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How can any buddhist believe in reincarnation?
I don't understand it. So the Buddha would probably asks as to unbiasedly analyze existence....
Most of what he said made heaps of sense. He didn't even believe in a soul in the sense that it could be separated from the body right?
So how are we to believe (and why Buddha want anyone to BELIEVE anything? buddhism isn't about faith is it?) then when we die our essence is going to be present inside a cockroach or a whale?
Most of what he said made heaps of sense. He didn't even believe in a soul in the sense that it could be separated from the body right?
So how are we to believe (and why Buddha want anyone to BELIEVE anything? buddhism isn't about faith is it?) then when we die our essence is going to be present inside a cockroach or a whale?
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We do choose to believe, or have confidence, that enlightenment is possible even though we have no actual physical proof or way of knowing, don't we? It would be great if we had something to go on for this "rebirth" idea but it seems we're at the same loss.
You're not the first to pose the question, but it never ends in an answer that everyone can accept. It falls to us to use our own judgment and common sense, and hopefully through practice come to a conclusion (rather than leave it stand as a belief or disbelief). Good to try and keep an open mind, if you're able.
No, he probably wouldn't. What he would probably say is "I come to teach the Origin of suffering and the cessation of suffering". All Grasping and clinging leads to suffering.
I'd begin working on that....
He didn't believe in a soul full stop.....
Yes, if you mean 'Faith' as in Confidence and Trust....How you are to believe anything - is up to your thinking. Not anyone else's... Essence? what do you mean by 'essence'?
When asking a question, it is first important to know precisely what you mean by it.
Essence is not descriptive of what is re-born.....
So what are you alluding to, exactly?
Anyway, this woman did a whirling dance and rolled her eyes back and channeled the spirit of this ancestor and I guess everything was settled to the family's satisfaction. The point is, this was a Buddhist family and according to the sutras, permanent and external spirits can't exist without a body. I didn't try to argue with them. They preferred to believe their own way and follow what they were taught. Like all their Buddhist families, they put offerings out to both the Buddhist shrines and Mountain spirits.
People have always tended to blend beliefs together in their spiritual lives. Ghosts, transmigration of souls we call reincarnation, whatever. Buddhists point to sutras that seem to indicate the Buddha believed in literal reincarnation. I suppose the important point for me is, you don't have to believe in reincarnation to be a Buddhist, in the same way you can't be a Christian without believing in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. It's optional in our case.
This is the best response I see here. Perhaps you would be wise to examine all the other threads here on this issue, some of which are recent, and note how the discussion goes around and around and never arrives at a real conclusion.
Well, it makes sense to me that our atoms don't just disappear. In that sense, we are indeed immortal. But I no brain activity, no consciousness, no "me". No ego, no no-self, no conscious no subconscious no unconscious. No more personality than a rock.
Another avenue for you to think about this is to research the 8 levels of consciousness. The 8th level is what persists between births. It is a rather mysterious consciousness and must be outside of time and space. Otherwise how does the 'karma' get from one lifetime in this universe on earth to a separate universe completely separated by cause and effect other than the karma. It is not little backpacks of karma that are on the backs of 'souls' that hop from life to life.
Both karma and reincarnation are skillful means. They can liberate from a view which causes our own suffering. But they are not ultimate truth. Reality as it is is clear, open, and sensitive. It is awareness. One moment is only nominally related to the preceding moment. Actually it is just connected by thought to the previous thought...the continuity is problematic. It is like a line. Made of points with no dimensions. Empty points because they are infinitely small. But they connect to a line. But if they have no substance since they are infinitely small how do they connect? Note: I feel that is an anology much like the rope and snake. Emptiness is simply the ungraspability of experience. Impermanence, non-self, and suffering (if we grasp), and nirvana (if we don't)....
We tend to make up our minds based on how an idea personally resonates with us, but rarely stop to think why we go to the trouble of "making up" our minds in the first place. Think about it. If we are honest with ourselves that despite our aversion to the idea, it's still entirely "possible" that a concept could be the truth... isn't it more reasonable to suspend disbelief and judgment until one has facts to go on? Generally speaking, to be mindful of the "selfless" view of a situation that is not usual for us (but would be proper if we believe in anatta/no-self), we can gain clarity in our perspective.
This way of avoiding the extremes, and keeping an open and receptive mind free of self-view roadblocks, would be reasonable while still allowing us to make up our minds (at some point) rather than blindly accepting anything. The Buddha would approve, no? I think so at any rate.
I think it is VERY okay to not understand. Understanding gives us a sense of certainty, a sense of safety, and can be a grasping to get some "ground under our feet" (as Pema Chodron puts it). It is very okay to learn to live with uncertainty, unattached to certainty, unattached to uncertainty. It is the Buddhist way.
At some point, we will either understand rebirth (through personal experience), in which case we know the answer. OR we will not be here to understand (death as the end), in which case it will cease to be an issue because there will be no "us" to experience it.
But remember also the Four Unconjecturables. as re-birth is linked to kamma, some questions on re-birth are impossible to answer.
You mean of course, the Four Noble Truths. Thus termed 'Noble', because they are indisputable.
'The Guy', as you somewhat flippantly put it, arrived at these conclusions precisely for that reason. Because he believed them.
It's not an opinion, it's fact.
