Penalty after death
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The Process of Rebirth
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Originally posted by wisdomeye:
Dondontan,
one of the assumption of alot of people is that bad karma is very easy and fast to wipe off. In the texts, it is usually described protracted time of karmic retribution for most of the 10 negative acts (usually in the lower realm) before karma wears off (once the results of karma has ripened). I dun think most of us have just one lifetime of karma to handle but many lives. Every single day, we can be having thoughts of covetousness, anger, lying and killing. So even if you get human life again, no guarantee of good life.
Personally, there are many things i dun understand about how rebirth too. One of my observation about rebirths in many of the records of past life regression like Many Lives, Many Masters (title correct?), Ian Stevenson and so forth, i see the peopl having repeated human rebirths. Which, according to my present view of karma, is really quite unlikely. Eg is the earlier video i posted up in the forum, about the young boy who remembered his past life as a pilot. According to most opinions i've heard, if one dies in that kind of trauma/accident, it is not a good sign and most probably will go lower realm due to the intense aversion or fear state one dies in. Apparently that didn't turn out so!
Also, there seems to be few observations of animal births but instead many human births although i have friend who remembered past life as animal.
Then there is also the theory of spiritual energy. I've read before in Ven Hsuan Hua book that the animal spiritual energy is many many times fraction of that of human, and once go into that kind of level of energy, it is very difficult to regain human rebirth again. In fact, he said that one human spirit becomes split into many animal spirits, to come back as human again, these essences or spirits must reconglomerate. So it is very difficult. By deduction, it is also not likely for human to go into animal realm, if we just go by spiritual energy theory, cos the energy needs great force to split into such minuscule pieces. (my assumption)
pls comment.
Just for discussion and not definitive.
My understanding of rebirth between species differs slightly from the traditional Buddhist views. There is a possibility of rebirth between species... but my understanding is that there must be a vibration-tendency match in order for that to occur.
It is possible to continue 'evolving' into a dark path (after death) even when in what may be considered as 'higher dimension'. But there is a ceiling to how far a dark path can go. When in the 'higher dimension' a dark being can be very powerful. However, the accumulated karma will eventually pull the Being into a lower dimension rebirth such as becoming a vicious animal.
That is perhap why, most rebirth accounts are about becoming humans again. For most cases, the rebirth into animals do not occur at the human stage, but at the end peak of a very dark evolutionary path into the finer realms.
Often there is a period of existence between physical rebirth, that part is not captured in a past-life regression.
Traumas do not necessarily mean a ghost afterlife... although i have seen ghost before that appear to have died tranmatically.
This is just my understanding, though.
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hi Longchen,
i've been waiting for someone to comment on these points in the thread, thanks for your contribution. Because frankly speaking, it has perplexed me quite abit in the past. From my limited understanding, still unable to use my Buddhist knowledge to explain many phenomenon encountered in this world.
But yet, didn't Buddha also said that what he taught is just like the leaf in his hand n the world of knowledge out there is just like the forest, so maybe some things he didn't talk about.
regarding your answer, can u explain what is 'dark path' and what is considered 'peak end of the dark path in the finer dimensions'?
from what i know, it is not necessary to go thru any path. It is possible to go str8 from human to animal by attachment. For eg., someone died, just before she died, she attached to a precious stone her father promised her. When she died, still didn't get precious stone, and her consciousness lodge within the stone and reborn as a kind of worm. they opened the stone, each time call her name, the worm will respond by straightening body vertically up. Mother faint, father and family cry.
this is not just eg. It happend to someone.
trauma doesn't 100 percent mean ghost afterlife but the states of mind one dies in is very impt for next immediate coming life. So it generally affects very much. as above eg also shows.
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Originally posted by wisdomeye:
hi Longchen,
i've been waiting for someone to comment on these points in the thread, thanks for your contribution. Because frankly speaking, it has perplexed me quite abit in the past. From my limited understanding, still unable to use my Buddhist knowledge to explain many phenomenon encountered in this world.
But yet, didn't Buddha also said that what he taught is just like the leaf in his hand n the world of knowledge out there is just like the forest, so maybe some things he didn't talk about.
regarding your answer, can u explain what is 'dark path' and what is considered 'peak end of the dark path in the finer dimensions'?
from what i know, it is not necessary to go thru any path. It is possible to go str8 from human to animal by attachment. For eg., someone died, just before she died, she attached to a precious stone her father promised her. When she died, still didn't get precious stone, and her consciousness lodge within the stone and reborn as a kind of worm. they opened the stone, each time call her name, the worm will respond by straightening body vertically up. Mother faint, father and family cry.
this is not just eg. It happend to someone.
trauma doesn't 100 percent mean ghost afterlife but the states of mind one dies in is very impt for next immediate coming life. So it generally affects very much. as above eg also shows.
