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

[Jundo]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

I have been re-reading a wonderful collection of Dogen's poetry translated by Prof. Steve Heine.

http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Poetry-Dogen- ... 0804831076

Perhaps more than in the prose (though poetic) of his Shobogenzo and other writings, Dogen reveals his true heart in his poems. One cannot read any of them and believe he thought life "meaningless". Nor, do I think, he actually thought life without some "grand flow" that we are in union with ...

Wondrous nirvana-mind

Because the flowers blooming
In our original home
Are everlasting,
Though springtimes may come and go
Their colors do not fade.

Snow is falling far and wide,
Each snowflake neither the very same nor completely different than the other ones;
Singing and dancing, they chase after each other,
Till the whole universe is made afresh with its new covering,
As the snow even conceals the moon and clouds,
And puts out the flame in our hearth;
All kinds of leaves and flowers respond differently to the cycles of the seasons,
Yet remain oblivious to the cold of night or the chill of winter--
So goes the preaching of the Dharma
By the pines in the valleys and the bamboos on the mountains.

The comings and goings
Of the waterfowl
Leave no trace,
Yet the paths it follows
Are never forgotten

[disastermouse]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

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.

Beautiful explanation Jundo. I would say that with total awakening, there is not even any yielding. Non-yielding that looks like yielding.

Chet

[Jundo]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

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.

Beautiful explanation Jundo. I would say that with total awakening, there is not even any yielding. Non-yielding that looks like yielding.

Chet

But ya know ... I still blink and cough and thrash around so often when the water gets in my eyes and mouth.

[Bansho]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

Hi Jundo,

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I agree with most of what you say, however there are some points which are subtle, but have wide ranging implications if you take them a step further.

Dogen did not profess that we should abandon all need for meaning and just find life "meaningless".

No, of course he didn't. What Dogen Zenji expounded was bursting and overflowing with meaning - to those who are receptive to it. It doesn't have meaning in-and-of-itself and it doesn't have meaning to everyone. It means a lot to me, as do many other things. That which swallows the dichotomy of meaning vs. meaninglessness is emptiness. Ultimately, there is no meaning, other than that which we see. It's up to each of us to find out what's important in our lives, and truly understanding that it's only up to us is just that which frees us to drop the excess baggage. Accepting this may just pull the rug out from under our feet - but we won't fall down.

Just one other thing I wanted to mention, not from your post, but implicit in others: we shouldn't confuse meaninglessness with randomness, they aren't the same. Things don't happen randomly, that's fairly obvious. There are causes and conditions, but they have no inherent meaning as such.

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!

Yes, my sentiments exactly.

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?

I find this problematic. Buddha-nature is just perfectly Buddha-nature. It manifests itself in all things as they are, just as they are - without any hidden purpose. Asking why says more about our human nature than it does about Buddha-nature. The former asks questions, the latter just is (and at the same time is-not).

Gassho
Bansho

[disastermouse]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

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.

Beautiful explanation Jundo. I would say that with total awakening, there is not even any yielding. Non-yielding that looks like yielding.

Chet

But ya know ... I still blink and cough and thrash around so often when the water gets in my eyes and mouth.

Yeah.....


Me too. I'm more than half-asleep more than half of the time.

[Taigu]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

Jundo, Thank you.

[humblepie]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

Thank you for this series of talks, Jundo, and this one in particular. Because of all the things going on with my father lately, I haven't spent much time here...posting or reading. Even though I'm spending more time sitting quietly and prefer to keep it that way for now, I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your teachings.

Oddly enough, I've just never been the type of person who is concerned about what happens after death. If I'm being kind and compassionate, it's because I simply choose to do so and not because I'm trying to get to some special place or be accepted by a heavenly host. My father was not the church-going type, yet was frequently heard saying, "I'm going to hell." Little did he know he was already there, and it was his own creation. In his current state of Alzheimer's-induced dementia, I'm not sure where he thinks he's going now. I plan to assure him that he need not worry if hell is still on his mind, because I am myself and my father, just enjoying the flight.

Very, very sincere thanks, from just a guy tossing a ball to his son, who is the ball and the son, and the messy, toy-strewn house he lives in.

