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Reincarnation / What happens after death? - Newbie needs some clarification
@ozen, it is unlikely that the full process of death would simply be a moment typing, according to Tibetan Buddhism. There is a process where the three poisons disapate and the wisdom mind is fully there. That is overwhelming and most people pass out. Next karmic seeds come back because of craving and ignorance. Those forces bring us back to samsara. We see different portals into a birth with a certain world and our karma navigates the journey and chooses the birth.
I'm not contradicting you. I don't know the truth, but just saying in Tibetan Buddhism they have a picture of what happens.
@ozen, it is unlikely that the full process of death would simply be a moment typing, according to Tibetan Buddhism.
I wasn't clear. Let me try again. What I am now is the result of causes and conditions, right? I could not, in any circumstances, instantly turn myself into a giraffe. That would require some kind of outside force/intelligence. It is simply beyond my capability to take any course of action that would result in my transforming into a giraffe.
But let's look at it in another way, and this is going to be really tough for y'all.
What I'd like to point out is simply how hard it is for us to change. We try to better ourselves and the world, practice Buddhism etc., but it is difficult and whatever progress we make is slllloooooowwwwwwwwww, right? So why would we instantly change into a giraffe in rebirth?
They say it takes many lifetimes to get rid of the bad karma of killing someone. If killing someone causes that much of a change then wouldn't some good action, like saving someones life, cause instant enlightenment or whatever? Why is the bad so much more powerful than the good? Do we live in an evil universe?
"The five grasping aggregates [our psycho-physical body] have been previously composed and willed out (purvam abhisamskrtany abhisañcetitani); they are to be known as former karma" (SA, 260, 65c-66a).
@ozen, I think you could become a giraffe, just like you cannot choose which sickness you will get or what dreams.
Enlightenment only relates to karma that brings someone to the dharma. Killing someone brings you to the lower realms where you will have to stay a long time suffering with no chance to study.
Federica...when you put it in terms of cause and effect such as riding a bike carefully, as you explained...yes, that very much makes sense..it sounds scientific....accurate, really...but if its looked at from the point that ozen mentioned, it does step into what is good and what is bad...I think that's what I am skeptical about...is how objective is karmic effect?...I did, however, find your posts reflective and clear, and I have to thank you for that. Its good to get a different perspective on it to think about.
Personally, I'd say that kamma is subjective in the sense that it's primarily about the relationship between our actions and how they're experienced in terms of pleasant, painful, both-pleasant-and-painful, or neither-pleasant-nor-painful feelings (AN 4.235); and objective in the sense that it's a causal, psychological mechanism that applies to all sentient beings equally. As human beings, however, we tend to conceptualize pleasantness/happiness as 'good' and painfulness/unhappiness as 'bad,' thereby giving this causal relationship an ethical dimension. So if we do something that causes harm to ourselves and/or others, we view it as bad, etc. But it's not about being rewarded or punished, as the results are natural outcomes based upon the complex unfolding of various conditions of which our intentions are but one factor, albeit an important one, particularly in terms of how we experience and react to the world around us, as well as how the world experiences and reacts to us.
The real problem with kamma, however, is that it's a mental component inherently tied to, and influenced by, greed, hatred, and delusion (AN 3.33). So even 'good' or 'skillful' actions keep one tied up like a dog to the post of the aggregates (SN 22.100), as well as keep one leashed within the continual cycle of birth and death. That's why the noble eightfold path is called "the path of practice leading to the cessation of kamma" (SN 35.145). They're skillful actions that, when used appropriately, have the potential to ultimately lead to the elimination of the skillful/unskillful dichotomy altogether, leaving only happiness (Dhp XV), contentment (Thag 9), peace (Snp 2.1), and moral perfection behind (AN 9.7). When one ceases to cling to the aggregates, one becomes as free as a bird (Dhp 90-3).
@ozen, I think you could become a giraffe, just like you cannot choose which sickness you will get or what dreams.
There are no actions that I'm capable of which can instantly turn me into a giraffe, Jeffrey. That's just the way it is. An alien spaceship could land on my roof and, for whatever reason [who knows why aliens do the silly things they do], they might turn me into a giraffe with their advanced Giraffe-O-Matic ray gun. BUT, that would not be my doing. It would be a force/intelligence imposed upon me.
