Birth & Death

　　People come with questions — some of which I can remember — and everyone has the question that”s waiting right at the barn door: Is there a next world after death

　　 The next world, who goes on to the next world: These sorts of things aren”t any one person”s issue. They”re an issue for all of us who are carrying a burden. When people ask this sort of question, I ask them in return, ”Was there a yesterday

　　 Was there a this morning

　　 Is there a present at this moment

　　” They admit that there was and is. ”Then will there be a tomorrow

　　 A day after tomorrow

　　 A this month

　　 A next month

　　 A this year

　　 A next year and years after that

　　”

　　Things in the past that we can remember, we can use to make guesses about the future. Even for things that haven”t yet happened, we can make comparisons with things that have already occurred. The future has to follow the way things have been in the past. For example, yesterday has already occurred, today is occurring. These things have followed one after the other. We know this, we remember, we haven”t forgotten. This afternoon, this evening, tonight, tomorrow morning: We”ve already seen that things have been like this. This is the way things have happened, without being otherwise, and so we accept that this is the way they will continue to be.

　　Doubts about this world and the next, or about things concerning ourselves: This is delusion about ourselves. This is why these things become big issues, causing endless fuss all over the world of rebirth. ”Is there a next world

　　 When people die, are they reborn

　　” These questions go together, for who is it that takes birth and dies

　　 We ourselves — always dying and taking birth. What comes to this world and goes to the next world is us. Who else would it be

　　 If not for this being of the world, this wanderer, there wouldn”t be anyone weighed down with these questions and burdens.

　　This is the harm of delusion, of being unable to remember. It shows within us, but we can”t catch hold of its causes, of why it has come about. Things that have happened, we can”t remember. Our own affairs spin us around in circles and get us so tangled up that we don”t know which way to go. This is why self-delusion is an endless complication. Being deluded about other things is not so bad, but being deluded about ourselves blocks all the exits. We can”t find any way out. The results come right back at us — they don”t go anywhere else — bringing us suffering, because these sorts of doubts are questions with which we bind ourselves, not questions by which we set ourselves free. We can have no hope of resolving and understanding these doubts if we don”t find confirmation of the Dhamma in the area of meditation.

　　This is why the Lord Buddha taught us to unravel and look at our own affairs. But unraveling our own affairs is something very critical. If we do it by guessing or speculating or whatever, we won”t succeed. The only way to succeed is to develop goodness step by step as a means of support and of drawing us in to mental development (bhavana), or meditation, so as to unravel and look at our own affairs, which lie gathered in the range of meditation. This is what will lead us to know clearly and to cut through our doubts, at the same time leading us to satisfactory results. We will be able to stop wondering about death and rebirth or death and annihilation.

　　What are our own affairs

　　 The affairs of the heart. The heart is what acts, creating causes and results for itself all the time: pleasure, pain, complications, and turmoil. For the most part, it ties itself down more than helping itself. If we don”t force it into good ways, the hearts reaps trouble as a result, the suffering that comes from being agitated and anxious, thinking restlessly from various angles for no …

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