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Why do we get reborn?
hermitwin
Veteran
Ajahn brahm was asked this recently.
I would like to hear your opinions before revealing brahm's answer.
I would like to hear your opinions before revealing brahm's answer.
0
Comments
WHY DO WE GET REBORN...IMHO This question makes unsupportable suppositions.
There is rebirth because death alone doesn't slow the inertia of unresolved karma.
But....
To say We get to be reborn is to incorrectly anthropomorphism that a cohesive conglomeration continues on from one life to the next.
The karmic inheritance that gifts a new life with it's inertia is a selection from many karmic streams so that no intrinsic karmic stream remains the same from one life to the next..
A new life inherits aspects of previous karmic inertia but not the previous identity.
Each new life identity can only add to it, maintain it or disolve it according to their capacity to address what fostered it.
So..
There is rebirth to bring entropy to Karma and support one of the Buddhist Laws of Existence but there is no real "we" to accompany it.
Sorry Tibetans...It's just my Zen perspective>
this is a sincere question, i dont want to challenge or
argue with your position.
i am just curious what you tell yourself
regarding certain traits or quality you have
which is due to your past karma (previuos life)
eg. if i am a savant, and i can memorise an encyclopedia
but i cant live on my own due to my disablity.
i will tell myself that well, i must have done sth in
the past to have such awesome memory n such a disability.
how do you explain it to yourself?
disclaimer; if anyone is offended by this question,
i am sorry.
may disagree with, but i hope you will still give me a sincere
answer. ty.
My Zen answer: "The oak tree in the front yard."
But since I'm not in a Zazen hall, I go with both @how and @Sabre 's answer.
The Buddha said that not everything that happens in our lives is because of karma. Karma contributes, but it is only one of a number of things that influence us.
Alternatively, why not?
An Internet pal of mine, a Tibetan-leaning fellow, used to piss people off by observing, "There are no answers to 'why' questions."
I can pretend I don't agree with him, but the fact is that I do.
i understand how karma works.
that is why everyday i try to perform skillful actions
to accumulate good karma.
if you are the one going to join ajahn brahm.
I recently read Thanissaro Bhikkhu's "The Truth of Rebirth" which really helped me sort things out, though I must admit that I have a long way to go in my understanding. What I found particularly insightful is the author's argument that rebirth is actually at the core of the Buddha's teachings, and to throw it out (as Westerner's often tend to want to do) is cutting away a vital body of the teachings.
To be honest, I don't know how to explain it. I don't know why we get reborn either, it is an interesting question, thank-you for asking it.
I am trying to think of a good answer... hmm...
My first guess (just a guess) is because there is still clinging and aversion and some view of "self", and that leaves some leftovers after we die. And those leftover bits form the start of a new being. Or something, lol!
Whereas a fully enlightened being has an exact balance of no clinging or aversion, and so at death there is nothing left to hangover into, or trigger, another life.
But I just pulled that out of the air...
I'll be interested to hear what Ajahn Brahm says about it when you tell us.
With metta
James
My immediate answer is; Are we sure we are?
Why do I think we are reborn? I guess because for us to be guides to other people, we need to fully develop our 4 Immeasurable qualities and for most people it takes more than what might amount to as 5 minutes, 2 years, 20 years, and so on to accomplish that. It doesn't make any sense to me that to experience all human life has to offer, that some beings only get a few seconds and then poof, they are done with their chance a human life.
I honestly don't like the idea of becoming a Buddha to exit Samsara as a personal goal, because what is the point of all of that work and all of that wisdom gained at the highest level of the path only to exit and leave behind everyone else who is still suffering/ the Bodhisattva path is more appealing to me for that reason. My understanding is that we don't get a choice, but I'm not sure I believe that.
According to this text (The Truth of Rebirth), the Buddha very often drew parallels between what is happening on the micro level and what happens on the macro level. You can actually see that in most of the teachings, I'd say. I think of it as a sort of common sense-- kind of a "if this is this, then that is that." So you see a relationship between the micro world happenings and the macro world happenings, and that makes the understanding of rebirth easier. I also think that there is a fair amount of faith held, especially as a new Buddhist and a Westerner; but as understanding strengthens, less faith is actually needed. But that is just all my take on the topic.
In explaining how craving can result in future births, the Buddha uses a simile in which he compare the sustenance of a flame to that of a being at the time of death. Essentially, a flame burns in dependence on its fuel, and that fuel sustains it. When a flame burns in dependence on wood, for example, the wood sustains that flame. However, when a flame is swept up and carried away by the wind, the fuel of wind sustains that flame until it lands upon a new source of fuel. In the same way, a being at the time of death has the fuel of craving as its sustenance (SN 44.9). Hence, the Buddha states, "Wherever there is a basis for consciousness, there is support for the establishing of consciousness. When consciousness is established and has come to growth, there is the production of renewed existence" (SN 12.38).