I am capable of choosing a sickness, but I'd rather stay health if you don't mind. As for dreams, yes, I can dream up all sorts of stuff, or, let others dream it up for me.
@ozen, I think you could become a giraffe, just like you cannot choose which sickness you will get or what dreams.
There are no actions that I'm capable of which can instantly turn me into a giraffe, Jeffrey. That's just the way it is. An alien spaceship could land on my roof and, for whatever reason [who knows why aliens do the silly things they do], they might turn me into a giraffe with their advanced Giraffe-O-Matic ray gun. BUT, that would not be my doing. It would be a force/intelligence imposed upon me.
I am capable of choosing a sickness, but I'd rather stay health if you don't mind. As for dreams, yes, I can dream up all sorts of stuff, or, let others dream it up for me.
Turning into a giraffe in my view would occur after death. When you see your loved ones dead body do you see their spirit or is it just a dead form? What evidence is there that the mind disappears with the body and does not go elsewhere or have a further fermentation/transformation? All of the skhandas including form are said by Buddha to be not the self. I'm not sure what is reincarnated.
What does Buddhism teach us about life after death? The idea of reincarnation. I am so confused by it. If Buddhism does not teach us that a soul or separate self exists, then what is being reincarnated? Are we still 'the same' when we are reincarnated or completely different people with nothing transferred from our previous life? If so, then what is transferred? (I apologize if I am using incorrect terminology. I figured this would be the most basic way for me to express my questions). Some schools of Buddhism believe in a pure land. Is this similar to a heaven? Still, other schools also teach about different realms. The hell realm, godly realm (if I recall correctly), ghost realm. I am also very confused about these teachings, as I was under the impression that ghosts/heaven/concept of God did not exist in Buddhism?
When in doubt, I say build on what you know is true. For example, I'm agnostic when it comes to postmortem rebirth, but I'm a firm believer in moment-to-moment rebirth, which is readily observable in the here and now.
'Moment-to-moment rebirth' refers to the arising and ceasing of our sense of self, the ephemeral 'I,' which is ultimately the product of what the Buddha called a process of 'I-making' and 'my-making' (MN 109). Without further scientific advancements or extrasensory perception gained through meditation (AN 5.28), this is the only kind of rebirth that's readily observable in the here and now, hence my agnosticism in regard to postmortem rebirth in general.
That said, I don't see any contradiction between the two. According to the texts, a beginning point to samsara (literally 'wandering on') isn't evident (SN 15.3). This can be interpreted two ways — that a beginning point to the continual cycle of death and rebirth of beings isn't evident, or that a beginning point to the continual cycle of death and rebirth of the conceit 'I am,' the self-identification that designates a being (satta), isn't evident — and they're not mutually exclusive.
To put it simply, one moment of consciousness conditions the arising of next (rebirth), just as one action conditions the quality of feeling a moment of consciousness cognizes (kamma); and if one accepts the traditional interpretation of rebirth, this process doesn't cease at death if there's still craving (tahna) present in the mind (SN 44.9).
Either way, the point is the same: all that really matters in the here and now is whether suffering is present, and if so, how it can be overcome.
Federica...when you put it in terms of cause and effect such as riding a bike carefully, as you explained...yes, that very much makes sense..it sounds scientific....accurate, really...but if its looked at from the point that ozen mentioned, it does step into what is good and what is bad...I think that's what I am skeptical about...is how objective is karmic effect?...I did, however, find your posts reflective and clear, and I have to thank you for that. Its good to get a different perspective on it to think about.
Hi,
I'm a bit confused because the bike analogy came from me, not federica. Anyway, whoever you meant, I feel free to reply. And I'm glad you find our combined posts are clearing things up a bit.
Anyway! Back to the matter! "it does step into what is good and what is bad"
In a way, yes. But what do you mean with good and bad? Do you mean it is a written law that, for example, telling false things is always 'bad'? Than that's not karma. Karma is only 'good' or 'bad' when it is intentional. For example, we may say something not knowing it is not true. That's not intentional lying. Or we may accidentally step on an ant. This is all not really karma, because there is no good or bad intention behind it. That's why some people when translating the precepts put in the word "I refrain from intentionally taking lives / lying etc".
That's why good and bad are not always used and people prefer skillful and unskillful instead. But in the end, those are just words. What matters is every action has a result. That result can make us happy or unhappy, or neither. Whether we call the action 'bad' or 'good', 'skillful' or 'unskillful', doesn't matter at all, this process still happens.
