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How can you prove reincarnation to be real??
A lot of people have said that they can remember there past lives and stuff. I just wanted to have others views and opinions on reincarnation.
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I live under the understanding that I basically have this one chance to do what I feel I need to do. I know this doesn't go along with most Buddhist beliefs - but there aren't any religions I can think of that have a clear cut view of what happens once we die. It's all hearsay. No matter if you believe in the teachings of Buddha, Christ or Allah. All these writings have been written by man. Even the stories of a god coming down from Mt. Zion and writing the 10 Commandments is just another person writing a story - supposedly from their experience - of what happened.
In fact, I believe it's Man's fear of the unknown that has caused him to come up with ideas like Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism - various beliefs in gods and such. It provides some way of trying to make "sense" of life and death.
Maybe it's our own humanity and attachment that make us think we're so important as an individual that we CAN'T be like animals or plants. That all of our thoughts and life experiences can't just stop when we die.
But on the flip side - Buddhism does make a good point about our "essence".
What is this "thing" inside of us that makes us who we are? What is conscienceness? Our organs funciton like they were made to. Much like the fibers of plants or the activities of the Earth (tides, volcanos, earthquakes, etc.). A liver does what it's supposed to do - and as far as I know - it has no conscienceness.
So, why do we have this body, this shell - and then have this entirely different "entity" that inhabits it? Why does our brain, basically a lump of specialized fat, have the capacity to remember, reason, feel, etc.
I mean - just take a moment while you're reading this to look and think about the functions of the human body and then think about your mind. What makes you - you? Why does a lump of fat in your head give you the ability to think, "I am me"? What causes this?
We know the body can exist when the mind is gone - because people die every day. Granted the body decays - but it doesn't disappear once the "self" has abandoned it. But what causes the body to continue "living" just because our self inhabits it? On a scientific level, is it because our "self" inhabiting it - these electrical impulses and such keep it functioning? If so - what sort of "energy" is the self?
So... if the body has the ability to exist on this plane (for ever how long it will hang around until decomposing) maybe this essense goes somewhere. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe it converts to something else? Maybe it joins some other "power" or "essense".
It's all very interesting.
As for me - Buddhism removes the secondary plan most religious human have to deal with concerning the Afterlife. I don't fret about what I'm doing because I don't want to burn in Hell for eternity. I fret about what I can do with this time that is given to me. If there is a Hell - even if I were a devout Christian - I have no guarantees that I won't be going to Hell. It's not up to me - it's up to some deity that does whatever they want. So, why make this existance a Hell worrying about whether I'm going to Hell or not?
I do things with the thought process that I want to be happy. I want my son to be happy. I want my life-partner to be happy. I don't want to be lying on my deathbed thinking of all the pain I've brought to other people during my time here.
-bf
There were many cases in the states where hynosis were used to recollect previous lives memories. Some children are able to do this naturally without being hynotised.
cheers,
Good point.
For me, taking someone else's word on their "experience" truly does not secure me in the knowledge that what they are saying is actually true.
There are also a ton of people who remember their past lives as Cleopatra or Napoleon or someone really famous or prominent.
Strikes me as odd. One famous person in history that a ton of people inhabited in previous lives...
-bf
Perhaps it is not their words that are untrue but your approach to them...
And perhaps everyone at one time or another has really been Cleopatra or Napolean.
Perhaps not. That's why I temper things like this with the Kalama Sutra.
Either way - I don't believe it has any impact on what I do with this life. If in a previous life I was close to Nirvana - it's my actions in this life that either get me to Nirvana, closer to Nirvana or farther away from Nirvana.
-bf
"What," he responded mischievously, "were you doing on May 17th, 1979?"
"I don't remember...." answered the reporter, slightly taken aback by both the question, and the Dalai Lamas' mirth...
"Neither can I!!" Rejoined HH, laughing merrily...."and if I can't remember that, imagine my trying to remember what I did a lifetime ago - !! So many questions, all unanswerable, so no point!" He continued giggling.
There are many wise Lamas and Yogis who DO remember a past life. There are several examples in the Tibetan Book of Living & Dying, and I cannot imagine Sogyal Rinpoche resorting to fantasy or hearsay to ezxpound this phenomenon....
I have read reports of people doing incredible things, because they were purported to be reincarnations of very ordinary people; and through re-visiting places, and talking to relatives and friends of the deceased person, they had been able to establish, beyond any doubt in their minds, that they were indeed this person. But it has never happened to me, and I have never met anyone like this, although I've read plenty of articles, and seen a few programmes....
Still, I'm prepared to keep an open mind...Just because we don't believe something, it doesn't mean it isn't true.... But there are many who through questions and on evidence of manifested characteristics, have had sufficient proof revealed to them, for them to believe in it. And who am I to rain on their parade?
Am I coming off sounding like I don't believe these people? That's not my intent. If a person beleives in something and it works for them - more power to them. If it helps solidify their beliefs - that's great.
My point is that it hasn't been proven to me. So, I can't just accept it as being true. Not that it couldn't be proven - it just hasn't yet.
