Hi everyone,
I think too often I pussyfoot around my own actual beliefs about the afterlife because I want to spare people's feelings, or because I don't want to disagree with Buddhist traditional views, or because I don't want to come across as unscientific (which to me is even more heretical than disagreeing with Buddha Dharma as I am very sensitive to anyone accussing me of not being able to distinguish fantasy from reality and I think people who can't make such distinctions should be locked up for the sake of public safety - particularly religious fantatics who can't make such distinctions). But really I should own up to my gut feelings/core convictions even if they are not provable.
When I was young (jr. high or high school at least) I took the Edgar Cayce past life readings as almost a given, the way other people grow up believing in heaven and hell as metaphysical givens. It just made sense to me that we are reincarnated and must enjoy or suffer the effects of our own karma. From the Edgar Cayce materials souls or entities have multiple lives as human beings though sometimes as animals and are responsible for their own individual karma and also for a group or collective karma and people tend to be reborn together again and again in different relationships. Also the Edgar Cayce worldview is monotheistic and Christian - so in some ways it is like a Western form of Vedanta with Jesus taking the part of Krishna/Vishnu and an eternal life in heaven as the final goal of all these trials in the world over many lifetimes.
When I learned about Buddhism it provided me with tools to think about rebirth and karma in a more sophisticated way. One big difference from the Cayce materials is that while Buddhism does posit a transmission of consciousness from one lifetime to another - this consciousness is not a fixed independent entity or soul but rather a bundle of habitual patterns, intentions, perhaps compassionate vows and the record of past causes and conditions within the "storehouse consciousness." Rational conscious thought is something that develops within mature human beings arising out of this complex of deeper levels of consciousness; and though the conscious mind is all we usually know it is only the tip of the iceberg. But none of the levels of consciousness (including the deep level that stores the seeds of all our intentions that will someday ripen into events in our lives and/or aspects of our physical,mental and emotional existence) are permanent or independent. They are all dynamic and the product of ever-changing causes and conditions and influences that reach out to all other beings and all things animate or inanimate in some form or other.
Another difference is that Buddhism posits ten different types of rebirth - as a hell-dweller, a hungry ghost, an animal, a fighting demon, a human, a heavenly-being, a saint, a contemplative, a compasionate being, or a fully enlightened one. Furthermore, these are not just literal states of rebirth but are mental states that we experience from moment to moment, they are all implicated in one another, and the literal rebirths are determined by which state we have the greatest tendency to gravitate toward at any given time. So if my disposition and the weight of my deeds tends towards the hellish and if in the very last moment (a microsecond really) of my life I am dwelling on hellish things - then I will be reborn in hell. Or conversely, if it is heavenly things like loving-kindness, then I will be reborn in heaven.
Also, whereas in the Edgard Cayce materials it was Jesus and heaven that described the final goal, in popular Buddhism it would be Amitabha Buddha and the Pure Land, or the Eternal Shakyamuni Buddha and the Pure Land of Tranquil Light that took up roughly the same functions.
The philosophy of Afred North Whitehead presented a contemporary Western metaphysical system that was not allied with any particular religion or faith, but which neverthless described a universe of interdependence and metaphysical mechanisms for the transmission of our conscious intentions and activities (as well as unconscious ones). But in the end, I viewed this as a nice way of organizing our experience, but it didn't prove anything or make rebirth or the Buddhist point of view seem more likely. Basically Whitehead's process philosophy could be enlisted for many different process oriented views - whether Christian, or materialistic or Buddhist. So I found that to be a kind of fascinating dead-end, though I think process thought is superior to substance/essence ways of organizing experience and is much more in line with what science has learned about how the measurable universe actually works.
