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death the final frontier
Vajraheart
Veteran
hi, this is not vajraheart, this is his wife, im a bit too lazy now to make my own id
im starting to think we honestly just die and there is no after life, reincarnation, nothing, they are all just beliefs to make us feel alright with the fact that ultimately we are going to die. i know im going to die - my body and everything that went along with it - personality etc. but to me, its sad, why cant our soul, live forever? what makes my body work, food? or the soul? i want to believe so bad we live for all eternity but the more i think about it, the more i dont think so
im starting to think we honestly just die and there is no after life, reincarnation, nothing, they are all just beliefs to make us feel alright with the fact that ultimately we are going to die. i know im going to die - my body and everything that went along with it - personality etc. but to me, its sad, why cant our soul, live forever? what makes my body work, food? or the soul? i want to believe so bad we live for all eternity but the more i think about it, the more i dont think so
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Comments
You're on the right track ... I don't mean being depressed; I mean thinking things through to the best of your ability.
In the process, you might consider a couple of things. 1. Try to point out anything -- anything at all -- that has actually ended. Dinosaurs, hoop skirts, rum runners, flat-earth perceptions ... anything at all. Just try it. Somehow, by whisper or hint or extended connection or whatever, everything is for always ... right now. And this is not just some religio-philosophical eyewash. Check it out for yourself. Don't believe it -- that just implies a lack of certainty. Find a way to find out. Some say meditation is a good way. But you may find something better.
2. Christmas Humphreys once observed approximately, "The opposite of life is not death. The opposite of death is birth. The opposite of life is form." Birth and death occur in every moment of every day. Check it out. Don't believe it. The breath you took one second ago now resides in the past and cannot be grasped. The breath you will take in a moment resides in the future and likewise cannot be grasped. And the breath you breathe in this instant ... well, that's something for you to discover for yourself. You can try to grasp it if you like, but by the time you do, what happens? It has receded into the past ... which cannot be grasped. If past, present and future cannot be grasped in any meaningful way, who is it who speaks of birth and death and the 77 virgins in heaven?
Hope any of that is useful.
Does V-heart plan to grace us with his company and wisdom again sometime soon? Miss him. And welcome to the forum, V-heart wife.
this is why the Buddha taught about how to be free from saddness
the way to be free of the saddness of impermanence is to fully accept impermanence
is there anything in this life, whether a leaf, a tree, an ocean, a sunset, a sunrise, a sight, a sound, a smell, a thought, that is not subject to impermanence?
if we cannot do this, then we can believe in rebirth, reincarnation, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, whatever suits us
kind regards
when the currents of construing do not flow, he is said to be a sage at peace.' Thus was it said. With reference to what was it said? 'I am' is a construing. 'I am this' is a construing. 'I shall be' is a construing. 'I shall not be'. Construing is a disease, construing is a cancer, construing is an arrow. By going beyond all construing, he is said to be a sage at peace.
"Furthermore, a sage at peace is not born, does not age, does not die, is unagitated, and is free from longing.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.140.than.html
I understand that some people may be comforted in the way you suggest above by a belief in rebirth, reincarnation etc. For me such a belief is not a comfort which would sit with the nature or reality in this life - or hang on, now I get what you are saying ... sorry.
The jury is still out, but recently I've been reflecting on the possibility that awareness does not cease at the point of death. Generally, I've taken this as symbolic or metaphorical, but I've lately been examining theories that have made it at least 'conceivable' to my basically Western perspective. For a variety of reasons, I find this both extremely intimidating as well as exhilarating. The fear factor involves a realization of the virtual bottomlessness of samsaric suffering. There is always a deeper Hell. The exhileration comes from an awareness of the non-ending of the infinite interplay of form - but even this is very threatening to the tiny little man-person image I instinctively take for granted as my 'self'.
