Failed Buddhist

In light of @KennethFolk's recent PSA - reminding us that nirvāṇa=insentience - I'd like to recommend some reading, as a logical question to ask is: Why not suicide? @sarahdoingthing's 'Every Cradle is a Grave: Rethinking the Ethics of Birth and Suicide' is great on this topic

Suicide is a sticky topic for many people...largely for cultural reasons. The main reason I didn't kill myself when I wanted to is that it would devastate my mother, but I have found the acceptance of it as a possibility, freeing, in the past. (NB: I'm not suicidal, don't worry)

After reflecting on this, one may then think 'well, if I'm going to keep living, what is to be done?' I suspect this relates to how we re-present Zero back to ourselves. How do we frame the unborn, unconditioned? I mentioned this RE: @dthorson's podcast w/ Burbea.

For me personally, the teachings of Shinzen and the Mahamudra tradition have been helpful in framing Zero in such a way that it doesn't just become depressing nihilism - they reflect the inseparability of experience and non-expereince, vivid and empty. Others like other stuff.

People resist this notion of nirvana as Zero, perhaps because they can see the duality of experience and non-experience. Later Buddhisms make practical use of this duality. So we may ask, how does the acceptance of non-experience - zero - impact my experience? What does it do?

How can people “see the duality of experience and non-experience?” Non-experience is only ever imagined, and hence is an experience. No?

I suppose imagination is really powerful - certainly powerful enough to make a person resist a concept of annihilation. I’d also say that even before a complete collapse of experience - as in nirodha - it’s not difficult to see experience falling apart. Where does a thought go?