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If I don't believe in reincarnation, where does sentience go?
I know the un-importance of this question, but the answer is something I think about often.
I don't think I believe in reincarnation, especially as it seems in Buddhist teaching and from what little I know about neurology, there is no such thing as a "soul". However, what the hell happens to self-awareness when we die? Is everything sentient? Even plants, rocks, dirt, etc.? Does sentience from this human form transition to the dirt, grass, etc. what ever the old body parts constitute in their new form?
I know this isn't very well-expressed, and I apologize. It's kind of an abstract concept for me... anyway... thoughts are appreciated. I'm not really sure in what category this belongs.
TIA!
I don't think I believe in reincarnation, especially as it seems in Buddhist teaching and from what little I know about neurology, there is no such thing as a "soul". However, what the hell happens to self-awareness when we die? Is everything sentient? Even plants, rocks, dirt, etc.? Does sentience from this human form transition to the dirt, grass, etc. what ever the old body parts constitute in their new form?
I know this isn't very well-expressed, and I apologize. It's kind of an abstract concept for me... anyway... thoughts are appreciated. I'm not really sure in what category this belongs.
TIA!
0
Comments
There's no satisfying answer for everyone, only satisfying answers for the individuals who finally put their own minds to rest. No one can say how that will happen, or when, but it's a deeply personal experience.
I don't really understand 'the emptiness of self'; I've meditated on my aggregates and went looking for my 'I'; and it was kinda weird not being able to find an 'I'.
It's not like we don't exists; something is there (otherwise it would be pointless trying to develop compassion for others); my teacher says 'it is like an illusion' (rather than 'it is an illusion').
And when we die, our egoic personality disappears forever; since it depended on our aggregates! I once asked a Buddhist teacher why I should be bothered about any future rebirth, since the sentient being that would be reborn wouldn't be 'me' (i.e. not my egoic personality with my memories) and he asked me who would I be if I lost my memory in an accident or suffered with alzhiemers; and he asked me if this 'subsequent no memory person' would still be worthy of care. It gave me some food for thought.
If you really think it's unimportant, then why do you frequently ponder the answer? It seems to me that pondering things that are unknowable, will just make you go crazy.
If this is true then it calls into questions many of the Buddha's teachings and, additionally, the extent of any realizations he may have achieved (and it's fine to question that, IMO). The Buddha was trying to teach sentient beings how to achieve a mind which was "beyond" death, beyond nothingness, and certainly not subject to rebirth. I think this is in the Parinirvana Sutra (Skt). He stated numerous times that ordinary sentient beings are forced to be reborn due to the karma generated by their clinging to existence. Existence, in this case, means Samsara rather than some form of pure awareness.
The Vaibashika school interpreted the Buddha's teachings to imply that the mind/awareness of an arhat, when they passed away, simply went out like a light, leaving absolutely nothing, no awareness, no trace. If they were correct (and I think they were clearly wrong), then, if there is no rebirth we all achieve the level of Arhat when we die. So...rejoice? This "great anesthesia" hypothesis of death, as Robert Thurman puts it, is definitely NOT something I aspire to. When I have destroyed this "I" that is every appearance which reifies the existence of THIS working basis (what we generally refer to as me), it's totally unpalatable to think that absolute nothingness is what remains (including no awareness). The Buddha said it's NOT nothingness; so I will defer to Him on this one; whatever it is, I have some degree of faith that He was experiencing "it". If attaining Nirvana is extinction of awareness then the goal of Buddhist coincides with the deepest fears of atheists---that great nothingness that awaits all who die.
I grew up in a Western country with a tradition of non-faith in rebirth. I have studied logical proofs of future lives and have never been sold, due to the fact that they don't factor in genetics; they make assertions which were quite plausible in the 4th Century CE but which can be attacked today, based on what we know about how genes determine many characteristics of our development, so it's more difficult to maintain the argument that consciousness must continue in order to explain habit energies, capabilities, intelligence, creativity, etc. of beings. Yes, they do have these tendencies at birth; but some of that is attributable to the specific genes they carry. This is provable.