So 'karma' is at times best seen as just a model to describe a deeper truth that is occuring. A model is a simplified description of reality, it is not reality itself. That's why people refer to karma in different ways to describe actions and their results. You can make this model very complicated, including all kinds of things like rebirth, realms, dependent origination, etc. Or you can make it very simple, simply saying actions have results. All these models can be helpful, aslong as we don't get lost in it thinking one is ultimately right and the others are not.
Same with 'good/bad' or 'skillful/unskillful'. Both are right in their models, and both are wrong because it's just a description of reality.. hope you catch my drift In the end every experience we try to put into words is both right and wrong. Try to describe what it feels like having an itch.. You can and you can't.
@ozen, I think you could become a giraffe, just like you cannot choose which sickness you will get or what dreams.
There are no actions that I'm capable of which can instantly turn me into a giraffe, Jeffrey. That's just the way it is. An alien spaceship could land on my roof and, for whatever reason [who knows why aliens do the silly things they do], they might turn me into a giraffe with their advanced Giraffe-O-Matic ray gun. BUT, that would not be my doing. It would be a force/intelligence imposed upon me.
I am capable of choosing a sickness, but I'd rather stay health if you don't mind. As for dreams, yes, I can dream up all sorts of stuff, or, let others dream it up for me.
Turning into a giraffe in my view would occur after death. When you see your loved ones dead body do you see their spirit or is it just a dead form? What evidence is there that the mind disappears with the body and does not go elsewhere or have a further fermentation/transformation? All of the skhandas including form are said by Buddha to be not the self. I'm not sure what is reincarnated.
The point is that "our" "actions" would not lead to a big change. That's all I'm saying. Sentient beings change s-l-o-w-l-y.
For example, I cannot myself take any actions – don't have the capacities required – to instantly transform myself into a giraffe. That would require an advance Giraffe-O-Matic ray gun, or perhaps some sort of Karma God to make that instant transformation upon death.
@ozen, I think you could become a giraffe, just like you cannot choose which sickness you will get or what dreams.
There are no actions that I'm capable of which can instantly turn me into a giraffe, Jeffrey. That's just the way it is. An alien spaceship could land on my roof and, for whatever reason [who knows why aliens do the silly things they do], they might turn me into a giraffe with their advanced Giraffe-O-Matic ray gun. BUT, that would not be my doing. It would be a force/intelligence imposed upon me.
I am capable of choosing a sickness, but I'd rather stay health if you don't mind. As for dreams, yes, I can dream up all sorts of stuff, or, let others dream it up for me.
Turning into a giraffe in my view would occur after death. When you see your loved ones dead body do you see their spirit or is it just a dead form? What evidence is there that the mind disappears with the body and does not go elsewhere or have a further fermentation/transformation? All of the skhandas including form are said by Buddha to be not the self. I'm not sure what is reincarnated.
The point is that "our" "actions" would not lead to a big change. That's all I'm saying. Sentient beings change s-l-o-w-l-y.
For example, I cannot myself take any actions – don't have the capacities required – to instantly transform myself into a giraffe. That would require an advance Giraffe-O-Matic ray gun, or perhaps some sort of Karma God to make that instant transformation upon death.
@ozen, yeah I don't know how it works. But I have read after seeing the clear light of the wisdom mind you have a mind that works faster than the craziest schizophrenic because there is no body. It is extremely stressful which makes a new birth extremely tempting. There is a karma king mentioned in some sutras. I have no idea what the truth is, but I try to keep open to possibilities. And I don't live in fear of becoming a giraffe. Padmasambava said his mind was as vast as the sky but he respected good deeds (karma) like finely ground bits of flour.
Imagine you fall asleep and dream about being a giraffe. It's quite possible, no? Your mind can make up all sorts of crazy stuff in a dream. Now imagine you don't wake up. You just continue as a giraffe and believe it is you. I think that's not too dissimilar to how things appear in rebirth.
I love how this topic turned into a bunch of giraffe jokes haha. I just wanted to say my question was taken in a slightly different manner than intended. I'll try my best to keep it easy to understand. How can kamma know what areas of the world are barren and what are prosperous for rebirth? And even deeper, how can it decide what's considered lower class in a society and what's higher (being poor in a rich country, being rich in a poor country ect..) Being poor anywhere is considered born from the fruits of bad kamma. I just find the system more complex than people make it to be.
