In ‘The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor’, the first emperor of China (Qin Shihuang), after his conquest of the whole of China, felt compelled to conquer what he perceived to be his last enemy – death, because he wanted for more than the span of a single normal life to fulfill his further ambitions. In short, he wanted immortality. What he didn’t realise was that what he really needed was peace of mind, to make do with his impending and inevitable demise. Death wasn’t his real enemy; craving to live on and on was what kept contentment and happiness at bay.
His worldly ambition and fear of death held him prisoner, even though he had ‘all under heaven’ (the whole of China) to roam freely in. Nothing that he conquered could be brought over to his next life, even though he desperately attempts to do this by planning for a mass burial of treasures and even armies of terracotta soldiers. Wanting immortality to hold on to everything worldly would only mean the immortality of suffering – because it can never be done. There are only two ways to attain eternal life – to be reborn in Pure Land, where the constant creation of merits sustain one’s life indefintely, and/or to realise the deathlessness of Buddhahood!