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Question about rebirth and population
karasti
BreathingMinnesota Moderator
This question has come up a few times for me, and while I don't dwell on it, I do wonder about it and am curious if anyone else has thoughts on it, or if it's addressed anywhere.
The world population is still growing. Where do the "extra" rebirths/streams of consciousness/karmic imprints come from? In very simplistic terms, say 10 million people die this year, but 13 million are born. Where do the 3 million extra rebirth consciousnesses come from? Where have they come from since the time of the Buddha, when the world population was (using a rough estimate from a webpage) 100 million compared to now when our population is 7 billion?
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multi-verse?
I wondered that, too, if they are from other planets, galaxies, universes. But then I wondered if beings from another planet would still be considered human, but then again if a stream of consciousness from what was at one point an animal can be born as a human so can beings from other planets.
human just means that they are motivated to produce things to aquire. The suffering of a human comes from attachment to building up. Asuras - suffering from jealousy. Gods suffering from pride. Animals suffering from ignorance, hell beings suffer from aversion and hate. Hungry ghosts suffer from craving pleasure.
Where do the "extra" rebirths/streams of consciousness/karmic imprints come from?
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In very simplistic terms, say 10 million people die this year, but 13 million are born. Where do the 3 million extra rebirth consciousnesses come from?
Where have they come from since the time of the Buddha, when the world population was (using a rough estimate from a webpage) 100 million compared to now when our population is 7 billion?
If one accepts the infinite model of the universe then 'extra' loses meaning.
For there to be extra rebirth consciousness, I suppose each consciousness would be as a distinct defined packet? So the questions is where are the extra packets coming from?
Perhaps another way to consider it is say that matter and consciousness are linked somehow and depend on each other in some manner... therefore both sit 'in' infinity.
The question may then be approached perhaps with something akin to 'because of prevailing conditions'... maybe as an expedient stop-lock.
In other words, more people are born because conditions are just so to promote it - there is enough air to breathe and nutrition and opportunity say to name just a few tangibles of the infinite factors, so matter forms along lineages of an infinite resource existing in all dimensions and expressed it seems within a subjective experience of some part of those dimensions.
It's not an answer but rather a reorganisation of priorities I suppose.
Errrm :scratch:
I guess in reading stories and such, they are always told as if we are the only human planet (where rebirth is possible). You never hear of a tulku planning rebirth on Planet Zordan or anything. Never any stories about people remembering past lives on other planets. It seems, if cross-planetary rebirth was happening we would have something that talks about it, but we don't. Alternate dimensions and planes makes the most sense, to me, I think...lol.
If it is indeed a rare opportunity to be reborn as a human, it would imply there are more beings (that could potentially be reborn as a human) than there are human bodies.
Just in this universe there are 400 billion galaxies each with the 100 billion stars with trillions of planets. You don't even need a multi-verse
Even if you just stay on earth, bugs and animals outnumber humans by some outrageous number or another.
@Karasti
If one thinks of rebirth as one death equaling another life emerging, then the earth's population math becomes a problem.
If one thinks of rebirth as occurring whenever enough karma gathers to create another possibility of it's resolution, then the one death equaling one life really doesn't apply.
The latter view also more easily explains why each being is a compilation of so many varied karmic contributions.
Buddhist cosmology does include multiple world systems and planes of existence. Or even as @Jayantha said the number of insects on this planet way outnumber the people.
I asked a similar question a while ago @karasti (although nowhere near as eloquently as you!).
http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/17978/born-into-the-human-realm#latest
Improved health
Improved sanitation
Improved childbirth and child care
Improved farming techniques
Improved medical knowledge and care
Liberal attitudes
Improved and improving knowledge of all of the above.
From a human perspective as the bubble expands it would be wise to consider the after glow, and what will exist thereafter. A sick and aged population, dependent on the people we are turning out into society.
Lets look at things for one moment; this generation of youth that are struggling to be educated, and to find suitable well-paid jobs, affordable housing, all those places filled by those becoming sick and aged - Oh dear, might there be some resentment later in there life when we are most dependent on our youth?
I'm trying to teach my kids to be caring; as they have been dependent on me, I'm dependent on them.
You never hear of a tulku planning rebirth on Planet Zordan or anything.
Never any stories about people remembering past lives on other planets. It seems, if cross-planetary rebirth was happening we would have something that talks about it, but we don't. Alternate dimensions and planes makes the most sense, to me, I think...lol.
There are lots of strange stories of travelling to the 'world of the gods' or such and many works that could be interpreted as not so human / earth based adventures perhaps.
