Near Death Experiences ("NDE") update (!) - - Ashin Ottama 

In the NDE-language it is called “astral body” - a kind of fine-material body which can go through the walls but can stand on the ground… - all bodies - even the physical - are just different densities of appearances. Let’s go advanced Buddhism: in SN22.95 the Buddha compares rupa =’body or materiality’ to ‘a foam’: "Monks, suppose that a large glob of foam were floating down this Ganges River, and a man with good eyesight were to see it, observe it, & appropriately examine it. To him it would appear empty, void, without substance. In the same way a monk sees, observes, & appropriately examines any body/matterial object/form (=rupa) - to him it would appear empty, void, without substance.” In Abhidhamma “paramatha” is the “Ultimate Reality” which means reality without additional mental creations. Here “rupa” (materiality/‘shape’) is seen as a combination of mere immaterial characteristics of hardness (“earth”), cohesion (“water”), temperature (“fire”) and movement (“air”). So in the end everything conditioned are just two kinds of ‘virtual’ phenomena: mental and non-mental. Buddha never denied the existence of phenomena. (Even Einstein new that what appears to us as ‘matter’ is just condensed and crystalized energy.)