I think context is everything, but the overall principle might be sound.
Someone upthread commented that a similar result might have been achieved by killing ONE rabbit, filming and replaying the experience. That's possible. There are people who are still processing the trauma of watching the George Floyd video. Anyone who has attentively observed the dying process for any reason, on almost any occasion, can understand how deep a mark it leaves, even with a screen between the watcher and the act.
I am in awe of hospice nurses and volunteers.
But I digress.
The reality is that death is part of life. Our culture has done an outstanding job of sequestering us from this reality and that may be part of our overall cultural dysfunction. Seeing, understanding, and accepting the dying process may be a necessary feature of maturity; I know it has been necessary for me to be able to contemplate my own mortality with some level of serenity.
Much of religion and theology is based on the speculation about what happens to the individuality of consciousness when the body dies. There's a growing literature on secular exploration of this question as well. "What happens after?" to us, to those we love, to humans and other forms of life alike, is a question that every individual is free to speculate about or deny as we see fit. But our choice will not make the presence of physical dying and death around us stop or go away.
And, as you note, eventually it will be the turn of each of us to experience this process.
Right now I am watching my mother die in exquisitely slow motion. She is 93 and in very robust physical health, but as we interact I can see the beginning of a dying process in her growing detachment from the physical, emotional, and psychological aspects of living. The fierce and joyous appreciation I feel for my body and its processes is subsiding in her - she is merely grateful for the lack of pain and the continuance of mobility and dignity.
While this is painful to watch on one level, it is also important and in its own way, joyous, to understand that given the time, I may experience a similar process. That the sense of wanting to continue my me-ness at all possible costs may fade and leave me simply glad to succumb to worn-out physiology and step across the threshold of no-longer-me without much regret.
Every life of any length is a complete unit of being and individuality and contribution to the whole of All Life. As hard as this is to accept and process when I feel that death has come 'too soon' and/or that something about the individual remains 'unfinished', that, too is a reality. We all, always leave the best of ourselves - our work and our contributions to this life - to others when we die.
Perhaps those Buddhists are indeed onto something.
thoughtfully,
Bright
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