Gassho,
Dave

[humblepie]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

Hi all. I hadn't planned on posting again today, but this discussion and the Zen view that there is no life or death got my scientifically-natured brain buzzing. It's often been pointed out that there are similarities between quantum theory and Zen or Taoist philosophies. A case in point that ties to this thread would be Schroedinger's "cat in the box" thought experiment. For those unfamiliar with it, and to shed some light on a modern experiment that may have proved it, here's a link:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=sch ... ers-cation

I'd like to hear everyone's take on this, especially Jundo. Does our existence as we know it (life, death and everything in between) rely on mere observance? Out of sight, out of body? Both alive and dead?

Picking your brains with joy,
Dave

[humblepie]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

Hmm...No one's responding to my brain picking. Let's look at it a different way.

Everyone has probably heard the old teaser, "If a tree falls in a forest, and there's no one to hear it, does it make a sound?"

People usually try to come up with a "yes" or "no" response, but the answer is both. Unless someone is there to observe it, what we know as the sound of a tree falling is actually nothing more than unprocessed information.
Pretend people are satellite dishes. A signal being sent without a dish to pick it up is just a signal...pure and simple. If one person is in the forest, no big deal. But throw more than one in, and things get tricky, because no two (or more) people will process information the same way. And because the information being processed is based on our ego experiences, it can't be relied upon as truth. This even applies to what we know of as death, because in the grand scheme of things, in that pure, unprocessed signal, there is no such thing. The sound of a tree falling, the tree and the entire earth that supports it are all part of that stream of being and non-being.

Dude. I think I just blew my own mind... :shock:

Gassho and giggles,
Dave

[Jundo]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

I'd like to hear everyone's take on this, especially Jundo. Does our existence as we know it (life, death and everything in between) rely on mere observance? Out of sight, out of body? Both alive and dead?

Picking your brains with joy,
Dave

Hi Dave,

As someone who is very interested in, and is writing about, the intersection of science and Buddhist practice/philosophy (such as neurological studies on meditation, modern theories of "time", origins of consciousness, etc.), I am very cautious ... especially as a non-scientist ... about our trying to draw too many parallels between our philosophy and, for example, current ideas of quantum mechanics, string theory, time relativity, etc. The reason is that not even the scientists themselves yet have a grip on the meaning and implications of those theories (for example, there is a very hot debate ongoing about whether "string theory" even describes anything "real" at all, or is just something that a bunch of human brains in university physics departments simply imagined up and kept going because they had hung their academic careers on the concept .... see this book for example):

http://www.amazon.com/Trouble-Physics-S ... gy_b_img_b
and
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465092756

And I say that as someone who has loved books such as the Tao of Physics, Dancing Wu Li Masters and such, but also knows the criticisms of such books as being too quick to make assumptions, and draw parallels, that just may not be there.

Physicist Jeremy Bernstein chastised Tao of Physics:[1]

At the heart of the matter is Mr. Capra's methodology—his use of what seem to me to be accidental similarities of language as if these were somehow evidence of deeply rooted connections.

Thus I agree with Capra when he writes, "Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science but man needs both." What no one needs, in my opinion, is this superficial and profoundly misleading book.

Physicist Leon M. Lederman criticized both The Tao of Physics and Gary Zukav's The Dancing Wu Li Masters in his 1993 book The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?[2]

Starting with reasonable descriptions of quantum physics, he constructs elaborate extensions, totally bereft of the understanding of how carefully experiment and theory are woven together and how much blood, sweat, and tears go into each painful advance.

That does not mean, however, that we cannot draw some clear and conservative parallels between what Buddhism professes and what science professes. So, yes, we are all connected and "one" in many ways (for example, both ecologically, and on a sub-atomic level, as matter/energy. Those assertions are now beyond serious question. We are linked directly and indirectly to even the most distant stars of the most distant galaxy). We each exist in our own little corner or "universe" of time, and there are parallels between Dogen's view of "being-time" and time relativity. I am writing a book now on something called the "anthropic coincidences", that I think has some important implications for ideas of causation and is evidence against the happenstance of human existence (and I am bending over backwards to be conservative in drawing any conclusions in my book). Yes, there are some parallels that we can draw without going too much out on a limb or engaging in pseudo-science, but we must be very careful.