Of course... This does not mean that the notion of the total cessation of awareness any more palatable than it already was. It just gives the basic goals of Buddhism more weight and urgency.
we don't lament the end of a piece of music that we love. listening to a beautiful song to its conclusion doesn't somehow detract from its value. when the song is over, it's not removed from the universe, and we tend to feel satisfied instead of remorseful! it's still alive, even if it's not being sustained by musicians' instruments (or a record/mp3/cd/etc player, or whatever).
at least, that's sort of how i look at it
In my honest opinion, upon studying the Buddhist message and upon coming to my own conclusion re: the existence of a "god" or "deity"; knowing that this is an "only life" is a good practice. I think if more people thought that that they only existed for this one life, they would probably be more rational or at least significantly nicer to their fellow man.
the Buddha taught the end of craving is the ultimate goal of practise
the notion of literal rebirth is a form of becoming arising from craving
every time the mind entertains the notion of rebirth, it indulges in craving & becoming
also, whether or not literal rebirth actually happens, the capacity to accept impermanence fully is the fulfilment of buddhist practise
the capacity to relinquish all things (including life) as "I" and "mine" is the fulfilment of buddhist practise
whether or not literal rebirth happens, the fulfilment of buddhist practise does not change
best wishes
From then on it became completely irrelevant to my practice in the here and now.
i just dont know when i will ever get it, maybe there is nothing to get. i thought u just kept coming back until u reach what buddha did but now im starting to think its all rubbish. if reincarnation is true how does one become reborn, it just doesnt match up. how can u see without eyes, hear without ears, think without a brain. where does a flower go when its dies? the thought of heaven sounds great and if only we could stay children forever bc i seemed to be more enlightened then compared to now, whatever happened, i do not know. and where is the buddha now? why cant he just materialize right in front of me!? :P
On the other hand, you could meditate on death. This often helps people in your situation, though it may not sound like it. Here's how it works (I'm sure V-heart can tell you): Imagine yourself on your deathbed. You've been ailing, so you're weak. You've been sleeping on and off throughout the day, that's about all you can manage, besides the visits from loved ones. You know you don't have the strength to keep going much longer. Maybe a few days... See yourself in this situation. You're at home, well-cared for by friends and relatives. In your mind's eye, you look back on your life, and take stock. Are you satisfied with what you accomplished? Is there anything left undone that you wish you'd made time for? Did you live a full life, however you define that, or do you wish you'd done some things differently? Did you leave the world, or your corner of it, a better place than when you found it, or did you at least try? What thoughts come to mind as you survey your life?
This is a good exercise for figuring out what your priorities are, and how you want to spend the precious remainder of your life (which could mean either a few days or 50+ years, you never know). If you live a full life, and give to others, you'll be calm when it comes to an end. You'll be satisfied that you made the most of it. _/\_
meditation is also wisdom reflection
example: does all that which is born must die?
everything that you experience, whether a building, car, computer, bird, tree, leaf, flower, wave, the plant earth...use your reasoning to consider whether or not they will come to end eventually?
try to use your rational reasoning to consider whether a life cycle of birth, aging, illness & death is universal/common to all things?
thus, should your life be any different?
If such an individual sincerely wished to learn of elephants, such an individual would be best advised to seek out a place where elephants had been reported.
Likewise, if one wishes to learn of phenomena of consciousness/mind before birth and after death, one would not seek the company of arguing philosophers, but seek out the circumstances and places where such observations had been reported.
Is there consciousness/mind before birth? To answer the question, one would seek either the direct experience of mindfully, observantly, conceiving, birthing, and raising a child oneself, or seek the company and observations of mindful women who have observantly conceived, birthed, and raised children.
Where goes consciousness/mind in dying? To answer the question, one would mindfully observe one's own experience of dying, or of caring for others in the process of dying, or seek the company and observations of those who routinely care for the dying and the dead every single day of their lives.
Is there consciousness/mind after death, is there rebirth? To answer the question, one would seek the company and trust of those very young children just learning to talk, who speak of having died and/or having been adults long ago before they were children.
I find it amusing when philosophers who have never conceived, birthed, and raised children at all insist that children must be "blank slates" with no former life experience. Mindfully conceiving, birthing, listening to, and raising children gives one plenty of evidence contrary to the "blank slate" theories of those who have never conceived, birthed, listened to, nor raised children.
I find it amusing when philosophers who have never experienced dying and retained the memory thereof, nor survived a near-death experience themselves, assume that consciousness/mind is obliterated at the death of the body. The experience of dying, and of near death, demonstrates otherwise.
