Buddhism in extreme suffering. Some light please.

StoicBuddhistAlex

Hello newbuddhist community .

What you guys think about this?

Could you achive enlightenment/emptiness or stay in a joyus state if you only left your mind?. Lets say you have an accident and your bodie ends up dismembered, desfigurated and you are blind, practically a scenario in wich you only left your thoughts some hearing and speak. This strikes me to be a great test and will like to know if you can reach joyful state of mind in this case.

Thanks beforehand ill appreciate your answers .

PS: Sorry for my english

N2B

This would be hard to believe and hear but:

It would eventually become easier to achieve enlightenment.
That person would awaken to truth, where as everyone else are living in the illusuion.

Take cancer patients for example.
It not them who eventually mentally suffer, its people who are going to miss them if they die.
People who are dieing end up being completely fine awake and ready and therfore their suffering ends..

Hard to explain and I bet very hard for some to accept and realize: hence why they suffer.

X

N2B

Remember....we cannot do anything about pysical suffering.

Buddhism is all about mental suffering.

Therefore ANYONE can achieve happiness, enlightenment, etc etc...even if they have no legs,arms,eyes, have cancer, loses everything etc etc.....its still possible. JUST LET GO AND FREE YOUR MIND. X

StoicBuddhistAlex

This would be hard to believe and hear but:

It would eventually become easier to achieve enlightenment.
That person would awaken to truth, where as everyone else are living in the illusuion.

Take cancer patients for example.
It not them who eventually mentally suffer, its people who are going to miss them if they die.
People who are dieing end up being completely fine awake and ready and therfore their suffering ends..

Hard to explain and I bet very hard for some to accept and realize: hence why they suffer.

X

Remember....we cannot do anything about pysical suffering.

Buddhism is all about mental suffering.

Therefore ANYONE can achieve happiness, enlightenment, etc etc...even if they have no legs,arms,eyes, have cancer, loses everything etc etc.....its still possible. JUST LET GO AND FREE YOUR MIND. X

Thank you very much for your answers . Buddhism is really something amazing, that freedom it gives its like the ultimate freedom and joyfulnes. Really aprecciate your answers, ill start looking for a place where to find a buddhist master here in my country.

Thanks again many many thanks

person

As long as your mental function was still intact I suppose it might actually help by removing many of the distractions most people have. There have actually been some cases of people whos minds still functioned but were almost completely paralyzed. If I remember right there was some Frenchman in this state who was able to achieve a high degree of mental clarity. He wasn't a Buddhist and didn't meditate but just being alone with his mind with nothing else to do forced him to understand what was going on in there.

There is something called locked in syndrome where a persons mind is intact but due to some stroke or accident they can't move their body except maybe one eye or a finger: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-in_syndrome

genkaku

The distinction between body and mind, while conversationally convenient, is a myth. A few years of practice will make this clear. When things are physical, we call them physical. When they are mental, we call them mental. Circumstances arise and fall away and the lines we draw ... well, do they make a lot of abiding sense?

StoicBuddhistAlex

This teach a lot about the impermanence of our being. This is a paralyzed buddhist teacher: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4344960868396241448#

As long as your mental function was still intact I suppose it might actually help by removing many of the distractions most people have. There have actually been some cases of people whos minds still functioned but were almost completely paralyzed. If I remember right there was some Frenchman in this state who was able to achieve a high degree of mental clarity. He wasn't a Buddhist and didn't meditate but just being alone with his mind with nothing else to do forced him to understand what was going on in there.

There is something called locked in syndrome where a persons mind is intact but due to some stroke or accident they can't move their body except maybe one eye or a finger: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-in_syndrome

StoicBuddhistAlex

The distinction between body and mind, while conversationally convenient, is a myth. A few years of practice will make this clear. When things are physical, we call them physical. When they are mental, we call them mental. Circumstances arise and fall away and the lines we draw ... well, do they make a lot of abiding sense?

