Bhuddist take on Healthcare, Suffering & Death

Favorite quotations, etc.
Maus
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Post by Maus »

At the request of @brian on another thread, I'm posting the link to this site I found on Bhuddist attitudes toward death and healthcare.
Here's the link:

http://www.urbandharma.org/kusala/dad.html
The particular quote that has stuck with me is the following:

"Good health is simply the slowest way a human being can die."

Found on this page:

http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma8/health.html
Essentially, I am working on overcoming my fear of death and letting go of my attachment to good health (or bad health supported by expensive health insurance).
BTW, despite @brian's kind assumption that I am a fellow traveller, I am not a crypto-Bhuddist but remain a former Catholic monk committed to any path that reliably reveals Truth. In my experience, no group or individual has a monopoly on it.


Marlene
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Post by Marlene »

Thank you, this is inspiring.


aussierogue
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Post by aussierogue »

Yes thanks Maus.
any I agree!
I have been practicing mindfullness and loving kindness meditations for 7 years now and i agree its a great place to start.


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Ego
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Post by Ego »

It is a bit perplexing why believers fear or become sad around death. If one believes that paradise awaits in heaven it would seem to me they would be rushing toward it and would be ecstatic when a loved one reached it.
The saying you quoted, "Good health is simply the slowest way a human being can die," simply acknowledges this fact. Deep down in their core most people don't really believe or at least have severe doubts, hence they fear death. That fear is two fold, fear of the unknown and fear that this is all there is, right here right now.
Fear of suffering is another thing. Suffering can be optional but - in my opinion - not entirely in the way the Buddhists believe. The Buddhists require the magical thinking of rebirth for suffering to end entirely. They release suffering by releasing the desire to live and any desire toward pleasure. But Buddhists continue to suffer because they don't really ascribe to the magical thinking.
I believe in the here and now. When we realize that suffering is part of life and can make us stronger, the suffering itself is diminished and perhaps even eliminated. This is one of the definitions of Karma, transformation through intention. The suffering itself transforms into something that is neither good nor bad. It just is. In the same way we feel muscle pain after exercise, suffering produces discomfort that can produce positive change.
This is one of the problem with our current attitude toward suffering. We eliminate it. We drug it. When we never experience it we lose something important.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-lz-YvTuRE


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jennypenny
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Post by jennypenny »

>>It is a bit perplexing why believers fear or become sad around death.

I think you can be sad because you'll miss the person, even if you believe they have passed on to something better. I'm not sure if by fear you mean the dying fear death or those around them. I know a lot of women who are afraid of what will happen to them if their husband dies. I imagine kids fear that their parents will die for the same reason. If you're referring to the dying fearing death, it reminds me of the old joke "I hope St. Peter's memory isn't better than mine."
Re: suffering I agree with you. And it's a very relative term. I'm constantly amazed at what some people consider "suffering" in this country. We've also corrupted the word "sacrifice" in the same way.


Dragline
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Post by Dragline »

That was nice.
@Maus -- do you happen to follow Fr. James Martin, S.J. (yes, those worldly Jesuits!)
His latest book is kind of the opposite side of the coin being discussed here. It's called "Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life".
Here's a little vignette:
"The Silent Monk. A man enters a strict monastery. On his first day the abbot says, "You'll be able to speak only two words every five years Do you understand?" The novice nods and goes away. Five years later the abbot call him and asks him what he wants to say. "Food cold," he says. "Oh, I'm sorry," says the abbot -- we'll fix that. Five years later the abbot asks him what he wants to say after 10 years. "Bed hard," he says. And the abbot says he will fix that too. Then after another five years the two meet. The abbot says, "Well, you've been here fifteen years. What two words would you like to say. "I'm leaving," says the monk.
And the abbot says, "Well, I'm not surprised. You've done nothing but complain since you got here.""


JasonR
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Post by JasonR »

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Last edited by JasonR on Sat Mar 16, 2019 11:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

jzt83
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Post by jzt83 »

I thought Buddhism taught embracing emotions and not trying to deny them?


secretwealth
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Post by secretwealth »

Buddhism, like all religions, is full of contradictions.


