Lakefingers said:

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Plain and simple - the way you are now mis-attributing your death obsession idea to Buddha is in the category of wrong thought & wrong speech & wrong action (i.e. by intent to dominate a conversation and attribute merit by assignment of a reference to a historical figure) this links to your personal fixation and craving, and this leads you additional suffering for you.

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Agreed to an extent and if we judge Icelandr from Buddhism's epistemology. BUT this does not disprove Icelander, except out of that epistemological system. Don't hold Christ to the tenets of Judaism, nor Buddha to Hinduism.

If you don't get this then please ask yourself if it's reasonable the Buddhism has its head up its ass with such a magical number as 12 spokes on the wheel of life. Not 11, not 13, but twelve - extremely important in systems and aesthetics of Indo-Europeans since ancient times. The early Buddhists noticed the forces of death anxiety related to suffering, perhaps a few other fundamental/universal issues, but for mystical, aesthetic, etc reasons, had to fill the system out to twelve because it just wouldn't look right up there on the wall, above the altars, in the books... It's an ancient twelve step con-program.

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soldatheero said:

Death anxiety is very real but to think it cannot be conquered and to think that its always going to have some sort of unconscious effect on what we perceive to be true about this reality is just staight bogus.

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Chronic777 said:

I would say all fears stem from the fear of death as in my experience when i do not fear death, i don't have any other fears at all.

Freedom said:

We humans have mastered the science of objectivity, now we need a scientific method for subjectivity if at all possible. Perhaps the Buddhists have done this already?

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Well it seems almost impossible at the moment, talk to any robotics engineer that deals with self awareness & they'll tell you its difficult, almost impossible territory for science to deal with. Science uses consciousness, but it doesnt understand what it is, i don't think it ever will, as its not a measurable tangible 'thing'

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What I mean by 'science of subjectivity' is not to have objective knowledge about consciousness, but to have subjective knowledge of consciousness.

Science has given us the scientific method which is great at verifying a consistent and rigorous perspective for creating abstract concepts from  observations (the analogue sensations are turned into digital concepts automatically by everyone, but the science perspective checks and reforms this), and for creating theories from these formalized observations, theories which themselves are abstract concepts.



But how do we look at something like desire? By its very nature its a totally subjective experience. All subjective experiences have the problem of being influenced by fear, desire and expectation.

So how can we even begin to seriously ask the question of what is the root of desire, or the root of fear, when we haven't at the very least developed some method of dealing with fear, desire and expectation?

Further, in my experience certain things that appear to be unconscious motivators are actually conscious, only they are subtle and fleeting.

What I am suggesting is that instead of forming an abstract concept from limited experience, it may be possible to view what actually happens in the mind. For example, if death is the ultimate motivation behind everything, it may be possible to directly experience that fear of death, and then see the response to that fear of death and how it is transformed into something else.