No.274 - When a good man dies with cloudy mind, what will happen to his consciousness?

Question (M2):  When a good man dies with cloudy mind, what will happen to his consciousness? Is there interval period in between birth or does he suddenly move to another body?

Than Ajahn:  When a person dies, his mind will be taken over by his kamma. When you are still alive, you’re doing both good and bad kamma. It’s like the company’s account where there are income and expense. At the end of the year, when you close the company’s account, you’ll check the balance, right? You’ll check whether you have more income than expense or less income than the expense. If the expense is more than the income, you go bankrupt. If the income is more than the expense, you have a profit.

It’s the same way when you die. The kamma you have accummulated while you are still alive will take stock of the balance and determine what’s going to happen to your mind. If your bad kamma is more than your good kamma, the bad kamma will cause your mind to go to the undesirable state of mind, such as to become a hungry ghost, a scary ghost, a being in hell or an animal. If your good kamma is more than your bad kamma, your good kamma will make you to become a deva. There are many different levels of devas or angels depending on the amount of good kamma that you have done. The more good kamma you have done, the higher level of existence you will be born into and the more happiness you will experience.

But eventually, when this kamma expires, you will come back and take a new body. You’ll be reborn as a human again and the process starts all over again. It’s because you have the desire to use the body to see, to hear, to feel, to touch, to find happiness through your body. And in the process of finding happiness, your might do some bad kamma. If you are lucky, you may be born as someone who has a lot of resources, a lot of money, so that you don’t have to do bad kamma. You can do more good kamma. When you have more money than you need, you can share it with others, you can help others. You do good kamma. At the end of the body’s lifespan, this good kamma and bad kamma will balance out again. Whichever kamma that has more balance will then take over the mind.

This cycle will keep going until you meet the Buddha’s teachings that teach you if you want to stop this process of rebirth, you have to get rid of your desire to use the body to find happiness. Your desire is the driving force that cause you to be reborn in the 3 realms of existence. If you can get rid of all your desires, then there will be nothing to drive you to be reborn. You are in nibbāna where there is no rebirth. In nibbāna, there is peace and happiness. The causes of restlessness and agitation which are your desires have been completely eliminated from the mind. Hence, the mind remains at peace and happy all the time. No need to take birth anymore.

“Dhamma in English, Jun 11, 2018.”

By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto

www.phrasuchart.com

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