Hoplite
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Post by Hoplite »

Thanks Maus, the perspective is always useful. Another short Buddhist list, the Dokkōdō:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dokk%C5%8Dd%C5%8D
I've always found it much harder to face a loved one's death than my own, and I don't understand the lack of attachment or why it's beneficial. Seneca preaches a similar, though stoic, detachment (mourning is unseemly), and I don't understand that one either.
As to prospects in the afterlife, my favorite story involves some friends of W.C. Fields visiting him on his sickbed, finding him reading the Bible. When asked why he was reading the Bible, he replied: "Looking for loopholes."


aussierogue
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Post by aussierogue »

Buddhism and detachment
For me its the truth. Nothing is that Bad and equally nothing is that Good and yet somehow deceive ourselves into believing otherwise.
See people who have suffered greatly - and yet keep wlaking through life with poise and compassion helping others
See people who have experienced huge worldly success and yet keep walking through life with poise and compassion helping others..
Others however exeprience pain and fall apart or experience success and fall apart. Both are manifestations of the ego.
The other misnomer is the idea that remaining detached makes a person cold or less able to experience strong feelings.
I find that remaining detached does the opposite. Being truthfull and restrained allows for clarity and this brings depth to relationships.


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Post by jacob »

@JasonR -- The idea is to avoid letting your internal state (your

happiness) be controlled by externals beyond your control. To de-risk your well-being. Not "playing the game" is certainly one way to avoid risk but a better way is to avoid holding on [emotionally] to attachments that have been lost and which can not be recovered, because they are beyond your control. It's fairly easy to make a list of things, e.g. your own death, random injury, losses on the stock market, ... which are beyond your control. The method would then be to work out in advance (perhaps in a general sense) what your response is to such losses since they will happen sooner or later.
tl;dr - The point of non-attachment is not to not-attach but to avoid whining about "if only [...] hadn't happened, waah waah waah".


Stahlmann
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Re: Bhuddist take on Healthcare, Suffering & Death

Post by Stahlmann »

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Last edited by Stahlmann on Mon Jul 02, 2018 4:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

Michael_00005
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Re:

Post by Michael_00005 »

JasonR wrote:
Fri Jun 15, 2012 5:14 pm
Why wouldn't I want to be attached? Why shouldn't I experience the dizzying highs, the terrifying lows, and the creamy middles?
I was reading from an author who mentioned why there is so much misunderstanding in Western religion. It was something like “a Western mindset, trying to grasp an Easterner’s thought/writings” (all major religions are founded in the East). Now some may say I don’t believe in religion, but pretty much all of us (Westerners) are heavily influenced by it’s thought - whatever we think. It took me a while to sort out above comment - thinking - why would this prevent proper understanding?

What are some of the basic pieces of Eastern thought? At the foundation it’s understood we are caught up in the transmigration of the soul (reincarnation), where family, friends, wealth, health, etc., are karmic related; we return to play out our part in the great unending game – the wheel of life. What binds the soul and causes it to return? Karma and attachment (you are bound to what you love/hate), if he is attached to the world, then he returns to the world. If a man leaves the world owing a great debt (misdeeds etc.) then he must return to settle the bill.

History and assumptions – Now in the West we are told when you die you go to heaven or hell. From what I read this thought was inserted owing to a political agenda… as we know man + excess power (emperors, kings, etc.) are often a dangerous combination. To my knowledge no scripture in the world says: when you die you go to heaven or hell, this is simply assumed. Just one example of hundreds of (potential) misunderstandings.

-- this post is not in disagreement with anything written above, more to expand on the thought of non-attachment -- (edit)
Last edited by Michael_00005 on Sat May 12, 2018 5:04 pm, edited 3 times in total.

chenda
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Re: Bhuddist take on Healthcare, Suffering & Death

Post by chenda »

@Michael_00005 The western idea of one life followed by a final judgement probably originated from Zoroastrianism, which was hugely influential on the three Abrahamic faiths. Zoroaster taught that good and evil are engaged in a ongoing battle, in both the human mind and material world. With human effort good will ultimately triumph over evil. Heaven and earth will unite, the sufficiently punished evil doers in hell will join the righteous in heaven, and existence will have fulfilled in its purpose. Job done, end of storey. This is the linear view of life, in contrast to the Dharmic cyclical view.

