Blurb:

Every culture is concerned about what happens to people when they die. Even
when the dominant religion/ideology provides an answer, an examination of
what people actually say and do generally discloses various inconsistences,
for example between what they claim to believe and what their actions (notably
rituals) suggest that they believe or at least consider possible. In every
traditional Buddhist society, adherents are supposed to believe in rebirth, a
fate which only those who achieve enlightenment escape, and yet in both
the Indian and the Chinese Buddhist traditions people worship and to some
extent interact with their dead ancestors and in doing so preserve local pre-
Buddhist beliefs and customs. In both traditions there are likewise inconsistencies
between what people believe about themselves and what they believe
about others, as well as beliefs about how to treat dead parents and how to
treat dead strangers. Much in the observable mixture of beliefs and practices
may be ascribed to the Buddha himself.