Death and Buddhism

How does Buddhism deal with death? A Buddhist looks at death as a breaking apart of the material of which we are composed. However Buddhism does not look as death as a continuation of the soul but as an awakening. Dying and being reborn has been compared by some Buddhist as a candle flame. When the flame of one lit candle is touched to the wick of an unlighted candle, the light passes from one …

…relief, because we know the body is as sure to die as it was born. Death is all around us. We will die and all the people we love will die. Understood this way, the only sensible course of action seems to be to seek that state where death cannot follow: Nirvana, the state of being awake. This is how Buddhism addresses the issue of death, and it has an intuitive, practical logic to it.