Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Ajahn Brahm on rebirth
DairyLama
Veteran Veteran
An interesting short talk on remembering past lives.
2
Comments
I like Ajahn Brahm, though he speaks from tradition as much as anyone (party line).
It is the same evidence that we have for alien abductions; incredible stories and false memories.
That’s the first thing he says on the subject and I disagree.
Dead people don’t know anything.
Wanting to know about death is like being a beam of light looking for darkness. Where the beam of light is there is absence of darkness and vice versa.
When I am here death is not and when death is here I am not.
When I am there to perceive, there is no death. When death is the case there is no-one left to perceive it.
This is really cool. I will definitely try this (!)
Thanks for sharing this @SpinyNorman
How do you know dead people don’t know anything.
I'll bite.
"Knowing" has only ever been demonstrated by living beings. Dead means dead; not living. If someone's talking about continued existence in some mystical state where knowledge can still exist, they'd have to demonstrate that and not just claim it (or else they'd be asked that same question, "How do you know?").
Living people claiming that they know something from a past life is something a little different, because they're still a living being talking about "that life" (another living being).
Knowing-whilst-dead is to claim a kind of soul that can experience and know things without any body, which seems no different than the Christian idea except you then say it finds another body. How do you know? Any of it?
just because your personal experience does not include such things.
does it mean that people who remember their past lives or can see spirits are all nutcases?
Prof Pim van Lommel claims that consciousness exists even when the brain is dead.
He must be a real nut.
http://www.pimvanlommel.nl/home_eng
Also I’ve been dead for a very long time; all of the time before I was born.
I didn’t know anything.
People can be wrong, without being a nut.
Or they can be rather foolish, like the neurosurgeon that wrote Heaven Is For Real because he had a coma-induced trip and obviously has no idea how realistic trips can be.
Self-serving beliefs will always warp us, even our dreams and trips, and so it's important to vet our beliefs.
Beliefs do matter, and if you don't believe me... that too is your belief, and it's making a difference!
I understand now.
People who disagree with me are wrong/foolish regardless of who they are or what their experiences may be.
Thanks for the tip.
@cook99 Letting ignorance and craving lead you around by the nose, being caught up in the dream, is playing the fool. We're all foolish to one extent or another, and Buddhism is about overcoming this ignorance/craving, but some people are so deep in the dream that you can't help but point them out.
I'm sorry if I offended you by calling the Heaven Is For Real guy a fool, but that's my example of foolishly letting unsubstantiated beliefs and self-preservation lead you around by the nose, trick you, make you think you've confirmed an absolute truth and pass it on to others... and you've done nothing of the sort. You haven't proven anything, you've accepted a dream within a dream within a dream as ultimate reality. Foolish.
thanks for the link
where I read:
"The NDE is an authentic experience which cannot be attributed to imagination, psychosis or oxygen deprivation."
Near death is not dead, near awake is not awake, mildly hallucinatory drug is not without intoxication.
Samsara is quite an obstacle without 'authentic' v 'inauthentic' experiences . . .
Next you will be telling me the daughters of mara that the half starved Buddha saw are authentic visions?
. . . ooh I am such a heretic . . . not so much when dead . . .
Do you like the idea of cosmic order inherent in reincarnation? Does it comfort you? Death too bleak and final?
One professor making a claim also doesn't make it accepted science. Science works on consensus, on other scientists scrutinizing your methodology and reproducing your results (or not), finding faults and flaws and biases and weeding them out until you either have something that stands up or falls flat on its face. Those things that stand up are rare, because people are fallible. Creationists often point to one scientist or another as support for their claims, also failing to understand that one person's claims aren't proof, whether they're a scientist or not! They are only potential until peer-reviewed.
Near-Death Experiences have been scientifically reproduced and are understood now. They happened to astronauts in training; that was the first hint that it was the brain not functioning at full capacity. Most things are the brain not functioning at full capacity.
N o o o o o [lobster screaming] . . . you mean there is no reset button like on games consoles . . . does not seem very fair . . .
That is my understanding too. NDE can be induced. The experience can be life changing as can a brain seizure.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_after_death
I didn’t know anything.
How strange. How long were you dead for?
I can’t read your intention @robot :
Being sarcastic?
feeling amused?
Asking something very profound?
I guess you could call it sarcastically amused. Not too profound.
I think you were being funny weren't you?
No not really.
Why are we so mystified about death when we have been dead for all eternity, with the exception of the few years that we lived so far?
I guess it's the way you put it. How can you be dead if you haven't been born?
Perhaps you should have said that until you were born you didn't exist. That might make more sense, although then you might be asked to prove that you exist now that you are alive.
Here is a more comprehensive talk by Ajahn Brahm on the subject of rebirth:
Being dead and not existing sounds to me like exactly the same thing.