I find it amusing when experiences and memories recounted by young children and clinical observations of young children are casually written off in the name of "science" as "anecdotal" and "unscientific" because they are not part of some grand "controlled experiment." Past life recall is generally associated with unresolved issues of traumatic death. It would never be even remotely ethical to conduct "controlled experiments" on anyone regarding their unresolved traumatic death issues, let alone on young children.
I also find it amusing when people write off past life memory as "wishful thinking." As a very young child, I had memory of the end of my last life and my death in a war as an old woman. As a very young child, I struggled to ask anybody and everybody what had become of my children as I struggled to learn to walk and talk and held up 3 fingers to tell the neighbors how old I was in this life.
A childhood of remembering one's death in a war in front of one's children and wondering what became of them while being endlessly told to shut up about it by one's parents, relatives, teachers, and everyone else year after year after year until it makes one altogether tired of living, isn't "wishful thinking," but a strange variety of hell.
Thanks to the internet, half a lifetime later, in photos from the other side of the world, in a language I don't understand, I found that city I once lived and died in and confirmed the history I had remembered since childhood, all the way down to the fact that the buildings that were still standing in the bombing ruins at the time of my death are still standing in the present day, and where my house once stood is now a post-war highrise... and the old rail lines still stand in ruins remaining since the war.
No wonder the adults had shut me up as a child and none of it was ever in their history books and no one had ever known anything about the place....
according to the internet, the sad story of the place had been military classified information, not open to public scrutiny until only very recently,
and an old de-classified military map of the bombing showed that where my house had once stood was just beyond the edge of the completely "non-survival" zone of the bombing. Sigh.
That is what it is like to have lived one's life from childhood with an elephant.
Does it matter if someone who has never experienced an elephant does or does not believe in the existence of elephants? Shrug. Not really.
Who would ever want to sign up to experience such an elephant?
No one this side of hell would ever want to sign up to experience such an elephant.
The political and economic powers that be on this earth have a vested interest in maintaining their power. The observation that with the next turn of the karmic wheel the powerful can indeed be reborn as the powerless is NOT in the interest of maintaining the power of the powers that be. The powerful have a very large vested interest in shutting up the children when it comes to past life phenomena.
Where is the Buddha now?
The only thing preventing you from observing the Buddha and the light of nirvana, right here, right now, in front of you and all around you, is your attachment to this world.
You will see it all quite clearly when you are close to death (when you have relinquished attachment to this world). Wait and see for yourself. With meditation you can see it sooner, but everyone does see it eventually, sooner or later, as everybody dies, sooner or later.
Everything changes, and change is everything.
and one can be so very many different aspects of hungry caterpillar indeed
before ever becoming a butterfly!
Looking back and seeing those very many aspects of caterpillar
is a gift of longstanding practice.
Only longstanding practice can ever prepare one to deal with the sight of so many past hungry struggling caterpillars...
they are far from a flattering mirror in which to look!
If we DO only have one life, as you have been thinking, doesn't that make you want to enjoy it all the more?!
Also, there is no need to fear death, because when it comes - and let's face it, it could come at any time to any of us - "you" won't be around to perceive it.
"I'm not scared of dying - I just don't want to be there when it happens."
I for one, - actually do.....
I think our current awareness is limited by our physical form and when the physical form is gone so will be the limitations. I also irrelevantly speculate that there is one single awareness and that our physical form produces the illusion of separateness.
Interesting to think about but I don't know how useful it really is other than promoting loving kindness towards all living beings because we are all the same.
I agree Federica - my objective in (this) life is to die well and be present for it.
i used to believe in past life recall but the more i think about that, the more i realize maybe it only has to do with this life and breaking the cycle. i really dont know. but it does make sense sometimes... why are some ppl born into poverty and others into canada for example. what is this? just the roll of the dice?
Meditation isn't like a pain reliever to make us feel happy with sad conditions. It clears away the rubble of our past experiences so we can exist here and now, creating a life where we (even as transient, impermanent persons) know we are in a loving place. Its not a game of chance... its willed into our path through dedication.
Why wait for death to deliver us into something we can create?
I wonder if the fear you might be feeling arises from a sense of meaninglessness in the life lived here and now.
There is not one spot in the entire universe where "there is truly nothing."
Empty space is not by any means... empty....at all!
My friends and family , and others, continue to die.
This year I believe I will learn to sing.
Hey, is the "caterpillar and butterfly " standard Buddhist imagery?
