The Jewel Lamp: A Praise to Bodhicitta Verse 143

Bodhicitta transforms
afflictive emotions, suffering and fear,
and sickness and death
into a path to enlightenment

-- The Jewel Lamp: A Praise to Bodhicitta Khunu Rinpoche

Yet breath, like mist, is delicate

Yet breath, like mist, is delicate;
And life, seemingly strong, is ever near to passing.
Quickly pluck the essence of Dharma,
For definite it is, you will die at the hands of the great enemy Death.

— His Holiness the Seventh Dalai Lama, Kelsang Gyatso

Buddha's Responses to Questions about Death: q. 5 & 6

Question 1
Questions 2,3,4

The next 2 questions seek to clarify what of our present possessions and status is returned to us in our next lives.  The first addresses wealth and poverty.  It explains that generosity and miserliness are the causes for future economic states.

Question Five: O Bhagawan! Do those who are rich and affluent in this life remain rich an affluent in the next life, too? Do those who are poor and destitute in this life also remain poor and destitute in the next? Or do the two states vary and not remain fixed?

Response: Among those now alive, there are some who are wealthy at birth, but become poor later in life. There are others who are destitute from birth, but later become rich. So, affluence and poverty are undoubtedly impermanent.

For instance, in the world when conditions of warmth and moisture are present, leaves and branches of plants flourish, whereas in conditions of extreme cold and lack of moisture, they dry out. Similarly, with the conditions of generosity, etc. one becomes rich, and with the conditions of theft and stinginess, one becomes destitute. There are those who remain rich through lifetimes because of having engaged in acts of generosity without break. Whereas, with interrupted acts of generosity, engaging at times and not at other times, or regretting one’s act of generosity, one may become poor either in the early part or later part of one’s life. With persistent thievery and stinginess, one may remain poor throughout several lifetimes. However, there are those who became rich in certain lifetimes or in either the earlier or later part of a particular life after one had regretted one’s acts of theft and miserliness. Poverty and deprivation do not emerge from generosity, nor does affluence emerge from stinginess. Also affluence and poverty do not necessarily alternate over lifetimes.

The second of the two questions addresses what possessions pass with you life to life.   Then goes on to explain the latencies that exist in our mindstreams that can result in visions such as ghosts or dreams of loved ones that continue to appear with possessions as they did during their lives.

Question Six: O Bhagawan! Whatever horses, elephants, etc. one may ride in this life, whatever ornaments and dresses one may utilise in this life, whatever food and drink one may enjoy in this life, one will enjoy the same in the next. Such is the understanding of ordinary people. Is this true?

Response 1: No. Humans, when they die, take birth either in higher or lower realms in accordance with whatever actions -- wholesome or unwholesome -- they may have committed.

Response 2: Sometimes people are seen in their old familiar clothes even after death. Such appearances are due to the fact that there are limitless, unimaginable, countless world-systems of gandharvas³ (scent-eating spirits) filling space. Among these scent-eaters is a particular type called ‘entering the mind-stream of those on the verge of dying’⁴. In search of food, these scent-eaters take on the appearance of those deceased beings, with their physical forms, clothes, ornaments, and customs and even their mode of speaking.

Response 3: In addition, other than these mentioned scent-eaters, there are yakshas⁵ (malignant spirits), gandharvas⁶ (scent-eating spirits), pisacas⁷ (meat-eating spirits), bhūtas⁸ (evil spirits), etc. who, in order to entice the relatives and friends of the deceased, through mundane magical powers, learn the behaviours, the burial locations, and life events associated with the deceased. They then cast spells over the relatives, etc. who see or dream about them.

Response 4: It is possible for relatives, etc. to see or dream of the deceased due to the maturation of latencies left because of having been together a long time. For example, suppose a person dreams of his living relatives, servants, or anyone (the pleasure of) who’s company and wealth he shared, or, for that matter, suppose he dreams of his enemy or anyone who robbed him of his possessions, i.e. someone with whom he shared the displeasure of fighting or arguing, if the persons whom he saw in the dream also had the same dream, then it could be considered a true experience. However, the others do not dream his dreams. So, if, even among those who are alive, we do not share each other’s dreams, then how could the dreams about the deceased truly be the deceased? Thus, it is just a case of past latencies being activated.

