In Tibetan Buddhism there are many writings about life after death including the ' Tibetan Book of the Dead '. This is a guide telling the dying person how to react and try to ensure a positive outcome of the experiences. It includes descriptions of the bardo states.
These are states between dying and being reborn. Mahayana Buddhism also uses images to teach about life after death. Preachers use promises of pleasure or threats of painful retribution to manipulate the feelings of listeners. Based in fear, they declare that their particular religion can guarantee a blessed afterlife of bliss and happiness. In this essay we will compare the Christian approach to the afterlife with the Buddhist. While there are some similarities in basic belief, there are important differences which should be understood.
Christian tradition believes in both the Old and New Testament. In the Old Testament, originally the Hebrew or Jewish Bible, there is no clear cut view of the afterlife. People are not distinguished as believers or non-believers, but the texts envision the people of ancient Israel as a whole. Later Judaism, based in the Hebrew Bible, was not a world religion offering salvation for all humanity.
It was the faith of a particular people committed to their God as his people and keeping his commandments. Though Jews were to represent God in the context of their lives, they did not have a primary goal to convert non-Jews. These concepts provided the basis for Christian evangelism to this day. The Catholic tradition added the concept of purgatory which moderated the intensity of the concepts of heaven and hell.
There was a way to heaven through purification in purgatory with assistance provided by indulgences or merits created by family and friends through masses for the dead. The origin of the western idea of the dualism of heaven and hell appears to have originated in Persia with the teaching of the prophet Zoroaster. This concept was absorbed together with the concept of a Last Judgment by the Jewish exiles in Babylonia and Persia ca.
There was to be a Last Judgment, after a general resurrection, where all their ancient enemies would get their just deserts. This later came to be an important feature of the Christian view, though correlated with belief or rejection of Jesus.
Where the focus of Jewish belief was more on the people as a whole, the Christian view centered on individual belief or unbelief. Islamic belief was influenced by Christian teaching and focused on the individual. An aspect of Christian belief was that after bodily Resurrection and the Last Judgment, the evil people would be cast into a lake of fire for eternity.
Believers would be brought to heaven where they would dwell with God eternally. However, Christian permeation of the Mediterranean Hellenistic-Graeco-Roman world led to changes in the conception of the afterlife.
The Judaic view supported a Resurrection and Judgment. Those who had passed away waited in their graves till the call of God aroused them from their sleep to face Judgment. Early Christianity lived in the expectation of the second coming of Jesus and a general Resurrection and Final Judgment.
However the Greek view maintained belief in an eternal soul which, when the body was discarded, would live for eternity in an Elysian paradise. This understanding was absorbed gradually into Christianity with belief in Immortality following death dominating over the idea of Resurrection. It is presently quite common belief that when people die, they immediately go to heaven to be with Jesus and their loved ones. However, the belief in the second coming of Jesus and a final judgment, which presuppose Resurrection, persists.
There is never anything other than this moment. And this one. Eventually, there is one last moment. The shape of those new moments is decided by karma. In samsara, our circle of life and death, we have six realms :.
While this may give the impression that we believe in an afterlife, we believe that we interact with these realms on a daily basis. How we interact with the various levels of samsara directly influences our karma. For example, if in our previous life we were an unapologetically bad person, in the next go around, we might find ourselves in a hell realm.
If we let our baser instincts take over in a former life, we might find ourselves living in animalist conditions note here, it says nothing about coming back as an animal.
The human realm is for those with good karma and who are working on cultivating good moral virtues. The heavenly beings realm is for those of us who, while still in human form, have already started to transcend the suffering of living. The thing is, our karma is not set in stone. We can fix things. Clear the karma, if you will. Positive action births positive action. We must take responsibility for our actions and do what we can to rectify the situation.
Karma takes into account our lessons learned and the steps taken. A karmic lesson can be immediate or long-reaching. If we pay attention, we find that karma gives us opportunities to clear the negative out and move forward. As we will continue to do until we learn our lessons and make good on our transgressions. The goal of Buddhism is to, over our many lifetimes, clear our karma by following the teachings of Buddha, so one day, in our last moment, we will be released from the wheel of samsara and enter Nirvana.
In Buddhism, Nirvana is the highest state one can attain. It is the moment when we become free of suffering and rebirth. It is said that the Buddha after six years of intense practice and meditation while sitting under a Bodhi tree reached enlightenment and found Nirvana.
Nirvana is not a place that can be reached, but a state beyond both existence and non-existence. When we reach Nirvana, we are released from samsara and are no longer bound karmically to the wheel of life.
Enlightenment, which many people confuse with Nirvana, is actually not the same thing. We must open ourselves up to it and experience it.
In Buddhism, our basic tenets are called the Four Noble Truths.
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