After graduate school I got onto the net and ran into Brian Holly. Brian recommended the book Dying to Live: Near Death Experiences by Susan Blackmore. http://tinyurl.com/bxkqd
That book threw me for a loop. It basicaly put the NDE phenomena under a microscope, and Susan (a Buddhist and parapsychologist) basically did a very convincing job of accounting for the various elements of an NDE in terms of the subjectivity of brain-death. That book, along with some other books I had been reading that did a very credible job of debunking the Ian Stevenson studies of reincarnation and the veracity of Edgar Cayce's claims caused me to realize that I could no longer naively take for granted any of the metaphysical assumptions about life and death that I had been clinging to.
I also read more widely about the phenomena of past-life regression and realized that the mind is indeed capable of imaginatively making up past-lives that convince even the person who is unconsciously making them up that they are reporting actual experiences of a distant past that can explain the present. The book Life After Life by Raymond Moody http://tinyurl.com/bv2yp was particularly helpful because in it (if memory serves) Moody admits that these people may be unconsciously making up the material but that therapeutically this was useful because they were making up stories to create a meaningful context for their present problems.
So I learned that people who had experience NDE's or were "remembering" past lives were honestly and sincerly reporting what they had directly experience for themselves - or at least what their minds had experienced or created for them to experience. It is said that when the Buddha attained enlightenment he reviewed all his past life experiences, all the past, present and future lives of other beings, and then the causes and conditions which gave rise to all that he had reviewed. This insight into causes and conditions based upon his review of his own past lives and the lives of others was what enabled him to become free of delusion and awake to life in a way that few people ever achieve. After reading Susan Blackmore and Raymond Moody I realized that the Buddha may in fact have felt that he had directly experienced all these past lives and seen for himself all these heavens, hells, and hungry ghosts, but the genius of his unconscious mind could have manufactured it all and his conscious mind accepted it as fact.
So this brings me to my present thoughts. I can no longer claim, even on the testimony of Edgar Cayce or the Buddha or anyone else that there are literally such places as the ten worlds. On the other hand, my conviction that our lives are determined by causes and conditions, and that we are part of a living selfless universal interdependent process that can be subjectively experienced as universal compassion has not been shaken. I also deeply believe that our conscious minds are just the tip of the iceberg and that beneath it our minds contain vast worlds and innumerable lifetimes that it manufactures moment by moment as the mind takes in all the many experiences and influences of the whole universe as it impacts us and turns it all into a coherent narrative to guide our conscious mind (for better or worse). This can sometimes be accessed if our conscious mind is trained to do so - and it is by tapping into these deeper metaphorical levels of the mind that we experience intuitions of a greater reality than ourselves and our present finite lifetime. Some have experienced this as union with God, others experience it as a non-dual ultimate reality, others might feel that they are reviewing other lives or lifetimes, or are connected to all life in some unimagineable way. And out of all this comes stories of past lives, heavens, hells, deities, angels, bodhisattvas, buddhas, cosmic saviors and so on. It is the vast usually unplumbed potential of the mind subjectively experienced by our conscious awareness as a numinous reality.
But what about the afterlife? I promised not to pussyfoot around but instead have gone on about Edgar Cayce, Alred North Whitehead, Suzan Blackmore, Raymond Moody, and the Buddha beneath the Bodhi Tree reviewing all lifetimes.
Here is what I think - whatever objective reality is we will always experience it in terms of mind - just like the Consciousness-Only School of Buddhism teaches. It is good to be objective, but authentic objectivity only comes through authentic subjectivity (at last I have mentioned Bernard Lonergan who is never far from my mind) and our subjectivity is not something that we can ever escape even in death - since death ends the conscious subject (or at least the continuity thereof) as well as the subjectivity.
So whether there is an afterlife or not we will experience it as a subject - and we will experience it in terms of one or another of the ten worlds. Our subjectivity can be hellish, or heavenly, or compassionate or awakened or any of the others. Where do our minds and hearts dwell? That is the important thing. In that last culminating moment our mind will most likely gravitate to that world whose orbit it is most familiar with of those ten worlds - and I see no reason why that would not (as Buddhism teaches) carry through or over into whatever is past the final moment. I don't believe in inconsistent breaks in other words.
