angst / astonishment
It does seem that every discourse orbits around a black hole of unspeakable dread, yet also of inexpressible and irresistible mystery. Some would call this the mytheme of death and rebirth, or the singularity archetype; others, like Lacan, would simply term it the Real. Some philosophers, like Heidegger, call this inevitable curvature of intellectual space our Being-Toward-Death. To a Zen master, this central abyss is clearly the Buddha-nature, Nirvana. To the Vedic mystic, the darkness at the core of consciousness is not death but Shiva Mahakal, the Death of death.
-from Reality Sandwich writer Shunyamurti Beyond the Singularity