A word or two of caution. If Buddhists believe that death is final then they are, essentially, espousing annihilationism which is contrary to the Buddha's teaching.
A word or two of caution. If Buddhists believe that death is final then they are, essentially, espousing annihilationism which is contrary to the Buddha's teaching.
How can there be rebirth without a self? This topic is difficult to grasp. Why is it so difficult? Because it exactly this (deluded) sense of self that is the cause of rebirth. For many people it seems so obvious they have a self. Their memories, their thoughts, their actions, their life, it all seems to point towards a self that posesses these.
But it is not like that. There is no self.
I disagree. The Buddha didn't say there's no self. He said there's no permanent, static self, no fixed self. There's an ever-evolving self. We are continuously evolving and changing, hopefully for the better, hopefully in the direction of enlightenment. If we apply this principle of the evolving self to the phenomenon of rebirth, it means that the consciousness evolves over multiple rebirths. Each life cycle brings us new learning experiences, new opportunities to evolve toward Enlightenment.
too many people have problems with rebirth. why? just becos you dont like it, doesnt mean its not true. i hate racism, but it exists. how does something just stop? it is just not scientific to think that it all ends at death.
If death is in fact total annihilation of all awareness and cognitive functions, we won't even know we're dead. But conversely, we don't know (or do we?) when we are in dreamless sleep, yet something continues. What is it?
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
It's probably worth pointing out that Buddhists do not accept rebirth as an article of blind faith, but reasoned faith, i.e. they either have worked through the proofs and theories themselves or trust in those who have (much as I trust in physicists who tell me "momentum" exists, though I haven't had the temptation to prove it to myself, lol).
Also, in order to study the Buddhist concept of rebirth, we need to look at the Buddhist concept of mind (and body) in the first place. I think it's very hard to simply take our Western/cultural preconceptions of "brain" and "body" and then ask, "Is rebirth real?" and be able to have the discussion without confusion. To Westerners, "mind" is just "brain activity," whereas as the Buddhist (and Eastern approach in general) is much different.
A really excellent intro I have found is by Thupten Chodron, available both in text and audio form here:
Every moment of the mind also has a cause, doesn't it? It's changing. It's something that changes, that arises and ceases each moment, so it depends on other factors, it depends on previous moments of cause. So, our mindstream right now depends on the previous moment of mindstream, doesn't it? You can think right now because you were able to think last moment – because you had consciousness in that last moment.
That moment of mind depended on your mind from yesterday and the day before, and the day before that. And it depended on the continuity of our mindstream last year. And when we were ten years old and when we were five years old. And when we were babies. Now, we can't remember when we were a babies. Most of us can't anyway. But, we know we had consciousness when we were babies. Would you agree?
You can't remember it, but you know you had feelings as a baby. We look at babies now and they obviously have feelings. So, we also had feelings, conscious experience as a baby. So that baby that just came out of a womb, where did its consciousness come from? Well, the continuity, the previous moment of consciousness, the consciousness of the mind of the baby in the womb. And that consciousness can get traced back and back, and back to the moment of conception when the sperm and the egg and the consciousness came together. Now, just as the sperm and egg had their previous continuities before the moment of conception, also that moment of mind also had previous continuity. It couldn't have appeared out of nowhere. It couldn't appear without a cause. Something like a mind can't arise out of nothing.
So, that moment of mind had to have a previous cause, and a previous cause that was similar to it. So, what do we have? A previous moment of mind. A moment of mind before it entered into that fertilized egg. A mindstream that existed before this lifetime. And that moment of mind had a cause – its previous moment, previous moment, previous moment, back and back and back and back and back – infinite regression of moments of consciousness. (Thupten Chodron)
But remember, the consciousness becomes seated in a body, when that body is alive; consciousness behaves differently once the body ceased to act as a seat. Sometimes we dream, sometimes we don't, but our bodies and consciousnesses are still in existence. Simple lapses in consciousness don't mean either ceases to exist.
Why do you think your consciousness exists when you're sleeping without dreaming?
If it existed at that point, you would be aware. Otherwise at that point you're something "other than consciousness", and this takes the whole feeling of consciousness being your "self" away because you've become separated from it. Consciousness does literally arise and fall, it's not a steady thing and it's certainly not-self.
Investigate this. Don't attach to any of the aggregates as being what you really are.