In an infinite model, there would be an infinite number of earths. I'm not sure how many that is but it must be more than everything I can see and know around me and I accept that as solid enough! In that sense, could I be sure that if I were to remember a past life in vivid detail, that the detail was this Earth or another identical one... not just another one but an infinite number of other ones?
I can envisage 4 dimensions I think purely because it fits into how I think I observe the world and the maths makes sense - but less or more and I find that my mind is trying to fit a 4d model into everything - it seems to me that only maths can approach the issue in a way that creates sort of a more accurate 'image' to work with.
For example, dimensions aren't like rooms next to each other - they're more like one piece of paper scrunched up in a shape that can't be unfolded but isn't bound by anything external... um.
So 4d is within the 10d space (or at least string and / or M theory propose).
In this sense an entire 4d life (movement along 3 dimensions and time) in the 5th dimension is like a static snake / lump - it's a 4d exposition to see it as a solid object but it is 'akin' to that to the best of my thought in 4d - in the same way as in any particular time you can look down and see yourself and you're solid (but in fact you're not or rather solid exists in 4d view at certain time intervals), so the progress along the 4th dimension (time) is the only perceived mode of consciousness as we seem to know it so it is accepted for all views as there are no other views (in a sense, any other view is an imagined peek behind the imagined curtain!!) There is no reason uncovered for why 4 is the magic number - if we were to experience n=5 consciousness (if such a thing were possible) then two points along 4d (say the start and end of your life) are 'joined' in 5d - seamless or solid perhaps.
In that sense, I've pondered that an 'eternal illusionary prison' probably fits well to describe 4d perspective from a 5d perspective say.
The end of the first men in black was a bit like that - universes in marbles being thrown about by a massive alien! Each marble an entire universe of timelines appearing as a solid in a higher dimension.
For those who accept the possibility of rebirth, an increase in the human population could easily be the result of beings from other realms being reborn into this one. Also, there's no set number of beings posited in Buddhism, no finite number of 'souls' to go around as it were, so they're many very well be an infinite number of potential beings scattered throughout various realms and world-systems, or even the potential of new beings being created without having to account for their preexistence.
Perhaps it's due to the work of bodhisattvas. Helping countless beings to liberation. There is no shortage of sentient beings.
Hi
If everything is connected..then maybe its not a case of
"new lifes" but more about expanding a single collective.
slainte
One of many explanations is that people are living longer, and in the U.S. we have large aging population, but according to a CNN report birth rates have also fallen to a record low. This is obviously closely tied to reproductive choices people are making now, so once this aged population passes are following generations going to be able fill the gap or will we start to see a decline in population?
I think this reproductive trend is indicative of something else rather than liberation from samsara. People are becoming more responsible reproductively, but the underlying drive to procreate and sexual desire are still there, and pursuing and fulfilling desires is opposite of release from attachment and suffering.
If rebirth as a human being is most conducive for practicing the dharma then it seems to me there is a diminishing trend of opportunity happening in this age, the reasons of which are not limited to what we can observe here.
@Jayantha I thought about the animal/insect connection but at this point in my practice I am not convinced that we are reborn into actual animals. The realms, to me, make the most sense as states of mind rather than actual realms so to me the idea that a stream is reborn into an ant didn't fit. I'm open to that changing, but that is where I am right now. That isn't to say I don't believe there is a similar state of mind in animals as humans, I'm just not convinced you can go back and forth. Or at least that once you take birth as a human, I'm not sure you can go backwards in actual,physical realms. Also, what we know of the universe is still pretty limited
The stats about planets and galaxies, as I understand it, only applies to the observable universe. (I could be wrong on that, my son would be happy to correct me, lol)
@Bunks, thanks I will read through that!
@how, thank you, that was a great explanation. I often limit myself in how I think about such things, I appreciate your expanding my awareness! (and everyone else, too)
@Zero, interesting on the stories. Can you point me to any of them? I'd be interested in reading!
What Silouan said about population, in some ways I find it a little concerning. Not because I think the human population should continue growing, but because the movie "Idiocracy" sometimes hits too close to home, lol. Some days, it feels like we are headed more in that direction than any other.
Microorganisms? They are living too, aren't they?
Mahamaudgalyayana visiting the planet of giants:
http://online.sfsu.edu/rone/Buddhism/maudgalyayana.htm
There's also Buddhist cosmology setting out non-earth places etc.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sagga/loka.html
Other world places mentioned
http://www.dhammatalks.net/Books3/Ajahn_Brahm_Buddhism_and_Science.htm
I think the reference is to here at (2)
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an10/an10.029.than.html
Other types of life form such as divas - in the discourse with the diva-king, he visits brahmans and contemplatives where he is asked to explain what kamma was attained for the state, which I guess implies rebirth as different types of life existing within the overall cosmology including non-earth places.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.21.2x.than.html
Descriptions of heaven
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sagga/index.html
In so far as it disintegrates it is 'world' - wider than just earth or human
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn35/sn35.082.than.html
Gods and the universe in Buddhist perspective: essays on Buddhist cosmology
http://www.bps.lk/olib/wh/wh180.pdf
Not sure how reliable it is.
