Dhamma Wheel Buddhist Forum

I think it is not a matter of proof but a matter of faith, at this point. 50 years ago some of the subatomic particles found recently would be just theoretical. No point expecting proof when the instrument which can measure it doesn't exist. All we have now is a theory. Is this theory helpful for you and how much faith do you have in the person who proclaimed this theory? Without this faith what have you reduced this practice to?

With metta

daverupa wrote:Fairly useless without experimental design and predictive ability, thereby failing to distinguish itself from any other speculation.

The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.

A non-material explanation is hardly discounted because material evidence cannot be found.

rowyourboat wrote:I think it is not a matter of proof but a matter of faith

Exactly! People of faith, whatever faith that may be should stick to their faith and not try to prove their beliefs scientifically! Science and faith are incompatible.

gavesako wrote: ...

Then there are other well-documented cases in the West which involve young children, consider for example the boy who remembered details of his past life as a fighter pilot shot down in WWII:

...

Someone who does not accept rebirth as the most obvious explanation should at least suggest some other way how all that information "got inside their brain" and how they acquired the special abilities which they display at a very young age.

The stories are surly fantastic, if one has not been around children much. One obvious incongruence is that “…all that information “got inside their brain”…” yet the language used to express it took the regular path of development.

It's an unfortunate argument when people say there is no Santa Claus. Sorry, you skeptics--there is. In fact, as the photo below proves (third from either side), he was best man at my wedding:

Don't be quite so quick to dismiss the existence of things just because you haven't experienced them directly.

BB

Dear Members,

Heaven is real..definitely YES. Home of God is dark...NO WAY/IMPOSSIBLE!!!
This Uposatha day I read an interesting news:

Heaven is real, says neurosurgeon who claims to have visited the afterlife
[By Eric pfeiffer, yahoo news]

Dr. Eben Alexander has taught at Harvard Medical School and has earned a strong reputation as a neurosurgeon. And while Alexander says he's long called himself a Christian, he never held deeply religious beliefs or a pronounced faith in the afterlife.

But after a week in a coma during the fall of 2008, during which his neocortex ceased to function, Alexander claims he experienced a life-changing visit to the afterlife, specifically heaven.

"According to current medical understanding of the brain and mind, there is absolutely no way that I could have experienced even a dim and limited consciousness during my time in the coma, much less the hyper-vivid and completely coherent odyssey I underwent," Alexander writes in the cover story of this week's edition of Newsweek.

So what exactly does heaven look like?

Alexander says he first found himself floating above clouds before witnessing, "transparent, shimmering beings arced across the sky, leaving long, streamer like lines behind them."

He claims to have been escorted by an unknown female companion and says he communicated with these beings through a method of correspondence that transcended language. Alexander says the messages he received from those beings loosely translated as:

"You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever."

"You have nothing to fear."

"There is nothing you can do wrong."

From there, Alexander claims to have traveled to "an immense void, completely dark, infinite in size, yet also infinitely comforting." He believes this void was the home of God.

After recovering from his meningitis-induced coma, Alexander says he was reluctant to share his experience with his colleagues but found comfort inside the walls of his church. He's chronicled his experience in a new book, "Proof of Heaven: A neurosurgeon's journey into the afterlife," which will be published in late October.

"I'm still a doctor, and still a man of science every bit as much as I was before I had my experience," Alexander writes. "But on a deep level I'm very different from the person I was before, because I've caught a glimpse of this emerging picture of reality. And you can believe me when I tell you that it will be worth every bit of the work it will take us, and those who come after us, to get it right."

*************
But I don't think the 'home of God' is dark!!
Heaven must be so bright with all beautiful/splendid celestial things/celestial angels.
yawares

Whatever problems arise, they arise right
here. “Is death followed by rebirth? By annihi-
lation? Is there a next world? Does hell exist?
Does heaven? Does evil exist? Does merit?” Ev-
erywhere I go, there’s the same question: “Do
heaven and hell exist?” I never feel like answer-
ing. I don’t see any reason to answer it, because
that which is burdened with heaven and hell
is the heart, which everyone already has. So
why waste time answering? After all, I’m not a
record-keeper for heaven and hell! Living beings
are reborn in various realms of existence through the power
of the good and bad kamma within the heart. The heart itself
is what’s reborn into those realms. If we don’t solve the
problem right in the heart, we’ll never be able to escape
the bonfires of suffering and anxiety.

