Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII (Life After Death?)

[disastermouse]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

Hi Jundo...

I don't know what will be happened after I die, (I haven't died yet)

But I think, heaven and hell is needed.

There are three types of person (I think):
1. a person who don't do some thing bad because he afraid hell and desiring heaven.

2. a person who do some thing good because he has compassion. Not just because afraid hell and desiring heaven.

3. a person who is doing good because he just want to do it. This kind of person do good thing not because he want to benefit other people, because wanting to benefit others is separation between me and others. A person in the 3rd types will see others as him self. There is no separation at all.

For a person in the first type, believing there is hell or heaven can help him/her to refrain from doing bad thing.

For the person in the 2nd and 3rd types, they don't really need to believe about hell or heaven.


Although we don't know whether heavens-hell really exist or not, but as long as it can bring benefit to a lot of people, it's ok to believe it.

But, of course it's up to the person want to believe it or not. it's very optional.

Well, this is my opinion.

GAssho, Mujo

Very wise opinion.

I also think that we create heavens and hells inside ourselves, in this life, when we are filled with goodness or filled with greed, anger, ignorance.

Gassho, J

Thank you for a timely, if unintentional, reminder as to why I should visit this forum more often.

Chet

[Taigu]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

Thank you very much Mujo, this is very wise, nevertheless the belief in Heaven's reward and fear of hell's are of such a nature that they won't help the very person to come back to the simplicity of home. And a would be "good action" arising from the field of fear or greed has a poisonous nature that will even outgrow its primary direction. Crusaders of the past, suicide bombers of today are drunk with Hell and Heaven visions and promises. The toys have become weapons. And on the top of all this, the belief in Heaven or Hell is always happening" over there, out there, after death...", the teaching of the Buddha is to free yourself from these chains and see your reality as one witth the whole reality. Heaven and Hell are the the major obstacles to the display of the empty field, hope and fear are the way religions have controlled people and unlieshed the most dreadful hounds of human beings turned into hungry dogs.
In fact I have heard your answer many times in the mouth of Christian priests who were trying to justify why people should believe in such things, immature and ordinary people would, according to them, do bad things if they did not dread the wrath of God. This is exactly what religions are aiming at: keeping people in a dependant state and and viewing them as inferior. Not my cup of tea.

Heaven and Hell are ways to taste and experience reality. This is a story I remember: A famous swordman challenged a Zen monk once asking him to show him the nature of Heaven and Hell. The old monk started to dismiss the request and show great contempt for the warrior who lost it and in a fit of rage raised his sword to kill the monk. At this very moment the monk said:"this is Hell", the swordman, surprised and amazed, lowered his sword down, the monk thenuttered gently: "this is Heaven".

[Shohei]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

Wonderful posts.

My grandfather had died many times on the table with many heart attacks and he told me it was lights on. lights off. no light at the end of the tunnel type thing for him.

After hearing this I guessed it was lights out literally - chemical energy that makes up "us" is lost and ... that it, heaven and hell to me was always right here. I never took it beyond that, probably because is scared the bejebus outta me then.

So I never worried a lot about the existence of God, for myself. I always figured God was another device to keep us inline with promises of ... reward and punishment. That never flew for me and in the end I came to think of Hell and Heaven as a state of mind.

Anywho I guess I have nothing to add much of value, however I am really valuing the posts in this thread... many thanks to all!

Gassho, Shohei

Side note: When heaven and hell are discussed i often think of the lyrics to this song :

We don't go to hell, memories of us do,
And if you go to hell,
Ill still remember you.
Inevitablility of Death - The Tragically Hip

[monkton]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

Dear folks,
I'm enjoying reading these posts - one thing that I would like to hear more about is a line from the airplane analogy:

" ...leads me to conclude that our appearance on this plane is not mere happenstance, and the trip not without purpose... "

Is there anything 'wrong' from a zen point of view, with seeing life as nothing but happenstance? or as being totally without purpose? I feel that a belief in any meaning to life, whether veiled or somehow comprehendable, is related to our human predilection for patterning existence. It's what our consciousnesses need to do in order to function.

[I would just add though that I don't find this in any way depressing, and hope no one else finds it depressing either - personally I've always found the idea of a totally random and pointless universe rather refreshing and enlivening, even if it does mean that after I die I have to spend eternity in the corner with everyone else around me having a lovely time, pausing only to tell me, "We TOLD you so!".]

Random happiness to all,
Michael

[Tobiishi]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

I've always been fond of the philosophical idea (fond, not attached!) that the very fact we can ask if there is a meaning, means there is a meaning. Now, whether that meaning is any of our business, is a whole other business :wink:

Gassho,
Tobiah

[Shindo]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

Dear Michael

no there is nothing wrong with the perspective you expound. Your view is as it is - no more no less - nothing added or taken away. Having thought your thoughts chop wood, carry water and go super market shopping - nothing special.

