Reddit Reddit reviews The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying: The Spiritual Classic & International Bestseller: 25th Anniversary Edition

We found 27 Reddit comments about The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying: The Spiritual Classic & International Bestseller: 25th Anniversary Edition. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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27 Reddit comments about The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying: The Spiritual Classic & International Bestseller: 25th Anniversary Edition:

u/Answerii · 4 pointsr/Meditation

Death practice is one of the most meaningful and transformative practices I've ever done, and I recommend it to all practitioners (and all humans).

Life changes, it becomes far more meaningful and in fact real, when you realize impermanence as more than just a theoretical truth. It would be wonderful if you could keep in touch with the clarity and meaning that came with this experience, and not let it just fade away with the onslaught of mundane life. This requires mindfulness of death — not only the idea that some day you will die, but the intimately felt reality of how precarious our life is, how difficult is its support and how easy and unpredictable its decline — combined with daily recognition of what you call the "bigger picture", the tremendously precious opportunity and potential of our living moments.

Traditional Zen itself often hearkens to impermanance, and using awareness of death to spur on practice. Among other possibilities (in Buddhism) for coming to terms with death are: Four Thoughts That Turn The Mind To Dharma; Nine-Point Contemplation On Death; Meditation On Dissolution Of The Elements At Death; and Mindfulness Of The 32 Constituents Of The Body.

Other possibilities include writing and art practice on the theme of death, talking with others about death (Death Cafés are popular in many cities), and taking on projects that repeatedly ground you in the reality of impermanence (such as 'Death Cleaning', writing your will and living will, and visioning the coming years).

I also highly recommend being with old, infirm, and dying people as you train in compassion and mindfulness. This also brings forth a much more meaningful expression of meditation practice than just getting some good abilities for oneself. It's when you can use mental stability, equanimity, and kindness to serve others — or just to enjoy some precious time together — that they become real happiness.

We all have a new lease on life, whether we know it or not. May we use it well.

~


Resources:

u/mbregg · 3 pointsr/Buddhism

There are some scathing reviews in there. Especially the one where he's talking about levitation.

I have to say that I don't completely disagree with some of the reviewers' complaints. Lama Surya Das is a decent writer in my opinion, and the book is entertaining. But as others have said, it really is more of an autobiography. And while he has led an interesting life, this is not why I originally read the book. He definitely tries to put a "Western spin" on Buddhism, and this is obviously because westerners are his target audience. But what winds up being produced is a new-age self-help kind of book.

If you are interested, my top 4 recommendations for easy to read, entertaining books that cover some different aspects/sects of Buddhism (in order of my personal preference) are as follows:

  1. What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula.

  2. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki.

  3. The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh.

  4. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche.

    As I said, those are my personal favorites and will give you a good look at some of the major Buddhist traditions.
u/Andrew_B · 3 pointsr/Buddhism

The Tibetan Book of the Dead, no. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, on the other hand...

u/OutThisLife · 3 pointsr/awakened

Awesome. It sounds like you have a fulfilling life. Would you say you do? Do you have children?

Also, have you read this? http://www.amazon.com/The-Tibetan-Book-Living-Dying/dp/0062508342

u/BigFatBadger · 3 pointsr/Buddhism

Don't worry about finding a tradition, usually it finds you...

The first book I ever read on Buddhism was The Buddha's Ancient Path by Piyadassi Thera, which I found in my university library and I think is a very good introduction to Theravada.

Shortly after, I read The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche. This book, although originally written in English, has proved so popular I've heard it is actually now being translated into Tibetan. In any case it is a good introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, and the Nyingma tradition in particular.

You may want to consider doing some online correspondence course if that appeals to you. Look around for something you like, but I strongly recommend Geshe Tashi Tsering's Foundation of Buddhist Thought, which covers the basics of the four noble truths, the major tenet systems, some pramana and abhidharma, bodhicitta, madhyamaka and tantra. It has teachings from Geshe Tashi, textbooks for each module, a reading list, essay assignments and online discussion groups.

u/Taxyback · 2 pointsr/Meditation

Check out The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying! It's a classic for a reason and it deals directly with death in a very respectful, pragmatic way. It explores the concept of death as way to enrich your concept of life, which is something I really enjoyed.

u/firstsnowfall · 2 pointsr/Buddhism

I found What Makes You Not a Buddhist by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse to be absolutely wonderful, as well as Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche.

