I can't imagine what it would be like; being told the exact moment of my death.  But the people of Hawaii experienced that first-hand one month ago when the following text appeared on their cell phones:

"Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill."

Thankfully, they found out later that the message was sent in error. But it begs the question, what would I do if I only had a short time left to live?

It's strange to think about. Death is one of those things that we just don't talk about in polite company. In fact, I remember being admonished as a child when I told my classmates that my grand mother had recently died.

"You're supposed to say that she passed away," my fifth grade teacher reminded me before offering her condolences.

We do everything we can to escape the reality of death. We distract ourselves with long to-do lists. We try to outsmart it with super foods, and anti-aging creams. If all else fails, we console ourselves with stories about the after life. But in the end, we can't escape our fate. Everyone dies, and life reminds us of that continuously.

As I think about this, I'm reminded of the countless 'deaths' we live in fear of every day. The death of a reputation can be soul-crushing. Medical bills can kill even the largest bank account. And the death of a career often results in the loss of identity and self-worth. 

We spend our lives fending off the small deaths that life inflicts on us, is it any surprise that we're terrified of the big one?

But Buddhism isn't about living in fear. Rather it's about doing the hard work, putting on our grownup pants, and learning to face reality as it is. The reality of life is that we're going to die. The reality of suffering is that its caused by our attachments.

 If we want death to be less scary, we must become less attached to life.

Of course, I don't mean to suggest that we should want to die. Rather, it's my position that we can live without not wanting to die. In fact, we can live without wanting or not wanting anything.

Much like the sun which shines all day without fear of the coming night. We can live fully in this moment without fear of our coming deaths.

When we do this, when we live 100% in the here and now, everything else falls away.  There's no future, no past, there's not even an "us".  There's only an eternal becoming that we experience in every moment.

In this way, we conquer death not by running from it, but by realizing there's no one here to die.

Of course, that all sounds good in theory. But it still begs the question, "What would I do if I only had a short time left to live?" Truthfully, I don't know the answer.

But I like to think that I'd live fully and peacefully; right up until the end.

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Hawaii Missile Scare: The Zen of Coping with Death