Why Death is NOT the end – The Buddha’s Wisdom on Dying and Beyond (Buddhism Podcast) Sept. 11, 2025: Buddhism Explained. Discover the historical Buddha’s timeless wisdom on life, death, and what lies beyond [rebirth in endless samsara]. In Buddhism, death is not the end—it is a transition in the endless cycle of rebirth. This video explores key teachings such as
mindfulness of death (maraṇasati),
the Five Remembrances, and
the Path to Nirvana (Nibbana)—the ultimate freedom beyond rebirth and death.
Through the story of the mother Kisagotami, the Buddha’s “Three Knowledges,” and profound insights into impermanence, we learn how to transform fear into understanding and live with clarity, compassion, and purpose. Let Death become a teacher, not something to fear.
00:00 - Death in Buddhism: Teachings from the Awakened One
06:56 - Why the Buddha understood Death so deeply
13:08 - From doubt to understanding, from understanding to liberation
19:03 - Living with this understanding.
Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud
By John Donne
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
"Sonnet X" is also known by its opening words as "Death Be Not Proud." It is a 14-line poem, a sonnet, by English poet John Donne (1572–1631), one of the leading figures in the metaphysical poets group of 17th-century English literature.
Written between February and August 1609, it was first published posthumously in 1633. The poem is included as one of the 19 sonnets that comprise Donne's Holy Sonnets or Divine Meditations, among his best-known works.
Most editions number the poem as the tenth in the sonnet sequence, which follows the order of poems in the Westmoreland Manuscript (c. 1620), the most complete arrangement of the cycle, discovered in the late 19th century.
However, two editions published shortly after Donne's death include the sonnets in a different order, where this poem appears as 11th in the Songs and Sonnets (published 1633) and sixth in Divine Meditations (published 1635).
"Death Be Not Proud" presents an argument against the power of death. Addressing Death as a person, the speaker warns Death against pride in his power.
Such power is merely an illusion, and the end Death thinks it brings to men and women is in fact a rest from world-weariness for its alleged "victims."
The poet criticizes Death as a slave to other forces: fate, chance, kings, and desperate men. Death is not in control, for a variety of other powers exercise their volition in taking lives.
Even in the rest it brings, Death is inferior to drugs. Finally, the speaker predicts the end of Death itself, stating, "Death, thou shalt die." More
"Recollection of death" (maranānussati) is one of the ten recollections treated in detail in the Path of Purification (Vis.M. VIII):
The Buddha taught: ''Recollection of death, developed and frequently practiced, yields great reward, great blessing, has deathlessness (amata) as its goal and objective. But how may such recollection be developed?
"As soon as the day declines, as the night vanishes and the day is breaking, the meditator reflects:
I'm indestructible and strong.
One reflects, "Truly, there are many possibilities for me to die: I may be bitten by a serpent or be stung by a scorpion or a centipede, and thereby I may lose this life. This would be an obstacle for me. Or I may stumble and fall to the ground, or the food I eat may not agree with my health. Or [the humors] bile, phlegm, and piercing gases [bodily winds] may become disturbed. Humans or ghosts may attack me, and I may lose my life. This would be an obstacle for me."
Then a meditator considers thus: "Are there still to be found in me unsubdued unskillful, unwholesome things which, if I should die today or tonight, might lead me to greater suffering?"
Now, if one understands that this is the case, one should use one's utmost resolution, determination, energy (viriya), effort, endeavor, steadfastness, attentiveness, and clear-mindedness (sati-sampajanna) in order to overcome these harmful, unwholesome things" (A VIII, 74).
In the Path of Purification (Vis.M. VIII) it is said: "One who wishes to develop this meditation should retreat to solitude [a private, quiet place], and while living secluded one should wisely reflect: 'Death will come to me! The vital energy will be cut off!' Or [recall,] 'Death! Death!'
