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The Death question
Hey,
i have something that has been bothering me for sometime now... I have a few questions 3 of which have the same answer(I think)... They are,
1)What leaves the body at/after death?
2)What enters a body at/before Birth?
3)What is the thing that makes the difference between a corpse and a living body?
4)What is the difference between that(which leaves the body at death) having good Karma and that(which leaves the body at death) having bad karma?
5)How do we come to the conclusion(logically) that there is no permanent soul?
6)What is the similarity between my previous birth and this birth?
7)How do we come to the conclusion(logically) that there is rebirth?
I have an opinion on these questions, but still, i just wanna make sure I am correct...
I would appreciate every answer...
i have something that has been bothering me for sometime now... I have a few questions 3 of which have the same answer(I think)... They are,
1)What leaves the body at/after death?
2)What enters a body at/before Birth?
3)What is the thing that makes the difference between a corpse and a living body?
4)What is the difference between that(which leaves the body at death) having good Karma and that(which leaves the body at death) having bad karma?
5)How do we come to the conclusion(logically) that there is no permanent soul?
6)What is the similarity between my previous birth and this birth?
7)How do we come to the conclusion(logically) that there is rebirth?
I have an opinion on these questions, but still, i just wanna make sure I am correct...
I would appreciate every answer...
0
Comments
Fellow traveller - you ask many questions. Questions may be interesting but not always helpful.
The Buddhist path is not a quick way to resolve your problems. Many Westerners have the habit of demanding answers to their questions. Buddhism is not a ready reckoner one can turn to in a time of trouble. It is a way of life.
To learn how to live that life is of importance - not in gaining answers. The answers will come in their own good time. But you have much to learn and a reliable teacher should be your priority.
If you wish to avoid further suffering you first must understand the four noble truths. Then you must know how to apply the antidote to your suffering. These are the things which should occupy your mind.
In my years as a Buddhist I have only asked my teacher one question.
But I have a question for you.
Have you heard the sound of a leaf fall?
Have you heard the sound of a breaking heart?
Have you heard the sound of your own thoughts?
Concentrate on these things.
Is it not the Conceptual thinking and logical arguments that set us on the path of searching for some thing and landed one on to this forum?
There are many people who are not bothered to question the way they are living or the ethics of what they are doing to earn a living. Right or wrong, they live a life and seem to be more at ease with life than the seekers; May be they live an ordinary life and die an ordinary death. But why take the trouble of going on a difficult path with unanswered questions?
Frankly I am also troubled by the same Qs that Nidish posted. Lack of answers sometimes make me wonder if I have just caught up the fancy thing just because there is something to spend all your life in search of and pretend to yourself that you are on a path.
The things like the Vietnamese Buddhist monk and a book like 'Teach me to sit still' are keeping me believing there some thing in life which I missed and these people have found but absence of answers is daunting and doubts pops up every now and then.
I was merely talking of my personal experience with regard to the specific questions asked by Nidish. Some things are unconjecturable.
With kind regards, Sukhita.
@Pineblossom But The Buddha said we NEED to ask questions in order to be free of doubts... When you are saying these should not be asked because they are imponderables, it seems to ME like something which is not... All I asked was, how can a Buddhist really refute an imperishable soul? And how did the Buddhists arrive at the very concept of rebirths? For I am sure these should be logical as everything in Buddhism is logical and perfectly rational, and even The Buddha has asked us not to believe anything that we don't think plausible...
Love And Light,
Nidish
Love And Light,
Nidish
Last night Sister Hue Can gave an interesting talk on "Death and Dying". You might like to have a listen.
With Metta,
Guy
Whoa, that's a lot of questions there. I don't have time to anser them all directly, but if your interested, you can find some of my thoughts on not-self and rebirth here: anatta, rebirth and does the tathagata exist after death.
By abandoning logic. :eek:
It's necessary for total dissolution to take place because of the impermanent nature of things. It's the way things work. Even if you could live for 10,000 years what is the chance of making it that far? Life is very fragile indeed.
So, life generally continues to arise. Perhaps Buddha said something about a flame passing from one candle to the next? So far it's really hard to put into words and it's proven a fruitless task, but there you go.
Hope that helps
Forget about it and concern yourself with the present moment which you can know.
