sree

Dying of what? The body? Forget the body. It has nothing to do with you or me. It has its own way of dying naturally if we let it and not mess around with it. So, tell me how dying can be fun. Tell me how killing off the person, this psychological entity, this devil, can be fun. Well, the realness of money is tied to the realness of the person. I need money not just for food, clothing, and shelter but also to get away from devils cramping my style. Money is the most important thing to me, next to air, in this life. It gives me a life fit for an Emperor. It makes people smile when they pick up my bags, drive me to airports, serve me my drinks and meals, massage my feet, polish my teeth....I think I live better than King Wen and the Duke of Chou.

When I bought my dog, I had to drive downstate Illinois to Decatur where that strong smell of Archer Daniels Midland's soybean processing permeated the air. The breeder has her own four-acre farm where she has her dogs in the middle of vast tracts of corporate farmlands growing corn and other stuff. The place, in the middle of nowhere, had a wonderful feel but I did wonder if life there could be good on account of the massive crop-dusting of pesticides and insecticides in the area. Did that bother you growing up on the farm? Hippie retirement farm is good. A place in the country is the dream of all city-dwellers. What about safety? Are you not afraid to live on a farm? Have you seen the movie "Deliverance"? I sure hate to have to keep guns and shoot mountain men barging in and knocking down the front door in the midst of dinner.

You can live again if you want to? So dying, to you, is no big deal, right? What then is a good way for you to die? I suppose the best way is a pain-free way like sleeping pills to kill off the body. What do you think? Yes, I heard about this many times from inspirational preachers and motivational self-help gurus. Immortality is a big deal. What about imagining and thinking to become something less phenomenal for a trial test first? Tell me how to become a billionaire? I am not greedy. Just $10 billion cash in my bank account will do for starters. I am not joking. I want to take you seriously. I never fool around with that kind of money. I accept that. I do believe that the individual is an illusion, and the individual consciousness coming out from a particular brain is also illusory. For starters, it is not my brain, it is the human brain. Well, let's be clear about this point. The self as an individual is an illusion. The personality of this individual - who is a Daoist and has this notion that the eternal Dao does give meaning, importance and worthiness to life - is also an illusion. However, this doesn't mean that I, as a fact of life as this existential consciousness, is not important. In this regard, I am very important because somehow I have become a person, an individual inhabiting a physical human body that can suffer disease and death. I need to get out of this horrible spell. That is the human condition in which I am trapped. This fear of death, at the biological level, is hardwired into the organism. It is a self-protective, survival instinct, that visceral feeling in response to clear and present danger. This is an intelligent response that prevents me from walking off a cliff or causes me to jump away from a truck barrelling down the street. But the fear of death, at the psychological level, is an algorithm embedded in my consciousness as a person. The person is not real. It is an idea that is absolutely realistic. This realism is constantly reinforced by bodily sensations so much so that it has taken on the form of the physical human body. Fear of death is not fear of the unknown. This statement is non-sensical. You can only be scared of something you know. It is impossible to be afraid of something that you don't know. Be careful, DragonsNectar69k. Every evidence of sloppy logic on your part is an indication of a faulty operating system. I think the fear of death is tied to the life of the person, this illusory entity that befuddled the Buddha. The Tao of dying is connected to the freedom from the fear of death. Therefore, the life of the person is the problem. The person is the spirit that has possessed the body and needs to be exorcised. It is one hell of a devil that has caused all human suffering.

Nice pic. Looks like a serious farm with lots of heavy machinery. I thought you were just working with your hands on organic produce. What are you growing? Grains? Corn, wheat and stuff like that traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange?

This is the universal lament of individuals who can drink what others cannot drink and see what others cannot see. To those who have drunk the water and can see, let me ask this question. What good has all that drinking and seeing done to mankind that is still gripped with the fear of dying and death? If the prison of this mortal reality still exists for mankind, then those who have escaped this mortal prison don't count. They don't count because their discovery had no universal quality. The individual self is an illusion. Therefore, the karmic freedom of the individual who can drink the water and see is also an illusion. What matters is this consciousness that is still trapped.

The movie is an adaptation of the novel, naturally. But what is your take from this story? What are the salient points about life, dying and death?

What's the point to your link, farm girl? Is this what you want to share? On a last but serious note, the woman who loved life and taught her children to 'laugh at the days to come' is now safely in the arms of Jesus and dancing at the wedding feast of the Lamb. She will be missed as a mother, friend and grandmother. Anyone wearing black will not be admitted to the memorial. She is not dead. She is alive. Edmond Fahey Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangements.

