Sean Martin (express.co.uk); Dhr. Seven, Ananda, Amber Larson,(eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
 |
| This is what it feels like to die (Getty Images via express.co.uk) |
.
Life after death: panic or peace?
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. |
.
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.
I want a better "theory"! Here are some:
In Buddhism rebirth (not "reincarnation") is called relinking (of consciousness) or again-becoming.
No comments:
Post a Comment