Sometimes I wonder if religion would exist at all if it did not attempt to address the most daunting fact that we human beings are faced with: that we are going to die and everything we experience in life is impermanent.
I think most spiritual traditions take this fact into account and try to prepare us for death and whatever is beyond, while also attempting to teach us how to live an ethical and meaningful life -- either for its own sake, or because it will prepare us for the next life, or because it will prepare us to go to heaven or someplace perhaps better than this world.
At the intellectual level everybody knows we are going to die, but what does death really mean? In Buddhism, the idea of death and the idea of impermanence are strongly connected and in some sense interchangeable. One interpretation of the truth of suffering (the "first noble truth") is that we suffer because we do not understand or fully relate to impermanence.
Change is happening all the time --- when we physically die, that event has actually been foreshadowed by a myriad of "mini-deaths" of all kinds. We lose our hair, our lover, our strength, our vitality, our money --- or we lose our poverty, our weakness, our impatience, our headache, our tooth, our memory... you name it. A careful look at our life shows that death or impermanence is a constant companion. Because we are out of synch with how things are constantly changing, we cling to things, resist change and impermanence and therefore suffer.
Of course you could say, "I will deal with death when it comes but come on, it's likely a ways off and I have a life to live here and a family to raise, and creativity to express, and contributions to make to society. Also I'm planning carefully for my retirement when I can cash in on all that hard work. What's the point in talking about old age, sickness and death now? We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." Or one could adopt a nihilistic attitude about it and say, "it's all impermanent, we're gonna die, what's the point of any of it? Let's just eat drink and be merry or let's just curl up into a ball and try to make the whole thing go away." Another approach is "this life is just a prelude, a warm-up drill for what comes after -- a much better and permanent place called heaven. If we pass our entrance exam here we will go there and then everything is going to be wonderful forever."
But who really knows how things work? Can we really trust somebody else's description of what is going to happen or do we actually have to find out for ourselves? The Buddha said you have to find out for yourself. Actually we can't even take Buddha's word for it.
But if we really really seriously examine impermanence, I think we can learn a lot about the nature of our reality. If we can experience the "mini-deaths," the letting go in each moment as it moves into the next moment, we quite possibly can get a major clue about the meaning of impermanence and death, and see for ourselves what it is that we experience as continuity for that matter.
The Buddhist approach is to look directly at our experience and see first hand what is happening. That is the ultimate meaning of meditation --- a direct look --- not just at what our concepts are, not just what we've been told is true by some wise (or not wise) person, not just what our parents told us, but a direct look with the eyes of prajna (unbiased discriminating awareness).
So when we look in that way, without hope of gaining or losing, what do we see? How do we experience impermanence? How do we experience continuity? As Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche used to say, "your guess is as good as mine."
Your thoughts, comments? What do you think and WHY?
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Judith Johnson: Embracing the Truth of the Permanently Impermanent
April Rudin: Change: A Powerful Force for Personal Growth
Sue Doble: Don't Tell Me It's OK
Sharon Zarozny: Are Death and Birth More Alike than We Think?
However, Siddartha Buddha's intention was not to create a religion, it was to share his great insight for the benefit of all mankind. While we are not supposed to take the Buddha's word for how to achieve his great insight, we are supposed to take his word for the fact that a great insight exists.
What's required from the individual is a Helen Keller moment, central to the modern story "The Miracle Worker." Ms. Keller lost the ability to hear or speak as a small child. Her teacher, Anne Sullivan, was faced with the problem that her charge was unaware there was such a thing as sign language which would allow her to express herself and understand the world around her. Without it, Helen was utterly dependent on other's guessing her needs, and what she might be thinking.
Once Ms. Keller had her great insight, she had access to a world that had been utterly closed off to her. She had to imagine there was a better alternative.
A better alternative is all Siddartha Buddha was teaching. An alternative where suffering is factored out of the human equation.
I think we may overestimate the cognitive powers of brains when we speak of looking "directly" with "unbiased discriminating awareness" (assuming we take these terms literally), but I think that looking as directly as possible at our experience with discriminating awareness and seeing first hand what is happening is a powerful way to "learn a lot about the nature of our reality."