"To one who does not wisely reflect, sorrow may arise by thinking about [recalling] the death of a loved one, just as it does to a mother while thinking of the death of a beloved child.
"Again, by reflecting on the death of a disliked person, joy [schadenfreude] may arise -- just as enemies while thinking about the death of their enemies.
"Through thinking about the death of a neutral (indifferent) person, however, no emotion will arise, just as none arises in a worker whose work consists of cremating dead bodies at the sight of a dead body.
"By reflecting on one's own death fright may arise...just as at the sight of a murderer with drawn sword one becomes filled with terror.
"Therefore, whenever seeing here or there slain or other dead [formerly living] beings, one should reflect on the death of such deceased persons who once lived in happiness.
One should rouse one's attentiveness, emotion, and knowledge and consider thus: 'Death will come, and so on.
Only in one who considers in this way, will the Five Hindrances (nīvarana) be repressed. Through the idea of death, attention becomes steadfast, and the exercise reaches [meditative] neighborhood-concentration (upacāra-samādhi).
According to the Path of Purification (Vis.M. VIII), one may also reflect on death in the following various ways:
One may think of Death [personified] as a murderer with a drawn sword standing in front of oneself;
or one may bear in mind that all happiness ends in death;
or that even the mightiest beings on this earth are subject to death;
or that we must share this body with all innumerable worms and other tiny beings [microbes] residing throughout the intestines and tissues;
or that life is something dependent on in-and-out breathing, and bound up with it; or that life continues only as long as the elements, food, breath, etc. are properly performing their functions; or that nobody knows when, where, and under what circumstances, death will take place, and what kind of fate we have to expect after death; or, that life is very short and limited. As it is said: 'Short, indeed, is this life of men, limited, fleeting, full or woe and torment; it is just like a dewdrop that vanishes as soon as the sun rises; like a water-bubble; like a furrow drawn in the water; like a torrent dragging everything along and never standing still; like cattle for slaughter that every moment look death in the face" (A. VII, 74).
The meditator devoted to this recollection of death is at all times indefatigable and gains the realization of disgust with regard to all forms [31 planes] of existence, gives up delight in [samsara, endless rebirth], detests evil [that traps one in experiencing the results of miserable karma], does not hoard up things, is free from stinginess with regard to the necessities of life.
And the realization of [radical] impermanence (anicca) becomes familiar.
And through pursuing it, the idea of disappointment (dukkha).
And the impersonal (anattā) nature of all things becomes present to one....
Free from fear and bewilderment will one pass away at death. And should that person not yet realize the Deathless State [full enlightenment, nirvana, arahantship] in this lifetime, one will at the dissolution of the body attain to a happy course of existence (Vis.M. VIII).
See Buddhist Reflections on Death by V. F. Gunaratna (Wheel 102/103)
Buddhism and Death by M.Q.C. Walshe (Wheel 260)
Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary, maranānussati based on Path of Purification (Vis.M. VIII), edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly
When you're pseudo-macho like Trump, you lie about your illnesses and die in ignimony
God, I love DJ and right-wing politics, Brother!
Ozzy Osbourne(Black Sabbath frontman and drug addict), Chuck Mangione (trumpet musician), Malcolm-Jamal Warner ("The Cosby Show" star), and now beloved bigger-than-life Hulk Hogan (Terry Gene Bollea), one of the world's most view stars, Floridian, MAGA right wing tough guy. There's so much death in the world. How many people die every single day? A hundred seventy-three thousand in 2025, according to World Population Review.
If that many people die a day, does that mean I might day? No, never, that's ridiculous. That's the Impossible Possibility. What the Buddha warned about all day long for 45 years of teaching he called dukkha (disappointment).
