--- In [email protected], Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > On Apr 8, 2006, at 1:50 PM, jim_flanegin wrote: > > > What is the difference between so called life and so called death? > > > > We don't go away- our essential nature, our consciousness remains, > > so what difference is it if the consciousness is in the living room > > or the dining room or the bedroom? Is it fair or accurate to say we > > have *died* when we move from room to room? If I go from the living > > room to the dining room and someone says 'where's Jim?', do we > > say, 'oh he went into the dining room; he's dead'...? > > > > It is like that old phrase about enlightenment, you know, the one > > about chopping wood and carrying water, both before and after. Same > > deal, dead or alive --no difference--. > > > > Death is just the word to mean the physical body dies. Has little to > > do with the real Us on our eternal journey. No worries, mate. > > When I was doing my bardo retreat, we were supposed to sit with the > vajra master as a group after each level of the practice and discuss > experiences and get all questions answered. These were all advanced > meditators with a lot of experience under their belts. And for some > of them, when they consciously "died" it was quite overwhelming and > not easy by any means. In several of the people all of the lokas > arose at once--that means the lower dimensions as well as the > "higher" and they would enter into them. The problem arises when > people get *stuck* there. And it does happen to even the most > advanced practitioners--sometimes hours, days, months or years. It's > not only an extremely stable condition once you leave the body, but > these are your own patterns, so they're very easy to be seduced by. > If we hadn't received instructions on how to handle certain > situations, I wonder if some would ever come back. > > Most people when they experience the dawning of the Clear Light, > their awareness will simply faint. A week later they figure out > they're dead when they start spontaneously mentally "travelling". > Some people won't even get this and swoon again. > > "Through the bardo retreat, one is approaching an experience of space > that is utterly beyond any interference or involvement by the human > person, completely unorganized and undomesticated in any sense. It is > totally naked, free-form, and unconditioned. It is naked because it > contains not even the most subtle dualistic filter of subject and > object. It is free-form because there are no concepts or categories > to provide shape or interpretation. And it is unconditioned because > it stands alone, not based on causes and conditions or leading to > results, simply "as it is," without any reference to past or future. > It is outside of time. This description suggests the danger to the > meditator. Out of the anxiety of the "free-fall" of the retreat, one > may seek ground in what arises, becoming fascinated by the colored > figures, the mental imagery, and the visions that one sees, and begin > to fixate, magnify, and indulge in them. According to Tibetan > tradition, this kind of fascination can lead to the withdrawal from > reality mentioned above. In this case, one mentally creates a world > of one's own and physically enters into a state of suspended > animation in which one remains for years, decades, or even > centuries." from "Secret of the Vajra World" > > Tenzin Wangyal, who carried out a bardo retreat in the Bon context, > provides the following illuminating comments: > > I had heard stories and jokes about the problems people encountered > while doing dark retreat, in which practitioners had visions they > were sure were real. . . . In everyday life, external appearances > deflect us from our thoughts, but in the dark retreat, there are no > diversions of this kind, so that it becomes much easier to be > disturbed, even to the point of madness, by our own mind-created > visions. In the dark retreat, there is a situation of "sensory > deprivation," so that when thoughts or visions arise in the absence > of external reality testing devices, we take them to be true and > follow them, basing entire other chains of thoughts on them. In this > case it is very easy to become `submerged' in our own mind- created > fantasies, entirely convinced of their "reality." > > Until we try it and experience it, you never know. You've never seen > everything. :-) > Yep- that all makes sense. The one thing we should establish in this life is groundedness, centeredness, identification with the Self, the cosmos, Brahman. Just makes the rest of it manageable, and much more interesting. Otherwise we just as you say, tumble around with our minds closed, even to our selves! Life or death, get centered.
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