就是個裝腔作勢的大忽悠。
但是我認為隻要在自己生命的最後一刻，能帶有一顆無悔的良心去見上帝，那就真的"啊彌陀佛”了