And now for my gut belief that goes beyond logic, or science, or particular dogmas (though it is certainly colored by Buddhism because that is what makes the most sense to me and seems most fitting): I think that our bundle of subjectivity and intentions and habit-patterns, and karmic seeds, and perhaps compassionate vows does have some medium of transfer that transcends material measurements. This bundle is dynamic, without a single fixed or independent element, but it is consistent and has a continuity determined by causes and effect. I think we can be reborn as people again. I think that it is not inconceivable that we could get stuck as ghosts. I think it is concieviable that this "spirit" (for want of a better word) could identify itself with some forms of animal life before taking on a human birth again. I think it is concievable that while there are no geographic heavens or hells the spirit could lock itself into a self-absorbed paranoid nightmare of suffering or find a restful abiding in some heavenly contemplation or even communion with other spirits. Anne Rice makes these kinds of speculations in Memnoch the Devil. Horror fiction, true, but I think Anne was using the medium to think about how the afterlife could be possible given our scientific materialistic worldview - her speculations are certainly no crazier than a lot of New Age ideas, and in fact make a lot more sense than the traditional Buddhist Mt. Sumeru cosmology.
So I will admit that I don't know one way or another. None of us can know until we are actually past knowing. But it seems to me that our mind will and can experience the fullness of itself in this way - through rebirth in terms of the ten worlds in accord with the law of cause and effect. Whether it is or only seems so - I am convinced that there are heavens and hells and more. This means that what the Buddha taught is as true now as ever - we should refrain from making bad causes, endeavor to make good causes, and above all strive to purify our minds.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
I am really looking forward to reading Charles Atkins' new book and seeing what he has to say on this subject. I, too, have been struck in reading about past life therapy, how the "past lives" seem to fulfill a particular therapeutic purpose whether or not they are "real" - I guess real is relative in some cases.
A medicine woman friend of mine keeps telling me she's going to regress me -- it should happen this winter sometime. I'll let you all know what happens!
Best, Byrd in LA
Posted by: Byrd in LA at September 7, 2005 04:27 PMHi Byrd,
I'm looking forward to Charles' new book to, and have already ordered copies for myself and my parents.
As for "regressing" - good luck with that. Personally, I try very hard not to regress and look forward to attaining the stage of non-retrogression. ;)
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
Hi Ryuei, I always enjoy reading your blogs. What always makes me uneasy is that last moment of one's life thing where this determines one's next existence. What if in that last moment a person had a horrible fight with a spouse and had a heart attack and died, but this very person had for the majority of their life lived a very compassionate life? It's seems kind of unfair. Like a car accident for instance with the same scenario. We all have "slips". Okay, many "slips" in life. Should this doom us in our last moment? How does that work?
Thanks.
Yolanda
Hi Yolanda,
I am glad you picked up on that. It is an assertion of traditional Abhidharma (the part of the Buddhist canon that consists of a systematic presentation of the Dharma). I think it may be the reason why in Japan they believe that someone who dies peacefully will become a Buddha (hotoke) but someone who dies in an accident will fall into the lower worlds (like becoming a ghost for instance). But actually the Japanese view completely misses the full subtlety of the Abhidharma and is not just shallow but incorrect.
First of all, the "last moment" is the last millisecond of life, and the idea is that no matter what may have immediately preceeded it, the mental configuration that just about to ripen into a new life will show itself in that last moment of the present life.
