There is no death

TheJourney

If you are who you think you are, then there is death. However, you are not who you think you are, and there is no death.

So, who are you? You are an idea. You are everything that makes you up. By simply existing, you make an imprint on the world. Therefore you go out into the world. You live on in the world, because you've impacted the world. Then you interact with people. Then guess what??? They like you!! Therefore they try to replicate what they like about you. Therefore you change that person. Therefore you live on in him. Then that person changes the world, because of you. Then that person changes other people, because of you, making you live on in everything that you touch. If you think you're some person plopped onto some planet, then I guess you should fear death. But with everything that you do, you continue on in the world. How can you die?

DharmaField

This is a great question: What is deathless? The cool blue of the oceans are not permanent, the great mountains wear away... what remains? Without quoting the Buddha the closest for me is mountains and rivers walking ...

TheJourney

everything is deathless. Death is an illusion. The great things are not separate from mundane things. It's all here. It's all now.

DharmaField

Yes, I know it intellectually, and I have some sense of it and even a glimpse of it's galactic quality, but do you how does one carry this into one's being?

TheJourney

You already are. You are the ultimate, nirvana, whatever. That's what i'm telling you. You can carry it into your being by understanding that it is all that exists. It is impossible for it to be any other way. Everything you do, do it simply for your own enjoyment. You don't NEED to do anything. Understand that you've already arrived. There is nowhere to go. Noone has anything to teach you, unless you like what they have to say. And guess what? If you do like it, that's because it's you. You are as great of a being as has ever lived. Literally. I'm not saying this just cuz it sounds cool. People have to see what is being said and literally know it, rather than think of it as being figurative. Any boundaries that you have are self-imposed. You have no bounds. If you want nirvana, it is here. Whatever you want, is here. But don't think what you want is more important than what anyone else wants. That is key. For while it is true that there is none greater than you, you are also not greater than any other. Do and pursue what you want, but without trying to force it into being by going against the world or other people. Simply let it happen.

[DeletedUser]

:eek:
According to The Heart of the Prajna Paramita Sutra

O-oh Sariputra, what is seen does not differ from what is empty,
nor does what is empty differ from what is seen;
what is seen is empty, what is empty is seen.

It is the same for sense perception,
imagination, mental function and judgement.

O-oh Sariputra, all the empty forms of these dharmas
neither come to be nor pass away
and are not created or annihilated,
not impure or pure,
and cannot be increased or decreased. :cool:

Roger

If you are who you think you are, then there is death. However, you are not who you think you are, and there is no death.

Nicely poetic. I tend to think we are a little teeny tiny bit of universal mind which somehow and inexplicably snagged a fertilized egg and thus began an 80 year manifestation via a human body with sense organs and human brain functions.

All these human cultural and environmental challenges and situations and archetypal emotions come up via the sense organs and whichever reasoning, memory and language powers that are built into the brain.

Then finally the body falls apart and stops. The teeny tiny bit of mind keeps going, probably slightly altered by the particulars of the 80 years of experience.

How is it altered? What does it have to do with our notions of an individual self? We as humans can only guess.

We tend to loiter comfortably with the idea that it has something to do with the identity we perceive in ourselves on a daily basis. The truth is, in these limited human forms, no one can know because the whole picture, as it were, is absolutely HUGE.

TheJourney

:eek:
According to The Heart of the Prajna Paramita Sutra

O-oh Sariputra, what is seen does not differ from what is empty,
nor does what is empty differ from what is seen;
what is seen is empty, what is empty is seen.

It is the same for sense perception,
imagination, mental function and judgement.

O-oh Sariputra, all the empty forms of these dharmas
neither come to be nor pass away
and are not created or annihilated,
not impure or pure,
and cannot be increased or decreased. :cool:

i likes the heart sutra. and the diamond sutra!

Nidish

Then WHAT IS SUFFERING??????

TheJourney

Then WHAT IS SUFFERING??????

Illusory. Self-imposed.

sukhita

Then WHAT IS SUFFERING??????

