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Can You Have a Meaningful Life Without an Afterlife?
B5C
Veteran
Discuss! This could be applied to those who believe without an rebirth as well.
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I studied physics and theorized things such as the universe ending and resetting identical to how it was before; everyone would basically live their lives over and over again. That would be the only form of eternal that could exist in an atheist view. I found that rebirth, or rather the continuation of the mind after death is the only thing that keeps me sane. I applaud those who are happy with accepting atheism; it is not something I could ever bare. The only thing that matters to me is being able to maintain a stream of consciousness.
I doubt this individual will ever be repeated. This stream of consciousness may be inherent to another sentient being that comes after him but ultimately I am reborn in every passing moment with every new interaction. This individual is just an aspect which was revealed by such an interaction. One of love between two other individuals in the co-procreative process that is really just another way of sharing information.
The universe isn't some place we live.
jmo
I've had a mentally painful life, I work to overcome them but honestly if I didn't feel it was likely that death isn't the end I probably would have just ended the pain instead of trying to overcome it. The commentors in the video all sounded like they have pretty good lives with opportunities and happiness. Death can come at any time, why struggle with pain and suffering if after death its all the same anyway whether you lived a long happy life or a short painful one.
Unfortunately, Buddhism is being taking over by materialists, the same kind the Buddha debated.I guess the meaning of my life is to help other alcoholics recover. That's not to say I don't help others, but I'm taught I have a 'special gift' (the gift of being a recovered alcoholic), so I try to help others to recover. When I have meditated on my own death, it is this that stands out as being worthwhile in my life.
If a man walks into a bank and borrows £100 and then pays it back immediately and walks out, is there 'meaning' in the transaction? Can it be said that something even happened when he walks in with the same sum in his pocket as when he walked out?
Depends on where one focuses - to some the event will be nonsensical - to others it was on opportunity to hold £100 in the hand, to walk into a bank and walk out again, whatever...
If however, one must walk out of the bank with some money in the pocket for the event to have meaning then akin in my mind to needing an afterlife to allay the concern that impermanence brings to the table.
First, most beliefs in an afterlife actually serve to rob the life you are living right now of meaning. So when people do ask, "How can life have meaning without an afterlife?" they're getting it exactly opposite in my mind. I always ask the believer first, "How can your life have meaning with your afterlife? Answer this, and I'll answer your question."
Second, most people's vision of an ultimate afterlife is either oblivion (Hindu and Buddhist) so it makes no difference, or the eternal torture of endlessly doing nothing in a perfect Heaven. Existence for its own sake. People who find sitting in church for an hour to be boring proclaim their desire to sing hymns for eternity. And don't forget, in Buddhism reincarnation is seen as a trap that we desperately need to escape from.
And for the definition of meaning, I think when pressed what people are really talking about is, they want their life to have made a difference. The opposite of meaning is pointless.
it presents a point of view.
the point made is as valid as christianity, islam , buddhism, etc.
so some people dont believe in the afterlife.
so what?
does it mean that their lives are superior to religious people
like dalai lama , ajahn brahm, the pope, etc?
I don't think it matters what happens when I die. I certainly don't want to live my life only in anticipation of what could happen when I die. I have a book that I read often, that has a line in it that says "Belief is not required. You will reincarnate regardless. A leaf does not have to believe in photosynthesis to turn green." And I believe that to be true. That whatever happens when we die, is the same across all human experience, and that believing or not believing isn't going to make an ounce of difference. I do believe how you life can and does affect your rebirth, because that is the only thing that makes any logical sense to me.
To answer the question for me, yes, of course life has meaning regardless of whether there is an afterlife. There may or may not be an afterlife. But how I act and react, how I decide, how I treat people and live my life now, today, has far reaching effects. On the universe as a whole, of course not. But on the lives of other people. Even if we don't know what happens when we die, there is something to be said for spending your life at peace and in loving kindness. If I were told today that there is unequivocal proof that there is no afterlife, it would not change one iota how I am choosing to live my life.
I just don't think about it really. If I only lived a good life now in hopes I would be rewarded in the next, what type of person does that make me? I try to lead a good life because it is just the correct thing to do.
It's nice to see how much they have in common.
some people have seen their previous lives.
are their experience not as valid as yours?
just because we are ignorant we should not assume that
everyone else is just like us.
we havent been to the moon.
who are we to tell armstrong that standing on the moon
wasnt all that great.
It's only when we think we didn't exist prior to conception (that this was an actual beginning) that we view/fear death as an actual end. Eternalism misses the mark because there's no unchanging self that continues (or was created). Nihilism misses the mark because there's no unchanging self that ceases. Each moment is birth-and-death, life-and-afterlife, without an abiding self to worry about... what we worry about is a false self, and it's the false self (deluded mind) that worries!
The idea of an afterlife is just one of many ideas which take control over our actions.
Do the ideas we repeat in our head give meaning to our life? Do our efforts to infect other people with them do the trick? Of course not.
Just to be clear; this implies that faith in an afterlife too, does not supply such meaning.
But also we are the slaves of physical urges. We must eat, we must sleep, we want sex, we need to go to the toilet, and oops another day of our meaningful life is over; which makes me wonder what exactly that meaning is.
It must be this: the” Great Matter of life and Death” is Enlightenment or Liberation or dropping body and mind.
As you read this comment your consciousness is directly interfacing with your four aggregates. This is your psycho-physical organism. You are, so to speak, facing in one direction wherein lies only birth and death. However, there is another realm where there is no birth and death, but it takes extraordinary meditative skills to connect with it.
