--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "lurkernomore20002000" <steve.sun...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > I'm hoping I get to surf the Bardo and play the game > > again. If I'm wrong and the world just goes black > > along with any self or self-identity, big deal. I > > won't even be there to know about it, much less be > > there to be disappointed. :-) > > It WOULD be a shock, although a pretty short one, if if all > fades to black at the end. Somehow, I don't see that happening. > Even if I don't have any concrete experience of it, I just KNOW > there's a subtle, or astral body in there somewhere.
As I suggested earlier, I don't worry about it terribly much. If "fade to black" turns out to be the reality, what will be there left of "me" to notice? My belief in reincarnation and the Tibetan rebirth cycle matches with my subjective memories of past lives and the transit through the Bardo in previous life-death-rebirth cycles, but that could just be imagination AFAIK. The issue in the Tibetan forms of Buddhism that I admire -- as, interestingly, the issue in forms of shamanism or occultism such as those popularized by Carlos Castaneda -- is remarkably pragmatic and liberating IMO. They don't believe that much, if any, thought needs to be given to "future lives" or what happens after we did. The only thing that "matters" is this life and what happens *before* we die -- right here, right Now. The only "measure" of one's "evolution" or "score" in terms of karma is (in their view) one's state of attention right here, right Now. "How am I doing karmically" is literally the same question as "What is my current state of attention?" In the Tibetan model, based on a belief in rein- carnation, "what matters" is how much awareness and clarity and compassion one can bring to the moment of one's death. In their view, the more clarity of awareness one brings "with them" to the Bardo can determine the easiness or uneasiness of that transition, and help determine the nature of the next birth, and how much awareness one gets to "start with" in it. Interestingly enough, in Yaqui shamanic traditions some of the teachers I've met admit that there might be such a thing as reincarnation, but they choose to never dwell on it or consider it because in their system it is irrelevant. Their idea of a "goal" in life is the cultivation of awareness (or in their model, "personal power") to as great a level as possible, given the length of one's life- time. What happens after that is in their view not relevant; it's a Here And Now kinda study. I resonate with this. While I accept the likelihood of the multi-lifetime model, I don't particularly "count on it." Like the Tibetans and like the shamans, my "score" in this life depends on the state of atten- tion I can "wear" during my life, not on anything that happens after it. I think this is a preferable 'tude to kicking back and assuming that one "has time" to work things out in future incarnations if one does not get them handled in this one. With that 'tude, I somehow suspect that I'll approach the moment of my own death more easily than some who are beset with guilt over all the things they "did wrong," or who are concerned with going to Hell or looking forward to going to Heaven. *Or* looking for- ward to the next incarnation. All of those concerns are either past or future, and the business of spiritual development seems to me to be all about Here And Now. Thanks for all the great raps, Lurk. It's been a real pleasure, and a real change from the normal level of discussion here.
