When you die, will the world be a better place?

My exwifes grandmother passed away yesterday. And it got me to thinking.

When you die, will the world be a better place? If you added up the number of people that loves you and hates you, which one would be greater? Would people line up to lay flowers on your grave, or line up to pee or spit on your grave?

My one goal in life is that after I am gone, that I am missed.

 

Depends on who you ask really...I'm sure some people will be glad to see me gone, but I know that many of my friends and family will be greatly saddened by my passing away.

 

My exes would probably say yes.

 

The first and second of the four noble truths of Buddhism are as follows:

• Life is suffering - To live means to suffer, because the human nature is not perfect and neither is the world we live in. During our lifetime, we inevitably have to endure physical suffering such as pain, sickness, injury, tiredness, old age, and eventually death; and we have to endure psychological suffering like sadness, fear, frustration, disappointment, and depression. Although there are different degrees of suffering and there are also positive experiences in life that we perceive as the opposite of suffering, such as ease, comfort and happiness, life in its totality is imperfect and incomplete, because our world is subject to impermanence. This means we are never able to keep permanently what we strive for, and just as happy moments pass by, we ourselves and our loved ones will pass away one day, too.
• The origin of suffering is attachment - The origin of suffering is attachment to transient things and the ignorance thereof. Transient things do not only include the physical objects that surround us, but also ideas, and -in a greater sense- all objects of our perception. Ignorance is the lack of understanding of how our mind is attached to impermanent things. The reasons for suffering are desire, passion, ardour, pursuit of wealth and prestige, striving for fame and popularity, or in short: craving and clinging. Because the objects of our attachment are transient, their loss is inevitable, thus suffering will necessarily follow. Objects of attachment also include the idea of a "self" which is a delusion, because there is no abiding self. What we call "self" is just an imagined entity, and we are merely a part of the ceaseless becoming of the universe.

In accepting such statements as true (which you may not, but for sake of argument I will accept it as invariably true), one could understand that their passing will cause suffering (a star in the vast sea of light will go out, as they say). As such, I hope that anyone that has found themselves "attached" to me in such a a way will get over my passing as quick as possible and not miss me. Even if, you will eventually be forgotten -- your legacy does not matter.

Furthermore, I would never judge myself by the amount of people that hate me versus those who love me. Since when do men have such a perfect judgment of character? All the people whom you have met could easily hate you because you do the right thing in the same way they could hate you because you always do the wrong thing. To broaden horizons even more, how do you know what is good or evil? Couldn't a person's actions be just a part of the becoming of the universe? How do you judge an evil action (say, murder) if it leads to love? There is no order or perfectly just judgment of a man's actions. There is only morally gray -- no sane man I have known, seen, read about, or heard about in any medium has done something wrong for the sake of it, they do it for the sake of leading to what they believe to be a better tomorrow. This better tomorrow could be solely for the man committing the action, or it could be for the greater group. The fact of the matter is that every man is striving for his own happiness.

Not all of this is my perspective, but I just want to jump out and ask some questions that look more deeply into the issue at hand.

 

to love me is to know me, to know me is to know me.