That's my advice.
I love these guys.
In a Skilful way......;)
I think :
1. The "atom" which represents your existence .
2. The "atom" which , again, represents your existence.
3. Life, or the ability to move according to its own will (talking about living bodies).
4. Don't know. It's not a real difference, the "atom" will "gain" a new life, and after that will go eitehr with, or either against the life's flow.
5. Can you remember something that you've been through before you were born in this life ?
6. Nobody knows.
7. Why are you here ?
Buddhist practice doesn't have much bearing on these questions, at least in the here-and-now.
I don't know where you got the idea that the Buddha said we need to ask questions.
There may be a desire to ask questions.
Questions are the result of a cause. It is best to meditate on the cause.
Who is it that is doing the refuting?
Karma.
Again, I find that your quoting of what the Buddha said ambiguous. 'Logic' and 'plausibility' are but reflections of a desire for certainty and as things are subject to change any quest for certainty will be a cause for more suffering.
I note elsewhere you indicated you have no teacher. It is my hope that you make some effort to locate one for your own benefit. He will act as a guide for your along the path.
@Fivebells I need to know so that I can be free of doubts-one of the 5 hindrances-that I am treading on the right path..
@Pineblossom I am trying to get one.. I have just located three temples in the city...
That was what I meant to ask...
The way I see it, what we call a 'person' is essentially a convenient fiction used to describe the assortment of mental and physical processes that we, as complex human organisms, perceive and/or subconsciously cling to as being 'me' or 'mine.'
The question from the Buddhist perspective is, How can we relate to these processes in a way that doesn't cause unnecessary suffering for ourselves and others? And the short answer, of course, is to view these processes and activities as not-self.
If you're interested, you can find more of my thoughts similar subjects here and here.
Thank you for the explanation, I appreciate it. It is only this last part that gives me pause and it may just be the terminology used, I am not sure. You wrote ..."some time in the future the mind will cease to know." as requiring evidence. Isn't there a great deal of evidence? We have medical instruments that can measure and track brain activity and it is capable of ceasing due to injury and certainly death. "We" have seen the brain activity associated with consciousness stop in cases of some types of brain injury and then resume once the injury healed sufficiently. Is this not evidence that the phenomenon of consciousness is governed by physical things and can be stopped/started merely by severing/connecting neurological pathways?
Well, technically, it's been shown that there's a link between consciousness and the body via the brain, and that when the brain's damaged, the link between consciousness and the body is damaged. However, that doesn't necessarily prove that consciousness is merely an emergent property of the brain, or that it, as a phenomenon, ceases to exist when the brain itself no longer functions.
Perhaps consciousness is simply a by-product of electrochemical processes in the brain, but perhaps there's another dimension to consciousness that science has yet to discover. I'm not saying that there is, mind you, but it's certainly a possibility.
I agree with you that there may very well be more to consciousness than we are aware of via empirical observation.
However, if I were to borrow the argument that YuttaDhammo makes "When you postulate something empirically unobservable, the burden is on you to prove its existence." then I would say the burden is on those who claim there is -more- to consciousness than is empirically observable.
In other words we can empirically observe that something we call consciousness exists and we can even see the physical activity in the brain when consciousness is operating and we can see the lack of that activity when the person is not conscious.
To assert that there is more to consciousness than what is empirically observable would require the one asserting it to bear the burden of proof. Again, that's using the argument YuttaDhammo used, assuming I am not completely misunderstanding. I am not suggesting that we actually argue about it
Yes, but by those standards, the burden of proof also lies with the people who assert that there's -nothing- more to consciousness than what we've observed thus far, even though science hasn't entirely ruled out the possibility that consciousness can exist outside of the body. As Alan Wallace points out in an interview with Steve Paulson in the Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowships in Science & Religion:
Well, perhaps we could say the burden of proof rests upon anyone asserting anything more than 'I don't know.'? I can prove that I don't know.
By all means, wonder and question what is happening right now, in this point in time ... but questions about death having nothing to do with living fully in, and opening fully to, the present. Questions about death will sort themselves out at the appropriate time, and no matter how you try to conceptualize the answers, the truth may end up having nothing to do with what we thought the answers were.