Clearly, the mind and our perceptions mold and define and interpret all we experience of life and the whole world ... and when we change our thoughts/emotions we thus change our total experience of life/world. That is clear, and there is very little debate about that fact.

However, philosophers East and West have been debating for thousands of years about the degree to which the mind creates the "outside world", or the "outside world" creates the mind, or the extent to which they are one. It is a classic debate within Buddhism as well. There has been no clear resolution to this debate, though most of us tend to think that there was something "out there" before we were born and our brains started mucking about with interpreting it all.

But, for me, it is not so important to clearly answer that question, because BEYOND DOUBT, the mind creates so much about how we experience reality. So, for example, I know and can experience that when we we drop the thoughts "life" and "death" from mind, life and death do "vanish" in a very real way.

When we drop divisions, when we think and can see that we are "at one with the universe" ... we truly are.

Gassho, Jundo

[humblepie]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

Thank you very, very much Jundo. I agree with your caution, and lucky me, I haven't read those books you mentioned. The ideas proposed by quantum theory do interest me, though.

The book I'd like to read is yours, so when you're done, give a holler.

Gassho,
Dave

[Jundo]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

*PS - One of the reasons that I am on Nishijima Roshi's "sh-t" list these days is that I told him over recent years that I thought he had taken his very good ideas of Zazen as "Balance of the Autonomic Nervous System" and of Zazen having a neuro-physiological basis, and had stretched his ideas rather too far into areas where there is no scientific backing, no data, or where scientific data is directly contradicting some of what he says. I said so with all tact and respect for his (then nearly) 90 year old person, but like some of our parents and grandfathers, he does not take any contradiction well these days. He has become a kind of "my way or the highway" fellow on this issue.

One has to be very cautious about speaking to one's seniors in Japan. That whole "hari-kiri" sword in the belly thing (I have avoided that so far).

So, for the past couple of years I just stopped mentioning the subject when with him, and let it slide. I even just took the easy road to agree with whatever he said and say "yes yes" (he is very near the point now where everything in Buddhism comes down to "balancing the Autonomic Nervous System") But, once he had me marked as disloyal to his theory a couple of years ago, he never trusted me quite the same way.

I want to be perfectly honest about the situation.

He is a wonderful teacher of Shikantaza, Dogen and Zazen ... but some of his "theories" about what those all mean are his own invention that have run a bit wild over time. I think.

Gassho, Jundo

[Tobiishi]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

Good brain-kneading topic, Dave...

I have long had an interest in quantum physics, and have been trying to keep up to speed on research into quantum computers, among other things... I also see similarities between theoretical physics ideas and Buddhist philosophy, but the one that stands out the most (for me) is indeed Schroedinger's cat, for this simple reason: as a perceiving entity, my universe is the total of my perceptions; aside from my perceptions, nothing can be proven to me or by me to exist in any real sense; therefore, any possibility is equally probable, unless and until I perceive it- then it "falls" into a perceived state, in the same way an electron "falls" into a state upon observation.

Now, having said all that, I am at the same time trying to distance myself from these ideas, because they aren't doing me any good. Its fun for me to sit and think about physics, but as I'm slowly discovering, its just as fun to sit and do nothing at all.

Too many things competing for my attention presently, I can't think! Maybe I'll get back to this later...

Gassho,
Tobiah

[Kevin Solway]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

One mistake a lot of people make is that they think karma is personal. It isn't.

Other people pay for your mistakes. Such is life.

[Bansho]

Re: Jundo Tackles the 'BIG' Questions - VII

Hi Kevin,

One mistake a lot of people make is that they think karma is personal. It isn't.

Other people pay for your mistakes. Such is life.

Karma is volitional action, which may manifest itself as thoughts, words or deeds. Please have a look at Ven. Kobutsu Malone's short, but excellent essay on this topic entitled Komments on Karma, which he posted on ZFI.

Gassho
Bansho