Dukkha means not getting what we want, getting what we don't want, losing what we have, separation from the loved, association with the hated...all of these things modern English translators termed "suffering," which is very misleading since that connotes agony or everything sucking all the time. Everything does NOT suck ALL the time. It's just that there's enough stink in the pot to make the stew unappetizing to anyone who pays too much attention. That attention is good because it wakes us up to the problem. Of course, we don't want to know about The Problem, this or any other. We're already aware of too many most of the time, and we seem to actively be trying to forget. We like checking out, pleasure seeking, distractions, temporary fixes at whatever cost.
There are many paths. Why listen to the Buddha?
The Buddha gave two solutions, an immediate one and a permanent one. But it takes some doing, some effort, some focus, and it usually means recognizing that there is a problem (which we don't want to see). Well, the Universe will step in every so often and slap up in the face, like it or not. And for some of us, the problem will get so bad, there's no avoiding it. Imagine American-prison problems. Those are not problems one can easily escape, as oftentimes the so-called "escape" is worse than the problem, like the choice between being eaten by lions on shore or crocodiles in the water.
What's The Problem? Death in a world of radical impermanence is part of it, but it's more insidious than that. Prior to death, there's aging and sickness, loss due to many reasons, and ignorance why anything is happening or why anything has to happen. We act in ignorance, one of the unwholesome roots of conduct, and we get dukkha in return. We wish to know and understand but do not make right effort towards that end, so we get neither knowing nor understanding.
Celebrities die. Why? They die because they are living beings, and there are only one kind of living beings that will not die. However, even they will seem to die. It is not the Gods or gods, who all die. It is the noble ones, the awakened/enlightened. Death (redeath) is followed by birth (rebirth). This is not anyone's first time dying. We have been through it countless time. Of course, since we don't remember, we say that's impossible. We want life to seem fresh and new each time; that has been our way of tolerating it.
But The Problem is much grander. All this dissatisfaction -- which we can call samsara or the Continued Wandering On through the Wheel of Life and Death, beset on all sides by craving for pleasure, wanting and being angry about being frustrated in our desires -- is constantly disappointing. It is constantly changing, hurtling towards destruction, fruitless when obtained, unable to fulfill/satisfy us.
The permanent solution is awakening (bodhi) and reaching nirvana (nibbana, the deathless, the real refuge from all danger, the safety of the farther shore beyond our world/universe of constant change and disappointment, loss and blame, aging and illness, and all the many sources of woe).
Will we awaken? Will we set out on the course towards awakening? Or will we just bemoan our lot and seek for the next diversion, temporary pleasure, and promise of eternal life, happiness, and joy after joy, rose after rose with never a thorn in sight?
In the Garden the roses have no thorns...
(Rudimentary Peni) on the fantasy of a literal version of Christian heaven
Etymology The word māra comes from the Sanskrit form of the root verb mṛ. Māra is a verbal noun from the causative root that means "causing death" or "killing" [4].
It is related to other words for "death" from the same root, such as Pali maraṇa and Sanskrit mṛtyu. [In English we have mort and mortuary,French le morte, Spanish Muerte.]
The latter is a name for Death personified and is sometimes identified as the kind judge Yama, the King of the Dead.
The root mṛ is related to the Indo-European verbal root *mer, meaning "die, disappear" in the context of "death, murder, or destruction."
It is "very widespread" in Indo-European languages suggesting it to be of great antiquity, according to Mallory and Adams [5].
Four types of Māra
In traditional Buddhism, four or five metaphorical forms of Māra are given [6]:
Kleśa-māra: Māra as the embodiment of all defilements (unskillful root intentions, underlying motives, pernicious emotions, kleshas, kilesas), such as greed, hate/fear, and delusion.
Mṛtyu-māra: Māra as Death personified.
Skandha-māra: Māra as metaphor for the entirety of conditioned existence [explained in terms of the Five Aggregates clung to as self].
Devaputra-māra: The deva (being of light, lit. "shining one") of the [top of the] Sensuous Sphere, who tried to prevent the Bodhisattva Siddhartha Gautama from from becoming a buddha by attaining liberation from the Cycle of Endless Rebirth (samsara) on the night of his great enlightenment.
