The yearning to understand, even transcend, the finality of death is one of the most defining aspects of our humanness. In America, there is a polarity between the modern, rationalistic, scientific view that death is final and this life is all there is, and every single spiritual and religious tradition that claims, in one way or another, that this life is not the end because we are more than the body and mind. Wisely, the Zen Master when queried by his student as to what happens after life, smiled and said,” I do not know, I am a Zen Master not a dead Zen Master.” No view resolves the mystery of death but each offers what I call moment truths that can enhance life.
The perception that death is final has generated a full-scale assault on illness in the last century: It’s doubled life spans and dramatically lowered infant mortality. The starkness of this view has created a fierce desire to defeat death that has given us extraordinary more life. Moreover, there is a pleasure (nihilist?) for those of us who like finite answers, a comfort to those of us for whom the prospect of continuing beyond the body and mind we know is more frightening than ending in dust.
The downside of this modern view is that it can create extreme fear of death. Death becomes the enemy and so we lock it away, sanitize it, deny it, make believe we can fool it, are overly youth conscious and even become preoccupied with making sure people do not take dying into their own hands. More than half our national health budget goes to the last months of life when little or nothing can be done, which diverts resources from health care that could enhance people’s lives. The finality of death view can distort everything from psychology to public policy.

The intuition that death is not final and that there is some continuity, something more than just this life, whether in its Western, Eastern, or New Age expressions, from relocation theories to presumptions that death is an illusion, can mitigate our fear of death and provide comfort, hope and even inspiration. And for some of us knowing that karma and reincarnation exist leads to living more conscientiously aware that our actions will affect our rebirth.
But the same after- life intuitions that generate meaning can lead to resignation and a dismissal of this world, a complacency that we have lifetimes ahead of us to work on our character. And even more damaging, many believers deal with the uncertainty inherent in any teachings about the after life by turning death and whatever may or may not follow into a rigid reward and punishment operation in which they know precisely who is entitled to an after-life and what sort of after-life it will be.
The finality of death and after-life intuitions are both moment truths and our challenge is to know when to embrace which and how lightly. I try to leave myself open to the ever- shifting quality of the truths about what happens after we die. The tensions, mysteries, and not-knowing surrounding death are actually invitations to seek unfolding levels of insight and trust in our own experience. If we hold on too tightly to any one view of death we risk losing depth of the human experience. The poet Rilke wrote, “try to love the questions themselves…live everything…live into the answers.”
Remain open and you could be surprised. My dead grandfather once came to me in a waking dream; I couldn’t believe it when
I heard his voice, but there it was clear as a bell. He had always been very tough on me, pushing me to follow a conventional path to success and giving me such a hard time about my lifestyle - hair, clothes, music, girl friends, etc. – regularly proclaiming I was going to be a bum. Before he died, I’d become an assistant rabbi at a major congregation, finally making him happy. But in my waking dream, he urged me, with uncharacteristic gentleness, to leave that very job to take a far more risky position I’d been considering.
Projection? True? Ontologically Real? In this realm, I have decided, same thing different labels. I took the job, all has been well. Love conquered death.
My theory of death? Whatever theory helps us harness death for the service of life…whichever theory helps me live with more presence and compassion. I guess the question about life-after death is less about death than about what kind of person we want to be so we can die that much more fully alive.