For me, naming conventions like ‘soul’ … ‘kundalini fire’ … ‘holy spirit’ are obstacles in the search for truth. The concepts/notions these terms attempt to proscribe are simply unknowable … always have been.
I share your view that one needs to be ‘tethered’ … how is irrelevant … there are many ways to wake up. 
This reliance I to switch in my case Zen
Meno … should we read your comment as follows:
This reliance on “I” … as in ego … as in self … is switched to Zen … as in body politic known as Zen.
If yes … perhaps you could explain your decision … your decision process.
Well, then that explains a lot.
Sure, if I had nothing to lose I’d probably not fear death either.
Or, if I ever reach the point where the things that I want to lose [all the pain] come to outweigh the things that I don’t want to lose [all the pleasure], it will certainly make dying more bearable.
It’s just that some folks here seem to be speculating more about the idea of death than the actual flesh and blood oblivion.
When one accepts death on a philosophical level it can make it easier to accept it on a physical one when the time comes
Maybe.
But here I am getting closer and closer and closer to the abyss. And if my own understanding of it is correct this means that for all of eternity I will be utterly detached from…
1] the folks I love
2] the music I love
3] the films I love
4] the books I love
5] the art I love
6] the food I love
7] the programs on PBS that I love
8] the discussions I love
9] the emotions I love
10] everything else that I love
So, I ask myself, in that context how on earth can I learn to accept death on a philosophical level.
And I presume that, for all of eternity, you in turn will become utterly detached from all of the things that you love.
How then do you manage to put that into perspective philosophically?
From my frame of mind it all comes down to this: That [sooner or later] even all of the things that I love will be no match for all of the accumulating pain and suffering that comes attached to a body getting older and older and older.
Indeed, it can even become so lopsided that you literally beg to die.
Unless of course you’ve got one of another religious narrative to fall back on.
The critical factor here is the “I.”
Therefore when we are able to manage the idea of “I” [illusory in one perspective] then the problem is managed and modulated.
The “I” is dualistic, i.e. it-is and it-is-not.
One need to develop the ability* to toggle and switch to the proper perspective to optimize the situation this issue of mortality.
This is why the Buddhists exercise to ‘attach’ and ‘detach’ optimally within the respective conditions.
Comparing which alternative is worse off is not effectively and the root of the problem is not addressed.
I can just imagine you approaching folks on their deathbed who 1] don’t believe in God [immortality, salvation] and 2] are embedded in an existential context in which losing all that they love far, far, far outweighs all of the pain that goes with it.
You note this to them.
And, sure, for some it might be enough.
And, again, if, in the shadow of oblivion, this “frame of mind” actually works to sustain some level of comfort and consolation for you then, well, what can I say: good for you.
And I don’t deny it: I wish that I could figure out a way to “think” myself into believing it again myself.
But I’m still rather convinced that this sort of religious or spiritual perspective is rooted more in dasein – in the manner in which your own personal experiences, relationships, sources of knowledge etc., predisposed you to view life and death as you do. An “existential contraption” given my own frame of mind.
That, in other words, there does not appear to be either a theological or a philosophical argument able to convince all reasonable men and women that they are obligated to believe the same.
Just one more existential leap of faith as it were.
Yet there you are: able to subsume “I” in the comfort and consolation it provides you.
If of course that is how it actually “works” for you “in your head”.
How close to death have you actually come? How close to it are you now?
Be prepared.
If a person had not prepared for it, then it is too late and pointless to tell or teach them anything on their deathbed. It is like a person who is in terrible state nervousness during the early stages of making a public speech or certain competition. There is no way one can control such nervousness. The solution is to prepare for it through practice. Even then there are those who cannot control their nervous impulses after years of public speaking if they did not focus on training to control their nerves.
Being prepared for it meant developing the necessary skills to manage and modulate the terrible existential dilemma from as early on as possible.
Achieving a reasonable level of the skill meant programming the necessary neurons to deal and modulate the existential dilemma. This require the correct techniques, theories and practice.
This is where the spiritually minded people spend years meditating, mindfulness, reflecting, seeking necessary knowledge, and whatever that is necessary to develop such skills to modulate the impulses of the existential dilemma effectively. The intellectual approach alone [dassein, etc.] will not work effectively. There is no natural quick fix. The artificial way is morphine and other drugs.
Yes, somehow “in your head” and “here and now” you have managed to prepare yourself for death. And that you have accomplished this is clearly in your own best interest.
But to compare death [“I” obliterated] with public speaking just doesn’t work for me.
Again, how close to death – to an actual existential death – are you here and now?
How intimately intertwined is your preparation embedded in the actual event itself?
Sure, that makes sense. At least to the extent you can ever really properly prepare for the loss of everything and everyone that you love for all of eternity.
Or you can just skip that part and figure out a way to believe in God – in immortality, salvation and divine justice.
Or you can reach a point in your life where the pain so far outweighs the pleasure you will beg to die.
Yes, but in being “spiritually minded” they tend to connect this dot to the one beyond the grave.
Their own rendition of a “soul” somehow continues on. So it then becomes entirely more problematic whether they will lose “for all of eternity” everyone and everything that they love and hold dear.
And if you construe the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein as an intellectual contraption, well, “what we have here is failure to communicate”.
But that doesn’t surprise me. In fact, I have more or less come to expect it regarding these frames of mind.