During a near death experience, I was judged. I screamed out of horror during the entire judgment process. A divine nonhuman entity read a book. In that book was written everything I had talked, did, even thought of. Nothing was missed. Nothing was added. No privacy whatsoever. Nothing was hidden. That was why I screamed.
“There is no conclusive evidence of life after death. But there is no evidence of any sort against it. Soon enough you will know. So why fret about it?” - Robert Heinlein
There's no hard evidence against the idea that leprechauns exist either, but there's also no emotional payoff to believing they MIGHT exist and consequently there's no discussion over whether they might exist. You die, you're dead. That's it. The end. Only ego and emotions put us on the insane path of baseless hope for something that simply will not happen. Accepting this extremely obvious fact makes every single moment of joy and pain pure magic.
@@Teller3448 “Why should I fear death? If I am, then death is not. If Death is, then I am not. Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not? Long time men lay oppressed with slavish fear. Religious tyranny did domineer. At length the mighty one of Greece Began to assent the liberty of man.” ― Epicurus
@@Teller3448 Yes, there is the rub! But this reminds me of why I always found listening to Christian sermons so pointless, when I was a child. The basic underlying message seemed to be: be a good person. But I never really felt the need not to be a good person. If, on the other hand, everything hangs on choosing the one and only true religion, the one and only true sect within that religion, and then correctly interpreting and following every one of its precepts/commandments to the letter, then I’m afraid I’ve got only a hair’s breadth of a chance of cleansing away all of the bad karma created in this (or any other) life before passing away.
Very interesting video, Brad. As I keep telling you every time I comment, I am kind of catching up on your old material in a random fashion. This is the video the youtube algorithm recommended to me today. I never worry too much about what comes next. I mean we'll all find out someday, right? So no need to worry about it. Good or bad, sudden darkness forever or something else, there's no escaping it. But like you say, that's tomorrow. Right now I'm alive and good so let's not worry too much about what comes later. But I was told an interesting story by a former monk here in Japan. I'm actually not sure what tradition he was... he was one of my English students many years ago. I don't think he was either school of Zen... maybe pure land. Don't know. Anyway, he told it like this... We are cups of water and the afterlife is an ocean. When we die we are returned to that endless ocean. At some point another cup is drawn from that ocean for another life. That new cup may contain some of the water that was in the cup that used to be me, and it may contain many bits of water that were previously in other cups. The result is a new combination. Perhaps that new cup will have bits of memory or personality from the previous says in cups, but maybe not. If that new cup meditates a whole lot, maybe it will unlock all the memories of all the water that makes up the cup, as the Buddha did years ago. But probably not. Who knows! That's me paraphrasing anyway, but basically his story. I always liked that. But again I don't worry too much about it. We'll find out one day!
@@Teller3448 To my surprise, the first person I am seriously considering blocking on RU-vid is not one from the endless crowd of offensive pricks, but one that comments a lot but contributes very little. It's just time-management really.
@@thotslayer9914 Yes, the context of the golden rule is the notion that everyone values life and happiness in exactly the same way. Which is obviously not the case...as I illustrated with an extreme example.
Really sounds much like the gist of some standard Vajrayana (Diamond-Vehicle, Tantrism, Lamaism) meditations on ante-natal/post-mortem-existence(s), resp. re-incarnation(s), of which the most "popular" one seems to be the "Bardo-Thödol". Maybe, P. Kapleau inserted it into his "manual" to make up for some supposed/felt gaps/deficiencies inside the standard Zen-world-design---if there is such: Some studies point to much virtuositiy regarding hermeneutics of the "last things" inside the bigger Sangha of the Zen-movement.
You're probably correct. The relationship between Zen and the rest of Buddhism is fascinating. Dogen insisted that he was a Buddhist, pure and simple, not a Zen Buddhist. As a Buddhist, then, he had a wider understanding of the traditions and literature than just the material from the Zen school of Buddhism. Although he doesn't always refer to ideas such as the Nine Consciousnesses idea from Yogacara, and so on, it seems like those ideas were often in the background of his own writings.
@@HardcoreZen "Dogen insisted that he was a Buddhist, pure and simple, not a Zen Buddhist" He needed to say that...because to admit there many Buddhisms would be to admit to more than one truth. And there can only be ONE.