Both are great introductions to Tibetan Buddhism, and Buddhism in general.

u/saved_son · 2 pointsr/Christianity

Reading The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying at the moment - its well written and has a lot of interesting ideas - many similarities with Christianity too.

I'm reading the Quran and make it a point of collecting other faiths works to study in case I ever run into anyone I can speak with them with a little bit of knowledge.

u/[deleted] · 2 pointsr/Buddhism

The first book I read about buddhism was The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. It offers a pretty good insight into a lot of different aspects of Buddhism, and introduces a simple meditation practice. It's a great read.

u/CommentsOMine · 1 pointr/Advice

$6 on Amazon. Thanks!

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u/leTao · 1 pointr/reddit.com

Death and NDE's used to be subject's of little interest to me until I read Sogyal Rinpoche's Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.

Of course, all of it is based in Buddhism but I feel he gives a most even-handed and wonderful introduction to the subject. In all seriousness, the book is the first one I would recommend for anyone seriously interested death Death, Buddhism, spirituality and healthy living in general. I keep buying it for all my friends who manifest the slightest interest in those subjects.

We are here on earth for one purpose only: to live in such a way that we familiarize ourselves most deeply with the process of death, because death is the single most important opportunity for liberation and enlightenment. Fear of death is the greatest source of suffering in this world. But if you [learn to] die before you die, when you die, you won't die.

Or as artman's father said:
>When you die, you'll know everything.
..provided you haven't been in denial about the inevitability of your own death for your whole life - a denial an overwhelming majority find themselves hanging to until the moment of their death where they realize they had the greatest opportunity to attain enlightenment during their lifetime, and just ignored it for the sake of pushing their fear and ignorance of the mechanism of death under the rug their entire life.

Good to know that scientists are finally getting interested in this and that the subject is getting more and more mainstream. Science can only help to attain a better understanding of the whole, cause as it stands now, Tibetan Buddhist masters are some of the only authority on the subject, and I'm pretty damn sure not many atheist will ever take them seriously...

u/JimeDorje · 1 pointr/AskHistorians

I'm not entirely sure and there's probably no one answer. There's a lot of stuff on Tibetan perspectives of death and the religious rituals associated with it. Probably the most definitive work on this is Sogyal Rinpoche's The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying which is a contemporary commentary and explanation on W.Y. Evans-Wentz's now famous The Tibetan Book of the Dead. These books do cover some of what is SUPPOSED to be done to the body to prepare it for death and rebirth, but what is supposed to be done is not always the case. Especially with untimely death or the deaths of lay peoples.

Back on the physical plane however, it's difficult to say. The wealthy would typically cremate bodies. Wealth was needed because you needed to pay monks or shamans to preside over the ceremony. In cases of infant mortality, young children (2 or less) were typically placed in a river and floated down stream. It just wasn't considered economical, especially in a country where infant mortality was high, to spend endless amounts of money on cremation for infants.

I would have to look more into it, but I suggest looking into two things for the battlefield dead.

(1) Sky burial. It's a pretty common practice among Buddhists in general, and the Himalayas in particular. In Scorcese's Kundun there's a sky burial scene after the Dalai Lama's father dies. I hate this scene because it is portrayed as this bizarre, barbaric practice of desecrating a corpse and feeding it to vultures (gross!). While this is essentially the practice, in the Tibetan worldview, it is viewed as the ultimate act of compassion: to feed sentient beings with your corpse. It's the last thing you can give, and you give it. And the vultures aren't viewed as scavengers, but as sacred dakinis that arrive to approve of said compassionate act and grant good karma to the person. Since it is considered a compassionate act, one would need to make it clear ahead of time that they are committing their corpse to feed sentient beings, as opposed to cremation (otherwise it's just a tradition, and not a conscious choice to act compassionately).

(2) Not the 17th Century, but the culture of warfare probably didn't change enough to matter for your research, but here's an interesting story from Karma Phuntsho's The History of Bhutan

>In sending his troops to fight against his own powerful brother, Dungkar Gyaltshen was returning the favour Angdruk Nyim has previously shown him by sending military support from Wangdi to fight on his side against Pema Tenzin of Jakar. When Dungkar Gyaltshen was waging a war against Pema Tenzin, Angdruk Nyim is said to have sent a contingent from Wangdi under the command of his chamberlain Pemai Tshewang Tashi to fight for him in Tongsa. The warriors from Wangdi, however, were routed and the chamberlain was himself hunted down by the soldiers of Pema Tenzin until he jumped off the Thumangdra cliff near Tongsa. The story of this chamerlain's fateful journey eastward and the tragic end he met after being chased by the enemies has been captured in one of Bhutan's most well-known ballads in the Dzongkha vernacular.

