Life is everything that surrounds a body that possess a spirit and ideally a intelligent being. But not only that, life is every bit of energy, in all animate or non animate objects, and goes beyond our body or even death.

The body is the vessel for the spirit. But not only that, because the material body just by it self it is nothing, but merging with a spirit and if you evolve enough it can reach perfection. Accordantly with modern science is just DNA, in my perspective the the material body seams to be a state of evolution.

The Spirit is the lifetime energy that lives in the body up to a certain point, after undergoes transformations and can find another body to improve himself. If it hit a degree of evolution no longer need the material body. The spirit is also what distinguishes each of each (a body can not have two spirits but a spirit can have various materials bodies), although the subject may or not remember his previous body (but that's another tale).