What Happens When We Die?

Is Death an end, a beginning, or just another stage on the path?

Manjuvajra offers some Buddhist views.

Reprinted from Golden Drum 18.

‘What will happen when I die?’ is one of the most important questions a human being can ask. To find an answer is to discover a deeper meaning to life. To know that there is at least a part of oneself that survives death would provide a much wider perspective on existence, a perspective that could radically transform the way we lived our life.

On one level, the answer is simple. At some time, our complex bio-physical organism will break down. The breathing will stop, the heartbeat will cease, and gradually our body temperature will fall. After a while, the body will go stiff and start to decay. Eventually it will be burned or buried. And, for the materialist, that will be that! But perhaps there is more to us than just our physical bodies. Perhaps there is something that survives the death of the physical body, a soul’. If so, what is its nature?

The view of the Christian-Islamic tradition is that the soul of the individual comes into being at conception. It lives but one short life on this earth, and then, after divine judgment, is awarded eternal happiness in heaven, or eternal suffering in hell.

According to the Buddhist view, what happens to an individual after death is closely linked to the way he or she has acted in life. Rebirth and karma (action) are usually spoken of together. According to the Buddha’s understanding we are born into a particular type of body with a particular perception of the world because of deep-seated tendencies-inherited from our previous existence to experience reality in a particular way. These tendencies manifest as our conscious world-view develops. Whenever we act in conforrnity with such a tendency we strengthen it. When we oppose our inherited tendency we will weaken it, and may thus alter our viewpoint on reality. Our views can therefore be modified, either consciously or unconsciously, by our own efforts, or by the influence of our environment. Thus, at the end of our life, the set of views and tendencies with which we started may be substantially altered. The ’person’ who dies could be quite different from the ’person’ who was born. Then, although the body dies, that bundle of tendencies survives and, after a certain period of time - some say that it is instantaneous and some say the period is many years - creates’ for itself a new body.

A crucial element of this teaching, which distinguishes it from those held by Hindus and some heretical Christian sects, is that the element of the individual that precedes birth and survives death is not a fixed and permanent entity. The habitual tendencies - the patterns developed and modified by actions in the course of this life are passed onto the next, and nothing else. There is no fixed core that can be called a ’soul’ or an ’I’. The ’I’ that we experience is actually our awareness of this complex set of habitual tendencies which have formed themselves into a sort of knot. Until Enlightenment is reached the knot always exists, but its constituent contents can change. It is this ’knot’ that passes from one life to the next.

In the scriptures of the three main branches of Buddhism there are many references to the principle of rebirth. In the earliest Pali scriptures, the Buddha speaks of his recollection of his own previous births on the eve of his Enlightenment, and of his ability to see the arising and passing away of other beings. On a number of occasions Ananda asked the Buddha where a certain person who had died would be reborn, and the Buddha was able to answer. In the Sanskrit scriptures of the Mahayana there are numerous references to the number of lifetimes that a Bodhisattva traverses on the path to perfect Enlightenment. There we also find predictions of the Enlightenment of Bodhisattvas in some far distant future lifetime. In both the Mahayana and the Vajrayana scriptures there are many references to groups of individuals being born together again and again.

In Tibetan Buddhism we find the tradition of the tulku, the rebirth of a particular spiritual teacher. The abbots of monasteries are often considered to be reborn in this way, and once an abbot dies his regent governs the monastery until the new incarnation is discovered, usually by finding a child, born at the right time, who can select religious implements owned by the old abbot from a collection of similar objects. Also in the Tibetan tradition we find meditation practices that prepare the practitioner for the journey through the bardo, the intermediate period between one birth and the next.

What actually happens when we die? A fascinating account of the dying process is to be found in the Bardo Thodol or Tibetan Book of the Dead. This describes the entire process of death, the period in the intermediate state, and eventual rebirth.

