Does Anything Survive Death in Buddhism
The Buddha, already enlightened and therefore having reached the state of Nirvana, taught and explained many concepts and principles to his students. He was released from the life cycle, which every individual should seek to escape. He said that in order to be released from the torture of reincarnation, one must cease to desire, for it is the failure to fulfill one's desires that causes one's misery. He also explained that possessions and material things are all a delusion. Since people are not born with belongings and do not die with them, they are not really belongings, but only burdens. Even the body itself is not owned by the mind inhabiting it, because it dies and decomposes as the soul goes on. The body could be looked at as the prison of illness, because there is a very fine line between health and sickness. The mind however is eternal, with thoughts and feelings. In modern society, the mind is not developed; it is polluted and requires training. Once one attains control of the mind, one also attains control of the body and speech. Then, the truth will become apparent. What becomes apparent is one's true essence. One's true essence is Buddha: everyone has the potential to b
Buddhists believe there is no life and no death, however, there is duality. When the body dies, the mind goes on. Consciousness, which is always enlightenment, also survives the physical death. Everything is an illusion and is going to disappear, whereas impermanence is reality. One's true identity is Buddha. "Buddha is a state of mind that has no obscuration of the truth." Buddhists tend to visualize the process of reincarnation, or the life cycle itself as either a river or an ocean of birth and death. This river is the unexplored aspect of life, which needs to be crossed in order to reach the "incomparably wonderful"(The Hungry Tigress) enlightenment. The Buddha is the vehicle by which this river is crossed. It transports one from dukkha, or suffering to the other side "endowed with hundreds of virtues, full of such qualities as trance and wisdom, immaculate, free from all substrata, changeless and without sorrow."("The Hungry Tigress") An opposite perspective on life and death can be found in Christianity as in most other western religions. The belief in God as a creator and maintainer of human life does not allow for reincarnation. Since God is also a judge, He is the one who looks at one's good and bad deeds and judges accordingly. With the possibility of forgiveness of all of one's sins, many people interpret this as an excuse for wrongdoing. Whereas in Buddhism, one is responsible for one's own karma and is therefore responsible for one's own future incarnation or possible release from samsara. The Christian belief in heaven and hell is also very contrasting to Buddhist be
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Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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