What if there is no next life and your "near-death experience" was a hallucination? I am quite curious as to why we don'r place any importance on this life and is dismissive of "before-death experience". Is it because "before-death experience" is lousy and can be taken for granted? Looking for a greener pasture in the next life may be wishful thinking. What do you say?

I have placed an order on Amazon for "The Jacket". I will talk to you after I have watched the movie, ok?

Everyone is dying and will never live again. Really? I am listening. Please tell me about immortality. Sounds interesting. Please explain to me the nature of this consciousness - my consciousness - that has nothing to do with life or death.

I would rather die of exhaustion than die in a Chinese coffin.

The Tao of dying is indeed to enjoy life but without getting stuck to the body and having to keep it alive in order to keep on living. For the true Taoist, there is no old age and therefore no hospital, no nursing home, no funeral and no cemetery. Let's find the Tao of dying before it's too late.

I don't own any Apple products. I am not into mania. The only thing I bought were Apple shares which I sold for a tidy profit. I don't have the high opinion of neuroscience as you do. Let's leave it at that. Eben is not studying consciousness like an explorer who has never seen consciousness before. He is like a boy studying his own mother. No matter how hard the boy tries, he is not going to objective, he is going to see his mother. So, if you don't open your eyes and keep still to avoid waking, you can maintain physical awareness and think while asleep? I have had this experience before and felt fully awake, could see that I was in bed but I could not wake up no matter how hard I tried. Then with a great effort, I forced myself to sit up in bed but couldn't. It was quite frustrating. Then, I started shouting and thrashing about in bed to break that state of immobility. Suddenly, I woke up. It was quite an unnerving experience. Is that what you are talking about? I thought you set the limits about not allowing in the discussion anything that cannot be immediately verified. I thought that was great because once you accept crazy stuff, then the discussion devolve into demented nonsense. I work all the time on real stuff checking out companies I want to invest in and this forces me to cut through the hype no matter how well it is spun by wealth management analysts. In my world, the truth is a matter of debate and there is no two ways about it: you are either right or wrong. As Jesus said, you can either serve God or the Devil, you can't do both. Let's do it. I am all for expanding limits of sanity.

I think consciousness is immortal. But as long as I feel that this consciousess comes from my brain, then when the brain dies, I am going to go out too.

I am not hung up on why we must live to then die. Death is part of the cycle of life. It is spring now and the buds are all growing and trees are leafing. Every season, including the fall, is beautiful when leaves shrivel and fall off to be carted away and disposed off the way we get rid of dead human bodies. The question I want to ask is how come I am not part of this amazing cycle of life? How come I don't just fade away and drop off like the leaves. Why call 911 and have these fire trucks screaming down the road to cart me off before Lord Yama arrives? And in the emergency room, doctors scramble to keep me alive. There is this pervasive fear of death gripping the heart of everyone. Don't tell me that is not true. Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc. have billions of devotees. Do leaves of trees care about the eternal Dao? Do they care about out- of- body experience? Steve Jobs was really into spirituality and much more serious than any of us here. We all know he was brilliant and very driven. He couldn't get anywhere and even when he had to get on with life to become a billionaire, he never gave up on his search for the Tao of dying. Too bad he died without finding out. Well, you and I are not dead yet. Do you want to find the Tao of dying or not? Or do you want to go out saying "oh wow"?

Don't thank me yet. This is just the beginning of the interrogation. Before I go on, let me inform you of your Miranda rights. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will and can be used as evidence against you.

Ok, your near-death experience convinced you that there is a life after death. You are asking the same question that I ask myself: "What do we do here in this life as a human being?" Life does unfold as each moment passes. What's the point to this unfolding? Do you feel there is a point to being alive? I am glad that you have an angel for a wife. Most men are not that lucky and have to live with less than perfect partners. Come to think of it, most people - including ourselves - are not angels and difficult to get along with. This makes our "before-death-experience" all the worse. Do you work for a living? The world of humans is not that perfect. People make things harder for other people. Co-workers can be nasty and the boss can also make life a misery not to mention the tough working conditions. Ok, but I still would like to know where the "namaste" come from. Let me guess. You are from India, ethnically-speaking.

I don't think this thread will ever die. No one knows the Tao of dying and to search for it is an urgent need for everybody. It is like the need to find the washroom/toilet at the restaurant and do our business properly in the right way. No one can suppress the urge to defecate and urinate for very long. In the end, it's all going to come out in our pants if we just sit there and do nothing. Meanwhile, everybody is pretending that it's no big deal. I don't need to go to the washroom yet but I can't bear to see the mess and so much suffering. I want to devote my life to finding the washroom for you guys so that I can also use it when ,my time comes.

