leolibby

In answer to the first post... no Nibbana is not like heaven.

Heaven is a cop-out..... what you get if you 'be good' but avoid doing the real practice.

Nibbana is a state which is attained....not a place or realm.

Once attained there is no more rebirth in Samsara, the continual cycle and struggle, so it is an escape from suffering.

No more creating positive or negative karma so no reason to be reborn.

But it does not mean no more existence....however the kind of existence is beyond our capability to understand...until we also reach the same state.

You are relying on your emotional attraction to Nibanna. I know what Nibanna is. I am not asking if it and heaven are similar, I'm asking if it serves as a similar "goal" as heaven.

Hi. I got to thinking about organ/body donation... I want to donate first, my organs to people who need them, and also my entire body to science. Assume my heart gets donated to someone who needs a heart-- that is the only kind of afterlife I want. It's practicle, and real... not embedded in religious dogma. I also want what's left of my body to be cremated. I definitlely don't want to be embalmed and burried. I don't want to spread poisons to the earth. What could be more selfish? thats my opinion.

energy theory that it can not be destroyed or created; but it can be transformed from one form to another form. Life is an energy.

Actually, this is not true. When we die, our body heat dissipates according th the 2nd law of thermodynamics. All of the chemical energy, the hydrocarbons, can burn up just like a piece of wood does, or be food for something. Consciousness is not energy. Life is not energy... living beings do have energy in the form of chemical bonds in the proteins and fats that compose their structure.....ALL of that energy comes from the sun via photosynthesis in plants (ie. glucose). There is no energy like a soul... all energy strives to become just simple heat. The closest we can get to an afterlife is if we donate our organs to support another life, or if we realize that the nutrients in our body can nurish other life. I'm going to donate my entire body to science and all my organs to people who need them. I'm gonna make sure they're free too.. and get to people who need them.

I don't ask for much. I just hope that in years to come; when my theory(for the above if I can call it theory) is widely known and if you are still alive(unlikely); I just wish that you remember someone here named "healthcaretaker" wrote about it first.

I will definitely remember healthcaretaker said it first.

omniscient, interventionist God, who loves us, yet presides over the agonising death of say a child and... 'sorry, you only get one shot at this existence and you've had yours'

Yes and the whole idea is inconsistent and makes no sence. why have it so we get 70 or so years here (1 second for still borns), and the rest of eternity in heaven or hell? and why have 2000 religions each with different stories? Gods are mythological, like ghosts and vampires and Tinker Bell.

I don't get the Bodhisattva thing though. Why does a Bodhisattva eventually decide to be a buddha? why not be a Bodhisattva for eternity?

For example, the "explaining" can be logically sound.. but it still would need evidence to be "scientific." The philosophies of Kant and Nietzsche are not "scientific," i think, but valuable. I suppose there are many things that can't be explored scientifically.

The philosophy explains existence from the smallest single event/instance to the larges extent of cosmic time and space. It is a psychology in that it explains the experience and mind of beings, how they work, how they came to be, and how they can cause happiness or misery.

I would counter that this is not scientific in the strict sense. It's a good attempt, and it certainly can ring true and bring peace for some. For example, what is meant by suffering? is it physical or mental? I have no issue with sorrow... I feel sorrow and joy are both essential and give meaning to eachother. I have a terminal illness, however, and i would say recently I suffered because of it. I had a plane ticket to the Philippines.. so I took the bus to Seattle (gateway city)... but i didn't go because I experience health issues if I travel...vertigo and stuff.. so I came back. $1200 down-the-drain. Is that suffering? or is suffering an extreme kind of depression... i never have that. I think many people can benefit from some of the meditations.... but there is no way I can believe in karma.

This is what I think.

There are Secular Buddhists, but they are marginal and, I think, found mainly in the West.

Most Buddhists take karma and rebirth seriously. These are metaphysical beliefs, not testable and therefore not scientific.

They may be reasonable beliefs, but to really accept them as personal beliefs requires an act of faith.