I read somewhere once I think that there were 3 planets specifically mentioned in the Tipitaka with details of specific inhabitants but I haven't been able to find a link to anything credible.
Sorry, this isn't an area I'm familiar with and I think I was somewhat flippant with the assurance of stories.
From kingdom Animalia? There are literally a billion, billion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000) insects on just this planet. You don't even have to look to outer space, multiverse, etc, to find this many beings. Insects are beings too! And they are right in your backyard!
But of course this billion, billion does not even include all the other sentient beings in the animal realm that are not insects.
Then the Blessed One, picking up a little bit of dust with the tip of his fingernail, said to the monks, "What do you think, monks? Which is greater: the little bit of dust I have picked up with the tip of my fingernail, or the great earth?"
"The great earth is far greater, lord. The little bit of dust the Blessed One has picked up with the tip of his fingernail is next to nothing. It doesn't even count. It's no comparison. It's not even a fraction, this little bit of dust the Blessed One has picked up with the tip of his fingernail, when compared with the great earth.
"In the same way, monks, few are the beings who, on passing away from the human realm, are reborn among human beings. Far more are the beings who, on passing away from the human realm, are reborn in hell.
"Therefore your duty is the contemplation, 'This is stress... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress.' Your duty is the contemplation, 'This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress.'"
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.102-113.than.html
There could be beings without bodies who incarnate in modern human beings.
A metta prayer says kindness to beings with bodies and those without.. those with two legs, those with four, and those with many legs.
It's not just humans being reborn as humans, but animals, gods, even beings from the hell realms who have made good and "graduate" to a better rebirth. It's entirely possible, also, that new consciousnesses are born at any time. Not everyone would have a karmic imprint. Some could be starting out on their first birth.
Where do you (or anyone else) think new consciousnesses are born from? Just curious, I have no ideas myself, LOL.
Don't forget the worms, snakes, fish and mollusks Jeffrey!
For me, I have a problem (at this point anyhow) with the idea that the realms are actual places. My teacher and much of the reading I have done lends them to "only" being states of mind rather than actual states of being, which makes more sense when considering things in dimensions and planes rather than just this plane and just the beings here at this moment. A lot of the reason I left Christianity was because it simply makes no logical sense to me that if you don't live just right (and areas of Buddhism can fall into the same trap Christianity does in this respect) you are going to be punished. If not by God, by your own actions and the natural results of them. To me, it's not a natural result to be reborn in hell or as an ant. It just doesn't make sense to me.
Not pointing the finger at any one person, but there's an awfully lot of wild speculation in this thread among scientific Buddhists.
You are not punished, but you do suffer the result of bad actions. That is an argument for rebirth. Otherwise as long as you lie enough you never get a bad result. That's an exaggeration of course.
My lama says that karma is a relative truth. Like the sun rises in the east. If we say that then there are all sorts of questions such as "what lifts the sun"?
Of course there are always consequences to actions, "good" or "bad" but I believe that if we have too many bad ones, then possibly we are born into unfavorable circumstances (which perhaps our stream of consciousness chose deliberately) that might make an unpleasant state of mind. But I don't think that stream actually descends into a hell, or an ant, or a God realm and so on as actual places. Maybe I as I keep practicing I will understand it differently, but that's where I am right now. It just doesn't make any logical sense to me right now that we might get, say, a 5 year old human life and if we don't live it well we will spend the next many thousands of years in a hell, away from human rebirth entirely. It doesn't make any more sense whatsoever than the Christian view of a 5 year old being born, not getting really to live life either, and then dying and going to heaven for eternity. Doesn't make any sense for the purpose of evolving our consciousness. It seems to still be fear based, and that is how it seems to be taught in some areas of Buddhism. That avoidance of a hell realm or animal realm and so on should spur one into better behavior, and like I said, that doesn't work for me. Wouldn't it be operating out of aversion still?
karasti, I am agnostic about 'hell beings' and so forth. Even if it were true how would human beings known about it unless Buddha teaches a mystical way of reaching that truth. So perhaps during or past the 'Dhyanas' the student sees their past life. I don't know.
Like?
Now, Jayantha, I said I didn't want to point a finger at anyone. Are you Mara?