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| "Courtesan looking into the mirror" by Yoshitoshi (19th century) |
It is axiomatic that nirvana (ie, the
extinguishment of suffering) is the ultimate end goal in Buddhism, however it
is equally axiomatic that most people dwell in an ocean of suffering, hence
most people do not achieve nirvana, but they do die. What happens after death
is something that not all Buddhists agree on. Many Western Buddhists hold afterlife
views that differ little from atheism, which is to say that essentially they do
not believe in an afterlife except in some very abstract way (such as that what
we do in our life echoes on through the ages, or that our material remains will
eventually become the basis of some new form of life). However, the orthodox teachings
make it clear that traditional Buddhism embraces the concept of repeated
rebirths into multiple realms of being. Thus when most of us die we do not die with
finality, rather death is part of the ongoing life-death-rebirth cycle that
characterises ordinary existence.
The Theravada afterlife
The orthodox position of Theravada Buddhism on
rebirth is laid out in The Debate of King
Milinda, as written down in the 1st century BCE – it records a dialogue
between the Greek king of Bactria and the sage Nagasena. Nagasena says that ordinary
people are reborn but that from existence to existence these people are:
“Neither the same nor another … [just as] a pot of
milk that turns first to curds, then to butter, then to ghee; it would not be
right to say that the ghee, butter and curds were the same as the milk but they
have come from that so neither would it be right to say that they are something
else [Pesala at 11].”
