Buddhist Afterlife Beliefs
Buddha
accepted the basic Hindu doctrines of reincarnation and
karma, as well as the notion that the ultimate goal of
the religious life is to escape the cycle of death and
rebirth. Buddha asserted that what keeps us bound to the
death/rebirth process is desire, desire in the sense of
wanting or craving anything in the world. Hence, the
goal of getting off the Ferris wheel of reincarnation
necessarily involves freeing oneself from desire.
Nirvana is the Buddhist term for liberation. Nirvana
literally means extinction, and it refers to the
extinction of all craving, an extinction that allows one
to become liberated.
Where Buddha departed most radically from Hinduism was
in his doctrine of "anatta",
the notion that individuals do not possess eternal
souls. Instead of eternal souls, individuals consist of
a "bundle" of habits, memories, sensations, desires, and
so forth, which together delude one into thinking that
he or she consists of a stable, lasting self. Despite
its transitory nature, this false self hangs together as
a unit, and even reincarnates in body after body. In
Buddhism, as well as in Hinduism, life in a corporeal
body is viewed negatively, as the source of all
suffering. Hence, the goal is to obtain release. In
Buddhism, this means abandoning the false sense of self
so that the bundle of memories and impulses
disintegrates, leaving nothing to reincarnate and hence
nothing to experience pain.
From the
perspective of present-day, world-affirming Western
society, the Buddhist vision cannot but appear
distinctly unappealing: Not only is this life portrayed
as unattractive, the prospect of nirvana, in which one
dissolves into nothingness, seems even less desirable. A
modern-day Buddha might respond, however, that our
reaction to being confronted with the dark side of life
merely shows how insulated we are from the pain and
suffering that is so fundamental to human existence.
Following death, according to Tibetan Buddhism, the
spirit of the departed goes through a process lasting
forty-nine days that is divided into three stages called
"bardos."
At the conclusion of the bardo, the person either enters
nirvana or returns to Earth for rebirth.
It is imperative
that the dying individual remain fully aware for as long
as possible because the thoughts one has while passing
over into death heavily influence the nature of both the
after-death experience and, if one fails to achieve
nirvana, the state of one's next incarnation.
Stage one of the
Bardo (called the "Chikai" Bardo), the bardo of dying,
begins at death and extends from half a day to four
days. This is the period of time necessary for the
departed to realize that they have dropped the body. The
consciousness of the departed has an ecstatic experience
of the primary "Clear White Light" at the death moment.
Everyone gets at least a fleeting glimpse of the light.
The more spiritually developed see it longer, and are
able to go beyond it to a higher level of reality. The
average person, however, drops into the lesser state of
the secondary "clear light."
In
stage two (called the "Chonyid" Bardo),
the bardo of Luminous Mind, the departed encounters the
hallucinations resulting from the
karma created during life. Unless highly developed,
the individual will feel that they are still in the
body. The departed then encounters various apparitions,
the "peaceful" and "wrathful" deities, that are actually
personifications of human feelings and that, to
successfully achieve nirvana, the deceased must
encounter unflinchingly. Only the most evolved
individuals can skip the bardo experience altogether and
transit directly into a paradise realm. Stage three
(called the
"Sidpa" Bardo), the bardo of rebirth, is the process of
reincarnation.
Buddhist and NDE
Correlations
The Tibetan account of the
first bardo after death shows striking parallels with
the near-death experiences of people who have died,
experienced themselves floating out of their bodies,
having what appears to be real afterlife events, and
then being revived.
The second bardo is an
experience with divine entities which parallels
near-death accounts where a person experiences
visions of
heaven,
hell,
and
judgment. Scholars have also been interested in the
parallels between the
psychedelic
and psychotic states, and experiences of "astral
projection."
The
third bardo involving the reincarnation of a person's
karmic energy by choosing and entering a new body to be
born agrees with many near-death accounts that affirm
reincarnation.
The purpose
behind the Buddhist bardo states after death is to
provide the dying an opportunity to become enlightened
and attain Buddha-hood, or if enlightenment is not
attained, to secure a favorable rebirth. As it is with
Buddhism, the goal to be attained during near-death
experiences is to become one with the Clear Light of
Ultimate Reality. Experiencers have
described this as a "merging" process and "becoming
one with the Light." This loss of ego and at-one-ment aspect involved
in near-death experiences and the Buddhist bardo journey
are identical.
The
most remarkable correlation between Buddhism and
near-death accounts is the encounter with a
divine
light. Buddhists refer to this light as the "Clear
White Light" and the Tibetan Book of the Dead's
description of it is remarkably similar to the Being of
light in near-death experiences. Buddhists believe this
light to be the light from all the enlightened ones
which is indistinguishable from true essence of
everyone. As it is with Buddhism, near-death experiences
have described this light in the same way. For example,
Mellen-Thomas Benedict saw the light change into
various personalities such as Jesus and Buddha. Other
experiencers affirm the light to be everyone and
everything. Encounters with beings of light and darkness
described in near-death experiences can be found in the
"peaceful" and "wrathful" deities encountered in the
Buddhist afterlife. At some point in the bardo states,
many of the karmic essences of individuals feel a
desire, a "pull", to return to the physical world. This
phenomenon also appears in many near-death accounts when
the individual is given a choice to stay or return and
this choice results in the individual returning from the
near-death condition. Also, as it is with Buddhism,
near-death experiences support the concept of
reincarnation.
The
number of days (forty-nine) given in the Tibetan Book of
the Dead is likely symbolic, although the Tibetans
themselves, like all people who are strict religionists,
interpret it literally.
The comparison between the
Tibetan and Egyptian Books of the Dead, Taoism, and
Kabbalistic
conceptions, also reveals similarities. All of them
with the exception of Tibetan Buddhism view the soul as
composition of elemental components that separates after
death; each component entering into its own world.
Tibetan Buddhism describes an aspect of the human
personality passing through a number of different
afterlife bardo experiences.
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