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Rebirth
Carlita
Bastian please! Save us!United States Veteran
The Lotus Sutra describes rebirth as having perfect understanding of the nature of life. The Dharma, it summarizes, tells us that endinf rebirth is geting to that understanding that there is no birth and no death. The Buddha has lived kalpas in the past and according to the sutra he lives now in the Dharma.
Once one has full wisdom and that person has passed on, where does he go?
Id asume he would be like the Buddha still on earth listening to the Dharma and teaching us. I believe in spirits and I would not be surprised if according to Buddhist thought (say Theravada) this is correct.
Our karma lives on. Who are we after our bodies die? (Without focusing on pronouns for a minute please)
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Whatever answer you may get is pure speculation.
The Buddha was too pragmatic to squander his time in such speculations himself, and that kind of question belongs in the blacklist of questions the Buddha would never bother to answer.
Life is short and the toil is hard.
Breath in. Breathe out. Do good. Repeat.
Namaste.
Honolulu, I believe.
More seriously, "reincarnation" is made in Hollywood.
"Rebirth" is what happens in every moment.
Not sure how relevant it may seem, but the Korean Zen teacher Soen Sa Nim was once faced with a comment from the audience:
"During meditation, sometimes I feel like such a complete schmuck."
And SSN replied, "You're either a Buddha or a schmuck. There is no in-between."
No one knows. We all have our thoughts, but we don't know. Regardless of what is said in any scripture, no one knows. I think about it now and then, but I don't spend much time on the unknowns, because contemplating them doesn't get me any farther. I prefer to manage whatever is happening right now and do a better job reacting to the world than to postulate about unknowns. What "happens" after death is a human problem, where as Buddhism's ultimate goal is to transcend human problems.
Reading about the trikaya, specifically the dharmakaya might help? (if you haven't already)
Post-mortem rebirth is a difficult subject for western Buddhists. Some schools have a strong focus on here-and-now practice, but in fact Secular Buddhism is the only Buddhist school which actually rejects the idea of post-mortem rebirth. Not that you'd think so on this forum!
Traditionally in Buddhism the ultimate goal is to escape samsara, the cycle of birth and death.
Birth, ageing and death are very much human problems and are included in descriptions of dukkha. Note that the inclusion of birth in dukkha really doesn't make much sense with a secular interpretation.
It's a popular idea with those of a secular persuasion but there is actually very little support for it the suttas or sutras.
No, that's wrong, post-mortem rebirth is not an imponderable and there are many references in the suttas to being reappearing in different realms according to their actions, ie kamma.
This is the kind of thing you are referring to: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.072.than.html
@genkaku
Rebirth every minute, Id have to agree with Spiny, that doesnt sound right. From what I studied, its very simple. The Buddha didnt want to see suffering and he wanted to aliviate it. As for the metaphysical terms in how to do so, that is something I have to look into more. I think the theological and philosophical part of Buddhist throws a lot going into off. The to-the-point Buddhism is to end suffering which is the round of birth to death and back again.
However, I dont know what our physical state will be once we reach full knowledge of the nature of life. The Buddha came back physically to espound the law, I read but I havent read much in the Pali to correlate with Mehayana thought.
@karasti
dharmakaya
I read mostly Mahayana text. I have an anthology od discources from the Pali Canon. Do you know the abreviation so I can look it up?
How can a self that arises due to causes and conditions, in dependence on form, be reborn? It's just a way of talking. Look closely at it and it stops making sense. Get too attached to a vision of how it might work, and you run the risk of stepping off the middle way and taking an extreme view.
Best not to worry about the mechanics of something that can't be known.
I actually am not sure what I think, and goodness knows, we've had countless discussions on the matter here, and I've read many Buddhist books, so I SHOULD, logically, have a relatively clear idea in my mind of what I think happens; at least, a formed opinion.
But I haven't.
I know I believe rebirth to be as logical a possibility as having already been born once.
Why not twice?
But I couldn't really elaborate on what the process might be, or why.
I just think I might be.
But obviously (as discussed before) not as 'me'. An identifiable, personalised 'me'.
I think I believe enough that I will be reborn.
But I won't be.
i dont understand what you mean? Have you ever pondered over something without it always needing to be something important or on a need-to-know basis?
The Buddha did advise against doing that, in some situations....... just to point out......
