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don't get rebirth . . .
Some ideas I've heard from Buddhism make a lot of sense to me, like the idea that nothing is perminant and that what we call "I" is really made up of our form, feelings, thoughts, perceptions, and consciousness. (I forget what the word is for this, can someone fill me in?)
What I don't get is rebirth. For one thing, if the thing that I call "I" depends on my body (form) then how in the world could I be reborn in a different body? I can get the idea of karma in the sense that what we do has consequences, essentially. But I really get tied up in the idea that people can be reborn in different bodies, and especially with the idea that they can bear responsibility for things "they" did in "past lives."
Admittedly it's a highly theoretical question. I'm just trying to fit the stuff I've learned onto some sort of coherent framework. Presently I don't believe in any sort of rebirth, for exactly the reasons mentioned above.
What I don't get is rebirth. For one thing, if the thing that I call "I" depends on my body (form) then how in the world could I be reborn in a different body? I can get the idea of karma in the sense that what we do has consequences, essentially. But I really get tied up in the idea that people can be reborn in different bodies, and especially with the idea that they can bear responsibility for things "they" did in "past lives."
Admittedly it's a highly theoretical question. I'm just trying to fit the stuff I've learned onto some sort of coherent framework. Presently I don't believe in any sort of rebirth, for exactly the reasons mentioned above.
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I can understand the concept as what you do in your like affects what the next generation will be like and what they will have to go though. But I can't see personal responsibility transending this lifetime. Not that I don't like the idea, I just don't see the world working that way.
Clicky.
I think of it this way:
We are like a cart, made up of different parts. say, wheels, the wood that makes up the body of the cart, the screws, etc etc. These will represent our 5 Skandhas (form, impulse/perception, concept, conciousness, and feeling). When the cart gets old, it is recycled, and a the new cart is affected by what happened to the parts of the old one. So when we pass on, our skandhas are re-arranged to form a new being, this being affected by the karma produced in your last lifetime. well, thats how I see it ^^
any other comments or views on this?
Please believe me when I say this, trust in my words:
Rebirth can never be fully understood unless you devote yourself to a consistent meditation practice. No matter how many words I (or anybody else for that matter) use to explain the concepts of anatta (not-self) and rebirth (punabbhava) there can be no real understanding unless there is direct knowledge and experience. Meditation, real meditation and not just the relaxation kind, can show you these truths. When you are in deep meditation all of your senses cease except one. You will not hear, see, smell, taste, or feel any bodily sensation and yet your mind (the sixth sense in Buddhism) will still be aware. The more you do this the more energy your mind will gain, until you can "ask" what is my earliest memory. You will see many things you had long thought was forgotten. This includes many past lives. When you experience the many profound things brought forth through deep meditation you will know for yourself the truths that the Buddha taught, including rebirth and not-self. There is no point in speculating what is reborn, how it's reborn, or if it is reborn at all. But, you can "know" the answer if you truly practice what the Buddha taught.
Jason
I think I agree with you.
No, Jason. That is not the Buddhist way. Neither your words nor those of the Buddhas of all the ages should be taken as trustworthy until experienced and tested.
The question most asked is "What is reborn if the self is, itself, empty?" and a very good question, too.
To the Awakened One and his followers rebirth/reincarnation was taken for granted. It was a given, just as it has been for most of the generations of human existence (including many Christian groups even today: what else is to be born again?) To most of us, as Westerners, we have come to see death as an end rather than as a transition. A few "kooks" say they remember 'past lives', but they mostly seem to have been lives of importance or significance, not just your day-to-day peasant!
In traditional Tibetan Buddhism, belief in rebirth and karma was considered to be essential beliefs and as fundamental to the Buddhist as Refuge in the Triple Jewel. Many modern teachers, however, such as Lama Surya Das, condiser that an agnostic postion is entirely OK: Lama Surya Das Awakening The Buddha Within
I consider it a complete waste of time trying to prove or disprove rebirth. The very notion makes no sense until we have reached deep levels of meditative awareness, stripping away layers and layers of delusion and deceit.
Maybe a day will come when the West has an acceptable definition of consciousness, mind, 'self', etc. but, until that happens, the questions lead us nowhere: do they make us more ethical in our behaviour, deepen our meditation or increase our wisdom?