Great explanation. And I’m really GLAD your response wasn’t a Sadhguru response. You kept it very open ended, which is honest and true. From my personal experiences, I know consciousness exists _without_ a physical body. This was from an OBE I experienced during a traumatic car accident prior to waking up in a coma. I could see the room crystal clear. At the age of 7, I’m glad I experienced that incident (although, it’s been a struggle). Had I not, I don’t know if I would have refrained from a hedonistic experience. At the age 3, I vividly sitting in church and hating every second of it (my family is devout Catholic, and very staunchly religious conservative),. So grew up resenting religion in all forms. Spirituality OTH is different. I’m glad I had that awakening at a young age. It was so freeing, and I felt so light-hearted. For those concerned with death: live your life doing the best that you can. Death is a state of mind, and yes, it _is_ a continuation of life. It is a natural process metamorphosis, and nothing to fear. And having that OBE reminds me of how life here is a gift-so cherish every second of it as best as you can, and love those around you the best that you can, because this moment is ALL we have _within_ this realm of existence. 🙏 (Beyond that? We are all on our own path) *We truly are spiritual beings having a human experience (to paraphrase French philosopher/Jesuit Pierre Thiehard de Chodrin).
That's interesting. I have never had an OBE, but when I was in high school I read a book about them that also contained instructions for how to have one. I tried following the instructions, but it didn't work!
For the sake of clarity: I suppose you speak of Marie-Joseph Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955). He was really a remarkable person, an empirist scientist, but also Christian mysticist (on a rational basis, working with concepts, like: Jesus Christ as the "Omega-man", and God´s creation as a permanent evolutionary process; what, by the way, brought his works onto the "index", and himself the "order for silence"), so to speak. Re: Out of body experiences. Their epistemological-ontological status is still controversely debated: What do they evidence, if studied from different angles? For me personally, they are indicators, no more and no less. Anyway, thanks for sharing.
@@HardcoreZen Here's part of the passage from his book... "I always wondered about what happens when you die, when you're beyond this world, and tried to find information about that in books. While living at the big house, I read a lot of books by Lobsang Rampa. He was a writer who claimed to have been a Tibetan monk before spending his later years in the body of an Englishman, or so he wrote. I started getting into all this leaving the body stuff astral travelling. I really believed in it and that made me want to do it. I planned it and thought about it and I tried it a few times, but nothing happened. When I finally managed to do it for the first time, I came out of my body and, with a jolt, suddenly jumped back in. You feel it pulling you back as your astral is leaving your body; you feel this pull up your spine. I must have got frightened and I came straight back in. Once I had done that I was determined to make it work properly. I kept practising. You've got to be by yourself in a room and you have to really, really relax, but not to the point of falling asleep, because you have to stay conscious. And then you will yourself to leave. At first it’s funny, because you feel like you’re falling. Most people have had that feeling when in bed. You go, oohh: you experience a jolt. That’s when your astral comes back in your body when you dream. You're asleep and you’re just about to leave your body, and if you move, whoof,, it comes straight back in and you get that jolt. After a while it worked. I came out my body. It was weird. I floated around the room and looked down on myself from the ceiling. And I could leave the room, go through walls and go off to the roof. It sounds mad, but once I even went along the beach. You come back. You’re attached by a silver cord that pulls you back. If that’s ever severed, you don’t, so it can be risky. When you dream and your astral leaves your body, and an entity is in the lower-class astral, and it pulls on your silver cord and annoys you, you get these horrible dreams. It could be caused by drugs or drink, just anything. I know it sounds odd, but I have experienced all that and it opened another world to me."
Thanks for the video Brad. I’m curious, are you familiar with Alan Wallace? I read his book Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic. I found it to be interesting & insightful.
What you said around minute 12 regarding the book of the dead is what I had been thinking as you read from those pages about reincarnation. When you do get around to examining the book of the dead I'd very much like to hear your thoughts on that.
"Well that's cast rather a gloom over the evening hasn't it ?" " I don't see it that way Geoff. Let me tell you what I think we're dealing with here, a potentially positive learning experience..." "Shut up ! Shut up you American, you Americans, all you do is talk, and talk, and say ' let me tell you something' and I just wanna say. Well your dead now, so shut up! "
Tibetan Book of Dead is a mysterioum book, which by a grave mistake became a quasi-evangelical tantrik prayer-book. Better read the Thimothy Leary's treatment on this stuff.
I remember that I really loved Radio Free Albemuth, which he wrote and then set aside in order to write Valis, which he published instead. I'm not even sure if Radio Free Albemuth was published in PKD's lifetime. But, having read both of them, I often wondered why he chose to publish Valis instead. Valis is a great book, but I liked Radio Free Albemuth better. I also like UBIK a lot and Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich and Marian Time Slip.
