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Supernatural?
Hi, all.
I've been lurking around here for a while, reading all of your thoughts and this is finally my first post. Thanks for your help in my learning process. There really isn't a Buddhist community where I live, so I'm kind of on my own in this...
I know that Buddhism doesn't get into metaphysics. But what if you've experienced things that you just can explain. Long story short, when my grandfather passed away, some family members and I had some strange occurences (dreams, finding objects, etc.) as if he was still around us. I know that being Buddhist means letting go of the fact that we are some sort of eternal soul. Has anyone ever attempted to incorporate supernatural events into Buddhists beliefs? Or were these experiences just delusions of my over active mind attaching myself to someone??
I'm having a hard time with this one. I can't ignore what I experienced. I just don't know how categorize it as a Buddhist. Or is this something that I just accept for what it was and not try to explain it at all?
Thanks
I've been lurking around here for a while, reading all of your thoughts and this is finally my first post. Thanks for your help in my learning process. There really isn't a Buddhist community where I live, so I'm kind of on my own in this...
I know that Buddhism doesn't get into metaphysics. But what if you've experienced things that you just can explain. Long story short, when my grandfather passed away, some family members and I had some strange occurences (dreams, finding objects, etc.) as if he was still around us. I know that being Buddhist means letting go of the fact that we are some sort of eternal soul. Has anyone ever attempted to incorporate supernatural events into Buddhists beliefs? Or were these experiences just delusions of my over active mind attaching myself to someone??
I'm having a hard time with this one. I can't ignore what I experienced. I just don't know how categorize it as a Buddhist. Or is this something that I just accept for what it was and not try to explain it at all?
Thanks
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
From what I know, spirits of the departed can make their presence felt, through many ways. You are fortunate to have experienced this..
If you accept that people have energies then these energies could 'rub off' onto things, and other people, through their life. The closer proximity you have to the person in life the more of their energy might rub off. Also if they focus their energy at particular objects they will be imbued with more energy. So if you have a hat, say, that you really love, you will give it more of your energy than maybe a coat - though you wore them for the same amount of time. Are the objects those that were close to him? (personally don't believe objects move like this, but only because i've not seen it myself). The energy will retain many of the characteristics of the original owner - so an angry person makes angry energy, happy person makes happy energy. The theory goes that eventually this energy will dissapate back to whence it came (cosmic background? tao?). I think this theory has a proper name, i'll try to find it if you want.
I started believing in this when i stopped believing in god but still wanted to believe in ghosts. It works well too for believing in ghosts without believing in any soul. Personally, i now question the existence of spirits, mainly because my belief in them was based on hallucinations that i can now medically explain, and so was based on dogma. I find now to be more open-minded i've had to consider the sceptic's position!
However, that's not to say your grandad isn't around in some form, just a long winded way of saying i don't know (sorry). The closest person to me to have died is my dog (i'm young and lucky so far) - and sometimes i feel him (esp. in dreams), and i find i don't have to explain it to appreciate him.
Man dies, and the human body after death is no longer anything but a mass incapable of producing those motions, of which the sum total constituted life. We see, that it has no longer circulation, respiration, digestion, speech, or thought. It is pretended, that the soul is then separated from the body; but to say, that this soul, with which we are unacquainted, is the principle of life, is to say nothing, unless that an unknown power is the hidden principle of imperceptible movements.
Of course this is about as unBuddhist as anyone can imagine who has actually read the Pali canon and much of the Bodhisattva canon. If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, then no knowledge has to be downright evil.
I ask the reader to take note of the Tirokudda Sutta (No.7) of the Khuddakapatha. It speaks of deceased relatives; that on occasion we should give them alms as one might give alms to a holy man. We should say:
May the merit thus acquired be for the comfort and happiness of our deceased relatives.
If the Buddha believed that when "yer dead, yer dead" why this Sutta?
By soul here I don't mean to suggest something permanent, or absolute in the traditional sense. rather the conscious stream that we see as us, does persist after death.
These are my personal experiences only, I cannot prove them, nor can I say for certain that they apply to others.
The concept of bequeathing merit towards ones ancestors is an accepted practice in the country where I currently reside. It has been mentioned in Buddhist literature. It is understood that when you do something good, you can wish that the resulting good 'merit' of this act be passed on to your dearly departed ancestors (or anyone no longer living)
Some also speculate that you can pass this merit onto living people.