Does this theme repeat itself in various texts of note, old and new?
See, no one can give you a satisfactory answer but you can get the answer by direct experience. And it comes thru meditation.
I tell you - even though I know you are not going to believe me - that life is not the end after death! Your mental factors will continue to exists. You will go thru a tremendous transformation and your ego will be shattered. That doesn't mean that you will cease to exists.
I have a direct experience of my subtler bodies. Your physical body is your gross form. But you maintain other bodies (etheric, astral, mind, light, formless body etc) in subtler realms. You are not aware of it because you don't meditate.
Make it an open minded experiment and without bias observe your mind and see how deep it goes. Then you realize there is no cease of your existence only death of your gross body.
You can still see or hear or smell or remember or think without your gross body. Again I have a direct experience of this phenomena. So you want proof be persisent and search until you find the answer. Right now you don't have an answer, you are only guessing that your death will be the end. Don't satify with guess (no matter how true it sounds it is still a guess and you might be completely wrong), search for the truth and the proof only, only then you will find the answer.
Anicca, the doctrine of impermanence!
Anatta, the absence of an abiding self!
Enlightenment, the condition of being in oneness with the Light!
It's all truth, observable truth, witnessed in death/near death.
"Nirvana is not a thing; nirvana is when you personally experience and you understand and recognize that everything is void, or empty. Through the practice, you gradually come to the experience that there is no real space or time that you can hold on to. So you can say that nirvana is the result of practice, but it is not a result of something changing into something else."
-Ch'an Buddhist Master Sheng Yen
The attainment of nirvana through practice would be the preferred method. The witnessing and experiencing by way of the near death experience is not the preferred method....
But having been there and done that myself, I can tell you that the dead themselves call where they are "the other side" "the other side of life" and that literally there is no real space or time that you can hold on to, for they are malleable according to mind...
and that if one does not have karmic issues that restrict and pull one back here to learn and grow from and resolve, one gets to stay there, on the other side,as light merged with the Light. What does that look like? Light! What does that feel like? Absolute supportive merging connection with the Light, absolute love.
Devoid/empty of "self"... anatta!
Devoid of everything that we so foolishly endeavored to make "permanent" ...those dreadful creations we built all around us to make us feel "safe and secure" (Ha! So much like a prison keeps one "safe and secure"!)...devoid of all that: anicca!
In a state of anatta and anicca one becomes one with the Light... enlightened...
and the feeling is of infinite loving connection... with the all.
There are not even any words for getting anywhere near it, even when it's not.... you... who gets to be part of that... because you're just stuck with too many karmic issues to resolve. Sigh.
Yes, all loved ones are there...it's the reunion of the century....
from when we once were barbarians who killed one another
from when we once took turns playing the part of rulers enslaving one another
from when we once took tuns manipulating and exploiting one another
from when we once learned to share and communicate with one another
from when we once learned to support, nurture, help one another
from when we once learned to love one another
How many lifetimes did it take?
Thousands of lifetimes! All impermanent, no lasting body, self, ego
until we eventually become clear light, until we eventually become fit to merge in love with the rest of that Light where all is love and all is Light and there is no more separation caused by the structures we built around us and imprisoned ourselves within.
But, well, for those of us with (er, uh, well...) karmic issues...
when it's not... us.... who get to be part of that...
all of that is a glimpse of a party that one is not yet invited to...
and it's right back to having to be stuck imprisoned in the heavy confines of a body, a self, a life, and breathing again... NO!!!
Argh... breathing and heartbeat and all the rest that goes with having a body....pain.... argh! "Welcome to hell..."
Karma pulls one back here like a heavy boulder tied to one's ankle...with issues to resolve and release, growth and healing to accomplish, work to be done.
Lots of work to be done.
Sigh.
Still a chomping caterpillar needing
practice practice practice
and remembering fondly and missing that experience of dying ever after, all the days of one's life.
You'd also be surprised to see how many of them are all around you, everywhere, right now. Greet them, treat them, as the precious beings they have always been.
If your 3rd eye were open at the time of her death, you would have observed the consciousness of your mother exit her body to stand outside of it. You would have likewise observed the presence of other people on the other side who showed up for this event. It is an observable phenomenon when anybody dies.