Response 5: There is yet another example to represent the working of latencies. Suppose there is a person who, in the first half of his life, owned a castle, a house, a town which he left behind, and moved to another town. In the meantime, his earlier town was totally destroyed and obliterated. Later, he dreams of his past castle, the house, and the town all intact, complete in size and shape so vividly that it seemed real.  However, all he saw in the dream was just a case of his latencies being activated.  Likewise, dreams or visions of the deceased are similar to dreaming of the past house. Since the consciousness of the deceased has already taken rebirth in accordance with ones karmic action, there is no way it can still be seen. Therefore, it is due to the maturation of the potential of latencies that one sees and dreams of the characteristics and clothes of the deceased.

Response 6: Likewise, appearances or dreams of the deceased holding weapons such as swords; wearing clothes, ornaments, etc.; riding mounts such as elephants, etc., are due to the maturing of latencies. So, view this like the example of the house.

 

3 They are of two kinds. One refers to the celestial music players belonging to the Desire Realm who have
melodious throats and sustain on smell. The other refers to the intermediate beings of the Desire Realm who, too,
sustain on smell. Here, the reference is to the latter type.
4 This merely refers to a type of such spirit, not someone who actually enters the mental continuum of others.
5 This class of spirits is sometimes associated as retinues of Kūber, one of the four directional kings, located to the
north of Mt. Meru, or it refers to a type that sustains on the eatables offered to the gods.
6 Ibid note 3.
7 This refers to a class of famished spirits who live on meats. In some usage, this class of spirits represents ghosts.
8 This has several usages. Often it is used generically to refer to any one of the eighteen, according to certain
sources, kinds of ghostly spirits. More specifically, this type stands for a class within the famished spirits who make
up physical appearances and usurp the vitality of other beings.

Buddha's Responses to Questions about Death: q. 2,3, and 4

Question 1

The first question dealt with the existence of rebirth which Buddha confirms using the logic that living beings would be extinguished if they were not able to take a next life.  Now the questions become more specific about the form of that next life.  The first tells us that the form we take in the next life is variable due to the actions accumulated previously.

Question Two: O Bhagawan! Will the sentient beings who pass away from this world be born into types of rebirth without alteration? For example, will gods be reborn as gods?  Likewise, humans as humans, animals as animals, famished spirits as famished
spirits and hell-beings as hell-beings?

Response: No. Sentient beings are born as different types by the force of their wholesome
and unwholesome actions. For example, the present humans may have become
humans from previous gods. The present animals may have become animals from
previous humans who indulged in unwholesome actions.

The third question further explains the variability of rebirth.   Clarifying that any beings can be reborn as another being in the next life,  that there isn't a state that inherently prevents lower or higher rebirths.  Thus further illustrating the preciousness of the human rebirth.

Question Three: O Bhagawan! Can gods, after death, be born into other types, such as humans, etc.? Likewise, can humans, animals, famished spirits, and the hell-beings, after their deaths, be born as other beings such as gods?

Response: Yes, that is so. Gods, after death, can be born into other beings such as humans,
etc. Likewise, humans, animals, famished spirits, and the hell-beings, after their deaths, can be born as other beings such as gods.

The Fourth Question starts the questions about what accompanies us in our rebirth, the first issue being family.   King Suddhodana inquires as to whether the belief that in life after life we retain our same familiy members.  Buddha response in a series of questions that answer themselves.  His response points out that without physical bodies we wouldn't be able to recognize family members because we cannot recognize their mindstream.  Furthermore how would we explain the different races and cultures if we are reborn with our current family members over and over since beginningless time.

Question Four: O Bhagawan! When sentient beings pass away from this life, they retain in th next life the same circle of family members as in this present life such as parents,
grandparents, great grandparents, etc. whom they had been born with life after life from beginningless time. Such is the understanding of ordinary people. Is this true?

