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Most of us believe that life starts and birth and ends with death. Because of this, we celebrate a child’s birth and mourn when someone dies. While living, many of us attempt to distance ourselves from our fear of death. This is exemplified by the fact that most of us avoid discussing it.
However, our beliefs and attitudes about death are just that, belief and attitudes. Additionally, beliefs and attitudes do not reflect the true nature of reality. Given this, we can develop a more empowering perspective of death if we change our beliefs. Buddhist philosophy offers an example of this.
Buddhism views life as eternal, but life’s manifestations are impermanent. Everything that we experience is a manifestation of life. Based on this belief, we do not have life. Rather, we are life. We are life that has temporarily taken on the form of human beings.
When we die, the essence of who we are does not die. We, as life, no longer occupy our human form. Rather, we return to the formless until it is time for us to take form again. What we know as birth is life taking on form again.
Though we leave our form at the time of death, we retain the karmic energy accumulated while in our physical form. Karma is comprised of our thoughts, words, and actions. More specifically, it is our patterns of thoughts, words, and actions. In other words, it is our tendencies.
The kind of karma we build during our lifetime determines how we will appear when we take form again. It is for this reason human life is so precious. It is only in our physical form that we can change our karma. Once we become formless, life’s energy is imprinted with karma and cannot be changed until we take physical form again.
How our karma affects the cycle of birth and death can be compared to a business person. How a person runs their business in any given year will affect the following year. If the business person runs up large amounts of debt and does not manage their money properly, that will affect their numbers in the following year. Conversely, a well-run business will likely have good numbers in the following year.
You can consider your existence in your present form as being your current business year. The decisions that you make during this time will affect your next lifetime. Reincarnation is less about what form you take in your next lifetime as it is the kind of karmic energy you are born into.
Our karmic tendencies are not necessarily negative, as we also have positive ones. When we strive to rise above our negative karmic tendencies, we will no longer be caught in the endless cycle of birth and death. To reach this state is what is commonly known as nirvana. The journey to achieve nirvana is driven by our daily decisions making that result in creating value for ourselves and others.