I don't think, however, that meditation is a reliable way to gain propositional knowledge. Knowing how to ride a bike or knowing one's pet dog are examples of non-propositional knowing. Someone who says they know "Buddha nature" or however they might put it is not referring to propositional knowing. But someone who says, "Advanced meditators access past lives in deep meditation, therefore reincarnation occurs," or "Advanced meditators directly apprehend that there is a very subtle level of consciousness that exists independent of brains," is speaking in terms of propositional knowledge. (Middle Way or Madhyamaka School Buddhists such as the Dalai Lama and Alan Wallace apparently think in such terms.)
If meditation cannot deliver reliable propositional knowledge, and if the notion that it's possible to literally see "directly" in a way that is literally "unbiased" is undermined by what we are learning from neuroscience, what, ultimately, is meditation? "Your guess is as good as mine." ;-)
Also wondering what discoveries in neuroscience prohibit the possibility of unbiased direct perception --- of course these are relative terms in any case, but hoping you could define some of these terms a little further so we could continue the conversation..... also maybe defining your central "concern" in regard to the comments.... like as in the heart of the matter.
Hope you can write back ... in any case it would be fun to talk further.... can try facebook if you just want to chat off line.... also curious if you are a scientist, a Buddhist, a writer of some kind.... your post made me curious.... In any case all best, David n.
Because of the comment word count limit I may add to my reply later.
You address “the heart of the matter” in your article: to understand the “truth of suffering” in terms of impermanence and to use discriminating awareness to look at our experience without hope of gaining or losing.
You mention 3 common ways of attempting to deal with the idea of death: “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” “adopt a nihilistic attitude,” and think of life as “a warm-up drill for what comes after.”
The “central ‘concern’” I had in mind when writing my comment was this: Although many Buddhist oriented Westerners may not believe in God or heaven as these are understood in monotheistic religions, many seem to subscribe to some version of the perennial philosophy that posits some aspect of who we are or of reality that is not impermanent but that is instead continuous or eternal. Some think of this in terms of some type of soul or atman, or in more universal terms as Spirit, the Self, Consciousness, etc. (As the Dalai Lama and Stephen Batchelor note, emptiness is sometimes mistakenly thought of as some type of metaphysical substrate.)
I think such notions can work to prevent the kind of understanding of suffering and impermanence to which you point. All best, Dhampir
they also have done the worst job. $$$$$$$$$$$$$ entered the picture.
I have found few in the world that have done the necessary research into what the spiritualists have and have not proved.
interesting most spiritualists dont know the history of their own great mediums.
recently there was a video on lily dale and the mediums there were very low level mediums and the people they were reading were in grief. if a sitter is in grief then anyone can cold read.
there have been great mediums that the world knows little of.
most people have already made up their mind before they even do the research.
and when they do the research the paradigm effect will prevent them from even seeing the qualitative evidence.
in fact I find few that even understand what qualitative evidence is when it comes to research into the paranormal.
now as a buddhist ask yourself why the buddhists never ask the question what is the origin of that ignorance that the buddha realized was the origin of suffering.
few buddhists know what the buddha realized most confuse symptoms with the origin.
I only fear losing mental health before death comes. "A careful look at our life shows that death or
impermanence is a constant companion. Because we are out of synch with how things are constantly changing, we cling to things, resist change and impermanence and therefore suffer."
Losing mental health does not always produce intense suffering. Also studies have shown that getting lots of exercise and really using your brain as you get older can significantly cut down the incidence of dementia.... how's your chess game? All best, DN
" studies have shown that getting lots of exercise and really using your brain as you get older can significantly cut down the incidence of dementia"
Very recently there was a major conference on dementia where a large number of experts analyzed all existing data to assess what was effective in reducing the incidence of dementia. Sadly there is NOTHING. The one conclusion they were able to come to was that we are at a very early stage in understanding this disease. Good food, eating and using your brain is good for you but it won't stop dementia.
Or, some say that time seems to stop. Time is both a resident IN the phenomenal and also a function of consciousness, the ability to watch myself. The seeming perception of time stopping is just the brain's way of conceptualizing this switch from 'me-as-participator' to ‘me-as-watcher’ (or, to me as the Nothing-that-separates, which is likely the metaphor/symbol of Jesus = consciousness on the cross of matter, between the ‘two’ that ‘created’ it).
The out of body experiences, trance, etc., are trivial examples and seem related, but are not, because consciousness is still present in these states, unless you believe trance to be a deep sleep with no consciousness.