The dead are just like anybody else except for the fact that they are on another dimension, another plane of existence. They always show up for their own funerals. Don't ever laugh at their jokes or they'll notice that you can see them and insist you deliver messages for them because (according to them)most people don't see them "because both desire and fear prevent people from seeing."
The people on the other side, the dead, don't just hang around endlessly waiting around to greet loved ones crossing over; they have got other things to do. They do tend to show up for major events, such as when someone with whom they have got close karmic ties crosses over. Karmic ties are like phone line connections between people, except for the fact that karmic ties pull you there across time and space.
If your 3rd eye were not open at the time of her death, you would not have observed the consciousness of your mother exit her body, but would have only observed the death rattle and the release and the rather doll-like dead body that just sort of suddenly oddly didn't really look quite entirely like your mother anymore.
I'm sorry. I do know exactly what that is like too; the only difference being that my mother was quite dead, quite out of that body, and also visibly standing in the middle of her funeral complaining just like anybody else:
"Whose idea was the open casket? Whose?! That looks absolutely terrible! Did I really look that terrible? I didn't think I looked that awful...
Whose stupid idea was the open casket?! Your father's?!"
She went on and on and on... and without thinking I had automatically answered her out loud just like anybody else....oops.
I don't know what he saw, but my bereaved grief stricken father ended up laughing so hard in the middle of the funeral I thought he would split a seam.
There is no need for you to ever "buy" anything that you have not witnessed for yourself. If you wish to witness such things for yourself, meditation practice over time will help to open the 3rd eye and you will observe such things for yourself. In any case, and irregardless of any belief, you will eventually witness and experience such things at death or near-death yourself; everyone eventually does. Shrug. It's no big deal. You'll see.
Fair enough. Beings arising into view dependent on causes and conditions then disappearing again when conditions that support them cease. This is observable for me. Like most people my age I have hands on experience with both. If I am to develop a clear understanding of what I am witnessing I think it is best not to overlay my experiences with fanciful imagery. I am not a poet.
You know that everyone who has ever been is likewise in shunyata
and yet you are intent on never seeing and never recognizing ALL are your dearest beloved ones and ancestors both manifested and unmanifested right here right now in the countless changing forms of the emptiness all around you.
Declaring "I know that I will never see deceased loved ones or ancestors in some afterlife or continuum" not only denies the truth of where you're standing right here, right now in the cosmos, but also evidences about as much attachment to very specific thoughts and forms and self as a human being can possibly have.
This is the real VH.
Spacing out? So experiencing the various jhana states and their fruit is, "spacing out?"
@zen_world
This is exactly it. She is just lacking the direct experiencing which illumines the subtler forms of self reference.
We only forget from life to life due to the fact that we habitually identify with the 5 sense apparatus manifest in gross form as the physical body. Those with previous cultivation do not have these problems and are often born with immediate past life recall. Then there are those like the Dalai Lama who can remember many lives, though he sometimes say's he does not. He's spoken before that he does. He even remembered where he placed his previous incarnations teeth which no one but him knew.
There are many proofs revealing the validity of the rebirth of a single mind stream and this revelation does not necessitate the belief in an inherent soul either, much as the fact of our seeming individuality is not predicated upon the belief in an inherent individuality either. Most people without direct experience of the subtle levels of meditative perception have a hard time understanding the alayavijnana doctrine. It's just that the elements of our mind have non-gross components which as well are interdependently originated.
Anyway... yes, she needs to get down to serious practice, she has over thought this topic referencing gross material experience only. She needs to take her awareness down the subtler pathways of perception.
never meaningless.
Even the smallest bit of compassion and benevolence shines visible light like the sun in a sea of darkness.
It is no metaphor. It is light as visible to the third eye as lower frequency light is visible to the other two.
Seeing in the here and now in the Dharma is bound to thought and form as a human - no other frame of reference is available. It is the vehicle with which we may (or may not) become aware of liberation. Liberation from an independent self - liberation from the beautiful/horrible stories of our lives (past and present)that merely slow us down (albeit entertainingly) on our path.
For me, and others like robot imaginative mental constructs are unneccesary - for you they are vital. If we are awash in the countless changing forms of emptiness then we are in the right place - our birthright - but completely beyond our control.
Do not fear that others do not see samsara as you see it. Uncertainty is, along with death and taxes, really the only certainty.