Hi Wisdomeye,
I don't wish to confuse readers with personal experiences of mine. Based on my limited knowledge, some of these findings and experiences do not fully conform to the traditional views pertaining to rebirth dynamics.There are some meditative experience that certainly do not fit into the traditional descriptions 100%. Since, if i say and others cannot verify, it will only confuse those readers that like to collect informations.
However, the core fundamental teachings of the 3 characteristics certainly conform!
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Hi! I had some one off experience that inclined me to theories posited below:-
However, I am unable to find clinical studies, proof of DMT being released during birth and death.
Sitting for Sessions:
Dharma & DMT Research
Rick J. Strassman, M.D.
Rick Strassman, M.D. is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia. He is currently working on a book describing his psychedelic drug research with DMT, The Spirit Molecule.
In January 1991, twenty-three minutes after I injected a large dose of DMT (N,N-dimethyltryptamine) into Elena's arm vein. Elena is a forty-two-year-old married psychotherapist with extensive personal experience with psychedelic drugs. DMT is a powerful, short-acting psychedelic that occurs naturally in human body fluids, and is also found in many plants. Elena has read some Buddhism, but tractices Taoist meditation
She lies in a bed on the fifth floor of the University of New Mexico Hospital general Clinical Research Center. The clear plastic tubing that provides access to her vein dangles onto the bed. he cuff of a blood pressure machine is loosely attached to her other arm, and the tubing snakes its way into the back of a blinking monitor.
Within thirty seconds of injection, she loses awareness of the room, and us in it. Besides myself, Elena's husband, who has just undergone a similar drug session, and our research nurse sit quietly by her side. I know from previous volunteers' reports that peak effects of intravenous DMT occur between two to three minutes after the injection, and that she will not be able to communicate for at least fifteen minutes, by which time most effects will have faded. Her eyes closed, she begins spurting out laughter, at times quite uproarious, and her face turns red. "Well, I met a living buddha! Oh, God! I'm staying here. I don't want to lose this. I want to keep my eyes closed to allow it to imprint itself. Just because it's possible!"
Elena felt great the next week. "Life if very different. A buddha is now always in the upper right-hand corner of my consciousness," says Elena. "All of what I have been working on spiritually for the last several years has become a certainty. Left hooks from the mundane world continue to come up and hit me, but the solidity of the experience anchors me, allows me to handle it all. Time stopped at the peak of the experience; now everyday time has slowed. The third stage, that of coming down from the peak was the most important; if I had opened my eyes too soon I wouldn't have been able to do as much integrating of the experience as I have."
Two years later, Elena rarely takes psychedelics. Her most positive recollection of the DMT session was the "clarity and purity of the medicine." The most negative: "The absolute lack of sacredness and context." Many of the changes in her life, particularly a deepening shift from "thinking" to "feeling," were "supported" by the DMT session, but were underway before it, and continued after it.
Elena's experience, repeated by 10 to 20 percent of the volunteers in our psychedelic drug trials, represents the most gratifying and intriguing results of our work in New Mexico. My own interest in Buddhism and psychedelics meet in the most positive way in her DMT-induced "enlightenment-experience."
Ours was the first new project in twenty-five years to obtain U.S. government funding for a human psychedelic drugs study. This scientific research was the result of eighteen years of medical and psychiatric training and experience. I also have been practicing Zen buddhism for over twenty years. And it is in the molecule DMT where these two interests have finally merged.
There are important medical reasons to study psychedelics drugs in humans. The use of LSD ("acid") and "magic" mushrooms (which contain psilocybin) continues to climb. Understanding what psychedelics do to brain function, and how, will help treat short- and long-term negative reactions to them. Because there is some similarity of symptoms between psychedelic drugs states and schizophrenia, psychedelic drug research also may shed new light on this devastating mental illness.
There are other reasons to study psychedelic drugs. Although les "medical," they do relate to health and well-being. Primary among them is the overlap between psychedelic and religious states. I was impressed by the "psychedelic" descriptions of intensive meditation practice within some Buddhist traditions. Because their scriptures did not mention drugs, and the states sounded similar to those resulting from psychedelic drug use, I suspected there might be a naturally occurring psychedelic molecule in the brain that was triggered by deep meditation.
I was led to the pineal gland as a possible source of psychedelic compounds produced under certain unusual mental or physical states. These conditions would include near-death, birth, high fever, prolonged meditation, starvation, and sensory deprivation. This tiny organ, the "seat of the soul" or "third-eye" of the ancients, might produce DMT or similar substances by simple chemical alterations of the well-known pineal hormone melatonin, or of the important brain chemical serotonin. Perhaps it is DMT, released by the pineal, that opens the mind's eye to spiritual or non physical, realities.