So enlightment is something beyond mind? Explain more about your opinion in this case if you want plase.

aura

I was at a wedding and turned around to see who had walked up behind me. I did not know any of these people; I had never met any of them before that day. The person who had just come up behind me was a skinny guy who looked to be about 18 years old. He was just like anybody else at the wedding except that he was strangely dressed like a 1940's airman and I could see and hear him, and yet also see the wall behind him, right through him. He was talking and laughing just like you or me or any other wedding guest, except nobody else seemed to see or react to him at all... and I could see him, but also see right through him.

I asked him if he were dead; surely he must be a ghost. He said he was not dead, but had left his body on the other side of town, and he went on happily talking about everybody and everything at the wedding. It was fun listening to his stories. He said he was the groom's father, and that he surely was not dead, but that he just had to come to his son's wedding. When I did not believe him, he laughed and said that he could just as well ask me if I were the one who was dead, because I was seeing and talking to him! I indignantly told him that one of us here certainly must be dead and that it certainly was not me! He doubled over with laughter.

I found out a week after the wedding that the reason why the groom's father was not present at the wedding with the groom's mother because he was a very old man, extremely ill and completely incoherent, feeble, and bedridden from late stage Alzheimers disease across town at the time of the wedding.

Can somebody still living but completely bedridden and mentally and physically completely incapacitated end up looking like an 18 year old ghost laughing, joking, telling stories, and mingling among guests at a wedding miles away from where his ancient body lies helplessly silently motionlessly in bed on the other side of town?

I would not have believed that was possible, but I asked his widow after his funeral 6 months later....
and I found out that everything he had told me was correct, including the fact
that he had been underage and had lied about his age, and so had indeed flown planes in World War II...and the words he had said "sounded just like him!"

So...is it possible to be a physically and mentally completely incapacitated old man...and yet simultaneously be some manner of ghost happily laughing, joking and mingling among people at a wedding, looking and dressing like he did at age 18 while his ancient feeble body was essentially lying in silently in a hospital bed across town?
I would say that is what I observed.

taiyaki

An enlightened being is one who allows the whole human experience to happen, but that being does not attach to such experiences. Thus they can fully embody each experience and allow it to burn away. Though an enlightened being can abide in the stateless state, they can also allow different states to enter. For the enlightened being doesn't have a preference anymore. Sure the stateless state bring much peace and bliss, but that is much truth as staying in hell. An enlightened being
uses each experience and state for the benefit of others. So whether it is anger or bliss, each tool is used to help another being.

Does suffering happen to one who has realized the true nature of reality? Yes, but he/she does not label it as suffering. It is what it is. The body decays because it also is impermanent. Is there pain? Sure, but such a being accepts such pain. Seeing reality as it is means that being accepts reality as it is. All the pain, all the bliss, and all the stuff in between. The whole human experience is valid and there are no hierarchies to experiences/states.

santhisouk

In my opinion, a spoonful of the happiness felt in enlightenment or nirvana, should outweigh a mountain of happiness felt through worldly ways.

metta

compassionate_warrior

@aura It's possible that the old man is reaching the very end of his life, and so is fading in and out of the gross body, the material world. You have a great gift.

StoicBuddhistAlex

Wow great experience you had. I really dont have words.

I was at a wedding and turned around to see who had walked up behind me. I did not know any of these people; I had never met any of them before that day. The person who had just come up behind me was a skinny guy who looked to be about 18 years old. He was just like anybody else at the wedding except that he was strangely dressed like a 1940's airman and I could see and hear him, and yet also see the wall behind him, right through him. He was talking and laughing just like you or me or any other wedding guest, except nobody else seemed to see or react to him at all... and I could see him, but also see right through him.

I asked him if he were dead; surely he must be a ghost. He said he was not dead, but had left his body on the other side of town, and he went on happily talking about everybody and everything at the wedding. It was fun listening to his stories. He said he was the groom's father, and that he surely was not dead, but that he just had to come to his son's wedding. When I did not believe him, he laughed and said that he could just as well ask me if I were the one who was dead, because I was seeing and talking to him! I indignantly told him that one of us here certainly must be dead and that it certainly was not me! He doubled over with laughter.

