Thoughts about thoughts

A lot has happened since I wrote on here last.

In short, I've:

1. moved back to the UK from Paris
2. felt good
3. had a major depressive episode (grim)
4. felt okay again
5. been on three weekend meditation retreats
6. cheered up

I've realised something that may be quite profound, or may be something that lots of people already know, and is definitely something that meditation teachers, happier and wiser people than me have been telling me all along. All the constant thoughts about things, my pressing need to "work it all out" here and now with my brain, trains of thought, philosophising, working things out "logically" (though I think even the most amateur philosophers would have some bones to pick with my logic!) - all that is all very well, and is still very much present - the record is still a little bit stuck - but the contents of that over-worked brain of mine are not the be-all and end-all of it.

Essentially, as more or less every single meditation teacher has said at one point or another, thoughts are just thoughts. They are not you. They are not not you either. They are there. That is okay, and brains are incredible things, but broken records aren't.

Existential angst and doubt

My main problem at the moment is "the meaning of life": I often feel as though humans are simply a species of animal, whose intuitions, instincts, emotions and so on are simply a product of evolution, driving us towards reproduction, the continuation of the species, etc. Negative emotions and behaviours have been explained in this way: greed, jealousy, desire for money etc seem fairly clearly to be related to our more animalistic evolutionary past, propelling us to protect our territory and ensure the survival of our genes.

However, even positive emotions and mental states are arguably useful for the same purposes: a compassionate act, for example, in the form that most humans experience and act upon it, gets us into another person's good books, and they are likely to repay us with some act of kindness at a later date. Society and community seem equally indispensable to the survival of the species. These things have been investigated and shown in psychological studies. I have yet to meet a human being displaying qualities of "pure" compassion, i.e. not wanting or expecting, somewhere, unconsciously, a repayment of kindness in some way.

What I'm trying to ask, is are we really anything more than complicated animals with over-developed brains capable of perceiving our existence and our death, caught in a kind of absurd, but not untrue, perception of existence, striving for some kind of meaning when in fact there either may not be any? Or if there is some reason for our being, it is unknowable.

I feel very confused and, please excuse the pretentious-sounding term, existentially depressed, about the whole issue of.... well, life...!!

Zen and Buddhism have been the "schools of thought" / teachings that, for me, have come closest to an answer, but I have such very severe doubts about meditation practice and whether it really can bring us any answers, or whether it's just a particularly relaxing form of auto-suggestion.

What happens after death?

Lately I've been thinking a lot about death.

And trying to find out what a Buddhist view on death might be.

A quick internet search brings up countless pages of stuff about rebirth, the continuity of consciousness, karmic repercussions in the next life, hell realms, hungry ghosts, the possibility of deathlessness through positive actions and meditation, the promise of escape from the Samsaric cycle of birth and death.

My main question is this: do the amateur bloggers (like me), the teachers, monks, lay practitioners and so on who talk about what happens after death actually, genuinely know what they're talking about? Have they come to such realisations through meditation and genuine knowing? Or have they come to their conclusions through studying texts and deciding to adopt a certain set of beliefs?


This, to me, is an important question. So far in my meditation I have discovered no truths or certainties about what might happen after death. All I know is that I will die one day. In fact, my meditation practice, combined with general contemplation about life, plus a few more life experiences added to my belt, have led me to a place of even greater uncertainty about what it's all about. Not in a bad way, really, just more uncertain. Perhaps it would be better, and more honest, to accept this uncertainty with a confident, agnostic "I don't know" than to adopt certain beliefs or ideas about what happens when you cease to exist.

I suppose my confusion serves me right for expecting to find answers to life's turbulence and uncertainty on google.



See these links for examples of so-called Buddhist beliefs about what happens after death:


http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/walshe/wheel261.html
http://www.death-and-dying.org/understanding-rebirth.htm/

See this for what I perceive to be a realistic and honest view on death:

http://www.westernchanfellowship.org/agnostic-buddhist.html