For the overwhelming majority of people who describe themselves as Buddhist (not just sympathetic to Buddhism), Buddhism is a faith system, i.e. a religion.

Good post. I believe some people think it's scientific... but it's ostensibly not, unless u throw out all the metaphysics (including notions of Nibanna?)

Buddhism is so varied in it's interpretation that there's never going to be a clear answer to this. Look all over Asia and you almost always find it being blended in with local beliefs that put a further twist on it.

Are Buddhist monasteries in The US taxed?

The everyday trinketry with statues, alms &co sure does it make look like just another organized religion. But since it's not an aggressive one and does promote goodies such as using your own brain, it's by far not the worst of them.

Clearly, it can be a religion, a phiiosophy, a combination of, etc. But I would think most often it's a religion because many people need a religion.

Greetings

Not all religions promise(d) heaven, for example it is quite ambiguous in Greek and Roman religion whether everyone would go to another world, I believe evidence from memorial stones is that most people would simply pass into non existence.

Also in Judaism the concept of heaven and hell is quite debatable.

Graham

I was generalizing. I didn't want to make my question too complicated.

By 'heaven", i mean a blissful existence beyond death--a "goal." That cannot be reached without following the Buddhist path at some point.

When I was a theist, the only reason for my belief was the possibility that I would experience existence beyond death. Simply ceasing to exist seemed unfair, painful and fearful

It seems the crux of religion is the promise of a blissful existence after death: Heaven, afterlife, resurrection etc.

Is nibbana simply the same as heaven? (be flexible with the word promise).

Hi Several...

I hope we can post videos here. In this video, a leopard kills a monkey (baboon I think), but discoveres there was a baby baboon with it. The Leopard spends hours looking after the baby, protecting it from hyenas.. The Leopard apparently did not eat the mother Baboon it killed... protecting baby was more important to her. This is an example of qualities we usually don't expect to find in animals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy7DXSbiWbE

Oh, and good Kamma can get you born into a situation where you are exposed to the teachings that will get you to Nibbana.

Hi Several

Well, let's assume that's correct. You don't need to believe in some obscure cosmic rule (karma) to be a good person. It wont hurt to believe it, but i don't see a 100% coorelation between believing and being. Animals don't believe in karma, and yet manage to be reborn as humans. I realize your statement isn't an abosolute.. i think. Why did Buddha just happen to be a Hindu in all or most of his previous human lives.?. why was he never a Native American? Would a native American never be reborn into a buddhist culture? does karma only apply to people following a hindu or Buddhist path?

The thing with beliefs is that they are biochemical patterns in the brain.. they can change.. and when you die, they are gone.

So why rely on beliefs at all? I used to be religious. I think it was this realization that beliefs are temoporary, mundane chemical patways in the brain. So belief is not a ticket to anywhere.

Does a belief in karma help anyone to become enlightened?

The Karma explanation is simply an un needed explanation for something that needs no explanation. Sometimes you stub your toe because the walkway is eneven not because of some equally minor thing you did prior to that.

Totally agree. Let's face it... the idea of karma was origionally invented to keep people in line and society together...common people... people who were illiterate and needed something simple and not too hard to think about. And based on the posts here, I think you can follow Buddhism just fine without it.

Planning for our future and setting our goals and implimentation plans allows us to then take respite from past/future for the rest of our day, and give us opportunity to settle into the present (awareness).

I used to have a friend who claimed to be a zen master.. anyways, I was mentioning the vibration state preceedeed from leaving the body.. i used to get it often and i felt that the state has extra dimmensions... anyway, he said it's best to plan out ur life in that state... I don't experience that vibrational state anymore though.

Vipassana is like being aware of everything...all distractions...all sensations...breathing...movement...thoughts....but just acknowleging them then letting them go without any judgement or reaction to them.....just watching...

That's also key in TM (sorry for disclosing ur secret Maharishi)... the letting go part, not being aware of everything. I wouldn't be shocked if some TM people don't even remember that. So advanced stages of meditation are done with eyes open, all day?

