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Everyone looking at each other like 'oh no! I thought this was the rational secular Buddhist forum! These are teh crazy cult people!'
It's ok, the guy just had an experience. It doesn't matter what it 'was'. If it's helpful or inspiring to you, that's good; no one's trying to convince you of anything. Better to see dependent origination than to worry about bits of samsara you haven't seen yet.
Fascinating! I doubt the good Doctor would agree he was being scoped out by a bunch of what would be Buddhist spirits taking time out of their 4000 year long party to give encouragement to a visitor.
Look, I don't want to make fun of people's beliefs, only point out that people's understanding of what they experience is formed and given meaning by the beliefs, not the other way around. The belief comes first, before the meaning we assign to it. Then our minds use the experience to reinforce the beliefs.
This Doctor was, according to the article and his own words, a faithful Christian before this, although he doubted accounts of NDEs. Yet his description is exactly like all the other NDE accounts and what he experienced in no way added anything to what we know. Unless he thought all those other people were lying, all that happened was, he confirmed these visions really do happen and seem very real to the people having them.
What fascinates me in this instance is the power of the skandhas to effect each other. "Form" is the brain. What happens to the physical activity in the brain has a powerful effect on our memories, beliefs, emotions, and consciousness.
We know visions have a transforming effect on our minds. Throughout history, people have experienced visions that have given them purpose and meaning to their lives and changed them in miraculous ways. Sometimes those visions were self-induced, produced by sacred drugs, sometimes by fasting and meditation and praying and even painful ordeals.
I only disagree with the miraculous nature of the vision to the extent I content the visions are a product of the mind and any meaning is personal and valid only for the mind that experiences it. If this vision, as it seems, transforms his life and gives it meaning in some way, good for him.
I just posted this extract on another thread, and think it is useful here too:
"But to what extent, Master Gotama, is there the safeguarding of the truth? To what extent does one safeguard the truth? We ask Master Gotama about the safeguarding of the truth."
"If a person has conviction, his statement, 'This is my conviction,' safeguards the truth. But he doesn't yet come to the definite conclusion that 'Only this is true; anything else is worthless.' To this extent, Bharadvaja, there is the safeguarding of the truth. To this extent one safeguards the truth. I describe this as the safeguarding of the truth. But it is not yet an awakening to the truth.
"If a person likes something... holds an unbroken tradition... has something reasoned through analogy... has something he agrees to, having pondered views, his statement, 'This is what I agree to, having pondered views,' safeguards the truth. But he doesn't yet come to the definite conclusion that 'Only this is true; anything else is worthless.' To this extent, Bharadvaja, there is the safeguarding of the truth. To this extent one safeguards the truth. I describe this as the safeguarding of the truth. But it is not yet an awakening to the truth.
'Now of these, brethren, the Tathàgata knows that these speculations thus arrived at, thus insisted on, will have such and such a result, such and such an effect on the future condition of those who trust in them. That does he know, and he knows also other things far beyond (far better than those speculations) and having that knowledge he is not puffed up, and thus untarnished he has, in his own heart, realised the way of escape from them, has understood, as they really are, the rising up and passing away of sensations, their sweet taste, their danger, how they cannot be relied on, and not grasping after any (of those things men are eager for) he, the Tathàgata, is quite set free.
'These, brethren, are those other things, profound, difficult to realise, hard to understand, tranquillising, sweet, not to be grasped by mere logic, subtle, comprehensible only by the wise, which the Tathàgata, having himself realised and seen face to face, hath set forth; and it is concerning these that they who would rightly raise the Tathàgata in accordance with the truth, should speak.'
If the Doctor is right, then Buddhist reincarnation is wrong. His experience corresponds exactly to what he expected from his Christian background, of Heaven in the clouds and angels showering advice and blessings on him.
So which is it?
I think we project or produce mental formations that fit our viewpoint because we refuse to "see" what is really there or probably more accurately put, we impose our viewpoint because we want it to be like that (clinging much?). I would guess that if he was from another culture with a different religious background he would have experienced something different.
If the Doctor is right, then Buddhist reincarnation is wrong. His experience corresponds exactly to what he expected from his Christian background, of Heaven in the clouds and angels showering advice and blessings on him.
So which is it?
True, just as you would expect a more skeptical view of his experience on a Buddhist forum.
Who says you reincarnate as soon as you die? Maybe you get to go somehwere nice to recover for a while
If the Doctor is right, then Buddhist reincarnation is wrong. His experience corresponds exactly to what he expected from his Christian background, of Heaven in the clouds and angels showering advice and blessings on him.
So which is it?
True, just as you would expect a more skeptical view of his experience on a Buddhist forum.
Who says you reincarnate as soon as you die? Maybe you get to go somehwere nice to recover for a while
I read a book a few years ago by a guy who was an atheist and claimed to have had an NDE and was scared straight, so to speak, into turning to Christianity again. Instead of going to heaven, he went to hell. It was an interesting read, but as I recall some of the book was "save yourself before it's too late, hell is real!" which turned me off a bit. His account was interesting.
'There are, brethren, recluses and Brahmans who hold the doctrine of a conscious existence after death, and who maintain in sixteen ways that the soul after death is conscious.
I don't maintain that the soul after death is conscious.
And I've studied that sutta, it is very useful in understanding the deathless, by process of elimination.
Why are people not as amazed at what is truly amazing- life itself?
Wean Yourself
Little by little, wean yourself. This is the gist of what I have to say.
From an embryo, whose nourishment comes in the blood, move to an infant drinking milk, to a child on solid food, to a searcher after wisdom, to a hunter of more invisible game.
Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo. You might say, "The world outside is vast and intricate. There are wheatfields and mountain passes, and orchards in bloom.
At night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding."
You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up in the dark with eyes closed.
Listen to the answer.
There is no "other world." I only know what I've experienced. You must be hallucinating.
