"Where did Luo go?" I kept asking myself at that harrowing moment. Bewildered, I asked my Dad the same question when I went home that day. He scratched his head and replied, "Son, Confucius once said, 'You know nothing about life; how would you know anything about death?' So I'm sorry, I can't answer your question!" Time flies. It has been almost 30 years since I asked my Dad that question. I trust he still has no answer for me. In fact, he often gets very upset when I bring up the topic of death in our conversations. I cannot blame my Dad for his attitude toward death. Being a follower of Confucianism, he can argue that he heartily abides by the Fundamental Teacher's admonition to pay no attention to death. But I know he gets upset whenever he hears about death since it is still something inscrutable even to an 80-year-old man like him. The fear of death is so unbearable that he simply chooses to evade it. In fact, death will not leave my Dad or any one of us alone, even if we take an evasive attitude toward it. I notice that Christians, Jews, Muslims, and followers of other faiths can often face death bravely since they believe that it is the time when they go to the kingdom of God to be reunited with their deceased friends and relatives. What is the Buddhist perspective regarding this matter?

In Buddhism, we often hear people say that such-and-such a monk has "attained nirvana," by which they mean to say that he has died. Actually, nirvana has a more profound meaning than just physical demise. When spiritual cultivators thoroughly eradicate their delusions and egos and when their minds transcend exterior circumstances and feel at ease at all times, we say they have attained nirvana. According to the Buddha, nirvana is a high level of spiritual training that can be obtained when people are still alive.

The Buddha also said that people will be able to attain nirvana once they remove their bad karma and bring their karmic retributions to an end. He explained that our coming and going back and forth in the cycle of life and death is due to the pull of karma, which is the accumulation of our actions (when a person does many good deeds in his life, he will be upgraded spiritually; otherwise, if he does more bad deeds than good, he will be degraded). Once we are born into this world, we cannot deny the fact of our physical existence nor can we completely eliminate the pulling force of our bad karma if we want to release ourselves from the chains of life and death.

The Buddha explained that when people have delusions and perplexity in their minds, they create a lot of bad karma for themselves. They must then bear the retributions of bad karma and they become tightly bound to the cycle of reincarnation. However, he pointed out that if we can eradicate the delusions in our minds and rid ourselves of our egocentric and unnecessary attachments by understanding that there is "no I," that my existence is ephemeral and entirely dependent on conditions around me, the tremendous influence of karma can be extinguished and the chains of life and death can be severed. We can then attain nirvana.

Now, another interesting question pops up in my mind: Where do we go after we attain nirvana? I presume it will be just as hard to answer this question as to explain a magnificent sunset to blind people or to trace where the fire goes after we blow out a candle. Nirvana is a state of mind that is beyond description and imagination. Once we attain it through industrious spiritual cultivation, our bodies, minds, and souls will be integrated with the whole universe. When that state is achieved, there is no distinction between death and nirvana, stupidity and wisdom, you and me, etc. It is the most wonderful manifestation of the power of the buddha-nature.