And, honestly, those who say that there is a 100% chance of there being an afterlife (or none for that matter) are the most delusional.
"It matters little whether Heaven [an afterlife] exists or not;
The important thing is to live life as if it did."
"Because a buddha is in birth and death, there is no birth and death.",
"Because a buddha is not in birth and death, a buddha is not deluded by birth and death."
Clinging to any of the aggregates whatsoever is what Samsara is.
All of the aggregates without exception are not-self.
Interesting thread ...
Here's a site which aint Buddhist but supposedly answers a lot of questions about the afterlife -
http://www.afterlife-knowledge.com/faq.html
Cheers
The present moment is the after life (and the before life.) Seen as such it is timeless, without beginning or end, eternal. Dependently originated, empty, and complete. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, but to wake up and stop clinging.
Of course once you assert (dream up), a separate permanent self then judgement and worry about things like is "my" life meaningful will follow.
There is only birth and death, and Nirvana is unborn and undying because it is Emptiness... it is the full functioning of the Buddhas. It's not something "other" than Emptiness. It's too easy to conceptualize Nirvana as being something "out there", some realm, because it's difficult to understand that it's unbound mind. We don't have anything to compare it with, because we're all quite well bound! It's outside of our normal experience; it's the exact opposite of our normal experience of craving/clinging.
"What is empty is ‘samsara’ and what is not empty is great ‘nirvana’"(Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra).
"When Nagarjuna says in his Madhyamika Shastra that: "That is called Nirvana which is not wanting, is not acquired, is not intermittent, is not non-intermittent, is not subject to destruction, and is not created;" he evidently speaks of Nirvana as a synonym of Dharmakaya, that is, in its first sense as above described. Chandra Kirti, therefore, rightly comments that Nirvana is sarva-kalpanâ-ksaya-rupam, i.e., that which transcends all the forms of determination. Nirvana is an absolute, it is above the relativity of existence (bhâva) and non-existence (abhâva). Nirvana is sometimes spoken of as possessing four attributes; (1) eternal (nitya), (2) blissful (sukha) (3) self-acting (âtman), and (4) pure (shushi). Judging from these qualities thus ascribed to Nirvana as its essential features, Nirvana is here again identified with the highest reality of Buddhism, that is, with the Dharmakaya. It is eternal because it is immaterial; it is blissful because it is above all sufferings; it is self-acting because it knows no compulsion; it is pure because it is not defiled by passion and error" (Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Outline of Mahayana Buddhism, p. 347–348).
"The atman is the Tathagatagarbha. All beings possess a Buddha Nature: this is what the atman is. This atman, from the start, is always covered by innumerable passions (klesha): this is why beings are unable to see it."
Turing to emptiness, Zen master Tsung-mi said, as a caution, there is a nihilistic emptiness. "Nihilistic emptiness[means] vacuity, openness, absence, or extinction. It does not refer to the Genuine Mind (zhen shi xin)" (Commentary on Meditative Approaches to the Hua Yen Dharmadhatu). As to this mind, itself, and its relation to the middle way the Lankavatara Sutra says:
“There is the ‘Mind-only,’[cittamâtra] there are no objects to be seen; when there are no objects to see, Mind is not born; and this is called by myself and others the Middle Way."
You'll have to excuse me, I've just lost my mind and have to start over.
To me Buddhism with a soul (whether you call it atman, Buddha nature, or true self) doesn't sound true. It's a result of craving for existence. If this was what was meant, the Buddha would have made it more clear in the first teachings.
Apart from this final nirvana, the word nirvana is nowadays also often used for the time between enlightenment and final nirvana. So it has two meanings, sort of mixed up. But all is a bit clearer if you look at the actual meaning of the word, which is rooted in "going out". At enlightenment, there is no more rebirth, so the person 'goes out' already. But it is not final nirvana yet.
So those who think all Buddhists live for an afterlife, consider this.
Maybe this removes some confusion (or adds some.. )
Just for your reflection.
Metta!
Metta!
Living life with a realistic optimism toward the future which also encourages responsibility and integrity ... good stuff.
But the suttas provide some clarity: The Nibbana-with-residue is possible to see here and now. This is the knowledge of no further birth, the cessation of greed, anger and delusion. The other, nibbana-without-residue "wherin all modes of being utterly cease" is referring to the final-nibbana after the death of an enlightened being. Again, draw your own conclusions, but to me this phrasing quite clearly supports the view that nibbana is cessation.
So these two get mixed up. Often people think they are one and the same, maybe thinking what an enlightened being experiences while alife is the same as after dying. But that's not how it is. They have the same nature, but are not the same. Having this two-fold meaning of nibbana in mind removes a lot of confusion.
It's inaccurate to wonder whether an enlightened one exists after death or not, because such a question is asked with an idea of 'self' in mind.
Metta!
Have any people who don't believe in an afterlife had a meaningful life? I have no doubt that answer is yes.
"It [death] is a transition to a higher state of consciousness where you continue to perceive, to understand, to laugh, and to be able to grow.” (Brackets are mine.)
But that wasn't the question of the OP. It was whether one can have a meaningful life without an after-life. And I maintain that many people who do not believe in an after-life still have meaningful lives.
Pick someone famous who most would say had a meaningful life. Let's say Mother Theresa. If she was wrong and there is no heaven, does that mean her life was not meaningful?
I agree most people would attest to her having led a meaningful life.
However, I maintain that the salient point is that unless each of us as an individual - Mother Teresa, HHDL, Hitler or whoever, perceives themselves as having led a meaningful life, others interpretations are a moot point.
Buddhist philosophy, like no other body of knowledge which I have found, aligns well with this understanding.