Into the Jaws of Yama, Lord of Death: Buddhism, Bioethics, and Death

Notes

Notes  Chapter 1: Introduction 1. Meno 18b. Quoted in Mircea Eliade, Death, Afterlife and Eschatology: From Primitives to Zen: A Thematic Sourcebook of the History of Religions (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), p. 59. 2. Fragments 117, in The Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A Critical History, trans. by G. S. Kirk and J. E. Raven (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957). Quoted in Eliade, “Death, Afterlife and Eschatology,” From Primitives to Zen, p. 57. 3. Hazel Rose Markus and Shinobu Kitayama, “The Cultural Construction of Self and Emotion: Implications for Social Behavior,” in Emotion and Culture: Empirical Studies of Mutual Influence, eds. Shinobu Kitayama and Hazel Rose Markus (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1994), p. 94. Chapter 2: Understanding Death and Impermanence 1. Those who immolated themselves in 1963, following Ven. Thich Quang Duc’s example, included the monks Thich Nguyen Huong, Thich Thanh Tue, Thich Tieu Dieu, Thich Quang Huong, Thich Thien My, and the nun Thich Nha Trang. Le Thi Thanh Tuyen (Bhikkhuni Lien Tuong), “Vietnamese Buddhist Nuns in the Twentieth Century,” M. Phil. thesis, University of Delhi, 1997. 2. A somewhat more elaborate description of the sky burial ritual is found in John Powers’ Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1995), pp. 307–309. 3. Mahåvagga I.6. In Vinaya Texts, trans. T. W. Rhys-Davids and Hermann Oldenberg (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1982), p. 95. 231 4. Susan Murcott, The First Buddhist Women: Translations and Commentaries on the Therigatha (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1991), p. 88. 5. Richard Hayes, Buddha-L (Buddhist Academic Discussion Forum), April 5, 1999. 6. Ibid. 7. Bhadantåcariya Buddhagho∑a, The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga), trans. Bhikkhu Ñyåˆmoli (Colombo: A. Semage, 1964), p. 632. 8. Ibid., pp. 633-34. 9. Ibid., p. 719. 10. Ibid., p. 721. 11. Eva K. Neumaier-Dargyay, “Buddhism,” in Life after Death in World Religions, ed. Harold Coward (Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1997), p. 92. Chapter 3: Understanding the Nature of Consciousness 1. For further discussion of Buddhist categories of consciousness, see Lati Rinbochay and Elizabeth Napper, Mind in Tibetan Buddhism (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1980). 2. See Zara Houshmand, Robert B. Livingston, and B. Alan Wallace, Consciousness at the Crossroads: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Brain Science and Buddhism (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1991). 3. Judy Foreman, “The Medical Benefits of Meditation,” Baltimore Sun, April 28, 2003. 4. Francis Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul (New York: Scribner: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1994). 5. The formless realm (år¶pyadhåtu) is not a physical place, but the abode of beings in the four formless absorptions: (1) infinite space (åkåßånantyåyatana); (2) infinite consciousness (vijñånåntyåyatana); (3) nothingness (åkicanyåyatana); and (4) the peak of cyclic existence (naivasajñånåyatana). Vasubandhu, Abhidharmakoßabhåyam, vol. 2, p. 365–68. According to Jeffrey Hopkins, beings take rebirth in the form and formless realms due to particularly strong powers of concentration, but based on ignorance with respect to the nature of the person. Meditation of Emptiness (London: Wisdom Publications , 1983), pp. 277–78. 6. English translations include W. Y. Evans-Wentz, The Tibetan Book of the Dead (London: Oxford University Press, 1960); Francesca Fremantle and Chögyam Trungpa, The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Berkeley and London: Shambhala, 1975); and Robert A. F. Thurman, trans., The Tibetan Book of the Dead (New York: Bantam Books, 1994). See also the DVD narrated by Leonard Cohen titled “The Tibetan Book of the Dead: A Way of Life/The Great Liberation ” (Wellspring Productions, 2004). 7. Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, trans. James Strachey (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1962), p. 13. 8. See, for example, Stephen F. Teiser, Scripture on the Ten Kings and the Making of Purgatory in Medieval Chinese Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994); and Stephen F. Teiser, Ghost Festivals in Medieval China (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988). 232 Notes to Chapter 3 Chapter 4: Contemplating Self and No-Self 1. Bhikkhu Pesala, ed., The Debate of King Milinda (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1998), p. 183. 2. An alternative translation of nåma-r¶pa is “mind and matter.” For example, Bhikkhu Pesala has, “What is it, Någasena, that is reborn?” to which Någasena replies, “Mind and matter.” The Debate of King Milinda (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1998), p. 13. 3. The Dhammapada, trans. Eknath Easwaran (Petaluma, CA: Nilgiri Press, 1985...