Dreaming this is our only life

The empirical self is the self generally referring to one’s body as in ‘this is mine’, ‘I am this’, ‘this is my self’.  It is also the ‘me’.  In addition, our senses are for this self (the me) including mentality and it’s objects which is the sixth sense.

With such a bodily identification one has bought into the temporal system a tentative acceptance of this is all I am, there is nothing beyond this body after I die.  Religion with its afterlife is imaginary—not real. 

Taking this into account, can Buddhism convince such people that there is more to one’s life than just death at the end of its days?

The most persuasive arguments that there is postmortem survival come from near death experiences or NDEs not from Buddhist scripture which, by the way, speaks of rebirth and that consciousness (vijñāna) is the transmigrant from one life to the next.  Indeed, consciousness is one of the causes of rebirth and suffering as is deep attachment to what is conditioned, among other things.

Yet it remains that a social order comprised of consumers like ours isn’t likely to want to give up their attachments over such arguments even ones that rest solidly on NDEs even when their own arguments fall short while their emotions and their defiance slam the door shut on further discussions.

The real vehicle of suffering are the five aggregates into which we are thrown by our rebirth which we can’t seem to detach from.  This is also the meaning of samsara, that is, the seemingly endless cycles of death and rebirth.  In other words, rebirth is suffering insofar as we passionately cling to what is not our true self but instead cling to a false self (the me) which is empirical.