Things to do when you're about to die...

[AlanLa]

Re: Things to do when you're about to die...

Couldn't sleep this morning, so in that twilight state my mind turned to death. Well, sort of, my random thoughts here popped up and I tried to put some order to them. Here goes:
Dead means no more brain activity. No more brain activity means dropping all thoughts and desires, which is nirvana. Unfortunately, you are dead, which means unconscious and unaware of nirvana, so death does not seem to be a helpful or insightful of state, as far as we can tell. Being alive, on the other hand, provides you the option of doing zazen through which you can learn to drop all thoughts and desires, which is nirvana. Fortunately, you are alive, which means conscious and aware, so being alive doing zazen is a helpful and insightful state that can provide the same realization of nirvana as death, but while aware of it, thus transcending life and death. It's quite simple, really.

[Rich]

Re: Things to do when you're about to die...

Couldn't sleep this morning, so in that twilight state my mind turned to death. Well, sort of, my random thoughts here popped up and I tried to put some order to them. Here goes:
Dead means no more brain activity. No more brain activity means dropping all thoughts and desires, which is nirvana. Unfortunately, you are dead, which means unconscious and unaware of nirvana, so death does not seem to be a helpful or insightful of state, as far as we can tell. Being alive, on the other hand, provides you the option of doing zazen through which you can learn to drop all thoughts and desires, which is nirvana. Fortunately, you are alive, which means conscious and aware, so being alive doing zazen is a helpful and insightful state that can provide the same realization of nirvana as death, but while aware of it, thus transcending life and death. It's quite simple, really.

You are already dead. You just keep coming back to life so you forget it.

[Jundo]

Re: Things to do when you're about to die...

Dead means no more brain activity. No more brain activity means dropping all thoughts and desires, which is nirvana. Unfortunately, you are dead, which means unconscious and unaware of nirvana, so death does not seem to be a helpful or insightful of state, as far as we can tell. Being alive, on the other hand, provides you the option of doing zazen through which you can learn to drop all thoughts and desires, which is nirvana. Fortunately, you are alive, which means conscious and aware, so being alive doing zazen is a helpful and insightful state that can provide the same realization of nirvana as death, but while aware of it, thus transcending life and death. It's quite simple, really.

Hey Alan,

I am going to dive in here with some personal interpretations beyond what I usually share with folks ...

I would not be so quick to jump to conclusions about consciousness after physical death or its absence.

I would presume that we return to the state much as was found prior to our birth ... which, good chance, had something very special to it, since we were born from it ... and here we are ... all despite the seeming ridiculously poor chance of that having happened (when all the possible alternative outcomes are pondered in hindsight). I believe the dice were loaded and that, in some intimate fashion, we are the universe (or, better said, what is more fundamental than that) seeing and otherwise experiencing itself through our senses ... much as a tree lives and breathes through each one of its leaves. When we die, the show does not end ... for we are each merely leaves dropping off the tree which we are (which we are in the most intimate meaning), and that tree does not end at the dropping of the single little leaf.

I would say, if you ask me, that there likely exists a state beyond both small human concepts of "conscious" or the lack thereof, and where several other philosophical questions are resolved when human categories are dropped. For example ... since we cannot picture a realm which is either causeless in its origins, or caused (for then, the old dilemma about the causeless cause of the cause) the solution to the riddle is likely a state beyond small human concepts of either "caused" or "uncaused". It is something else which makes the puzzle moot. Likewise for consciousness vs. its lack. In many ways, human beings are as ants crawling on the tea cart of a Boeing 747 in midair trying, with their little ant brains, to figure out what it is and how aerodynamics work. Best for the ants to just continue their crawl over the sugar cubes and enjoy the flight! Where the plane goes is their going!

Our Zen practice involves a great deal of wisdom in allowing this universe to go where it is going, for we have the awareness that ... in one way or another ... this universe is us, and where it goes is where we are all going. I very much doubt that you and I just happened to pop up in these rather precious lives as a freak or pointless event ... even if the "point" and "destination" (if both "point" and "destination" are not also words that are a human invention) is the airplane's point and not the ants'.

Although Zen teachers usually advise against idle speculation as distracting from the main focus of the practice (which is this life right underfoot now ... just crawling over the sugar cubes or living as a little leaf in the sunshine), I do not believe that anything I wrote above is very far from "orthodox" in traditional Buddhist interpretations.

Gassho, J

[AlanLa]

Re: Things to do when you're about to die...

Jundo wrote: I would not be so quick to jump to conclusions about consciousness after physical death or its absence.

No conclusions meant, which is why I hedged by saying '"as far as we can tell" when referring to death not being all that helpful of a state.