Response 1: When parents and children, etc. appear to each other, they do so as physically
embodied beings. It is not that one mind appears to another mind. When the physical aggregate is left behind and has ceased to be, how could minds accompany minds and appear to each other? The deceased parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc. are not seen even by their living children and grandchildren who possess physical bodies. How could the parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc., who had already died and no longer possess physical bodies, be thought to accompany each other as they did before? Even granting this, without physical bodies how could we see them accompanying each other?

Response 2: In this life, when parents, children, and numerous relatives live together, they
acknowledge each other on the basis of their different physical bodies. They do
not see their own minds, let alone the minds of each other. Therefore, how would
they see each other after death? How would parents, grandparents, great
grandparents, etc. see and accompany each other?

Response 3: If, in the beginningless flow of time, there were the first ancestors whom the
present grandchildren accompanied, then all the present tribes, clans, clusters,
types, of which there are many who are enemies, have settled in places, belong to
tribes, speak languages, and carry out customs not heard or known to each other,
must have descended from that same ancestor. So, where would one draw the line
among these foreparents and grandchildren, and demarcate between the
accompanied and the unaccompanied?

Postponement of Religious Involvement

From Discovery News:

Most people put off things like filing taxes and house cleaning, but what about joining a church? New research suggests that procrastination may extend to religion as well.
In the study, published in the International Journal of Social Economics, researchers examined how life expectancy affected people's religiosity, or the range of dedication and expression of one's religion.
The authors conclude that increased life expectancy results in a "postponement of religious involvement," especially for religions that don't tie eternal rewards to time and favor ideas such as personal salvation over predestination.

Not really any groundbreaking information here.  We all go through periods of time where we can "worry about what's next" after we enjoy the attachment of this life.  We've all seen the scene of the crucifixion of Jesus with the "death bed" salvation granted to the thief on the cross beside him.  In our western culture with excellent healthcare and the "hiding" of the death process make us more and more susceptible to this postponement thinking.   In fact, even after death we do our best to postpone the decay and impermanence of our human bodies by embalming and sealing them in airtight boxes to fight off the elements of decay.

The lamrim teachings stress the need for us to understand the impermanence of the human life and to allow it be a source of inspiration, concentrating wholeheartedly on our practice.  Pabongka Rinpoche quotes Geshe Kamaba in Inspiration in the Palm of Your Hand:

We should fear death now.  We wish to die a painless death, but it will be the opposite for us:  we are not afraid now, but at the time of death we will be flaying our breasts with our fingernails.

He continues, explaining:

we must be afraid of death and impermanence from the start, then we needn't be afraid when we die.  But we do it the wrong way around.  We never think, "I could die right now" and so we remain complacent

 We aren't guaranteed a long lifespan.  We mostly ignore the overwhelming impermanent state of our entire existence.  As Lama Tsongkhapa says in Foundation of All Good Qualities:

This life is as impermanent as a water bubble, remember how quickly it decays and death comes.  After death, just like a shadow fallows the body, the results of black and white karma follow.

Our lives can go pop at any moment, just ask those in Japan how quickly death can come to the perfectly healthy.   Most people will agree with that statement when taken at face value but as the study says:

Although other factors influence religious participation, age alters how people perceive the costs and benefits of religiosity through time. People may consider the time and effort taken to worship as a cost, while weighing the benefits of gaining a sense of community, greater spirituality and personal confidence in the afterlife.

Its hard to get a "bullet-proof" teenager or young adult to really believe that tomorrow may never get here and they'll be left "holding the bag spiritually".  Its this problem that Elissaios Papyrakis, a University of East Anglia researcher who led the study, is addressing when he says:

To increase overall attendance, religious establishments should aim to reduce any discomfort of entry to religious newcomers, both old and young,...This may involve making information about the organization easily accessible to them and helping new-comers to follow religious activities without feeling lost or uncomfortable.

Now is this really the answer,  haven't we been trying to dumb-down death,  avoid its consequence,  dodge the difficult subject for years? This is the source of the problem; it's time to be frank about death, accept it as a fact of existence and UNDERSTAND it,  not make it comfortable or palatable.
The importance of this is illustrated in this quote from Lama Zopa Rinpoche:

When?
At this time, while you have all the opportunities, if you do not do your best to achieve the pure, stainless path to enlightenment when will you do it?