Achieving Death

General forum on the teachings of all schools of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. Topics specific to one school are best posted in the appropriate sub-forum.
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garudha
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Achieving Death

Post by garudha »

According to Mahāyāna Buddhism is it possible to arrive at Death as a final result of ones life as oppose to Rebirth or Nirvana ?
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LastLegend
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Re: Achieving Death

Post by LastLegend »

You mean complete extinction at death?
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garudha
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Re: Achieving Death

Post by garudha »

Yes
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Re: Achieving Death

Post by Queequeg »

If you mean death as a final "nothingness" that some people suppose death to be, no. You can't get nothing from something. Something always turns to something.

"Nothing" from "Something" is an impossibility.

http://youtu.be/lAD6Obi7Cag
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
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LastLegend
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Re: Achieving Death

Post by LastLegend »

garudha wrote:Yes
Why would you hold such a view when we are working towards non-attachment to view?
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Schrödinger’s Yidam
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Re: Achieving Death

Post by Schrödinger’s Yidam »

I'd always thought the Shravakayana aspired to complete extinction. The analogy I've heard used was that of a candle burning out. Nothing happens next.

Maybe this is a topic better suited to DhammWheel.
1.The problem isn’t ‘ignorance’. The problem is the mind you have right now. (H.H. Karmapa XVII @NYC 2/4/18)
2. I support Mingyur R and HHDL in their positions against lama abuse.
3. Student: Lama, I thought I might die but then I realized that the 3 Jewels would protect me.
Lama: Even If you had died the 3 Jewels would still have protected you. (DW post by Fortyeightvows)
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Re: Achieving Death

Post by Rakz »

smcj wrote:I'd always thought the Shravakayana aspired to complete extinction. The analogy I've heard used was that of a candle burning out. Nothing happens next.

Maybe this is a topic better suited to DhammWheel.
No when the flame burns out it goes into a latent state. Different from complete extinction. Total extinction is denied by the Buddha as you can see in 14 unanswerable questions. Those who want to explain it as total extinction are mistaken and confused.
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Re: Achieving Death

Post by Fortyeightvows »

I have also heard nirvana decribed as the extinguishing of a candle.
And I parinirvana is often translated as 'nirvana without remainder'
Interesting stuff.
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Re: Achieving Death

Post by LastLegend »

Mañjuśrī said, “If the Buddha were staying in this world, then Buddhas as numerous as the sands of the Ganges would also stay in their worlds. Why? Because all Buddhas have the same one appearance, the inconceivable appearance. The inconceivable appearance has neither birth nor death. If future Buddhas were to appear in their worlds, then all Buddhas [of the past, present, and future] would also appear in their worlds. Why? Because in what is inconceivable, there is no appearance of past, future, or present. However, sentient beings are attached to their perceptions, and they say that there are Buddhas who appear in the world and Buddhas who enter nirvāṇa.”
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Zhen Li
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Re: Achieving Death

Post by Zhen Li »

Nirvana is quite correctly translated as extinction. The reply of the Buddha to which Tenso was referring actually was to the question of whether the Tathagata exists after death, does not exist after death, both, or neither - to which the answer is abyākatato dhāretha, you should hold it as not designated.

This is a different question from asking if the Tathagata undergoes extinction, which in Pali would be nibbāti, meaning effectively if one undergoes nirvana. Of course this is the same in Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism. It is not that Mahayana holds that the Buddha continues to 'exist' after parinirvana, but that there are extra levels of meaning to what 'Buddha' means. He is still fully extinguished in a manner in which limited beings are not.
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garudha
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Re: Achieving Death

Post by garudha »

Actually I meant to pose the original question in relation to non-liberated humans; not Buddhas.
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Zhen Li
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Re: Achieving Death

Post by Zhen Li »

Well, in Mahayana samsara and nirvana are no different. We are all actually liberated already.
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Re: Achieving Death

Post by Thomas Amundsen »

garudha wrote:Actually I meant to pose the original question in relation to non-liberated humans; not Buddhas.
In that case, no. Non-liberated beings are reincarnated in one of the six realms of Samsara.
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garudha
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Re: Achieving Death

