10-10-08 - Former Ganden Tripa Stays on 'Thukdam' for 18 Days - Thanks Cheryl

Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on Death and Rebirth
by Lama Ole Nydhal, Vajrayana Buddhist Lama - on BuddhaNet

5-11-08 - Preparing the mind for death - the Theravada Approach by Venerable Aggacitta Bhikkhu.  - thanks to Ron Browning.

1-24-08 - Thanks to dear old friend Willem Malten, proprietor of Cloud Cliff Bakery-Cafe-Artspace  in Santa Fe for this link to a video of poetry by Stephen Levine - on YouTube with more Levine videos there if you wish.

7-11-07 - Andrew Main writes about the photos of Thomas Kelly, one of which Maggie Kress was admiring when she had her fatal stroke, others on the Aghora of India who practice in graveyards and more.

6-22-07 - Jack Van Allen's Cremation Ceremony

6-22-07 - An Interested Reader suggests reading an account of  Chogye Trichen Rinpoche's passing from Blazing Splendor and writes:

Would you want to put anybody into the flames (or whatever) if the last vestige of awareness were not extinguished? I think of it like that - that being meditators we spend sometimes our whole lives cultivating the development of awareness or as some might say finding access to the dharmadhatu realm only to find out that it lingers in the physical body alot longer than we'd imagined. Gives me pause to stop and think a bit about what we're doing..

I think its the warmth at the heart chakra remaining so long for developed meditators that really has me wondering. When Chogyam Trungpa died they allowed his tukdam to go on as they did with the Karmapa. If you see the video "The Lion's Roar", (you can rent this at 'Open Secret' in San Rafael, CA) you can hear the Karmapa's western doctor (who married Chogyam's widow after Chogyam passed away, btw) talk about how there was warmth at the heart chakra for days after his supposed demise and that it just wasn't possible from a western medical perspective. Plus if you read the article about Chogye Trichen, they talk about how the body had no signs of decay or smell for the entire time of his tukdam - 16 days!- I don't know about you but that says something to me.

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