I am more persuaded by anecdotal evidence of rebirth, especially the documented behavior of tulkus. There are far too many accounts of them recognizing past teachers or attendants at age 3 (Matthew Ricard has an astonishing story about his own teacher who recognized his attendant from his previous incarnation at this age. He was being enthroned and this old man that no one seemed to know started to approach and the young boy shouted to everyone "That's so and so...let him come here" or words to that effect. Turned out this was one of his personal attendants from his past life. These stories aren't probative but they help me avoid ever being in a situation where I develop non-faith in a key doctrinal area. It's best to always keep an open mind and just look at the evidence as it appears.
Does sentience exist independant of physical sense organs?
Can physical drugs, such as anesthesia, influence sentience?
Do mental capacities change due to changes in the physical body, such as senile dementia?
If so, what's the issue here?
The Buddha himself taught there can be no origination of consciousness independent of sense organs
The Buddha himself taught there can be no origination of consciousness independent of namarupa (mind-body)
If this is true then it only calls into question your personal idiosyncratic interpretations of the Buddha's teachings
:buck:
"I am more persuaded by" this than that does not mean, and was not intended to mean that "I am persuaded". I am NOT persuaded at all...yet. I find such anecdotal evidence more persuasive than theory found in the writings of Dharmakirti, for example. I find those writings unpersuasive. I find anecdotal evidence regarding this to be interesting and to provide some credible evidence for establishing rebirth. I wish I could say that I did have faith in rebirth. I believe that it's necessary, if one is to engage in practices designed to affect their mind stream in future lives.
Blind faith is faith in the object itself, not faith based on the statements of reliable beings. Matthew Ricard, for example, is someone that I consider to be a reliable being. He was awarded a PHD in biology and was accepted into the Pasteur Institute, France's most prestigious biological institution; he chose to become a monk instead. He's also been instrumental in facilitating research on brain activity at during one-pointed meditation, at Univ. of Wisconsin; this has yielded some very exciting results. So when he provides anecdotal information of this type I find it credible. I have no blind faith in Matthew Ricard, having never met him (I've read one of his books but have never attended any of his teachings or presentations).
Examples of proper reliance on anecdotal evidence
If 20 people tell a blind person that there is a wild elephant in front of him in the direction he's currently walking, though he has absolutely no way of knowing this himself, and though no scientific or logical evidence has been presented to prove this point, it's wise to believe them. Anecdotal evidence is relied on, properly for a whole host of differnt behaviors. For example, if a pilot tells another pilot that there's turbulence on the flight path they're both flying the pilot receiving this briefing is wise to take evasive action to avoid it, even if no air controller has found evidence of this. Same thing for a scout reporting back to his CO that there are enemy soldiers in quadrant A and not in quadrant B, where there's no other date to determine this.
There may be other explanations for this type of evidence. I have an open mind. I don't believe in rebirth in the sense of having developed strong conviction about it. I don't know one way or the other. I believe that the anecdotal evidence regarding it should not be ignored.
in dependent origination, 'suffering' is described as 'sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief & despair'
:bawl:
have we considered learning from the Buddha rather than our so-called "masters"? :buck:
The Buddha did not say anything about a spirit/essence/soul/consciousness/etc, that comes back
The Buddha only taught one is "born again" due to their karma
However, over time, as Indians & other rooted in Hindu views wished to define some mechanism of transference, they invented "re-linking consciousness" in the Buddhist teachngs, especially in the 12 stages of dependent origination, despite the Buddha himself ever teaching such a thing
The Buddha did not teach meta-physics. The Buddha taught about suffering.
If you perform karma, you will be "born again" in a state you need to resolve.
Kind regards
DD:)
"The Buddha only taught one is "born again" due to their karma".
I'm referencing this teaching to show that the Buddha considered rebirth to be an accepted fact and taught it as such. I'm not sure we even have a disagreement. But I feel I should answer a criticism when I find fault in what I say and when I don't.
Will is a process dependent upon all conditions, not independently arisen.
There is a measure of control, but no independent/separate "I" that can claim it.
The delusion of "self", when penetrated, takes nothing away.
It only reveals how things have been from the very beginning.
