What do you think of the Dalai Lama's thoughts on death and rebirth? See link.

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A2A, hi Narinder!

“The process of dying begins with the dissolution of the elements within the body. It has eight stages, beginning with the dissolution of the earth element, then the water, fire and wind elements. The color: appearance of a white vision, increase of the red element, black near-attainment, and finally the clear light of death.

That’s a cute way of visualizing it. I consider this to be an example of esotericism in spirituality and it’s something I actively try to avoid in my own thinking.

When I was younger I read an awful lot of esoteric spiritual musings. People creating spiritual structure for structure’s sake. It was like they simply couldn’t handle the idea that things in that world might not actually have a form.

After awhile you get the sense that these people wanted to be able to understand the spiritual on their own terms. It doesn’t work that way, the spiritual is way bigger than you could ever hope to really comprehend.

One time, I ran into a guy who ran a spiritual group way out in the country. His published spiritual writings couldn’t keep to the normal 4 elements, he had to make room for a full 16 elements. It had the distinct flavor of a Dungeons and Dragons rulebook.

Esotericism has the useful property of engaging the mind. Further down, the Dalai Lama states that you can use his articulated process of dying to get insight on how better to live in this one. This is good spiritual pedagogy and I’d expect nothing less from the de-facto BDFL of Buddhism.

But as you mature spiritually you shed the need for all the intellectual structure and get more comfortable dealing in a world without any real answers.

I think I’ll leave it there and not try to infect the answer with my own understanding of death.