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| Adios, mijita. |
Host Lilou Mace talks to Dr. Raymond A. Moody, M.D., P.hD. about the phrase he coined, "near death experience," and
discusses his astonishing bestseller Life After Life, a book that
offers real experiences of people who were declared clinically
dead and returned.
The descriptions they give are similar, vivid, and usually so overwhelmingly positive
that hearing about them changes our view of life, dying, and spiritual
survival beyond death. The Buddha frequently speaks of karma carrying experience beyond "death after the dissolution of the body." One can mystically see beings re-arising ("again-becoming") according to their deeds, the fruition of a karmic act that serves as the "rebirth-linking consciousness."
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| It's okay. I'm not staying dead (zenmotion.com) |
Is it the same being surviving death or wholly another? Both views are mistaken and rooted in ignorance of the impersonal process. Conventionally speaking, it is the same person. But ultimately speaking, there is no identity from one moment to the next even while alive. (Materiality, sensation, perception, mental formations, and awareness are not identical from one submoment to the next but rather are constantly in flux, giving rise to different subsequent replacements). Therefore, Buddhism uniquely teaches the doctrine of not-self or not-soul (
anatta). This does
not mean that there is nothing that lives, dies, and is reborn.
Instead, the "ghost," "spirit," or subtle body involved is called the
gandhabba.* The Buddha meticulously described and explained the process-of-consciousness (
viññāṇa). These phenomena exist, and their nature is radically impermanent, impersonal, and unsatisfactory, and therefore they cannot ultimately be called an immortal or permanent self or soul. A superficial grasp of Buddhism leads to the wrong view that Buddhism is materialistic like science, contradictory, or that it denies or is ignorant of subtle-forms commonly reported in mystical experiences. The Buddha was perfectly aware of the dying process, the rebirth-linking process, and
life continuum in any state of existence.
*Gandhabba (Sanskrit, gandharva) refers to a being (or, strictly speaking, part of
the causal continuum of consciousness) in a liminal state between death
and rebirth.
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| Death can prompt us to live well |
We almost never want to think or speak of our own death, but it can be more difficult to deal with the death of a loved one. This is a source of great grief the Buddha called "
suffering" (
dukkha, unsatisfactoriness). In this long course of rebirths, we have lost uncountable loved ones -- children, parents, spouses, relatives, and friends. Loss and separation are inevitable in wandering life after life. Even heavenly rebirths, which are often incredibly long, eventually come to an end.
It was Day 166 of my World Tour 2013-2014. I was in Kathmandu, Nepal, in the Bhaktapur neighborhood, one of the main tourist centers around the ancient city.
