I dont but welcome.xris

Welcome vinasp! Interesting quotation. While not familiar with Buddhism, (generally speaking) facing the angel of death and dieing to the ways of the world eliminates the fear of physical death and then we can be alive. Don't want to get too much into discussion on this but feel free to open a new thread in the discussion forums because it's a great topic.

Without googling I remember Rumi said something like that. Welcome.

Welcome to Philforum!
Regards,
John

Welcome to the forum.

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the warm welcome. The quotation was by the seventeenth century Catholic preacher Abraham a Sancta Clara who said :
"A man who dies before he dies, does not die when he dies."

From : Graham Parkes, Heidegger and Asian Thought 1990, page 152.
I expect that many others have said something similar.

Best wishes, Vincent.

vinasp,

How would you propose that we die b/4 we die?

By the way welcome.

And:

I sought this post out after reading you over on Right View, Buddhism. I happen to agree with you on that topic, incidentally.

Warm Regards,
S9

Hi S9,

I hope my post has not caused you to misunderstand. Let me clarify a few things.
To be honest I do not know what Abraham was talking about. Perhaps some sort of Catholic mystical experience? Nor do I know why Heidegger quotes Abraham in the lecture. Heidegger was interested in Japanese Zen which sometimes speaks of enlightenment as "the great death". I have not read much on Heideggers thoughts. I am not really a philosopher.

My main interest is Early Buddhism which teaches "no-self". I think that the realisation of this is enlightenment. I also think that it must be a sort of "ego-death" or "psychological death".

On the question of "how to do it" I am not sure. Is the Catholic version the same as the Buddhist version? Early Buddhists seem not to have believed in "divine beings" or "creator gods".

Early Buddhism seems to be describing a path and a practice which they say will result in enlightenment. Some later Buddhist schools seem to say that there is no method and there is nothing one can do to become enlightened.

I suspect that something else is involved here, not a "god" and not the "unconscious" in a Freudian sense. But a deeper level of the mind which operates in a different way. This "original mind" is in control, and can bring about a psychological transformation under certain conditions.

Perhaps our brains have evolved with a built-in error correction capacity. Certain cognitive errors (connected with language) may lead to unpleasant fragmented states of mind. When the error correction is triggered it results in a spontaneous re-ordering.

Kind regards, Vincent.

Hi back at ya, Vincent,

Don’t worry about me misunderstanding because of something you may say. I am purely capable of doing that without any help. ; ^ )

You need not apologize for not being a certified philosopher, with all of the bells and whistles. I am only interested in the Truth, Pure and Simple, and you seem to be in possession of some of that, IMPO.

I myself am more of a Mystic (Mutt) having studied many fine disciplines, and like Aldous Huxley come upon a “golden thread” that seems to link them all, ultimately.

I have read my share of Chan, and Zen, as well, some years back now. But, I am not so organized in that area as I imagine you are. So, I am looking forward to learning in some small way from your self in this gentle conversation.

Yes, “no self,” everyone seems to think they know what this means, don’t they? I seem to be in a minority opinion on that one. I see that as speaking of the finite self, only. So, I could easily call it a psychological death, as well, when we become Realized/Liberated. Were that it was that simple. I also have a number of connotations that follow from that original concept.

Enlightenment, talking about it can certainly be both tricky, and confusing. I think much of this comes directly out of the fact that people are often speaking on multiple levels at once, a sort of mix and match, while making no attempts to point this fact out.

We also have the added problem of people speak from the perspective of outside of enlightenment, and within enlightenment, two totally diverse perspectives, but once again throwing both willy-nilly into that original mix. No wonder it seems to be contradictory in many instances.

So of course in the beginning we need a method. We are out here in a boat without any oars. After a while, we begin to realize that what we want is already in our possession and yet covered up to such an extent by misconception that we cannot quite make it out.

So there you have it, “nothing we can do will get us enlightened,” because as Buddha said, “we were all already enlightened, and just didn’t know it,” and at the same time we need a “method” then, to get rid of this “not knowing it.”

Yes, my new friend, we are certainly speaking (not about more/cumulative knowledge), but rather of something far deeper than finite mind and her knowledge, (AKA this dream state.) Like you say, it is “Original Mind.” But, not original in any lineal sense, but rather original as in synonymous with “Essential Being.”

There is certainly some Spiritual Instinct seated deep within us, which seems to be insistent on being known.

I look forward with curious anticipation to your reply,
S9

Hi S9,

About Chan and Zen I know nothing. I think I read perhaps three books on Zen about twenty years ago. I did not know what to make of it. Also one book on Chan at about the same time.

I had a sort of "enlightement experience" in 1987. I had been reading Krishnamurti for about five years before that. After this experience I lost interest in reading for about four years. Because it was a "sudden" type of experience I did not understand what had happened. After about four years (when the bliss subsided) I became interested in Buddhism (some say that this is what K was teaching). I read an overview of Mahayana and some sutras together with the Chan and Zen books. I also read some Theravada books. I decided to study Theravada, because I thought it was
the original teaching and they seemed to describe things in detail.

That was twenty years ago, and I am still trying to make sense of the teachings in the five nikayas. My latest "discoveries" are very strange but I do not know anyone who I could discuss these things with. I tried some buddhist forums and the result was - shall we say - not encouraging.

On "no-self": Do you mean that the self which ends is not the real self? My opinion is that what ends is only what has been mentally constructed - nothing real.

Kind regards, Vincent.

---------- Post added 01-06-2010 at 10:58 PM ----------

Hi S9,

Do you think that we should continue this on another thread? If so where? Or would you like to use e-mail for privacy? I am fairly new here and dont really know the conventions yet.

Warm regards, Vincent.

Hi S9,

I have started a new thread in the Buddhism section.
The title is : Enlightenment - discussion.

I have re-posted my first reply to you. If you re-post your second post we can keep them in sequence.

Kind regards, Vincent.