Character
Early Buddhism acknowledged both a literal and psychological interpretation of "Mara" [7, 8].
EDITOR'S NOTE: It is easy to believe nowadays that Mara is only a metaphor for the subtlety of the mental defilements. But this is contradicted by extensive texts describing his deeds. It would be very difficult to read the collection of Mara texts (Mara Samyutta in the fourth section of the SN, S.i.103 27) and come away thinking he is anything but real.
Indeed, there are many maras, at least one in each world-system. The word may also refer to ogres (yakkhas), as Mara seems to be their chief, as on the night under the bodhi tree at the great awakening.
In the Mara Sutra, Rādha asks the Buddha what is meant by "Māra.” Anything that perishes, answered the Buddha -- such as [the Five Aggregates clung to as self, namely] form (this body), feelings, perceptions, mental formation, and consciousness..." (S.iii.188.).
Mara is described both as an entity having an existence in the Sensuous Sphere (kāma-loka) [9] and coming down to interact with the Buddha and also as described in the description of Dependent Origination (pratītya-samutpāda) as, primarily, the guardian of passion and the catalyst for lust, hesitation, and fear that obstructs meditation among Buddhists.
The Denkōroku refers to him as the "One Who Delights in Destruction," which highlights his nature as a light being among the Parinirmitavaśavarti devas [10]. More
Entertainment Tonight; Colour, 7/24/20; Sheldon S. and Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
(ET) The person on American TV for the most time (Guinness), fun Regis Philbin, dies at age 88.
Discovering Olivia de Havilland (documentary)
Did you kill these two stars? - No. They're rich.
On July 25, 2020 Hollywood superstar Olivia de Havilland passed away at the age of 104.
Dame Olivia Mary de Havilland DBE (born July 1, 1916) was a British-American actress and centenarian. The major works of her cinematic career spanned from 1935 to 1988. She appeared in 49 feature films and was one of the leading actors of her time.
She was one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood Cinema. Her younger sister was actress Joan Fontaine.
De Havilland first came to prominence as part of a screen-couple alongside Errol Flynn in adventure films such as Captain Blood (1935) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). One of her best-known roles is Melanie Hamilton in the film classic Gone with the Wind (1939), for which she received her first of five Oscar nominations and the only one for best supporting actress.
De Havilland departed from ingénue roles in the 1940s and later received acclaim for her performances in Hold Back the Dawn (1941), To Each His Own (1946), The Snake Pit (1948), and The Heiress (1949), receiving nominations for best actress for each, winning for To Each His Own and The Heiress. She was also successful in work on stage and TV.
De Havilland lived in Paris since the 1950s and received honors such as the National Medal of the Arts, the Légion d'honneur, and the appointment to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
In addition to her film career, de Havilland continued her work in the theatre, appearing three times on Broadway, in Romeo and Juliet (1951), Candida (1952), and A Gift of Time (1962). She also worked in TV, appearing in the successful miniseries, Roots: The Next Generations (1979) and Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna (1986), for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination and won the Golden Globe Award for best supporting actress in a TV movie or series.
During her film career de Havilland also collected two New York Film Critics Circle Awards, the National Board of Review Award for best actress, and the Venice Film Festival Volpi Cup. For her contributions to the motion picture industry, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
It's funny to ask, "Why do people keep dying?" And why ask funny Fred Willard? Of course they keep dying! We're all about death. That's what life is here in this short lived human plane (manusya loka). But it's not always this way; it lengthens and shortens through an aeon (kalpa).
According to Buddhist lore (as well as that of Hindu, Jain, Christianity, Judaism, and probably Islam, since it's Abrahamic and, some say, dreamt up by the Vatican), human life was previously much longer, and it will be again in the next Golden Age. Average lifespan is cyclical through the ages (yugas) of an aeon (kalpa). How short does it get? As brief as ten years. How long could it get? That's the mind blowing part. It can stretch out as long as 80,000 years.