118 (131). "Therein, bhikkhus, when those recluses who are eternalists proclaim on four grounds the self and the world to be eternal — that is conditioned by contact. That they can experience that feeling without contact — such a case is impossible. [11]
119 (132). "When those recluses and brahmins who are eternalists in regard to some things and non-eternalists in regard to other things proclaim on four grounds the self and the world to be partly eternal and partly non-eternal — that too is conditioned by contact. That they can experience that feeling without contact — such a case is impossible.
120–129 (133–142). "When those recluses and brahmins who are extensionists proclaim their views; when those who are fortuitous originationists proclaim their views; when those who are speculators about the past and hold settled views about the past assert on eighteen grounds various conceptual theorems referring to the past; when those who maintain a doctrine of percipient immortality, non-percipient immortality, or neither percipient nor non-percipient immortality proclaim their views; when those who are annihilationists proclaim their views; when those who maintain a doctrine of Nibbāna here and now proclaim their views; when those who are speculators about the future and hold settled views about the future assert on forty-four grounds various conceptual theorems referring to the future — that too is conditioned by contact. That they can experience that feeling without contact — such a case is impossible.
130 (143). "When those recluses and brahmins who are speculators about the past, speculators about the future, speculators about the past and the future together, who hold settled views about the past and the future, assert on sixty-two grounds various conceptual theorems referring to the past and the future — that too is conditioned by contact. That they can experience that feeling without contact — such a case is impossible.
Fascinating! I doubt the good Doctor would agree he was being scoped out by a bunch of what would be Buddhist spirits taking time out of their 4000 year long party to give encouragement to a visitor.
Look, I don't want to make fun of people's beliefs, only point out that people's understanding of what they experience is formed and given meaning by the beliefs, not the other way around. The belief comes first, before the meaning we assign to it. Then our minds use the experience to reinforce the beliefs.
This Doctor was, according to the article and his own words, a faithful Christian before this, although he doubted accounts of NDEs. Yet his description is exactly like all the other NDE accounts and what he experienced in no way added anything to what we know. Unless he thought all those other people were lying, all that happened was, he confirmed these visions really do happen and seem very real to the people having them.
What fascinates me in this instance is the power of the skandhas to effect each other. "Form" is the brain. What happens to the physical activity in the brain has a powerful effect on our memories, beliefs, emotions, and consciousness.
We know visions have a transforming effect on our minds. Throughout history, people have experienced visions that have given them purpose and meaning to their lives and changed them in miraculous ways. Sometimes those visions were self-induced, produced by sacred drugs, sometimes by fasting and meditation and praying and even painful ordeals.
I only disagree with the miraculous nature of the vision to the extent I content the visions are a product of the mind and any meaning is personal and valid only for the mind that experiences it. If this vision, as it seems, transforms his life and gives it meaning in some way, good for him.
Meaning is there as soon as Buddha Nature is there. It is the nature of sensitivity of the mind that it should sense a wonder and meaningful state. I'm not sure what beliefs are, but one of the three cravings is belief along with sense pleasure and existence.
I just got the impression from your posts on another thread that you don't quite follow what the Buddha is saying in that sutta, but it is quite possible that I am wrong.
Forget about me; as I've said before, I'm just some opinionated guy on the internet. But based only on this:
I know what quenching means, because I have stumbled into the 7th jhana by accident a couple of times. But then the whole machine starts back up again. No kamma means no life.
I humbly suggest you reconsider your understanding of this:
"Thus, Ananda, from name-and-form as a requisite condition comes consciousness. From consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-and-form. From name-and-form as a requisite condition comes contact. From contact as a requisite condition comes feeling. From feeling as a requisite condition comes craving. From craving as a requisite condition comes clinging. From clinging as a requisite condition comes becoming. From becoming as a requisite condition comes birth. From birth as a requisite condition, aging, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair come into play. Such is the origination of this entire mass of stress.
"But how, lord, could a monk have an attainment of concentration such that he would neither be percipient of earth with regard to earth... nor of the next world with regard to the next world, and yet he would still be percipient?"
"There is the case, Ananda, where the monk would be percipient in this way: 'This is peace, this is exquisite — the resolution of all fabrications; the relinquishment of all acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.' It's in this way that a monk could have an attainment of concentration such that he would neither be percipient of earth with regard to earth, nor of water with regard to water, nor of fire... wind... the dimension of the infinitude of space... the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness... the dimension of nothingness... the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception... this world... nor of the next world with regard to the next world, and yet he would still be percipient."
The Buddhist in me doesn't buy the modern take on consciousness. Buddhists recognize that conscious (vijñâna) is not subject to death. It is the transmigrant from one life to the next. Yes, there is brain death. And here is what it is:
"Brain death (that is, the irreversible cessation of all brain functions, including those of the stem) is the only acceptable neurological criterion of death at this time. There are proposals, however, that we should accept another neurological criterion of death—neocortical or cerebral death." ~ Raymond J. Devettera, Practical Decision Making in Health Care Ethics, 142, 43
What does Dr. Eben Alexander have to say about this?
"All the chief arguments against near-death experiences suggest that these experiences are the results of minimal, transient, or partial malfunctioning of the cortex. My near-death experience, however, took place not while my cortex was malfunctioning, but while it was simply off. This is clear from the severity and duration of my meningitis, and from the global cortical involvement documented by CT scans and neurological examinations. According to current medical understanding of the brain and mind, there is absolutely no way that I could have experienced even a dim and limited consciousness during my time in the coma, much less the hyper-vivid and completely coherent odyssey I underwent." (Bold added.)
This also sort of lets the air out of the late Carl Sagan's tires (America's favorite materialist) that the cerebral cortex is "where matter is transformed into consciousness." [snickering] From Dr. Eben Alexander's experience, the cerebral neocortex apparently doesn't make consciousness as if little tiny atoms and molecules conspire together to make our consciousness. [snickering]
Is this another one of those 'buy my book and make me rich if you want to go to heaven' stunts?
No, because this guy produced a free vvideo that was online (and on this forum) long before he's written the book.
