Nibbana tangent part 2 (Agnosticism)

by David Turell , Thursday, May 30, 2024, 19:07 (175 days ago) @ xeno6696

DAVID: May I ask, is there a place in Buddhism for the evidence of NDE's that consciousness is separate from the brain which must receive it??

MATT: I thought I answered this or a similar question, but yes absolutely. It's off in that category with rebirth for me, but it is also why this particular school of Buddhism has continuously challenged me.

THIS consciousness is tied to a body, but as we get close to death leaving it is trivial. If you're in particular states of meditation at the time of death the experience becomes more like lucid dreaming. I'm not sure between which stages of meditation earns you psychic powers, but those are in the offing as well. Ajahn Brahm has so many stories to tell of Devas (celestial beings) or even of one story where A man several villages away died and his consciousness took over someone else's body. The Tibetan Book of the dead as I have mentioned earlier is supposed to be a complete guide to dying. It is through the lens of Tibetan Buddhism which has a more up close and personal attitude towards deities. But it's studied by students in all schools.

It's not clear at what point you gain psychic abilities, but once you reach the 2nd Jhana, you're supposed to be able to freely move through the memories of all your past lives--in that 'aftermath period' where the self is suppressed, and then somewhere between there and Nibbana is supposed to allow the practitioner to OBE, read minds, walk on water, an incomplete list is here. Some of the exploits of the Shaolin monks have been explained with physics, but obviously most people (including myself) kinda roll their eyes at flying through the air. Brahm has talked several times about a "mind-made-body".

However, as I stated at some point when I came back to chat here, there are also planes of existence where there is no material body component--mind made realms entirely. (The states of meditation beginning with the first Jhana all grant access to that universe of existence apparently.)

I know dhw you get frustrated when I don't compile bits together but I already answered your other two sets of comments. This is one I should have stated sooner, but while the Buddha did not declare what happens if you reach Nibbana and this body passes, he was adamant that both eternalism and annihilationism were false. This is one of several reasons his path is called "the middle way." Annihilationism is the materialist belief that this is the only life, period, when you die, that's it forever. Nibbana by definition is NOT that. Nibbana is also not eternalism: An eternal self that lives for all time. As I tried to say around the time that David asked if it meant joining God in some way, a cosmology that allows for realms that have no material component, clearly allow levels of latitude for odd realms of existence. Assume String Theory is true: there's many higher dimensions possible in our universe, surely there exists a bucket somewhere for what happens after you attain Nibbana, and then pass.