A View on Buddhism

[Gary]

The book I am reading at the moment is The Tibetan Book Of Living And Dying. I find it extremely interesting. Then I remembered an 'arguement' on another forum I am a member of. It is actually a football forum, more specifically for my local team who I support. But there is a "General" section in it for anything off-topic.

Every now and again, religion and stuff comes up. The vast majority of the members of this site were brought up Catholic, but have now lapsed to carying degrees - it's pretty much the same story all over Ireland.

Anyway there was this thread about faith one day, and I just remembered this post on it. As you can tell it's very genuine and heart-felt, but it doesn't seem to add up with what Sogyal Rinpoche describes in The Tibetan Book Of Living And Dying.

I would be very interested to hear your opinions on it:

[rudyh01]

Wow... Thanks for sharing this!

These days many stories similar to this can be found from people who had near-death experiences. Even my own mother came very close to death once when she had an operation, and without anyone noticing she had a serious bleeding after the operation, and found her experience impossible to convey in words, but she lost much of her fear of death, as it felt so positive to her.

However, I don't know many stories combined with such a miraculous cure as this seems to be. It really sounds quite special: near death, a miraculous cure and a message in a dream.

It is hard to comment on this from a Buddhist point of view: no clear or direct answers....

From what I have witnessed with Tibetan Masters, I have had to drop a lot of my scepsis towards miracles, and I now believe they are possible: events that seem to contradict all scientific knowledge or logic can happen.

Next is the dream itself. My teachers usually emphasize that dreams are exactly that: dreams. But that does not exclude that they can carry important messages. Since modern psychology first developed, the importance of dreams was acknowledged as well.

In the Tibetan tradition, it is explained that in the dream-state we let go of our most gross levels of mind, and enter into a deeper, more subtle level of mind, of which we are normally hardly aware. Perhaps it is similar to the sub-consciousness in psychology, but probably not exactly the same.
It is not impossible to have clairvoyant dreams, or dreams that carry a meaning which we don't quite grasp with our gross level of mind, but can be very true anyway. (I know that some Buddhist Masters use their dreams to 'see the future' or to give advice.)

One thing is important to notice though, most Tibetan teachers I have heard on near-death experiences also emphasize that whatever someone has experienced, the person has not died, so it is hard to relate them directly to the descriptions of the death process. On the other hand, apparently even when we go to sleep, a well-trained mind can experience similar things as are described during death. So there are certainly differences.
_________________
Love & clear light,
Rudy

[Mitch White]

Gary:

First I would like to preface this with the following comments:

I am not so much a fan of Sogyal Rinpoche, but I will say his book The “Tibetan book of living and dying” is one of the best I have ever read on the subjects he covers.

You had said you were reading, which might suggest you have not finished the book so I don’t know how much you have read yet.

Several years ago my father had a massive heart attack and was in a coma for almost 30 days on life support, he had contracted a terrible case of pneumonia while in the coma and it was ravaging his lungs his doctors after 15 days gave up on him and said we should shut the life support off and let him expire. My Uncle a doctor himself refused and wouldn’t let them do it, about 25 days into the coma I was sitting in a small waiting area sitting alone, it was about 3:00 am when a young doctor came in and sat down at my table. He explained that he was one of my father’s doctors and how bad he felt about my dad’s condition. As we talked he said something about “If he could only give my dad a certain antibiotic he might recover. I asked him what antibiotic; he told me its name. I almost had a heart attack myself, “Why the hell aren’t you giving him that I asked loudly.” Well he says your dad’s records say he is allergic to penicillin and it’s a derivative of penicillin.
I sat back down and said as firmly as I could, “My dad has been taking that for years.” He was diagnosed allergic to penicillin in world war II. “Give him the drug, by the gallon if you need to”. The doctor ran from the waiting room like he was on fire. Dad started getting better almost as the drug was injected. Five days later Dad was awake, had no more pneumonia.

I asked him were he had been for that month, he told me he had been sitting in a deck chair, on a cruise ship the whole time watching the ocean and the cute ladies in their bathing suits.

In chapter 8 of the “Tibetan book of living and dying” under Karmic Vision he quotes “ If a hundred people sleep and dream , each will experience a different world. ---- There is truth for each perceiver according to the karmic patterns conditioning his perceptions” – “Kalu Rinpoche “Essence of the Dharma”

I see no contradictions here at all. This bardo experience was built by this mans own karma and experience – as was my dad’s. I have no idea if the chance that brought me and that doctor together that night was a miracle, but I do believe it was karma. Not to be crude but I am not sure walking around for 6 years with a gaping wound in my chest that would not heal – would be received by myself as a miracle – but to this man it was.

I think all of chapter 7 and 8 of the book apply here.