I think it's good that neurologists are having unusual experiences and are writing about them (see also: "My Stroke of Insight", written by another neurologist). I like the scientific parts, like where he says that his entire cortex was shut down, so by current scientific knowledge, there's no way he could have been conscious. More surgeons and scientists are writing about unusual observations about their patients or their own experiences. It's important to build up a literature about these things by scientific and medical sources, rather than dismiss it out of hand. Science is about investigating, not shutting down on certain subjects just because one has a bias against them. Maybe someday these things will be better understood, in the same way that radio waves were not even conceivable and electricity was not understood, and gravity was believed to be a crock, and the Sun was believed to revolve around the Earth. But now all this knowledge and these phenomena are understood and are ordinary.
I thought you had similar experiences to others at the Dharma Overground who talk of a gap in consciousness as 'touching nibbana for a moment', and coming out of it as some kind of fruition moment, I think. I'm not fully versed in their system. That'll teach me to assume.
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zombiegirlbeating the drum of the lifelessin a dry wastelandVeteran
The basic problem is that personal experiences can never be 'proof'. They are always personal experiences. And realistically, how different was his experience than a dream? Something we already know the brain is capable of...
I think the experience may be important to the person experiencing it, but I draw the line at that. Once upon a time I felt that God spoke to me, and yes, this experience saved my life and was very important to me. I most likely would not be around today had it not been for that but... I no longer need it as validity. I still can't explain it, but one thing I never did was demand that everyone else believe in it, putting myself out there as indisputable proof. Absolutely not. I know that at the base, it doesn't make sense scientifically and is 100% a personal experience... which even I admit, could be something other than what it appears.
Also, just because he's made a living studying science doesn't mean anything to me. Growing up in my small little country town, when it came time to learn about evolution, my biology teacher gave us a lecture about how he was sorry he had to teach it and that he didn't believe in it because it stood contrary to the bible's teachings. He said he only did it because the school board forced him. People cried. It was weird... but the point being, when someone sees something as standing in opposition to their faith, they don't always make the rational decision.
The cessation of perception and feeling is not something I can communicate with words. Even the Buddha's 'consciousness unestablished, luminous all around' is a very limited description, and incorrect at least in English, starting with but not limited to the noun 'consciousness'. 'Around', with its connotations of a centre, is also misleading.
It can only be achieved though insight i.e. yours, based on, and this next sentence is necessarily paradoxical, tracing sensations to where they did not and do not arise. Even the word 'insight' here is potentially misleading.
'The Ending of Mental Fermentations "With his mind thus concentrated, purified, and bright, unblemished, free from defects, pliant, malleable, steady, and attained to imperturbability, the monk directs and inclines it to the knowledge of the ending of the mental fermentations. He discerns, as it has come to be, that 'This is stress... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress... This is the way leading to the cessation of stress... These are mental fermentations... This is the origination of fermentations... This is the cessation of fermentations... This is the way leading to the cessation of fermentations.' His heart, thus knowing, thus seeing, is released from the fermentation of sensuality, the fermentation of becoming, the fermentation of ignorance. With release, there is the knowledge, 'Released.' He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.' Just as if there were a pool of water in a mountain glen — clear, limpid, and unsullied — where a man with good eyesight standing on the bank could see shells, gravel, and pebbles, and also shoals of fish swimming about and resting, and it would occur to him, 'This pool of water is clear, limpid, and unsullied. Here are these shells, gravel, and pebbles, and also these shoals of fish swimming about and resting.' In the same way — with his mind thus concentrated, purified, and bright, unblemished, free from defects, pliant, malleable, steady, and attained to imperturbability — the monk directs and inclines it to the knowledge of the ending of the mental fermentations. He discerns, as it has come to be, that 'This is stress... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress... This is the way leading to the cessation of stress... These are mental fermentations... This is the origination of fermentations... This is the cessation of fermentations... This is the way leading to the cessation of fermentations.' His heart, thus knowing, thus seeing, is released from the fermentation of sensuality, the fermentation of becoming, the fermentation of ignorance. With release, there is the knowledge, 'Released.' He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'''
The basic problem is that personal experiences can never be 'proof'. They are always personal experiences. I think the experience may be important to the person experiencing it, but I draw the line at that.
The way I'm taking this report is that it's not proof of heaven or angels or anything. It does seem to be proof of the fact that consciousness survives when the brain cortex is dead. If that were true, then that alone would be a major scientific revelation. So I look at this neurosurgeon's experience as an interesting artifact that could be pointing toward the fact of consciousness being independent of the brain, or of having a different nature altogether than what was previously believed.
So I take it kind of like a new archaeological discovery: someone uncovered evidence of humans in the Americas reliably dating back to 40,000 years ago? OK, that's very interesting, that's got my attention. Now let's see what further research says. Let's see if someone comes up with similar findings elsewhere.
This seems like a reasonable, relatively conservative approach to me. "Belief pending further investigation."
Might as well post what I've written, not sure if it's any use.
After the cessation of perception and feeling, only the unbinding element is left. Think of a ball in a squash court after a game - it will still bounce for a while after the idiot stops whacking it. Ouch . This is essentially the dregs of dependent origination, which applies only to suffering, not to anything else - there isn't anything else.
'Say not so, friend!'
Sorry, Ananda. Anyway...
The nibbana element with no residue is the complete end of any dualistic notion of sense going out to objects, or experience by an experiencer. Self is not self, seeing is not seeing, breathing is not breathing, thinking is not thinking. The sky is not blue or grey, the sea is neither green nor silver nor troubled or calm.
No life or death, no day or dreams, neither drowsiness nor wakefulness nor sleep nor rapt wide eyes. But let me be clear about this, there is no absence of these things either; they are, as the zen priest said, not as they seem, nor are they otherwise. And yet this world is not strange to you, you know it like a fish knows the sea.
In terms of death, the Tathagata was silent, but not through ignorance. When body and mind fall away, not to their absence but to that which awakens beyond the yielding of the currents they are construed by, there is nothing left to say except what has been said before, but better, richer, clearer.
