[Buddha-l] Query on Non-Local Consciousness

[curt]

Ioan Culianu (aka Ioan Couliano) wrote a book titled "Out of this World: 
Otherworldly Journeys from Gilgamesh to Albert Einstein". Basically it 
is a cross-cultural guidebook to various ideas about the separability of 
"soul" and "body". He has quite a bit of interesting material from Asia 
- including specific references to Buddhist texts. He has another book 
which is more meaty and less popular - but on the same basic subject: 
"Psychanodia: A Survey of the Evidence  Concerning the Ascension of the  
Soul and Its Relevance".

In my opinion, Culianu is a fascinating guide to primary sources that 
might otherwise be overlooked - but his interpretations of those 
sources, as well as his conclusions, are, well, imaginative.

- Curt

Franz Metcalf wrote:
> Colleagues,
>
> I've been thinking seriously about the dissolution of consciousness at 
> the death of the brain. Bad Buddhist that I am, the prospect fails to 
> cheer me. So I've taken to wondering what the Buddhist tradition might 
> have to say about the notion of non-local consciousness. (Buddhism 
> lacking an atta or jiva, non-local consciousness seems the only way 
> around the end of consciousness once that consciousness's body dies.) 
> The Chan/Zen tradition just doesn't go for it. Certainly the Tibetan 
> tradition speaks of "mind" as pervasive, but such notions have always 
> seemed fuzzy and faintly unsavory to me.
>
> I'm also curious as to the current status of the idea of continuing 
> consciousness after brain death in neuropsychology. (And by that I do 
> NOT mean that neuropsychology is now brain dead; I'm just too lazy to 
> move my dangling preposition.)
>
> Curiously,
>
> Franz
>
> _______________________________________________
> buddha-l mailing list
> buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
> http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l
>
>