At the moment of death, the text explains, a blinding experience of clear light fills our consciousness. This ’vision of Reality’ offers us an opportunity to free ourselves from the tendencies that will otherwise lead to rebirth. If the light is too much for us, we then become conscious that we are separated from the physical body and now exist in an immaterial ’mind body rather like the body experienced in dreams. Next come a series of brilliant visions, rich in light, sound, and beautifully peaceful forms of Buddhas. If our consciousness remains with the peaceful forms of Buddhas-and we are able to recognize them as the liberated nature of our own mind-then we will be drawn on until we come, once again, face to face with Reality. If we fail to ’recognize’ these peaceful Buddhas and become attracted by the relatively dull visions of rebirth in the six ’realms’ of existence, a new phase unfolds. The attraction of the dull lights reflects the domination of the tendencies, some positive and some negative, that will eventually lead to rebirth.

Next come a variety of visions, many of which are of a terrifying nature. They are terrifying because Reality is frightening to those who are strongly attached to a fixed way or being. However, even in this phase, liberation is possible. We have only to realize that these visions are a distortion of Reality caused by habitual tendencies. After a series of visions in which the unconscious tendencies take an ever stronger hold over our mind, we start to move toward the place of rebirth, and eventually see our parents copulating. If one is attracted to the female, one will be reborn male; if one is drawn to the male, then one will be reborn female. As we try to squeeze between the two parents we fall into unconsciousness and enter the womb. After a period of time we are reborn-but in what sort of state?

Since our future birth is determined by the tendencies that are established or strengthened in the course of this life, the way we act in this life is directly responsible for the type of life that we will experience in the future. The correspondence between an act and its effect on the individual’s future birth is therefore of crucial importance. Buddhist ethics is based on this correspondence. A good - or ’skilful’-act is one that gives rise to a happy future birth; unskilful actions lead to a painful future birth. Through our actions in this life we literally create the worlds in which we are to be born.

Normally, it seems, beings are born in very much the same sort of world, and state, as that in which they died. The habits and tendencies associated with the previous life are generally strong enough to ensure that they will ’choose’ to return to a similar way of being. For human beings, however, who are able to exercise a high degree of choice during their life, the situation can be quite complex. Some people seem to act rather like animals, having little self consciousness and being interested only in sleep, food, and sex. Such people may well be on their way to an animal rebirth. Others may be refining and purifying their being and, as a result of developing new tendencies, may be reborn in the higher realms of the devas, or ’gods’. A life dominated by acts of cruel violence and blatant disregard of the fundamental empathy between human beings could lead to rebirth in a hell realm. If a strong neurotic tendency is indulged continuously, then that person could be reborn as a hungry ghost’, always craving and yet never satisfied. A life dominated by aggressive competitiveness will lead to rebirth in a realm of warring gods.

The principle that habitual activities can create a world is of course observable within this life, at least on the psychological level. A generous person develops an openness and expansiveness in his or her nature, while continuous miserly actions give rise to a closed and defensive personality. But Buddhism takes this principle beyond the level of psychology and applies it to the individual as he or she passes from one physical existence to the next.

Broadly speaking, a being can be reborn in one of six realms: the human realm, the realm of the gods, that of animals, hungry ghosts, titans, or denizens of hell. In none of these realms is life eternal: the principle of impermanence holds true for them all. The worlds of gods and humans are said to be happy, but the remaining four are said to be painful. To be reborn as a human being is considered to be the ideal so far as spiritual life is concerned; the gods are far too happy to go searching for the highest happiness, while those in hell are too preoccupied and weakened by their suffering to raise themselves higher.

The Buddhist principle of rebirth can be summarized thus: Our actions in this life modify the unconscious tendency-patterns inherited from our previous life. We experience these tendencies as a sense of self which survives the death of the physical body. After a certain period of time these tendencies manifest in a new form by combining with physical factors. The process of life, death, and rebirth continues unendingly.

This is the framework in which the spiritual life is lived. The individual thus tries to bring conscious awareness to deeper and deeper levels of the mind, thereby liberating himself from the dominance of unconscious tendencies and the fixed experience of selfhood that they produce. By loosening the knot of unconscious tendencies we can become free; the unending cycle of rebirths comes not exactly to an end, but dissolves into an experience of Reality which is beyond space and time.