Happy New Year wishes to you all, and here we are, back again with Dancing Past the Dark. The long hiatus in posting resulted from my sense of having reached my limit with the original 100-some posts; in other words, I didn’t know what more to say.
I had not expected the persistence of some readers who declined to just walk away. They, plus the report of a new study out of the UK, have effected this reappearance; so let’s get to it!
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The new study, titled “Meditation-Induced Near-Death Experiences: a 3-year Longitudinal Study” is an exploration of an ancient practice described in Buddhist texts going back centuries. Their straightforward attitude about death and dying is notable for those of us brought up with modern, non-Asian avoidance sensibilities. As William Van Gordon, the lead author of this study, notes in the online publication Mindful:
The practice of using meditation to derive a better understanding of death is longstanding. This is particularly the case in Buddhism where ancient texts exist that describe meditation practices specifically intended to help spiritual practitioners prepare for, or gain insight into, the processes of dying and death.’
The ancient Buddhist texts best known to Westerners are the eighth century Tibetan Book of the Dead and Profound Dharma of Natural Liberation through Contemplating the Peaceful and Wrathful. If you’ve been studying NDEs for long, you have no doubt encountered at least the first of these.
“To date,” writes principal investigator Van Gordon, “no study has sought to investigate the phenomenon of a meditation-induced near-death experience (MI-NDE) that is referred to in ancient Buddhist texts.’
The study team carefully recruited meditators from Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana traditions; all were known to be advanced in their practice and/or to have pursued the MI-NDE routines previously. The study sample consisted of twelve individuals, all Buddhists, of eight nationalities; ethnically, ten are Asian, two white. Their NDE credentials were based not only on their active engagement with the traditional death-related practice but included a meditator’s being able to induce an MI-NDE with a score of 7 or more on the Greyson Near-Death Experience Scale.
What the Derby study reveals is that some advanced Buddhist meditators do, in fact, find the ancient practice spiritually meaningful and worth repeating. They are able to generate events with phenomenology familiar to near-death experiencers: altered perceptions of space and time, and encounters with non-worldly realms and beings. Unlike other NDEs, the study reports, the meditators were able to harness these experiences at will, and to some extent control them. (Only two elements on the Greyson scale did not appear on the MI-NDE study findings.)
RESULTS
At the end of the study’s three-year duration, four ‘master themes’ emerged from analysis of participants’ transcripts:
Phases/facets of the MI-NDE (listed in the chronological order of their unfolding)
1. Reduction of identification with the five bodily elements (in order: earth, water, sun/fire/heat, air/wind, and space)
2. Altered perception of time and space
3. Encounters with non-worldly realms and beings:
a. Undesirable realms (hell, torture, ‘hungry ghosts’)
b. Other realms of humans and animals
c. Realms of inhabitants made all or in part of light
d. Other categories:
i. Recently deceased beings moving between worlds
ii. Demonic beings
iii. Liberated beings not bound to a realm
4. Emptiness: ‘experiences understood as empty of inherent existence, mind-made’, voidness, non-self
Awareness
1. Awareness of physical body
2. Awareness of NDE and non-corporeal form
Volitional control
Participants described having different degrees of control over the duration and content of the MI-NDE. Five shared the view that without extensive meditative/spiritual experience, a person would be unable to exercise any control over an NDE.
Spiritually meaningful insights
Just as with more generally reported NDEs, the meditators found their MI-NDEs to be spiritually meaningful.
CONCLUSIONS
As the authors conclude, “It appears that the MI-NDE referred to in ancient Buddhist texts (i) exists as an empirically investigable phenomenon and (ii) is a valid form of NDE according to conventional assessment criteria.”
Other findings are discussed in the Mindful report, which I highly recommend to everyone reading this blog. It includes considerably more details about the participants, study design, and findings. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-018-0922-3
MY OBSERVATIONS
First and foremost, what will surprise no one here is that what struck me most forcibly was the authors’ casual response to the participants’ universal encounters with “unpleasant realms” with mentions of hell, torture, and such-like. No notice is given that in the wider world of near-death reporting, the presence of such harrowing encounters is rarely mentioned if not outright denied.
The reason, of course, is obvious: these are quintessentially Buddhist experiences being reported by Buddhist meditators whose spiritual cosmology takes for granted the appearance of hungry ghosts and other denizens of realms that send Western experiencers into panic-stricken decades of existential/theological distress.