Note that, for obvious reasons, one cannot pass on the negative effects of karma (bad karma) towards others.
[these views are based on my traditional understanding of Buddhism as practiced where I am, and cannot be proved or verified by me, however I reason to believe that they are somewhat accurate]
I don't pretend to understand how all this play of Maya works, but just as we look back at the scientific theories of a mere few hundred years ago with some amusement, I believe our distant descendants will look back at ours with like temper.
Laws of nature don't govern things, things just work in some kind of random way in trajectories that seem pretty predictable most of the time, due to the universe being pretty harmonious (that is, on the same "wave") on the larger scale of things. Therefore, when the wave breaks, as it were, WOW, we really get a wonderful supervenient experience (or a very rude blow). We are not in some Great Prison, but in a dance of joy. My question is whether the universe is a beautiful mystery or a mysterious beauty.
There was a PD James Adam Dalgliesh story that had a nurse say, when asked if she believed in miracles, "Miracles happen whether you believe in them or not." That sounds very right to me.
Correct me if I'm wrong, Esteemed Genryu, but I believe that supernatural events have been incorporated into nearly every religious system, Buddhism being very heavily laden. Anyhow, that's my impression of the Himalayan Buddhists, as an example. But am I confusing mythology with things supernatural?
Anyhow, weird things have happened to me that I can't wrap my mind around. Indeed, I don't think I've ever experienced 7 days straight without any magical event (usually minor) of some kind. But then, maybe I'm wired weird.
"Or were these experiences just delusions of an over-active mind attaching itself to someone?" NO. I think our experiences are simply what we experience. Maybe if you were not as sensitive and wonderful as you are you'd never have noticed anything.
Nirvana
--Karen Armstrong from Buddha (PENGUIN LIVES series)
It was an illusion.
I've had the same experience and feel the same way about it.
If you, the experiencer experiencing, are there: it's an illusion.
"But who, Venerable One, is it that feels?"
"This question is not proper," said the Exalted One.
I do not teach that there is one who feels.
If, however, the question is put thus:
'Conditioned through what does feeling arise?' then the answer will be 'Through sense impressions as a condition feeling [arises]; with feeling as a condition, craving [arises]."
--SN II 13
Palzang
The Buddha did. He spoke of his former lives. He spoke of the wheel of birth and death and reincarnation. The teachings speak of the hell realms and pure lands.
The Lotus Sutra is filled with teachings that could only be classified as supernatural.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead is good place to start if you wish to understand the experience of life after death, as it speaks to the bardo stages after death of the body. Monks are trained in the techniques of guiding those who have departed this life.
A wonderful book that explains Buddhism in the context of the Tibetan Book of the Dead is Luminous Emptiness by Francesca Fremantle. She was tutored by a Tibetan, Trungpa, who founded the Shambala Center and Naropa University. Enjoy.
I assume you mean they did not know the body was dead; obviously if they are still there to consider they are alive, they are alive!
Were you making the point that, of course, they live on as a spiritual being, but the body dies? I guess this would mean there is a supernatural aspect to Buddhism.
Francesca Fremantle is certainly an excelent translator of the Bar do thos grol, who lets the text speak for itself.
Early Buddhists understood there was nether world between death and the next birth. They gave it the name "antarâbhava" (Tib., bardo). In this world were etheral beings called gandharvas. They were said to wander for weeks in search of their next birth.
One commentary (MA.ii.310) explains that these beings are driven on by the mechanisms of karma. When the conditions are right for intercouse these beings enter the womb. According to the Buddha three conditions are necessary: 1) The mother has to be in season; 2) The father has to have fertile sperm; 3) a gandharvas must be present (Cf. M.i.265–266). If anyone of these conditons is lacking a being will not be born.
“For obvious reasons, one cannot pass the negative effects of karma (bad karma) onto others" and "Every individual alive is responsible for his/her actions alone."
A Google search on Collective Karma will yield 175,000 results. Here's an excellent one by Thich Nhat Hanh: http://www.thinkingpeace.com/pages/arts2/arts214.html
from: a June 4, 2004 interview for thinking peace, entitled This Is What War Looks Like. It deals with the prisoner abuse photos.