But, as a favor perhaps, I encourage everyone to really try and keep a consistent meditation practice for as long as possible. Only then will you have what you need to understand the teachings expounded by the Buddha. The Buddha himself learned what he learned through deep meditation and subsequent contemplation of those experiences. What he experienced, and later taught to the best of his ability, became the foundation for what we today dub "Buddhism". Words, thoughts, explanations, speculations, debates - these give you nothing. They are as 'solid' as the air you breathe. If you really want to know the truth just practice.
Jason
I can't help thinking that reincarnation and rebirth are cultural though . . . and rather tricky for me to get.
:usflag:
Re-birth and reincarnation are two different things, and are to be found as accepted concepts in Christianity, up to about the 11th - 13th CE. But we won't go into it here. And I agree... Keep it simple. Why struggle to absorb the concepts of something that may not be immediately necessary to what you need in the Present Moment? just go with what you know.
Things will come in time as and when you need them.
I think you're exactly right. I'm just not going to get tied up into knots over this one :hair:
:cool:
I was reading a book by the Ven. Thubten Chodron who stated, when asked, if we all return to some cosmic pot of energy and her response was, "No."
That, the mind, which has always existed (and if it didn't there was some "action" that caused the creation of the mind) does not merge or meld with any other energy.
Energies can be "merged" in the way you would meditate together - but an apple still remains an apple even though it's become a "bushel".
Being that I'm not really a follower of Tibetan Buddhism - I don't know what happens. But, I thought I should throw this out for believers of other paths.
-bf
I also think others beliefs, which may be different from mine are also valid. I think most of the things we "know" without proof of are merely parts of a gigantic puzzle which we all simply have a small piece of. Kind of like the story of the 3 blind men and the elephant.
One touched the elephants leg and said it was similar to a tree, the other grabbed its tail and said it was like a rope and the third touched its side and said it was like a wall. None were wrong, but all were merely aware of one tiny aspect of the elephant.
Hope this helps.
Ah, a fellow BeliefNet user :tonguec:
I got that quote too. Interesting way to look at birth and death, isn't it?
Very mystical way of expressing a vary materialist notion
Never a more useful word spoken!
For most of us Westerners there are many difficult teachings and concepts - Rebirth is probably the most common stumbling block. I have consistently found that when I encounter a tricky one "I think i'll just not worry about it and and just keep meditating." usually gets me through.
I have found that if you don't pressure the learning and understanding to come it will arive a lot quicker. Sometimes you're just not ready for a particular point - try not to worry - there are plenty more out there.
I suspect taht the understanding will find you one day - when you stop looking for it...
Jiff
P.s I have found this applies to music/art too - ever felt that you just don't get a particular artist that many people whose opinion you respect seem to really love?...
I have howver discovered that Pink Floyd may still be the exception to this rule!
P.S. Does that mean you don't like Pink Floyd, or you do?
Take what you will accept, and put the rest as a TO-DO perhaps... Then maybe as your understanding of a few parts of Buddhism sharpens, the rest gets clearer, and eventually maybe all your questions will get answered.
Again though, Buddhism ought to be taken holistically, so there ought to be a Middle Path in which you must balance holism and summation.
Why do we find rebirth such a hard concept when it already happened once?
-bf
Jiff
I discovered Buddhism about a year ago and have been doing some reading on it since then, currently working my way through the core books of the Pali canon. I'm another person having real problems with the idea of rebirth though. Rebirth appears to imply immortality; the eternal.
I know that when we die, we rot and our constituents will eventually end up as parts of other things. But it will be thousands of constituents becoming parts of thousands of new life forms (or just staying as inanimate matter for an unspecified period of time). The process of rotting and being consumed, changing in nature and making our way up the food chain, perhaps being returned to the dirt many times before ending up as part of the fats our body stores from the last meal we ate and therefore, potentially, becoming part of a 'person' again takes a huge amount of time. And yet the ideas of rebirth I've read seem to imply a one to one rebirth happening over a short space of time, for example Dalai Lamas through the ages. I can also see no way for 'reaching enlightenment' to somehow physically remove our constituents from the earth (to stop them recycling), which indicates to me that 'rebirth' means something else.
