Thursday 14 January 2010

What happens after death?

Lately I've been thinking a lot about death.

And trying to find out what a Buddhist view on death might be.

A quick internet search brings up countless pages of stuff about rebirth, the continuity of consciousness, karmic repercussions in the next life, hell realms, hungry ghosts, the possibility of deathlessness through positive actions and meditation, the promise of escape from the Samsaric cycle of birth and death.

My main question is this: do the amateur bloggers (like me), the teachers, monks, lay practitioners and so on who talk about what happens after death actually, genuinely know what they're talking about? Have they come to such realisations through meditation and genuine knowing? Or have they come to their conclusions through studying texts and deciding to adopt a certain set of beliefs?


This, to me, is an important question. So far in my meditation I have discovered no truths or certainties about what might happen after death. All I know is that I will die one day. In fact, my meditation practice, combined with general contemplation about life, plus a few more life experiences added to my belt, have led me to a place of even greater uncertainty about what it's all about. Not in a bad way, really, just more uncertain. Perhaps it would be better, and more honest, to accept this uncertainty with a confident, agnostic "I don't know" than to adopt certain beliefs or ideas about what happens when you cease to exist.

I suppose my confusion serves me right for expecting to find answers to life's turbulence and uncertainty on google.



See these links for examples of so-called Buddhist beliefs about what happens after death:


http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/walshe/wheel261.html
http://www.death-and-dying.org/understanding-rebirth.htm/

See this for what I perceive to be a realistic and honest view on death:

http://www.westernchanfellowship.org/agnostic-buddhist.html