As I look back on my life, I am realising how profound — and yet mysterious as to its exact working — is the law of causes and effects.
In the context of cause and effect, the following excerpt is interesting and informative:
“Death is a most crucial time for every one of us, a critical opportunity to affect our futures. When we die, all of us, rich or poor, await the same consequences.
At death, neither money, power, nor friends, not even our cherished body, can come to our aid.
Only the habits and energies—the karma [causes and effects]—that have been stored up in our minds will create the manifestations of our next life, our future experiences.
So to prepare for death, our most important strategy is to gain spiritual understanding and experience while we are still alive. When death arrives, it will be too late to cry for help.”
Source: Tulku Thondup. Enlightened Journey: Buddhist Practice as Daily Life. Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications, 1995.
Karma: Cause and Effect
The world’s great religions agree that a kind and helpful life will lead to a happy and peaceful existence after death, whereas a hateful and harmful one will bring harsh consequences.
Christianity, for example, extols good works and acts of charity, and Judaism urges the performance of good deeds commanded by the Torah. Buddhists speak of merits, which we accumulate by cultivating positive thoughts and deeds.
These and other traditions accept that a natural law of causation operates in our universe. Karma is the word that Buddhists use for this law, which governs every event.
Every mental and physical action initiated by mental volition becomes a cause that precipitates an individual effect as the result; Buddhism, in particular, teaches in great detail what exact consequences will follow from what specific acts.
Generally speaking, the patterns of positive thoughts, emotions, words, and deeds cause happiness, while negative mental and physical actions cause suffering – the events of life’s cycle. …
The changing theatres of life, death, and after death take place neither by choice nor by chance.
No one else has created them for us. They are reflections and reactions of our own thoughts, words, and deeds.
Therefore, we must train our minds and practice steadily to secure a happy and peaceful death and rebirth.
Source: Based on Thondup, Tulku. Peaceful Death, Joyful Rebirth: A Tibetan Buddhist Guidebook. Shambhala. Kindle Edition.
How do we know that rebirth is possible?
Although modern science may not be able to produce definite proof to answer this question,
we should not dismiss the testimony of traditional authorities in the field of spiritual practice and experience,
who have investigated the truths of existence.
Rebirth or reincarnation is a major pillar of several Eastern belief systems,
and some mystical Jewish schools also accept that rebirths occur in a continuous wheel of life.
(Thondup, Tulku. Peaceful Death, Joyful Rebirth: A Tibetan Buddhist Guidebook. Shambhala. Kindle Edition.)