The pineal gland also held a fascination for me because it first becomes visible in the human fetus at forty-nine days after conception. This is also when the gender of the fetus if first clearly discernible. Forty-nine days, according to several Buddhist texts, is how long it takes the life force of one who has died to enter into its next incarnation. Perhaps the life-force of a human enters the fetus at forty-nine days through the pineal. And it may leave the body, at death, through the pineal. This coming and going would be marked by the release of DMT by the pineal, mediating awareness of these awesome events.
In addition to the scientific puzzle presented by these similarities between psychedelic and mystical consciousness, there were issues of healing that also drew me to both. The sense of there being "something greater" resulting from major psychedelic episodes led me to think that psychedelics might be helpful to people with psychological, physical, or spiritual problems. It seemed crucial to avoid the narrowness that often spoiled claims for the drugs' usefulness or dangers, and to hold a broad view. My emerging worldview resembled a tripod supported by biological (brain), psycholanalytic (individual psychology), and Eastern religious (consciousness and spirituality) legs. The first two legs were important in my decision to attend medical school. The third pushed me deeper into Buddhism.
Disheartened by the lack of spirit in medical training, I took year's leave of absence from medical school and explored Zen in a series of retreats. Zen's emphasis on direct experience, its evenhanded approach to all mental phenomena encountered during meditation, and the importance of enlightenment all fit with my image of an ideal religious tradition. During my four-year psychiatric training, I helped found and run a meditation group affiliated with my long-standing Zen community. I was ordained as a lay Buddhist in the mid-1980s. This was the same year I was trained in clinical psychopharmacology, learning to administer psychoactive drugs to human volunteers in controlled scientific studies.
The form our research in New Mexico took was a traditional biomedical one, monitoring effects of several DMT doses on blood pressure, temperature, pupil size, and blood levels of several chemicals indicating brain function. We recruited experienced halluncinogen users who were psychologically and medically fit. This was because they would be better able to report on their experiences, and less likely to panic or suffer longer-lasting side effects, than drug-inexperienced volunteers. Volunteers believed in the ability of psychedelics to help "inner work," and volunteered, at least in part, to use DMT for their personal growth.
Was there a spiritual aspect to the DMT experience? And, if so, was this helpful in and of itself? This was one of my deeper reasons for developing our DMT research program.
Supervising sessions is called "sitting," usually believed to come from "baby-sitting" people in a highly dependent and, at times, confused and vulnerable states. But, in our minds, Buddhist practice is as relevant a source for the term. Our research nurse and I did our best to practice meditation while with our volunteers: watching the breath, being alert, eyes open, ready to respond, keeping a bright attitude, and getting our of the way of the volunteer's experience. This method is very similar to what Freud called "evenly suspended attention," performed by a trained psychoanalyst who provided support by a mostly silent but present sitting by one's side. I experienced this type of listening and watching as similar to Zen meditation.
Another example of how psychedelic and Buddhist meditation converged was in the development of a new questionnaire to measure states of consciousness. Previous questionnaires measureing psychedelic drug effects were not ideal for many reasons. Some assumed that psychedelics caused nothing but psychosis, and emphasized unpleasant experiences. Other scales were developed useing volunteers who were not told what drugs they were given or what the effects might be. I had always liked the Buddhist view of the mind being divided into the five skandas ("heaps," "piles," or "aggregates") which, taken as a whole, give the impression of a personal self who experiences. These are the familiar "form," "feeling," "perception," "consciousness," and "volition." I looked into several guides to the Abhidharma literature, the Buddhist "psychological canon" with over a thousand years of use monitoring progress in meditation. It seemed that a skanda-based rating scale could provide an excellent basis for a neutral, descriptive understanding of psychedelic states.
I let it be known I was interested in talking with people who had taken DMT. Soon, the phone was ringing with people wanting to describe their experiences. Most of the nineteen people were from New Mexico and the West Coast, and nearly all were involved in some therapeutic or religious discipline. They were well-educated, articulate, and impressed with DMT's ability to open the door to highly unusual, nonmaterial states, which was greater than that of longer-lasting psychedeilcs like psilocybin or LSD. After completing these interviews, I decided to add a sixth "skanda" to the questionnaire, called "intensity," which helped quantify the nature of the experience.
We gave and analyzed this new questionnaire, the Hallucinogenic Rating Scale (HRS), almost 400 times to more than fifty people over four years. It is interesting to note that the grouping of questions using the skanda method gave more sensitive results in or DMT work than did a large number of biological meaurements, such as blood pressure, temperature, or levels of certain chemicals in blood.