/Shrugs/ I dont know how to speak in the pronouns but I do understand it doesnt matter in the skeem of things. Im sure someone has pondered about it without the need to solve the equation.
It's not a question of needing to solve it. Most people ponder questions such as these - because they WANT to solve it.
Otherwise there would be very little point in pondering them.
This is the curious enigma of the human race:
Tell a man a star is 7million light-years away, and he will stare in awe at the heavens, and whisper
"wo-o-o-o-w....!"
Tell him the park bench has just been painted - and he will still touch it to see whether it's tacky.
Actually no. It is in sermon 63 of the Majjhima-Nikaya, which includes the Parable of the Arrow, where you find the questions which, according to the Buddha tend to no edification.
There are many references to this idea too.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.063.than.html
http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/sutra/level4_deepening_understanding_path/interferences/fourteen_questions_which_buddha_rem.html
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_unanswered_questions
The same idea appears under different wording in other suttas.
Edit: also, and better known, the Potthapada Sutta, DN 9:
http://www.leighb.com/dn9.htm
To consider rebirth is to assume time is linear. Physicists consider time either as linear or as a loop. I think it is a measurement of change. The change is self realization.
I mean that you may find some concept persuasive, like the idea of an unchanging self that reappears again and again. Which would be moving toward the extreme view of eternalizm.
I think it's better to refuse to take a position on it in my mind.
Under some circumstances talking about rebirth from the point of view that we have an eternal self that transmigrates through time, could be useful. Like when comforting someone who is dying or grieving. In my thoughts I think I'll stick with "don't know".
"Why did the Buddha deny the teaching of eternalism? Because when we understand the things of this world as they truly are, we cannot find anything which is permanent or which exists forever. Things change and continue to do so according to the changing conditions on which they depend. When we analyse things into their elements or into reality, we cannot find any abiding entity, any everlasting thing. This is why the eternalist view is considered wrong or false."
From here:
http://www.budsas.org/ebud/whatbudbeliev/111.htm
There is a sutta where the Buddha actually addresses the issue of what happens to him after his death.
http://www.budsas.org/ebud/whatbudbeliev/41.htm
Long story short, he doesn't have a concrete answer
Regarding believing in post mortem rebirth. I think belief or not does have an impact on how one regards and goes about their practice. Also, I recently watched season 2 of the TV show The Leftovers (about what happens to the world after %2 of the global population instantly vanishes) and the lead in song proposes a don't know attitude, its nice song, give a listen.
Knowing that until enlightenment there are many many rebirths for the typical spiritual seeker is necessary... because you lose the fear of dying (something which has happened innumerable times to us until now) and you also see that in this life you have the potential to open the doorways to better and better rebirths.
Trikaya is a Mahayana teaching. I am not a big sutra reader, so I'm not help for you there.
Combining some reading on the trikaya and the bardos might give you some direction. They won't answer the questions for you but combining them may help you read between the lines enough.
The Pali Canon is certainly present in Mahayana, but it is kind of a scripture text for Theravada.
@SpinyNorman -- I don't doubt you for a moment, but would suggest that although there may not be support in scripture, there is plenty of support in practice. On the other hand, I could just be making it all up.
When I was an elephant in a previous life ...
When my body and causes for existence are gone, I will not be gone.
Bible, Koran, news items etc are always to be evaluated critically. Suttas are always true, especially the bits I like.
LOL, we mindful fantastical Buddhists sure are funny ...
I think there is a nid picking flaw there. Something can be everlasting and not be static. For example, nothing disapears and nothing pops out of thin air. Everything changes. Its like a ball rolling down the hill and its in different positions (or forms) and its ever changing direction but that doesnt mean the ball will some day stop rolling. The point of understanding the nature of life is not to stop the ball from rolling but to understand the nature of the ball (self vs Self ex), how its rolling (methods of geting to ending rebirth), the direction and position (birth, age, sufering, and death) and the full understanding/navanna (the ball wont stop. Accept it. Help others to accept it too).
I think there is eternal nature. Its not spiritual jargon. Just people think that eternal means static. Like living forever in the same place with the same scenary. Just because we know the full nature of life when enligthened doesnt stop things from changing.
Thats my rap. (no pun)
I have more Pali Canon text than Mahayana. There.s too much sutras to really read all at once with the thick language. If there is a Theravada text thats similar to the Tripaya you know of, that may help. Its not something I need... just an interest. Im a reader.
