Rebirth and Cosmology
BhikkhuJayasara
Bhikkhu Veteran
When I watch a show such as " How the Universe Works" it fascinates me and I think about how in a way science helps me to move closer towards feeling that rebirth/re-becoming however you want to call it just feels like the way of the universe.
There is of course the famous law of the conservation of energy:
" In physics, the law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system cannot change—it is said to be conserved over time. Energy can not be created or destroyed, but can change form, for instance chemical energy can be converted to kinetic energy in the explosion of a stick of dynamite. "
Then we come to cosmology which tells us that everything we are made of, in fact every atom of everything around us made of, came from the death of a star. A Super Nova, the most violent and destructive force in the universe, who's light can be seen literally across the universe.
So life moves to death, creating more life which moves to death, and the cycle continues. Energy cannot be destroyed but transferred.
Does this "prove" that life forms are reborn? no, of course it does not, but it certainly makes you think. It also seems to me that the concept of rebirth fits much more into the way the universe works then an eternal heaven and hell concept or even a nihilist concept. In fact this is a feeling I've had since childhood that I still have to this day. I can't say I BELIEVE in rebirth, but it starts to make sense in my mind when viewed through the lens of this knowledge.
Now of course I'm no scientist, and I'm sure whatever I say can be disputed, but I'm no dummy either when it comes to this stuff. When you look out into the universe and see a cyclical moving of everything through birth and death, similar to our own lives(and our own breath for meditators!) , it at the very least makes you go: hmmm.
Comments
Yes, I've had some similar thoughts. In particular I've noticed how many natural systems are cyclical in nature - including our own thought patterns!
An ode to life-giving energy
Indeed everything that is anything
is energy in motion, endlessly transforming.
Waves of energy, resonate, reverberate,
arise within us and encompass us
in every conceivable way.
And it's all conserved,
nothing added nor taken away,
forever giving birth to one thing after another,
forever surrendering its form
so something else can arise in its place
breaking apart and coming together.
All the little independent parts with a life of its own
but making a complete whole
poetry in motion
Metta
Very poetic...Not however Buddhadharma.
If it were there would be a realisation that within us, and an us to be encompassed , are not compatible with Anatta
And that conservation is incompatible with Anicca.
And that the idea of a complete whole was specifically denied by the Buddha.
What that is , is Vedanta..not Buddhadharma.
It was a poem not buddhadharma.
It was meant to embrace the wonder that @Jayantha was referring to that exists in the universe. LOL
Sometimes it nice to wonder and not just wander!
@Jayantha I often feel similar thoughts when I watch thing about psychics, I have been interested in it since I was at least 6 but decided to go down a different route eventually. however, my avid passion for the multiverses down to the strings of quantum mechanics still enthrall me. I have posted before about how I feel modern science is moving ever closer to some of Buddhist philosophy, it is as if Buddhism has found the way many years ago, and science is creeping up with it's head above it's shoulders, bridging the gap. The feeling you feel when watching such things I know but cannot put into words when it coincides with Buddhism, but I know it. The Dalai Lama has even attempted many science / Buddhism discussions and he himself suggested tibetan young monks learn science in their studies. I like how this is not so black or white, you take a bit of both and get a nice grey.
In the Buddha's worldview, cosmology is a tool for the end of suffering. For instance, he rejects all cosmologies implying determinism or noncausal randomness not on ontological grounds, but because they leave adherents of those beliefs with no guidance about what choices will improve their lives.
If you're interested in this kind of thing, this recent debate between Stephen Batchelor and Ajaan Brahmali (a student of Ajaan Brahm, I guess) is pretty good. Batchelor wipes the floor with Brahmali, of course, but not with an outright rejection of the rebirth cosmology.
Interesting to see you say that @fivebells. I thought so too. But didn't expect to be agreed with.
But then I have to admit to being Brahm -sceptic.
There is an aspect of this that is broached in the talk I posted in temet Nosce
I'm not a total Thanissaro convert. He would disapprove if I was too slavish in his acceptance of my ideas.
Edit: Err, my acceptance of his ideas. Heh.
God it!
My own 'tolerance' for the idea of rebirth has increased by contemplating some of the same kinds of stuff @Jayantha. I started my buddhist journey as far from the 'religosity' of Buddhism as I could get (Stephen Batchelor and John Peacock), who I 'got' more easily than the others who are just as vocal and knowledgeable.
The book "Biocentrism" by Robert Lanza is one source of increased tolerance lol. I recommend the book, as Lanza is writing it for laypersons. There are even a few scientists who give it a nod. The critics can only cast aspersions on his ideas by pulling the empirical experiment card.
I know good Buddhists are not supposed to claim their achievements, but I'd really like to know if one of the naughty ones like Daniel Ingram who claim arahantship have 'seen' their past lives the way the Buddha claimed to have done. That would kind of cinch it for me, as I still suspect rebirth in original Buddhist cosmology might have been a hanger-on from the Vedic religion Gautama was immersed in.