That's no reason to be happy because it's all relative; compared to the average lifespan of the devas, 80 thousand years is not very long, and the pleasures the devas (the Greek type "gods") enjoy are far superior to human pleasures, and they are all mixed up with the same kind of nonsense we have here. But who believes the ancient sutras anyways?
In one very beautiful one, the Buddha tells of a time in the long gone by when there was a teacher, a kind of guru who taught his students, "Human life is short." Then he gave many beautiful analogies like dropping a sizzling piece of flesh on a red hot griddle or drawing a line on the surface of water with a reed or the morning dew evaporating off the grass. Human life is like that, very brief. Only thing is, that teacher lived long ago.
And at that time that he was teaching this very true fact, life was much longer than it is now. It helped the Buddha's listeners realize a sense of spiritual urgency (samvega) and to practice insight to realized the nature of radical-impermanence (anicca). It seems modern people always think they're so smart. But we constantly miss the point. The Buddha was not saying something so simplistic and banal as, "Things are impermanent.
See that hut over there? It's falling apart, and in a few years it'll be a heap of dust on the ground." Why would he waste anybody's time saying that? He was saying something far deeper that they couldn't fathom, know, or see. He was saying that at every moment things were collapsing, hurtling toward destruction, falling apart.
Now thanks to science we can see or at least intellectually appreciate that this is true: At an atomic level, everything moves so fast and changes, is constantly altering and vibrating and breaking bonds and reforming only to fall apart again that NOW we can see what he was talking about.
Because things are falling apart at that level, rubbing away constantly, on the macro level we eventually see change and transformation. But we do not only cling to the hut, we cling to every moment of this experience, this life, this identity when it's falling apart so fast that we could hardly keep it together to remember what we were in love with before we're onto something else.
The Buddha wasn't wasting time to say, "Don't cling to stuff (i.e., material things)." He was saying what do we really cling to most of all? The Five Aggregates: form (material stuff); feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness, the software, the psychological, the things clung to as "self." That's falling apart, and if we saw that for even an instant, we'd let go and be free.
But instead we cling and laugh at the old time Indian gurus and Central Asian sages, like the Scythian (Shakyian) Shakyamuni. But never mind. Just keep being surprised that people die. Will i die, too? We'll miss Fred Willard. And Lil Dicky. The rapper? No, Little Richard the gay, flamboyant Father of Rock 'n Roll, "Lucille, Tutti Frutti, Good Golly Miss Molly," the guy who taught us all to dance.
Ven. Nyanatiloka (Anton Walther Florus Gueth, Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Terms and Doctrines via palikanon.com; Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Mara (Death personified) has the power to shapeshift, like a yakkha or genie (djinn).
The best way to get the most out of this life is paradoxically to be mindful of death (SE).
.
"Life" is so much more than we know.
Marana-ānussati or "mindfulness of death" is calling to mind, remembering, recollecting, contemplating the end of this run.
[Due to the incessant cycling of rebirth in samsara, there are many more.]
It is one of the Ten Recollections treated in detail in the Path of Purification (Vis.M. VIII):
''Recollection of death, frequently practiced and developed, yields great reward, great blessing, has deathlessness (nirvana) as its goal and object. How may such recollection be developed?
"As soon as the day declines, or as the night vanishes and the day is just breaking, the meditator reflects:
"'Truly, there are many possibilities for me to die: I may be bitten by a serpent or stung by a scorpion or centipede, and thereby I may lose my life [if I do not practice the protection against dying of snakebite]. And this would be an obstacle for me.
"'Or I may stumble and fall to the ground, or the food eaten by me may not agree with my health. Or bile, phlegm, and piercing bodily winds may become disturbing. Or humans or ghosts may attack me. Thus I may lose my life. And this would be an obstacle for me.'
