Is it better to believe in one life or in many?
Jeroen
Not all those who wander are lostNetherlands Veteran
It is actually an interesting question. Many religions that originate in the region of India believe in many lives and the wheel of reincarnation, for example Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism share this. But it seems to make people more content, because they know, if in this life they don’t have a palace, then perhaps in a next life it will happen for them. Much jealousy, much ill feeling is reduced by it.
If on the other hand you believe that this life is all there is, as Christians or Mohammedans or scientific materialists would have you believe, then you put an awful lot of pressure on what you do with this life. Everything becomes very immediate, and carries heavy consequence. You also immediately become concerned with meaning and philosophy.
I think for a Buddhist questions of meaning are resolved by the idea of reincarnation. In terms of the way it enables you to think, I find it much more sane than the Christian approach, and more wise and good natured also.
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I think you could also add whether you think life continues on after death or not.
Robert Thurman likes to say something like in Buddhism rebirth isn't a promise (like something good because you get more chances), its a threat (in that most of our lives are in much worse conditions than the human one, so get busy).
So I'd say there can be a more relaxed attitude with the notion of multiple lives, but that might not always be a good thing. And I wouldn't say it is better at reducing something like jealousy, a Christian could not care about a mansion because they'll have something better in heaven, while a Buddhist could think their mansion means they're a better person than the one without it because their karma is superior.
I guess as far as I'm getting immediately to resolving this is only to say that there are probably pros and cons of each.
I'm also not really sure what you mean by one life making someone more interested in meaning and philosophy. I see plenty of Buddhists interested in this throughout history and I don't really get the connection.
The search for meaning and philosophy as it is known in Europe didn’t really evolve in the Far East, as far as I know.
"as it is known in Europe" seems to be doing most of the work. The east has a ton of philosophy and meaning. So what do you mean specifically about how it expressed itself in Europe that it didn't in the Asian context?
I’ve never yet heard about an easterner - Japanese, Indian, Chinese, Korean - talk about the meaning of life. In western philosophy the question looms large, the east doesn’t think about it. If you know of an eastern book or text that addresses it, feel free to mention it.
I'm not sure I've heard those words either. But the pursuit of liberation or moksha, the duty of Confucianism, living in accordance with the Tao. The East seems full of it.
Maybe what you're really trying to get at is something else other than purpose or significance? Maybe something about how these broad ways of thinking classify meaning?
I don’t think they classify meaning at all. The major eastern religions - except Zen - do provide something in the way of meaning, but they don’t talk about it in those terms. It’s as if what it is isn’t important, and instead they talk about why.
Maybe you're talking about some kind of metaphysics about the ultimate purpose of life, the universe and everything? I think there is a fair bit of cosmology in the East, but there also is a more practical focus on what to do in the here and now as opposed to mere intellectual speculation.
I'm not sure if that's quite what you're getting at. I can agree that the Western mindset broadly is more concrete while the East is more fluid. Though there are western schools of thought like existentialism, absurdism or post modernism that are less rigid and there are Eastern schools like Confucianism that are more rigid. So frankly, it is a bit of a Western way of thinking, rigidly classifying them so distinctly.
Regardless, to the extent that this definitional sidetrack is sorted, what's your theory on how a belief in one life vs many creates these different sort of mindsets?
I was thinking more of Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, which I read a while back, rather than anything metaphysical. It seems to be a hole in many people’s mental makeup which demands to be filled, once people are confronted with it.
It’s the idea that a foundational belief in living many lives creates a kind of relaxation around what happens in this life. You no longer have to worry about death, because it leads to another life, and this life is not the only life so you find hardships easier to bear.
There is a story they tell in India about Brahma, the highest god. One day Brahma was showing off his glorious new palace to a group of visitors, when he noticed one hermit off to the side who was smiling strangely. Why do you smile, the god asked the hermit. And the hermit said, observe these ants. One day one of them will hold the office of Brahma. And the god was humbled, because in their beliefs a soul holds the office of a god only temporarily.
So any person on Earth, if his karma is good enough, may be reborn as the highest god.
It sounds like you're mainly talking about a sort of looseness or tightness around urgency in life. I think its probably something deeper than multiple lives or a single life. Buddhism has the core teaching of the preciousness of a human life, that its hard to come by and not guaranteed to continue in the next, its easy to fall. Or even if it does continue perhaps the conditions of our next life won't be so conducive to practice. Siddhartha's early practice was very urgent and not relaxed, he was too tight and needed to loosen relative to where he was. But better isn't looser, better is more balanced, a well tuned practice, not too tight and not too loose. In his life he made a lot of efforts, he didn't sip tea and watch the sunset. A Christian could take a relaxed attitude because they'll be saved by the grace of God, they don't need to work so hard.
Striving can be positive too. My nephew has scoliosis, he does BMX and is pretty competitive with it, he really wants to win. He brought that attitude into his treatment and got good results.
Maybe there are other things to not be so relaxed about. A common argument in resistance to female participation in religious life from multiple life traditions was that women could just become men in their future lives.
No lectures, missives, or sermons. Just an observation:
Belief in One Life or Many Lives is, I think, of less importance than how we are living THIS life. Atheists, the "One and Done" faction, have often displayed strong ethical and moral fortitude than supposed devout religionists, particularly the Monotheists, and especially the self proclaimed (in the US) Christians of the Nationalist and militant sects.
Rather, the challenge is to honor life. The challenge is to treasure ,the gift, the happenstance we know as life. To honor it in ourselves and in others, be they family, friends, neighbors, strangers, even perceived enemies.
The Bodhissatva, who celebrates life and to others sincerely expresses, "Your pain is my pain, your joy is my joy.", is a model we can all emulate.
This regardless of "One life recurring", "Multiple Lives", or "One and Done".
Pece to all
I think rebirth would work like the hydrological system here on Earth. Clouds transform into drops which fall individually and through the path of least resistance they eventually evaporate and again form clouds. It's all the same water but no individual drop ever repeats.
So I am a drop while incarnate, and part of a cloud while between lives? Cool!
I'm not sure it matters. Yes, if you are afraid of creating negative karmic imprints within yourself which might cause a bad rebirth, it might matter. But fear is not a very good motivator when it comes to the matter of mind-training (such as doing your Buddhist meditation).
Buddhism tells us that the Past is just a memory and no-longer matters. And that the Future never arises -- it is always tomorrow. All we have is THIS moment, but when we handle this moment as working on enlightenment, then the internal future we are creating will be positive (and the only thing which really matters IS the internal moment, at this moment in time, Here and Now).
Lastly, it is said that when we die our self-identify and memories also die and all that passes on is a very subtle energy carrying our karma imprints.
So focusing on past/future lives is focusing on something which doesn't really matter. It is this moment, and how we are relating to it, which matters.
Is it better to believe in one life or in many?
Yes! 😉😁
Sometimes better, sometimes worse.
For some better, for some worse.
In some ways better, in some worse.
The same, and different.
A better question might be: stuck between birth and death, and not knowing what came before and what comes after, whachagona do about it?