Equally, the assessment that NDE content is essentially empty—not meaningless, but not to be clutched at–stands in strong relief against Western conviction of its nature as ontological bedrock. There is no swooning evident in the reports of these meditators, and no breathless rush to find a publisher, merely a quiet recognition that during the NDE, “You experience something or someone and you’re fully involved in the experience. But you pull back and recognize that it’s like a dream. It’s dangerous not to do that. If you don’t pull back, you can get caught [in the experience].”
As it turns out, I discover there’s a fair bit more to say. It won’t be next week, but the next post will come along later in January. Thanks to you all.
Happy New Year!
“No notice is given that in the wider world of near-death reporting, the presence of such harrowing encounters is rarely mentioned if not outright denied.” I had such an experience and I don’t like to talk about it or dwell on it. Others feel the same way, hence not much “press” on it.
Exactly! I didn’t/couldn’t talk about mine for twenty years. Hence, this blog and ‘Dancing Past the Dark’! Thanks, Kathy.
Accepting Christ and following his teachings is the only way to avoid these hellish experiences.
Sorry, but not infallible. There are many accounts of devout Christians encountering a hellish experience…for instance, Teresa of Avila. And she, after all, became a saint, so even that is not a guarantee. It’s more complicated than we like!
Great to see you back Nan. Interesting topic and one I had wondered about having dabbled with basic Buddhist meditation and heard some things about what very advanced meditators experienced. Like you say the Buddhists who are most advanced rarely create a fanfare about what they do. Looking forward to the rest of the series.
Thanks, Jon, for all your support.
Nancy, It is very nice to enjoy one of your articles again. Best wishes for this new year, to all.
There is something I find disturbing in this idea of using the label NDE for a Deep meditation, even within the respected buddhist world.
The buddhist tradition is impregnated of practices that try to emulate the transition we call death, but there is a problem if we try to call this practices an NDE, the real near death experience is to enter in the reality of dying, seems to me that a meditation, however deep it is, in no way is going fully to the other side.
The full range of side effects in NDE´rs is so complex, so rich that no meditation can replicate, I never listen of electromagnetic interference in meditators after they meditated, just to mention only one in a vast set of “oddities” that suffers an experiencer who had a near death experience, may be the idea of NDE induced by meditation is a good thing to sale to those who want to know, first hand, more about this intriguing experience and have no other way to be close to the real good, but up to this blessed year the only way to experience what is llike to die and live to tell to the neighbour is to actually die and be sent back to the earthly realm.
Thank you for sharing with all of us your deep world of thought.
Guillermo, good to have you back! You’re making some important points–so much in line with my own thinking that I will be addressing those issues in the next post. It will be interesting to see how we both think!
Nan, I know it seems like these people who have made it to sainthood should surely be held up as Christian examples, but Mother Theresa from the Catholic Church who everyone deemed as one of the most saintly people known to all of us, humbly and sadly admitted she had never truly felt the Holy Spirit. I was very sad to hear this. Things are not always as they seem. Much love and prayers, Nancy, as you continue on this quest.
Ruth, poor Mother Theresa, for sure, having no inner sense of the Presence for all those years! She was surely true to her calling, despite that absence. I must apologize for a lack of clarity in my earlier comment about saints reporting hell experiences. My reference was not to Mother TheresaT but to Teresa (no ‘h’) of Avila, , who was, if anything, flooded with too many feelings! With both of those women, you are right: things are not always as they seem!
Guillermo interesting point you make. Some people do calim to have both a traditional NDE and an NDE-like experience when not near death. David Bennett was one case in point as he first had an NDE when drowning and years later had another smilar experience if I remember correctly in meditation. Some people label experiences away from near death as spiritually transformative experiences or STEs.
Does raise interesting point as to how this reality relates to the ones experienced in NDE/STE? Which are real and are any or all an illusion? Can an STE be as real as an NDE? The only ones who truly know death never come back so is even an NDE a full experience of the next world/reality?
I think it is not possible to say definitely if meditation STEs and NDE are the same type of experiences or not unless you have experienced both and even then can you be truly sure?
This whole thing is fascinating yet so hard to untangle.
What a treat, seeing you and Guillermo already in conversation! You’ve asked some of the questions I’ve been thinking about. Watch the next post; see what you think.
