life after death

Carl Jung observed that everyone seems to have a belief about what happens after death. Different cultures have different stories about life after death, but very few cultures suggest that there is no life after death. Only the materialist atheist believes in this – that the end of life is a total cessation. It’s a tough one to swallow, and that is why most people choose to believe some other story, some story that allows for some life after death.

In the East, the dominant story is one of reincarnation: that some soul moves out of the dying body, perhaps into a limbo or bardo state for a short while, before coming into a new being, a new body. So with reincarnation, we have had countless past lives and we will have countless future lives too. And what’s more in the East, it is believed that there is a certain karma which follows one from lifetime to lifetime. Karma in this sense is a sort of burden of debt from misdeeds which we have performed in the past, earlier in this life or in past lives. And in the East, it is believed that we must atone for these misdeeds one way or another before our own spiritual growth can reach maturity.

So reincarnation is one of the stories about life after death. In the West the stories tend to be slightly different. Judaism and Christianity believe that there is a judgement day awaiting us. Once we have died we will be judged for our time on earth and sent either to hell or heaven for eternity. The teaching of hell and heaven was very strong in the Christian tradition during the Middle Ages, but recently it has become something of an embarrassment to the Christian church and most Christians prefer not to talk about hell. But heaven still remains as a nice reward for being a good Christian during our short time on earth. And Muslims also believe in a heaven, and if one is a good Muslim, one is also rewarded in heaven.

So these are a few of the stories that we foolish humans tell ourselves to feel a bit more comfortable about death. The truth of course, the very simple truth, is that we don’t know what happens after death, and actually it is irrelevant. Thinking about life after death is just another way of distracting us from the present moment. This moment right now is where life is, and thoughts of the past or the future take us away from reality, take us away from life. So if you are really bold, then just allow this whole question of what happens after death to dissolve. We don’t need to know. And the way of the buddha, the way of an enlightened one, is to live unconcerned with the future, especially a time after death.

With enlightenment, this question, along with all other problematic questions, simply disappears. So even before enlightenment we can practise by trying to adopt a carefree attitude to time after death. Why worry about it? Why even think about it? You have no way of knowing what’s going to happen after death. The best that you can hope for are some fantasies popping into your mind that you can grab hold of, attach yourself to and take some comfort in. But that whole process will get in the way of your enlightenment. So why play that game? Drop it. Focus all your energy on enlightenment, right now. With this, you will never worry again about what happens after death.