Another perspective on such topics is to not take them so literally.

The texts can be extremely useful not just for the friends and family of the deceased, but also for when there is no literal loss of life and just intense life changes (‘ego death’, ‘rebirth’).

Regarding judgement, you could look at this as simple data analysis to make decisions on one’s life - did the efforts achieve the desired outcomes? We’re the efforts insufficient? Was the impact of prior life choices as expected?

With esoteric teachings, assuming they can only be useful when followed religiously would be akin to reading programming tutorials and assuming they are only for creating todo lists and chat apps(even if they may be!)

The answer is midway through the article "Sitting with my relatives and the lamas, I remembered that The Tibetan Book of the Dead is meant to be as much for the living as the dead. Bardo is generally viewed as the journey from death to rebirth, but birth to death is also a bardo."

Like many traditions surrounding death, it has nothing to do with the one who has passed but rather is a process for those still living to grieve and/or reflect upon their own lives.

So why is this on HN? Well, probably because it has generally been a place for intellectual curiosity of all types.

I think we need a much deeper understanding of consciousness before I’m comfortable with scientific arguments ruling things out. Science is greatest when it’s humble about what it knows and doesn’t. (It’s through this humility that science leads to deeper understanding than doctrine.)

Relatedly, NDE stories can be incredibly compelling. YouTube of course has many at the ready. It’s definitely not rigorous nor science, but does seem like something could be there.

In my opinion, science has no tools to verify life after death, regardless of what one believes. Besides, the onus of (dis)proving life after death is for the individual, not for the religious group. Most of them already have their systems set up.

My understanding is that Buddhism doesn't say that you "stand before judgment", but instead explain what is the process of life and death, cause and effect, that was observed through the eyes of superior individuals who cultivated and developed great concentration and wisdom.

And “Tomorrow Never Knows” by some ancient pop band called the Beatles.

Freeing oneself from fixation, as one example.

and ... what have you learnt to apply in your everyday life from it?