There is an instant (nanosecond) of experience of the Nothingness, the space-between. If you are a cultured guy, like Hawkins, all sorts of stuff rushes in during the next second of consciousness, but this is entirely personal and trivial. Buddhism (and Jung?) says this nanosecond is the joining of a link broken since birth, and it will never more be separated. It is an attainment of wholeness, but not a loss of ego. A strong ego is needed to 'survive' this experience, and in this Buddha has been misunderstood by his followers.
Those who have had this 'knowing' then know they don't know, so "Your guess is as good as mine' is both humorous and profound.
D.e.@t.h can then be defined as the withdrawal of the space/nothingness around objects, thus returning them to the undifferentiated chaos they were before. Schizophrenics are 'ki!!.ing' barriers. Religionists who ’ki!!.’ by seemingly start immoral wars are exporting their opportunity to differentiate their life by putting space around things/facts, e.g., for ‘sorting things out’.
In practice, Aristotle, N. Ethics, and Book 3: the two extremes are Quarrelsome and Flatterer, the mean ('between') is Friendly, or Passionate and Angerless, with the Greek 'meek' as the mean. See end of Book I for Rational and Irrational parts of soul--he is vague about what the mean is, or the mean is the soul (Jesus as symbol for this, the between, the person whose consciousness is a bridge (pontiff) between 'spirit' and matter.
I am expanding (nihilation, Nothingness) on Sartre, here, but I wonder if folks understand the topic. You put a and so I don’t know if you (as a representative of y’all) do. If you want me to clarify, or if you have an alternate vision, please respond.
Marcus, I was hoping someone would ask exactly your question.
The two extremes are the strong ego and the watcher-experience (Nirvana, etc).
As a result of this experience, the consciousness notices that his 'life' is process, the connecting middle between the two extremes.
The ‘watcher’ sees or feels this gap as a stopping of time, or as infinite space, one with all things, etc., if it is mostly an emotional-mystical experience. For those who get 10 to 40 years past this, a more or less logical understanding is left, which is
horrors, there is nothing but 'space' (Zen Void, Nothingness) between.
Then, whacha gonna do?
Not much, it becomes a riddle, 'your guess is as good as mine'.
The Mayan god of d.e.@th has a hole (void, nothingness) at his heart center, a live person on one side of the statue, a skeleton on the other.
This awareness redefines, for the person, that science is the process of putting ever more nothingness (space, d.e.@th) around ever smaller units.
Religion and myth bridge this gap-between, but can only be vague.
The process of defining or discrimination is to separate one thing from another using mind/consciousness. Kids start off calling all four-leggeds 'doggy', and increasingly separate things. What is it that separates you from me--let’s call it Nothingness (e.g., space). For the two of us to ‘merge’, in orgasm (the little death), we remove the (non) barrier of space (called Nothingness). Death is the process of merging-again. Schizophrenia is a 'living death' because that person has no (mental) boundaries--things are mixed up, merged, misfiled.
When a kid first has a memory of his past, a future, ‘his’, is automatically created, and what links these two concepts is called 'I'. This 'I/ego', this 'thing that separates' is Nothingness. ‘I' am a process-that-links, a flow, a Tao, a dharma, a verb, not a noun. This is impermanence and since memory is a function of body, this 'I' process dies with the body. The flow continues; a trivial example is that my acts as soccer coach continue in my team.
Regardless of religion or belief, the inner experience is remarkably the same, for thousands of years. Thus, the experience of Hawkins (see Marcus, below) is not really as profound as is supposed. The mind can be said to watch the PROCESS just described, and it thus aware of itself as not being the SEPARATE body or ego-as-noun. The ‘watcher’ half of consciousness is aware of being ‘that-which-SEPARATES’ = Nothingness.
I am fine with that.
Yes, I am fine with that in the sense that I have no problem with the fact that one day I will just cease to live. No more me, except the body, which I would like to donate to science, and whatever is left to be disposed off in the most energy efficient and environmentally friendly manner possible.
To me, what one lives behind and what survives death is one's thoughts, but only if those have been transferred to others in some way, such as writing, posting here, and through other means of communication.
I suspect that that is what some call "soul". I call it "thoughts", because that's what they are.
But, it doesn't bother me if my thoughts also not survive and might get lost some time in the future. I am not that proud of them. In fact, some of them are just outright ridiculous. And some are really naughty.
