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Reincarnation; why I don' t believe.
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If you meditate and have a vision of hitting a ball with a racket, that is not objective reality.
What I understand from Buddhism is to get the real objective reality without the subjective labels, without separating you and the phenomenon. I dont see how that denies the existence of an objective reality.
so thats what I see as reality...
And what has doing good to do with buddhist training? I know how to behave but doing good will not get you to nibbana. That is totally irrelevant to the issue.
So this is really no good refutal of anything I have said.
If a tree falls, there is vibration of air molecules, but no sound, as there is no centric observer to convert the vibration into sensation. So an ever shifting vibration may be present outside perception, but it only arrives as a real observable form as we brush up against it with our nerves>sense>brain. And, we can't experience it without sensing it, so it is better to keep our focus on where it is actually applicable, which is in the arising of suffering in ourselves and others as they brush up against whatever it might or might not be.
I think what Ric and I are saying is that getting to nibbana is not all there is in life, particularly when we don't KNOW FOR A FACT that that is the way it all works. And so, we chose to live a life that is positive, not because we feel compelled to due to scriptures from any source, but because we think it is the right thing to do.
I think reality is much more subjective and simple than that. Let me give you some examples.
You wake up in a hospital and before you can move a doctor comes in and tells you.
"You were in an accident and you have no legs left". Would you believe the doctor even if you can still feel your legs without checking first?
If you go to a doctor and she tells you that Dear Shirley you are a bit confused. Actually your name is Shirley and you are about to have a baby girl. Due to complications and severe trauma during childbirth you are hallucinating that you are this guy Ric... would you believe her just like that or would you make sure first?
My point is reality for you is what you are convinced that you experience not what really is there. Nobody else can tell you what is real or not. And your experience is subjective there is no other experience unless you are enlightened according to buddhism.
Lets consider your example of a chopped of forearm. You look at it and some neurons in your head fire in some fashion. If I were to look at it some other neurons in my brain would fire is another pattern. Is that objective reality? Neuron patterns in our brain?
The forearm is real because you are convinced it is. The dream is not real because you are convinced it is not. There is no other reality than that. That is in short the Anatta doctrin. Your conviction not some may or may not be objective world.
Do you not agree?
I cant comment on your analogy because I really dont understand how it applies to the talk of reality. What I am saying is, you wake up in the hospital and you look down and you see no legs...reality. I dont see how the Doctor matters in this conversation.
So where I think we are stuck is in the idea of experiential truth. To me experiential truth does not equal reality. To me there is a difference between sitting on a chair and being on your feet and sitting on a chair in your mind. To me those are not equivalent. Do you see those as equivalent ?
thats what Im trying to get at, getting your arm cut off in your mind is not equivalent to getting your arm cutoff for realz. So how could someone experience rebirth without having died unless it is in your mind which is not equivalent to reality. To experience death, you must die.
It has nothing to do with the doctor. No. But I was trying to see if we could agree on why we do not se them as equivalent. The reasoning behind our conclusion so to speak.
The saying goes. "The world is born in the six, exists in the six and dies in the six". What is the sixth sense Ric?
Do you think a memory from yesterday is real? How about a memory from your childhood? Or from a previous life?
That was what I was getting at.
But why do I think that my memory from childhood refers to a reality that did happen....simply because it is part of the physical world we can observe, quantify and explain to some degree. I think its fairly obvious that it did happen in the most basic sense, I would think you would agree, right? Its not a complete and accurate picture but it is a representation of a real event. Remembering I got my arm cutoff is not the same as getting my arm cutoff but it references a real event.
So when you move beyond the physical how do you draw the line on what is beyond physical and what is imaginary ? If someone hears the Devil telling them to kill ppl, should we accept that there is a Devil and he tricked the murderer ? or should we just accept the positive "visions"? If I have a vision of a past life of mine, I will take it as fantasy, imagination. We do see some proof of this fantasy with people who predict the future, they can never do it.
Things I could never have known.
I have interacted with the recently dead. Giving me information that could not have been falsiefied.
I have heard testimonial from atheists that do not belive in rebirth about past life memories.
So no there is no breakdown for me. There is rebirth for me there is no debate. But I understand that others can be doubtful.
There you have it. You still speak about objective thruth without defining it. What is it exactly?
Again I ask you what you mean by reality. From your argument above it seems like you are saying the exact thing I pointed out. You think that is true that which you believe is true.