The best hint, in my opinion, is found in this sutta:
"Now, lady, when asked if the Tathagata exists after death, you say, 'That has not been declared by the Blessed One: "The Tathagata exists after death."' When asked if the Tathagata does not exist after death... both exists and does not exist after death... neither exists nor does not exist after death, you say, 'That too has not been declared by the Blessed One: "The Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist after death."' Now, what is the cause, what is the reason, why that has not been declared by the Blessed One?"
"Very well, then, great king, I will question you in return about this very same matter. Answer as you see fit. What do you think great king: Do you have an accountant or actuary or mathematician who can count the grains of sand in the river Ganges as 'so many grains of sand' or 'so many hundreds of grains of sand' or 'so many thousands of grains of sand' or 'so many hundreds of thousands of grains of sand'?"
"No, lady."
"Then do you have an accountant or calculator or mathematician who can count the water in the great ocean as 'so many buckets of water' or 'so many hundreds of buckets of water' or 'so many thousands of buckets of water' or 'so many hundreds of thousands of buckets of water'?"
"No, lady. Why is that? The great ocean is deep, boundless, hard to fathom."
"Even so, great king, any physical form by which one describing the Tathagata would describe him: That the Tathagata has abandoned, its root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of development, not destined for future arising. Freed from the classification of form, great king, the Tathagata is deep, boundless, hard to fathom, like the ocean. 'The Tathagata exists after death' doesn't apply. 'The Tathagata doesn't exist after death doesn't apply. 'The Tathagata both exists and doesn't exist after death' doesn't apply. 'The Tathagata neither exists nor doesn't exist after death' doesn't apply.
"Any feeling... Any perception... Any mental fabrication...
"Any consciousness by which one describing the Tathagata would describe him: That the Tathagata has abandoned, its root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of development, not destined for future arising. Freed from the classification of consciousness, great king, the Tathagata is deep, boundless, hard to fathom, like the ocean. 'The Tathagata exists after death' doesn't apply. 'The Tathagata doesn't exist after death doesn't apply. 'The Tathagata both exists and doesn't exist after death' doesn't apply. 'The Tathagata neither exists nor doesn't exist after death' doesn't apply." [1]
Then King Pasenadi Kosala, delighting in & approving of the bhikkhuni Khema's words, got up from his seat, bowed down to her and — keeping her to his right — departed.
Then at another time he went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to the Blessed One, sat to one side. As he was sitting there [he asked the Blessed One the same questions he had asked the bhikkhuni Khema, and received precisely the same responses and analogies. Then he exclaimed:]
"Amazing, lord! Astounding! How the meaning and phrasing of the teacher and disciple agree, coincide, and do not diverge from one another with regard to the supreme teaching! Recently, lord, I went to the bhikkhuni Khema and, on arrival, asked her about this matter, and she answered me with the same words, the same phrasing, as the Blessed One. Amazing, lord! Astounding! How the meaning and phrasing of the teacher and disciple agree, coincide, and do not diverge from one another with regard to the supreme teaching!
It reminds me of the movie jodie foster played in, Contact. She had a Christian friend and she couldn't understand how he could be a believer. Then she participated in a science experiment and believed she talked to an alien, who was kinda like God. Nobody believed her, but her friend sympathized.
This has been brought up as the "proof" that this was an out of body experience, not something caused by the mind undergoing trauma: What does Dr. Eben Alexander have to say about this? "All the chief arguments against near-death experiences suggest that these experiences are the results of minimal, transient, or partial malfunctioning of the cortex. My near-death experience, however, took place not while my cortex was malfunctioning, but while it was simply off. This is clear from the severity and duration of my meningitis, and from the global cortical involvement documented by CT scans and neurological examinations. According to current medical understanding of the brain and mind, there is absolutely no way that I could have experienced even a dim and limited consciousness during my time in the coma, much less the hyper-vivid and completely coherent odyssey I underwent." (Bold added.)
Here is where the good Doctor should know better. First, while there might have been no measured activity, saying his cortex was "simply off" is not possible unless the cells were dead. In which case he would have remained in a vegetative state. As a scientist and doctor, a more accurate statement is "no measurable activity in that part of the brain".
But beyond that, he neglects to point out that the brain is not a recording device and has no internal time stamp like a video recorder. His visions, like dreams, would have happened before and after complete shutdown. Also, NDE research is full of people with experiences that had their body and brains deliberately shut down by chilling so he's again stretching the truth.
He keeps saying all these visions happened "during" complete shutdown but it is well known from dreams that people vastly mistake the short amount of time even an involved dream takes. Add the drugs that the doctors would have been pumping through his body and this statement becomes complete nonsense. People even in normal functioning wake and think they've been dreaming from the time they went to sleep, when the rem dream stage took maybe 15 minutes.
Again, this is just to point out that the brain and mind is a wonderful, complicated, miraculous thing but it is not a simple recording machine. This man had a near death experience, no matter what visions he saw. That has a profound effect on anyone.
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zombiegirlbeating the drum of the lifelessin a dry wastelandVeteran
The basic problem is that personal experiences can never be 'proof'. They are always personal experiences. I think the experience may be important to the person experiencing it, but I draw the line at that.
The way I'm taking this report is that it's not proof of heaven or angels or anything. It does seem to be proof of the fact that consciousness survives when the brain cortex is dead. If that were true, then that alone would be a major scientific revelation. So I look at this neurosurgeon's experience as an interesting artifact that could be pointing toward the fact of consciousness being independent of the brain, or of having a different nature altogether than what was previously believed.
So I take it kind of like a new archaeological discovery: someone uncovered evidence of humans in the Americas reliably dating back to 40,000 years ago? OK, that's very interesting, that's got my attention. Now let's see what further research says. Let's see if someone comes up with similar findings elsewhere.
This seems like a reasonable, relatively conservative approach to me. "Belief pending further investigation."