On the micro level, this process details how we're continually being born into particularly identities and mental states surrounding the objects of our craving and clinging, the things our minds feed on. On the macro level, it details how we're continually being born into a new existence.
Because people that may think they want to die, also aren't really ready. Only enlightened beings are ready. And because they are, they won't be reborn.
this is a sincere question, i dont want to challenge or
argue with your position.
i am just curious what you tell yourself
regarding certain traits or quality you have
which is due to your past karma (previuos life)
eg. if i am a savant, and i can memorise an encyclopedia
but i cant live on my own due to my disablity.
i will tell myself that well, i must have done sth in
the past to have such awesome memory n such a disability.
how do you explain it to yourself?
disclaimer; if anyone is offended by this question,
i am sorry.
In Zen, there is little significance placed of a traits origin. Whether a trait had origins preceding this life or was newly initiated during this life, both are phenomena to be meditatively observed to see how we are feeding them in this moment.
In terms of past lives, these are simply the manifestation of past spiritual mistakes that match our own, and are in need of resolution. Whether this is actually part of our own karmic inheritence or is just the attraction of other like formed karmic
inertia, they are viseral connections to a shared delusion and of the suffering involved in propagating them.
the easier it is to be philosophical..."
cant remember whose quote this is.
that karma is imponderable is oft repeated here.
but we seem to forget that buddha spoke of many cases
of specific cases of rebirth.
also, there are people today who can see previous lives,
i believe brahm is one of them. although he is forbidden
to talk about it. sure, doubters will say 'no evidence'.
karma is imponderable to us but not to enlightened people.
are you sure we are not reborn?
If I am going to be reborn then whether or not I have that belief will not affect the outcome.
If I hold the belief in literal rebirth, will that belief reinforce my sense of a permanent self or relieve it?
What is involved in maintaining that belief? What do I have to give up to set it aside?
Is there a downside to saying I don't believe in rebirth because I don't know?
If I say I am a believer in rebirth, what other ideas have I bought into? Will it only cause unnecessary speculation about past and future lives?
How will belief in rebirth make attainment easier?
I agree with @chela. If literal rebirth is understood as a consequence of realizing impermanence, then it is a useful insight.
If literal rebirth is held as a belief, without that insight, it is mundane.
I think I would reserve my worldly beliefs for important issues. Like the belief than increased gun control would be a good thing, or the belief that gays should marry if they wish.
"There is, O monks, an unborn, an unbecome, an unmade, an unconditioned; if, O monks, there were not here this unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, there would not here be an escape from the born, the become, the made, the conditioned. But because there is an unborn,...therefore there is an escape from the born...."
UDANA viii, 3
My understanding of karma and rebirth in relation to the Middle Way: Because there is no independently existing self-entity, there is no “self” which is annihilated by death. For that very same reason, there is likewise no “self” which continues eternally as a permanently existing self-entity. If the self is in actuality impermanent and dependent on a vast number of causes and conditions from one moment to the next, then this “self” can only be described as possessing a relational existence rather than an essential one.
What arises in rebirth is not an essentialized identity (i.e. reincarnation). What arises instead is a relational consciousness: a nexus of karmic causality which is not a permanent and independently existing self-entity. Every intentional action sets in motion a multitude of causes and conditions which, combined with many other causes and conditions, determines how that future consciousness may experience suffering in another life.
There is no separate consciousness—rather, all consciousnesses are ontologically bound together, seamless. One does not possess a “future life” but rather one participates in its arising in the future. For the same reason, “past lives” were not “me,” but rather they participate in this current life. In the same sense, “my” karma is not “mine.” The connection between reborn lives are not “psychic” but ontological. Therefore, compassion should not only be extended spatially in this life, but also extended temporally to all future lives that may result from the actions of individuals, indefinitely into the future.
Without birth there is no death and without death there is no "rebirth". Since each moment is fresh, nothing ever repeats. There is no re- anything ie. re-birth, re-incarnation. Only constant becomings.
Language can mislead.
Dhammapada.
"my old man was born to rock but he stood trying to beat the clock" ~Tom Petty
But none of us actually know what the Buddha said.
Because we are still carrying the three poisons (especially the SEX thinggie
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ji_Gong
(Daoji 2 February 1130–16 May 1207)
I do not remember the whole story, but part of it like this:
He attended a wedding. Then he said that the groom is marrying his grandma.
Because when the groom was still infant, the grandma was so worrying who will take care of him when she is gone. She died and reborn as his bride now to care for him...
it is towards the end during the Q and A session.
sorry i cant remember exactly which point.