BEGINNING THE END

When I was a kid I was beginning the beginning.  When I became an adult I was beginning the middle.  Now that I am an old man I am beginning the end.

What does beginning the end mean, really?  It means undoing everything that I’ve done so far, deconstructing my life.  Becoming pure again, is what it means, as pure as I was when I was born.

How am I to go about this ending, this deconstruction, this purification?  It turns out that there is a way for me to accomplish it that is instant and painless.  I do it by accepting, realizing really, that I am nothing, never was, and never will be, the Buddhist view.

The Buddhist view is remarkably liberating, psychologically.  The Buddha taught that a person is a momentary collection of skandhas, or aggregates, such as matter, sensations, thinking, etc. and that when a person dies, the skandhas disperse.  Poof.  The only thing remaining is an impression so-called that reincarnates.

Is death total annihilation, beyond that transmigrating impression?  The Buddha did not say so.  He did not say so because he did not know.  How could he?
 
Vedanta teaches that with death the Atman rendezvous with Brahman, its source, but, again, who can know this?  If I adopt the Buddhist perspective, it does not matter what the Atman does, or even if the Atman exists. 

 It is better for me, psychologically, to know that I am an illusion, that I do not exist in any real way and never did.  This way I am not attached to myself; I’m nothing for me to miss.