Recently I had dreams two nights in a row where I was a different person with a different life. They were just small individual scenes, one I was riding a horse home at night and I'd ring a bell so my pregnant wife and child knew it was me arriving and another where I was an extreme bro doing some sort of stunt sport.
I'm not saying these are past life memories, they just seemed like dreams to me, the point is that in that dream way I felt like I was these different people and I had emotions and feelings about the situations that felt like a whole life story behind them.
So I reflected on them as if they were past lives and saw how real they seemed but how they are now just as fleeting as if they were a dream and then thinking how my life now is the same gave me a glimpse of how the things I find so important in this life will be gone and how the emphasis of my practice would be different if past lives were something I held in my heart.
I'm not saying belief is necessary for practice, I myself get really turned off by conservative Buddhists who can't imagine any other way. But also, one's metaphysical worldview isn't irrelevant to the way in which one practices.
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I liked it. A continuum that is selfless, ownerless, empty. No one is being reborn, because no one died. No one died because no one was born.
Well put. Almost word for word how I feel. I just simply don't know and have thought about it often.
I don't even have an opinion.
We are vibrations. We will have next existance as per our thoughts of craving or anything good as stable mind.
We have made up of our own desire. We took birth in human body because our vibrations matched to such life.
Im thinking that sounds like our thoughts will be floating in the middle of nowhere... or vibrations vibrating with no source. Kind of like those cartoons where the hero turns into a bolt of lightening (like the Flash) to get the bad guy. Something like that?
Just think about it. We are made up of four elements. If we don't eat for weeks we will loss weight. So we eat food and choose to live. We wear clothes as per own wish. In short we are creator of own existance.
When Buddha realised that he has enlightened. He first said "I found, I myself is the creator of this body".
Yes we are floating in universe. There is constant change happening in the world.
Though what is changing? What are thoughts without the brain to process the experiences into language in our heads? How does our kamma affect us once our body turn to ashes?
Vibrations as in energy? We are all energy.
However, I cant connect how that relates to ending rebirth.
How does energy experiemce suffering? And enlightenment?
We can avoid our uncomfortable rebirth and can have pleasant existence. I am not saying ending rebirth but unpleasant rebirth.
I think this is what they call heaven or paradice.
As long as we are human we are bound to suffer from hunger or decease.
Suppose I am craving to get good car and spacious house. Most probably I will again become human or cat of rich person.
Energy is just part of the universal law. We are suffering beacuse our nature is craving for pleasures otherwise it makes no sense between pleasant and unpleasant.
Do you think that brain is doing all the thing. It might be responding to sensations. For now truth is, we are human. And can say, body itself is me as far as alive.
This is what I have conformed after came across scripture from thervada and my own judgement.
Energy is not suffering but our nature is suffering which craves for pleasures. Our nature is made up of our process of several existance i.e thinking pattern. I believe it's like artificial intellectual.
Actually yes, you have confirmed what I said. The teaching on rebirth is not one of the unanswered questions.
I think it's useful to separate out what the suttas actually say, and what we personally believe.
Personally I'm agnostic on the question of rebirth.
OK, so what exactly have you experienced being reborn, then ageing, then dying, moment-to-moment? And what does it actually feel like?
I'm not saying belief is necessary for practice, I myself get really turned off by ultra-sceptical Buddhists who can't imagine any other way.
Extreme views are certainly to be avoided. Rebirth is taught as a middle way.
Actually he does. See the "Three knowledges" section here ( about 2/3 down the page ):
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.039.than.html
In the Potthapada Sutta, DN 9, there are some questions that the Buddha defines as " not calculated to profit, nor concerned with the Dhamma, it does not even redound even to the elements of right conduct, [...]nor to quietude, nor to tranquillisation of heart, nor to real knowledge, nor to insight of the higher stages of the Path, nor to Nirvana. THEREFORE IT IS THAT I EXPRESS NO OPINION ABOUT IT"
Among these questions are:
-Does one who has gained the truth live again after death?
-Does he not live again after death?
-Does he neither live again nor not live again after death?
Where do you "Rebirth" is left in all of the above?
This suits me just fine. Thank you.
What happens to a Tathagata when he dies is an an unanswered question, but what happens to the rest of us isn't an unanswered question in the suttas.
