soulatman
Member
I felt compelled to share this YouTube video posted by a wonderfully insightful, sharp and open minded Buddhist monk.
I find his attempts to grapple with the NDE phenomena wonderfully refreshing, and tremendously helpful in broadening and enlarging the philosophical framework into which I try to squeeze the many NDE reports.
His Laptop and Docking Station analogy I found surprisingly useful not only as a pertinent metaphor, but also as an insightful instructional device helping me to see the crossover between some of the slightly complex Buddhist concepts of mind, and the NDE.
I particularly like the "speculative" idea that the body (and by extension the Brain) may act in some way as a psychic or spiritual shield, without which spiritual phenomena and certain aspects of the spiritual world would (or may) overwhelm us.
I imagined this as being a bit like a tank. While we are in it, it provides a high degree of safety from outside (spiritual or psychic) forces, but one also inevitably sacrifices a tremendous amount of freedom. It is very hard to pick or smell the flowers for example, from the inside of ones tank.
I am only half way through, but I felt compelled to share this marvellous video with the Skeptiko community. I think there is a lot of very useful material here for us to chew on and discuss as potential aids in trying to grapple with the enigmatic phenomena of the NDE data, and it's implications. I think it is always nice to find new material that helps one to think outside the boxes we stuff everything into, or at the very least, to expand the dimensions of our conceptual boxes, and for me, this video has achieved that.
Enjoy :)
It will be interesting to you guys thoughts on any of the material contained in this video.
Edit: At one point, he talks about Susan Blackmore having an out of body experience, and my heart began to sink, as for me, she has very little credibility, mainly due to her appearances on Skeptiko a while back. However, I was pleased to discover that he uses her account as an example of a powerful but mostly "imaginary" or "hallucinatory" experience, and he juxtaposes this with so called "veridical" cases of OBE's where some objective corroboration can be found to support the notion that consciousness is operating and observing outside of the body/brain. *phew*
I find his attempts to grapple with the NDE phenomena wonderfully refreshing, and tremendously helpful in broadening and enlarging the philosophical framework into which I try to squeeze the many NDE reports.
His Laptop and Docking Station analogy I found surprisingly useful not only as a pertinent metaphor, but also as an insightful instructional device helping me to see the crossover between some of the slightly complex Buddhist concepts of mind, and the NDE.
I particularly like the "speculative" idea that the body (and by extension the Brain) may act in some way as a psychic or spiritual shield, without which spiritual phenomena and certain aspects of the spiritual world would (or may) overwhelm us.
I imagined this as being a bit like a tank. While we are in it, it provides a high degree of safety from outside (spiritual or psychic) forces, but one also inevitably sacrifices a tremendous amount of freedom. It is very hard to pick or smell the flowers for example, from the inside of ones tank.
I am only half way through, but I felt compelled to share this marvellous video with the Skeptiko community. I think there is a lot of very useful material here for us to chew on and discuss as potential aids in trying to grapple with the enigmatic phenomena of the NDE data, and it's implications. I think it is always nice to find new material that helps one to think outside the boxes we stuff everything into, or at the very least, to expand the dimensions of our conceptual boxes, and for me, this video has achieved that.
Enjoy :)
It will be interesting to you guys thoughts on any of the material contained in this video.
Edit: At one point, he talks about Susan Blackmore having an out of body experience, and my heart began to sink, as for me, she has very little credibility, mainly due to her appearances on Skeptiko a while back. However, I was pleased to discover that he uses her account as an example of a powerful but mostly "imaginary" or "hallucinatory" experience, and he juxtaposes this with so called "veridical" cases of OBE's where some objective corroboration can be found to support the notion that consciousness is operating and observing outside of the body/brain. *phew*
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