Taking on board FBs and going back to your original post T one view is that grasping after life (or fear of death) is the basic perception that keeps us bound to this reality.
There's a bit of an existential catch 22 question around this. Most traditions would teach that fear of death (or of non-continuity of the individual self) follows from a mistaken view of the nature of our existence (we fail to perceive how linked with and interdependent we are with everything - horizontally in terms of everything in the conventional universe, and vertically in terms of all levels of consciousness from what appears physical existence to God level or unity.
The more fearful we get the more convinced of our 'aloneness' and less able to perceive these realities we become.
The basic problem is that if we seek to duck the issue of death or to unnaturally prolong our existence beyond what fate or karma or God has in mind we risk getting fixated on it, and in our obsession becoming dominated by our fears and doing a lot of harm to others. Not to mention probably shortening our lives as a result of the ensuing behaviours. (drink is not exactly a life extender, nor are the other things we get into to take our mind off the issue, or in an attempt to take from others what we need to survive)
The other issue is that no amount of afterlife exploring is likely to give us very much certainty as to what happens after death. We can surmise, but we can not be certain. Fairly well summarised by Nanner's now defunct tag line:
A samurai once asked Zen Master Hakuin where he would go after he died. Hakuin answered "How am I supposed to know?"
"How do you know? You're a Zen master!" exclaimed the samurai. "Yes, but not a dead one", Hakuin answered.
I guess two things follow from this. The first is that we're most likely to minimise our fear and suffering by living lightly and groundlessly in the moment - accepting that the nature of life is that we can't know, and so avoiding getting hung up on stuff that can bring suffering to ourselves and others.
If as most of us are we've got a bit hung up on stuff, traditions like Buddhism teach methods based on meditation by which we can release our fears - even those that have grown to the status of the gods or the demons mentioned before in the piece I wrote on the Tibetan Buddhist Chod healing practice.
This kind of stuff sounds wholly unconvincing to a testerone fuelled young person, and for sure is wholly counter intuitive. But it works, I've been there. If you're not already perhaps it would be worth considering getting stuck into some spiritual reading and practice.
It sounds wacky from the 'outside' so to speak, but meditation is especially effective in reducing the mental intensity that gets us suckered into stuff. The thread on meditation is worth a look....
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