@@HardcoreZen I’m also a long time PKD fan, and I agree re: RFA. They also made a great movie adaptation of it several years ago with Alanis Morisette in one of the starring roles. If you haven’t seen it you should check it out!
My teacher is in the Kapleau tradition/lineage, and in fact knew the man well. I wonder if his own severe illness played a part in his “compilation” of sources for his views and book?
Bit of a digression but seriously how is Brian Wilson still alive after all these years. That man has indulged in every drug imaginable and he's still walking around "like whatever'.
That's interesting: all the accounts on soul-consciousness flowing out of the body during NDE I know about are from the people of Christian civilization or those who fell under its sway. No one in ancient India, China or Japan, nor Thailand, Sri Lanka or any other non-christian societies of the recent times had left us such amazing tales. For example: I am pretty sure Dogen had had experiences quite the same as OBE/NDE, but...as Brad says, not a word about any tunnels of light, flowing out of the body etc. To me it seems like all the experiences of that kind are culturally loaded - so, they are nothing more than just sankhara of this life.
"The important thing in Zen practice is to focus on right here right now just as it is." People with alzheimer's are good at that...having no memory or thoughts of the future. Sometimes they cant even identify where they are...aside from being 'right here'.
I think this may be an unfortunate mischaracterization of the disease. I'm sure everyone has their own relationship to it as it impacts so many people, but I think the state of a person suffering from late-stage Alzheimer's is one generally of confusion and frustration about not being able to understand what's going on 'right here' or remember how they got to 'here'. It does raise a question: if you have no future and you have no past, is there a now? I'm not sure
@@hexdecoded767 "a person suffering from late-stage Alzheimer's is one generally of confusion and frustration about not being able to understand what's going on right here" Yes, that's how it would be if you really and truly lived in the moment...right here and now.
Kapleau is giving the Tibetan teachings on this. I have not read the "Tibetan Book of the Dead" (Real title: Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo), but I understand it is pretty much the same description. More accessible is a livestreamed lecture by Lama Lena here on RU-vid called "How to Die" (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-i6qjxilW5ds.html). She says she remembers many of her deaths and therefore speaks from direct experience.
@@ObakuZenCenter She was authorized as a lineage holder by Wangdor Rinpoche. She translated for him for many years. In what way is she "not a real Lama"?
I've always thought the Tibetan book of the dead was a psychedelic experience from Padamasambhava. Much of what he described sounds similar to a DMT trip.
at around or leading up to it 15:00 you gave exactly the reason why i also believe this may be true, namely that with our "little" bit of meditation practice and phenomena we experienced, we can extrapolate and see that they may have had much bigger insights... for example, i am convinced at this point, that the "white tunnel" one sees during death, is the "nimitta" phenomenon one experiences before they enter "jhana", I know, its a dirty word in zen, but hey, i dont care... the mind-made body or great accomplishment or whatever it is called, which buddha referred to and which other traditions (esoterically & mystically) refer to, gives credence to this. the sufi mystics talk abuot "dying befor death", which, if you put 1+1 together, is also about this nimitta -> entering jhana, if we assume this nimitta thing is the same thing one experiences when they die - namely, the white tunnel.. so the mystics, who also went to Jhana ("union with God"), were talking about this... this also lines up with the mind-made body apart from the physical body, which buddha talked about (perhaps it was called the great vehicle, i dont know, i dont remember the terminology between traditions, there are just too many) i do believe in these "phenomena" (siddhis) because i have experienced them myself... allthough tiny and not of any significance, other than proving to me that this stuff is actually legit... while i do respect you and your opinion, i hate the fact that you always without fail try to redirect the conversation back from these topics to the "here and now and this life is the most mystical and mysterious thing or the most important thing", well, yeah, but its common, we know it, we live it, we want to know what we dont know, its curiosity... we dont know it fully, but there are things we are absolutely clueless about, so lets check those things out, no?? I am somewhat convinced that you do this for the very same reason why every other spiritual master has advised against chasing after these things - they are dangerous and illusiory and dont really profit one in the longterm when it comes to "enlightenment", which I know in zen is viewed differently again, but again, I am not strictly zen, i check and compare multiple eastern traditions and try to read between the lines or see the common denominator. if i am right with my assumption, than that sucks.. it means that anyone and everyone who knows about this stuff, is not gonna talk about it... so then, who am i gonna consult?? how do i explain the things that are occurring