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Rebirth....No doubt many of you have been down this path before! (pun intended)
Shoshin
No one in particularNowhere Special Veteran
Kia Ora,
Warning Some of the contents is recycled material...
Some believe rebirth is for real, they say that they have memories of a past life, or some might take a more scientific approach, every thing in the universe is recycled material, including our bodies-(but it does get a little complex when the mind is thrown into the mix) whilst others might think it's all a load of codswallop....
So....Have you been this way before ? What's your thoughts on rebirth? (and are they really your thoughts ?) . 
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I'm in the camp of the "more of a scientific approach" (perhaps with a touch of flowing "mind karma" thrown in)
Metta Shoshin . 
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Comments
When push comes to shove - it really doesn't matter. What matters is what we deal with now, how we deal with it, and how Mindful we are of Actions - Mental, Verbal and Physical.
Everything else is speculative, and really, a waste of time trying to discuss, decipher, interpret or consider.
I'm not trying to rain on your parade, honestly.
I'm actually trying to indicate - what is really worth discussing, and how can it help one develop one's practice more positively?
Does this kind of discussion actually do anything to move 'you' forward one single step?
Well, it turns out there's a lot of new scientific research and theorizing about what "the mind" (consciousness) really is and how it works. Some say consciousness permeates the universe, and is non-local, i.e. it's not confined to our brains or our bodies. It extends beyond our bodies. Some think that what may happen at death is that consciousness blends back into the "Ground of Being", or the Universal Consciousness, that same stuff that permeates the universe. This is starting to look promising with regard to rebirth. Granted, it leaves a lot of questions still unanswered, but it's a start.
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Study topics: "entanglement theory", and "nonlocality"
In my case, I think the answer was 'yes'. That does not mean that it continues to help me but once upon a time...
Born into a blue-collar, Catholic universe without knowledge of any other options growing up. There were Catholics, Jews - but of course they were born that way, and non-believers. But, and I know it's contentious to say so - even here, perhaps especially here...but I remembered.
The first time I heard the concept of reincarnation discussed it was in a Hindu framework but that let me know that there was something else there and that my universe wasn't THE universe. So I went looking, found Buddhism and stayed. Had the discussion of reincarnation or rebirth never been discussed in my proximity, I might be a Catholic priest right now.
@Shoshin
Having been the lucky or unlucky recipient of a wide range of past life experiences, I have to wonder who really should care if they are real or not?. Whether it is all in our minds or a "scientific" fact, in what way does it make a difference to anything we are going to do in the next minute.
My experiences with this only reminds me of how limited my minds view of existence is when based solely on the conditioning that most of us are actively trying to unteather ourselves from.
If one is open to the Buddhist Dharma, what ever one experiences (past lives or no past lives) will be flavored by that openness.
If one is doubtful of the Buddhist Dharma, what ever one experiences (past lives or no past lives) will likewise be flavored by that doubt.
BUT
I think that neither the belief or doubt of rebirth needs to be held by anyone to have them walk the Buddha's path towards sufferings cessation.
I've pretty much run the gamut the past ten years, from being skeptical to being a firm believer to being agnostic on the subject and setting it aside. In the last few years, though, I've taken what I consider to be a more balanced approached.
I'm open to the possibility of rebirth (the concept isn't illogical) , but I don't consider it something proven, either by anecdotal accounts of past-life memories or the research of people like Ian Stevenson. The former in and of itself isn't rigorous enough to be considered proof in the scientific sense, and the latter is currently far from conclusive. I see in nature physical processes (e.g., quantum entanglement, aka, spooky action at a distance) that help me to conceive of how such a process may happen, however.
In terms of my practice, I see the teachings on rebirth as pointing towards the Buddha's observation that there's a type of continuity that underlies experience in the form of our actions and their results (one that doesn't necessarily end at death), with kamma representing the intentional element of our psyche that goes into experience.
For a more in depth answer, see this.
Speaking of recycling...does anyone know who uttered this amusing quote? "The only problem with reincarnation is having to go through junior high school over and over again." (Hint: It wasn't me.)
I am totally undecided about it. I see no evidence on either side (I guess that's the secularist part of me).
I'll narrow it down to the good ol' US of A or Canada (don't know any other countries that use the term "junior high")?
That narrows it down to about 350 million people.....
I'll then assume it's a famous comedian so that narrows it down to several hundred.
Jason Alexander?