I was under the belief that in the rebirth, the life we renew in is one where we can accomplish what we didn't learn in this one. Please excuse my ignorance, I am still learning, and have much to learn.
Consciousness can rest just as the body does; the body isn't dead when it's slowed by sleep, and neither is the consciousness. What seems to us like "pause" doesn't always equate to "off."
Also, when we haven't developed more subtle awareness, our coarse consciousness can mistake "subtle" for "off." Just because our coarse consciousness doesn't process or (seem to) remember subtler levels of activity doesn't mean there's no activity. In fact, monitoring the brain shows there is activity even when we think our consciousness is "off."
I was under the belief that in the rebirth, the life we renew in is one where we can accomplish what we didn't learn in this one. Please excuse my ignorance, I am still learning, and have much to learn.
This is the Buddhist belief - that we're always moving, and any life (human especially) is one in which we can continue to grow.
When sleeping, there is still subtle consciousness. Because if your alarm clock goes off, you'll hear it. That would be impossible if there would be nothing that could be aware of this in the first place.
Hey JohnG In my opinion & observations Your "we" (concept of a self) doesn't work with this. Bits and pieces of karma continue unhindered by the death of their various creators and coalesce into new forming beings. Those component expressions of Karma can then be empowered, simply carried or resolved by that new being. There is no self that continues from one life to the next but a buddhist would consider his practise as one that resolves that inherited Karma..
now that we're on this topic, while I don't believe a self is transferred, I do believe traits like passivity, open mindedness and kindness are exported along with a stream of consciousness. Consciousness and mind are separate and being aware and thinking are 2 different things entirely, correct?
“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” Mark Twain
Hey JohnG In my opinion & observations Your "we" (concept of a self) doesn't work with this. Bits and pieces of karma continue unhindered by the death of their various creators and coalesce into new forming beings. Those component expressions of Karma can then be empowered, simply carried or resolved by that new being. There is no self that continues from one life to the next but a buddhist would consider his practise as one that resolves that inherited Karma..
Thank you sir, I indeed need more study. But, I have one more question. I have dealt with many suicides in the past, some who had a very painful life, others who where just trying to scare someone, and went to far. I was told that when a person commits suicide, they must return to a similar life, to continue what they were to learn. And again, I studied where they would be given a pause to reflect what they did. What is the rule of what is studied and what is told should I learn to help when I'm in these situations again?
Thank you sir, I indeed need more study. But, I have one more question. I have dealt with many suicides in the past, some who had a very painful life, others who where just trying to scare someone, and went to far. I was told that when a person commits suicide, they must return to a similar life, to continue what they were to learn. And again, I studied where they would be given a pause to reflect what they did. What is the rule of what is studied and what is told should I learn to help when I'm in these situations again?
Hey JohnG This topic is a potential hot potato where traditional hell realm teachings (Buddhist versions of fire & brimstone) clash with the realities that first responders face.
Firstly there is no "self"(that I know) that you would recognize as a self, that continues intact from one suicide, to the next life. The karmic inertia, however, from a suicide usually have considerable power and can definitely be a difficult issue for the next poor beings to carry. What makes them difficult is not so much the finishing of their life but rather the accompanying despair bound up in their lack of acceptance for what is. For the inheritor, this karmic inertia turns life's normal simple delusions into compounded ones that are very difficult to unravel. This transmission is very antithesis of the spiritual experience.
So, THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE in dealing with the before, during and after effects of a suicide, from my perspective, is how well you can demonstrate real empathy, compassion, love and a lack of judgementalism for the suicide. This has little to do with an intellectual understanding. This must manifest from an ever widening heart, birthed from your own life practise.
Comments
I'm not contradicting you. I don't know the truth, but just saying in Tibetan Buddhism they have a picture of what happens.
But let's look at it in another way, and this is going to be really tough for y'all.
What I'd like to point out is simply how hard it is for us to change. We try to better ourselves and the world, practice Buddhism etc., but it is difficult and whatever progress we make is slllloooooowwwwwwwwww, right? So why would we instantly change into a giraffe in rebirth?
They say it takes many lifetimes to get rid of the bad karma of killing someone. If killing someone causes that much of a change then wouldn't some good action, like saving someones life, cause instant enlightenment or whatever? Why is the bad so much more powerful than the good? Do we live in an evil universe?