From what I understand, in the west since the 18th century there has been a increasingly sharp delineation between philosophy and religion, the former considered a serious scholarly subject, and the latter increasingly seen as at best 'useful fiction', especially amongst educated elites with whom the materialist paradigm is very dominant. This delineation does not exist to the same degree in eastern faiths, which may partially explain the attraction of them to westerners today.

Jason

Re: Bhuddist take on Healthcare, Suffering & Death

Post by Jason »

Most buddhas I have seen could stand to lose a few pounds.

classical_Liberal
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Re: Bhuddist take on Healthcare, Suffering & Death

Post by classical_Liberal »

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chenda
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Re: Bhuddist take on Healthcare, Suffering & Death

Post by chenda »

I've found a lot of wisdom in Indian religion, especially Jainism and Sikhism, but I've never really been comfortable with the concept Karma. It seems to support the just world fallacy, that virtue is always rewarded and evil always punished, and has been blamed for supporting the caste system. I don't know how true this is or if this view is partially the result of Christian and Islamic missionary activity, which has often sought converts from the lower castes. Maybe some people find it comforting to believe that the bad thing that happened to them was somehow justice for past misdeeds. And helping the suffering can be a way of earning karmic merit.

Personally though, I find the duality of Persian Zoroastrianism a reasonable middle ground (in every sense) between the East - West position. Its acknowledges that the world is imperfect and unjust, gives a convincing answer as to why (the problem of evil) and clearly sets out a purpose in life.

Just my take not trying to criticise other religions here.

Michael_00005
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Re: Bhuddist take on Healthcare, Suffering & Death

Post by Michael_00005 »

The different religions and theories are interesting, but in the end you are left with an opinion… mostly religious people think theirs’s is the best and everyone else is either wrong or a heathen.

There are some very interesting stories coming from young toddlers having memory before they were born: “Memories of Heaven” being one example. If anything, my take away is that adults only become more confused with age. Having personally made lifestyle changes, readings and experiments it certainly feels that man only barely touches his potential.

Here’s the life we are born into:
1. A mindless formal education
2. For most of us an excessive amount of time was wasted in front a TV, computer, video games, etc. (sex and violence)
3. More often than not we are sold a package of lies and deceit so another might profit (a poor diet, pharmaceutical drugs, cigarettes (they used to say it was good for you), and talked into wars, etc.)
4. Then just we are starting to come into our own, most young adults are told it’s a privilege to drinking or do drugs, which in turn burn out the body, degrades the mind, and blunts a man’s finer senses.
5. Then as an adult we are caught up in a lifelong pursuit of material goods, debt, and full time work. When would we ever find time to ponder the deeper meaning of life, even if the interest was there?
6. Not only that, but we pass our genes down from one generation to the next, potentially impairing future generations.

Who knows what has been lost in childhood, given the spoiled environment. Because what a child can learn in his formative years can never be duplicated as an adult. What if children were raised to hone their finer qualities from the beginning, through diet, exercise, mental and emotional disciplines? And greater emphasis was given to music, art, philosophy, and poetry; it seems this might help to develop creativity. Maybe children would grow up to be supermen.

“I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning” ― Plato

As things stand in the world today, it almost appears as if there is a force at play working to keep mankind mindless, drugged, and caught up in one or another of the dramas of life. A distraction, and while we look the other way, our real capital is being swindled.

chenda
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Re: Bhuddist take on Healthcare, Suffering & Death

Post by chenda »

''According to a 2008 Pew Forum survey, 65 percent of us believe that 'many religions can lead to eternal life'—including 37 percent of white evangelicals, the group most likely to believe that salvation is theirs alone. Also, the number of people who seek spiritual truth outside church is growing. Thirty percent of Americans call themselves 'spiritual, not religious,' according to a 2009 NEWSWEEK Poll, up from 24 percent in 2005. Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University, has long framed the American propensity for 'the divine-deli-cafeteria religion' as 'very much in the spirit of Hinduism. You're not picking and choosing from different religions, because they're all the same,' he says. 'It isn't about orthodoxy. It's about whatever works. If going to yoga works, great—and if going to Catholic mass works, great. And if going to Catholic mass plus the yoga plus the Buddhist retreat works, that's great, too.'''

http://www.adishakti.org/_/we_are_all_h ... week_3.htm

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