It is a "paradigm shift" in thinking, but once made, completely natural and obvious.
to become angry, to become sad, to become a mother, a father, a doctor, a nurse
this is "becoming"
We are speaking two different languages.
I am speaking the language of the mind, spiritual experience and of the Buddha.
You are speaking the language of meta-physical speculation and faithful obedience to post-Buddha sects.
The last link of Dependent Origination is: "aging-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief & despair". It means to suffer due to aging & death; to suffer due to change & loss.
"Birth" (jati) means 'self-identification'; it means to take possession or appropriate the five aggregates as "I" and "mine".
Now, please consider reading again what I quote above
Sentience arises with your body, and dissolves with death like a wave breaking on a beach.
Namaste
This view is described as impermanence - every thing is known only in that of the moment.
This moment of any object depends upon a criteria of reality called
" efficiency ".
It is the "efficiency" of any object that ensures it reality, but that quality must always be changing since time is a flow and not a series of discrete moments.
So, any real object is constantly changing: Impermanence is the very nature of existence.
The answers will always be unsatisfactory, no matter what you get in reply, until you understand the mind that is asking the question. What is your true nature right now? Unless you can answer that, how do you expect to know which answer to what happens after death is correct?
So begin with this "don't know" mind. Ask youself, "What am I?" or "What is my mind's true nature?" Once you begin to comprehend the emptiness of the skandhas, the answer to what you were before you were born and what happens after your body dies will become clear. Until then, there is no answer in the world that will satisfy your "don't know" mind. We all start at the same place. When your mind gets tired of running in circles, you will find your answer.
Hope that helps.
I'm not sure that we both benefit by this conversation. I assume that you are responding to me for When I refer to The Cycle of Birth and Death I am referring to the Mahayana literature. According to the Mahayana the Buddha himself draw a chart, later referred to as "The Cycle of Birth and Death" as a visual aid to help explain his teachings on dependent origination.
When I refer to the classic example of a ghost and whether or not one can assert the existence of something where there is an absence I am asserting something from translated directly from a debate textbook. It may be that the textbook is wrong.
However, logically, from any standpoint. If one has no direct experience/perception of something which is not demonstrably present for others to verify) and they are unable to make a case based on reason that it exists, what's left....blind faith. You are not a big fan of blind faith, I gather, based on your previous assertions. Nor was the Buddha; he asked his followers not to accept his words out of respect for him and asked them, more specifically to test them as one might test a material asserted to be gold. So, I don't understand your bringing up my point about not saying there's a ghost in this room made simply because that person has heard that this is a ghost or assumes there are ghosts based on reading something.
In fact, given your statement that I was engaging in blind faith for asserting that the anecdotal evidence of rebirth is stronger (for me) than the proofs I've read, this current assertion (your objection to my claiming that asserting ghosts despite having neither foundation in experience nor reasoning is improper) makes even less sense now. I don't assert rebirth as a fact. One who claims there are ghosts in the room having perception of them or conviction based on reasoning does.
I think that perhaps you feel that the Mahayana presentation lacks credibility. You are entitled to assert that point of view, naturally.
however, in regards to Dependent Origination: lit·er·a·ture (ltr--chr, -chr)
n.
1. The body of written works of a language, period or culture.
2. Imaginative or creative writing, especially of recognized artistic value: "Literature must be an analysis of experience and a synthesis of the findings into a unity" (Rebecca West).
3. The art or occupation of a literary writer.
4. The body of written work produced by scholars or researchers in a given field: medical literature.
5. Printed material: collected all the available literature on the subject.
6. Music All the compositions of a certain kind or for a specific instrument or ensemble: the symphonic literature.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/literature
regards :coffee:
I can see this movement through time and space. When you assume that you can die, and reappear elsewhere, then you just stopped existing in "space". There must be a mode of transit from life to life. But this all isn't very important. The Dhamma is now, not later.
"I" is not reborn but it is "born again"
the "I" belief continues to be born in the mind; it continues to arise
but each birth (jati) is a new birth; it is a new sense of "I"
the "I" angry at the rainy weather today is not the same "I" that was happy with the sunny weather yesterday
"I" is born again but not reborn (imo)
regards
it is rebirth, not reincarnation.
anatta, anicca, dukkha.