I was wondering where you got this and realized that I missed the second (and much more descriptive) article on this topic. I totally see your point and yes, that makes it very interesting indeed. I might actually read this! Lol.
One question that I wonder would be answered if I read the book though... How long exactly does he believe all of this vision took? Was it the full seven days? How could he know? From my own experience, I know that dreams can seem very long, but take place within a few minutes. Who's to say that all of this vision didn't take place AFTER his neocortex was already activated again? (Which we know happened because... he's telling this story...) I don't think it would be possible to prove that this vision happened while his cortex was 'shut down' but I would need more information to see if he can shatter this doubt.
Edit: I should have read @Cinorjer 's comment above mine before posting this.. Oh bother. Great comment though.
Interesting. Seems like what we have here is the battle between 2 biases (Alexander - Harris).
That's one way of looking at it. I think Harris makes some valid objections, however; and I'm less convinced that heaven exists based upon Alexander's experience than I am of Harris' opinion that "the conclusions Alexander has drawn from his experience ... are based on some very obvious errors in reasoning and gaps in his understanding."
I don't doubt Alexander had this experience; but I'm highly skeptical of the conclusion he reaches based upon it alone, and I think Harris does a good job of explaining why we should be.
Interesting. Seems like what we have here is the battle between 2 biases (Alexander - Harris).
If you can call Harris' insistance on reason and logic and evidence instead of bald assertions and flights of imagination "bias" then yes.
Reality has a known skeptical bias. Reality, time and again, has proven the skeptics right. The earth really isn't the center of the universe. The earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around. There are no dragons out there, the earth is not hollow and Atlantis will not be found, neither will Noah's ark nor Bigfoot. Because reality doesn't always match our desire for what we want it to be.
Interesting. Seems like what we have here is the battle between 2 biases (Alexander - Harris).
If you can call Harris' insistance on reason and logic and evidence instead of bald assertions and flights of imagination "bias" then yes.
Reality has a known skeptical bias. Reality, time and again, has proven the skeptics right. The earth really isn't the center of the universe. The earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around. There are no dragons out there, the earth is not hollow and Atlantis will not be found, neither will Noah's ark nor Bigfoot. Because reality doesn't always match our desire for what we want it to be.
I think you and I probably define bias slightly differently. I don't see it as an inherently bad thing, although it can be. Each of us here on this forum has some bias in favor of Buddhist principles. I see bias as what we come into a situation with. That's all. And, oh, nobody is bias-free.
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zombiegirlbeating the drum of the lifelessin a dry wastelandVeteran
Interesting. Seems like what we have here is the battle between 2 biases (Alexander - Harris).
If you can call Harris' insistance on reason and logic and evidence instead of bald assertions and flights of imagination "bias" then yes.
Reality has a known skeptical bias. Reality, time and again, has proven the skeptics right. The earth really isn't the center of the universe. The earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around. There are no dragons out there, the earth is not hollow and Atlantis will not be found, neither will Noah's ark nor Bigfoot. Because reality doesn't always match our desire for what we want it to be.
I think you and I probably define bias slightly differently. I don't see it as an inherently bad thing, although it can be. Each of us here on this forum has some bias in favor of Buddhist principles. I see bias as what we come into a situation with. That's all. And, oh, nobody is bias-free.
Ah, please forgive me. I'm gritting my teeth this year from dealing with the circus we call the political season, where this is accepted wisdom about the definition of bias and about the level of discourse:
"You do realize your candidate just lied repeatedly? Here's the list." "Well, what about your candidate? You're just showing a liberal bias." "All right, show me where he lied." "I don't have to, because you have a liberal bias! And you're a socialist, and a communist, and you want to take our guns away!"
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DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
Wel, if the universe/multiverse is mental as well as physical, it's possible that we go where we want and/or believe we go.
This is why I think preaching about hells is irresponsible. Especially when dealing with those close to death.
I kind of see it as a kind of spiritual (for lack of a better term) form of a hydrological system...
Home in the far couds; The path of least resistance... Can be tedious.
@PrairieGhost: Regarding the formless realms: yes, 7th jhana is the "sphere of nothingness" on that list. I suppose you could say that perception of nothing and feeling nothing is still perception and feeling. In any case, I know it is not nibbana itself, and not even particularly useful, since it hardly ever happens.
Regarding the Dharma Overground and "gaps" in consciousness: I have had those experiences. I don't know what they mean. I don't accept the Dharma Overground model in its entirety, I just like its seriousness, its modernity, and its helpful community, plus I think they are very solid with regard to the fundamentals of the practice, which is the most important thing for me at this stage. There is really not much to argue with them about, when it comes to the fundamentals. My main problem with the movement is the focus on progress and attainments, which leads to grasping and becoming in its own right for some of the participants there.
Regarding the mysterious nature of cessation (of perception, feeling, etc.) and the tathagatha: I really think it's more accessible than that, and you and I may have been talking past each other to some extent. The tathagatha is simply what's left when the fermentations have been ended. The reason for the lack of language for what's left when that happens is made clear in the Buddha's fire analogy:
"...suppose someone were to ask you, 'This fire that has gone out in front of you, in which direction from here has it gone? East? West? North? Or south?' Thus asked, how would you reply?"
"That doesn't apply, Master Gotama. Any fire burning dependent on a sustenance of grass and timber, being unnourished — from having consumed that sustenance and not being offered any other — is classified simply as 'out' (unbound)."
"Even so, Vaccha, any physical form by which one describing the Tathagata would describe him: That the Tathagata has abandoned, its root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of development, not destined for future arising. Freed from the classification of form, Vaccha, the Tathagata is deep, boundless, hard to fathom, like the sea. 'Reappears' doesn't apply. 'Does not reappear' doesn't apply. 'Both does & does not reappear' doesn't apply. 'Neither reappears nor does not reappear' doesn't apply. [And so on for the rest of the skandhas.]
I.e., you can't talk about the Tathagatha because it is not a thing, it is simply the absence of the process of suffering. This is further complicated by the fact that the Buddha sees ontological positions as a kind of fermentation in and of themselves, and refuses to take one:
"Does Master Gotama have any position at all?"