Back to the OP, I am in the agnostic camp with a slight leaning toward rebirth being true (mainly because it helps my practice!).
As some have mentioned earlier, it is probably something you'll never "know" so I think it's better to put it aside rather than forming an opinion / belief.
I don't have the wisdom yet to know if rebirth is important for me to contemplate or not. I probably wouldn't know a 'past life' memory if one hit me upside the head.
ETA: To be honest, one may have hit me upside the head.
Exactly.
If it is important to your practice then believe your guru is the Buddha and everything the mind throws up. Why not.
Rebath? Reincaceration? Whatever. :om: .
Reincarceration.
Kia Ora,
I like that...banged up, back in samsara again...Good one @lob .
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Metta Shoshin .
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a few months ago when i had calm mind i tried to see my previous births
i could see four previous births and then i saw hundreds and hundreds of dead bodies
i tried to see the face of a few bodies but i couldn't and i had the feeling all bodies were my own bodies in previous life times
then i thought (within the meditation) 'if i have this much of my own dead bodies, what is the use of continueing being born again'
i stopped trying to see my previous births afterwords because i understood it was/is/will be a fruitless effort or wasting time
however trying to see previous births and could able to see a few of them helped me to clear my doubt about rebirth
it helped me to practice Noble Eight-fold Path more vigorously
if anyone can calm his/her minds and command the mind to go back and show the previous births, mind takes that command and shows them to you
it is a sure thing
KIa Ora,
That's quite an interesting experience @upekka, I've had similar experiences, but I don't know if it was real memory experience or just imagination running wild, wishful thinking on my ego mind's part...
Metta Shoshin .
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Our present-life memories are very unreliable; they are creations of our mind. I remember Ajahn Brahm saying in this context that it’s not just our future we don’t know; we don’t know our past either.
This applies a fortiori to past-life memories.
As a Buddhist (sort of) I find this a helpful thought because my spiritual growth is about dropping off delusions, not about strengthening them.
The more I realize how little I know (about who I am) the closer I get to the truth (of who I am).
Isn't this worth discussing? I mean if there is a rebirth that would mean I am beyond mind and body.
That I am connected to the universe, nay I am part of it! ! !
It strengthens my resolve at least to meditate.
I want to find out!
Me too. But I'm an agnostic rather than a secularist.
@upekka
I too have done past life regression. Long time ago. It is possible. I had the fortune of being able to validate a part of it.
/Victor
EDIT: I am on the whole very much for the hands on try and see yourself approach. Maybe @Shoshin you should try to do it more systematically and write down what you see and remember and see if there is some part in it you could validate?
Spoiler Alert: This comment contains material that has been recycled more times than the skandhas used for my rebirths.
In the Potthapada Sutta (Digha-Nykaya 9), a mendicant called Potthapada poses different questions to the Buddha of a metaphysical order. This material has been recycled for several other suttas, so you will find similar anecdotes all over the Buddhist Canons, under several names and circumstances.
To the usual "Is the world infinite?" or "Is the soul the same as the body?," Potthapada asks one more pertinent to the thread: "Does one who has gained the truth live again after death?" (or "Does he not live again after death?")
The Buddha several times rebuked his nagging questioning, and in the end simply answered he never expressed opinion on these matters because:
"This question is not calculated to profit, it is not concerned with the Dhamma, it does not redound even to the elements of right conduct, nor to detachment, nor to purification from lusts, nor to quietude, nor to tranquillisation of heart, nor to real knowledge, nor to the insight of the higher stages of the Path, nor to Nirvana. Therefore it is that I express no opinion about it."
Naturally, when Potthapada wants to know what the Buddha did have an opinion on, the Buddha went on to say:
"I have expounded, Potthapada, what is Suffering, the Origin of Suffering, the Cessation of Suffering and the method by which one may reach the Cessation of Suffering."
On several occasions, the Buddha expressed that he had not revealed everything that he had learned, for the simple reason that these things were not relevant to the Cessation of Suffering. His approach was very pragmatic, so if he referred to other lifetimes in his speech, it's probably because it was in the spirit of the times to allude to karma and rebirth.
Do I believe in a rebirth? Maybe. Until someone proves the contrary, I'm open to all possibilities. Still, I find these words by Thanissaro Bhikku express exactly how I feel about rebirth and any sort of metaphysical speculation in general:
"Some people complain about the Buddha's teaching on past lives and future lives, that they are a distraction from the present, but when he talks about past lives and future lives, he keeps coming down to the principle of Kamma: that all the past, all the future -everything- is shaped by our choices.
