Death is forever, yet it lasts but a moment.
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What about rebirth?
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There is death if we do not understand it. There is no death if we experienced it. Death is what we think it is. If there is forever death, the happiest ones must be the ones who are in hell. Therefore, some will say there is no hell, or death is the end.
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We would need to look at what, in short, is death. Because in the Buddhist view, death is something very profound. Death does not really exist. Death is the death of a set of illusory identities. So, when we deal with death, we also always remember the issue of transmigration. During life we ​​are constantly dying in the form of one identity and re-emerging in the form of other identities. So there’s this constant transmigration. The Buddha will remember this theme of transmigration over and over again. Generally speaking, we are always somewhere aspiring to go somewhere else. This is transmigration. So, we are always with the question of death and impermanence, like this, in our daily lives. This notion is important, because, finally, it will tell us that we are not what we think we are. We are not these identities, these bubbles of reality that occupy us and keep us focused in a sense wasting time. Impermanence gives this meaning.
Dreaming is also very useful as a process by which we deepen the notion of reality, the notion of impermanence and also the notion of death. Because when the dream comes, we also lose all properties. In a dream, we don’t carry the car, we don’t carry the house, we don’t carry anything. Often, we don’t even carry our dearest, closest ones. They disappear from within our dreams and we are alone somewhere. So, this brings us to this perspective that we actually live in bubbles of reality, and the identities, properties and various things that we have inside these bubbles disappear very easily. So, in Buddhism, death is a concrete aspect of that. For most people who are not able to think in a very abstract way, death gives a concrete sense of this impermanence and gives an exact measure of what our identities, our possessions, our attachments, our fixations all mean.
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Birth is temporary, yet it lasts for the moments.
With birth there must be death……one follows the other……birth and death are one thread.
Yet birth and death are an illusions under the label existence……that which is temporary.
Existence is temporary, yet Nibbana is permanent.
He who sees the origination sees the deathless, the escape from birth and death (existence), yet that is permanent……the unborn.
Deathless is forever, yet it lasts forever.
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And there is also slow death, like flickering flame slowly going out.
Life on Earth dying from physical and mental pollution.
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People need to talk about it more. Modern western society is terrified of it, to the point of adopting whole religious systems (i.e. Christianity) that deny it.
More traditional western belief systems ( like that of the Celts, or Germanic tribes) had a much more holistic view of it, and saw it more as part of a natural cycle.
It’s like pooping. It’s natural. Sometimes it’s quick and easy, other times it’s slow and unpleasant. But at the end of the day, everyone has to do it, and still no one wants to talk about it.
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No food, no poop.
No birth, no death. Problem solved.
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