Nor does it really matter to me. I view reincarnation as something that may or may not exist. Does the existance of reincarnation help one remove suffering and attachment from their current life? For me? No.
-bf
I heard HHDL asked what he would do if rebirth were proved, scientifically, to be untrue. He replied that he would immediately stop believing in it. And then, after a pause, he asked the interviewer, "And how are you going to proved or disprove it?"
Many people find that the arguments for the soul, rebirth, an afterlife. e tutti quanti, convincing. They may even deem them self-evident, so deeply are they part of their perception of the world.
Speaking personally, I find myself wandering around, examining all these interesting hypotheses-as-facts. They tell me so much about my own mind in those moments when I do believe something and then, at another time, when I no longer am sure or disbelieve.
Dhamma Without Rebirth?
by
Bhikkhu Bodhi
BPS Newsletter cover essay no. 6 (Spring 1987)
Copyright © 1987 Buddhist Publication Society
For free distribution only.
You may re-format, reprint, translate, and redistribute this work in any medium,
provided that you charge no fees for its distribution or use.
Otherwise, all rights reserved.
In line with the present-day stress on the need for religious teachings to be personally relevant and directly verifiable, in certain Dhamma circles the time-honored Buddhist doctrine of rebirth has come up for severe re-examination. Although only a few contemporary Buddhist thinkers still go so far as to suggest that this doctrine be scrapped as "unscientific," another opinion has been gaining ground to the effect that whether or not rebirth itself be a fact, the doctrine of rebirth has no essential bearings on the practice of Dhamma and thence no claim to an assured place in the Buddhist teachings. The Dhamma, it is said, is concerned solely with the here and now, with helping us to resolve our personal hangups through increased self-awareness and inner honesty. All the rest of Buddhism we can now let go as the religious trappings of an ancient culture utterly inappropriate for the Dhamma of our technological age.
If we suspend our own predilections for the moment and instead go directly to our sources, we come upon the indisputable fact that the Buddha himself taught rebirth and taught it as a basic tenet of his teaching. Viewed in their totality, the Buddha's discourses show us that far from being a mere concession to the outlook prevalent in his time or an Asiatic cultural contrivance, the doctrine of rebirth has tremendous implications for the entire course of Dhamma practice, affecting both the aim with which the practice is taken up and the motivation with which it is followed through to completion.
The aim of the Buddhist path is liberation from suffering, and the Buddha makes it abundantly clear that the suffering from which liberation is needed is the suffering of bondage to samsara, the round of repeated birth and death. To be sure, the Dhamma does have an aspect which is directly visible and personally verifiable. By direct inspection of our own experience we can see that sorrow, tension, fear and grief always arise from our greed, aversion and ignorance, and thus can be eliminated with the removal of those defilements. The importance of this directly visible side of Dhamma practice cannot be underestimated, as it serves to confirm our confidence in the liberating efficacy of the Buddhist path. However, to downplay the doctrine of rebirth and explain the entire import of the Dhamma as the amelioration of mental suffering through enhanced self-awareness is to deprive the Dhamma of those wider perspectives from which it derives its full breadth and profundity. By doing so one seriously risks reducing it in the end to little more than a sophisticated ancient system of humanistic psychotherapy.
The Buddha himself has clearly indicated that the root problem of human existence is not simply the fact that we are vulnerable to sorrow, grief and fear, but that we tie ourselves through our egoistic clinging to a constantly self-regenerating pattern of birth, aging, sickness and death within which we undergo the more specific forms of mental affliction. He has also shown that the primary danger in the defilements is their causal role in sustaining the round of rebirths. As long as they remain unabandoned in the deep strata of the mind, they drag us through the round of becoming in which we shed a flood of tears "greater than the waters of the ocean." When these points are carefully considered, we then see that the practice of Dhamma does not aim at providing us with a comfortable reconciliation with our present personalities and our situation in the world, but at initiating a far-reaching inner transformation which will issue in our deliverance from the cycle of worldly existence in its entirety.
Admittedly, for most of us the primary motivation for entering upon the path of Dhamma has been a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction with the routine course of our unenlightened lives rather than a keen perception of the dangers in the round of rebirths. However, if we are going to follow the Dhamma through to its end and tap its full potential for conferring peace and higher wisdom, it is necessary for the motivation of our practice to mature beyond that which originally induced us to enter the path. Our underlying motivation must grow toward those essential truths disclosed to us by the Buddha and, encompassing those truths, must use them to nourish its own capacity to lead us toward the realization of the goal.
Our motivation acquires the requisite maturity by the cultivation of right view, the first factor of the Noble Eightfold Path, which as explained by the Buddha includes an understanding of the principles of kamma and rebirth as fundamental to the structure of our existence. Though contemplating the moment is the key to the development of insight meditation, it would be an erroneous extreme to hold that the practice of Dhamma consists wholly in maintaining mindfulness of the present. The Buddhist path stresses the role of wisdom as the instrument of deliverance, and wisdom must comprise not only a penetration of the moment in its vertical depths, but a comprehension of the past and future horizons within which our present existence unfolds. To take full cognizance of the principle of rebirth will give us that panoramic perspective from which we can survey our lives in their broader context and total network of relationships. This will spur us on in our own pursuit of the path and will reveal the profound significance of the goal toward which our practice points, the end of the cycle of rebirths as mind's final liberation from suffering.