"Then the meditator considers: 'Are there still to be found in me unsubdued defilements, unwholesome things which, if I should die this day or night, might lead me to suffering?'
"Now, if one understands that this is the case, one should use one's utmost resolution, energy, effort, endeavor, steadfastness, attentiveness, and clear-mindedness to overcome these unskillful, unwholesome things" (A VIII, 74).
In the Path of Purification (Vis.M. VIII) it says: "One who wishes to develop this meditation should retreat to solitude, and while living secluded should wisely reflect:
"'Death will come to me! The vital energy will be cut off!' or 'Death! Death!'
"To anyone who does not wisely reflect in this way, sorrow may arise by thinking about the death of a beloved person, just as happens for a mother thinking about the death of her beloved child.
"Again, by reflecting on the death of a disliked person, joy may arise, just as it does for enemies while thinking about the death of their enemies.
"By thinking about the death of an neutral (indifferent) person, however, no emotion arises, just as when a person whose work consists of cremating the dead has no feeling at the sight of a dead body.
I'll off myself slowly with this soda poison.
"But by reflecting on one's own death, fright may arise...just as at the sight of a murderer with drawn sword one becomes filled with horror.
"So whenever one sees a slain person or other dead beings, one should reflect on the death of such deceased persons who once lived in happiness. One rouses one's attentiveness, emotion, and knowledge and considers:
"'Death will come,' and so on.... Only in one who considers in this way, will the Five Hindrances (nīvarana) of mind be subdued. And through the idea of DEATH, attention becomes steadfast, and the exercise reaches neighborhood or access concentration (upacāra-samādhi)."
According to the Path of Purification (Vis.M. VIII), one may also reflect on death in the following various ways: One may think of Death (Mara or marana)
as a murderer with a drawn sword standing there,
or one may bear in mind that all happiness ends in death,
or that even the mightiest beings on this earth are subject to death,
or that we must share this body with all those innumerable worms (protozoa, bacteria, parasites) and other tiny beings residing in it,
or that life is something dependent on in-and-out breathing and intimately bound up with it,
or that life continues only so long as the elements, food, breath, [karma], and so on are properly performing their functions,
or that nobody knows when, where, and under what circumstances death will take place or what kind of fate we have to expect after death
"For as it is said, 'Short, indeed, is this life of humans, limited, fleeting, full or woe and torment. It is just like a dewdrop that vanishes as soon as the sun rises, a water bubble, a line drawn on water, a torrent dragging everything along and never standing still, cattle for slaughter that every moment stare death in the face" (A. VII, 74).
"The meditator devoted to this recollection of death is at all times indefatigable and thereby gains the idea of disgust with regard to all forms of existence, lets go of delight about life, detests wrongdoing [harming], no longer hoards things, is free from stinginess with regard to the necessities of life.
"And the idea of impermanence (anicca) becomes familiar. By pursuing this idea, the idea of unavoidable-disappointment (dukkha) [misery, the inability to find fulfillment through things] and of the impersonal (anatta, selfless) nature of all things become apparent to one [who continues to reflect in this way]....
Peace of Mind: "I'm Afraid"
(Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo) LYRICS: Afraid of the dark/Afraid of the light/Don't walk in the park/Afraid of the night/Afraid to get stabbed/Or hit by a car/Afraid of the streets/Afraid to go far/Afraid of the sky/Don't like to be high/I don't want to fall/Afraid I might die/Afraid of my friends/Don't like to be seen/Afraid to be nice/Afraid to be mean/Afraid that the wind/Will knock over trees/Afraid of my dog/Afraid of his fleas//
Hey, come on, Monkey Baby, don't be dead.
