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December 18, 2017

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Zennist:

All worthy points.

I would like to point out that whereas in the past there wasn't much data to go on, contemporary science has a lot of data to investigate the NDE phenomenon. So the problem is not just one of scientific difficulty, but lack of intellectual honesty and courage to face peers who have a bias against any theory which does not suppose mind follows the brain (sometimes called epiphenomenalism).

For what it is worth, in my experience at least, looking at patterns of events in one's life or certain kinds of aversions or attachments that do not have a ready explanation in one's own (current) life history, can be very telling about previous lives. If something crops up again and again in one's life (for good or bad) that is a very good example of how karma manifests.

I find it particularly hard to understand how many contemporary Zen Buddhists seem to accept the explanation of rebirth as a kind of minute to minute phenomenon, but not the appearance of a new body. Although that view (minute to minute rebirth) is not wrong in my opinion, how does one suddenly get the idea that there was no life before birth or no life after death of the carnal body?

The only answer I can see is that people have a kind of cherished bias and force Buddhism to conform to their views, just as many scientists avoid taking NDE data seriously because of a basic bias (formed in ignorance) against spirituality in general.

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