Besides informing our style of sitting for and measuring responses to drug sessions, Buddhism helped make sense of the experiences people had in our relatively sparse but supportive environment. For many volunteers, even those with prior DMT use, the first high dose of intravenous DMT was like a near-death state, which in turn has been strongly linked to beneficial mystical experiences. Several were convinced they were dead or dying. Many had encounters with deities, spirits, angels, unimaginable creatures, and the source of all existence. Nearly all lost contact with their bodies at some point. Elena's case is a good example of an enlightenment experience--sounding identical to reports in the Buddhist meditative tradition--brought on by a high dose of DMT.
On one hand, a Buddhist perspective might hold all of these experiences to be equal. The matter-of-fact approach to nonmaterial realms in Buddhism provides firm footing for accepting and working with those experiences. It also does away with judging nonmaterial realms as better (or worse) than material ones--a tendency in some New Age religions. The experience of seeing and speaking to deva-like creatures in the DMT trance was just that: seeing and speaking with other beings. Not wiser, not less wise, and not more or less trustworthy than anyone or anything else.
On the other hand, how to meet head-on the volunteer who had a drug-induced enlightenment? Certify him or her as enlightened? Explain away by pharmacology the earth-shattering impact of the experience?
It was confusing. At first, it seemed as if a big dose of DMT was indeed transformative. As time elapsed, though, and we followed our volunteers for months and years, my perspective radically changed. While some, like Elena, had profoundly beneficial results from her participation, a small number of volunteers had frighening , negative responses that required some care afterward. Other, more subtle adverse effects also crept in (as may happen with Buddhist practice) in the form of increased self-pride--that is, a division into those with and without "understanding." In addition, "solving" problems while in an altered state--particularly common with high-dose psychedelic use--but then not putting the solution into practice, seemed to me worse than not even trying to work on the specific problem.
I have concluded that there is nothing inherent about psychedelics that has a beneficial effect, nor are they pharmacologically dangerous in and of themselves. The nature and results of the experience are determined by a complex combination of the drug's pharmacology, the state of volunteer at the time of drug administration, and the relationship between the individual and the physical and psychological environment: drug, set, and setting.
The volunteers who benefited most from their DMT sessions were those who probably would have gotten the most out of any "trip"--drug or otherwise. Those who benefited least were those who were the most novelty-saturated. The most difficult sessions took place in combinations of two factors, the first being an unwillingness to give up the internal dialogue and body-awareness; and the second being uncertain or confusing relationships between the volunteer and those in the room at the time. Therefore, the "religious," "adverse," or "banal" effects resulting from drug administration depended more upon the person and what he or she and those in the room brought to the session, than on any inherent characteristic of the drug itself.
Thus, the problem with depending on one or several transormative psychedelic experiences as a practice is that there is no framework that suitably deals with everyday life between drug sessions. The introduction of certain Amazonian hallucinogenic plant-using churches into the West, with their sets of ritual and moral codes, may provide a new model combining religious and psychedelic practices.
In the last year of our work, a more difficult personal interplay of Buddhism and psychedelics appeared. This involved what might be described as a turf-battle developing between my Zen community and me. For years, I had been given at least implicit support to pursue my research by several members of the Zen community. These were senior students with their own prior psychedelic experiences. In the last year, I described our work to psychedelic-naive members of the community, who strongly condemned it. Formerly sympatheric students appeared pressured to withdraw any support for my studies. This concern was specifically directed at two aspects of our research. One aspect was a planned psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy project with the terminally ill, research that demonstrated impressive potential in the 1960s. That is, in patients who were having difficulty with the dying process, a "dry run" with a high-dose psychedelic session might ease the anguish and despair associated with their terminal illness. the other area of concern was the potential for adverse effects, both the obvious and more subtle ones previously described.
Scriptural and perceptual bases for this disapproval were given, in addition to community members' own and others' experiences. However, it appeared to me that the major concern was that it would be highly detrimental for them, as a Buddhist community, to associate Buddhism with drug use in any way. It appeared that those students who had their own psychedelic experiences (and had found them to stimulate their interest in a meditative life) had to close ranks with those who did not.
What I have experienced as the friction between disciplines is not uncommon in the world at large, and perhaps within the Buddhist community in particular. That is, is it "Buddhist" to give, take or otherwise occupy oneself with psychedelics as spiritual tools?
Several research projects are being planned across the U.S., using psychedelics to treat intractable drug abuse--a condition with a high mortality rate if untreated. I understand Buddhist precepts to condone the use of "intoxicants" for medical purposes (e.g., cocaine for local anesthesia, narcotics for pain control). Whether or not a Buddhist who gives or takes a psychedelic "intoxicant" for the treatment of a medical condition faces similar criticism will be important to note. Complicating this case is the point that the psychological/spiritual effects of a properly prepared and supervised psychedelic session might be seen as curative.
