A Buddhist materialist clings to a weird kind of logic: If he doesn’t see X, X doesn’t exist. More specifically, his logic runs this way: Since I don’t see the self, Buddha-nature, Suchness (tathata), and so on, these things must be unreal.
Our materialist is only aware of what the body’s senses receive. If there is a self for such a materialist, it is his body or sensory consciousness that is the self; moreover, it ceases when the body dies. If there is Buddha-nature for this materialist, it is all the things the materialist’s senses perceive including the here and now.
From the Pali Nikayas (D. ii. 328, 330) we learn that the materialist is like a man born blind (jaccandho puriso). He is only aware of this own limited world. He can't see colors, the sun or the moon. He is quite adamant that these things don't exist because he hasn’t seen them! He thinks to himself, “If I am not aware of this thing, therefore, it does not exist.”
Like the man born blind, it hasn’t dawned on the materialist that the transcendent cannot be seen with the eye of flesh (P., mamsacakkhu). Our Buddhist materialist hasn’t as yet cultivated spiritual eyes such as the Dharma eye or the Buddha eye.
Interesting discussion of the perils of materialism in Section LXXIII p. 202 of Red Pine's Lankavatara Sutra translation.
Posted by: Bob Morris | March 02, 2012 at 08:26 AM
"Not the self that sees,
But The Self that sees the self that sees,
That is The Self"
Posted by: WuWeiTV | February 25, 2012 at 04:18 AM
A Lesson in Zen biology:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9BBy3aidRE
Posted by: Zen Biologist | February 23, 2012 at 07:30 PM
The fact that she survived the operation proves she wasn't dead. I.e., the biochemical processes which underlie consciousness had not ceased.
Posted by: Bob Morris | February 23, 2012 at 05:23 PM
Pam Reynolds Lowery (1956 – May 22, 2010) from Atlanta, Georgia was an American singer-songwriter.[1] In 1991, at the age of 35, she claims to have had a near-death experience (NDE) during a brain operation. Her claim of NDE is one of the most notable and best documented in NDE research because of the unusual circumstances under which it happened. Reynolds was under close medical monitoring during the entire operation. During part of the operation she had no brain-wave activity and no blood flowing in her brain, which left her clinically dead. She made several observations about the procedure which later were confirmed by medical personnel as surprisingly accurate.
This famous near-death experience claim is considered by many to be proof of the reality of the survival of consciousness after death, and of a life after death.
Posted by: John | February 22, 2012 at 02:13 PM