Q: There is a collective sense of shame among many Americans about the activities depicted in these photos. Buddhists believe individuals are responsible for their actions through karma, but is there any such thing as collective karma? At a national level?
TNH: "An act of cruelty is born of many conditions coming together, without any separate, individual actor. When we hold retreats for war veterans I tell them they are the flame at the tip of the candle, they are the ones who feel the heat, but the whole candle is burning, not only the flame. All of us are responsible.
---"The very ideas of terrorism and imagined weapons of mass destruction are already collective karma in terms of thinking and speaking. The media helped the war happen by supporting these ideas through speech and writing. Thought, speech and action are all collective karma.
---"No one can say they are not responsible for this current situation even if we oppose our country’s actions. We are still a member of our community, a citizen of our country. Maybe we have not done enough. We must ally ourselves with bodhisattvas, great, awakened beings, around us to transform our way of thinking and that of our society. Because wrong thinking is at the base of our present situation, thinking that has no wisdom or compassion. And we can do things every day, in every moment of our daily life to nourish the seeds of peace, compassion and understanding in us and in those around us. We can live in such a way that can heal our collective karma and ensure that these atrocities will not happen again in the future."
--Karen Armstrong from Buddha (PENGUIN LIVES series)
The discussion of collective karma is not wrong, simply incomplete. Thich Nhat Hanh does not refute the idea of individual karma, in fact, he speaks to it in the passage when he states you perhaps have not done enough. He speaks to the individual act as contributing to the collective.
What TNH appears to point out is that individual karma becomes collective when we agree or act as groups or nations. Groups or nations are still composed of individuals. There is no collective act, only the act of many indivduals in agreement. We may assume a collective karma as our own when we agree.
Collective karma, in a broader sense, can then refer to our common past, our common histories, our shared agreements. And ultimately to the shared universe in which we reside.
Kow, howdy. Am trying to understand how it is that you evaluate Hope's experience. It would seem there is something quite speculative about such an act of evaluation.
When the Buddha speaks of his former lives, does one speculate that he speaks of an illusion?
When Hope or myself, for example, experience continuity of consciousness between lives, how do you, from your removed position, arrive at an evaluation that such is illusion?
Am trying to track how you get from A to B on this point. Walk me through the process if you will.
I don't necessariy see it this way. I'd rather use the term 'Residual self image' by which I mean the conscious stream appears to continue (at least in my personal experience) until the indivdual re-manifests themselves as a life form (gets another body?...)
Dear Nirvana
I refuse to accept the concept of collective Karma because I feel it is contrary to the natural laws of Karma. Again this is my personal observation and/or belief. Just because it has been extensively studied about and described online does not necessarily make it a fact - it, like almost everything else we believe, remains a theory, for some to accept and others not to.
That said, I do believe that the bad actions of one person (or persons) can negatively affect so many others. This particularly applies to politicians, who's acts tend to lead to wars, death, and destruction, which affects people for generations.
I'l give you an example: When W decides to attack Iraq, his actions did negatively affect America as well as Iraq, in terms of loss of life, financial burden.. etc (Note: Not trying to drag the war into this, I'm MERELY using it as an example.
So yes, I do accept that one's negative actions can affect other people around him in terrible ways, but to call it karma as relates to the other people or suggest that they are responsible is, IMO, contrary to natural law, as I percieve it.
If collective karma is to be accepted, then I'm responsible for every wrong act my parents commited (not that they did any). I'm also responsible for everything my tribe, village, and peoples did.
In a grander scale since I'm human I'm also probably responsible for everything bad humanity as a species did.
Next thing you know, I'm the guy who was responsible for Hiroshima, and WWII
Sigh.
First Law of Thermodynamics
"Energy exists in many forms, such as heat, light, chemical energy, and electrical energy. Energy is the ability to bring about change or to do work. Thermodynamics is the study of energy.
First Law of Thermodynamics: Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The total amount of energy and matter in the Universe remains constant, merely changing from one form to another. The First Law of Thermodynamics (Conservation) states that energy is always conserved, it cannot be created or destroyed. In essence, energy can be converted from one form into another."
We have the Creationists with their 'Intelligent design' on one side, and the Evolutionists, with their scientific research and Darwinian theory on the other... one is Faith-based, the other is Fact-based... The Laws of Thermodynamics are rooted absolutely in Proof - that's why they are referred to as 'Laws'... because even under repeated scientific scrutiny, (that all discoveries are rightly subjected to) they still return with the same constant results.