"A 'position,' Vaccha, is something that a Tathagata has done away with. What a Tathagata sees is this: 'Such is form, such its origin, such its disappearance; such is feeling, such its origin, such its disappearance; such is perception... such are mental fabrications... such is consciousness, such its origin, such its disappearance.' Because of this, I say, a Tathagata — with the ending, fading out, cessation, renunciation, & relinquishment of all construings, all excogitations, all I-making & mine-making & obsession with conceit — is, through lack of clinging/sustenance, released."
Now, I don't claim to be enlightened, and I have a position on this, which I acknowledge is suffering. My view is that just as a fire can be started on a site where another fire has gone out, suffering can start back up again after release. This is not to say that it's the same person, because there's no coherent basis for identification, but it can arise in the same physical body, just as if I light a piece of paper on fire, extinguish it, then relight it, the two fires aren't the same, they're just using the same fuel. I also believe that the actions we take to support our lives are suffering, whether there has been release prior to that or not. So when the Buddha obtained and ate food, the five skandhas were operating in support of that. Of course, he presumably did not identify with the five skandhas at any moment of their operation, and therefore could be said to be tathagatha and free of suffering. But the operation of the skandhas is suffering in and of itself.
I think that is what you meant when you said "I don't breathe, so [I don't crave for breath.]" But this seems glib and dubious to me. The practical, phenomenological question is whether there would be a sense of identity with the tremendous disturbance of asphyxiation. If it would, then that claim is just words/intellect, and does not represent any meaningful shift from the conventional mode of experiencing the world. By this, I don't mean to imply that you are badly trained, just that I think disidentification from the five skandhas in a given situation is contingent and subject to fluctuation, and that therefore cessation is not a terminal state, but arises and passes away like all other aspects of experience. To me, the actual cessation of suffering is the key metric (what I measure and therefore classify myself by. , though I must admit, my capabilities in this regard are quite modest.
Regarding nibbana and death, I am curious about your view of the Godhika sutta. In it, Godhika repeatedly fails to obtain release through practice and decides to kill himself. The Buddha says he obtained release as a result of that.
This particular topic is interesting. I see Dr. Eben Alexander's NDE as the play within a play to 'catch the conscience of the King' (II.ii.605)—in this case, a materialist. How many western Buddhist are crypto-materialists I cannot say but certainly those who sympathize with Sam Harris' rather snarky spin on Dr. Eben Alexander's NDE are certainly moving away from what the Buddha taught which makes them seem more like dogs in the manger than sincere Buddhists.
Or maybe some of us just think that Harris makes a more convincing argument and appears to have a better understanding of how the brain works than Alexander. Saying 'I had this experience while in a coma and it's led me to believe that consciousness may be independent of the body and that heaven is real' is one thing; saying 'I had this experience while in a coma, which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that consciousness is independent of the body and heaven is real' is quite another, especially when other explanations haven't been ruled out and Alexander provides little to no evidence that'd actually help to support his claim (e.g., proof of neuronal inactivity). Just because I may like the idea of consciousness having an aspect that's independent of the brain or entertain the possibility doesn't mean I'm going to blindly accept the experiences of every person who has an NDE, and OBE, and/or visions while in a coma as proof, or even at face value. If that makes me a 'dog in the manger,' so be it.
Comments
It's ok, the guy just had an experience. It doesn't matter what it 'was'. If it's helpful or inspiring to you, that's good; no one's trying to convince you of anything. Better to see dependent origination than to worry about bits of samsara you haven't seen yet.
Look, I don't want to make fun of people's beliefs, only point out that people's understanding of what they experience is formed and given meaning by the beliefs, not the other way around. The belief comes first, before the meaning we assign to it. Then our minds use the experience to reinforce the beliefs.
This Doctor was, according to the article and his own words, a faithful Christian before this, although he doubted accounts of NDEs. Yet his description is exactly like all the other NDE accounts and what he experienced in no way added anything to what we know. Unless he thought all those other people were lying, all that happened was, he confirmed these visions really do happen and seem very real to the people having them.
What fascinates me in this instance is the power of the skandhas to effect each other. "Form" is the brain. What happens to the physical activity in the brain has a powerful effect on our memories, beliefs, emotions, and consciousness.
We know visions have a transforming effect on our minds. Throughout history, people have experienced visions that have given them purpose and meaning to their lives and changed them in miraculous ways. Sometimes those visions were self-induced, produced by sacred drugs, sometimes by fasting and meditation and praying and even painful ordeals.
I only disagree with the miraculous nature of the vision to the extent I content the visions are a product of the mind and any meaning is personal and valid only for the mind that experiences it. If this vision, as it seems, transforms his life and gives it meaning in some way, good for him.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=peace-of-mind-near-death
I read a book a few years ago by a guy who was an atheist and claimed to have had an NDE and was scared straight, so to speak, into turning to Christianity again. Instead of going to heaven, he went to hell. It was an interesting read, but as I recall some of the book was "save yourself before it's too late, hell is real!" which turned me off a bit. His account was interesting.
And I've studied that sutta, it is very useful in understanding the deathless, by process of elimination.
Wean Yourself
Little by little, wean yourself.
This is the gist of what I have to say.
From an embryo, whose nourishment comes in the blood,
move to an infant drinking milk,
to a child on solid food,
to a searcher after wisdom,
to a hunter of more invisible game.
Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo.
You might say, "The world outside is vast and intricate.
There are wheatfields and mountain passes,
and orchards in bloom.
At night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight
the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding."
You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up
in the dark with eyes closed.
Listen to the answer.
There is no "other world."
I only know what I've experienced.
You must be hallucinating.
Rumi
Why not just live? Oh! But you are alive.
Thanks for the poem, it's exquisite.
Ok, sorry.
I just got the impression from your posts on another thread that you don't quite follow what the Buddha is saying in that sutta, but it is quite possible that I am wrong.