In a final area of possible overlap, I believe there are ways in which Buddhism and the psychedelic community might benefit from an open, frank exchange of ideas, practices, and ethics. For the psychedelic community, the ethical, disciplined structuring of life, experience, and relationship provided by thousands of years of Buddhist communal traditon has much to offer. This well-developed tradition could infuse meaning and consistency into isolated, disjointed, and poorly integrated psychedelic experience, without the accompanying and necessary love and compassion cultivated in a daily practice, amy otherwise be frittered away in an excess of narcissism and self-indulgence. Although this is also possible with a Buddhist meditative tradition, it is less likely with the checks and balances in place within a dynamic community of practicioners.
However, dedicated Buddhist practitioners with little success in their meditation, but well along in moral and intellectual development, might benefit from a carefully timed, prepared, supervised, and followed-up psychedelic session to accelerate their practice. Psychedelics, if anything, provide a view that--to one so inclined--can inspire the long hard work required to make that view a living reality.
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hi longchen,
yes, true. if possible, can u pm me your views then? Am very interested in this cos many of these are underlying assumptions upon which my beliefs are built.
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hi weychin,
the ideas in the article are potentially very misleading. if i remember correctly, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche once said that such psychedelic experiences can give some experiences that affirm that there is something more than the physical materiality of our usual perception. Like the Jnana states, it is more like a self-confirmation that there is a spiritual side of things rather than an actual approach to realisation of emptiness/non-self/nonduality etc.
There are many people who go for psychedelic experiences and end up more confused, hooked or lost touch with their usual sense perceptions -- it can be called going crazy.
i think one has to be careful on one's choices and path. Make a clear distinction whether one is going for the end of suffering or going for more suffering. In Buddha's teachings, the only way to end one's suffering is to dissolve the illusion of self.
However, dedicated Buddhist practitioners with little success in their meditation, but well along in moral and intellectual development, might benefit from a carefully timed, prepared, supervised, and followed-up psychedelic session to accelerate their practice.
My opinion is different. I don't think drugs can dissolve attachments. It probably will create more attachments. Greedy for fast results will cause more problems. If one is not having progress in meditation, two things to do: do purification practice, and be diligent & consistent in practice. Hasten slowly and you will soon arrive.
No offense meant. Just would like to make a clear stand.
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I don't think weychin is encouraging psychedelic use but rather emphasizing the below quote:
The pineal gland also held a fascination for me because it first becomes visible in the human fetus at forty-nine days after conception. This is also when the gender of the fetus if first clearly discernible. Forty-nine days, according to several Buddhist texts, is how long it takes the life force of one who has died to enter into its next incarnation. Perhaps the life-force of a human enters the fetus at forty-nine days through the pineal. And it may leave the body, at death, through the pineal. This coming and going would be marked by the release of DMT by the pineal, mediating awareness of these awesome events.
Whether this is true, I don't know: I think it is likely true.
However I would like to add something about psychedelics... I have friends who use psychedelics (not Singaporeans) and they have never gotten hooked on it nor is proper use of psychedelics going to make a person crazy. Psychedelics are also not physically addictive, I am not sure if they are psychologically addictive but I think it is unlikely (and much more unlikely than alcohol and tobacco). In some religions, they are allowed (in places like U.S.) to use certain forms of psychedelics as part of their ritual/religious practices. There have been Zen masters in the west who also utilized some form of psychedelics in their spiritual teachings.
Psychedelics do result in some spiritual experiences, some people cross what in vipassana terms is 'the arising and passing' event, and in some cases have intense peak experiences of the I AMness. However you are right that it is unlikely to result in realisation of emptiness.
On the scale of danger, psychedelics like LSD actually rank far before alcohol and tobacco.
(Source: BBC News)
In America, psychedelics have made many look into eastern philosophy and religions due to their spiritual experiences. It is unfortunate however that LSD is ranked among class A drugs when many other drugs should have a higher classification. However, I am not suggesting that LSD/psychedelics is without dangers, and I like Alan Watts way of putting it regarding psychedelics: "When you get the message, hang up the phone." Continually depending on psychedelics is no good either.
That said, I would not recommend any drug experimentation in Singapore even if the drug is ranked low in terms of danger. Firstly, it is not necessary because diligent practice of the various spiritual techniques provided in various traditions is enough for one to experience/realise everything there is to experience.
