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The Tibetan Buddhist Library

Death, Intermediate State and Rebirth

Death

Through the afflictions of desire, hatred and ignorance, contaminated karma (actions) are performed, which establish potencies in the mind in the form of pre-dispositions. When a lifetime finishes, a person who has such pre-dispositions is born again in cyclic existence with a mind and body appropriated through these contaminated causes. These capacities that are already in our mental continuums are nourished by attachment and grasping, leading to a bad or good rebirth.

Intermediate state

Except for those reborn in the formless realms of infinite space, infinite consciousness, "nothingness" or peak of cyclic existence, for whom the new life begins immediately upon death. The intermediate being has all five senses, but also clairvoyance, unobstructiveness and an ability to arrive immediately wherever he or she wants.

Rebirth

The connection to a life is made under the influence of desire, hatred and ignorance. Until these afflictions are overcome, one is as if bound in chains without freedom.

To overcome the sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death, desire, hatred and confusion must be overcome. Their root, in turn, is ignorance -- the conception of an inherent existence of persons and other phenomena. If ignorance is eliminated, then the contaminated actions that depend on it are stopped.




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