Okay, what choices are you responsible for right now? The ones in the present moment. He gives you the teachings on what shapes the past and future in order to bring you back to the present with an even greater sense of its importance."
So past choices have led us here.
Some of these choices might have happened in another lifetime.
But what matters in the end is: how can our present choices affect our future?
How can I better brace myself to make better choices in the now?
Kia Ora,
You make a good point, but I'm not really into writing experiences down, however I do remember fragments of two lives...
Metta Shoshin .
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There's a line in Hannah and her Sisters where Woody Allen says: "Nietzsche says that we will live the same life, over and over again.
Great -- I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again."
His approach was very pragmatic, so if he referred to other lifetimes in his speech, it's probably because it was in the spirit of the times to allude to karma and rebirth.
Yes, that's the "skillful means" argument, as popularised by Stephen Batchelor. It's certainly possible that the Buddha taught rebirth as a metaphor, but as I've observed elsewhere this would be rather like a modern humanist writer repeatedly using God language to express his ideas, despite being an atheist. I think it would have been a huge effort for the Buddha to have maintained such a fiction over a 40 plus year teaching career. But there is no way of knowing for sure, it largely comes down to one's own assumptions and world view.
Kia Ora,
Also good points @DhammaDragon,
Some people can recall past lives, that's great, and some can't that's also great and some really don't give a toss either way and that's great too...
When I bring up the topic of rebirth I'm not advocating that one should start to 'worry' about ones past actions/lives, what's done is done and there's no going back to fix it...
However , it would seem for many Buddhists rebirth is an important topic, be it not so much about past lives but the life we lead now which will impact on the outcome of possible future lives...
The Dalai Lama once said something along the lines of :
"If on my deathbed I find that the Buddha's Dharma was false and that there is no reincarnation etc etc...It won't matter much because I have peace of mind knowing that I did my best, lived a wholesome life, causing the least possible harm to other living beings...I will die peacefully"
"The past shapes the present and the present shapes the future"
And this present is the best gift ever and that's why I make good use of it and I hope others will too...
Metta Shoshin .
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I haven't read Stephen Batchelor yet.
In fact, the argument has been around for at least over a hundred years.
Oldies like Spence Hardy, Rhys-Davids, Christmas Humphreys, Conze and Alexandra David-Néel already discuss these points in their books.
I did say popularised by Stephen Batchelor.
I think there is a 4th kind. "Some believe it out of faith" which I think is another way of saying "I find it impossible to believe that the Buddha lied about such things".
As for myself. I've always believed it since I was young because all the other options were impossible. Eternal heaven/hell? No, can't believe that. One life and then just nothingness? Can't believe that either! Since those two are completely unbelievable, rebirth is the only thing left!
In that case you must expect always to be in doubt about this.
Kr. Victor
The Buddha several times rebuked his nagging questioning, and in the end simply answered he never expressed opinion on these matters because:
As you say this material has really been quoted many times and almost every time with the same misunderstanding present.
The word Tathagata used in that sutta refers to the Buddha himself and not any enlightened being as one might be led to believe by this translation.
Just a small remark.
/Victor
I call this the lying Buddha scenario...you know just to keep the discussion peachy.
Lol, is that like the "lying God" scenario in which God (or is the Devil?) plants fossils in the earth in order to test people's faith in creationism?
No, it would be like Jesus having made up all the stuff about God to get more disciples.;)
I often wonder about rebirth/reincarnation but because it's a fun puzzle to pull out every now and then, not because it matters at all.
Or does it?
A puzzle in a puzzle, what fun. If we knew just the basics of what's going on, could it lesson our suffering? That's another debate perhaps.
I don't think karmic rebirth is about punishment or reward because it is pointless to punish me for something I don't remember doing. I don't think it has to do with lessons that need learning because that implies a sky-teacher. One higher up than Buddha for he found the truth of karma, he didn't make it.
I think it is just universal instinct.
I used to dismiss it out of hand (karmic rebirth) but I think it may just be widely misunderstood. I think it's more like the many forms of water and the hydro-logical system. Each drop of rain is the same water that's been circulating since there has been water and yet each drop of rain is unique. Some drops can be so contaminated with poison that they harm what they would otherwise nourish.