Secondly, I would not recommend doing anything illegal in Singapore due to obvious reasons (harsh panelties for posession or trafficking easily resulting in death penalty). I like the way Professor Nutt puts it:
Presumably, if that is how Nutt feels, then he wouldn't object to his own children trying mephedrone in controlled doses. "If I found my children were taking mephedrone I would do as I always do and tell them the truth," he says.
He has the same attitude with all drugs. "I would say: 'If you get on to heroin, you are at real risk of dying. Heroin, crack and crystal meth are the drugs you really want to avoid and it would be very distressing for me to know you were taking those'. With alcohol I'd say: 'I know you drink but whatever you drink, try to do it in a way where you don't put yourself at harm'. And with other drugs: 'If you are going to use them, just be aware that the harm of criminalisation may actually be more dangerous than the drugs themselves'."
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Hi AEN,
Appreciate your viewpoint. To address some points respectively:
1. Addiction: i think definitely have, psychologically. Disconnect with sense perceptions - definitely many examples. Just an eg, look at how people can get addicted to ordinary experiences like video game, tv, good meditation moods... definitely psychedelic can.
2. Alan watts is not good example. He got stuck in the Bardo and Trungpa Rp had to intervene to help him out. Yogi Chen, a great master, also commented that he went down the wrong path. Dun mistake me, i like Alan Watts too, always found his writings very fascinating. But sincerely, he is not good eg as a practitioner.
3. Don't know about Zen masters who use psychedelic to teach. Look at outcome of disciples to judge.
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Originally posted by wisdomeye:
Hi AEN,
Appreciate your viewpoint. To address some points respectively:
1. Addiction: i think definitely have, psychologically. Disconnect with sense perceptions - definitely many examples. Just an eg, look at how people can get addicted to ordinary experiences like video game, tv, good meditation moods... definitely psychedelic can.
2. Alan watts is not good example. He got stuck in the Bardo and Trungpa Rp had to intervene to help him out. Yogi Chen, a great master, also commented that he went down the wrong path. Dun mistake me, i like Alan Watts too, always found his writings very fascinating. But sincerely, he is not good eg as a practitioner.
Yes of course anything can become an attachment - including meditation and jhanas.
As for Alan Watts, it is clear that he is at Stage 4 of Thusness/PasserBy's Seven Stages of Enlightenment - not liberation yet of course, but non-dual realisation. More like the peak of Hindu/Advaita Vedanta realisation (and he is inclined to Advaita), but no realisation of emptiness. In certain aspects however he is full of insights. He died partly as a result of alcohol abuse. It is interesting he got stuck in bardo, could be possible, curious as to how you knew and where you read that from. What exactly happened?
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Hi AEN,
I can't remember. My memory often fails me for exact source.
But i was myself shocked too when i saw that cos i liked his teachings very much and regarded him as somewhat realised. He came back as a girl in the end.
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Originally posted by wisdomeye:
Hi AEN,
I can't remember. My memory often fails me for exact source.
But i was myself shocked too when i saw that cos i liked his teachings very much and regarded him as somewhat realised. He came back as a girl in the end.
I see...
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Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
I don't think weychin is encouraging psychedelic use but rather emphasizing the below quote:
The pineal gland also held a fascination for me because it first becomes visible in the human fetus at forty-nine days after conception. This is also when the gender of the fetus if first clearly discernible. Forty-nine days, according to several Buddhist texts, is how long it takes the life force of one who has died to enter into its next incarnation. Perhaps the life-force of a human enters the fetus at forty-nine days through the pineal. And it may leave the body, at death, through the pineal. This coming and going would be marked by the release of DMT by the pineal, mediating awareness of these awesome events.
Whether this is true, I don't know: I think it is likely true.
However I would like to add something about psychedelics... I have friends who use psychedelics (not Singaporeans) and they have never gotten hooked on it nor is proper use of psychedelics going to make a person crazy. Psychedelics are also not physically addictive, I am not sure if they are psychologically addictive but I think it is unlikely (and much more unlikely than alcohol and tobacco). In some religions, they are allowed (in places like U.S.) to use certain forms of psychedelics as part of their ritual/religious practices. There have been Zen masters in the west who also utilized some form of psychedelics in their spiritual teachings.
Psychedelics do result in some spiritual experiences, some people cross what in vipassana terms is 'the arising and passing' event, and in some cases have intense peak experiences of the I AMness. However you are right that it is unlikely to result in realisation of emptiness.
On the scale of danger, psychedelics like LSD actually rank far before alcohol and tobacco.
(Source: BBC News)
In America, psychedelics have made many look into eastern philosophy and religions due to their spiritual experiences. It is unfortunate however that LSD is ranked among class A drugs when many other drugs should have a higher classification. However, I am not suggesting that LSD/psychedelics is without dangers, and I like Alan Watts way of putting it regarding psychedelics: "When you get the message, hang up the phone." Continually depending on psychedelics is no good either.