And I am fine with it because accepting reality rather than fantasies and superstitions created to assuage the anxieties of an earlier age is my taste.
I recognize there are many others who would rather believe anything, no matter how lame, than face reality. It is a pity, because IMHO facing reality is a necessary stage in reaching adulthood.
so what have you learned?
"The Buddhist approach is to look directly at our experience and see first hand what is happening. That is the ultimate meaning of meditation --- a direct look --- not just at what our concepts are, not just what we've been told is true by some wise (or not wise) person, not just what our parents told us, but a direct look with the eyes of prajna (unbiased discriminating awareness)."
there are limits to what can be learned by deep subjectivity
deep subjectivity is not deep objectivity
"As Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche used to say, "your guess is as good as mine.""
that's the problem with deep subjectivity
still...if it doesn't hurt anyone and it makes you feel better...
The fact is that one can only approach objectivity, as we try to do in the "scientific method", by double blind experiments, and so on. But, nothing is absolutely objective, of course.
"Deep objectivity" is scientific method.
It is overwhelmingly the most successful tool mankind has devised to uncover truths about the world.
The Buddha is corrected: walking on shallow water shores is not the same as dipping in the waves, and is quite different from swimming in the ocean, which is a far experience from diving deep in the ocean, and is not comparable to living in the ocean which certainly is not as be an inherent part of the ocean. Just as living on earth is not similar to being in geo-orbit space which is not the same as being in the solar system which is quite different from being in galaxies and is dramatically different than existence in the universe.
Abraham Lincoln understood that life was terminal. He was very aware to live his life on this earth. Ah, what a life!
1. He was able to incorporate rivals into his cabinet.
2. His compassion and understanding of human existence in his times was extraordinary during a fight which tore a country apart.
3. Genius at forming friendships and engaging rivals.
4. Ability to deal with his own depression/loss and still lead humans.
5. Compassion.
He's said that when one reaches that high conscious state they are aware that their consciousness extends beyond the body, and realize that the body is simply a temporary vessel. According to Hawkins, one then makes a choice to continue in the body or leave it behind. In his case he chose to continue in order to spare his loved ones pain over what would be their perceived loss.
Hawkins has also said that he now sees his life as many lifetimes/incarnations all strung together into one long lifetime.
In other words, from his consciousness, life is eternal. There is no such thing as death.
getting religion at such moments is not unusual
not much of a proof that "There is no such thing as death." though.
The human mind gets sucked into the larger (non) mind represented by myth = archetypes = Void. Jung did a whole book on a young woman who had a few years of dreams and experiences with important themes (and had an education, money, and a therapist), but because she didn't understand them and step them down to personal meaning, she eventually went insane. Many folks don't come back from even one peak experience. Likely they were mostly only a ‘persona’ before that, wearing a role, a mask, and it didn't take much to rope them in. Many folks then turn to religion, as a pre-existing form, to have a mold into which to shape their experience of the Void = myth. Some become criminals (geniuses, they think). Your uncle was 'barking mad' insane because he had no contradiction, no unhappiness, no ego. Likely he had a 'paranoid' adjustment (clinical definition of paranoid, not the man in street concept) before the experience, which he could have experienced as good sex or as a white light, who knows. See on my permalink, to blogger521, re paranoid.
Enlightenment is not a peak experience, nor is it a religious one, lol. In Hawkins' case it has lasted for decades, necessitating his having to relearn how to do basic tasks from that state, which is far more expansive than any of us can even imagine.
The one obstacle preventing us all from reaching that state is our ego. You know, the thing that convinces us we're so smart that we know everything and can figure anything out - like death, without being conscious of ever having the experience. The thing that controls every single thought going through our tiny little unconscious minds. The thing that convinces us our intellects are so formidable, when quite the opposite is true. The thing that completely blinds us to the true nature of reality.
Under normal conditions there is only one circumstance under which ego will relinquish its control over us, and that's when our judgments cease. But how can we not judge when we think we're so smart and have all the answers? It's impossible. But then a little humility goes a long way.
One step in that direction is when we finally realize and accept that we don't have all the answers, and that there is much we can never really know.
http://www.energygrid.com/spirit/2007/09ap-davidhawkins.html
To those susceptible to this kind of huckstering I recommend:
"Quantum Gods" by Vic Stenger.
live long and prosper
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-Ab3tlpvYA&feature=related