Some have to go through mud or toxins before finally evaporating to be the cloud again and some get dropped straight into a nice body of water and help nourish all it contacts for perhaps the longest of times before evaporating.
The odd thing is, like we all know, the drop that falls will never be the exact same bit of water that fell before or even the same bit of water that just evaporated. It is always still just the same water that has been since there has been water, however.
This is just my opinion but I think we are just the infinite and unique aspects of the same process. Causes and conditions indeed dictate what I am doing now but I am only a temporary perspective of the big picture that we are painting and I love that.
Rebirth of what? The self? The same self which causes so much pain by our clinging to it?
What possible benefit can there be from searching for that same illusory self back thru time?
It's just more self making. It works against the effort to see through the self as empty, a mirage.
A good question, @robot. While I haven't made my mind up in re the overall topic, isn't a desire for rebirth nothing more than clinging?
I think more than anything else, belief in reincarnation or lack thereof is going to be what distinguishes (Western or Secular or whatever it's called) Buddhism from the cultural varieties that the East practices.
In one way, like the posters above point out, it's not a deal breaker in what it means to be Buddhist. You were either reincarnated or not, and you either get reborn or not, but in the meantime this life is what you have to deal with.
But on the other hand, Western Zen in particular took the concept of Emptiness and ran with it, and Emptiness and Reincarnation never did mix well. The question, "What is being reincarnated?" causes us to cut through all those thoughts about living someone else's life in the past, and that leads to looking at the Past Life Karma thing, and so on. So while as far as the Noble Truths are concerned, it doesn't matter, still we can't get away from the question.
And that's just it... It isn't always that we desperately want something to be there, it's that we sense that we are, so denying that puts everything else into question. Even the Noble Truths for we only know them through our senses.
The Buddha taught and it sure seemed like he went through a lot to make people listen. He even asked their gods to listen.
So who is Buddha even speaking to? What is there to listen? There is a way of the cessation of suffering? But what suffers?
What is disillusioned and non-existent at the same time? That which has no being simply cannot be tricked.
We get too caught up trying to dismiss that which we feel we are that sometimes we miss it all happening.
I guess I want to expand just a bit on my own post.
There are certain things that "man" "wants". One of the greatest of these "wants" is to not die, or if he has to die, to think that there is something beyond life. Some religions see it as heaven, some as rebirth. The concept of something beyond life seems pretty common to most religions (perhaps virtually all?).
So is it rebirth? Is it heaven?
Is it neither of the above?
Is it all just our wanting that something beyond life?
It's clinging and it is belief in an enduring self or soul. Maybe the self has endured thru countless painful lifetimes. What then is the point of practicing Buddhism if it isn't to find liberation from that?
Trying to prove that rebirth is 'real', is reinforcing belief that there is no such thing as liberation thru practice.
I'm not so much worried about dying as I am about living while life is here.
For all I know, since there is no real time in dreams, at the very last second of consciousness, we could slip into a dream that lasts forever.
Could be Heaven, could be another shot here, could be blank... whatever will or won't be will be waiting or not. We shouldn't leave what is now waiting.
We don't have to die to be reborn, we can live fresh right now.
It sure is! That's why you have seemingly endless births.
Yes, it's said to result from craving and clinging.
Though many of the schools which have established in the west have a fairly traditional approach.
Very much so, I think.
An advaita teacher that I am reading right now compared death to a vase breaking. The breaking of the vase doesn’t change anything about the space inside the vase or outside of it; it only destroys the illusion of separateness. Pure consciousness is like space. Death merely ends one particular illusion of separation.
The question of rebirth would then be if, and how, the old illusion causes a new illusion to appear.
The question, "What is being reincarnated?"
Nothing. It's all just dependent arising, a continual reappearance of the aggregates. So the "you" of tomorrow will arise on the "you" of today.
How can "nothing" "re"?
So the issue of rebirth comes down to finding a way to set it aside. It is insignificant.
Nothing is not exactly what I mean, but it's not a "thing". More like waves continually breaking on a beach.
Is reincarnation central to Buddha's teachings?
Some people contend that this is a controversial point.
Yet, all the 3 main schools of Buddhism do not dispute this point.
Ajahn Chah, Thanissaro bikkhu, dalai lama, Ven chin Kung all accept this point.
As for me, if you read Buddha's teaching , it is quite obvious that reincarnation is used to explain a lot of things.
To say that only now matters is completely missing the point.
You dont read a map by just looking at where you are now, you need the bigger picture.