Now think of this - in many NDEs a person may have come to the point of dying through some traumatic event - drowning or a car wreck or somesuch. And really, all final moments are kind of sudden - even if there was a protracted illness leading up to it. The apple doesn't fall of the tree slowly even though we know it's been ripening to that point all season. Anyway, no matter what brought it about the NDE experience of leaving the body, floating around, observing everyone, the white light, meeting relatives or a compassionate presence of light (usually identified as Jesus by Westerners but as one of the cosmic buddhas like Amitabha by Asian Buddhists) and perhaps a past life review and so on all lead to a transcendence of whatever brought one to the point of death. So the circumstances of death become irrelevant from the NDE point of view (and some people who have been brought back have reported unpleasant experiences or no experience at all). Anyway, none of this is the "final moment" because it is all leading up to the "final moment." Now in an NDE the "final moment" of conscious connection to the present life is never reached (though there may be bodily death according to the measurements of current medical practice) and the subject is sent back (or it wouldn't be an NDE but a DE). But presumably, if the person actually did die, following all that, they would have a vision or would have a visceral feeling or somesuch of the new state of being that is about to ripen. The Buddha cautioned against trying to presume about other people's karma. A good person might fall into hell, an evil person might attain heaven. The reason being that the complexities and immensities of our karmic backlog can't be second-guessed by our finite conscious minds. So we may have led a very good life but underneath have suppressed all kinds of negative habits and ideas which will surface to be expiated or dealt with. The moment of death then become the ultimate moment of truth.
This is very disturbing, because what it is saying is that if we don't have the kind of thorough penetrating insight of a Buddha then we don't really know ourselves and therefore won't really know what is in store for us (in other words, what within our deep subconscious is about to ripen). All of this may be a metaphysical fairy tale (or scare tactic take your pick), but I think it points to something very important even within the boundaries of our current lifetime - if we don't take the trouble to know ourselves and take responsibility for ourselves, from our conscious intentions all the way down to our most hidden primal urges and cravings, then we will feel that our lives here and now are out of control - never mind the next lifetime. I have seen this kind of thing with my own eyes. We harbor heavens and hells within ourselves, and if we don't want to ride through them as though on a runaway karmic train we must develop the kind of self-reflection, insight, sense of responsibility, and will to follow through and reshape or better yet liberate ourselves from unconscious craving and compulsion.
In a very real sense, all of our spiritual practices of learning to center ourselves, and calm down, and see clearly, and plant good causes through prayer and contemplation on ideals of compassion and selflessness are all intended to prepare us to face the ultimate moment of truth with equanimity, self-knowledge, and a measure of awareness and compassion for ourselves and others. That will enable us to be free of unconscious compulsions towards the lower realms and plant the seeds within us that will ripen into a vision and gravitation towards the higher realms - the heavens, the Pure Lands, or even a renewed compassionate engagement with this world.
Bottom line is that this is not something that is actually out of our hands. Buddhism teaches that we are gardens and gardeners and while we can we should uproot weeds and plant and nurture good seeds so that the final moment of ultimate truth (no matter what immediately preceeded it) will ripen in a way that will bring freedom and happiness for ourselves and others.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
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Posted by: Ryuei at September 8, 2005 09:31 AMLOL! I'm only "regressing" with my friend so that I can face my terror of bicycles. Never mind. You didn't read that from me. It's a dark secret.
As for non-retrogressing, how do you know when you've achieved that? Where can I read more about that?
Later, Byrd in LA
Posted by: Byrd in LA at September 8, 2005 11:43 AM
Hi Byrd,
The stage of non-retrogression is one of the ten bodhisattva stages. Nichiren refers to it in the gosho and the Lotus Sutra also mentions it. Offhand, I can't think of a specific page number in a specific sutra to point to for a full explanation - references to it abound. Probably in the chapter in the Flower Garland Sutra on the ten stages (check the Flower Ornament Scripture translated by Thomas Cleary if your local library has a copy). Books on Tibetan path structures might discuss it as well.