I have come up with explanations for anatta and rebirth.. Please tell me whether this can be accepted...
Anatta
1)We know,
(i)There is suffering
(ii)Suffering arises from craving
(iii)Anything which has 'arisen' can be annihilated(or whichever is the right word)
Hence we know that suffering can be annihilated...
2)We(or rather I-for I don't know how many others share this with me) know that there is no such thing as creator(You can ask me how I came to this conclusion if you want).. So there can't be anything like heaven("Place" which will cease suffering)... Though I am not trying to say there is no place better than this, but there certainly is no place devoid of suffering...
3)But still we know that suffering can be ended... So there can be only 1 answer for this-Nirvana... There is no achieving of nirvana if there is an imperishable/permanent soul...
Rebirth
1)We know that suffering is common place... Hence Nirvana is not...
2)Going against common place sure will involve effort..
3)So what happens if we cannot make it, or our efforts are not sufficient? We return to square 1...
Hence proved...(
These are the only ones that convince me a little above half-way.. If any of you guys also think there is a flaw, please point it out so that i can start thinking again..
And for Anatta, I am almost done with another reason.. I say almost eventhough i finished it because I forgot! :P I am trying to remember... Yesterday night i got these 3-(actually 2-the rebirth came from anatta), but I have forgotten the other roof for Anatta..
Even if Karma is supposed to be an unponderable, I think I have come up with a logic for that too..
Karma is nothing but energy... It flows through the body and makes thing work... When we die, this energy does not cease to flow, but instead, enters a fetus and becomes another "person"... And, this energy can be "good or bad"(which can be taken to be Yin And Yang Chi)... (This is like in the case of Yin And Yang neither of them can be termed good nor can they be termed bad, but they are opposing forces-I have used good or bad just to create an impression of opposition between the forces) But in both cases rebirth does not cease... So, a person who has attained Nirvana lives till all his Karma are cancelled... He does not make any new Karma...
That's my understanding.. So again, if this is flawed, please tell me...
Love And Light, Nidish
For me, the evidence that the mind is a construct of the brain is overwhelming. Chemicals alter consciousness, brain damage alters consciousness, disorders (epilepsy, alien hand syndrome, schizophrenia, sleep walking) demonstrate alternative forms of consciousness all with physical causes in the brain. Everything that makes us who we are - memory, personality traits, emotional bonds, likes and dislikes - all can be altered, even eliminated, by affecting the brain.
This tells me that if there is a non-physical element to consciousness, then it is reliant totally upon the brain for all the formations that define the mind as mind, and thus without the brain it is not worthy of consideration from the point of view of a religion that is concerned only with altering how the mind perceives reality.
Depends on the belief system. Within Christianity it is commonly believed that the soul is eternal, but not unchangeable. The belief is that after death if the soul is admitted to Heaven that the creator perfects the soul by returning it to it's original, sinless nature. Within this belief system perfection is unattainable apart from work done by the creator upon us. Perfection then must wait until after physical death. The best we can do in this present life is obey the commandments and have faith in this future perfection.
1)In every religion - be it islam, Christianity, hinduism, etc - the creator is someone who is Very kind...
2)And, everyone knows that life is full of suffering...
3)If the creator is very kind, why create life at all? For, if there was god, then he would surely have had foreseen all the suffering..
Or as Albert Einstein put it,
It just looks like God created you just to be put in the jail and asked to be good so that you can be relieved.. Doesn't make sense :cool: , does it? :tonguec:
Love And Light,
Nidish
Of course it doesn't make sense. When does religion actually make sense? If it made sense it wouldn't require so much faith. :crazy:
I thought post 31 above made a pretty compelling case. Certainly it is logical.
Christianity and Islam both arise from the old testament (indeed the 10 commandments are from the old testament so you can't tell me "oh they just use the new one now"). In both Islam and Christianity apostasy (leaving the religion) is the ultimate bad thing that angers that jealous god.
For some more epic stuff in the bible:
http://www.evilbible.com/
As for Hinduism I do not know - maybe the gods there are kind
I concur - There is no evidence of a soul. When I die I expect to return to the same state of non-existence as prior to being born.
