What actually happens when we die? We know the body decomposes; but what of the self - the “I” - the center of our consciousness. Is that also extinguished? Or is there a continuation?

While there is no absolute proof to corroborate a continuation of life after the cessation of the body’s functions, there is a large body of experiences of people who, in one manner or another, appeared to die, and yet returned to tell tales of their sojourn beyond their physical death.

A great pioneer in the investigation of the processes of dying and of near-death experiences during the 1970’s and decades beyond was Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Kubler-Ross was formerly a professor on the psychiatric faculty of the University of Chicago. Her work brought her into contact with many terminally ill patients.

In her studies of the dying process and death, she came across many patients who had been at one time declared dead, but later revived and continued on with their life. Although a Protestant, she did not really believe in a life after death; but after years of working with thousands of patients, she confides that she was forced to change her mind and came to realize that life goes on continuously even after death.

Of these experiences with her patients, she writes:

“At the first instant of death, the moment of physical separation is a good experience. Like getting out of a prison.....After they leave, they go toward a light, through a tunnel, over a bridge or river. After they have passed over, then comes what a Christian would call ‘hell’. There is no god who condemns you, but you are forced to review your own life.

“It’s like watching a television screen and your whole life is passed in front of you, not only deeds but also thoughts. This is going through hell, because you see everything you have ever done and thought. So it is not a god who condemns you, but you condemn yourself.”

Through the years, after interviewing about 20,000 people who had near-death experiences, she wrote:

“Up till then I had absolutely no belief in an afterlife, but the data convinced me that these were not coincidences or hallucinations.”

So what is it that continues on of our life?

Buddhism examines this problem head-on, and concludes that there is neither an annihilation of the self into nothingness, nor - as many religions believe - a continuation of an individual self or soul that migrates through eternity. Rather, what continues is something that might be described as the energy of karma.

Daisaku Ikeda, President of the Soka Gakkai International, writes:

“Although denying the existence of an eternal, immutable soul, Buddhism recognizes a life entity that transmigrates while changing constantly when projected as a phenomenal existence. This is to say, what transmigrates is neither John Brown nor anything that can be identified as his soul and his soul only. What persists through time is a life entity that may have been manifested an infinity of times in an infinity of circumstances, all of which have left karmic effects for better or worse on the entity itself. John Brown is only one of those karma-determined manifestations, but he, too, has made his karmic contribution.”