Just because you have a memory from a past life that is as vivid or real in detail as a one from this one you still rule it out because you have decided that it can not be real. So your mind is baiased and you do not even know it and you have never pondered why.
You speak about objective truth but you have never given a touhgt to what that might be? Still in your mind you think there is such a thing in the world when buddhism says exactly the opposite about the world.
Given this prejudice on your part you will in fact never be open to see that there can be past lifes. Why? because you have decided beforehand there can be none.
Again let me give you an example. Take this qoute:
"But why do I think that my memory from childhood refers to a reality that did happen....simply because it is part of the physical world we can observe, quantify and explain to some degree"
What you avoid to see is that Buddhism gives the same credence to the sixth sense your mind as it does to the other senses.
It is as real in creating the "real" world as is your sight or hearing. What you see you will believe but that which your mind remembers you will not? Where is the logic in that?
:thumbsup:
So I really have nothing else to say but I will go look into the sixth sense and try to understand what you are talking about.
o...and Ive never had any visions or memories of past lives...
But, when my father passed over, I also had an experience related to angels...not me personally, but he did. And, there are plenty of others who have related such experiences.
So I guess a question comes down -- are only the "mystical" (for wont of a better word) experiences of Buddhists to be believed? Or can we equally believe in the experiences Christians relate?
There are personal experiences that include fairies, inter-dimensional bigfoot, aliens, shadow people, ghosts, leprechauns, angels, demons....
Are these all on par? or is inter-dimensional bigfoot too far out ? (Im not being disrespectful here but there are ppl who believe in inter-dimensional bigfoot).
Just kidding...
Really though... Buddhism also supports negative experiences of "the other side." Indeed a mind stream that dies holding onto lots of rage or hate can indeed do what you just sited as an example. There are hungry ghosts and demonic realms as well according to various versions of Buddhism.
:bowdown:
deep bows
Maitri
Too true, friends....just like those push-button, sliding-door public toilets when they get stuck. A veritable Hell Realm "somewhere" in the high street multi dimensional cosmos !
:eek2:
:zombie:
Even the reincarnation adherent Achariya Buddhaghosa, in his Vissudhimagga, understood "pubbenivāsaṃ" to mean "becoming". "Becoming" is an "asava" in Buddhism, that is, a mental fabrication, just as the other asava, namely, sensual desire and ignorance are "asava".
Many nights, in sleep, our minds dream. These dreams are mere mental imaginings, mental pictures or mental movies. They are mere mental fabrications.
The Buddha taught all mental objects are simply mental fabrications, which are not to be regarded as "I", "me" or "mine"
All the best
:coffee:
For example, if we wish to escape hate, we believe in love. If we wish to escape drug addiction, we believe in the harm of drugs. If we wish to escape death, we believe in the Deathless, that is, egoless nature.
But to wish to escape rebirth & spend our time talking about it, reinforcing the idea in our mind, makes no sense at all, to me.
If we have the inspiration is to escape "rebirth", then the mind needs to regard all things as empty.
Whenever the mind believes: "I was this in my past life", then there is no escape from becoming.
:-/
What are you saying here? What do you exactly start to cultivate?
Like, did you become a monk? Like, Prince Siddharta? Like, did you abandon all worldliness?
It's possible there are fundamentalists on both sides of the debate.
P
I had got back to my tread and have seen plenty new posts.
I will start from the beginning and try to answer as many as I can for now.
I will read the rest in the future.
Please note, I am full of gratitude to people who took their time and contributed.
Namasti.
Im really interested in your responses. From your personal, mind experience you have opened up other realms and so forth. So do you accept bigfoot as a reality? People swear they seen him. Alien abductions, is it a fact? hundreds of thousands of people claim to have been abducted. Even Sammy Hagar came out recently saying he was abducted. I could go on with fortune tellers...remote viewers...
What if you have a vision of rebirth and then I have a vision showing me rebirth is a myth. Who is right?
It is scary but am I prepared to accept some dogmas to anesthetize my fear – NO.
Many reasons some of them were very well - verbalized by posts below.
Looking forward to watch your video.
To your first Q - YES
To the second it is more complicated.
You can’t change your DNA at birth. However, we can change the influence of the outside world on your DNA during the life span.
Secondly, yes we are stuck with our DNA and have very little influence on our environment. However, it is up to us how our children will carry combine DNA / father, mother/ . We have a power to try to make milieu /around our offsprings) more advantageous.
:clap:
However, am I right to detect that the energy you are talking about have a moral /human/ moral spine?