Death consciousness as the effect of the Original Sin (4th Part)

Also suicide is included in the mechanism at genetic feedback or at negative retroaction acting in human population, besides being an illusory attempt to exorcize death cosciousness.

There are some other methods, apparently less traumatic, to exorcize the consciousness of being, however, doomed to die. Unbridled hedonism may be one of these.

Till some centuries ago, in the periods when the Black Death was raging, many men, since they couldn’t know whether the day after the terrible disease should have infected them, devoted themselves to unbridled carnal pleasures.

Other attempts to remove death consciousness may be less evident, but nevertheless they show us how difficult may be for man to live together with the knowledge of his final destiny.

An extreme research of an ideal of beauty and classicism seems to be successful in removing death anguish. A good example is the one of earl Jacques Fersen (1880-1923). With his gorgeous Villa Lysis, he started building in Capri in 1904, the French aristocrat intended creating a sort of Greek acropolis or emulating Tiberius’s Villa, we can still see in Capri.

He spent part of his life in this wonderful hermitage cultivating an ideal of beauty and absolute freedom, that is living his homosexuality without any restraint. All this didn’t prevent Fersen from putting an end to his life when he was only 43 after melting 5 grams of cocaine in a glass of champagne.

Jacques Fersen

Nowadays when an inexorable materialism is prevalent people even plan their future immortality with hibernation.

Besides the purpose of hibernation isn’t to save some DNA for a cloning, at present already possible, but hope that in the future science can find out a cure for the disease that caused death. All this makes us understand how much a man whose choice is hibernation cares of his own body already ravaged by the disease. Yet, how could a person hibernated, once thawed out, recover from the disease that caused his death?

According to a legend even gunpowder should have been invented by alchimists while trying to discover the elixir of immortality.

All religions have tried to face death problem, or better we can say they originated just to answer the question whether there is life after death.

Since in “The Intelligent Virus” it’s evident the author doesn’t recognize the existence of any trascendency, what we can do is to see whether there may be any religion facing  death problem without referring to any god.

Actually, Saint Francis, in the Canticle of the Sun, while speaking about nature says: “Praised be you my Lord for your Sister Bodily Death,from whose embrace no living person can escape”.

                                                                        Saint Francis

If we see better, the creatures he tells about in his canticle are all nature manifestations he praises the existence and function of.

Therefore we could say that also Saint Francis, just like Leonardo, considers nature as it were God himself.

But there is a religion that originated just to answer, not exactly the question whether a life after death may exist, but the problem of death itself. This religion is buddhism according to the interpretation given by Nichiren Daishonin (16^th February 1222-13^rd October 1282).

In the gosho[1] “The importance of the moment of death[2]” Nichiren Daishonin writes ” If I look backward, since I was a boy I have been studying Buddha’s teachings.Those days I used to think:”human being’s life is fleeting.Not always a breath is followed by another one [3].Not even dew fading away in the wind is an adequate metaphor. Nobody, wise or foolish, old or young,can ever know what will happen to him the next moment. That’s life! So first of all, I should have to study what concerns the moment of death and then all the rest”.

Nichiren Daishonin

If we analyze the word “to study” critically, I don’t think we can deny Nichiren Daishonin had tried to approach death problem more or less scientifically.

What answer Shakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism and Nichiren Dishonin, the buddhist monk gave this problem is another question we’ll, perhaps,face later.

Paestum, the Diver Tomb

[1] With the word Gosho (from the Japanese language go, a honorific prefix, sho writings) they intend the collection of all the teachings, the treatises, the letters Nichiren Daishonin wrote his disciples which are autographic or copied from the original autograph, now lost and the oral lessons that were translated by his successor Nikko Shonin, the second Patriarch (a priest).

[2] A collection of Nichiren Daishonin’s writings Vol II, pag.714-716 Italian Buddhist Institute Soka Gakkai 2013

[3] Literally:” the air coming out never waits for the air entering”.

Translated from “Il Virus Intelligente” by Enrica Narducci

See also:

1.The Original Sin (1st par)

2.The Original Sin (2nd part)

3. Death  consciousness as the effect of the Original Sin (3° Part)