If someone has a link to a so-called attainment like remembering past lives, I'd like to see it
Spare me Buddha Maitreya the Christ types 
Everytime the subject of rebirth or reincarnation comes up I am reminded of this sutta.
Sati's error is thinking it's the same consciousness which wanders on, seeing it like a soul - the Buddha reminds him that consciousness is dependently arisen.
So really MN38 is confirming rebirth as right view, and reincarnation as wrong view.
But it is not confirming or denying post mortem rebirth per se.
The last para is of course Thanissaro's interpretation
I think MN38 is highly relevant, too, particularly this part:
>
Incorrect. Post-mortem rebirth is confirmed by the description of dependent origination in this and other suttas ( the nidanas ), where physical birth, ageing and death arise in dependence on bhava ( existence or becoming ). So logically bhava cannot be a purely mental process as some suggest, it must be a psycho-physical process.
No one has suggested to my knowledge that it is a 'mental process. '
Which in any case is meaningless in view of the skandhas.
Or that it is not a psycho-physical process.
But that does not require a speculative post -mortem state.
You appear to have a problem getting past the idea that if a process is not post mortem, it must therefore be merely mental or psychological.
Purnabhava is a psycho/physical process that requires no belief in post mortem states for its validity.
Yes, we are the stuff of stars and subject to the physical laws of a casually dependent physical universe, and when we die the remnants of what was once us will no longer be and become worm food and so on, but I think many see what they want to see, because it can be rather comforting to have one's religious beliefs "backed" by science, and a Christian can just as easily find compatibility with current scientific theories about the physical universe and their beliefs that would make them go hmmm too.
The classical Buddhist notion of rebirth, like creation ex nihilo, is an article of faith, and science should be focused on observing and measuring the physical universe and not on proving or disproving articles of faith, but despite this Carl Sagan once asked the Dalai Lama what he would do if science could disprove the notion of rebirth. The Dalai Lama without hesitation said that he would stop believing in it, but then asked him how he would go about disproving it. Carl Sagan was silent.
Faith however, along with the brain and consciousness, is a product of the physical universe, so aspects of it can be observed and measured like how much faith contributes to well-being and happiness, or how does faith effect the brains re-interpretation of its stored memories over time for example.
But to say these memories of thoughts, words, deeds, and experiences that are constantly being re-interpreted, not to mention their residual causes and effects, persist after the desolation of the physical repository and processor (the brain) and constitute the becoming, creation, or cause of another form of existence is something else entirely.
With all that being said I don't think science will adjust any of its findings about our universe to support a particular religious belief like that of rebirth for example, but I can see such a notion undergoing reformation through the influence of science though. It’s not hard to observe this happening now, even in the confines of this forum, which is probably a positive thing if recognized as such rather than saying this is exactly what the Buddha had taught.
On that note it's time for a couple of musical wonderludes:
As Richard Feynman says in the second video: 'natures imagination is so much greater than mans that it is never going to let us relax'...
'Is that air you're breathing... Hmmm' A Morpheus quote from the matrix'.
Just as a little aside Morpheus is the Roman god of dreams, his father was Somnus (Greek 'Hypnos') the god of sleep, who dwells in a cave with no doors (no creaky hinges to wake him) in which the sun never shines, and is guarded by poppies, and the river (Lethe) of forgetfulness flows through it. So we get morphine, somnambulism, hypnotism and lethargy in one sentence. Ding -Time to wake up Bagpus. Who says humans don't have a great imagination, it's one and the same with the universe, is it not?
Now back to the serious discussion of what we are not, as these are just things that are thought of, and I'm done with them as they are a complete distraction:
Star stuff, atoms, mind, nothing, cushions, bells, whistles just to mention a few things on a never ending list.
Just as a heads up, i did not mean to insinuate that the process and mechanics of rebirth could be explained by cosmology, just that it appears to make sense in the framework of everything in existance seeming to follow the same kind of cycle.
I have not taken it that way, but I like contemplating, along with others (particularly rhetorical scientists) the richness and complexity of what spawned us. Sometimes words and descriptions are not enough... lol
@Jayantha, I believe what you meant or didn't mean to insinuate will have NO effect on the direction of any thread you start LOL!
Aha! An inconsequentialist! The Buddha had things to say about your kind!
Buddhadasa has described DO in exactly this way.
There is very little point in my repeating yet again the fact that you have misunderstood Ajahn Buddhadasa's position.
He writes at length about the skandhas/kandhas which form part of the bedrock of his thought...so the very idea of a mental process stemming as it does from a western Cartesian Dualistic position makes no sense at all in isolation.
Buddhadasa can only be understood in terms of the dependant arising of the skandhas/kandhas.
Not in terms of some body/mind split.
I have done you the courtesy of replying to your post.
I see no point in doing so in future...but please feel free.