Ask a Buddhist

[Madeline]

It does sound comforting. I know I'd be honored by such behavior by my kidlet, after my passing.

 

[Sky Dancer]

My mother was a lapsed Catholic. In order to honor her, I made sure that my cousin had mass said for her.

 

[Madeline]

That was kind of you, Sky Dancer. For myself, I just want the kidlet to have the mourning experience that will bring her the greatest peace. I'm not picky about how she disposes of my remains, etc. I just want her to have support and heal.

 

[Sky Dancer]

There is a prayer that I said for the 49 days that comes to mind.

"From Tara's heart, (Tara is the female Buddha), rainbow light shines forth throughout the six realms and the bardo, (the intermediate state between birth and death). Enveloping the deceased one wherever she is, purifying her karma and infusing her with Tara's radiant blessing. Her form becomes a brilliant sphere of light and dissolves into Tara's heart/mind. A realm beyond the cycles of suffering, a realm of absolute purity and peace."

 

[mystic]

Hi Sky Dancer! Thank you for giving this oppourtunity. I haven't had a chance to speak with many buddhists.

I've never heard of that book. It might interest you to know that Buddhism discusses rebirth but rarely reincarnation.

They're different. Reincarantion is the idea that a real self, a personality reincarnates again.

Rebirth is the consciousness, and karma goes with you. Not your 'self' as a personality.

Buddhism pokes holes in the idea of an inherently existing 'self'.

Can you elaborate on this? I always thought the hindu and buddhist conception of reincarnation were similar? I believe in reincarnation simply because it makes sense to me. That substantial growth takes a lot more then one lifetime to achieve.
How would you consider the personality self to be different from the consciousness and that you retain one but not the other? Could we compare it to the conscious and the unconscious mind? I'm confused by this because I think I identify with my consciousness as being part of my self. That it is in fact part of my personality. But maybe that's because I listen to it too much.

Second question (probably not as confusing..lol): How do you meditate? On a word, a chant, an image? Or are you in fact, just emptying the mind? Which I find extremely hard to do. Seems much easier to at least give the mind one thing to focus on.

Hi Mystic,

There are many ways to meditate. The first one I encountered uses mindfulness of the breath as a place to come home to. In the beginning, as you have noticed it helps to give the mind one thing to focus on.

Then it's possible to open up the field of the senses further, to include body sensations, sounds, sights, smells, and thought itself, (or rather mindfulness of thinking). I have some experience with using mantra and visualization too. There are also mediations that are subject contemplations such as "what is the difference between love and attachment?" That's the kind of meditation where we engage the thinking mind, and we give it something to do, such as contemplating the subjecy. We always follow contemplation with resting or relaxing the mind.

There are thoughts, and there is awareness or a knowing of thoughts. We might call this awareness consciousness. At the same time, there is awareness of hearing, awareness of seeing, awareness of sensing we call this consciousness too. Most of the time we are walking around living our lives we are seeing, hearing, thinking etc but we are acting automatically. We aren't taking the time to become self-knowing. That's the function of medtation.

As we slow down and meditate, we become aware of a continuity of awareness moment to moment. We experience awareness as free. Sensations, come and go, thoughts come and go, but awareness doesn't go anywhere. It's always present, we just have to train to recognize it.

Once we open to this spaciouis quality of awareness itself, we rest in that. So we are no longer aware of some thing, we are just open and aware moment to moment.

Most of us have to train many lifetimes. Whatever meditation practice happens in this life as we train, it is that practice that goes with us into the next life.

I hope I haven't confused you further.

sky

Thank you for your answer Sky. No, you didn't confuse me. I had always thought of meditation as emptying the mind...as in, not thinking. But it sounds like you are saying mindfulness or awareness is a meditation in and of itself. For some reason, when I get my monthly massage, I feel like I start meditating. Because the experience is so enjoyable to me, I'm fully present and in fact, I do stop thinking. Sometimes it feels like I have left my body. But this is the only time I experience that.
I didn't realize that contemplation could be considered meditation. Well, then, I meditate all the time! And as far as awareness of thoughts, I do experience that on a regular basis. I mean, obviously in our daily lives we do use auto-pilot quite a bit...especially at work.

 

[Hister]

Do Buddists have any special rituals for honoring deceased friends and family, Sky Dancer?

Yes. There are special prayers and practices that can be offered at the time of death. I can't speak to every Buddhist tradition but I can share my own. In my mother's case, I made offerings on her behalf at a week long retreat/sadhana practice and in a fire puja.

For the 49 days following her death I performed a special meditation practice for her. The 49 days after dying is considered the longest time any being will spend between lives and it is considered auspicious to offer prayers and meditation and visualization practice at this time.

I worked with a lama to make over 108 tsa tsa's, small symbolic representations of the buddha's mind. We prayed and meditated over each one and in each of them I placed a small amount of her cremated remains.

At the end of the 49 days, I packed the tsa tsa's in to a pristine waterfall and placed them where they would not be found.