That said, I would not recommend any drug experimentation in Singapore even if the drug is ranked low in terms of danger. Firstly, it is not necessary because diligent practice of the various spiritual techniques provided in various traditions is enough for one to experience/realise everything there is to experience.
Secondly, I would not recommend doing anything illegal in Singapore due to obvious reasons (harsh panelties for posession or trafficking easily resulting in death penalty). I like the way Professor Nutt puts it:
Presumably, if that is how Nutt feels, then he wouldn't object to his own children trying mephedrone in controlled doses. "If I found my children were taking mephedrone I would do as I always do and tell them the truth," he says.
He has the same attitude with all drugs. "I would say: 'If you get on to heroin, you are at real risk of dying. Heroin, crack and crystal meth are the drugs you really want to avoid and it would be very distressing for me to know you were taking those'. With alcohol I'd say: 'I know you drink but whatever you drink, try to do it in a way where you don't put yourself at harm'. And with other drugs: 'If you are going to use them, just be aware that the harm of criminalisation may actually be more dangerous than the drugs themselves'."
Thanks for putting the post in right perspective!
There never any intention to suggest the use of psychedelic drugs, which could lead to substance abuse!
Karmic deeds leading to the different realms are:-
Anger or hate - hell being
Misery or selfishness - hungry ghost
Ignorance - animals
Desire or lust - human
Jealousy or envy - demi-gods
Pride or arrogance - gods
Its was written that even you read the Tibetan of the Dead just once, you will be able to recall it at the moment of death and tell you of different lights which you go towards to. the premise is due to the different karmic deeds you with choose the light you are comfortable with.
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dear Weychin,
Sorry for the misinterpretation of your article. i'm quite the blur king.
About the Tibetan Bk of the Dead, it is not true that if you read it once, then you will be able to recall it. The teachers have always emphasized to familiarise oneself with it repeatedly over the course of one's life. Memory during bardo does not come without deep imprints generally, though there are always exceptions.
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Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
Did he say that? Or is this something you made up to personally attack him?
You ought to know. He asked the questions in this forum.
It's not a personal attack. It's retaliation against his christian bashing in EH. Loony9 is a chickenshit and his karmic debt is terrible. Want to become a monk to escape reservist training?!
Perhaps there's a lesson to be learnt about buddhism.
You teach him about the cause and effect.
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Originally posted by googoomuck:
You ought to know. He asked the questions in this forum.
It's not a personal attack. It's retaliation against his christian bashing in EH. Loony9 is a chickenshit and his karmic debt is terrible. Want to become a monk to escape reservist training?!
Perhaps there's a lesson to be learnt about buddhism.
You teach him about the cause and effect.
If you have found anyone guilty of bashing Christianity, whether from ignorance or anger arising from ignorance, please be kind enough to forgive him in your heart and enlighten him or her to his/her error of judgement and also the untruthful and unkind words.
If Roony9 so wishes to escape for reservist, so be it. Thank you for a good laugh! But that does'nt solve or reveal the error of his ways!
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Originally posted by wisdomeye:
dear Weychin,
Sorry for the misinterpretation of your article. i'm quite the blur king.
About the Tibetan Bk of the Dead, it is not true that if you read it once, then you will be able to recall it. The teachers have always emphasized to familiarise oneself with it repeatedly over the course of one's life. Memory during bardo does not come without deep imprints generally, though there are always exceptions.
I will rummage among my books again to verify what I've said. Have'nt read the book for years!
Thank you in advance if you are right!
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Originally posted by Weychin:
If you have found anyone guilty of bashing Christianity, whether from ignorance or anger arising from ignorance, please be kind enough to forgive him in your heart and enlighten him or her to his/her error of judgement and also the untruthful and unkind words.
If Roony9 so wishes to escape for reservist, so be it. Thank you for a good laugh! But that does'nt solve or reveal the error of his ways!
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Originally posted by Weychin:
I will rummage among my books again to verify what I've said. Have'nt read the book for years!
Thank you in advance if you are right!
Hi Weychin,Ok, thanks for checking up!
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Originally posted by wisdomeye:
Hi Weychin,Ok, thanks for checking up!
Sorry! Tried digging the book and finally remembered it was on loan(most probably permanently!)
My version is by Chogyam Trungpa and Franscesa Fremantle if remembered correctly! Anybody who have read, if I am wrong please correct me
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Just a sharing of my personal understanding on the story of one of Buddha's great disciple, Mahamogallana.