It is one of the great unknowns & everything is speculation .

kind regards

Jools

[Jundo]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

"

Is there anything 'wrong' from a zen point of view, with seeing life as nothing but happenstance? or as being totally without purpose? I feel that a belief in any meaning to life, whether veiled or somehow comprehendable, is related to our human predilection for patterning existence. It's what our consciousnesses need to do in order to function.

Hi,

Jools said it, but one of the wonderful outlooks of this Zen way is ... "Grand Cosmic Purpose" or not, we fetch wood and carry water, shop for supper and tend the garden. "Just living life artfully" is a fine purpose, and meaning is all around us.

Imagine we live in a house, built for no reason at all and thrown together by chance (as many posit this universe to be). Still, how we live in that house, the type of home we make, is all up to us. Be a good husband, father, mother, brother, sister, son and friend ... and that is meaning enough. Make the world a little better, and that is a fine purpose.

Does a flower's growing and reaching toward the sun have a "Grand Purpose" beyond that one flower's attempt at survival? No such purpose? A purpose far beyond human understanding, or perhaps a purpose having little to do with any one little flower or human life?

No matter! Gaze upon a flower's beauty, feel the warmth of that sun.

Something like that.

Have a good flight!

Gassho, J

[Craig]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

First, what happens when we die?

...

But here is the kicker, from a Zen perspective:

1- I do not need to know, and the whole question is rather unimportant

2- There is no "birth and death" anyway.

Hi Jundo,

As an individual pondering my own fate, I may (one day) be able to convince myself that these answers are sufficient.

But when attending the funeral of a relative, friend or colleague and feeling the grief and sense of loss, telling myself (or others!) that the body lying there in the open casket was never born and thus never died doesn't seem to provide much hope or comfort. For those left behind, there is a real need to know.

What could be said, from a Buddhist point of view, to help those who are grieving?

Thanks for tackling the BIG questions.

JohnH

John-
I am with you on this. for me, it's thinking about how fragile the lives of those i most care about are...my two sons and my wife. ironically, what has helped the most is realizing, or trying to realize, that there is no hope. like everything, hope is empty. i first heard of this idea from Joko Beck. now, this doesn't mean that grief isn't real. it is, but it's also empty. form is emptiness-emptiness is form.
that's just my 'intellectual' take on things of this nature right now.
peace
craig

[Bansho]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

Hi,

I don't want to step on anyones toes here, but I think utter meaninglessness is more than just one possible view among many. It's throwing away all crutches which are, in the end, obstacles to realization. Note however, that it mustn't be confused with nihilism as it's commonly understood in the West, which can lead to a sense of despair and complacency. On the contrary, the realization of the absence of any ultimate or absolute meaning, goal or purpose can be liberating, as it imposes on us a sense of urgency to practice and actualize wisdom and compassion this very moment. It's all we have!

Hee-Jin Kim, in "Eihei Dogen: Mystical Realist" discusses this in several passages:

The significance of the key notion of "casting off the body-mind" in the context of Dogen's life and thought was that zazen-only, as the mythic-cultic archetype, symbolized the totality of the self and the world and represented that in which Buddha-nature became embodied. To cast off the body-mind did not nullify historical and social existence so much as to put it into action so that it could be the self-creative and self-expressive embodiment of Buddha-nature. In being "cast off", however, concrete human existence was fashioned in the mode of radical freedom - purposeless, goalless, objectless, and meaningless. Buddha-nature was not to be enfolded in, but was to unfold through, human activities and expressions. The meaning of existence was finally freed from and authenticated by its all-too-human conditions only if, and when, it lived co-eternally with ultimate meaninglessness.

and

... zazen for Dogen was ultimately the expression of an eternal quest for the meaning of existence, which was, paradoxically enough, meaningless - it was living the meaning of ultimate meaninglessness. This is Zen.

and

At each moment of existence, reason (dori) went hand-in-hand with expressions and activities so as to exert totally. Thus, in realization of life there was nothing but life; in the realization of death there was nothing but death. When there was nothing but life, life became meaningless, since it was meaningful only in view of death. By the same token, when there was nothing but Buddha-nature, it was nil, empty, and meaningless. In this total meaninglessness, Dogen found the reason and logic of "all existence is Buddha-nature."

and

Dogen's vision is exclusionary in that when life is totally exerted and realized, there is nothing but life, excluding everything else, and ultimately life itself becomes "meaningless". At this point, the distinction between symbol and reality becomes liberatingly irrelevant. This exclusionary aspect of the mythopoeic vision of Buddha-nature demands that we choose, and commit ourselves to, a definite course of action at each moment - whatever that may be. Such an orientation is far from noncommittal, as Zen Buddhism is all to often misunderstood to be.