No, this thread is not dead because it is dealing with a profound question: the Tao of dying. I like the fact that no one has been able to find the answer. People just die when their time has come. The same thing will happen to me if I don't find the Tao of dying. How's your before death experience, Mr Wu? Are you suffering any illnesses or financial difficulties? What about relationship issues and emotional problems?

Mr Wu, just because plants turn to the sun don't mean they are conscious of the sun. Iron nails are attracted to magnets. Does that mean nails are conscious of magnets and therefore nails have brains? Also, not everything that moves is alive. Logic without intelligence is a monk heading for Naraka.

Ok, let's say it is a misunderstanding. Eben was in a coma and no brain activity was detected for a week. But his body was not dead; otherwise, rigormortis would have set in and it would have taken Jesus Christ to bring him back to life to tell his story. Oh no, Eben is nowhere in the same ballpark as mine. His near-death experience is not different in substance from that of Gentlewind and others. The only difference between him and others is that Eben is a neurosurgeon and, therefore, a credible witness with unimpeachable authority to laymen. Eben belongs to a community of neuro-scientists who preach that the brain is the creator of consciousness which they track on their functional brain imaging machines. And when Eben's near-death experience could not be supported by any record of neuro activity in his brain, he had to make a leap of faith and declare that consciousness can operate independently of the brain. This is his theory that he is selling to the layman through his book "Proof of Heaven". I don't think the scientific community is buying any of it owing to lack of proof that there is Heaven. If you agree with Eben, then you cannot agree with me. I neither buy Eben's proof of Heaven nor the scientific contention that consciousness comes from the brain. Eben is just an ordinary guy with medical knowledge and skills. He patches up a structurally injured brain the way the mechanic repairs a car engine. Just because he is a brain mechanic, does not mean he has more credibility than the car mechanic. And that's how I see it. Let's say your body is alseep and your mind is awake and there is awareness of mental wakefulness and bodily sleep. How do you know that the body is asleep? Can you see it sleeping? And what is the nature of the wakefulness of the mind? Is it as though you are awake and can think, see, touch, hear, taste and smell? You should want to prove me wrong if what I am telling you is not true to you. This is the proper thing to do.

If you cast a spell that turns a billionaire into a rat trapped in a maze, then that same spell turns you into a crawly jar insect. You don't really care to be an insect, do you? You just have an aversion for billionaires, and this class warfare mentality is destroying America. Look, you have just one life. What do you have against having the money to live like a dragonfly flitting to anywhere you want to go and lazing in the sun all your life in absolute financial freedom? Yes, this life is all we've got. I think karma is true. If you choose to be a bug, you will die as a bug. To me, reincarnation is a cop out for losers who don't have gumption to make it. This is very unAmerican. I believe in metamorphosis, though. If you don't want to scoot about in the water squirting water through your anus all your life and die as a larva, you'd better think this through with me so that you can turn into an immortal dragonfly.

You can see the Zen rigor in his products that drove Apple's phenomenal success. How many of us are that uncompromising in living the teaching of the Tao Te Ching?

Don't tell lies. No part of Eben's brain was organically destroyed the way fresh meat is destroyed after blood supply to it is stopped and it is left to putrefy. He was only in a coma with no detectable sign of neuro activity (whatever that means to the doctors who attended to him). I have not read that book but I did check out Eben's story the moment news of it broke out in the press. I was curious because I have long maintained that consciousness have nothing to do with the brain. I thought he would corroborate my preposterous point of view. On the contrary, Eben's near-death experience merely corroborated the near-death of experiences of others and reinforced his own belief in the afterlife. I don't believe in the afterlife, something that is not supported by the Tao Te Ching. Why don't you elaborate on what you mean and describe your experience of this after-sleep state? I am willing to listen with an open mind to what you are willing to share. Let's find out. Be objective and find out. If you can prove me wrong, you would be doing me a favor.

I need to focus on dying. This is the one thing that is controlling how we live our lives and we are all living it badly because we don't know how to deal with it. It amazes me how the brilliant masters of the universe - like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Carlos Slim (the richest of them all) - were and are not seeking the solution to this universal human problem. Rats in the maze, all of them. And Steve Jobs had no excuse because he was into India- style spirituality and Zen Buddhism in a more serious way than all of us are into the Dao.