So this
learning the practice
is so important for our world.
And each of us has to be an instrument of peace
an instrument of mindfulness
and compassion
in order to make the world a better place
for our children to live.
So karma means just "action"
action as a cause
that will bring about
the fruit of action
And your continuation body
depends entirely on your action.
Your diploma
your bank account
you cannot bring with you
What you bring with you
is your action
Your action is triple:
thinking, speaking, acting.
And when you look at these things
you see yourself
you see your continuation body.
You don't say that when...
after the disintegration of this body
"I am no longer there"
[or] "I will be no longer there"
You are always there
because you are your own action.
The French philosopher
Jean-Paul Sartre
he has come very close to that idea
He tried to have a definition of "Man"
He knows that Man is not his body, his feelings.
Very close to Buddhism
although he belonged to
the school of Existentialism
And his statement is:
"Man is the totality of his acts."
That is what Sartre said:
"L'homme est la somme de ses actes."
"L'homme...
"est la somme...
"...de ses actes."
So we, what are we?
We are our action
And we are continued by our action
And it's not so difficult
to see our continuation body
And we don't need
to wait until the
complete disintegration of this body
in order to begin to see our continuation body
Like the cloud
she doesn't need to be transformed entirely into the rain
in order to see
her continuation body
And all of us have to practice the same
we have to see our continuation body now
I am able to see my continuation body now
This is [like] the water that is being boiled in a pot
and one day you don't see that body anymore
and you say that "Thay is dead"
It's not true
I will never die
My nature is the nature of the cloud
It is impossible for a cloud to die
It's impossible for Thay to die
I continue always
["Yeah!"]
[laughter]
And you have to be able to see
Thay's continuation body now
If you look into yourself you see
you continue Thay in some way
Thay is in you
Thay is in his friends, his disciples
in many ways
And Thay is operating in Vietnam, in America
in the schools, in the prisons, in the army
So, if you have the "eyes of signlessness"
you are not confined to this form
You can see the cloud in your tea
And you don't cry anymore
about
the absence of the form of the cloud in the sky
So the shortest answer to the question
"What happens when you die"
is that
what happens when you die
is you don't die