Glad to see you back. Looking forward to the conversations. I experimented some with Zen meditation but found the insistence of the leader on fundamentalist (for want of a better word) Zen to be off putting. I had left the dogma of my own faith Christianity and was not and am not wanting a new religion. I also find that I don’t really feel connected with the Buddist view of non being. I kind of like being. 🙂 I have also experienced a heart valve replacement in the past year and it kind of freaked me out a little. I didn’t have any lights or voids or tunnels. Just disorientation and what some called pumphead from the heart lung machine. I am now meditating on my own with meditation apps via my phone. Still on the journey and still looking for signs along the way. Again, glad to have you back.
Steve, thanks for the welcome back, and same to you! I’m glad to know your valve replacement has been successful, though some freaking seems appropriate under those circumstances. Oh, these shocks and tests and challenges! Do you find the meditation apps helpful? I haven’t tried any. Let me know if there is one you would recommend. Stay tuned while we look for more signs.
I like one called “Insight Timer” on my android phone. Lot’s of free meditations and teachers. I also have a playlist on Soundcloud that is pretty good and Cast Box. I find they help me to drift off to sleep easier.
Thanks, Steve. I’ll check these out.
Jon, is really hard to untangle but, seems to me, we have some clues to see the differences between both.
No meditation includes the stress of dying, in some cases of NDEs the individual can see his/her dead body and realizes that is beyond the threshold of death, this is to be at the same time “dead” but also alive and kicking, is like learning and understanding all the theology of all religions in a second, leading to a profound transformation in a moment even for hardcore agnostics, in this matter is good to take a look to the work of Williams James and how he describes a mystical experience and its footprints.
Almost all those who experience an NDE say that what they experienced is more real tan reality and that there are, beyond any doubt, more continents to life than life enclosed in matter, a good reference to this is Carl Gustav Jung, changed forever after an NDE.
Then we have a wide pattern of aftereffects, the NDE´er is strongly changed for the rest of the life in a way that cannot be faked, even the phisiology of the organism changes forever.
In an NDE the brain is shortcircuited, you can see for this the work of Dr. Pim van Lommel, so we have a conscious experience without a physical brain, no way to explain this from science up to now.
In an NDE the experience takes control, and this is evidence of any process guided by Life itselfs, we do not control Life, all the contrary Life controls us at every stage of our life, is very different to a meditation where the meditator guides the process.
Also, we have a set of NDEs called shared death experiences, where part of the process of dying is seeing/shared by someone close to the event, I do not know of any shared meditation, for this value of the word shared.
I can only guess why someone call NDE like experience a buddhist meditation technique, but the difference between a meditation and a real NDE is like the difference between watching a movie of going to the moon and the actual trip.
Only a few points in the subject while waiting for the wisdom of Nancy to enlighten us in this exciting subject.
Gee Nancy, ’bout time! 😉 Seriously, it’s great to see you writing again!
Like Steve Snead, I have issues with the Buddhist doctrine of Nothingness. I’ll grant that I might have a Western head-up-my-a** understanding of the concept, so perhaps I don’t really grasp what is meant by ‘Nothingness’. But as far as I can tell, it means exactly what it says – annihilation.
Some Buddhist schools teach that even Nirvana is an illusion. That takes me back to my same argument with reductionist / materialist interpretations of consciousness, i.e., what is perceiving the illusion? And like Steve said, I kinda like Being.
Oh well, no religion has all the answers.
Another thing immediately popped in my mind as I was reading this post. In addition to the lack of instances of electromagnetic interference that Guillermo García mentioned, I didn’t see any references to veridical perceptions.
I know that not every NDE features a veridical perception experience, but if these MI-NDE’s were ‘true’ NDE’s, shouldn’t that occur in at least a few of them? If it were to be shown that these experiences were identical to classic NDE’s, then I would think veridical information could be verified and the potential for research would put Sam Parnia’s AWARE projects to shame.
I guess I’ll have to wait for part 2 of this series.
Let’s not forget that time and again, we are told by mystics, NDEr’s and the like that their whole experience was ineffable. Trying to nail down solid eschatological descriptions, definitions and doctrines that can be comprehended by us in our present state of consciousness is often beguilingly misleading, but it isn’t pointless. The act of searching is where the growth lies, even is our Being is an illusion (apologies to Siddhārtha Gautama.) 🙂
RabbitDawg, yay, we’re all back! Post #2 will come faster if I don’t try to do thoughtful responses here…so, I’m back to work. Wonderful to hear from you!
Gee Nancy, ’bout time! 😉 Seriously, it’s great to see you writing again!
