Magic Primate

OK, I see ya.

(duh)

triplew00t

What tipped me off was what your posts were about more than the name. Only later did I notice the similarities there. Your posts about Nishijima-sensei were similar on both forums, so I put two and two together. Oh, I sent him an email btw. I am awaiting a reply, I hope he has some advice.

Nero

Magic Primate

I expect he will - he enjoys interesting questions.

triplew00t

Thank you for your replies. I tried to reason why I feared death, and this is the best I can come up with.


I fear ceasing to exist, but even more I fear not ceasing to exist. I fear leaving ones behind, and having unfinished business. I fear the process of dying. Mostly, I do not want to stop living, but even more, I would hate living without end.

And I fear that no one can die WITH me. I will be, ultimately, all alone when dying. I fear struggling, fighting death in vain. I fear grasping and clinging to life as it is ripped from me, all the while using every ounce of my strength to grasp at it, but having no control at all over it, as death is stronger than I am. All of this is bad enough assuming death is the end of consciousness, but even worse if I expected another world or life after I died.

Nero

Vajradhara

Namaste andy_d,

thank you for the post.

this is a very lucid explanation of why rebirth occurs. remember that Buddhist philosophy states that there are 24 conditions that cause rebirth, karma being and important but not sole cause.

what is very difficult for westerners to comprehend is how the Buddhist view of consciousness is vastly different than the western view.

concerning the qustion of souls...

Question: On the death of a sentient being, is there a �soul� that wanders about at will?

Answer: When a sentient being leaves one existence, it is reborn either as a human being, a celestial being, (Deva or Brahama), and inferior animal, or a denizen of one of the regions of hell. The sceptics and the ignorant people held that there are intermediate stages � antrabhava � between these; and that there are beings who are neither of the human, the celestial, the Deva or the Brahma worlds nor of any one of the stages of existence recognised in the scriptures � but are in an intermediate stage. Some assert that these transitional stages are possessed of the Five Skhandhas ( Five Aggregates: they are Matter (rupa); Feeling (vedana); Perception (sanna); 4. Mental-activities (sankhara); and Consciousness (vinnana).
Some assert that these beings are detached �souls� or spirits with no material encasement, and some again, that they are possessed of the faculty of seeing like Devas, and further, that they have power of changing at will, at short intervals, from one to any of the existence mentioned above. Others again hold the fantastic and erroneous theory that these beings can, and so, fancy themselves to be in other than the existence they are actually in. Thus, to take for example one such of these suppositious beings. He is a poor person � and yet he fancies himself to be rich. He may be in hell � and yet he fancies himself to be in the land of the Devas, and so on. This belief in intermediate stages between existences is false, and is condemned in the Buddhist teachings. A human being in this life who, by his Karma is destined to be a human being in the next, will be reborn as such; one who by his Karma is destined to be a Deva in the next will be appear in the land of the Devas; and one whose future life is to be in Hell, will be found in one of the regions of hell in the next existence.
The idea of an entity or soul or spirit �going�, �coming�, �changing� or �transmigrating� from one existence to another is an idea entertained by the ignorant and materialistic, and is certainly not justified by the Dhammas that there is no such thing as �going�, 'coming�, �changing�, etc., as between existences. The conception, which is in accordance with the Dhamma, may perhaps be illustrated by the picture thrown out by a cinema projector, or the sound of emitted by the gramophone, and their relation to the film or the sound-box and records respectively. For example, a human being dies and is reborn in the land of Devas. Though these two existences are different, yet the link or continuity between the two at death is unbroken in point of time. The same is true in the case of a man whose further existence is to be in hell. The distance between Hell and the abode of man appears to be great. Yet, in point of time, the continuity of �passage� from the one existence to the other is unbroken, and no intervening matter or space can interrupt the trend of a man�s Karma from the world of human beings to the regions of Hell. The �passage� from one existence to another is instantaneous, and the transition is infinitely quicker than the blink of an eyelid or a lightening-flash. [this is not the view of the Mahayana Tradition, where it holds that there is an intermediate time before rebirth occurs {vajradhara}].
Karma determines the realm of rebirth and the state of existence in that realm of all transient being (in the cycle of existences, which have to be traversed till the attainment, at last, of Nibbana).
The results of Karma are manifold, and may be effected in many ways. Religious offerings (dana) may obtain for a man the privilege of rebirth as a human being, or as a deva, in one of the six deva worlds according to the degree of the merit of the deeds performed, and so with the observance of religious duties (sila). The jhanas or states of absorption, are found in the Brahma world or Brahmalokas up to the summit, the twentieth Brahma world: And so with bad deeds, the perpetrators of which are to be found , grade by grade, down to the lowest depths of Hell. Thus are Karma, past, present and future were, are, and will ever be the sum total of our deeds, good, indifferent or bad. As was seen from the foregoing, our Karma determines the changes of our existences.
"Evil spirits" are, therefore, not beings in an intermediate or transitional stages of existence, but are really very inferior beings, and they belong to one of the following five realms of existence:
1. World of Men
2. The Lowest plane of deva-world
3. The region of hell
4. Animals below men
5. Petas (ghosts).
Number 2 and 5 are very near the world of human beings. As their condition is unhappy, and they are popularly considered evil spirits. It is not true that all who die in this world are reborn as evil spirits; nor is it true that beings who die sudden or violent deaths are apt to be reborn in the lowest plane of the world of devas.

triplew00t

At the moment I am a follower of Soto Zen, and neither believe in an afterlife, or a life after this one.

Nero

Vajradhara

Namaste,

at this point in time, i am unaware of a Sutra or Mantra basis for this opinion, though i consider it a valid opinion still

if you do have a scriptural basis for this opinion, i would be very pleased to have a chance to study it.

triplew00t

There is no scriptual basis. Thats what Soto is about. If anything goes against what you feel to be true, against common sense and what we understand of reality, reject it. All these talks of heavens and hells are unneeded to explain life. They are superfluous.



If you meet the Buddha, kill him. - Zen Proverb


All the sutras of the world are but waste paper to wipe the dirt from the mind. When you are done with them, burn them.
- Zen Proverb.

The teachings are a finger pointing to the moon. Never stop at the finger.
- Zen Proverb


The teaching of the Buddha was mainly for the purpose of enlightening others. If you are dependent on any of its methods, you are naught but an ignorant insect. There are 80,000 books on Buddhism, and if you should read all of them and yet not understand your true nature, you will not understand even this letter. This is my last will and testament.
- Post Script on her last letter to her son, Ikkyu, signed "Your Mother, not born, not dead".


The master of a temple set up a challenge. Whoever could give him the best poem that shows the understanding of Zen, he would pass his position to at his death. The challenge was tacked to the wall in the kitchen and at first a student took the challenge.

"The wind of Enlightenment blows to all minds"

A second monk tried his hand.

"All minds are enlightened already. What wind?"

Finally, the cook, who have never even meditated, came out to write one more poem on the wall.

"No wind, no enlightenment. And whats all this talk about minds?"

He was given the master's postition

-Paraphrased from an old Zen story

Nero

andy_d

Er, Triplew00t, do you not find it ironic to refute reliance on scripture by quoting a bunch of traditional sayings?

andy_d

Arse! Douple post. Ignore please!