However, the Scientific lobby has never claimed to know all the answers. This is not an attitude often ascribed to, or adhered to by many Religions.
I have only written this post to propose the idea that certain events that have been classified as 'supernatural' (Re-birth, ghosts and spirits, past life experiences, out of body experiences) can be possibly explained and supported by the above Established Law.
A note of history: "intelligent design" was pretty much Newton's idea, i.e., the clock work universe. It comes out of the Enlightenment. Its basis, however, goes back further to 'rationalism' in which metaphysics attempted overcome the dogmas of the Church.
You are glimpsing the truth, Hope. Just as you inherit the wealth/poverty, comfort/indigence, DNA, etc. that comes to you from preceding generations, so you also inherit their debts and the debts owed to them. This is even enshrined in inheritance legislation. Look how national identity is inheritable. Look at how we judge a person to be Jewish or Arab.
It is true that life challenges each of us as an individual to act within our 'code of ethics'. The child of a 'monster' may become a saint, the child of a saint a monster. But the indebtedness will still remain until paid off.
I know that, in this, I hold ideas which are abhorrent to many here because they mean that we, the rich West, must acknowledge our long-unpaid debt to the disinherited and impoverished.
It appears hard enough to live our own lives, without carrying those which went before, but that seems to me to be part and parcel of the working of karma. Accepting entire responsiblity for our actions involves us in a constant awareness of the present moment. No longer can we say: "My officer/manager/parent/guru told me to do such-and-such" as a get-out clause. We can't even say: "What would Jesus/Buddha/Krishna do?" No longer can we twist the truth to exculpate ourselves. In the Jesus sayings, there is the extraordinary statement that anyone who lusts after another person has 'committed adultery' just as surely as the lover in the bed. Even thoughts are our responsibility, ultimately.
But those thoughts and actions consist of components which we have inherited and into which we have been trained. My favourite example of this is in the use of knife and fork by different cultures: the North American method of switching hands, the Romanesque habit of turning the fork over, the British habit of how to tilt a soup plate, among hundreds of other details. We were trained in these as the "proper" way to behave at a meal. Do you imagine that they are karma-neutral? I used to think so, until I realised that they are the subtle signs by which we identify ourselves and others as "in" or "out" of the tribe. Not for nothing are many of the Native American tribes and nations called "Real People" or some such similar title: the "in" tribe is real, the others are potential prey or enemy.
The Gita tells us that we live in a "field of action"; the Christian scriptures say that "by their fruits shall you know them"; Dhammapada tells us to "act in accordance with the teaching". As Sartre said, we are "condemned to action". We can choose whether we take charge of the action, in the present moment, aware of its long history, or whether we allow ourselves to be swept along.
Do you agree with TNH that we suffer the consequences of the evil doings of our "tribe," as it were?
Sorry, N. I get carried away sometimes and I wrote that straight to the answer box rather than on Notepad for editing.
Straight answer: Yes, I do agree with TNH that we are our forebears' heirs.
The central teaching of Buddhism is the elimination of the effects of karma (kammakkhaya). Merit by virtue of karma is thus not a Buddhist tenet. It is by Stream-entering (sotâpanna) that one begins to achieve the destruction of karmic effects (kammakkhaya).
Stream-entering is, briefly put, mystical initiation. One catches a perfect glimpse (samyagdristi) of the absolute. It is like seeing a great mountain in the distance. The next phase is the journey (Aryan Eightfold Path).
Thank you for the warm welcome! It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Perhaps we can start the "village idiot" lobby together, "with great love attempting small things" will be our motto.
Good idea to consider. The problem with applying the First Law of Thermo is its inapplicability.
The First Law pertains to a closed system. When it comes to this universe, we are not talking about a closed system.
The idea that energy is always conserved, that the amount of energy and matter in the Universe remains constant, is not a matter of fact; it is a hypothesis based upon the concept of a closed system. No scientist I'm aware of has been ready to declare the universe to be closed as a fact; though they will use the idea as a hypothesis.
The First Law fails to address the creation of energy. In other words, the model only applies to the situation where one has an existing, closed system. The transition from nothing to something, the idea of First Cause, eludes scientific theory at this time.