In any case, the idea is a Mahayana version of the Hinayana teaching of a "stream-enterer." A stream-enterer is someone who has had enough insight that they understand the causal and impermanent nature of things to such a degree that they no longer hold any mistaken cognitive views (i.e. mistaken theories about life) though their emotional and spiritual hindrances remain. They also have gained enough conviction from this insight that though they are tempted they no longer make any major bad causes like killing or stealing or being unfaithful or lying or getting intoxicated. Because of this insight and conviction it is no longer as much of an effort to refrain from bad causes and to do good causes, it comes more naturally and less self-consciously. One at this stage is gauranteed to never fall into the lower worlds and will attain enlightenment within seven human lifetimes (with some stays in heaven in between) if not sooner or even the next day! One at this stage would no more regress than a full-grown adult would voluntarily go back to being a 15 year old virgin without a driver's license and unable to legally drink or vote. One does not relinquish that kind of empowerment and mature control over one's destiny. The kind of people who think such insight is fleeting are people who have not matured themselves and don't want to believe anyone else is capable of such maturity. These kinds of people are dangerous psychopaths or close to it. Anyway, the stream-enterer has entered upon a non-regressing path to Hinayana enlightenment.
The bodhisattva stage of non-retrogression, however, assumes that the bodhisattva in question has already attained sufficient insight and liberation from cognitive, emotional, and spiritual hindrances to qualify for Hinayana enlightenment - total and irrevocable freedom from constantly cycling through the various heavenly and hellish and other states that make up unenlightened life. But they have gone beyond that to a more altruistic and far-reaching goal - the liberation of all beings - even if that means selflessly giving up their own escape from the lower worlds. The bodhisattva stage of non-retrogression is when a bodhisattva's aspirations and insight into the interconnectedness of all beings has become so deep that they would never even think of turning back or giving up, and in fact they no longer even think in terms of self-sacrifice or painful ordeals. Everything for them become an unselfconscious and spontaneous expression of charity and compassion. They have become transparent mediums conveying unconditioned love and compassion in terms of the causes and conditions that make up our ordinary lives. The bodhisattva who attains this stage no longer worries about whether they have attained it or not, that kind of self-absorption or labling no longer concerns them - it has dropped away and/or they laugh it off. From that point on these bodhisattvas will naturally develop their merits and abilities and will become buddhas whenever there is a need - and they no longer even worry about attaining buddhahood because even that has become just another skillful means for the sake of others and not themselves.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
Hi Ryuei, As usual, you've provided a thoughtful,detailed answer. I do truly appreciate the time you took to reply. I will have to reread it several times and chant about it. Actually, your reply has given me spiritual comfort and that means a lot. Thank you. Thank you.
Yolanda
Ps: I just read in a Gohsho passage today, this quote: "As you have been saying for some time, in your situation as a lay believer, you should just single-mindedly chant Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo morning and evening, day and night, and observe what happens at the last moments of your life. At that time, hasten to the summit of perfect enlightenment, and look around you in all directions. The entire realm of phenomena will have changed into the Land of Tranquil Light,...Buddhas and bodhisattvas all being caressed by breezes of eternity, happiness, true self, and purity. We, too will surely be among their number. (WND, 843) Reply to Matsuno
Posted by: Yolanda at September 8, 2005 11:19 PMThe reader comments here are wonderful and Ryuei's thoughts are truly compelling.
I'm also humbled that some of the readers here are hoping that my new book will shed some new light on what is a vast subject. I hope it does, but you will all have to be the judge of that.
If I were to offer up some perspective on the final moment and the interim existence it is this: dying is often difficult but death is easy. By easy, I imply that just as sleep is, for the most part, a wonderful and most natural experience, so is death a natural and awesome state of non-being. I encourage you all to "fear not." The final moment "quagmire" we so often hear about as the determining factor is, in my view, a myth that emerged to put people on the right path of conduct and thought. Whether we die gently in bed after saying goodbye to all our loved ones, or we are wipped out in a hurricane, or we are savaged by the demons of war, the manner in which we die is mostly immaterial. What matters is what is in our heart - not so much in the often fearful throes of death (that's too much pressure), but overall.
It is my understanding that the wisdom of death comes of itself in the proper time, and it is truly glorious and wonderful. We should be open to whatever comes, like a child who is experiencing the ocean or the mountains for the very first time.
Charles
Posted by: Charles at September 9, 2005 01:59 PM