Buddhists do not believe that death is the end of life. When one dies, one's consciousness leaves and enters one of the six paths of rebirth.
Heavenly Beings
Humans
Asuras are beings who have many good things in life, but still like to fight. They appear in the heavens or on earth as people or animals.
Hungry ghosts are beings who suffer from constant hunger.
Hell-beings
These are the six states on the wheel of life. At the top are the heavens, where everyone is happy. Below are the hells where the suffering is unbearable. Beings can rise or fall from one path to another. If one does good deeds, one will be born into the paths of gods, humans, or asuras. If one does evil deeds, one will be born into the paths of animals, hungry ghosts, or hell-beings. From one life to the next one can suddenly change from an human to an animal or from a ghost to a hell-being, according to the things one has done.
How to Escape the Turning Wheel
The wheel of life and death is kept turning by the three poisons of greed, hatred, and stupidity. By cutting off the three poisons, we can escape the wheel and become enlightened. There are four stages of enlightenment.
Buddhas- perfect in enlightenment.
Bodhisattvas- enlighten themselves as well as others.
Pratyekabuddhas- hermits who retreat from the world to enlighten themselves.
Arhats- enlighten themselves.
(1) Change (2) Suffering (3) no 'I'
The first, Change, points out the basic fact that nothing in the world is fixed or permanent. We ourselves are not the same people, either physically, emotionally or mentally, that we were ten years - or even ten minutes ago! Living as we do, then, as shifting beings upon shifting sands, it is not possible for us to find lasting security.
As regards the second Sign, we have already seen how it was the experience of Suffering that sent the Buddha off on his great spiritual quest, though suffering is not a very good translation of the original word, dukkha. Dukkha implies the generally unsatisfactory and imperfect nature of life. However, it does not follow that Buddhists believe that life is all suffering. Buddhists do believe that there is happiness in life, but know that it does not last and that even in the most fortunate of lives there is suffering. Happiness is subject to the law of change and impermanence.
No-I, the third Sign, is a little more difficult.
Buddhists do not believe that there is anything everlasting or unchangeable in human beings, no soul or self in which a stable sense of 'I' might anchor itself. The whole idea of 'I' is in fact a basically false one that tries to set itself up in an unstable and temporary collection of elements. Take the traditional analogy of a cart. A cart may be broken down into its basic components -axle, wheels, shafts, sides, etc. Then the cart is no more; all we have is a pile of components. In the same way 'I' am made up of various elements or aggregates (khandhas): form (rupa-khandha), feeling-sensation (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral), (vedana-khandha), perception (sanna-khandha), volitional mental activities (sankhara-khandha), sense consciousness (vinnana-khandha).