Gassho
Bansho

[Martin]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

Wonderful posts. Taigu, your comments about heaven and hell rang particularly true to me, having spent a fair part of my childhood frightened of hell, which really is a barrier to any kind of progress.

I suspect that "meaning" is (almost by definition) in the eye of the beholder. "Meaning" is the "value" or "interpretation" we put on something, from a perspective outside that thing. I look out of my window and decide that the snowdrops under the tree "mean" Spring (or whatever). If the Truth encompasses, and is, the whole universe, then depending on how you look at it, the universe either has and can have no "meaning" (since there is no perspective outside of the universe from which to ascribe it a meaning) or (and I prefer this) all of it, the whole thing, is the meaning.

I can't know what happens when we die. I do know what happened when I had surgery last year. One moment what I call "me" was there. The next moment, what I call "me" was also there (but had lots of tubes in me!). But in between were a lot of moments when what I call "me" wasn't there, but when some brilliant surgeons performed an operataion on "me" and, also, the whole of life went on. What I call "me" wasn't in those moments. It wasn't not in those moments. Sometimes, I think (or glimpse) that what I call "me" is simply the moments I'm in, and therefore can't be born and can't die, it's just there, the universe manifesting as "me" in those moments.

Gassho

Martin

[disastermouse]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

Dear folks,
Is there anything 'wrong' from a zen point of view, with seeing life as nothing but happenstance? or as being totally without purpose? I feel that a belief in any meaning to life, whether veiled or somehow comprehendable, is related to our human predilection for patterning existence. It's what our consciousnesses need to do in order to function.

[I would just add though that I don't find this in any way depressing, and hope no one else finds it depressing either - personally I've always found the idea of a totally random and pointless universe rather refreshing and enlivening, even if it does mean that after I die I have to spend eternity in the corner with everyone else around me having a lovely time, pausing only to tell me, "We TOLD you so!".

It's problematic in terms of dependent origination. According to Buddhist thought, there are three possibilities.

We are created, and that Creator guides our fate. No mention is ever made about where this Creator came from. An ethical life consists of trying damned hard to figure out what this creator wants and to live your life in that way. There are huge arguments between groups founded by people who believed they had a direct line to said deity, and there are massive discrepancies both within the messages of such founders and between the groups that follow them.

Life is meaningless, events are random, there is no greater coherence or cohesion that keeps it all together. No answer is given for why our noses don't randomly fly off our faces, or why dogs always bark and cats always meow. With this view, it's hard to really conjure a general picture of what an ethical life looks like. Most people I know who have this view go with a 'I know it when I see it!' response. No consideration seems to be made for the human tendency toward self-deception.

The direction of our lives is the net total of numberless conditions, which are themselves conditioned. All of reality is like a net, and a tug on one part effects the entirety of the whole, no matter how minutely. Questions of a 'first cause' are considered unimportant. Ethics consist of a loose set of principles designed for the betterment of all involved and come with a practice designed to cut through self-deception in the aid of practicing such principles.

I think you can figure out which of these is the 'Right View' of the Buddha (hint: It ain't number one or number two..and yeah, I'm oversimplifying number three).

Chet

[Tobiishi]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

We are created, and that Creator guides our fate. No mention is ever made about where this Creator came from. An ethical life consists of trying damned hard to figure out what this creator wants and to live your life in that way. There are huge arguments between groups founded by people who believed they had a direct line to said deity, and there are massive discrepancies both within the messages of such founders and between the groups that follow them.

Life is meaningless, events are random, there is no greater coherence or cohesion that keeps it all together. No answer is given for why our noses don't randomly fly off our faces, or why dogs always bark and cats always meow. With this view, it's hard to really conjure a general picture of what an ethical life looks like. Most people I know who have this view go with a 'I know it when I see it!' response. No consideration seems to be made for the human tendency toward self-deception.

The direction of our lives is the net total of numberless conditions, which are themselves conditioned. All of reality is like a net, and a tug on one part effects the entirety of the whole, no matter how minutely. Questions of a 'first cause' are considered unimportant. Ethics consist of a loose set of principles designed for the betterment of all involved and come with a practice designed to cut through self-deception in the aid of practicing such principles.

Thanks Chet for a helpful illustration of "Middle Way"... this is the kind of stuff that shoots straight to the point for me :idea:

Gassho,
Tobiah

[jrh001]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

...
When my son asks where people go when they die, I usually say "the peaceful place where we came from when we were born. We are all together there for all time.". I mean that too.
...

