[Buddha-l] How Khushwant Singh does

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

As you mention, it is very difficult to say anything definite about 
birth in general, because women have such different stories about it and 
much of the pain is compensated by emotional rewards. Besides the 
attitude towards pain is so different among cultures and individuals.
When I was thinking about death and birth it struck me that death is an 
individual phenomenon and birth symbolises basically your 
interdependence with others. Birth is more than coming out of the womb, 
it is also becoming someone for others, getting a name and status and a 
future. My guess at the time was that existential philosophers missed 
this point because of an individualistic bias. For me pain is something 
that happens and it becomes ever less significant in our society because 
of the many ways available to alleviate it. I don't mind going to the 
dentist, because I know that if he does a root canal, I will not feel 
excessive pain. This is quite new, but the symbolic value of birth will 
never change.

erik


On 10-08-11 09:32, JKirkpatrick wrote:

> I think birth is traumatic for everyone involved. My mother
> survived the birth of her first child, sadly the child was
> stillborn. For me it was "a piece of cake" apart from a slight
> scarring around the ears! I think I must have got the painful end
> of the deal there come to think of it - story of my life! She was
> up and about the next day which was very rare in 1949 apparently.
> Meanwhile it was a few years before I could get up and about.
>
> My point is that its maybe interesting to compare our social
> attitudes/perspectives about death with our social attitudes
> about birth. Usually I get the idea that people think Birth is a
> miracle and proof of the existence of a benevolent god in some
> way.
> Usually of course its those People who don't give birth who get
> terribly sentimental about it. Contrast this with the dull morbid
> depression that seems to surround death and how it gives rise to
> the philosophical speculation and religious beliefs that try to
> cope with it.
>
> Maybe I'll just have to console myself with the idea that, to
> misquote Rab Tagore "I probably enjoyed birth so I expect I'll
> enjoy death too!" But maybe all this is a little too trivial for
> an academic site so just to get serious for one minute I would
> like to point out that you could call birth "the possibility of
> all impossibilities".
>
> Dave Living/Aryacitta
>   		 	   		
> ________________________
>
> Some psychological counselors say that people can recall their
> birth traumas under the right techniques,  but I suspect these
> views are off the mark. My guess is that our cognition cannot
> recall birth because we had no thought structures by which to
> recall it.
>
> Maybe emotion--feeling--templates existed at the time. Often I've
> wondered why the idea of "light" has become such a popular and
> accepted symbol for being wised-up about things. Could it be that
> in the uterus we only have filtered light, if any--and so the
> emergence of ourselves at birth introduces us to light.  But what
> did that feel like? Loss? lack?  Didn't Freud say that the
> feeling of 'spiritual' bliss was the oceanic sensation
> experienced in the womb?
>
> I suspect that Freud missed it, there.  Instead, such a feeling,
> as some Buddhist texts claim, could be the result of being freed
> from the thought chatter of everyday life, freed from prapanca,
> freed from ruminating, freed from self vs. other-- via a
> cultivated meditation practice. Nursing infants surely don't seem
> to be suffering from prapanca or monkey mind. If they do suffer,
> it's from colic (if they are not being starved to death by lack
> of social --er--entitlements.)
>
> I don't see how fetuses could be said to 'know' anything about
> meditation or 'seeing the light' as they exist in uterine
> consciousness until birth.....a protected pre-survival state. We
> know that they are not always at rest, judging by what happens if
> we eat foods or drink drinks that disturb their peace. (Some
> folks claim that they can teach their fetuses language while
> unborn. I'm not convinced.)
>
> So for me, birth is as unknown as death. Therefore, as
> experiences, they don't exist. I don't refer to experience
> leading up to death, or to the after-effects of birth because we
> simply cannot conceive of the latter in cognitive terms.
> But birth per se, and death per se, I think we know not.
>
> Cognitively yours
> Joanna
>
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