Sometimes I look at "suffering" as struggling against the flow of nature, that is, wanting things to be different than it is in the present moment.

[EDIT] I now realise you asked the question in a different context. Ignore this

Simonthepilgrim

The Second Noble Truth is not some sort of obvious statement that can be recited and then we pass on. We truly have to look deeply in order to understand how we 'water the seeds' of our suffering. We also need to understand how the practice of the Noble Eightfold Path leads us out of suffering. Once again, it is not obvious, nor particularly intuitive. If it were, we wouldn't need the teachers such as the Buddhas.

As for death, it is obviously nonsense to suggest that it doesn't exist, as any of us who have sat with the dying know. 'Something' essential changes when a person dies. It may be that, as we used to put it in AIDS work, that we are looking at a transition but the body does die and does rot and does turn to dust.

DhammaDhatu

imo, death or the deathless makes little difference

imo, the deathless means there is no person who "dies"

in Dhamma language, 'death' is synonomous with sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief & despair

imo, the deathless does not necessarily mean there is no death

for example, the five aggregates can die

the buddha said mindfulness of death gains a foothold in the deathless

if we realise there is no alternative to death, then in this acceptance, there is no suffering about death

no suffering about death is the same as The Deathless, imo

Dazzle

"The Deathless", according to Ajahn Sumedho, is a term used for unconditioned awareness.


.

Vangelis

There is death but no-one that dies just as there is the path but no-one is seen upon it.

TheJourney

So you believe in object and not subject??? Didn't the buddha teach that subject and object were dependent on one another???

Nidish

Well, this might seem a bit out of context, but I have had this doubt for some time now.. What if I take a I-can-do-it-in-my-next-life or Anyways-I-will-be-reborn temperament????? There still is no suffering... I know.. This is rooted in ignorance, but it makes me think... Is ignorance sometimes bliss???

Sagat

In a few billion years (about 5-6 billion) the world will be completely engulfed in the sun as it grows and grows, and there is a good chance that the human race might not even make it another thousand years, also the universe will eventually collapse in on itself.

So in a way you are right, that for the rest of the human races existence, you might have made an act that cause another chain of events and you left some kind of imprint on a lot of peoples lives, but the universe isn't for eternity and Earth and the human race is CERTAINLY not for eternity, which makes your logic here kinda flawed. :skeptic:

One day, it will be as if we never existed at all.

Ada_B

Well, this might seem a bit out of context, but I have had this doubt for some time now.. What if I take a I-can-do-it-in-my-next-life or Anyways-I-will-be-reborn temperament????? There still is no suffering... I know.. This is rooted in ignorance, but it makes me think... Is ignorance sometimes bliss???

Ultimately, I believe we will all become Enlightened, but the quicker we are, the less we will suffer.

In the meantime, in the here-and-now, ordinary reality that we experience, the 'rule' is that if we practice the dharma, it makes our lives easier to cope with and we will tend to be happier. Ignoring it, doing whatever we feel like, leads to suffering.

Maybe you aren't suffering now, but you will (if you live long enough) experience deaths of friends and family, illness, disability, disappointments, heartbreak... You need all the skills you can to get through. Samsara is an emotional assault course!

Ignorance isn't bliss, it's suffering with no way out. Knowing a way out will be invaluable to you sooner or later.

TheJourney

knowledge of ignorance is bliss, perhaps.

Nidish

Well, I am not particularly troubled with death, because of the fact that i accept it... So other than that?????

DharmaField

Thanks for the replies I am directing the mind upwards the deathless, and away from feelings, form, perceptions, thoughts, consciousness as being of death -it is an interesting practice - I will let you know how it goes...knowing that this very place is the lotus land, etc, but to really be confident in deathlessness is stll beyond me!

zombiegirl

In a few billion years (about 5-6 billion) the world will be completely engulfed in the sun as it grows and grows, and there is a good chance that the human race might not even make it another thousand years, also the universe will eventually collapse in on itself.

sheesh. sometimes i WISH i believed in heaven, lol.