Hi Jundo,

S Suzuki says something similar in Branching Streams... when asked (p103) about where an earwig goes when it dies.

Earwigs go to the source of reality. They know where to go. When we speak in this way you will feel that it is just talk. But when you suffer alot it will be a great relief to know that.

I've never been happy with the "it's a mystery" answer because it reminds me of the "God's ways are mysterious" statement that is sometimes provided as a non-answer for so many questions. However the "return to where you came from" answer does offer hope because you know you came from somewhere.

Thanks to everyone for their contributions.

JohnH

[Jundo]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

Hi Bansho,

Perhaps there is something here that may not meet the eye ...

Hi,

I don't want to step on anyones toes here, but I think utter meaninglessness is more than just one possible view among many. It's throwing away all crutches which are, in the end, obstacles to realization. Note however, that it mustn't be confused with nihilism as it's commonly understood in the West, which can lead to a sense of despair and complacency. On the contrary, the realization of the absence of any ultimate or absolute meaning, goal or purpose can be liberating, as it imposes on us a sense of urgency to practice and actualize wisdom and compassion this very moment. It's all we have!

Hee-Jin Kim, in "Eihei Dogen: Mystical Realist" discusses this in several passages:

... In being "cast off", however, concrete human existence was fashioned in the mode of radical freedom - purposeless, goalless, objectless, and meaningless. Buddha-nature was not to be enfolded in, but was to unfold through, human activities and expressions. The meaning of existence was finally freed from and authenticated by its all-too-human conditions only if, and when, it lived co-eternally with ultimate meaninglessness.

As you point out, this is not "nihilism". And saying "this moment is all we have" may not mean "this moment is all we have" ...

We must not be too quick to assume an easy conclusion in "words" here (it is the mind that wishes to do that, which is exactly what Suzuki Roshi is talking about in our next chapter in the Book Club concerning "Ri" and "Ji"). It is best not to see this as either the one side of "meaning" nor the other side of "meaningless" ... but, instead, a something which swallows whole all human ideas of "meaning" vs. "no meaning".

We are living on a razor's edge, neither falling to one side nor to the other. And by seeing things one way, we blind ourselves to the other. Instead, by abandoning all concepts, we may encounter something quite different in the looking glass ... neither this side of the mirror, nor that side ... but the clear crystal glass itself.

So, for example, a radical dropping, to the marrow, of all need for achievement, attainment ... is attaining a wondrous achievement (a life of being free of need for achievement, attainment!). By dropping all goals, we hit the bull's eye. Is it the same for "meaning" ... that by dropping, to the marrow, our need for meaning ... we find ... What? (Dogen often used question words like "What?" in his writings to refer to what is found ... although he actually meant something without any question).

As you say, our way is not "nihilism". Dogen did not profess that we should abandon all need for meaning and just find life "meaningless". His teaching was much more subtle. So neither "meaning" nor "meaningless" will be last word.

In the end, Dogen was a mystic. So are all Buddhist writers of whom I can think. I see his point as this ...

We abandon all need for life to be as we demand ... we drop all thoughts of purpose and meaning ... we strip ourselves naked and jump into a river, abandoning all demands that the river carry us where we wish. We cease all struggles and demands, casting out our arms and floating ... at one with that river ... all thought of "us" and "river" dropped away. What then?

Where the current flows is where we flow. Better said, there is just the current, carrying all where the waters will. By total yielding, we are totally free.

That is one way that Buddhists, including Dogen, view life. But it is also not the end of how we experience life when it comes to Dogen's point(s) of view. Look closely at what Prof. Kim says ...

Dogen's vision is exclusionary in that when life is totally exerted and realized, there is nothing but life, excluding everything else, and ultimately life itself becomes "meaningless". At this point, the distinction between symbol and reality becomes liberatingly irrelevant. This exclusionary aspect of the mythopoeic vision of Buddha-nature demands that we choose, and commit ourselves to, a definite course of action at each moment -

Dogen was not a "sit complacent on your lotus leaf" kind of Buddhist. He was about the exertion of each instant, that life is to live (I view Dogen's philosophy as a form of existentialism, but of a most positive, even optimistic kind!) Each gesture of the hand and wink of the eye is sacred and complete! A flower's purpose is to reach for the sun, a bird's purpose is to fly. Our purpose is to live. So LIVE!

We might even say that the "river of Buddha Nature" has set us afloat for just that purpose. Why else would that "What?" give us eyes except to see, ears except to hear, brains except to think, legs except to walk this earth?

Gassho, Jundo

[Jen]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

Thank you for the above explanation Jundo, that really helped clarify it in my mind!

Gassho,
Jenny