[CHORUS:] Peace of mind/Peace of mind/Hard to keep/Hard to find/Look ahead/Look behind/Looking for/Peace of mind/Peace of mind/Can't relax/Can't unwind/Deep inside/Secret mind/Oh no!//
Afraid to be caught/Afraid to be free/Afraid to make love/Afraid of VD/Afraid of the rain/Don't make me get wet/Afraid to take drugs/They make me forget/Afraid that the air/Will make me get sick/Afraid that the girls/Will cut off my...OHHH!/Someone tell me how it happened/Why my head is so confused/Can it be my circuits finally blew a fuse?/Can a human being really change into a humanoid?/Or is my imagination paranoid?/All I need is peace and quiet/Maybe just a little time/Turn the channel!/Turn the channel!/Piece of mind/Peace of mind// [Chorus]//Afraid of success/Afraid to grow old/Afraid that my brain/Is covered with mold/Afraid that I might/Be put on a shelf/But last but not least, oh!/Afraid of myself!
"Free from fear and bewilderment, one will pass away [peacefully] at death. And if one does not yet realize the Deathless State (nirvana) in this lifetime, one will at the dissolution of the body attain to a happy course of existence" (Vis.M. VIII).
This is what it feels like to die (Getty Images via express.co.uk)
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Life after death: panic or peace?
This is dying (by plunging) a painful end.
People who have come back from the dead have been sharing their experiences online as they reveal what it feels like to die.
Reddit users have taken to the social news aggregator site with some claiming their world "became soft and foggy."
For some people, death is not the end. Thanks to medical advance-ments, doctors are now able to bring some patients back from the dead after their heart has stopped beating and brain activity has also ceased.
There are a few who have been resuscitated and live to tell the tale, and some of them have gone to Reddit to share their experience.
This is just a body in a box, left behind, as life (jiva) takes up elsewhere right away.
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One person on the site said they were getting an angiogram -- a procedure which sees doctors inject a special dye into the blood so they can x-ray blood flow and arteries -- but during the procedure their heart stopped. More
Buddhism on rebirth: life after life
In Buddhism rebirth (not "reincarnation") is called relinking (of consciousness) or again-becoming.If we fail to strive and achieve liberation from samsara, we will certainly be alive and conscious a sub-moment after "death." Death is not dying, not an end that sticks. It leads on life after life ad nauseum. It will not stop without intervention.
There will be no getting off the carousel without effort to realize the truth. Truth? Things are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and impersonal; therefore, ALL that we cling to falls away, disappoints us, and was never us.
Choose a religion.
What "all"? The Buddha explained that this all can be summarized as five "groups" or "aggregates." An aggregate is a heap or group of similar things.The "body" or form is a collection of four group consisting of heaps of the Four Elements. "Mind" or mentality is a collection consisting of four other groups: feelings (sensations), perceptions, mental formations (such as volition), and consciousness.This is what "self" is. This is what "ego" is. This is what gets called the "soul" (the atta or atman). It is the "all" the Buddha was referring to.By meditation and insight, consciousness can recognize the empty (impersonal) process, and the mind/heart will with retract and retract at the sight, freeing one as one glimpses the Truth. The Truth will indeed set us free. But we will not see the Truth by accident.
Buddhist pictorial depiction of samsara, the Wheel.
Carrying on in this way, as we do now, we are born confused, die confuse, and are reborn confused. We continue wandering on (chasing after pleasure first here then there, from life to life, running from the painful, confused and benighted in our endless search). And this "continued wandering on" is exactly what the Buddha called samsara, the Wheel of Life and Death.
The Buddha taught the end of all rebirth and suffering by enlightenment and nirvana. But out of foolishness and clinging, we fear liberation from suffering. We instead cling to the things that bring suffering, that are unsatisfactory, that are incapable of fulfilling us.
We fail to recognize that they are constantly changing, radically impermanent, in flux, hurtling toward destruction. So we never even begin to suspect that it's all an impersonal process rather than an actual being. We fear for a "being" that does not, in the ultimate sense, exist. And this ignorance (avidya), the illusion (maya), fuels the impersonal process.
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