It is not so scary!

On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 took off from LaGuardia Airport in New York for Charlotte, North Carolina. In less than 20 minutes, the plane had a crash-landing on the Hudson river due to engine failure.  Miraculously, all of the 155 passengers and crew survived the ordeal. Ric Elias, CEO of a Sales & Marketing firm who was on board later shared three things he learned from the experience at Ted Talks. What attracted me most in this 5-minute talk is his thoughts during those moments when death was so near and almost certain. He says, ‘as we were coming down I had a sense of, wow dying is not so scary! We have been preparing for it all though our life. But I was very sad, I did not want to go, I loved my life.’ This is something that i haven’t heard before, that dying is not so scary. After that, I listened to a few others who were on the same flight that day and I heard another one sharing similar thoughts. He says, ‘the possibility of not surviving was not a thought in my mind but neither was the thought of living, it was just a peace that was over me and i was ready to accept whatever was going to happen…….’ Listen to Ric Elias, he also talks about a few more things other than death.

“Birth is okay and death is okay, if we know that they are only concepts in our mind. Reality transcends both birth and death.”

Thich Nhat Hanh