Concepts of Death

#1 || Introduction

I borrowed a book from my friend, it is a interesting book with doodles.

There is a collection about how different people think about death in tradition, or with the background of religious believes.

In the following journals, I will invite different people to draw a picture to show their concept of death like mine (below), and take the book as a reference to compare the difference of thoughts between the past and now.

#2 || Indonesian: Danienta (19)

The concept of Soul OBE (Out-of-Body Experience) is common when people talk about life after death.

#3 || Czech - Vietnamese: Sarah (21)

I found the most similar concept from the book which also mentioned about become a light after death:

It is actually a concept of transmigration and majorly seen in the countries with Brahman concepts like India.

#4 || Australian: Hannah C. (17)

The picture Hannah drew is also about the souls will moved to other world, which is also a concept of OBE.

#5 || Australia Aboriginal: Kira Hamilton (21)

I'm so glad to have Kira's picture as her identity is so special to me!

Australia Aboriginals think people will go to the sun after death.

#6 || Japanese - Australian: Homame Atkinson (17)

In my view, Homame drew a phoenix which symbolizes rebirth.

As her drawing related to bird, let me share the ethnic which believes the dead turns to birds. The Slav believes the soul will become birds after death.

#7 || Sri Lanka: Kasundri Kulasinghe (14)

The concept of Soul OBE (Out-of-Body Experience) is common when people talk about life after death.

#8 || Papua New Guinea: Tiana Reimann (17)

There is a dominator of death in different religious, and people believe he will takes the soul away from people and cause death.

I'm not sure if Tiana is drawing 2 islands in the picture or not, but according to the reference, people from Papua New Guinea think that the dead will go to another island and live like living people. When they become old on that island, they will molt their old body and turn to a baby again, and back to the world (island) of us.

#9 || Theravada Buddhism: 法勇法師,Wat Phra Dhammakaya Hong Kong

Luang Phi (an appellation calls "young monk" in Thai) drew a ball of light. He said that people with different attitude will affect what they become or where they go after death. People behave good in their life just like planting a sapling of good, in the concept of "planting good root, getting good fruit", He believe that we will the fruit after this life. When we died, we will get our fruit, good or bad, is depends on our heart, our attitude.

Theravada Buddhism is similar to the original Buddhism which Sakyamuni (Buddha) developed from  Brahman, and that's why we can see the concepts are very similar.

#10 || Esoteric Buddhism: Reyau Yau (20)

Esoteric Buddhists believe people will see a light after death, and it is actually the light of their mind; if their mind is positive and good, the light would be brighter and they may follow their master, deity and the Custodian, and then quit the cycle of transmigration.

#11 || Christianity: Cherie Chow (19)

Christians' concept of death is also believe that the behavior in this life will affect where they go in the next life, either to Heaven or the Hell.

#12 || Skihism: Gurmel Singh, Manager & Religious Teacher at Sikh Temple

Mr Singh told us it is hard to transmigrate to human, the result of transmigration will be affected by the desires and actions in the previous life. When became human, with good desires, action and meditation, we will unite with God and will never birth and death. He use water drops to metaphor the process of transmigration, "some water drops on dirt, some drops on grass, and some on the ocean. When the water drops drops into ocean, they became a part of the ocean and will never be separated."

Mr Singh's concept is also about transmigration but seems that in his concept, the transmigration has a sequence, from animal to bird, insects, trees and finally human.

Mr Singh's explanation recording:

#13 || Hinduism: Abbot of Hindu Temple 

The abbot told that we die every moment because our body constructed by cells.

It's surprise that the abbot of Hindu Temple was not talking about some spiritual concepts but some scientific theory. As I expected that he would talk about transmigration like Buddhism and Skihism.

Abbot's explanation recording:

#14 || Conclusion and New Concepts

Many people nowadays believe death is about spirits, no matter what nationality; seldom of them mentioned about some scientific results or reality. In Asia, most of the religions believe transmigration and the behaviors of this life will affect the result after death. Maybe this is the way that religious encourage the believers to be good.

In US, there is a technology calls Cryonic to extend one's life by pausing his/her heart by low temperature. The company, Alcor, want to help people to survive until the future to have a better life, like for people with illness, they can get new technology treatments in the future, and survived instead of killed by disease. The technology is still in research process but there are 123 people registered as patients.

More information on: http://www.alcor.org

I think this technology is quite unbelievable and sounds like science fiction, it seems we can pause and start again in future, just like leapt through time. I would like to try if the technology is well-developed.

#15 || Comment on GE1311

It's glad to be one of the course and the format of it is different from other GE courses. I love the form of interactive just like in the guest lecture, students are active to ask because of interesting topic. For the other lectures, sometimes it's too informative and unidirectional, just like those talking about statistics, theories etc. Honestly it's boring just like other course, I prefer to transform those information in an interactive way. Anyway, thank Yun for your teaching and organizing of this brand new course!

For the feeling about death, I always feel sad even until now. An example to explain is one day I was having my animal communication lesson and doing the passed-away communication, I cried when the instructor guiding us to the rainbow bridge (not yet arrive) in meditation. I can't explain why but I am quite moved by the topic of separation. I hope I can get over to this issue one day.