See here for example:
"Now, Ananda, there is the person who has killed living beings here... has had wrong view. And on the dissolution of the body, after death, he reappears in the states of deprivation, in an unhappy destination, in perdition, in hell.[7] But (perhaps) the evil kamma producing his suffering was done by him earlier, or the evil kamma producing his suffering was done by him later, or wrong view was undertaken and completed by him at the time of his death.[8] And that was why, on the dissolution of the body, after death, he reappeared in the states of deprivation, in an unhappy destination, in perdition, in hell. But since he has killed living beings here... has had wrong view, he will feel the result of that here and now, or in his next rebirth, or in some subsequent existence."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.136.nymo.html
And of course there there are the first two of the Three Knowledges, the suttas describe how the Buddha remembered his own past lives and saw other beings reborn, here for example: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.039.than.html
Yes, @SpinyNorman, there is always a sutta that seems to contradict what another sutta states.
After all, they were not written by the Buddha himself.
We could go on like his all day.
The Potthapada Sutta and the Parable of the Arrow are quite fine for me.
Other people love to get carried away with the Jataka tales.
To each his sutta.
After all, I have yet to find someone from any religion that can with 100 % certainty assess what happens after we die.
And since living and growing is already absorbing enough as it is, whoever loves to speculate on rebirth is welcome to do so.
Except that there is no certainty at the end of those ponderings.
In the suttas the eternalist view is false, but so is the other extreme, nihilism or materialism.
See notes 3 and 5 here: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.041.than.html
In this case the suttas aren't contradictory, they are talking about different things. I am describing what the suttas say about rebirth, you are talking about unanswered questions, it's a different question and a red herring in this discussion.
If in the suttas I presented above the Buddha states he won't answer questions having to do with life AFTER death, when exactly does rebirth take place for you?
OP presents a question, different members provide different answers, most with material to back up their opinion.
Present your opinion and respect other people's without always rapping on people's knuckles, @SpinyNorman.
There are thousands of suttas from different traditions with varying opinions on rebirth.
Each person can decide which path to take.
You yourself are skeptical, me too.
Good for us.
Other people probably are not and that's fine too.
I'm not "rapping your knuckles", just disagreeing with you. I think you're being oversensitive.
I have explained that you are conflating two separate topics, rebirth and unanswered questions. I have explained that in the suttas what happens to a Tathagata when he dies is an an unanswered question, but what happens to the rest of us isn't an unanswered question. I've explained that there are many references in the suttas to rebirth and I have provided some examples.
This seems pretty clear, I'm really not sure what you're disagreeing with.
Same here. I do get frustrated though when people try to airbrush rebirth out of Buddhism, it often seems more the result of aversion than an objective analysis of the source material.
If there's stuff in the suttas or sutras that people don't find useful or relevant then they can just put it to one side. But I do wish they would stop pretending it isn't there.
I've had some very strange recurring dreams in the past, they felt more like memories. One dream series I remember vividly was running through tunnels trying to escape, I was a German soldier on the Russian front in WW2. That one went on for months.
I don't know, maybe just dreams, maybe something more.
Also sometimes a sense of time stretching back indefinitely, beyond personal memories. But also timeless? It's difficult to articulate.
Once one has full wisdom, they go beyond notions coming and going. So the initial question is already a mistake. Coming and going is no longer relevant.
The word "Tathagata" means beyond all coming and going – beyond all transitory phenomena. A number of sutra passages affirm that a Tathagata is "immeasurable", "inscrutable", "hard to fathom", and "not apprehended". A tathagata has abandoned that clinging to the skandhas (personality factors) that render citta (the mind) a bounded, measurable entity, and is instead "freed from being reckoned by" all or any of them, even in life.
An ordinary person is simply unable to perceive or understand what "Tathagata" really means. The zen masters of old likened it to trying to grab an area of space with your hand. That's impossible!
In the suttas there is stuff multifarious enough for everyone's taste.
Then you come to the point where you have to decide what you find is relevant for your own particular path or not.
Nobody is saying Rebirth is not a Buddhist issue.
Just that it might be more or less relevant to someone in particular or not.
Some People love to speculate on Rebirth and the afterlife, others are more concerned with the application of the N8P
(Potthapada Sutta - DN9)
I interpreted the OP as asking what happens to an enlightened person once they die, so I was attempting to answer that specific question rather than rebirth for the rest of us.