What do you truely think happens when death occurs?

Question

I am a Buddhist so i believe in rebirth. i believe i can be reborn in one of six realms:
1. Hell realm
2. Hungry spirits realm
3. Animal realm
4. Human realm
5. demi-god realm
6. God realm
my heaven is enlightenment, the pure land, freedom from all suffering, and constant inner peace and bliss.
what is your heaven or hell?

my proof is my faith.

Answer 1

You posed 2 questions. What do I believe happens when death occurs, and what is my heaven and hell.

What I think happens exactly when death occurs, at the moment of death, is enlightenment, divine union, omniscience. I get this idea partly from hear-say, partly from personal experience and intuition, and partly from stories of hospice workers and accounts of near death experience. Just at the moment of death, people frequently develop remarkable lucidity, extensive memory, great wisdom and knowledge. After near death experiences, people often describe peace, bliss and white light.

What I think happens very shortly after that precise moment of death is a sort of black out, followed by a series of dream like experiences, which may lead to a rebirth or one of the other types of life experiences you describe, and possibly experiences we cannot imagine from a human perspective. The goal of tantric meditation practices is said to be to extend that initial moment of enlightenment at the moment of death, to remain there...and if it is possible to remain there long enough, it can become permanent.

Regarding heaven and hell, I tend not to think of them as dualistic poles, in the same way some people say love and hate are not opposites. Hate is a subset of love, a distorted sort of attention, whereas apathy is more like the opposite of love. Similarly, heaven is an absolute state, while hell is a temporary type of confusion, that in the long run is subsumed in a non-dual heaven.

When I think of heaven, I think about the interesting paradox of the mahasiddhas, and various enlightened people from history, that had taken the universal bodhisattva vow. They vowed that they would not enter into enlightenment until all beings enter into enlightenment. And yet, they are said to have entered into enlightenment, even though, from the temporal perspective, universal enlightenment doesn't seem to have been achieved.

Heaven, to me, is a state of universal dynamic bliss...the application of the wish fulfilling jewel, that all desires are constantly fulfilled as they arise.

Answer 2

I don't have a heaven or hell. Residual metabolism continues in the body for a few minutes until oxygen starvation kills all my cells. At this point, since I am likely to be warmer still than my environment, that heat will leach out into the environment until I am room temperature.

If my will is obeyed, I will be cremated and a trusted friend will pick a random latitude/longitude in my homestate, take the cremains in a small paper bag to that location, and bury it, then forget the coordinates, and never reveal to anyone where my ashes were dumped.

My carbon and nitrogen will enrich the soil around my bag, and at that point, some worms will probably eat some of me and poop me out or the plants might absorb some of my atoms. Eventually, nothing will be left that holds any identifiable link to me.

I will be atoms, just as I was before I was born and just as I am now.

The only real difference is that my atoms happen to be in a state that seems self aware right now, but they are still just atoms.

Answer 3

Personally i don't know. Sometimes I feel that my soul is old and has been around for many a lifetime but maybe this just a romantic idea to hide the human fear that this life is all there really is.
I was brought up a Roman Catholic though, and they were taught to believe that when you die, you will be buried and there you will wait until God comes again on Judgement day, to judge you, then if you are accepted you will be reborn to eternal life. This is why Catholics buried their remains so that God will be able to find them again when the time comes, It makes it harder for God to find you if your cremated and scattered.
In my mind however he's God if he's all powerful he should be able to find you scattered or not! (Sorry got issues at the moment with religious ideas, no offence meant to anyone)

Answer 4

I don't actually have a specific religion, just a way of life.
I don't believe that there is a heaven or hell or even anything in between. I don't believe that there is such a thing as life force, or a soul. I suppose that means; that you will go to one of your heavens or hells because you believe in them. The Christians will go to theirs and the the Muslims etc must go to theirs as well. I don't believe so I will be treated differently. How differently depends on which religion you happen to believe in. What is obvious is that you can't all be right, but there is a possibility that you could all be wrong.

I believe that Buddhist, Christian, Muslim or whatever; when we die, all that is left is our physical bodies to eventually decay and the memory of us to be eventually forgotten.

Answer 5

I like to believe that there is some kind of life after death. I would hate to believe that I will never see my loved ones again or that once I die, that is the end. I was raised Christian but, as a human being, have my doubts and fears. I'm hoping there is an afterlife for all of us, including my cats. Count me as "hopeful but not convinced". I would LOVE to be convinced though. :)

Answer 6

Actually not much happens when death occurs.

I have come to realize that this life is more of an idea than a reality.

Hell is not being loving. Heaven is understanding that all of us are one.

All of those you mentioned in between are stepping stones on the path.

love and blessings Don

Answer 7

I would like to think there is something or somewhere where we go after we die. However, I live for today, and try not to worry about what is going to happen after I die. There are so many different beliefs, but if what you believe gives you hope, of something after death, then that has to be a good thing.

Answer 8

I believe the spirit departs from the body. The spirit then faces judgement and sent to either heaven or hell.

Answer 9

Death means the cesation of life. You die. You disintegrate into the basic elements or molecules that you are made up of. This includes your brain, the organ of your body where thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories occur. When this has disintegrated, there is no more "you". Thats what the word death means.

Answer 10

Nothing realm. As Mark Twain once said: "I did not exist for billions of years before now, and it never inconvenienced me one bit" (or something close to that). You will suffer no more. You will cease to be as you are now. Your matter will be recycled in the universe.