godnotgod
Thou art That
I think the Japanese Buddhist poems provide valuable insight to this
question. I would like to cite two of them in particular.
***
Poem number one:
Koko ni kie
kashiko ni musubu
mizu no awa no
ukiyo ni meguru
mi ni koso arikere.
This body
keeps returning
to the sad world
like foam
on the water that
disappears here
to be reborn
over there.
Poem number two:
Adame naki
mi wa ukigumo ni
yosoetsutsu
hate wa sore ni zo
narihatenu beki.
This brief body,
often likened
to floating clouds,
in the end
must become that.
***
In summary, our bodies and the surrounding environment both share the attribute of pure existence. As such, difference between life and death is irrelevant from the perspective of existence, because it is indeed present in both. It is relevant for us as sentient beings, but not for us as aspects of reality. Reality has one body, the body of Mahavairocana Buddha, or Dainichi Nyorai, which is the embodiment of the emptiness. Perhaps it would be less complex to say that reality is emptiness and all things are part of it, whether dead or alive, organic or inorganic, matter-based or otherwise.
Thus, what is after death is what was before birth, and most importantly, what is right now. Reality exists in any case.
The distinction needs to be made between the Reality you mention, which is Ultimate Reality, as compared to our conditioned 'reality'.
Thank you for the poetry.
Here are a couple more, from Zen:
Breathing in, breathing out,
Moving forward, moving back,
Living, dying, coming, going
Like two arrows meeting in flight,
In the midst of nothingness
Is the road that goes directly
to my true home.
- Gesshu Soko
Empty handed I entered the world.
Barefoot I leave it.
My coming, my going-
Two simple happenings
That got entangled.
- Kozan
More here, if you like:
The Magical Zen Death Poems | superaalifragilistic
Japanese Death Poems
Death Poems