'Dead Buddhist man in 'death meditation''

[cooran]

Hello all,

Where does this place us from the organ donation point of view?


Dead Buddhist man in 'death meditation' - Part 1 (8:47)
http://tvnz.co.nz/sunday-news/dead-budd ... eo-4246846

with metta
Chris

[Bonsai Doug]

Can't address the organ donation question, but that is one fascinating video/story.

Thanx for the link.

[ronnewmexico]

As stated 30-40 in the last fifty years. The issue of organ donation is not the issue for your average buddhist. These are very spiritually advanced individuals who can likely as well predict when and how they will die.

The inverse is..if one is particularly heinous it is thought the body immediately begins to corrupt. One leader of one relgion(nonbuddhist) centuries ago was notorious for his corruption. Having others killed stealing their lands for his family consorts of every sort and description.
His body upon death was noted unusually for immediately corrupting and growing to absurdly grotesque proportions before his burial.

We think of dead bodies as dead in morturary. I have seen dead bodies unattended for a week or so..and it is quite quite a scene. Image 200 pounds of just laid dog crap that is what it smells like. So this is simply not possible...but will be and is, discounted by those of science,and others.
Such is how we are...refuseing to see things, as it conflicts to our long firmly held beliefs.
We must explain it away.

The buddha could appear in the sky in gigantic perportions virtually everywhere.
During the occurance 25% would say it is not occuring.
A minute after after that occured half would say they dreamed it.
Five minutes later 90% would say it was a illusion of cloud and wind
A month later 99% would say it never happened, rumor of its happening is what happened
A year later scholors would be debating how to stop people from imagining such things so they may be happier and more contented.

So it serves no purpose to provide supernatural or unnatural displays. It is quite pointless.
This is not a display but a state of consequence for purpose.
We can also assume such a person could also provide quite a "display" if it would serve purpose.
It does not so they do not.

How many times do things of such form and fashion have to display before we get it..that things are not as they appear..things this reality is plastic not concrete

the answer if infinate....we will never get it in that way. We absolutely refuse to see it. Part and parcel of this delusion of realness is to refuse the unreal.
It is all built upon the illusion of reality. The larger is self, the larger is the delusion. Those most challenged are those who build the highest fences.
So this is discounted amongst a plethora of other things discounted as well.
Makes you want to grab them and shake them by the sholulders, exclaim..look look!! but no purpose served in that as well.
They would then become quite blind, most assuredly, that would be the majority result.
As certain "true believers" we may find, become completely blind to any other view.

[Paul]

Hello all,

Where does this place us from the organ donation point of view?


Dead Buddhist man in 'death meditation' - Part 1 (8:47)
http://tvnz.co.nz/sunday-news/dead-budd ... eo-4246846

with metta
Chris

That's genuinely fascinating. Thanks for that. I doubt tukdam has been recorded on video before in that detail.

The buddha could appear in the sky in gigantic perportions virtually everywhere.
During the occurance 25% would say it is not occuring.
A minute after after that occured half would say they dreamed it.
Five minutes later 90% would say it was a illusion of cloud and wind
A month later 99% would say it never happened, rumor of its happening is what happened
A year later scholors would be debating how to stop people from imagining such things so they may be happier and more contented.

Sad but true...

[Paul]

Here's the Dalai Lama talking about the death of Thupten Rinpoche's death:
http://www.archive.org/details/2011-06- ... enRinpoche

[cooran]

Thank you very much for this link. I've sent it to a Theravada friend who is very interested in this occurrence.

with metta
Chris

[Will]

I do not get this practice.

Is the fact of the body being held back from normal dissolution a side-effect of the subtle mind meditation or a deliberate part of the practice? If the latter, to what end & purpose is the body held back from its return to the elements?

[Malcolm]

I do not get this practice.

Is the fact of the body being held back from normal dissolution a side-effect of the subtle mind meditation or a deliberate part of the practice? If the latter, to what end & purpose is the body held back from its return to the elements?

As long as the mind is certain dhyānas, the body will not decompose.

There is no purpose per se.

[Indrajala]

There are a lot of cases of advanced meditators doing things mainstream thought would consider anomalous and even supernatural.

Harvard University did a study of tum mo practitioners.

During visits to remote monasteries in the 1980s, Benson and his team studied monks living in the Himalayan Mountains who could, by g Tum-mo meditation, raise the temperatures of their fingers and toes by as much as 17 degrees. It has yet to be determined how the monks are able to generate such heat.

The researchers also made measurements on practitioners of other forms of advanced meditation in Sikkim, India. They were astonished to find that these monks could lower their metabolism by 64 percent. "It was an astounding, breathtaking [no pun intended] result," Benson exclaims.

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/200 ... tummo.html

[Will]

I do not get this practice.

Is the fact of the body being held back from normal dissolution a side-effect of the subtle mind meditation or a deliberate part of the practice? If the latter, to what end & purpose is the body held back from its return to the elements?

As long as the mind is certain dhyānas, the body will not decompose.

There is no purpose per se.

Thanks Malcolm; but does this suggest that time spent in "certain dhyanas" will forstall some of the aging process and thus lengthen life of the body somewhat?

Could there be also a purpose, for very advanced practitioners, that those days or weeks of tukdem be used to seek another physical body to transfer to? I have forgotten the name of this practice, from the Six Yogas of Naropa, I recall.