Beyond that you could suggest just about anything and it could be possible.

I tried to make that my point, but you're so much more articulate

Oh dear, is this the old "rebirth" debate again in another form?

Well. I don't know the answer....I;m NOT a Buddha anyhow.

But, in my opinion, there is no CONCIOUS SELF that is somehow reborn.....no Ego or Soul that is existing now in life and is reborn after death....a thing that you can conciously know while still alive (i.e. before death).

Beyond that....anything else...I just don't know the answer to the question, "Is there a rebirth of some kind other than a rebirth of a fully concious human "soul"?

And on the concept of "Not Self"....it not mean there is no "Self"....just (my opiniom again) that my "Self" is a perception of mine...an illusion generated by my mind. However, that fact doesn't mean that the illusion of "Self" doesn't seem to be very real to me....even though I can understand it is only an illusion.

But, back to rebirth...the answer for me is...I just don't know the answer.

There are those that contend that we are conscious beings first and foremost, even after the demise of the human body, which is viewed as nothing more than a containing to hold our consciousness and soul. This is the entity which is reborn

Those that believe or "contend" this are not Buddhists, or not real Buddhists anyway, although they may well be Christians, Islamists or Jews, to mention some common religions as examples.

Buddha described consciousness quite differently, it merely arises dependent on conditions, primarily having a body to begin with, and when the body dies, consciousness is over. There is no soul or persistent entity. This is a core Buddhist doctrine.

Granted the concept of rebirth and karma (if not to me, to whom?) muddies the waters, but the Buddhist understanding of consciousness and self is not debatable. In my humble opinion.

It seems that the Karmic baggage itself reincarnates... almost as if after death, the karma is floating around like cigarette smoke, and it reattaches to some creature upon birth... However, if all that is left after death is karma, and the karma reincarnates like a soul, woudn't it be random who or what's karma anyone has?

We have more chances to create good karma whereas animals have only the chance to expend and create bad karma.

Animals show compassion...

http://news.softpedi...ath-32660.shtml

how does low intelligence have anything to do with compassion, selflessness, etc. Of course, I understand most people hold a human-centered view of the wold... and rightly so. I admit, humans are the pinnacle of existence... probably the only reason anything is here anyway. I just don't understand where the division between humans and animals is.. is it if your IQ is above 90? do people who have an IQ of 180 live a more moral and spititual life than peoople with downs syndrome?

why is life inherantly immoral... ?

The Buddha bent down a picked up some dirt on his thumbnail asking his companions how did this small amount of dirt compare to the whole Earth.... They of course replied that it was an infinitesmally small part. He then said that in a similar way the dirt compares to the number of beings born in the human realm whereas the whole Earth compared to the number of beings in the four lower realms (hells, hungry ghosts, animals and asuras.)

When did humans transcend above being animals? At the time of Homo erectus? Australopithicus africanus? Were Neandrathals in one of the four lower realms? when did we get our privaledged status?

I read that the mantra is analogous to the rod that an elephant holds in his trunk when in a parade. The trunk would be the mind--without the rod, the elephhant will try to grab anything it passes--like the mind will "grab" at any thought.,. so the mantra is a tool to control or focus the mind. An idea I had, is the mantra is like the grain of sand a pearl forms around--the pearl would be the mental state or something............... In the past, having a mantra and breathing seemed a distraction... how about having a mantra that's a mental image?

Interesting... what are some theories as to the purpose of a mantra? I think focusing on breathing is just a different type of mantra... does anyone focus on the heartbeat? (sometimes i can hear my heart if its really silent).

Oh, also, are there some forms of (zen) meditation where the focus is on a paradox?

Thanks. I was just afraid of someone saying: "not buddhist, topic closed," since the TM movement seems much closer to Hinduism. Basically, TM is like any other meditation i know of: focus on a mantra to reach a state of no thought. It's not good to intellectualize how and what is done beyond that (my trainer told me).

How about this to get started: I was given a personal mantra and no one else knows it... what do you think the rationale is in not disclosing your mantra?