Post by garudha »

tomamundsen wrote:
garudha wrote:Actually I meant to pose the original question in relation to non-liberated humans; not Buddhas.
In that case, no. Non-liberated beings are reincarnated in one of the six realms of Samsara.
Zhen Li wrote:Well, in Mahayana samsara and nirvana are no different. We are all actually liberated already.
[bolding added]

:thinking: If the phrase "those who know don't speak" is true all these contradictions would certainly be understandable.
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Re: Achieving Death

Post by Grigoris »

Death is not liberation. Even in the case of an Arhat it is not death that liberates them but their enlightenment. It is due to their enlightenment (not due to their death) that they are not reborn.

Their is no contradiction between Zhen Li and tomamundsen's statements.

We are (according to some traditions) by nature enlightened, but this enlightened nature is obscured by our ignorance, so we are reborn in samsara.
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
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garudha
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Re: Achieving Death

Post by garudha »

.
If death (as a final extinction) is possible then I'd argue it would indeed be a form of liberation.

Why? Extinction would not induce rebirth.

Logically; liberation from birth and death is a form of non-liberation because one is still subject to existence.The cycle (of birth and death) has been broken.
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Grigoris
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Re: Achieving Death

Post by Grigoris »

garudha wrote:.
If death (as a final extinction) is possible then I'd argue it would indeed be a form of liberation.
That's because you are confused. It is not possible (from a Buddhist point of view). The final extinction is Nirvana, not death. If death were the final extinction then every sentient being is destined for freedom from rebirth, since every sentient being will die at some point.
Logically; liberation from birth and death is a form of non-liberation because one is still subject to existence.The cycle (of birth and death) has been broken.
This is gibberish. Want to try again?
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
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garudha
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Re: Achieving Death

Post by garudha »

Sherab Dorje wrote:
garudha wrote:.
If death (as a final extinction) is possible then I'd argue it would indeed be a form of liberation.
That's because you are confused. It is not possible (from a Buddhist point of view). The final extinction is Nirvana, not death. If death were the final extinction then every sentient being is destined for freedom from rebirth, since every sentient being will die at some point.
Logically; liberation from birth and death is a form of non-liberation because one is still subject to existence.The cycle (of birth and death) has been broken.
This is gibberish. Want to try again?
Okay, so if we say that death (as a final extinction) is not possible (and to this arahants remembering their past lives are a testament) then liberation primarily entails escape from the cycle of birth and death.

From this liberation; the liberated teach us something along the lines of:
  • You are in a recurrent cycle of birth and death.
    Your house is burning down.
    You should leave this burning house quickly.
    "Nirvana" is a skilful means to entice you out the burning house.
    Ultimately there is no Nirvana, for "you" because "you" won't personally exist after liberation,
    indeed your present existence is merely a trick of the mind, indeed this vision of "samsara" (burning house) is merely a trick of the mind,
    however you can't possibly understand the reality of the situation as long as you're in the recurrent cycle of birth and death.
So defeat "death" now (before your "actual death") by becoming liberated?

However; when I look at nature, the universe, I see immeasurable beauty and perfection, and I don't perceive that it's such a terrible thing. So I don't see the need to escape it.

All human babies come from women's wombs...
Women's wombs are not creating defective beings...
So why tamper with nature ?
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Re: Achieving Death

Post by LastLegend »

Who is tampering with nature?
It’s eye blinking.
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Grigoris
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Re: Achieving Death

Post by Grigoris »

garudha wrote:However; when I look at nature, the universe, I see immeasurable beauty and perfection, and I don't perceive that it's such a terrible thing. So I don't see the need to escape it.
I'll take it that you are a well-educated, economically viable, white male, living in the first world.

Apart from that, I'll also take it that you cannot see preta and hell beings.

If you are cool with samsara, or if you are incapable of seeing/having empathy for the suffering of sentient beings other than yourself, then Mahayana Buddhism is exactly what you need. Not that your ego will allow to see that , but...

Samsara is defective at all levels. ALL LEVELS.

As for the rest of your post... There are two truths: ultimate and relative.
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
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