I do plead guilty to oversimplifying into dualities (conscious/unconscious, life/death) when the whole point is to get beyond such dualities. The comment "simple, really" was meant ironically, but I forgot to put in an emoticon to signal that. I find it sometimes helpful to simplify things in order to see their larger complexity more clearly. The whole "transcends life and death" thing has always been a puzzle to me. It just so happened that this thread prompted me to work on that puzzle and I did so as part of the thread. I feel I get it now better than ever, which is not to say I truly get it, just that I may be closer to a fuller realization. Honestly, I was afraid that the next post here would be from one of the many here that really do know what they are talking about on this topic, and that that person's post would be along the lines of "that's the stupidest explanation ever!" So far so good on avoiding that :wink:

Gassho (from the ant that is slowly working his way toward the cockpit of that jetliner, yet unsure of what to do once he gets there)

[Rich]

Re: Things to do when you're about to die...

One of my favorite koans is Where were you before you were born?

Don't know.

Is that enough?

Or would you like the specific place? :lol:

I'm just playing but there might be some truth between the lines.

Back to work

[Jundo]

Re: Things to do when you're about to die...

A few years ago, a very good friend was diagnosed with a virulent form of terminal cancer and (although he was still reasonably healthy in outward appearance) just a few weeks to live. He pressed me to offer him my own view of life and death. I hesitated, but did so. The "airplane" story I told to my friend Danny is a bit more elaborate version of the "ants on the 747" .... I am going to BOLDFACE a couple of sentences in there for emphasis ....

How can I put this? Perhaps, in the Zen perspective, life is like being born ... for some mysterious reason ... in a certain seat on a trans-Pacific flight (I thought the analogy appropriate, given how much time we both spend crossing the Pacific to Japan). We are not quite sure how we got here on this flight, who paid for the ticket, the destination ... and certainly, we are not quite sure who is in the cockpit or how the plane got made. However, something has seemingly gone to a lot of trouble to put us on this plane (earthly plane? har har). And, the movie is not bad (sometimes comedy sometimes tears), the champagne is cold, and the view out the window spectacular. Sure, some of the other passengers are hard to bear (often fighting amongst themselves), not everything is to our liking, and sometimes it downright is unpleasant. But the 747 seems to be moving along on its own power. So, nothing to do but enjoy the ride.

But there is more to it than that ...

For, in our perspective, we can see that we are all connected. I don't mean that we see some loose, indirect connection we all have. It is precisely that we see that the airplane and all the other passengers, the motor, the wings, movie and all the seats, and the guy in the cockpit are all part of you too, or are really you, or you are them ... or, better put, you, Danny, are the plane ... or even better put, there is just the flying).

...

And it sure seems like something went to a lot of trouble to make something as elaborate as a plane. A great mathematician and physicist [Fred Hoyle] once said ...

"The chance that higher [sentient] life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein... I am at a loss to understand biologists' widespread compulsion to deny what seems to me to be obvious." ("Hoyle on Evolution," Nature, Vol. 294, 12 November 1981, p. 105.)

The fact [I am writing a book on this] that so many a priori conditions were required to set our 747-world just right in order for us to share this e-mail leads me to conclude that our appearance on this plane is not mere happenstance, and the trip not without purpose (although I do not clearly know the nature of nature's purpose).

So, have a good flight, even with the turbulence and bad food. It's all part of the flying and we are not really at the controls.

Some Buddhists might also add that you are working through what needs to be worked through (karma and all that). I, personally, don't know about that, but it could be I suppose. Certainly, it is one explanation for how you ended up as "Danny," and not as some piece of luggage, coffee cup, headrest, other passenger or ... seemingly much, much more likely ... nothing at all. I can attest that this "Danny" is certainly one of a kind. (If I may continue with the silly plane analogy), why did you end up in seat 37D, and not some other seat, or in the baggage compartment, and why on the darn plane at all?? Maybe there is no reason at all, maybe it was an assigned seat.

Oh, and embracing the whole things means that it is okay to be pissed off, disappointed, etc., sometimes at being sick. That's what human beings do at times when we have been diverted, seemingly, from where we wanted the plane to go.


Your friend, Jundo ... quite often, a white knuckle flier

We also had a "Big Questions" thread on this topic which elaborated on many of these things ... and why, compared perhaps to most other religions (including other flavors of Buddhism) Zennies tend to be less preoccupied with "what comes next" because of their focus on "what comes now" ... Link here.

viewtopic.php?p=20191#p20191

So, HAVE A SMOOTH FLIGHT! ... roll with the turbulence ...

Gassho, J

[Rich]

Re: Things to do when you're about to die...

Jundo, Thanks for the flight info. That was helpful since we all have a terminal disease called old age