[Buddha-l] Abhidharma vindicated once again

[Zelders.YH]

Dan wrote :
> Well, Herman, let's clear up just a few things.
Well, Dan, if you insist.
>> AFTER death, you say.
> Not me. I pasted in three descriptions purporting to provide official
> understandings of the term.
Now here is what you wrote : "What little I know of tukdam, it serves a 
very different function -- it is a special meditative condition that 
certain very adept practitioners engage in AFTER death [..]"
By the way you phrased it you explicitly claimed that as the (little) 
knowledge you had yourself. You provided no references. How was I to 
know that it was a cut-and-paste job ?.
>   Also, if I remember correctly, your initial post
> on tukdam characterized it as post-death.
No, you don't remember correctly. My initial post had this : "[.] could 
this state [ i.e. 'nirodha-samapatti] not also be comparable or 
identical to the state of'tukdam', the inanimate state wherein some 
Tibetan yogis are said to dwell for a short period before passing away ?"
( I do remember having doubts about the use of the term 'inanimate' ; 
'seemingly inanimate' would have been better)
> So this little rhetorical strategy
> of trying to avoid that consequence by pretending I invented it won't wash,
> I find it disappointing that you would stoop to such transparent sophistries
> when I've tried to take your inquiry seriously.
Sorry Dan, I plead total innocence of any rhetorical strategies or 
sophistries in this matter.  Your disappointment has miraculously 
self-arisen.
> Fact is, those who enter tukdam do not wake up and eat breakfast, unlike
> those in nirodha-samapatti. Take a deep breath, resign yourself to that not
> insignicant difference, and accept it. It's major.
True, tukdam is the name for a state that occurs around the time of 
death. But advanced practitioners prepare for this state. The Dalai Lama 
states "The practitioner is eventually able to experience, in 
meditation, the actual dissolution processes - and especially the 
experience of the sublest clear light - just as they will occur at the 
actual time of death." ('The World of Buddhism', p136). The practitioner 
can have his cup of tea afterwards.
My initial question could be supplemented to include such preparatory 
exercises ; could they result in a 'nirodha-samapatti' like state ?
>> When an ex Ganden Tripa died,
>> or "died", in 2008 and entered tukdam, the Dalai Lama ordered his body
>> to be wired up - surely the first time such an experiment was carried
>> out - and after a few days some faint brain activity was registered.
> So his eeg flatlined for days and then something fluttered on the eeg? Or
> there was constant eeg activity the whole time?
>
> The accepted medical definition of death is a flat eeg for 24 hours. So if
> the above case actually happened (or is the source for this the same group
> that Erik's swami uses for PR?), and the eeg was flat for more than 24
> hours, he was technically dead, and then rescusitated. Dead is dead.
'Dead' is 'dead by definition'. And that definition is no more than a 
useful rule of thumb. But the exceptional phenomenon of tukdam may show 
that that definition isn't complete, or isn't competely right.
Anyway, those who take tukdam to be a post-mortem state will have more 
to explain that those who are open to the possibility that it is in fact 
a pre-death state.
>> nirodha-samapatti still
>> retains life-force (jivatendriya) and body heat, while a corpse does not."
>> That would fit the many descriptions of bodies of people in tukdam.
> Not according to the descriptions I posted.
Well, you're wrong. Two of the three sources you refer to do mention 
body heat.
Take this sentence from the Rigpawiki characterization of tukdam : 
"There is still a certain color and glow in their face, the nose does 
not sink inward, the skin remains soft and flexible, the body does not 
become stiff, the eyes are said to keep a soft and compassionate glow, 
and there is still a warmth at the heart."
Or take this sentence from the description of Chogye Trichen Rinpoche's 
tukdam :  "The high lamas commented that upon close examination during 
the hours of Tuesday morning, there was some subtle but noticeable 
change in Rinpoche's complexion and skin tone, that his fingers had 
become smaller, and that there was no longer any warmth concentrated 
around Rinpoche's heart region, as there had been up to that point."

Ask around, most tukdam stories explicitly mention warmth in the heart 
region.
>> You also explained earlier that "[n]irodha-samapatti [...] is
>> soterically effective, leads to anuttara-samyak-sambodhi [and] makes
>> high level meditations and rebirths possible".
>> Wouldn't that make 'nirodha-samapatti' the ideal final pre-death
>> meditation for serious practitioners ?
> Recommend it to all your friends.
Oh, you're being funny ! But you must have overlooked my point. If 
'nirodha-samapatti' is, as you say, supposed to make high level rebirths 
possible, wouldn't it be considered by those who take rebirth for a 
fact, to be pre-eminently suited as a meditation at the time of death ? 
Is tukdam then a special case of 'nirodha-samapatti' ?

Let's find something simple to agree on ; it would be very nice to have 
some thorough reports of careful case studies of people in tukdam.  
Don't you think so too ?

Herman Zelders