Hello,
Very interesting thoughts.
I came across this little blurb from Thanissaro Bhikhhu which seemed to shed some light on the idea for me:
“The Pali commentaries support this point by tracing the word nibbana to its verbal root, which means "unbinding." What kind of unbinding? The texts describe two levels. One is the unbinding in this lifetime, symbolized by a fire that has gone out but whose embers are still warm. This stands for the enlightened arahant, who is conscious of sights and sounds, sensitive to pleasure and pain, but freed from passion, aversion, and delusion. The second level of unbinding, symbolized by a fire so totally out that its embers have grown cold, is what the arahant experiences after this life. All input from the senses cools away and he/she is totally freed from even the subtlest stresses and limitations of existence in space and time.” (Source: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/nirvanaverb.html)
I have not been impressed by either the commentaries nor Thanissaro translation work. I found I had to translate the suttas for myself to find out what they really say. For instance neither Thanissaro nor the commentaries seem to understand that jhana is pleasurable, desirable to cultivate for one seeking enlightenment in this very lifetime, and achievable by anyone who wishes.
I guess this second level of “unbinding” is the: “Unconditioned, luminous consciousness without features” or
When one is fully liberated, enlightened, then one is “Unconditioned, luminous consciousness without features.” It does not matter if they are dead or alive. However, if humans are going to consistently marginalize every enlightened being who comes to this planet; while lionizing every fraud and pedophiles, then what is the point of an enlightened being coming to this planet?
Further annihilation is not gone for ever, but the identity of that person is; however, the spirit persists. Spirit here is not an aggregate of cognition, nor an identity. It is just a boundless awareness domain.
All sounds totally unimaginable and out there so I’ll just have to leave it at that.
You are correct, it cannot be imagined, and it is all too fantastic to relate anyway.
Since you mentioned this very provocative idea:
Thus, someone who is fully lucid in the sleep state and never loses consciousness during the sleep cycle has, by Buddhist doctrinal reference, arrived at the deathless (amata), thus that person is an Arahatta. “
If the Arahatta still has any mental anxiety or craving however, aren’t they not an Arahat? even if they can stay awake during the entire sleep cycle? I guess you mean that both those attainments seem to be correlated.
Those who have anxiety or craving are not Arahattas; therefore they are not likely to remain fully conscious during every sleep cycle. Just remaining fully conscious through one sleep cycle is just a sleeping disorder.
Anyway, all this talk of sleep made me think of something else I had wanted to ask for some time.
I believe I read in some of your writing Jeffrey, that you report not only recollecting past lives, but actually reliving them in their entirety. (Unfortunately I can’t seem to find the source so perhaps I imagined this).
I was never quite sure if the Buddha mentioned that he just remembered all those aeons of lives back to his first one, or if he actually relieved them. I would assume the second would be far more convincing.
I have had both experiences of gaining a glimpse of past lifetimes, as well as fully reliving them as if it was the real lifetime from beginning to end with all of the salient details intact. The reason why this detail does not appear in the Pali canon, along with so many other details, is in part the Pali language is a simple language lacking the complexity of a language with a large literature, such as English. Pali is also a dead language and the Buddhist priesthood is clearly clueless on its subtle details, such as the importance of the attainment of jhana, and the other superior fruit (maha-phala).
I know of Buddhists frustrated by their meditation attainments and not being able to get into a deep arupa or remember any past lives then turning to “regression hypnotists” which in my view is highly questionable.
Regression therapy has its problems of being essentially hypnosis and therefore much of it could be through suggestions. The subject can also bring their own garbage to the session, because of how so few genuine rigorous, self-aware contemplatives there are out there. However, I resorted to regression therapy to get through the recollection of my last lifetime in which I was tortured to death in a Nazi concentration camp. That was maybe 20 years ago. Since then I have deepened my meditation practice and developed far more equanimity than I had in those days.
‘With the breakup of the body, following the exhaustion of life, all feelings, not being delighted in, will become cool right here; mere bodily remains will be left." - SN12.51(1).
Stephen La Berge, who has done all this research on lucid dreaming, apparently proved that dream time and real time are exactly the same.
Goodness, that has not at all been my experience. The problem with so-called researchers into lucid dreaming, the OOBE, the religious experience, and meditation is most of them do not meditate, nor do any of them bother to check the historic record, or correct the translation of the historic record, if they bother to read it.
Meaning that dreams which are very very long are really just dreams with lots of different locations and such. If you are in REM for 90 minutes your dream will only last 90 minutes. When I had excellent dream recall I found this to be true.
I would not know, because I had no way of measuring REM or my brainwaves while asleep or meditating. However, my full recollection of lifetimes seemed like decades had gone by, when only a night's sleep had, and I suspect the actual event only took seconds, but I do not know.
If OBE’s and powerful visions, such as reliving an entire past life, are in fact not hallucinations but real. I would imagine that one of the tell tale signs was that they could go on a lot longer than dream time--for example literally reliving an entire lifetime.
Is this actually possible?
I could imagine people easily deluding themselves, as it is easy to only remember disjointed highlights of events--even a lifetimes worth of events.
The argument against the religious experience is that it is just a case of mental projection. Arguably people all too easily delude themselves; however, rigorous, self-ware contemplatives do not.
P.S.
“, especially if Jesus was a contemplative who was versed in Buddhist thought.”
Do you find the evidence for this convincing? I always lumped it together with the “Jesus was a Buddhist monk” theories which seemed to only be sensational television programming.
Well, Buddhism 2000 years ago is most probably nothing like Buddhism today. Certainly the Gospels do not say Jesus was a Buddhist, nor does Buddhist literature; however, both the historic and and archaeological record show that Buddhism and Judaism were in Persia for centuries on either side of Jesus' lifetime. Persia was not that far from Judea, so it is reasonable that Jesus could have made the trip. There was surely trade between India, Persia, Rome and Judea at the time. Through trade not only are goods exchanged but so are ideas.
There was an ancient Jewish lifestyle represented by the Nazarite, and there are several references to Nazarites in the Bible. The Nazarite lifestyle described in the Bible indicates that it was monastic. Buddhists are monks, it seems reasonable that the Nazarite lifestyle described in the Bible was directly influenced by Buddhism.
Further there was no town by the name of Nazareth at the time of Jesus. The archaeological record shows that the town that is called Nazareth today was a Roman garrison at the time of Jesus. The lifestyle described in the Gospels for Jesus and John the Baptist is clearly a Nazarite lifestyle. The earliest Christians did not call themselves 'Christian.' They called themselves 'Nazarite.' The Aramaic term for a 'Christian' is 'Nazarite.' The Arabic term for a 'Christian' is 'Nazarite.' I therefore believe that it is reasonable to say that Jesus, his father Joseph and John the Baptist were most likely Nazarites.
Further, the so-called 3 wise men who come to visit Jesus when he was a child are called 'Magi' in the Greek and Aramaic bibles. A Magi is a specific term for a Zoroastrian priest. Zoroastrianism is from Persia. I believe it is therefore reasonable to say there is reasonable evidence that Jesus was influenced by Persia, and therefore by Buddhism.
Jesus was known for brotherly love. The term for brotherly love in Sanskrit is Metra. The personal name for one who would take brotherly love for a life's work would be Maitreya. Therefore I believe it is reasonable that Jesus was aware of the prediction of the next Buddha being the Buddha of brotherly love, who would be called the Maitreya Buddha, and he modeled his mission after the Maitreya Buddha, and he may very well have been enlightened, therefor I take him as the Maitreya Buddha.
