(15) "What Happens When We Die?" | Clip from a Dharma talk by Thich Nhat Hanh, 2014 06 17, PV

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