Dharma Wheel

Hi,

I'd appreciate your opnion about the following question

Do you think it's possible for someone practising meditation for some time and having got the necessary instructions from the teacher to keep up (stay in) (meditative) awareness when getting an anethaesia (narcosis) during an operation.

Thanks

I'll be frank. I think that kind of attainment is beyond most of us currently.
I tried. Couldn't.

thank you Simon for your very honest answer - obviously we are in the same boat.

I'd like to add a question: wouln't that be (failure of keeping up awareness) a sort of test for the death situation and therefore mean - no way

Dream yoga might be a useful topic to explore...we are all works in progress..

Dolma wrote: ↑Wed Nov 29, 2017 4:40 pmkeep up (stay in) (meditative) awareness when getting an anethaesia (narcosis) during an operation.

If it is something to be maintained, it is conditioned. If it is conditioned, it is impermanent and empty. One might maintain whatever state of mind one imagines, but the next moment it is gone anyway, and then who can say whether it was real at all?

Theoretically I impute the self even when in deep dreamless sleep.

So, possible for me? No, not this lifetime.

At the moment I can’t imagine the profundity of that completion.

But possible eventually? Yes, even necessary.

Dolma wrote: ↑Wed Nov 29, 2017 4:40 pm Hi,

I'd appreciate your opnion about the following question

Do you think it's possible for someone practising meditation for some time and having got the necessary instructions from the teacher to keep up (stay in) (meditative) awareness when getting an anethaesia (narcosis) during an operation.

Thanks

I've had four ops with full anaesthetic and tried, for fun, to remain conscious as they administered the anaesthetic. Not only did I completely fail each time, the curious thing was that there was no sense of falling asleep or waking up. There was simply a direct transition from being awake pre-surgery to being awake after receiving the injection to wake me up. I suspect it's simply not comparable to sleep or death - more like being hit over the head and knocked out.

Similar here to PeterC. I did have a momentary sensation of "whoosh-bam-blackness" (if you see what I mean), then seemed to start immediately piecing my post-op consciousness together.

Thanks for the replies.

I don't know how it feels like getting knocked out but the moment I got the anaestehetic it was more like a black wall was falling down. No "light" at all. The waking up process was worse not at all as waking up from sleep. My mind went completely havoc. If I had a thought I couldn't remember it the moment it was gone. I couldn't "grasp" it. It was like my mind was completely off any control more like vast air "running" around like sort of a vast cloud.

I had three consecutive operations over a couple of months. And it was the same all three times. For me these experiences were awful.

The question I am thinking about is whether the process in the moment of dying might be the same or if it is different.

Dolma wrote: ↑Wed Nov 29, 2017 4:40 pm Hi,

I'd appreciate your opnion about the following question

Do you think it's possible for someone practising meditation for some time and having got the necessary instructions from the teacher to keep up (stay in) (meditative) awareness when getting an anethaesia (narcosis) during an operation.

Thanks

No. Actually this is addressed in the biography of Dezhung Rinpoche. He may have retained consciousness during surgery but the real thing is that he practiced every day while seemingly unconscious after a stroke.

Kirt

Not directly related to the anesthesia question, but interesting nonetheless. The first 15 minutes of this is from a question from Dr. Wallace’s retreat last year and is related to an instruction he gave in an earlier session, where he said something to the effect that after you achieve shamatha, the focus is no longer really on the breath but merely on the rhythm of respiration.