Enlightenment only relates to karma that brings someone to the dharma. Killing someone brings you to the lower realms where you will have to stay a long time suffering with no chance to study.
The real problem with kamma, however, is that it's a mental component inherently tied to, and influenced by, greed, hatred, and delusion (AN 3.33). So even 'good' or 'skillful' actions keep one tied up like a dog to the post of the aggregates (SN 22.100), as well as keep one leashed within the continual cycle of birth and death. That's why the noble eightfold path is called "the path of practice leading to the cessation of kamma" (SN 35.145). They're skillful actions that, when used appropriately, have the potential to ultimately lead to the elimination of the skillful/unskillful dichotomy altogether, leaving only happiness (Dhp XV), contentment (Thag 9), peace (Snp 2.1), and moral perfection behind (AN 9.7). When one ceases to cling to the aggregates, one becomes as free as a bird (Dhp 90-3).
I am capable of choosing a sickness, but I'd rather stay health if you don't mind. As for dreams, yes, I can dream up all sorts of stuff, or, let others dream it up for me.
'Moment-to-moment rebirth' refers to the arising and ceasing of our sense of self, the ephemeral 'I,' which is ultimately the product of what the Buddha called a process of 'I-making' and 'my-making' (MN 109). Without further scientific advancements or extrasensory perception gained through meditation (AN 5.28), this is the only kind of rebirth that's readily observable in the here and now, hence my agnosticism in regard to postmortem rebirth in general.
That said, I don't see any contradiction between the two. According to the texts, a beginning point to samsara (literally 'wandering on') isn't evident (SN 15.3). This can be interpreted two ways — that a beginning point to the continual cycle of death and rebirth of beings isn't evident, or that a beginning point to the continual cycle of death and rebirth of the conceit 'I am,' the self-identification that designates a being (satta), isn't evident — and they're not mutually exclusive.
To put it simply, one moment of consciousness conditions the arising of next (rebirth), just as one action conditions the quality of feeling a moment of consciousness cognizes (kamma); and if one accepts the traditional interpretation of rebirth, this process doesn't cease at death if there's still craving (tahna) present in the mind (SN 44.9).
Either way, the point is the same: all that really matters in the here and now is whether suffering is present, and if so, how it can be overcome.
I'm a bit confused because the bike analogy came from me, not federica. Anyway, whoever you meant, I feel free to reply.
Anyway! Back to the matter!
"it does step into what is good and what is bad"
In a way, yes. But what do you mean with good and bad? Do you mean it is a written law that, for example, telling false things is always 'bad'? Than that's not karma. Karma is only 'good' or 'bad' when it is intentional. For example, we may say something not knowing it is not true. That's not intentional lying. Or we may accidentally step on an ant. This is all not really karma, because there is no good or bad intention behind it. That's why some people when translating the precepts put in the word "I refrain from intentionally taking lives / lying etc".
That's why good and bad are not always used and people prefer skillful and unskillful instead. But in the end, those are just words. What matters is every action has a result. That result can make us happy or unhappy, or neither. Whether we call the action 'bad' or 'good', 'skillful' or 'unskillful', doesn't matter at all, this process still happens.
So 'karma' is at times best seen as just a model to describe a deeper truth that is occuring. A model is a simplified description of reality, it is not reality itself. That's why people refer to karma in different ways to describe actions and their results. You can make this model very complicated, including all kinds of things like rebirth, realms, dependent origination, etc. Or you can make it very simple, simply saying actions have results. All these models can be helpful, aslong as we don't get lost in it thinking one is ultimately right and the others are not.
Same with 'good/bad' or 'skillful/unskillful'. Both are right in their models, and both are wrong because it's just a description of reality.. hope you catch my drift
Metta!
Sabre
For example, I cannot myself take any actions – don't have the capacities required – to instantly transform myself into a giraffe. That would require an advance Giraffe-O-Matic ray gun, or perhaps some sort of Karma God to make that instant transformation upon death.
I just wanted to say my question was taken in a slightly different manner than intended. I'll try my best to keep it easy to understand. How can kamma know what areas of the world are barren and what are prosperous for rebirth? And even deeper, how can it decide what's considered lower class in a society and what's higher (being poor in a rich country, being rich in a poor country ect..) Being poor anywhere is considered born from the fruits of bad kamma. I just find the system more complex than people make it to be.
just becos you dont like it, doesnt mean its not true.
i hate racism, but it exists.
how does something just stop?
it is just not scientific to think that it all ends at death.
