Death according to Buddha
Death is the main problem of life, according to the Buddha. Life itself is a continuous struggle against death. This is what Charles Darwin saw as the struggle for existence. This struggle for existence always ends in death. Every individual who is born must die. Everyone is defeated in this fight against death. Therefore this struggle against death is futile. Immortality is seen as an unrealistic goal. The natural law is that everything that is integrated is subject to disintegration. This is the law of determinism, on which scientific discovery and invention is based. This law is that every occurrence in the world is determined by the presence of the necessary conditions.
Death is the main problem of life, according to the Buddha. Life itself is a continuous struggle against death. This is what Charles Darwin saw as the struggle for existence. This struggle for existence always ends in death. Every individual who is born must die. Everyone is defeated in this fight against death. Therefore this struggle against death is futile. Immortality is seen as an unrealistic goal. The natural law is that everything that is integrated is subject to disintegration. This is the law of determinism, on which scientific discovery and invention is based. This law is that every occurrence in the world is determined by the presence of the necessary conditions.
This means the entire process of life, which is the struggle for existence, is a mistake. It is an effort to become permanent in an impermanent world. This mistaken process of life, or struggle for existence, resulting in evolution, had to continue till the conscious human being evolved with an intelligence to reason out and realize that this struggle to exist was a mistake. It is only then that the human being consciously started the psychological process of evolution of consciousness itself and ultimately awoke from the dream of existence and stopped the struggle for existence, realizing that there is no real existence to struggle for. It is only when this has been achieved that the problem of existence is perfectly solved. This is also the perfect mental health. This mental health is not normal; it is supernormal and superhuman and therefore divine. This is the transcendence of human nature and man becoming God, the anthropomorphic God.
Even before the human being rises to that highest perfect level of evolution, if he turns his mind in that direction, and begins to move towards the goal of awakening he has entered the stream that flows into the ocean of “Awakening.” This entrance is a sublime (ariya) level, at which one begins to enjoy a happiness that ordinary people do not experience. Such a person is called one who has entered the stream (sotāpanna). Only such a person has become a true Buddhist. One does not become a Buddhist by birth or even conviction; one becomes a Buddhist only by beginning the conscious process of evolution of consciousness. This is a level of mental health where one is free from all neurosis and psychosis. At this stage one becomes mentally healthy in the normal sense, though the perfect mental health is gained only when one awakens fully from the dream of existence.
Existential philosophers pointed to the problem: “out of all animals it is the human being who is aware of his own existence and is also aware that he is going to die.” This creates anxiety, worry, fear, and anguish. Theistic existentialists attempted to solve the problem by taking the leap of faith. The atheistic existentialists attempted to solve it by using human potentials.
It is this same problem of existence, which is death and unhappiness that all religions HOPE to solve, sometimes through an escape from reality into a fantasy of eternal life.
It was the Buddha, however, who solved the problem of existence by means of a paradigm shift from existential thinking to experiential thinking. He Awakened from the fantasy of eternal existence into the reality of the absence of existence. This is why he is called the BUDDHA, the one who has awakened from the dream of existence.