Hello Everybody,
I'm new here and this is my first post. It feels a little exciting. I have been just hanging out for a couple days and everybody seems friendly and passionate. It is nice to see so many people from what looks like various traditions and interests, but also with a lot of sincerity. I look forward to getting to know you all more as time goes on.
As for reincarnation, I too don't know what is the truth about it, but as I have practiced buddhism longer it has become more of the context I find myself thinking in. It has made a little home in my consciousness. And, in that way, I find it effects the way I interact with the world. Insects, for example, are no longer insignificant things. Each has as much of a life-force as I do. Each is moving with cause and effects. Each is fragile and livingdying. This causes me to avoid stepping on them, etc. Dogs, cats, birds, etc. have also changed from when I was on the "one-life-only" default I was born with.
I found Bhikkhu Bodhi's essay interesting and appreciate Elohim for posting it. I think his point is a good one. It is true that for Buddhism to have real breadth, the idea of rebirth is important. While this still doesn't mean that rebirth is proven to be true, I agree that rebirth forms a logical foundation for the teachings. It is something we need to examine and try to fathom in order to better understand the Dharma.
In particular, I think reincarnation grounds Buddhism as a practice of patience rather than one of expedience. When we imagine that we have been and will be coming back for kalpas worth of lives, it changes the space in which things have value. It means we aren't getting out of anything easy. It means I am just wasting my time if I'm not taking my practice seriously. In this way, this moment becomes the pivot on which all of time hinges. It makes me give greater attention to what I'm doing.
On the other hand, I think Buddhism has to be careful about being too dogmatic about reincarnation. Just as the Christian Fundamentalists make Christianity look like "little more than an ancient system of humanistic" ethics when it clings too much to a literal reading of Genesis, Buddhism runs the same risk if it stresses reincarnation too much. That's why I really like that story federica quoted from the Dalai Lama. Humor should be valued as highly as Wisdom and Compassion.
Luckily, so far, I haven't met a Buddhist who pushes reincarnation too much.
Peace to you all.
moon
It is true that there is no objective scientific way to prove rebirth, which in Pali is "punabbhava" which literally means "again becoming", however, it is a very important factor in the Buddha's path.
But that being said, it also does not have to be stressed ad nauseum either.
I hope that you enjoy the rest of the site.
Jason
I agree. And, this way of viewing rebirth, I think, helps us to understand Emptiness (Sunyata) and the wisdom of No Self. When the Heart Sutra talks about "no eye, no ear, no nose" etc., for a long time I was perplexed, thinking, "How could I not have a nose? I have a nose and eyes. I've always had a nose and eyes, ever since I got this body." But, then after years of meditating on it, I glimpsed what I think it is saying. In fact, I have no nose and no eye. This nose I have now--this big long thing with hairs growing out of it--is not the same nose I had when I was a 10 year old boy. (Oh, that cute little nose with its limited history of smells, where has it gone?) This nose isn't even the nose of yesterday or when I started writing this post. This nose is impermanent. It is reborn from the previous incarnations of my nose, but is not the same. I don't have a nose that is stable and unchanging. My nose is conditional; at this moment it is slightly stuffed-up and is created by the scent of coffee from my breath. My ear is the sound of a motorcycle in the distance and the tapping of computer keys.
Viewing rebirth as occurring in this life, in my opinion, is really useful, particularly in relation to overcoming attachment.
Gassho
Welcome to the site. There are a lot of great people here that can usually answer any questions you may have. I have learned a lot from reading the posts and pondering all of the information listed here. I look forward to getting to know you.
Adiana :type: :mullet:
Thanks.
cheers,
If that is the case then we have all been or will be, at some point, each other.
My view is that its pointless speculating about reincarnation and rebirth.
Ten years ago, my youngest son (10 at the time) and I visited Dharamsala. We were both interested in Buddhism and practised together. One day, discussing rebirth, Jack had been introduced to a young tulku, Jack said: "Well. Even if we are reborn, we're just going to die again, aren't we?"
Also, as I understand it, a human life is a rare rebirth, so if any of us were here before, chances were we weren't human at the time, or we were in some other sphere or dimension. Or on another planet or different universe entirely.
After all, there are more people alive today than have ever existed in the whole of human history. So most of us cannot be a rebirth of another human, at least no other human from this realm. And I am suspicious of the people who always claim to have been Elizabeth I, or Abe Lincoln, or Cleopatra or Napolean. No one says "Oh, I remember my past life in which I was a cow called Daisy, and before that I was a sea anemome called Bert".
"This is how he attends inappropriately: 'Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what was I in the past? Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future? Having been what, what shall I be in the future?' Or else he is inwardly perplexed about the immediate present: 'Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?'"
MN2
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.002.than.html
As this thread originated in 2005(!) and many more recent threads have flogged this subject to within a mm of its bones - I think we can safely say we're done here.
Anything else - find a more recent thread. there are literally, far too many on the subject for you to choose from!!