One is subjective, the other is objectionable.
One is questionable but unanswerable, the other exists and can be eradicated.
Sorry, but you're not making sense....
Also, in order to study the Buddhist concept of rebirth, we need to look at the Buddhist concept of mind (and body) in the first place. I think it's very hard to simply take our Western/cultural preconceptions of "brain" and "body" and then ask, "Is rebirth real?" and be able to have the discussion without confusion. To Westerners, "mind" is just "brain activity," whereas as the Buddhist (and Eastern approach in general) is much different.
A really excellent intro I have found is by Thupten Chodron, available both in text and audio form here:
http://www.thubtenchodron.org/GradualPathToEnlightenment/A_MindRebirthCyclicExistenceAndEnlightenment.html
Excerpt:
Continuity of mindstream
Every moment of the mind also has a cause, doesn't it? It's changing. It's something that changes, that arises and ceases each moment, so it depends on other factors, it depends on previous moments of cause. So, our mindstream right now depends on the previous moment of mindstream, doesn't it? You can think right now because you were able to think last moment – because you had consciousness in that last moment.
That moment of mind depended on your mind from yesterday and the day before, and the day before that. And it depended on the continuity of our mindstream last year. And when we were ten years old and when we were five years old. And when we were babies. Now, we can't remember when we were a babies. Most of us can't anyway. But, we know we had consciousness when we were babies. Would you agree?
You can't remember it, but you know you had feelings as a baby. We look at babies now and they obviously have feelings. So, we also had feelings, conscious experience as a baby. So that baby that just came out of a womb, where did its consciousness come from? Well, the continuity, the previous moment of consciousness, the consciousness of the mind of the baby in the womb. And that consciousness can get traced back and back, and back to the moment of conception when the sperm and the egg and the consciousness came together. Now, just as the sperm and egg had their previous continuities before the moment of conception, also that moment of mind also had previous continuity. It couldn't have appeared out of nowhere. It couldn't appear without a cause. Something like a mind can't arise out of nothing.
So, that moment of mind had to have a previous cause, and a previous cause that was similar to it. So, what do we have? A previous moment of mind. A moment of mind before it entered into that fertilized egg. A mindstream that existed before this lifetime. And that moment of mind had a cause – its previous moment, previous moment, previous moment, back and back and back and back and back – infinite regression of moments of consciousness. (Thupten Chodron)
If it existed at that point, you would be aware. Otherwise at that point you're something "other than consciousness", and this takes the whole feeling of consciousness being your "self" away because you've become separated from it. Consciousness does literally arise and fall, it's not a steady thing and it's certainly not-self.
Investigate this. Don't attach to any of the aggregates as being what you really are.
Also, when we haven't developed more subtle awareness, our coarse consciousness can mistake "subtle" for "off." Just because our coarse consciousness doesn't process or (seem to) remember subtler levels of activity doesn't mean there's no activity. In fact, monitoring the brain shows there is activity even when we think our consciousness is "off."
In my opinion & observations
Your "we" (concept of a self) doesn't work with this. Bits and pieces of karma continue unhindered by the death of their various creators and coalesce into new forming beings. Those component expressions of Karma can then be empowered, simply carried or resolved by that new being. There is no self that continues from one life to the next but a buddhist would consider his practise as one that resolves that inherited Karma..
don't you remember your birth?
Mark Twain
This topic is a potential hot potato where traditional hell realm teachings (Buddhist versions of fire & brimstone) clash with the realities that first responders face.
Firstly there is no "self"(that I know) that you would recognize as a self, that continues intact from one suicide, to the next life. The karmic inertia, however, from a suicide usually have considerable power and can definitely be a difficult issue for the next poor beings to carry. What makes them difficult is not so much the finishing of their life but rather the accompanying despair bound up in their lack of acceptance for what is. For the inheritor, this karmic inertia turns life's normal simple delusions into compounded ones that are very difficult to unravel. This transmission is very antithesis of the spiritual experience.
So, THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE in dealing with the before, during and after effects of a suicide, from my perspective, is how well you can demonstrate real empathy, compassion, love and a lack of judgementalism for the suicide. This has little to do with an intellectual understanding. This must manifest from an ever widening heart, birthed from your own life practise.