Before I was born and after I die is the same thing.
The short interval of my existence appears to be very different, but that’s another topic. What is the nature of life?
Anyways these are crucial questions:
Like I said, the way you put it was amusing to me.
The fact that you didn't exist, then you did exist, then you didn't again, doesn't strike me as a strong arguement for the belief in no rebirth.
But since this is a debate for believers, I will stay out of it. I really haven't got anything meaningful to contribute.
Though it's the disbelievers who have done most of the talking.
They are believers too.
If before we were alive is the same as after we die and yet, here we are... Then it only makes sense that we will be back.
You were dead and now you are alive.
How do you explain that?
I sometimes think the body with its sense gates is merely a vehicle for mind.
When we get in the vehicle we feel and think we are the vehicle.
Why so?
A flower blooms and dies. One unique and brief existence.
We don’t seem to have problems with that.
Oh jeesh, guys, lighten dafuq up.... Quibble squabble... you all sound so petty!
ANATAMAN on rebirth: Know not I, who have gone before me, for they are just a memory. Know not those who go after me, for I will never encounter them in this life....
Death gives us the ultimate privacy, to be who we are now, and ultimately the great gift to be an end in ourself. I agree with the philosopher Immanuel Kant on this. If you are not sure about what I am talking about here is a very good summary - http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/introduction/endinitself.shtml
I certainly don't claim to know what happens but it's a fun puzzle... Some like doing crossword puzzles and some like pondering the logistics of the universe.
It isn't a big deal or anything and really hope you don't find my prodding offensive or feel I am just trying to be argumentative. Just shooting the breeze here, brainstorming and sharing ideas.
If I see something I feel is illogical, I will prod but I mean no harm.
I agree with what @Toraldris said: "Letting ignorance and craving lead you around by the nose, being caught up in the dream, is playing the fool. We're all foolish to one extent or another, and Buddhism is about overcoming this ignorance/craving, but some people are so deep in the dream that you can't help but point them out."
This makes total sense to me.
Here is my philosophical ranting on this;
It seems the possibility of your existence was there before you came into existence. Otherwise how could you have come into existence?
What about "before" space and time even? Did the possibility of your existence "exist" even then?
Is this space-time dimension all there is to us?
Is the NOW just an ephemeral point in space and time?
It's called craving @Bunks
Comes from a seed, flower makes more seeds
Sure, an individual flower dies, but the continuum of seed to sprout to flower to seeds ... appears to continue.
The flower that was is not the flower that comes after, they are not the same flower, but they are also not different.
I dunno anything about past or future lives, but all my life I have felt my goat-nature. I cannot go about in nature or in fields without tasting several flowers, grasses, and leaves.
But mine is no Goat- Song (Gk: Trag-Oedia)
Sorry, cook, but that's a very immature way to take part in a debate.
People will not always agree with you and by calling them "wrong/foolish" you are depriving yourself of the opportunity to learn something new, even realize that maybe you were wrong in the first place.
Though not foolish. That's very unskillful.
Another rule suggestion:
Along with forbidding discussions on vegetarianism and Emptiness of phenomenon (no-self, etc), we should forbid discussions of rebirth.
They never go anywhere, but straight down the toilet.
Just a suggestion
Yes, there is a continuum of dependent arising. I notice a lot of cyclical patterns in the natural world.
One of the things I found interesting in Ajahn Brahm's talk was how the assumption of future rebirth can put our current life into a quite different perspective - maybe easier to cope with the dukkha, maybe less clinging to our current existence.
Not necessarily. I view it as an exploration of Buddhist teachings.
Never mind. Not worth it. Delete, ty.
That's why I put them in the 'sink' after a while....
If we were not allowed to chew around on the big topics in Buddhism like reincarnation again and again, this forum would soon have nothing to talk about, wouldn't it? And I assume we do get new posters once in a while who should be allowed to give it a go. Should be tell them, just read through this thread from several years ago?
Myself, I'm always looking for new insights. If nothing else, I can work on my Dharma Combat skills while learning not to get angry because someone disagrees with me. I still feel sometimes like I could best make my point if I could shake some sense into people. My fault, not theirs.
Some people are not that ready to grow out of their opinions and even consider other viewpoints.
There are several forums which have a dedicated ongoing thread for topics like rebirth. It works quite well because it keeps the discussion in one place and reduces the likelihood of the same ground being covered repeatedly. It also makes the debate easier to avoid for those that aren't interested in it.
Here's the one on Dhamma Wheel - 265 pages and still going! http://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=41
I have to agree there. But all I have to do is peek at the comments section of one of the current news websites to see even at our worse here, we're at least civilized.
That will always be the case, but maybe over time people can be a little less attached to a particular point of view, and a little less dismissive of another point of view?