I mention this (because it's a pretty awesome story) but also because it deals with battle and death seemingly (I haven't read it myself) from the battlefield rather than the historical stand point, and you may get contemporary ideas about how battlefield death is perceived in Tibetan cultures. My guess is that they're probably considered de facto sky burials and left to be feasted on by vultures. Family would probably go back to recover things like swords (which are expensive) or bones (which are sometimes ritual objects) but my guess is that most physical presence of warriors are left to deteriorate on the field.

u/Spamicles · 1 pointr/AskReddit
u/crimeariver · 1 pointr/atheism

I’ve never studied Buddhism, but when I think of death and suffering (which is rarely), I often find myself recalling two, brief, passive encounters I’ve had with Buddhist thought.

The first was a radio interview with the Buddhist Sogyal Rinpoche, author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. If I interpreted him correctly, for Buddhists, death is very much a part of every day life, like sleeping and eating is. It is an unemotional fact. It is not sad. He explained that monks like him live every moment in preparation for death, similar to preparing for bed. He said that westerners fear death in part because we don’t treat it as a simple fact of life and prepare for it every day.

Another time, I was channel surfing and came upon a documentary on Buddhists, also Tibetan, I think. (I can’t even remember the channel, let alone the program). One image really stuck in my head was of a funeral the monks gave for one of their own. They laid his body out in a field and then sat silently in a row near by watching buzzards eat his corpse. It was like they were watching him walk away. Death isn’t sad for them. It just is.

In short, I think their attitude is to embrace suffering and death, not to fight and fear it.

u/colo90 · 1 pointr/Buddhism

> as if to degrade striving for something.

but what are you striving for? sure, you might gain a lot of money, but will this end your suffering? In the end, you only truly need so much of it; after that, it just brings attachment. And you can be sure of this: you will loose all your material belongings, if only after you die.

letting go is very difficult, and I would hardly call this an easy road. The easy road would be to close your eyes to this truth. To quote the tibetan book of living and dying:

> When I think of [people who look on death with a naive, thoughtless cheerfulness], I am reminded of what one Tibetan
master says: "People often make the mistake of being frivolous about death and think, 'Oh well, death happens to everybody.
It's not a big deal, it's natural. I'll be fine.' That's a nice theory
until one is dying."

u/Clay_Statue · 1 pointr/Buddhism

Interestingly I could never really understand the Christian religion until I understood Buddhism. I always had a problem with the concept of "original sin". If we come from nowhere, how can a newborn baby have sin? It doesn't make any logical sense. However if you consider reincarnation means that we've had a limitless number of previous lives, it makes sense that we've probably done some bad shit in a prior incarnation. That's how come all newborn babies can be born with sin. Every question you can come up with about life and existence usually has a logical answer from the Buddhist perspective.

Also Buddhism accepts the existence of not just one god, but numerous gods. Thus Jesus and the Christian god can exist within the Buddhist philosophy, but trying to get to heaven is just a dead-end since it is only temporary. Unlike Christianity which promotes permanence (ie you go to heaven or hell forever), in Buddhism all states of existence are impermanent, even heaven and hell. 'Gods' in the Buddhist context are just another type of incarnation for sentient beings (like being human, animal, or ghost). It's possible that you've been a god in a past existence over beings in some other world-system and then that existence finished and now you're here being human again. Being Buddhist doesn't require you to believe in any of this. Many Buddhists disregard the entire cosmology and don't believe in gods, heaven, hell, ghosts, etc, and this is okay. Faith in these things isn't required to practice Buddhism if you'd rather just take it as a philosophy and apply it to your life in that way. Just be aware that there is no permanence and when you die you aren't annihilated, the consequences of your thoughts, actions, speech, and intentions from this life carry through to the next one, and the one after that, and so on.

Anyways, this book is a perennial classic. It's where many people get started. I'm sure some other users will chime in with other suggestions as well.

