Death

[godnotgod]

Yes, but only for a live person. A dead person has no consciousness. I'm not sure how your posts in this thread are actually relevant to the OP.

That's because you're not paying attention.

To reiterate: If there is no individual self, then who is it that lives and dies? If it is found that the individual self is but an illusion, then so is birth and death.

Your response assumes that consciousness is local. We have experimental evidence to the contrary, here:

In addition, if there is no local consciousness, then there is no individual self, but only the illusion of one. This is the state of conditioned awareness otherwise known as Waking Sleep, or Identification.

The Hindus tell us that the jiva, the self of individual consciousness, becomes Brahman, but this is not so: the jiva already is, and has always been, Brahman. The jiva is not real; only Brahman is real. Nothing ever becomes anything else; it only seems to be so. The gold chain is and always has been, nothing but pure gold. There is only the realization that one is Brahman, and that the jiva is an illusion, a mask, just as the character in a drama is and always has been, the actor behind the mask.

 

[godnotgod]

There may indeed be expiration, but there is no such expiree, in the same manner that there is no whirlpool that whirls. There is, in fact,only whirling water.

Who is it that lives?
Who is it that expires?

 

[Rick O'Shez]

To reiterate: If there is no individual self, then who is it that lives and dies? If it is found that the individual self is but an illusion, then so is birth and death.
Your response assumes that consciousness is local. We have experimental evidence to the contrary, here:

In addition, if there is no local consciousness, then there is no individual self, but only the illusion of one. This is the state of conditioned awareness otherwise known as Waking Sleep, or Identification.

Sorry but I don't find this muddle of ideas coherent or convincing. It's the usual lecture, a random collection of bits from Buddhism, new-age pseudo-science and Hinduism.

I checked the Youtube clip you posted, the comments made about it are not inspiring: Nonlocality - YouTube

Basically we are born and then we die, that's all we can be sure of. Evidence from neuroscience shows that consciousness is intimately related to electro-chemical activity in the brain, and that consciousness ceases when the brain dies.
There is no evidence that consciousness can exist independently of brain activity, or that there is some kind of universal consciousness, those are religious beliefs.

.

 

[godnotgod]

Sorry but I don't find this muddle of ideas coherent or convincing. It's the usual lecture, a random collection of bits from Buddhism, new-age pseudo-science and Hinduism.

I checked the Youtube clip you posted, the comments made about it are not inspiring: Nonlocality - YouTube

Basically we are born and then we die, that's all we can be sure of.

That's the delusion you labor under, because you have come to believe your fictional character, otherwise known as 'I', to be real, having been lost in Identification, and having lost touch with your true nature, which is beyond any finite encapsulation of Reality you call 'I'. Until you experience a true spiritual awakening, you will continue to believe in the delusion of a localized consciousness that is born and dies. The irony is that this illusory 'I' is what is causing your delusion in the first place.

Who is it that is born?
Who is it that dies?

Your usual put down of things you fail to understand is telltale. As one Buddhist to another, I can see clearly that you haven't made much progress on your meditation mat. You'd be better off burning it.

The point is not found in the YouTube comments section. The point is whether you understood what was being communicated. I think you did, but choose instead to deny what you heard because your thinking mind is dictating otherwise.

You didn't watch the video, did you?

Did you take notice that the lecturer in that YouTube clip referenced the confirmed 1994 scientific experiment by researchers Jacobo Grinberg-Zylberbaum demonstrating the non-locality of the human brain? Here is the research paper in .pdf format, downloadable:

http://www.deanradin.com/evidence/Grinberg1994.pdf

 

[Rick O'Shez]

As one Buddhist to another, I can see clearly that you haven't made much progress on your meditation mat. You'd be better off burning it.

I burned it long ago. Will you burn your muddled new-age ideas?

 

[psychoslice]

I burned it long ago. Will you burn your muddled ideas?

I like that.

 

[godnotgod]

I burned it long ago. Will you burn your muddled new-age ideas?

They're neither mine nor 'New Age', both notions being only in your mind.

That birth and death are illusions is pure Buddhism. When will you come to realize that as basic Buddhistic understanding and insight? We call such realization 'transcendence'. Remember?

If you 'burned it long ago', why do you still cling to dualistic notions of birth and death?

 

[psychoslice]

They're neither mine nor 'New Age', both notions being only in your mind.

That birth and death are illusions is pure Buddhism. When will you come to realize that as basic Buddhistic understanding and insight? We call such realization 'transcendence'. Remember?

Your not a true Buddhist are you ?.

 

[godnotgod]

Your not a true Buddhist are you ?.

By that do you mean do I make efforts to follow the Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths?

My particular focus is Zen.

Why do you ask?

 

[psychoslice]

By that do you mean do I make efforts to follow the Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths?

My particular focus is Zen.

Why do you ask?

Yes I like the Zen approach also, the reason I asked is that what you said just didn't fit that, but that's ok.

 

[godnotgod]

Yes I like the Zen approach also, the reason I asked is that what you said just didn't fit that, but that's ok.

You mean what I said about life and death being illusory?

 

[psychoslice]

You mean what I said about life and death being illusory?

I tell you the truth, I can't remember lol.

 

[godnotgod]

I tell you the truth, I can't remember lol.

Not a problem, but in any case, here is what Zen Master Seung has to say about it:

The Human Route
by Zen Master Seung Sahn

Coming empty-handed, going empty-handed — that is human.
When you are born, where do you come from?
When you die, where do you go?
Life is like a floating cloud which appears.
Death is like a floating cloud which disappears.
The floating cloud itself originally does not exist.
Life and death, coming and going, are also like that.
But there is one thing which always remains clear.
It is pure and clear, not depending on life and death.

Then what is the one pure and clear thing?

 

[Rick O'Shez]

If you 'burned it long ago', why do you still cling to dualistic notions of birth and death?

You're the one who is intent on lecturing in these threads, repeatedly churning out the same old cliches and half-truths from here and there.
Meanwhile babies are born and old people die, and your pseudo-spiritual word-salad makes not a bit of difference.

 

[Ashraf]

Death is the gateway from the temporary life to the permanent one

 

[Pegg]

Our visions of Death are different... Death means different things to many people. For some it is eternal bliss, for others it is judgement.

What are your visions for Death?

I envision Death because I had an experience with him, him...

Death knocked on my car window and there was no one there.... Only the bony tap of a passer by.

I wasn't upon Death only laying in my automobile, fasted and starving in the winter cold.... I was travelling....

Frost seized the windows and the winter cold was upon me, I was freezing to death.. Yet no one was there.
I almost froze to death, I was in my automobile that had a dead battery.


I do not know this stranger.

the bible says that death is an enemy of mankind. i have no visions of it because it is not something which can be seen... its just a state of existence, the end of life.

 

[godnotgod]

... babies are born and old people die....

There is the singular and seamless transformation of form on an eternal continuum of which you see only a part which you then dualistically split and then proceed to call it 'birth' and 'death'.

Form is emptiness;
emptiness is form.

Who is it that lives?
Who is it that dies?

You claim to be a Buddhist. As a Buddhist, how do you propose to gain release from the endless wheel of births and deaths?

Or perhaps you haven't thoroughly burned your meditation mat all the way through yet.

 

[godnotgod]

"In this moment there is nothing that comes to be. In this moment there is nothing that ceases to be. Thus there is no birth-and-death to be brought to an end. Thus the absolute peace in this present moment. Though it is at this moment, there is no limit to this moment, and herein lies eternal delight."

Sixth Patriarch, Ch'an Master Hui-neng

And NO, this is NOT 'pseudo-spiritual' nor a New Age notion!