It appears there are different versions of the story. I may be mistaken, if so please enlighten me if both links are talking about the same person.
http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/history/db_02.htm
http://www.indianetzone.com/22/mahamoggallana_buddha_s_disciple.htm
One mentioned he was beaten to death by bandits due to his past negative karma of clubbing his parents to death.
The other mentioned he was killed by rocks pushed down by heretics.
Whatever version it may be, the stories give me an impression that even if one had to suffer for his karma for killing in any one of the 3 evil realms, there's no guarantee one's negative karma is totally exhausted just because he or she doesn't have to suffer any more as a hell being for example - one may still have to experience being killed in a future human life form.
Mahamoggallana was an Arahant prior to his death. Thus we know he would not be affected in any way by such brutal killing. He will definitely pass away into Nirvana. But for some of us, who are not yet enlightened even to the stage of sotapanna, can we be absolutely sure we can be of clear mind - with no single speck of anger or fear in us - when such things happen to us?
These are one of my important concerns and doubts.
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Originally posted by Spnw07:
Whatever version it may be, the stories give me an impression that even if one had to suffer for his karma for killing in any one of the 3 evil realms, there's no guarantee one's negative karma is totally exhausted just because he or she doesn't have to suffer any more as a hell being for example - one may still have to experience being killed in a future human life form.
Mahamoggallana was an Arahant prior to his death. Thus we know he would not be affected in any way by such brutal killing. He will definitely pass away into Nirvana. But for some of us, who are not yet enlightened even to the stage of sotapanna, can we be absolutely sure we can be of clear mind - with no single speck of anger or fear in us - when such things happen to us?
These are one of my important concerns and doubts.
Dear spnw07,
You are right, there is no guarantee. The only way is to have mindfulness.
Maybe here i go abit off-topic...
Even if you manage to die with a peace of mind, after you die, it is said that it is best not to shift the body for three days at least. But you can see that most relatives will not do so (because the corpse will stink, unless u r in meditative state) and also in hospital, without special prior permission, will definitely not allow (beds needed for other patients too).
There is external death and internal death. Externally breath stop and heart-beat stop, internal death processes still occurring and one's consciousness still haven't exit the body.
If the people managing the corpse touch and move it, then it may create problem for the consciousness in terms of the location it exits the body. The disturbances may create anger in the consciousness too. There is also harvesting of one's organs, depending on whether the parts are usable.
If one's relatives are there arguing over property of the deceased, even worse, make the deceased consciousness more angry. If they are there crying and mourning, make the deceased attached. If like during SARS period, they just send the corpse in for burning right away, i think quite terrible, don't you think?
There are many possibilities and obstacles. Anyway, this is also one's karma. There is no easy solution. Therefore, practise now while you still have the chance to create merit and purify bad karma, realise emptiness and so on...
p/s: By the way, you can always make aspiration prayers that at point of death, can go to Amitabha pureland without any obstacles, and support such aspirations with alot of merit and practice.
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Originally posted by Weychin:
If you have found anyone guilty of bashing Christianity, whether from ignorance or anger arising from ignorance, please be kind enough to forgive him in your heart and enlighten him or her to his/her error of judgement and also the untruthful and unkind words.
If Roony9 so wishes to escape for reservist, so be it. Thank you for a good laugh! But that does'nt solve or reveal the error of his ways!
Buddhist education has not benefited loony9.
Loony9 has turn buddhism into a sad state of affairs because of his cowardice - to become a monk to escape NS reservist training.
Loon9 bash Chrisitanity in EH but at the same time he's a moderator and a fan of an English Football club where probably half of the footballers are Christians.
Are you not going to advise him for wasting time in EH? You forgive him for being a nincompoop.
I wll forget him not. Loony9 has a confused mind. He's good for laughs.
Cheers.
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Learn to let go and you'll be a happier person
Entering monkhood is not trip in the fields, it feels difficult even for people who who are incarcerated. I have a campmate who entered short term monkhood, not a piece of cake Please have a look:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIeincarceratedLuMX-2p8&feature=related
Brush up on your Christianity and counter his arguments. He has not posted any comments here that warrant deletion or getting himself banned. I suppose it should be the same over at EH I suppose. I do not think he is a nincompoop!
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Originally posted by Weychin:
Learn to let go and you'll be a happier person
Entering monkhood is not trip in the fields, it feels difficult even for people who who are incarcerated. I have a campmate who entered short term monkhood, not a piece of cake Please have a look:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIeincarceratedLuMX-2p8&feature=related
Brush up on your Christianity and counter his arguments. He has not posted any comments here that warrant deletion or getting himself banned. I suppose it should be the same over at EH I suppose. I do not think he is a nincompoop!
Tell me. How do you educate a dimwit like loony9?