"What happens when we die?"

Many people pose this question to me. First of all, as with most questions, it begs definition of its terms. What is meant by "we" and what is meant by "die"?

If by "we," one is referring to the physical body, well, clearly we already know that after the physical body dies, worms eat it. But I don't think people are talking about the physical body when they ask this question.

So, what are they talking about? When a man asked Buddha this question, he responded by saying something like: "So silly to ask what happens after death, when you don't even know what happens in life." 


What did he mean by that? Well, in reality, whether or not we call something life or death, still it all happens automatically with nobody in it. You are no more alive than the word "you" is alive. It is an illusion that there is a true "you" that the word "you" points to which itself is alive. In direct experience we can see that the concept of self is created in the brain/mind in order to integrate various streams of perception through time and space, but it is not any kind of essence that actually exists anywhere.

Now, there is a lot of literature on Near Death Experiences (NDEs) which I have read, so probably people are thinking in those terms. The interesting thing about NDEs is that they are very much influenced by culture. There are some common themes that cut across cultures, but a Thai NDE is nothing like a western NDE, is nothing like a Tibetan NDE. What does that tell us about the nature of the NDE? It tells us that what the mind expects to happen at death (even via subconscious things like hearing stories of others who have had NDEs) is very likely what it will get. There are actually some very strange and hilarious Hindu NDE stories. I've read numerous accounts of people going thru the whole life review process and seeing into the afterlife and all this, and then being told by some kind of cosmic clerk, "woops, sorry, we thought you were this other guy who was supposed to die (same name and town)... we're going to send you back now... sorry about that." 

The other thing about NDEs is that they are not true DEATH experiences. They are only NEAR death experiences. Nobody ever *actually* dies in an NDE. So what do I mean by "actual" death? Well first of all, we are now learning that it is almost impossible to define what physical death is, since people have been declared dead and then woken up a week later as if nothing happened. Brain death is a term which is quite difficult to define, since the brain may appear dead on an EEG or fMRI, and then later it may boot back up again. But again, I don't think most people reading this care about this idea of physical death. 

So what is "real" death then, if not physical death? To me, "real" death is when the sense of self is obliterated completely, at least for a period of time. The only way that it could get any realer is if the person physically died and did not have any more rebirths (no more identification), but then we would never hear from that person again so there would be know way of knowing what this state (called parinirvana) is, except to extrapolate from what we know of the state of nirvana that is experienced by many beings who are awakening today, as well as folks all thru the ages who have learned the nature of reality (dependent origination). 

The strange thing is that many people, including "myself" have "experienced" the obliteration of sense of self, either via psychedelics or meditation (like this technique that I employ) or just realization due to logical thinking. And this experience of no self can be somehow remembered and conveyed, although one who has not experienced it can not quite imagine what is being conveyed, generally speaking. Imagine everything in the universe, all appearances, instead of being seen from one point of view, are seen from every perspective, every angle, without any seer behind all the seeing. All the appearances (at every level, from atoms to stars) are self-seen without any reference point nor background observing awareness whatsoever. Since all the appearances are dependently originated, they are fully interpenetrating, tho still not simply One appearance. Depending on what kinds of traces of clinging remain in this state, there may or may not be infinite bliss associated with it--for "me," at first, there was not bliss, due to the habit of identity still remaining strong, but after time, the state was filled with infinite happiness. 

In my day-to-day waking life, as of this writing, I remain stuck in the self-delusion experientially, but my teacher, Soh Wei Yu, and many others on the facebook group Dharma Connection, are living day-to-day without sense of self interfering most of the time (in what is called "the natural state").







But what about reincarnation?

This is the other question people may be wondering about regarding what happens after "we" "die." Reincarnation (actually a better word is rebirth, since it doesn't imply transmigration of a personal essence) is something which can only happen if the body dies without the habit of identification dying (i.e. what will happen to most people on Earth). 

I have a post already on the topic, so you can check it out here.