-- Luangta Maha Boowa, "Samana"

Here is a nice short video by Dr Woraphat Phucharoen, a Thai scientist who used to work for NASA in America. He was a Christian first, but when he discovered Buddhism, he was so attracted by it that he wanted to study it deeply, and so he calls it the Inner Science as opposed to Outer Science. He became a monk and was experimenting with natural truth by practice. Now he is a popular lay Dhamma teacher, quite funny too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq2LW2CC ... ure=colike" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (English subtitles)

Alex123 wrote:

gavesako wrote:When a neurosurgeon found himself in a coma, he experienced things he never thought possible—a journey to the afterlife.

It is interesting that these "journeys" tend to occur in hospital when a person is pumped with drugs or when brain malfunctions...

How do we know that these memories are not by-product of the brain and/or its malfunction?

Because in many cases of reported OBE or NDE, the individual is not "pumped full of drugs", they are clinically dead. It's not a question of "brain malfunctions"; there is literally no detectable brain function. And yet these people continue to experience.

How is it possible that a person has conscious experience, and can sometimes even report things that were said and done in their presence, with no brain function?

Now, while this does not necessarily validate any of these particular experiences, it does seem to indicate that consciousness is not simply reducible to the brain, and can operate independently of it. At the very least it suggests that present scientific models do not adequately account for consciousness.

drifting cloud wrote:Because in many cases of reported OBE or NDE, the individual is not "pumped full of drugs", they are clinically dead.

What happens chemically when the brain is about to shut down or restart?

drifting cloud wrote: It's not a question of "brain malfunctions"; there is literally no detectable brain function. And yet these people continue to experience.

How do we know that this eхperience doesn't happen prior to brain shut down, and/or after brain restarts?

drifting cloud wrote:How is it possible that a person has conscious experience, and can sometimes even report things that were said and done in their presence, with no brain function?

It would be interesting to study this thing. Did they guess or someone told them? Did their brain work at that instant of time?
Can dying brain record some data to be used when/if brain restarts to fully functioning?

Time dilation effects and created memories need to be ruled out as well.

So many variables... and, if as this guy says “There is nothing you can do wrong.” - well that's just swell!

(It's part of the primary source here; let's not discount it, as it has rather dire ethical consequences...)

gavesako wrote: so he calls it the Inner Science as opposed to Outer Science

That seems to me a good way to think about it. Western science disregards subjective experience and subjective experience (of suffering) is why we are all here.
Come to think of it, there is just as much objective proof of NDE's as for jhana or other meditative states, maybe more, because NDE experiencers can report events around them when they were technically dead. So in as far as we ask for proof of such experiences, arent buddhist meditators living in the proverbial glass house?

sounds like an OBE to a heaven realm. i think a lot of religious mythology has developed around those types of experiences.

Mawkish1983 wrote:I used to be very troubled by these discussions. I've come to realise that whether there is an afterlife or not, whether consciousness is brain-made or not, whether rebirth occurs or not, I am still going to die. Regardless of my beliefs or otherwise, death will take me.

Obviously. But where will death take you?

Mawkish1983 wrote:I'm coming to terms with that now. Nothing I have yet perceived is eternal or permanent.

How do you know? You haven't been around eternally to tell whether "something" is permanent or not. There are some objects that are always there to our perception - the sun for instance. Astronomical theory suggests that the sun will die, but that's a theory, not anything you have perceived.

gavesako wrote: Then there are other well-documented cases in the West which involve young children, consider for example the boy who remembered details of his past life as a fighter pilot shot down in WWII:

http://www.reversespins.com/proofofreincarnation.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The father might be seeking fame - if people believe him imagine the book sales!