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A Question about Rebirth
Hello everyone.
I'm new to Buddhism, and considering where I live, I really don't have a place to go and ask this simple, yet confusing, question.
Does the cycle of rebirth continue until one reaches enlightenment?
I know this seems like a simple question, but it has me confused because it goes against everything I was "taught" as a kid. I grew up in a Christian home, and I was taught that there was "one way" to salvation.
I'm sorry if this has been asked several times before, I still haven't learned my way around this community very well. Thanks for ya'lls time.
Lost Student
I'm new to Buddhism, and considering where I live, I really don't have a place to go and ask this simple, yet confusing, question.
Does the cycle of rebirth continue until one reaches enlightenment?
I know this seems like a simple question, but it has me confused because it goes against everything I was "taught" as a kid. I grew up in a Christian home, and I was taught that there was "one way" to salvation.
I'm sorry if this has been asked several times before, I still haven't learned my way around this community very well. Thanks for ya'lls time.
Lost Student
0
Comments
A cool book toread is "The Compass Of Zen" by Zen master Seung Sahn.
Most christians I talk to are waiting for the next life .. some buddhist too it seems after each life they will have a rebirth and come closer to enlightment ... although there is another understanding that every momement in life we are changing .. we are a new person .. so every momement we are experiencing rebirth and at each rebirth a chance to experience or attain enlightment. In this understanding there is no past or future just the NOW. "Death" is of no consequence.
Cheers ..
The subjects of rebirth and karma are the two things that throw most new students of Buddhism because they seem like very foreign ideas to us. But really they're not so foreign if you think about it.
Even in Christianity there is some sense of rebirth. John the Baptist is said in the Bible to be the reincarnation of Elijah (though I don't think they use the word "reincarnation").
As OST pointed out, there is also more than one way to think about rebirth. If you consider the teaching of the Buddha that there is no inherent reality in anything apart from everything else, that is, that there is no "you" separate from everything else, then it becomes a little easier to understand. What we think of as "I" is really just a collection of phenomena that is constantly changing, even though we think of ourselves as separate and distinct from "not-I". So life is really more like a motion picture than a constant, unchanging reality. You can think of life like a series of pictures which when strung together give the illusion of "self", just like a motion picture creates the illusion of reality by projecting thousands of still pictures onto the screen faster than we can perceive the change. So in that sense we are dying and being reborn constantly. We are always changing.
In another sense, when we get to the end of this life, our body, which is composed of elements which have come together to produce this form, dissolves back into the various elements. But the karma we have created during this life (and other past lives) gives the impetus for a new birth, not of the same person, but of the same habitual tendencies that are present in this life.
Belief in "I" is really nothing more than a habit that we've had for a very, very long time. We believe there is something called "I" (whatever form that it is in during a given life), and that deluded belief persists, driving the wheel of rebirth. Enlightenment is the realization that there is no "I" in reality, just a collection of phenomena, so the impetus to take rebirth is ended at that point.
Hope that helps. And if you want a discourse on karma, that'll be another quarter.
Palzang
Palzang puts it really well. I guess all I wanted to say was, yes, the round of death and rebirth continues until one reaches enlightenment.
Hummm...
I dunno if that helped 'Lost Student' but it helped me. Thanks for that
Lost Student
Still there is even another aspect to rebirth ... perhaps you can comment on. It was explained well from a well known monk from vietnam .. who's name eludes me :-/
When we meet others and interact with them and teach them something new or set them on a path or more accurately help set them on their path ... we have in fact past on something of ourselves .. something that carries on long after our body fades.
Is this not also a rebirth ?
Cheers ..
Palzang
This way of looking at it makes sense to me anyway.
There may also be .. perceptions .. of the world that are habitual and much harder to overcome even more so then the bad habits we commonly face each day .. like eating lots of good food when we have had enough. !!!
I think beaking habits of perceptions are the crux or major exercise in buddhism.
Cheers ...
There are many misconception in regard to kamma and the ways in which kamma is said to work. To begin with, the Buddha said, "Intention, I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, and intellect" (AN 6.63). The word itself simply means "action." Thus, kamma is commonly defined as intentional actions of body, speech, and mind. Intention (cetana) is a product of the aggregate of mental formations (sankharakhandha). The cause by which kamma comes into play is contact (phassa). Furthermore, according to Nyanatiloka's Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines, vipaka is "any... mental phenomenon (e.g. bodily agreeable or painful feeling, sense-consciousness, etc.), which is the result of wholesome or unwholesome volitional action (karma, q.v.) through body, speech or mind, done either in this or some previous life."
On a more simplistic level, kamma (volitional actions of body, speech, and mind) produces vipaka (fruits or results) as long as there is avijja (ignorance), i.e., ignorance of the Four Noble Truths, present. With avijja present, all intentional actions of body, speech, or mind are said to have the potential to ripen during this life-time (dittha-dhamma-vedaniya-kamma), in the next birth (upapajja-vedaniya-kamma), or in later births (aparapariya-vedaniya kamma). Additionally, the commentarial tradition of Theravada denies that everything is the result of kamma. According to them, there are five natural laws (panca-niyamas) which operate in the physical and mental worlds. The five laws are seasonal laws (utu-niyama), biological laws (bija-niyama), psychological laws (citta-niyama), kammic laws (kamma-niyama), and natural laws (dhamma-niyama) *.
With all of this in mind, I believe that in certain contexts, it would be appropriate to think of kamma as "habit energy" in that the potential effect of an action can be to strengthen certain physical and psychological reactions. This is especially true in regard to psychological reactions considering that vipaka is limited specifically to "mental phenomena," i.e., corporeal things are never called kamma-vipaka. In most contexts, however, I believe that "habit energy" applies more to the Pali word "anusaya." Essentially, the anusaya (underlying tendencies) are the "seven major obsessions to which the mind returns over and over again." According to Buddhaghosa, "These things are called 'proclivities' since, in consequence of their pertinacity, they ever and again tend to become the conditions for the arising of ever new sensuous greed, etc.'' (Vis.M. XXII, 60).
Jason
;::
As I have mentioned before, I do not believe that there is any kamma, especially the kamma of killing, as long as there is s no intention to harm or kill the insect. In Pali, the word kamma itself means action. Therefore, the kamma of killing would be the action of killing. Furthermore, in AN 6.63, the Buddha says, "Intention, I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, and intellect." In the instance of a person stepping on an insect, as long as there is no intention to harm or kill the insect, there is no kamma of killing.
While this understanding of the doctrine of kamma might differ from that of other traditions, the Theravada Vinaya confirms this interpretation, stating that, "Deliberately killing an animal — or having it killed — is a pacittiya offense." (Pc 61/420). In The Bhikkhus' Rules: A Guide for Laypeople, the Venerable Thanissaro summarizes this monastic rule, and explains that, "Intention is an essential factor here. For example, if a bhikkhu only intends to sweep a path but accidentally kills ants in the process, there is no offence because it is not deliberate."
Jason