It was a beautiful way to send her off.

And you don't consider this a religion? Gimme another break!

 

[Madeline]

Hister, Sky Dancer has repeatedly said the debate goes on as to whether Buddism qualifies as a religion. Is there any reason you need to continue to be so rude on this thread? Please knock it off.

 

[Sky Dancer]

Do Buddists have any special rituals for honoring deceased friends and family, Sky Dancer?

Yes. There are special prayers and practices that can be offered at the time of death. I can't speak to every Buddhist tradition but I can share my own. In my mother's case, I made offerings on her behalf at a week long retreat/sadhana practice and in a fire puja.

For the 49 days following her death I performed a special meditation practice for her. The 49 days after dying is considered the longest time any being will spend between lives and it is considered auspicious to offer prayers and meditation and visualization practice at this time.

I worked with a lama to make over 108 tsa tsa's, small symbolic representations of the buddha's mind. We prayed and meditated over each one and in each of them I placed a small amount of her cremated remains.

At the end of the 49 days, I packed the tsa tsa's in to a pristine waterfall and placed them where they would not be found.

It was a beautiful way to send her off.

And you don't consider this a religion? Gimme another break!

What difference does it make to you Hister? Does it really matter if Buddhism is considered a religion or a philosophy?

It's a way of life.

 

[Hister]

Yes. There are special prayers and practices that can be offered at the time of death. I can't speak to every Buddhist tradition but I can share my own. In my mother's case, I made offerings on her behalf at a week long retreat/sadhana practice and in a fire puja.

For the 49 days following her death I performed a special meditation practice for her. The 49 days after dying is considered the longest time any being will spend between lives and it is considered auspicious to offer prayers and meditation and visualization practice at this time.

I worked with a lama to make over 108 tsa tsa's, small symbolic representations of the buddha's mind. We prayed and meditated over each one and in each of them I placed a small amount of her cremated remains.

At the end of the 49 days, I packed the tsa tsa's in to a pristine waterfall and placed them where they would not be found.

It was a beautiful way to send her off.

And you don't consider this a religion? Gimme another break!

What difference does it make to you Hister? Does it really matter if Buddhism is considered a religion or a philosophy?

It's a way of life.

You were the one trying to claim it was a philosophy. The fact that it's a religion means that all that krap about karma is based on faith, not facts, just like any old religion, oh, excuse me, way of life.

 

[Sky Dancer]

And you don't consider this a religion? Gimme another break!

What difference does it make to you Hister? Does it really matter if Buddhism is considered a religion or a philosophy?

It's a way of life.

You were the one trying to claim it was a philosophy. The fact that it's a religion means that all that krap about karma is based on faith, not facts, just like any old religion, oh, excuse me, way of life.

You believe whatever make sense to you.

 

[Madeline]

May I ask, what drew you to Buddism as opposed to any other eastern faith?

 

[Sky Dancer]

When my father committed suicide in 1981, I was devastated. It is the single most painful experience of my life to date. I happened to hear a Buddhist teaching on the Four Noble Truths.

The truth of suffering-- That made complete sense to me. I was overwhelmed by my suffering and the suffering of my father that had caused him to take his own life.

The truth of the cause of suffering--impermanence.

The truth of the cessation of suffering--enlightenment is possible.

The truth of the path that leads to the cessation of suffering--contemplation and meditation.

I was really lucky, Madeline. I went to my first ten day silent Buddhist meditation retreat a year after my father died. While I was at that retreat, the couple who organized left for another conference and were killed in an automobile accident.

The community got a permit to cremate the bodies on the land. So during my meditation retreat we could see the fires across the river. The message of impermanence was clear to me from that experience.

I went deeply into the practice which was a bit like Buddhist boot camp. Up at five am. Sit for an hour, walking meditation for an hour. Breakfast in silence, not even any eye contact with another person. Sit, walk, sit walk, alternating every hour until lunch. Same schedule for the afternoon and the evening.

If we were willing to stay up longer than the nine o clock bedtime, a monk would chant in Pali. It was beautiful.

My heart opened. My mind opened. I knew I had found my path.

 

[Madeline]

How beautiful, Sky Dancer. Thankies so much for sharing.

 

[Skull]

Buddha in Sutta Nipata 3.2 lists Demon Mara's tenfold army:

1. “Sensual pleasures are your first army;
   the second is called discontent.
   Hunger and thirst are the third;
   the fourth is called craving.
2. “The fifth is dullness and drowsiness;
   the sixth is called cowardice.
   Doubt is your seventh;
   your eighth, denigration and pride.
3. “Gain, praise, and honor,
   and wrongly obtained fame [is ninth];
   [the tenth is when] one extols oneself
   and looks down at others.
4. “This is your army, Namucī,
   the squadron of the Dark One.
   A weakling does not conquer it,
   but having conquered it, one gains bliss."

Bhikkhu Bodhi translation.