"Hungry Ghosts Outside the Wall" (video)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly based on Ven. Thanissaro verse translation of Tirokudda Kanda (Petavatthu 1.5, also in Khp 7)

Gilded alabaster Buddha, Wat Si Chum, Sukhothai, Thailand (slowboat.teamworkz.asia)

Hungry ghosts depicted on ancient scroll scavenging foul nutriment in charnel grounds

  .

Hungry ghost (preta or peta)

Outside the walls they [the hungry ghosts or pretas] stand, at the crossroads. At door posts they linger, returning to human homes of old.

 

But though a meal with plentiful food and drink is served, no one remembers them. Such is the karma (the legacy of well- and ill- done deeds) of living beings.

 

Who feels sympathy for dead relatives, give timely donations of appropriate food and drink -- exquisite and clean -- with the thought, "May this for our relatives' sake be! May our relatives be well and happy!"

 

Can hungry ghosts eat our happiness? No.

Those gathered there, assembled phantoms of relatives since deceased, with appreciation give their blessings for such plentiful food and drink (and thereby themselves make merit, so hard to make in that place of deprivation): "May our relatives live long because of whom we have gained [gifts]! We have been honored, and our donors are rewarded, too!"

 

Death and rebirth there, like life and addiction here, means insatiable hunger (Dimmu)

  

For there [in that gloomy realm or its earthly counterpart] there is no farming, no herding of docile beasts, no commerce, no trade with money.

 

They live on what is given them from here, hungry ghosts whose time is run out. As water raining upon a hill flows down to the valley, even so what is given here flows down to the benefit of the dead and dearly departed.

 

As rivers full of water fill the ocean full, even so does what is given here flow to the benefit of the dead and dearly departed.

 

The ancient Pali Buddhist canon has a section called "Ghost Stories" (Petavatthu). This is documentary video footage of ghosts (poltergeists) from "Unsolved Mysteries."

 

"He gave to me, she acted on my behalf, they were my relatives, companions, friends" -- offerings should be given for the sake of the dead when one reflects on things done in the past.

 

For no weeping, no sorrow, no other lament benefits the dead -- a waste for relatives who persist in that way. But when offerings are given, well-placed in the [noble] Sangha, it works for long-term benefit of the dead, who profit immediately.

 

In this way one's appropriate duty to dead relatives [defined by the Buddha as going back seven generations] has been shown! Great honor has been done for the sake of the departed! And monastics [preservers and intensive practitioners of the Dharma] have been given strength: The merit one thereby acquires [for oneself as the giver] is not small.

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Secret Tibetan Book of the Dead (video)

Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; DP (video); BD (art)

Tibetan Book of the Dead Comic (Bardo Thodol/flickriver.com)

  

Tibetan lamas in elaborate ritual (sacbee.com)

What will we do at death? Unless we are guided during the dying process, many of us will react habitually in the liminal intermediate (bardo) world. That world of loud and scary spirits, shapeshifters and oddities (where the wild things are), is not likely to lead us to good choices. A confident guide in this world can lead one to more profitable options for rebirth.

(bardo thodol/flickriver.com)

Of course, this is dependent on cultural norms and assumptions. These instructions would not likely help Finnish Christians or African Buddhists (yes, there are African Buddhists) because they are not steeped in Tibetan lore. Other groups will have other lore that applies. Why? It is because so much of our experience is based on perception, assumptions, and a general paradigm religion introduces us to. We think science is our religion, with white clad priests, a secret language open to all but mastered by only a few in ultra exclusive journals, strict rituals (experimental design), and gatekeepers galore.
 
But even that belief system, far from being "objective" or able to find absolute truth, is full of lore and expectations about postmortem experience. Consciousness persists, form persists (in subtler states of matter), feeling, perception, formation all persist. Death is no obstacle to anything but memory and opportunity. Do what can be done now with a long future in mind. Enjoy what can be enjoyed here because soon it will be forgotten in detail yet traced in our karma. Actions lead to habits, which lead to the formation of our character. But what about doubters? We survive death; we pre-exist life?

Liberation through Hearing

Wisdom Quarterly Wikipedia edit

The Bardo Thodol, or Liberation Through Hearing in the Intermediate State, is often referred to in the West by the more casual title, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a name which draws a parallel to another funerary text, The Egyptian Book of the Dead.

The Tibetan text describes experiences the individual consciousness has after death, during the interval in between death and the next rebirth. It is is intended to guide one through safely. The interval is known in Tibetan as the bardo. The text also includes chapters on the signs of death and rituals to undertake when death is closing in, or has taken place. It is internationally famous, the most widespread work of Tibetan Nyingma literature.

Tibetans bow at Chinese confiscated palace

According to Tibetan tradition, the book was composed in the eighth century by Padmasambhava, as written down by his primary student, Yeshe Tsogyal. It was buried in the Gampo hills in central Tibet and subsequently discovered by a Tibetan terton, Karma Lingpa, in the 14th century. There were variants of the book among different sects. 

It was first published in 1927 by Oxford University Press. Dr. Walter Y. Evans-Wentz chose this title because of the parallels he found with the Egyptian work. It is recited by Tibetan Buddhist lamas over a dying or recently deceased person, or sometimes over an effigy of the deceased.

• (Saba Jakeman) It doesn't matter where or when someone important is born. That's 99% of the problem right there. Ignorant sheep[ple] believe that it takes a special magical man to save us from ourselves. "Oh, but he was born here, belongs to us...and we're correct." What a bunch of rubbish. We're all equally accountable to one another. We're ALL as important as the Buddha or Jesus. It is WE who must change things. The time is always NOW. And the "savior" is always US.
  
  (Peter Hackman) I don't believe in mystical Sky People or magical Messiahs [like Wisdom Quarterly does]. I'm comfortable with the idea of a complete Void after I die. [Who wouldn't prefer that? Wouldn't it be nice if it all just ended and we could rest without consciousness or karmic consequences?] However, I'm also aware that our brains are alive seven minutes after we die and are completely cut off from external stimuli, which then frees processing speed that is otherwise bound to everyday functioning, rendering time irrelevant and allowing the mind to craft its own reality, yielding an eternity's worth of experience before we finally wink out... [In Buddhism this dangerous, albeit comforting, view is called Annihilationism, the idea that the person is utterly annihilated at death. It is the counterpart to another wrong view called Eternalism. It is a very weighty wrong view, particularly when accompanied by the view that karma has no efficacy after this life.]