''Do you see a Tathagata in feeling, perception, formative tendencies, consciousness?'
'No, Sir.'
'O Anuradha, what do you think, do you regard that which is without form, feeling, perception, formative tendencies and consciousness as a Tathagata?'
'No, Sir.'''
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:4cJPqLs2VWEJ:www.budsas.org/ebud/whatbudbeliev/41.htm+is+the+tathagata+form&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
Forget about me; as I've said before, I'm just some opinionated guy on the internet. But based only on this: I humbly suggest you reconsider your understanding of this: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.15.0.than.html
and this: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an10/an10.006.than.html
Because your interpretation of them appears to me to be missing a greater point. And it's the only point I have any interest in.
Edit at 6:15 p.m. US EST: Strike biological.
What does the cessation of perception and feeling mean to you?
1 minute, going out for a cig
Craving?!!!
I think it's good that neurologists are having unusual experiences and are writing about them (see also: "My Stroke of Insight", written by another neurologist). I like the scientific parts, like where he says that his entire cortex was shut down, so by current scientific knowledge, there's no way he could have been conscious. More surgeons and scientists are writing about unusual observations about their patients or their own experiences. It's important to build up a literature about these things by scientific and medical sources, rather than dismiss it out of hand. Science is about investigating, not shutting down on certain subjects just because one has a bias against them. Maybe someday these things will be better understood, in the same way that radio waves were not even conceivable and electricity was not understood, and gravity was believed to be a crock, and the Sun was believed to revolve around the Earth. But now all this knowledge and these phenomena are understood and are ordinary.
Thanks for posting, PrarieGhost.
Not deep sleep. There was awareness, but of nothing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_cosmology#Formless_Realm_.28.C4.80r.C5.ABpyadh.C4.81tu.29
I thought you had similar experiences to others at the Dharma Overground who talk of a gap in consciousness as 'touching nibbana for a moment', and coming out of it as some kind of fruition moment, I think. I'm not fully versed in their system. That'll teach me to assume.
I think the experience may be important to the person experiencing it, but I draw the line at that. Once upon a time I felt that God spoke to me, and yes, this experience saved my life and was very important to me. I most likely would not be around today had it not been for that but... I no longer need it as validity. I still can't explain it, but one thing I never did was demand that everyone else believe in it, putting myself out there as indisputable proof. Absolutely not. I know that at the base, it doesn't make sense scientifically and is 100% a personal experience... which even I admit, could be something other than what it appears.
Also, just because he's made a living studying science doesn't mean anything to me. Growing up in my small little country town, when it came time to learn about evolution, my biology teacher gave us a lecture about how he was sorry he had to teach it and that he didn't believe in it because it stood contrary to the bible's teachings. He said he only did it because the school board forced him. People cried. It was weird... but the point being, when someone sees something as standing in opposition to their faith, they don't always make the rational decision.
The cessation of perception and feeling is not something I can communicate with words. Even the Buddha's 'consciousness unestablished, luminous all around' is a very limited description, and incorrect at least in English, starting with but not limited to the noun 'consciousness'. 'Around', with its connotations of a centre, is also misleading.
It can only be achieved though insight i.e. yours, based on, and this next sentence is necessarily paradoxical, tracing sensations to where they did not and do not arise. Even the word 'insight' here is potentially misleading.
'The Ending of Mental Fermentations
"With his mind thus concentrated, purified, and bright, unblemished, free from defects, pliant, malleable, steady, and attained to imperturbability, the monk directs and inclines it to the knowledge of the ending of the mental fermentations. He discerns, as it has come to be, that 'This is stress... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress... This is the way leading to the cessation of stress... These are mental fermentations... This is the origination of fermentations... This is the cessation of fermentations... This is the way leading to the cessation of fermentations.' His heart, thus knowing, thus seeing, is released from the fermentation of sensuality, the fermentation of becoming, the fermentation of ignorance. With release, there is the knowledge, 'Released.' He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.' Just as if there were a pool of water in a mountain glen — clear, limpid, and unsullied — where a man with good eyesight standing on the bank could see shells, gravel, and pebbles, and also shoals of fish swimming about and resting, and it would occur to him, 'This pool of water is clear, limpid, and unsullied. Here are these shells, gravel, and pebbles, and also these shoals of fish swimming about and resting.' In the same way — with his mind thus concentrated, purified, and bright, unblemished, free from defects, pliant, malleable, steady, and attained to imperturbability — the monk directs and inclines it to the knowledge of the ending of the mental fermentations. He discerns, as it has come to be, that 'This is stress... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress... This is the way leading to the cessation of stress... These are mental fermentations... This is the origination of fermentations... This is the cessation of fermentations... This is the way leading to the cessation of fermentations.' His heart, thus knowing, thus seeing, is released from the fermentation of sensuality, the fermentation of becoming, the fermentation of ignorance. With release, there is the knowledge, 'Released.' He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'''
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.11.0.than.html
So I take it kind of like a new archaeological discovery: someone uncovered evidence of humans in the Americas reliably dating back to 40,000 years ago? OK, that's very interesting, that's got my attention. Now let's see what further research says. Let's see if someone comes up with similar findings elsewhere.
This seems like a reasonable, relatively conservative approach to me. "Belief pending further investigation."
After the cessation of perception and feeling, only the unbinding element is left. Think of a ball in a squash court after a game - it will still bounce for a while after the idiot stops whacking it. Ouch
'Say not so, friend!'
Sorry, Ananda. Anyway...
The nibbana element with no residue is the complete end of any dualistic notion of sense going out to objects, or experience by an experiencer. Self is not self, seeing is not seeing, breathing is not breathing, thinking is not thinking. The sky is not blue or grey, the sea is neither green nor silver nor troubled or calm.
No life or death, no day or dreams, neither drowsiness nor wakefulness nor sleep nor rapt wide eyes. But let me be clear about this, there is no absence of these things either; they are, as the zen priest said, not as they seem, nor are they otherwise. And yet this world is not strange to you, you know it like a fish knows the sea.