_________________
"Investigate Right Where You're Standing"
Master Chu-hung

[Gary]

I'm about a third of the way into the book Mitch. Maybe I should have waited until I was finished before posting this?

[Mitch White]

Gary:

Well, in a way, we all live in our own dream, not sure I would call this brainwashing as much as just delusion.

Now as far as Catholicism and the “dream” go I guess I missed the specific catholic symbolism in a hell made up of people crawling around in mud for eternity. Then again I was not raised Catholic. Most cultures and religions have hells of one sort or the other.
While the “go save some souls” stuff is certainly Christian based and the hearse and wake are very Irish or Scots, what I see here is ingrained culture even more than religion. I suppose I would just suggest that the mind expresses itself with ideas and symbols it has. The book points out that what we are talking about when dealing with death and rebirth is continuity of mind. As Rudy pointed out your friend didn’t die and was not declared dead, his mind, still his gross conciseness was using the symbols it had. Catholic back slider or not, it seems clear to me that your friend in his coma had judged himself by the values of his culture and religion.

It is said there are no atheists in fox holes and I would not expect a Scotsmen or Irishmen mind facing death to address it in Buddhist terms and see Buddhist images. It’s just my take but this seems to show your friends own ethical judgment of his life more than anything else.

As I said under a similar state of near death and coma my dad saw himself enjoying a sea cruse. He was born in an American Indian family in Mississippi, was a professional soldier and fought in 3 wars. He had no religion to speak of and despite a career filed with killing and death, just went on a boat ride.

I wish your friend all the best, and comfort myself with the hope my dad is still enjoying his cruse.


_________________
"Investigate Right Where You're Standing"
Master Chu-hung

[Gary]

[Tamara]

Gary wrote:

`Could this then be 'condensed' into saying that we basically brainwash ourselves into believing something during this life ?`

Actually this is all what Buddhism is about:

To understand that we brainwash ourselves about everything all the time, in this life, between lives and in the past and next lives.

We believe what our brain dishes up. And we free ourselves of it by `seeing` this and dealing with it accordingly.

Buddha taught how to do exactly this.


Tamara

[Gary]

[NeitherNor]

Gary - To quote that well-worn saying 'Buddhism is a finger pointing at the moon' so of course the angle, as you put it, doesn't have to be Buddhist. Buddhism is merely a means to an end in that sense. Seeing the moon is the point - when you see it, you can 'drop' the finger. "Ultimately all teachings must be abandoned - not to mention non-teachings."

So how do you know you're seeing the moon, so to speak, and not just following a different finger (brainwashing yourself in a different way) ? I'd put it like this:- it's a bit like asking 'What is the point of life ?' As long as you're asking this it's possible to come up with all sorts of different answers - maybe all of them valid given a certain viewpoint or certain experiences.

But surely the point of life is to get to the point at which we stop asking what the point of life is ! I feel we do this every time we go deeply into meditation, which is a non-conceptual apprehension (a seeing of the moon, so to speak, at least to an extent) and hopefully, suddenly or gradually, this deepens and informs our sense of being in ordinary waking consciousness. I think some Christians, like Bede Griffiths or Thomas Merton for example, are able to this in prayer - they're looking at the same moon but following a different finger !

But in that post-meditative state of course the 'same old' questions will re-occur - but what lies behind them and the answers we give ourselves will be subtley different. The clouds will appear to be more transparent and the moon more visible.

We will never know this moon, we will only be able to see it. Once seen, we will not need to label or know it, but we'll keep doing so for a while, just out of habit. In other words, relative mind needs to become transparent so we're no longer exclusively caught up in it - eventually we just regard it as what it is - a way of seeing that is no longer in the way of anything, no longer separate. 'Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.'

We appear to flicker between non-conceptual meditative apprehension and ordinary waking consciousness, between form and emptiness. ''Mountains are mountains but sometimes mountains are not mountains" Hopefully though, we find ourselves becoming more and more mindful, in other words more and more compassionate and less and less cut off and isolated - like that friend of yours in hospital. I liked his message by the way - made a lot of sense to me.

[Tamara]

Gary wrote:

``But to do this are we not simply brainwashing ourselves from a different angle? And does that angle necessarily have to be Buddhism? ``

`Brainwashing` relies on believing in concepts and Buddhism is the only philosophy I know which points us in the direction of abandoning concepts all together.

This might sound a bit scary or weird and is therefore taught in higher stages on the so-called Buddhist path.

In my view that`s the ultimate way to deal with `reality` and if this view is wrong so at least I had a fantastic time and did many quite positive things

``Does this mean that we don't necessarily have to train our mind in a Buddhist way. That we can train our mind pretty much whatever way we want, and the end result will be the manifestation of that training particular?``

Yes, I would say that is how the mind works.
We see the results on news channels like CNN and BBC each day .


Tamara