“For existentialists and Buddhists, though in different ways, the relationship between the self and death seems more like the Late Night relationship between David Letterman and Paul Shaffer. One will be present if the other is too. You can be a full-fledged self, existentialists say, only if your death is ever present in your life. If you can manage to make your self disappear, Buddhists say, then death will as well.”