In terms of death, the Tathagata was silent, but not through ignorance. When body and mind fall away, not to their absence but to that which awakens beyond the yielding of the currents they are construed by, there is nothing left to say except what has been said before, but better, richer, clearer.
The best hint, in my opinion, is found in this sutta: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn44/sn44.001.than.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(film)
What does Dr. Eben Alexander have to say about this?
"All the chief arguments against near-death experiences suggest that these experiences are the results of minimal, transient, or partial malfunctioning of the cortex. My near-death experience, however, took place not while my cortex was malfunctioning, but while it was simply off. This is clear from the severity and duration of my meningitis, and from the global cortical involvement documented by CT scans and neurological examinations. According to current medical understanding of the brain and mind, there is absolutely no way that I could have experienced even a dim and limited consciousness during my time in the coma, much less the hyper-vivid and completely coherent odyssey I underwent." (Bold added.)
Here is where the good Doctor should know better. First, while there might have been no measured activity, saying his cortex was "simply off" is not possible unless the cells were dead. In which case he would have remained in a vegetative state. As a scientist and doctor, a more accurate statement is "no measurable activity in that part of the brain".
But beyond that, he neglects to point out that the brain is not a recording device and has no internal time stamp like a video recorder. His visions, like dreams, would have happened before and after complete shutdown. Also, NDE research is full of people with experiences that had their body and brains deliberately shut down by chilling so he's again stretching the truth.
He keeps saying all these visions happened "during" complete shutdown but it is well known from dreams that people vastly mistake the short amount of time even an involved dream takes. Add the drugs that the doctors would have been pumping through his body and this statement becomes complete nonsense. People even in normal functioning wake and think they've been dreaming from the time they went to sleep, when the rem dream stage took maybe 15 minutes.
Again, this is just to point out that the brain and mind is a wonderful, complicated, miraculous thing but it is not a simple recording machine. This man had a near death experience, no matter what visions he saw. That has a profound effect on anyone.
One question that I wonder would be answered if I read the book though... How long exactly does he believe all of this vision took? Was it the full seven days? How could he know? From my own experience, I know that dreams can seem very long, but take place within a few minutes. Who's to say that all of this vision didn't take place AFTER his neocortex was already activated again? (Which we know happened because... he's telling this story...) I don't think it would be possible to prove that this vision happened while his cortex was 'shut down' but I would need more information to see if he can shatter this doubt.
Edit: I should have read @Cinorjer 's comment above mine before posting this.. Oh bother. Great comment though.
I don't doubt Alexander had this experience; but I'm highly skeptical of the conclusion he reaches based upon it alone, and I think Harris does a good job of explaining why we should be.
Reality has a known skeptical bias. Reality, time and again, has proven the skeptics right. The earth really isn't the center of the universe. The earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around. There are no dragons out there, the earth is not hollow and Atlantis will not be found, neither will Noah's ark nor Bigfoot. Because reality doesn't always match our desire for what we want it to be.
"You do realize your candidate just lied repeatedly? Here's the list."
"Well, what about your candidate? You're just showing a liberal bias."
"All right, show me where he lied."
"I don't have to, because you have a liberal bias! And you're a socialist, and a communist, and you want to take our guns away!"
This is why I think preaching about hells is irresponsible. Especially when dealing with those close to death.
I kind of see it as a kind of spiritual (for lack of a better term) form of a hydrological system...
Home in the far couds;
The path of least resistance...
Can be tedious.
Regarding the Dharma Overground and "gaps" in consciousness: I have had those experiences. I don't know what they mean. I don't accept the Dharma Overground model in its entirety, I just like its seriousness, its modernity, and its helpful community, plus I think they are very solid with regard to the fundamentals of the practice, which is the most important thing for me at this stage. There is really not much to argue with them about, when it comes to the fundamentals. My main problem with the movement is the focus on progress and attainments, which leads to grasping and becoming in its own right for some of the participants there.
Regarding the mysterious nature of cessation (of perception, feeling, etc.) and the tathagatha: I really think it's more accessible than that, and you and I may have been talking past each other to some extent. The tathagatha is simply what's left when the fermentations have been ended. The reason for the lack of language for what's left when that happens is made clear in the Buddha's fire analogy: I.e., you can't talk about the Tathagatha because it is not a thing, it is simply the absence of the process of suffering. This is further complicated by the fact that the Buddha sees ontological positions as a kind of fermentation in and of themselves, and refuses to take one: Now, I don't claim to be enlightened, and I have a position on this, which I acknowledge is suffering. My view is that just as a fire can be started on a site where another fire has gone out, suffering can start back up again after release. This is not to say that it's the same person, because there's no coherent basis for identification, but it can arise in the same physical body, just as if I light a piece of paper on fire, extinguish it, then relight it, the two fires aren't the same, they're just using the same fuel. I also believe that the actions we take to support our lives are suffering, whether there has been release prior to that or not. So when the Buddha obtained and ate food, the five skandhas were operating in support of that. Of course, he presumably did not identify with the five skandhas at any moment of their operation, and therefore could be said to be tathagatha and free of suffering. But the operation of the skandhas is suffering in and of itself.
I think that is what you meant when you said "I don't breathe, so [I don't crave for breath.]" But this seems glib and dubious to me. The practical, phenomenological question is whether there would be a sense of identity with the tremendous disturbance of asphyxiation. If it would, then that claim is just words/intellect, and does not represent any meaningful shift from the conventional mode of experiencing the world. By this, I don't mean to imply that you are badly trained, just that I think disidentification from the five skandhas in a given situation is contingent and subject to fluctuation, and that therefore cessation is not a terminal state, but arises and passes away like all other aspects of experience. To me, the actual cessation of suffering is the key metric (what I measure and therefore classify myself by.
Regarding nibbana and death, I am curious about your view of the Godhika sutta. In it, Godhika repeatedly fails to obtain release through practice and decides to kill himself. The Buddha says he obtained release as a result of that.