Like Steve Snead, I have issues with the Buddhist doctrine of Nothingness. I’ll grant that I might have a Western head-up-my-a** understanding of the concept, so perhaps I don’t really grasp what is meant by ‘Nothingness’. But as far as I can tell, it means exactly what it says – annihilation.
Some Buddhist schools teach that even Nirvana is an illusion. Of course, that takes me back to my same argument with reductionist / materialist interpretations of consciousness, i.e., what is perceiving the illusion? And like Steve said, I kinda like Being.
Oh well, no religion has all the answers.
Another thing immediately popped in my mind as I was reading this post. In addition to the lack of instances of electromagnetic interference that Guillermo García mentioned, I didn’t see any references to veridical perceptions.
I know that not every NDE features a veridical perception experience, but if these MI-NDE’s were ‘true’ NDE’s, shouldn’t that occur in at least a few of them? If it were to be shown that these experiences were identical to classic NDE’s, then I would think veridical information could be verified and the potential for research would put Sam Parnia’s AWARE projects to shame.
I guess I’ll have to wait for part 2 of this series.
Let’s not forget that time and again, we are told by mystics, NDEr’s and the like that their whole experience was ineffable. Trying to nail down solid eschatological descriptions, definitions and doctrines that can be comprehended by us in our present state of consciousness is often beguilingly misleading, but it isn’t pointless. The act of searching is where the growth lies, even is our Being is an illusion (apologies to Siddhārtha Gautama.) 🙂
Omigosh, didn’t I already approve this comment? Shame on me. Here you go…and now I’m going back to putting Part 2 together. My apologies for this awful oversight!
There is quite a bit of stuff out there suggesting STEs are as real and life changing as NDEs and that they can occur in other situations not just when near death. They are reported by some researchers to have similar after-effects etc.
NDEs attract more attention as we are more sure their content is related to whatever is beyond death.
So my point is that you can’t rule out meditation/prayer as a trigger for full-blown OBEs/STEs. The paper doesn’t really give enough detail to be sure the meditators they used are having full-bown STEs that are as real as NDEs, so I don’t think we can say either way for sure.
From my reading emptiness in Buddhism isnt nothingness or annihilation eg https://www.lionsroar.com/the-fullness-of-emptiness/ and https://www.huffingtonpost.com/lewis-richmond/emptiness-most-misunderstood-word-in-buddhism_b_2769189.html
Great points, which I don’t have time to answer just now. Stay tuned!
Jon Moore, thanks!
Those two articles you linked to were of great help. Perhaps the “substance” of Emptiness in Buddhism could best be compared to the Potential of the Void than Nancy discusses sometimes.
There is practically no difference between near-death induced NDE and meditation induced NDE because there is only “consciousness”. You abandon consciousness of your body and the physical world and enter in great percentage non-physical consciousness. In meditation induced NDE you can totally lose touch with your body and also there are many NDErs who have been in what they call “light” and simultaneously watch their bodies. Some meditation induced NDEers consider during their experience that they are about to leave their body definitely and are told that they can stay or go back, just exactly as the near-death NDErs. So no matter how you analyze it there is no difference, because there is no “afterlife” there is only a great consciousness of which we are individuated parts, in which we live even now, but we are not aware.
I think this is a good point, Dina. Hard to prove with data, but makes a lot of sense.
Hello Nancy,
I’ve read about the frightening near-death reports and panic about them. Is it possible to turn hell into beauty through imagination? Or victim of the experience?
best regards
Kristin, I suspect that it is possible to turn hell into beauty, though it would take someone with an immensely strong energy, creativity, and faith (trust) to succeed. The quality of fear strikes me as being like walking on wet sand in an incoming tide which just keeps washing out the sand you are using to support yourself; resolve keeps dissolving. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible! But very hard. And as I may have said in my earlier note to you, there is such variety in these NDEs! Thanks for your questions.
I am very interested to hear how you are able to work your church life in with your experience of The Void.
Do you find your void experience one of ego or consciousness and your religious life one of the soul or beyond just an ego experience?
That’s a simplified wording but the best way I can word my question.