Good luck and thanks for your interest!

u/dharmis · 1 pointr/religion

I can tell you my experience and maybe it will help you one way or another.

I was an agnostic atheist a bit disappointed with the Christian tradition I grew up in. In the context of a family drama, I picked up the Tibetan Book of the Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche, out of curiousity on how to deal with death. I found the Buddhist approach to death and spirituality to be so clear and lucid that it stirred something in me, inspiring me to go on the path of learning more and more about Eastern philosophy and, ultimately, religion. On this path I learned about yoga and then the philosophy behind it and, step by step I found my spiritual fulfilment in the Vaishnava philosophy (a branch of "Hinduism") and the practice of bhakti yoga.

The road took several years and it was based on finding answers to deep questions (who are we, where do we come from, what is life, what is death, what is the mind, what is the soul, what is God etc). The main attitude that propelled me forward was being open minded. And the main catalyst to progress was personal encounters with inspiring representatives of the traditions. I listened to online lectures on all Eastern schools, studied scriptures, met with serious and experienced practitioners and I gradually started to practice myself to verify the theory.

If you're in an undecided position I would recommend you start simply praying to the Supreme Being/The Universe (in general) to guide you to find your way and, from what I experienced, you will receive the knowledge and the means in unexpected ways. Meanwhile, you could start sampling philosophies of various schools (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Vaishnavism etc) and see what inspires you. Trust your instincts.

In Vaishnavism, we believe that God is very eager to re-start His relationship with the souls and the human form of life is reserved for that very purpose. So, according to my tradition, the question you have asked ("How do I become religious?") is guaranteed to already move you closer to understanding of God and religion. It all hinges on your sincerity.

My personal book recommendations:

Tibetan Book of the Living and Dying

Bhagavad Gita (read the Introduction directly)

Six Causes - The Vedic Theory of Creation

I wish you the best of luck in your endeavours. Without maybe even realizing, you have already made progress. And to come back to my own journey, this is the idea that I meditated on the most before beginning any spiritual process:

"For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain. " (Bhagavad Gita, 2.20)

edit: grammar

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u/DigitalLD · 1 pointr/science

I think you are great, because you know that you DON'T know. :) This is the first step - when the cup is too full, learning cannot happen anyway. Continue exploring!!

I recommend the following "scientific" approach to learning about spirituality / do we even have souls -

entanglement theory

old souls - studies of those who claim to remember past life

And finally, I really enjoyed
tibetian book of life and death

Science is wonderful, but it cannot answer everything - yet.

u/gerp · 1 pointr/pics

Yeah I know. I think (personally) the cult of death is something that needs to change. I never understood going to a grave to lay flowers on it. I never understood loss. I don't get sentimental at funerals or when I hear people have died. It's so remote from the now.

Check out this book sometime. It's hard to get through but there are some distinct and interesting passages about death and what happens to a 'soul.'

u/wo_ot · 1 pointr/AskReddit

It's really a very difficult process to begin, don't feel bad for having a hard time with it at first. I started getting interested in it in 2007 and began reading books at about that time; I loved the concepts but the meditation part felt impossible. It really wasn't until almost a year and a half later that I had a breakthrough and meditation finally became somewhat more natural. I still struggle from time to time, but the struggle is worth what I get from it personally.

A few books for you:

Turning the Mind Into an Ally; Sakyong Mipham

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying; Songyal Rinpoche (this is a long read)

The Power of Now; Eckhart Tolle (This isn't Buddhism, but the tenants of much of the book are based on non-attachment, presence, and awareness... which are the basis of all forms of Buddhism, and Tolle presents them in a very accessible way.)

u/sacca7 · 1 pointr/Meditation

Develop many meditation techniques. Use what seems right at the time.

The meditation on sensations is amazing to do with regular sensations (pressure of the tush on the cush) as well as with pleasant sensations. Just let the attention focus on the most intense sensation, or the most pleasant.

Over many years I've worked on meditation on sensations, on the breath, on loving-kindness (and the rest of the Brahma Viharas), on memorizing inspiring quotes, on awareness of sounds, on presence, and way back when I did meditations on chakras. Whatever works.

Sogyal Rinpoche said in his book Tibetan Book of Living and Dying:

>Become a master of your own bliss, a chemist of your own joy, with all sorts of remedies always on hand to elevate, cheer, illuminate, and inspire your every breath and movement.