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 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]

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).

[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.

[grubbogoppoly]

Woohoo

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

[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.

[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

[Stigma]

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

-Stigma

[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.