The only thing that could maintain such a one to one relationship after death and allow itself to stop being reborn without breaking the laws of physics, afaik, would be some sort of soul or transmigrating consciousness (or awareness), which would imply a 'self' beyond what I understand my 'self' to be. If this turns out to be what the Buddha was saying then I guess I disagree with him and can't call myself a Buddhist, but I've rounded up a few other ideas (from various places), which I'm willing to accept and would be interested to know everyone's opinions on whether these have any validity in Buddhism:
Interpretations of rebirth
1) Our actions in this life will reverberate after our passing, influencing the environment and all that live within it. Such echoes may on occasion come together in a pattern of events very much like that which preceded them (we may even set things in motion to achieve this end, for example with children), and history may repeat itself. Only by neutralising our karma through enlightenment can we prevent these patterns from re-occurring.
2) We are born and grow up as children. Life then changes as we study for exams. Life then changes again as we go out into the real world and get a job. Life then changes again as we seek enlightenment. Each of these stages (they're just quick examples) could constitute a former life, with rebirth occurring between each of them. Once we are enlightened there are no more changes so rebirth ceases.
3) [Poorly paraphrased I'm afraid] Rebirth refers to a continual process of thought patterns that cause us to suffer, constantly 'becoming' from moment to moment. Only when we no longer see these patterns, and crave and suffer them, does the incessant line of rebirths end.
4) If we believe in the self as something solid and real, then we can see our 'selves' becoming something else when we die and rot away (or transmigrate if you prefer). But if we do not believe in a real 'self' any more then although those same constituents carry on recycling, we no longer see them as part of a rebirth because the entity referred to as 'self' has ceased to exist. In other words 'rebirth' is just a label for a pattern of thought that only applies until we realise that's all it is.
Its possible that all these options are true in their own way, but the hardest part is determining what the Buddha was originally trying to say 2500 years later... :-)
i.e., you don't die and come back in ten years as another human, but rather you die and your body fertilizes the earth, the grass grown is eaten by a cow or other animal, is passed and ends up somewhere else, etc. and eventually interacts with humans again. The whole circle of life thing. Energy is neither created nor destroyed.
And anyway - Floyd is not Rock N' Roll to me - it's mostly a load of tripped out warbling nonesense with no real point - that's not the reality of what they do it's only my ignorant and misguided perception. But I am not worried - as with any difficult teachings in Buddhism I have learnt that if I just keep meditating the understanding will eventually find me. I am under no pressure to "get" Pink Floyd when I have the Undertones bashing out "Teenage Kicks" ! - now THAT's Rock N' Roll!
Some day, when I am ready for them Pink Floyd will find me, and I will be able to turn to my friends and say "You know what? - You were right all along..." Which is something that I have found myself telling the Buddha many times over the years...
That's as I understood it and it makes perfect sense. Unfortunately reading the books has made things somewhat less clear as I now have several interpretations to contend with...
This seems akin to saying that the Christian view of heaven is in fact very scientific if we don't take it literally. (I.E.....feeling very happy is heaven)
But you are right, that's about the closest thing to rebirth that I can swallow. Even if the literal interpretation of rebirth were in fact the correct one, how would one come to that conclusion? By meditating? By reading the sutras enough? Suspending doubt? It's very tricky.
Anyway, I tend to believe there is no "up there" or "down there" or any sort of hereafter. All the thousands of ideas about the afterlife are just a way of people coping with the bleak prospect of mortality. It's an unsettling thought even for me that I won't be here someday and essentially will no longer exist. I'll admit that.
On the other hand, I find a degree of comfort in this notion. It makes this life seem all the more precious. I won't have another chance to do all the things I want to do again.
Then I would suggest you consider the Kalama Sutra, study the different opinions available, and decide which one, if any, sits well with you (or at least, better than the others)! One eminent Buddhist teacher states that the Teachings of Buddhism may be summed up in three words:
"Not always So."
Don't fix your opinions or views rigidly. permit yourself to adhere to that which suits you best and fits in with your agreement of it. This view could last your lifetime, or it could change in a week. Either way, accept it, and live by it while it lasts.