I found out a week after the wedding that the reason why the groom's father was not present at the wedding with the groom's mother because he was a very old man, extremely ill and completely incoherent, feeble, and bedridden from late stage Alzheimers disease across town at the time of the wedding.

Can somebody still living but completely bedridden and mentally and physically completely incapacitated end up looking like an 18 year old ghost laughing, joking, telling stories, and mingling among guests at a wedding miles away from where his ancient body lies helplessly silently motionlessly in bed on the other side of town?

I would not have believed that was possible, but I asked his widow after his funeral 6 months later....
and I found out that everything he had told me was correct, including the fact
that he had been underage and had lied about his age, and so had indeed flown planes in World War II...and the words he had said "sounded just like him!"

So...is it possible to be a physically and mentally completely incapacitated old man...and yet simultaneously be some manner of ghost happily laughing, joking and mingling among people at a wedding, looking and dressing like he did at age 18 while his ancient feeble body was essentially lying in silently in a hospital bed across town?
I would say that is what I observed.

StoicBuddhistAlex

So in some way he becomes invulnerable mentally/spiritual speaking ?

An enlightened being is one who allows the whole human experience to happen, but that being does not attach to such experiences. Thus they can fully embody each experience and allow it to burn away. Though an enlightened being can abide in the stateless state, they can also allow different states to enter. For the enlightened being doesn't have a preference anymore. Sure the stateless state bring much peace and bliss, but that is much truth as staying in hell. An enlightened being
uses each experience and state for the benefit of others. So whether it is anger or bliss, each tool is used to help another being.

Does suffering happen to one who has realized the true nature of reality? Yes, but he/she does not label it as suffering. It is what it is. The body decays because it also is impermanent. Is there pain? Sure, but such a being accepts such pain. Seeing reality as it is means that being accepts reality as it is. All the pain, all the bliss, and all the stuff in between. The whole human experience is valid and there are no hierarchies to experiences/states.

StoicBuddhistAlex

And the most amazing thing is that all is already within us

In my opinion, a spoonful of the happiness felt in enlightenment or nirvana, should outweigh a mountain of happiness felt through worldly ways.

metta

Tikal2012

Well, if you have practiced the Dhamma enough in your life, then you should have sufficiently cultivated a mind that is neither attracted or repelled with regards to any of the five aggregates. This means that no matter what your form, feelings, perceptions, volition, or consciousness is, it's simply OK. There is no need to get involved with them, and there is no need to let their current state effect your inner peace.
If one can successfully cultivate this mind, then no matter what befalls them, even if it is a horrible accident, they will not be moved internally. They will simply accept it as it is, and because of this, will most likely expect a fortunate rebirth upon the cessation of the body.
-Tikal

Spaceless

For this matter, body is form that aggregated from past karmic, and required not much food and materials goods to live happily, the same as all beings. Joyous on materialism differed according to individual beings, but the joys of mind is the same. An enlightened beings would still live the same in their meditating bliss. So any suffering beings of these kind ought to encourage them to listen dharma talks and meditation _/|\_

taiyaki

The intellectual quest is exquisite like pearls and coral,
But it is not the same as the spiritual quest.
The spiritual quest is on another level altogether,
Spiritual wine has a subtler taste.
The intellect and the senses investigate cause and effect.
The spiritual seeker surrenders to the wonder.
-Rumi.

The buddha gains wisdom and he/she understands how reality functions. The Buddha also completely accepts what is. In that acceptance is his/her immunity to everything. In ones willingness to be vulnerable to everything, they become invincible. From here the buddha can take all of the worlds suffering and transform it into compassion. A balance of heart and mind. Wisdom and acceptance.

DhammaDhatu

For this matter, body is form that aggregated from past karmic

the Pali suttas state the body is formed/derived from the four great elements & food eaten