CHANGING TiDES AND TiMES
Examination of Alaya and Karma
Throughout the world, there are many religions and spiritual traditions that make the assumption that there is something beyond death. On this basis, they form many teachings. Certainly, there would be no purpose in practicing or propagating their teachings if, in fact, the mind actually died with the body. Regardless of the particular dogma, propagation of their moral code hinges upon the asserted belief that what one does now can influence one's experience in the after-death state.
Indeed, in Buddhism the continuity of the mind is an important point. Mind is not something that comes into being at the beginning of the life of the physical body, nor is it something that ends with the physical body's death. Its continuity, from one state of existence to another, has a great influence on and definite connection with each successive state. In the sense that this empty, clear, and unimpeded nature of mind has always been experienced and always will be experienced, mind itself is eternal. There always will be mind, just as there always has been mind, and, continually, this mind experiences various states of confusion and suffering. This is what the Buddha termed samsara, or the cycle of conditioned rebirth, from one state of experience to another.
In samsara, that which is always being experienced is the content of the mind, rather than the nature of mind itself. Such