Ah, such a question! My NDE happened 58 years ago this summer, and I am still working on an adequate answer. To be quite honest, at this point my church life is almost entirely a matter of custom rather than theological conviction, and I participate less and less in ritual observances. Marcus Borg used the metaphor of “fingers pointing to the moon” in reference to faith life, and I have found some consolation in the notion that the church community at least points to a sympathetic longing. So I guess that’s a response from ego identity. However, as to your question, my problem has been essentially that my experience of The Void demolished Creation–and therefore Being–thereby demanding an entirely different ontology, for which I had neither the academic background nor the philosophical inclination. How to live and deal with ego when the whole concept of ego has been decimated? Consciousness as an area of study was still way outside my world for at least a couple of decade (until being flung into near-death studies); now I find helpful support in the work of Caroline Myss and others, and am seeing fascinating ideas coming from some contemporary writers such as Bernardo Kastrup. My faith life now lives somewhere in a neighborhood of quantum vocabulary and conscious awareness of what I’ll call spiritual forces. Teaching a historical-critical bible course at church lets me work with the metaphors and find new patterns of thinking.
I would be interested in knowing more about your questions and observations. Thanks for this question!
Nancy,
I can understand how difficult it can be to live 58 years with an experience that has profoundly changed your life. I’ve been living with a Preverbal mixed experience for 61 years, which makes me older than you in a strange way.
I’ve had many years to accept or reject my experience and I chose to accept my truth in my early 20s knowing my life would become extremely difficult (and it did). I can’t say what kind of person I could have become by ignoring and forgetting, but I do know I am a better person for living what I know is true for me.
The words I heard during my preverbal mixed experience were “Do not fear” and “Would I like to look for treasure?” The rest was darkness and a mixture of light with me wanting to go home, which I did.
No big words here, just the truth that ought to speak as loudly to you and your followers as they do to me.
Jill, thanks so much! I like your “older than [me] in a strange way.” As I just said to Jon, I am moving in on a written version of where I have landed after all this. It’s still much like trying to move lava, but it seems to be moving at last.Stay tuned! And stay safe.
Dear Nan. Wondered if you are still hoping to research part two of this post? I’m guessing it is quite a difficult one to untangle. Anyway wishing you all the best and look forward to reading whatever comes next.
Thanks for your patience, Jon! I’m working on it during the quarantine!
https://upliftconnect.com/hawaiian-practice-of-forgiveness/
Ho’oponopono has been like being reacquainted with an old friend.
It’s so good to revisit this blog and read the earnest seekers from the past still making good observations. One thing I’ve come to realize, regarding my current spiritual reality, on my path, is that it is virtually diametrically opposed to my “spiritual reality”of 50 years ago. I’ve wondered more than once what it would be like to time travel back to 1970 and present my current view to that new “Jesus Freak”. I wonder how the old “me” would respond to such apparent heresy. I mention this because I find it prudent to be mindful of this reality when conversing with others lest I become dogmatic and even find myself pontificating(Lord help us!). I’ve often despaired at attempting to convey my “truth”/reality to others, concluding that ones truth/knowing isn’t transferable– after all the “me” of much of the last 50 years likely couldn’t identify with it. The realizations that I’ve had regarding my Void NDE therefore have remained largely ineffable– I’ve attempted to convey them, but realize that one really can’t get it unless they’ve been there. It inevitably ends up sounding so abstract as to sound foreign. Yet, like Sisyphus, I keep trying, because, like all of us, we seek reconciliation.
Oh, Nemo, such a perceptive observation! As usual, I might add. It’s good to be with you again. Stay tuned.
I meditated a lot on the void and at first I got into a very scary lope hole of thinking, however this shifted and I started to experience days of mystical visions and thoughts. It was so beautiful. I felt so blessed. I really felt very connected to the birthing principle and what I would call the Great Mother. Could it therefor not be that the void is an uterus?
I also read an article about the void being linked to the perinatal experience?
I think so because by meditating on the void I started seeing visions of the Great Mother pregnant with life and the birthing process.
Could it be that we are back in the womb, but we have not lost our previous consciousness?
The only problem is obviously that there is sensation in the womb and in the void there is not. However, it could that we are inbetween. We are losing our previous consciousness for the consciousness of the embryo which is still evolving. and in parallel we are experiencing the consciousness of the universe when it is inbetween collapse and expansion.
I think we are being reborn again in the void. Slowly losing our consciousness into the state of the fetus. We are in the great womb, being pulled to our next mother.
Or is this unrealistic?
It is just that everytime I meditate on the void I come to this point. I also see a all devouring, terrifying monster but also the great giver of life giving birth. I see embryos, and a primal being bursting with life
Hi, Chana. If, as one view says, the Void presents as No-Thing because it holds every thing in potential, why would your view of uterus and embryos be unrealistic? You have a slightly different perspective, that’s all. Rich imagery. So many ‘could be’s’ in all this!