Where Do You Go When You Die?
Uncover your deepest knowing
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Words: 790 | Normal Reading: 4 minutes | Slow Reading: 8 minutes
** This article draws inspiration from a story shared by the spiritual teacher Jack Kornfield in his Dharma Talk and Heart Wisdom Podcast – Ep. 233: Wisdom is Playful. You can watch or listen here.**
Where Do You Go When You Die?
Some years ago, a friend who was one of the most beloved physician healers in Western Massachusetts died. His family and community honored his transition with great care. A Tibetan Lama was invited to chant, they observed forty-nine days of prayer, practiced visualizations, bathed his body with reverence, and made many offerings.
Yet even after all this, his wife wondered: Where was her husband after death? Seeking clarity, she first visited a Sufi master they had once practiced with and asked, “Do you have a sense of where he is?” The master closed his eyes and said, “Yes, I have been following him. He is now among the saints, in Sufi heaven.” She felt comforted.
Then she ran into the Tibetan Lama who had helped with her husband’s transition. “I’ve been wondering how he’s doing,” she told him. The Lama nodded. “Yes, I’ve been tracking him through the bardo. He is in a particular state of transition and will soon move into another.” She listened. It was a different perspective, but perhaps, she thought, it could also be true.
A week later, she met a Hindu guru they had once studied with. Without her even asking, he said, “Oh, I have seen your husband in meditation. He is already in the womb of a woman in Washington DC, preparing for his next birth.”
Three different teachers. Three entirely different answers.
She was left with uncertainty. Who was right?
She came to Jack Kornfield, seeking clarity. But instead of offering another answer, he gently asked her, “Leaving aside what spiritual teachers have told you, what is it that you know yourself, truth that no one could tell you different because you know it so deeply? What are the things you actually know? You may not be able to know where your husband is, but what are the deepest knowings you have?”
She began to get still, and then answered, “One of the things I know that no one can tell me different is that everything changes. Everything that appears or arises eventually disappears. Everything that’s born dies. It’s all impermanence, it’s all in change.”
Jack nodded, “Yes. What else do you know?”
She continued, “I’ve seen that when I cling to what changes, I suffer. And when I allow life to move as it does—coming and going—I am at peace.”
I’ve also learned that I can’t stop pleasure and pain, praise and blame, gain and loss. They all keep coming no matter what I try to do. When I get lost in reaction, I suffer a lot. When I relax and come back to my practice of resting in Being, it all goes easier.
I also learned that in the end it’s love that matters and not anyone’s ideas about things. This has gotten even clearer with my husband‘s death.”
She did not need more answers. What she had discovered was deeper than any idea about where her husband had gone. She had touched the formless dimension within herself. It’s the space of stillness, of knowing beyond mind.
Zen Master Soen Sa Nim would say: You already understand. You already know.
So I Ask You, Reading this Now:
Take a breath. Become still.
What do you know no matter what any lamas, sufi masters, swamis, and gurus might say? What are the most profound truths you know about this human experience?
What is it that you know—not with your mind, but with your whole being? Not because a teacher has told you, not because you have read it somewhere, but because it is directly experienced in this moment?
What remains unchanged in the midst of all change?
Through this depth of presence, bring to mind any question or difficulty that weighs on you. Instead of searching for answers outside yourself, turn inward. What does the most silent, compassionate part of you say?
The beauty of true wisdom is that it is not intellectual. It arises in the space where thought subsides. As the Tao Te Ching reminds us:
"If you lose touch with the Source, you stumble in confusion and fear. But when you remember you are eternal awareness, you move through life with ease—patient, amused, kind-hearted as a grandmother, dignified as a king. Rooted in the mystery of Tao, you can deal with whatever life brings you. And even when death comes, you remain at peace."
So, the invitation is simple: Return to presence, rest in Being, and let go of the need for answers. What is needed will reveal itself in the stillness.
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