BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Buddhism What do you believe happens after death?

I just posted an article on The Six Bardos of Tibetan Buddhism, which includes Tibetan teachings on the phases experienced after death and between births. Some phases of these teachings, particularly the 'clear light' phase immediately after death, are often compared to teachings on death in other traditions.

I am interested in hearing what others, Buddhist and non-Buddhist, believe occurs after death? Have you or anyone you know had a near-death experience? Have you witnessed someone's passing and had a sense of what was occurring?

Sometimes I think there is NOTHING. Sometimes I believe it's a change of "worlds", a kind of astral (non-physical) existence. That we arrive at the "other side", and there we undergo a kind of judgement - or rather we arrive in a situation, circumstances according to what we have done in our lives before death. We are confronted with what we are, what we were, what we have been doing, and we have to face the consequences, and to learn.
After a good life we relax, we enjoy our stay/life in "the other world".
And we are born again. Some day. Somehere. According to our karma. Until we finished our "lessons". Then we don't have to be reborn on this planet, but on other ones, astral ones, to make progress there.
But even when there will be no need for us any more to be born again, we can return to the earth or other planets - in order to help others develop themselves.

Buffalo Woman - thanks for sharing. Do your beliefs come from a particular spiritual tradition, or are they just what you have arrived at yourself over time?

My own beliefs are very similar to yours, and primarily influenced by Buddhism and Hinduism, but I have come to think that perhaps existence does not unfold the same way for everyone. For example, a common Buddhist interpretation of Christian heaven is that it is a dissolution into light after death, which is one option for those individuals that attain enlightenment/nirvana. Then the Mahayana Buddhist traditions believe that an enlightened being can make the choice to continue to incarnate to help others on the path. So when you start comparing traditions, you realize that they might all be true, as opposed to contradicting each other. Some beings might attain a 'heaven' state, others might travel to other worlds, and other might reincarnate.

I believe we are still on this plane, and in another one simultaneously. Some may go to the other plane more quickly, others linger. It's a different kind of energy. One we can't see, but feel.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the body rots. Much as we are attached to the notion of the survival of the self, the aim of Buddhism is to dissolve that attachment.

Elsiemary - yes, along the lines of 'the body rots' I was recently looking at some pictures of human skeletons left to the vultures outside a Tibetan monastery. In some traditions, this is part of the death ritual, emphasizing detachment from the body.

I think your point about dissolving attachment to survival of the self cuts to the heart of Buddhism and its major difference from all other spiritual traditions, including other Eastern ones. Most other traditions posit some form of intrinsic soul that moves to another plane, reincarnates, etc. Most people equate reincarnation and Buddhist rebirth, but they are different, because of the different notions of self and dissolution in the various traditions ( here's an article I wrote on rebirth vs. reincarnation a few months back for anyone interested.) Thanks for contributing!

Those interested in this topic might be interested in my latest article, The Six Realms of Existence in Buddhism , which covers the six types of birth within Buddhist cosmology, from the god realm to hell. Also covers why a human birth is the most auspicious. Interested to hear your thoughts...

These six realms are also considered to be allegorical and represent also the mental states in which we find ourselves. We probably reside in each of these six realms every day.....
Secondly, arguably both physically and mentally we die and are reborn all the time. Cells generate, grow, flourish and function, degenerate and die. And our thought processes move from joy, to anger, to sorrow, to acceptance, and to joy again....

this article is very convincing.
as Voltaire once said:
"It should be no more surprising to be born twice, than it is to be born once".