to me daily whenever i meditate?? i am not gonna go join a "sangha", as i am strictly non-sectarian! i'd rather be on my own than trust a charlatan! finding a true teacher is less likely than winning the lotto 5x in a row... i hate that people are shush about this. monestaries have non-disclosure agreements, people like you redirect the conversations or if pressed on it, say its meaningless, unimportant or illusiory, they say forget it, focus on the meditation.. alright, im doing that, but that shit is still occurring and in fact, is actually disturbing my meditation (physical phenomena).. if anything, show me how to turn it off or make it go away... i checked, i recorded it (initially thought i may be going crazy, having hallucinations or imagining things, but the recordings tell me otherwise)... and it always happens roughly 10 minutes or so into the meditation when i im in a different state (very calm, very focused but not 100% unwavering focus and then have sort of random thoughts shock that state, pull me violently out of it and make me snap back to it, this somehow ripples out into my surroundings or so I believe, thats the best way i can describe it as I have no actual clue wtf is going on but I do know sth is going on.. so i may be completely wrong) ps: no idea why the heck im even writing all of this, ill probably get ridicule from the atheist-zen converts who are strictly materially minded, anyway... or who mistake the budhist silence about "God" as the non-existence of God, which multiple other (non-dual) traditions like advaita vedanta, who compared or studied buddhism, said it is not so, that buddhism does not strictly say no, while it also does not say yes... absence of yes does not mean no... im rambling again... there is no theistic, personal God but that does not mean there is no "God"... this "God", from what I understand, is the base for consciousness and according to various teachers from advaita vedanta - buddhism (including zen?!) and advaita vedanta actually teach the same, while the one calls it emptiness, the other calls it the "fullness", its viewing the thing from multiple angles and describing it differently. then this thing is anthropomorphied to make it more edible for the masses, so you end up with a personal God with which you can relate with... so the theistic religions are born. I digressed a bit again, but I said what i wanted to say. Lets see what you guys have to say about all of this, I am not trolling, I take everything very seriously what I wrote, I am researching these things not because I got nothing better to do, but because 1. I am really curious & care and 2. I have been having experiences that are only explained in eastern traditions!
yeah, but i ran across a few western wanna be hippies (or so i think), who were fully against anything paranormal or supernatural, to the point of explaining the scriptures away as allegories or metaphors etc. and they then start ridiculing you, calling you crazy and whatnot.
@@edgepixel8467 i cant be any clearer, if i didnt express anything as clearly, then please point it our or ask and ill rephrase. my issue simply is this: why do people who are (obviously) in the know, not talk about it?
now it so happens we have first hand accounts of what soto zen monks and priests thought about what death was in 16th century japan because the jesuits argued with them on it it was very solipsist, that the world ceased to be when we died which i thought was interesting personally i don't think the question has any real meaning if not for the brutal repression of christianity, japan could have ended up with a majority christian population www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50414472
I am not sure if we should trust the jesuits sources, not because they were Christians, but because they were Europeans, so it is possible they had made some mistakes in their interpretation. Several years ago I was interested in the early Slavic history and I know Catholic and Orthodox monks described pagans beliefs in the way that was very confused. Of course between Christianization of Slavic people and Jesuits actions in Japan it's a few centuries of intellectual development, so they could be more trustworthy, yet even nowadays many people misinterpret ideas of their opponents.
@@jakubbanasiak5563 the jesuits were extensively involved in japanese culture and the language, well worth a read up on, they were not at arms length and interested in other "theologies" their integration and success was their downfall of course
@@osip7315 actually we have got better sources than Jesuits. We have the old books by monks and masters. So I think Dogen, Hakuin or Keizan are more trustworthy than Francis Xavier. And I am not sure they were so successful, since it's more complicated. When some Japanese people converted to Christianity, others disliked new religion very much and it was one of the sources of persecution (which was awful of course). (I really don't want to discuss about details, because I haven't read any book on Japanese history for long time.) So we can only suppose Christianity could become more popular, but we can't know that. I apologize for my horrible English.
@@jakubbanasiak5563 and what did hakuin, dogen and keizan say ? what does anybody say ? a million people, a billion answers my one answer is this when someone dies they are gone that is all
Also, you are always repeating that you have been studying Zen for 35 years. You are knowledgeable but don't use it for argument. Show me your face....