The problem arises in considering there to be one set of properties, the material (thus the philosophy of materialism or naturalism), rather than considering there are two sets of inter-related properties, the material and the immaterial.
In Buddhism the material, the realm of phenomena, is dependent and arisen, and what is referred to as empty--it has no stand-alone existence. It is derivative. Thus, in Buddhism we find a refutation of the idea of a closed system.
Good that you brought up the First Law of Thermo as these areas of discussion are so rich and filled with possible discovery.
Intelligent Design is not the same as Creationism, particularly Biblical Creationism. The science establishment has done the public a great disservice in launching a dishonest polemic against Intelligent Design. Unfortunately, we simply find a "hate religion" effort, rather than good, honest science.
Intelligent Design is a fact. It has nothing to do with Faith.
Here, for example, are a few quotes from a recent article in the Science Times section of the NYTimes regarding the advent of "synthetic biology":
"...synthetic biologists, scientists who seek to create living machines and biological devices..."
"We want to design and manufacture complicated biological circuitry."
"...scientists have been putting genes into bacteria and other cells for three decades."
"...good old genetic engineering applied to more complex cases."
"We're talking about taking biology and building it for a specific purpose..."
"We don't have to rely on what nature's necessarily created."
"Also new is an engineering approach--the desire to make the design of life forms more predictable, like the design of a bridge."
"In theory at least, these components can be strung together to build more complex devices..."
"Some scientists envision that biological engineers will one day sit at computers writing programs for cells...."
News Flash: Intelligent Design is fact. It is only scientists who are on an anti-religion crusade who ignore the facts.
My take on this subject was going to be all clever dick psychology and say that from personal experience, people usually see their dear departed coming back within a short time span, while they are grieving and that these apparitions gradually disappear as the death ceases to become the uppermost thought in their mind.
Also, people seeing apparitions of non-family are usually in places they have been told are haunted or have an atmosphere.
That is what I was going to say. Until I rememberd that a friend of mine was visiting a house about which she knew nothing. She was met by a wal of cold and found herself unable to enter the building. Only afterwards did she find out that a man had killed his entire family and then himself in that house some months before.
OK - so my smart alek psychology falls apart. Maybe some things are best unknown? I don't mind dying but I would fight it tooth and nail if I thought I had to hang around my old workplace for eternity!
Thanks everyone, for you input. I don't discount anyone's response. It was never my intention to start any sort of debate, since that doesn't prove or falsify anything, anyway. I just wanted to know that I could still carry some things that have helped shaped this life before I started going down the Buddhist path.
I would like to believe that what happened was real, but at the same time I also understand that I may just be clinging to life and the fantasy of "afterlife". At least I'm aware of it! We won't know the answer, I guess, until it happens to us. I was curious to see if anyone shared my experiences or believed in "spirits" or whatever you want to call them.
LOL. I hear you on that! Although it would be fun to mess with everyone's computers....
I know that mystical experience is not what your initial post was about, but I've already addressed that (Look above, around post #10, or so.). I want to speak now about mystical experience from the backdrop of the culture in which I was raised, and therefore know more about. I grew up Catholic and a lot of that "stuff" came to me by osmosis. But I more than half-suspect that supernatural beliefs and mystical experience has had a powerful influence in keeping the Buddhist Faith alive, too.
The Christian church, in its classical and medieval traditions, was a Miracle Cult, and its survival was predicated on keeping a focus on all that "magic." Indeed, the Evangelical wing of the church heavily emphasizes the miraculous even today. A public forum is no place for me to reveal the experiences I myself have had, since they're easily misunderstood, and, therefore, their revelation in public could expose me to harm by mean people. However, I have had them.
A Google search on "mystical experience" will yield over 10 million results. Mysticism, by Evelyn Underhill, is a classic book on the subject.
Thinking about loving everyone and everything and ultimate compassion [is]... one of the hardest ... because I could never love everyone like that and ......And a little voice in the middle of me said "But you do it for animals Raven. When did you ever hate an animal, even dangerous ones or ones that have bitten or hurt you?"