What "you" was born and what "you" has any state of existence or non-existence to come from or return to?
by "myself" I describe my state of consciousness (that is constantly in flux of course). Now, you could go the route of "oh you are one with the universe" but for the sake of clarity me=I=my cousiousness.
When I die, I expect to not exist as a thinking/observing/sensing/feeling/etc agent, but the molecules that I'm composed of still will exist.
Hi
These are my answers, doubt them as much as possible:)
1)What leaves the body at/after death?
Nothing (anataman)
2)What enters a body at/before Birth?
Nothing
3)What is the thing that makes the difference between a corpse and a living body?
The difference is in the processes. Living bodies have more unified processes going on (neurological, biochemical, metabolic etc etc)
4)What is the difference between that(which leaves the body at death) having good Karma and that(which leaves the body at death) having bad karma?
I dont understand kamma like that..
5)How do we come to the conclusion(logically) that there is no permanent soul?
You cannot. At best you can use common sense to come to a clear decision but you can never be certain, especially not logically.
6)What is the similarity between my previous birth and this birth?
No idea?
7)How do we come to the conclusion(logically) that there is rebirth?
I don't think you can.
namaste
Buddha has stated his position on some of these metaphysical questions in the story about "man wounded with an arrow thickly smeared with poison". You can read it here: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.063.than.html
Short summary: most of them are not important, serving as a distraction to you.
I think we would be better to allow people to spend some time on these unanswerable questions rather than just spouting "Ahh the Buddha said don't ask this" passages. We should question the status of such passages, as much as we should question any passage.
I speak from experience as someone who has spent much time on these futile questions, and though I now see how in terms of Dharma path progress they are a waste of time, I think its still worth thinking of them, should one wish.
We should encourage freedom of thought, not restrict it. Dharma is clear and true enough to emerge from the morass of such questions....
Just my thoughts
namaste
Sure. Everybody pitched in with their own take on these questions, and I thought it would be useful to quote a relevant sutta. I didn't mean to squash the discussion. Carry on :-)
Hey:)
My comments were not towards you per se, rather towards the often cited "dismissal".
People will have a much stronger conviction that these are unanswerable questions if they see this for themselves, by trying to answer them.
Namaste
Well said.
21 grams of something always seems to leave a person who has just died.
This 21 grams is our karmic data.
This 21 grams becomes eletromagnetic waves that travel to a central hub somewhere in the ether.
There, the karmic information is analyzed and then sent off into a newborn that is best suited for that karma.
From there, you continue your karmic journey towards nirvana.
That's from the sci-fi nerd in me.
But seriously, maybe those questions don't really need to be answered. I've been doing great so far without those answers.
Can you imagine designing THAT kind of a database... Even Google's BigTable wouldn't be able to handle something of this magnitude...
*snaps back*
Sorry, got carried away for a moment there
Immaterial phenomena (e.g., consciousness). The question is, What's the nature of the relationship between physical and immaterial phenomena? The Buddha, for example, didn't reject that specific mental events are contingent upon corresponding physical events in the brain, but he didn't explicitly promote it either. In The Buddha and His Teachings, Narada Thera notes that:
But even though the Buddha detailed the mutual dependency of mental and physical activity and consciousness (DN 15), he wasn't a strict materialist. In regard to name-and-form (nama-rupa), for example, he didn't see consciousness as merely the byproduct of matter; he saw mentality and materiality as mutually sustaining immaterial and material phenomena, using the analogy of two sheaves of reeds leaning against one another to illustrate their relationship (SN 12.67). It's an interesting idea, at any rate.
Well, that's one possibility, and there's certainly a lot of evidence to support it. It's been conclusively shown that there's a link between consciousness and the body via the brain, and that when the brain's damaged, the link between consciousness and the body is damaged. However, I'm not convinced that this in and of itself proves that consciousness is merely an emergent property of the brain, or that it ceases to exist when the brain itself no longer functions.
I'll admit that it's looking more and more like that's the most likely scenario, but when I read things like The Holographic Universe, Quantum Mechanics and the Participating Observer, or even some of Rupert Sheldrake's crazy ideas regarding morphogeneic fields, I can't help but think that maybe it's not the whole picture. I suppose it could just be wishful thinking on my part, but I'm not ready to jump on the materialist bandwagon just yet.