[kirtu]

Could there be also a purpose, for very advanced practitioners, that those days or weeks of tukdem be used to seek another physical body to transfer to? I have forgotten the name of this practice, from the Six Yogas of Naropa, I recall.

It's their final meditation. The person could do a number of things depending on their attainment but basically they are deepening their enlightenment experience or directly resting in some degree of enlightenment.

Some TB masters taught about a practitioner at this level having considerable freedom in how their death manifests. But they are beyond the need to transfer their consciousness (phowa). Phowa is for ordinary practitioners although some advanced practitioners also use it.

Kirt

[Will]

Could there be also a purpose, for very advanced practitioners, that those days or weeks of tukdem be used to seek another physical body to transfer to? I have forgotten the name of this practice, from the Six Yogas of Naropa, I recall.

It's their final meditation. The person could do a number of things depending on their attainment but basically they are deepening their enlightenment experience or directly resting in some degree of enlightenment.

Some TB masters taught about a practitioner at this level having considerable freedom in how their death manifests. But they are beyond the need to transfer their consciousness (phowa). Phowa is for ordinary practitioners although some advanced practitioners also use it.

Kirt

Thanks Kirt, but I was thinking of an obscure aspect of phowa that Mullin translates as "forceful projection" (grong 'jug). One can actually revitalize & thus inhabit a corpse (recently dead I guess).

[Malcolm]

I do not get this practice.

Is the fact of the body being held back from normal dissolution a side-effect of the subtle mind meditation or a deliberate part of the practice? If the latter, to what end & purpose is the body held back from its return to the elements?

As long as the mind is certain dhyānas, the body will not decompose.

There is no purpose per se.

Thanks Malcolm; but does this suggest that time spent in "certain dhyanas" will forstall some of the aging process and thus lengthen life of the body somewhat?

Could there be also a purpose, for very advanced practitioners, that those days or weeks of tukdem be used to seek another physical body to transfer to? I have forgotten the name of this practice, from the Six Yogas of Naropa, I recall.

For as long as the life indriya is not separated from the body, it will not decay. The separation of the life indriya is prevented by being in a state of samadhi at the time of death.

[Malcolm]

Thanks Kirt, but I was thinking of an obscure aspect of phowa that Mullin translates as "forceful projection" (grong 'jug). One can actually revitalize & thus inhabit a corpse (recently dead I guess).

right, but you do leave your own body behind.

N

[Indrajala]

Thanks Malcolm; but does this suggest that time spent in "certain dhyanas" will forstall some of the aging process and thus lengthen life of the body somewhat?

Could there be also a purpose, for very advanced practitioners, that those days or weeks of tukdem be used to seek another physical body to transfer to? I have forgotten the name of this practice, from the Six Yogas of Naropa, I recall.

For as long as the life indriya is not separated from the body, it will not decay. The separation of the life indriya is prevented by being in a state of samadhi at the time of death.

Related to this, according to the Abhidharmakośa one can extend one's lifespan (āyurvipāka) through a process of dhyāna and generosity where the yogi transforms retribution-in-joy (bhogavipāka) into an extension of life. See the following quote:

śāstre uktam ——“kathamāyuḥsaṃskārān sthāpayati ? arhan bhikṣuḥ ṛddhimāṃścetovaśitvaṃ prāptaḥ saṅghāya vā pudgalāya vā pātraṃ vā cīvaraṃ vā anyatamānyatamaṃ vā śrāmaṇakaṃ jīvitapariṣkāraṃ vā dattvā tat praṇidhāya prāntakoṭikaṃ caturthaṃ dhyānaṃ samāpadyate|sa tasmāt vyutthāya cittamutpādayati vācaṃ ca bhāṣate ——‘yanme bhogavipākaṃ karma tadāyurvipākaṃ bhavatu ’ iti tasya yad bhogavipākaṃ tadāyurvipākaṃ bhavati| yeṣāṃ punarayamabhiprāyaḥ ——vipākoccheṣa vipacyata iti|

The Mūlaśāstra says: “How does a Bhikṣu stabilize the vital energies? An Arhat in possession of supernormal power (ŗddhimān-prāptābhijñāḥ), in possession of mastery of mind, i.e., one who is asamayavimukta, gives, either to the Sangha or to a person, things useful to life, clothing, pots, etc.: after having given these things, he applies this thought to his life; he then enters into the Fourth or prāntakoṭika Dhyāna; coming out of the absorption, he produces the thought and pronounces the words: 'May this action which should produce a retribution-in-joy [bhogavipāka] be transformed and produce a retribution-in-life [āyurvipāka]!' Then the action (the gift and the absorption) which should produce a retribution-in-joy produces a retribution-in-life.”(1)

[ronnewmexico]

The problem becomes....one never knows without means when ones life may "normally" have ended.
One may die as a child a teenager a middle aged and whatever. If one employes such as means, one may still forestall a death for a time but only if one has the karma to continue first to a very old age would this become unusually evident.
That I would suppose is relatively rare.

As to transference of consciousness into a newly dead younger person...that is a very very rare thing also to my opinion. And one engaged with specific spiritual purpose, not just to extend ones life.

Sometimes things of this sort can lead in a negative fashion to my opinion. Leading one to reinforce that one will not die(a generally samsaric thought) and that consequently one may not be noninheratly existant but inherantly existant. Posessing such aspect thusly not completely suffering karmic consequence of actions...which for us being not really spiritually advanced, a very grave error.

Those here that consider themselves very spiritually advanced could of course disregard that last comment as it would not apply.