...This is the woman who had to be restrained from kissing a baby alligator when given it to hold, who stands in front of runaway horses going "Poor baby, it's frightened", who calls every creature she meets whose name she doesn't know "My Baby". --Knitwitch
My, this subject certainly set off a hornet's nest, didn't it? First off, let's back off a step or three and examine a few basic tenets. The term bardo was mentioned, and I think this is a crucial point in understanding, as much as we ignorant sentient beings can, what's going on here. The term bardo, as the Tibetans use it, means a sort of dream state, a state in which you sleep in the unawakened mental state which we call samsara. Most people are familiar with the term as regards the intermediate state between death and rebirth, but in actuality we are always in a bardo state. The Tibetans count four basic bardo states, the bardo of life (which we're now in), the bardo of dying in which the elements of our existence dissociate and fall away, the bardo of the intermediate state, and the bardo of becoming when a new birth is sought out. Some add two other bardos, the bardo of sleep (or the dream state) and the bardo of meditation.
What is important to understand here is that these states are all equivalent in that they are all basically dream states. As such, none are any more "real" than the other. They are all, as is written, "no more substantial than the dream fabric of the night". Therefore to argue that a person either exists or doesn't exist after death is somewhat pointless as it rather misses the essential point, that none of these states of existence is real in the sense of ultimate reality, which we, as sentient beings, are asleep to. So what is it that is experiencing all this? Who is the dreamer?
Well, that's the $64,000 question, isn't it? One answer might be that primordial wisdom consciousness is the dreamer, but that would be just another way of looking at it. The only way to know the answer is to awaken to one's own true nature. And that, of course, is something beyond the scope of this board!
Palzang
And if you're like me, by the time you figure out it's broken, the warranty is up!
My understanding of Buddhism, which differs from many, is that it is best that it is known, not unknown. (Thus, the point of enlightenment.) In my opinion, a major part of Buddhism and achieving a state of mindfulness is a preparation for the bardo stages which are ideational in nature. No control of mind, no control of the bardo stages, and all hell breaks loose.
In a way, it is to avoid the "hanging around old workplaces" that one comes to an understanding of Buddhism, mindfulness, and the bardos.
Your question was very much on point. The Buddha speaks of release from the wheel of birth and death; he speaks his former lives; Tibetans go into great detail in this regard in the Great Liberation Through Hearing (Book of the Dead). So not only is it appropriate to bring such experiences and ideas to Buddhism, that is what it addresses! (The subject of karma following one from lifetime to lifetime provides a glimpse into its importance.)
As for me, I share your experiences and not only believe in "spirits" but work in that realm all the time. In Buddhism, you will find the "earthly plane" is not the only realm and that there are hell realms, hungry ghosts, pure lands, and much more you will learn about.
There is much that you would probably enjoy studying. I highly, highly recommend Luminous Emptiness as a place to start.
Oh please excuse me Under Tree, that last remark was flippant - a habit of mine you will get used to. I hadn't meant anyone to take it seriously.
Perhaps one of the experienced on here could help me here but I had understood that there WERE things that the Buddha suggested we didn't need to know.
There is a difference between "conjecture about" and know. In other words, the advice was that conjecture would bring about vexation and madness. The practice, however, can bring one into a state of direct knowing with regard to these "imponderables." Too often the warning against conjecture is taken to mean "you cannot know," when that is not what the Buddha stated. Do you see the difference?
Thank you.
But if you read the first line I took this to mean that it was best to not ponder on these things because they would only drive you nutz....!
So I may have misinterpreted it then.....?
I think I'm getting one of my headaches, now.....!!
There are some excellent passages in Luminous Emptiness that clarify the meaning with more detail. Bardo refers to an "in between" moment between two other states. It is a transition.
In all cases it signifies the change from one state to another. As you note, in most cases, we speak of the transition between death and rebirth.
There is a wonderful sign posted inside the east entrance to the Shambhala Center in Boulder that reads, "All dharma is a dream."
It is true that none of the states noted above is more real than any other, and yet they are all real. You may be pointing out the ideational nature of all realms of existence, not demeaning them as unreal, as many people might with the word "dream."
Am not sure how the existence of the conscious being, a Buddha, throughout all the realms is pointless. The questions--who experiences, who observes, who dreams--are vital. The answer to all would be the enlightened Buddha. Gaining the answer would be the core of enlightenment.
The doing is beyond the board, certainly. The idea that it can be done can be discussed, don't you think?
It seems the awakening encompasses awareness in all the realms, including awareness of the intermediate stage between death and rebirth. Some choose to cordon off this area and hang signs, "Entrance prohibited." But I think we agree that would not be wise.