Tibetan Buddhists ascribe to the premise of reincarnation, as they hold that lamas can pre-determine their own reincarnation. The Dalai Lama is a prime example. Rebirth is for us minions. No choice but to go with the flow...Theravada Buddhism does not ascribe to the premise of reincarnation. But that's fine if other Schools of Buddhism do.
I'm afraid you seem to have done some basic and preliminary research, but not to an adequate depth. What you view as 'semantics' I tend to view as 'mistakes in terminology'.
What do you view as 'essence', then?
More 'semantics'?
What this "Idea behind Buddhism" that you respect...?
And what 'Loophole'...?
We don't view it as a loophole. It's something we can decide to accept, not accept or leave aside as unconjecturable.
I for one believe I will be re-born, but that's just me.
I may be wrong.
All I know is that what I am doing now will never have been a waste of time.
And I'm happy with that.
Thank you for sharing!
This is interesting.
...
Meh... I't doesn't matter.
Well I don't believe in karma either. I believe in having a limited degree of control over my own future based my actions and I believe in causality, but I don't believe in transference of karma because I'd have to believe in reincarnation too.
So what you are saying in bold, is that karma and reincarnation are valid as beliefs because they are conductive of skillfulness in life (doesn't matter if they are true)?
Yes to the bolded. You are basically talking about an agnostic view of things. And I'm very agnostic. But an agnostic would also not choose to believe in reincarnation or karma. It's completely arbitrary.
So, even though I know I can't ever truly KNOW something, it still need to have a means to tell whether the sun is going to rise tomorrow in order to conduct my life.
Yes, of course. But this is philosophy we are talking about here
Who wrote those 4?
Indisputable? That's for each person to evaluate. And I don't agree he arrived at those conclusions because he believed in them. He thought about things and analyzed the world and his human condition.
I don't believe in an essence. I merely used the word as an umbrella term for whatever people thought carried on after we died.
Terminology is a tool. Yes, I haven't researched buddhism in great depth, but partly because there are too many places to look. And also because there is a degree of subjectivity otherwise people wouldn't have differing interpretations.
What I respect are the basic ethics of it (compassion and all that), the fact it understands the importance of a certain degree of foresight (mindfulness of the implications of one's actions) in one's quest for happiness, and that fact that it doesn't require much faith to be understood. It's beauty is in it's simplicity - lots of stuff happen to you, you can't control it, but you can control your attitude towards it.
As for loophole, I meant it for me. I can't find much in the dharma, a person following the scientific method would be able to disprove, but karma and rebirth are given as abstractions, and asks us to merely believe.
I don't accept anything unless it's for a good reason
It's one thing to understand the life is suffering. You can explain that concept to everyone and it's easy to demonstrate. Rebirth, on the other hand, is something you can't really prove. Hence why I called it a loophole.
I call Buddha "the guy", because he was a guy. It's not flippant, if anything is my way of relating to him. The minute I consider him above me in anyway, is the minute his message loses its relevance, at least in my book. He was human. And so am I.
I see whatz ya did there;)
By not needing "hard scientific evidence". By definition a belief is something that does not have hard evidence. If it did, it would be a fact not a belief yes? But belief in rebirth as I see it, is just a side issue. There are plenty of agnostic Buddhists out there. Believe/not believe in rebirth does not really make much difference in the day to day practice.
As for faith, to say that Buddhism requires no faith and does not have faith as an important factor, is just as false as saying it requires full blind faith. Faith plays an important part. It is true that Buddha was just a human. However, he was an enlightened human, which is very very different than an ordinary human.
For example it could lift us out of the wrong view that everything is meaningless including our positive and negative actions (nihilism)..
Rebirth actually lifts out of that same view..
But both karma and rebirth (as we understand them not as buddha presumably as federica pointed out it is unconjecturable though many teachers say that it is useful to have some kind of idea of it).
As I said neither are ultimate truth. They are like a rod used to clean the drain so the liquid will flow. But don't get the rod stuck too! (analogy)
Besides, how do you know the Buddha's story was true? Suffering IS a fact. No belief required. Attachment too. I don't need faith to see that.
The Buddha was very very different, because you read a book saying he was or heard people saying he was. But, if his teachings don't serve a purpose BY THEMSELVES, I personally don't see the point. I'm areligious.
Jeffrey : But where did rebirth come from? Everyone can see the sun rises in the east.
One folk theory would be that people often recognize the characteristics of dead relatives in others.
Basic questions on karma and rebirth.
This website has several good articles on the topic of faith, belief, etc.
By practicing and testing it and finding it to be true. Suffering and attachments are facts yes. However, just knowing that does not say what the causes are or how to be free from it or that it is even possible to be free from it.
Meditation practice.
Would you go to college class and ignore the professor, who devised the theories in the class book, and just sit and read the book all by yourself? Of course you could, but it wouldn't be easier if you utilized both?
Me too!
However, none of this has anything to do with reincarnation.
The most salient bit, at least to me: "In Buddhism you certainly don't have to believe everything at once and understand everything at once in order to practice Buddhism or call yourself a Buddhist. If you understand everything you're already a Buddha..."
Reason alone isn't perfect (since we're not perfect), and one can use reason to come to all kinds of conclusions that aren't necessarily true. Take Plato, for example. Utilizing rationalism to the exclusion of empiricism in developing his theory of forms, all he was really doing was taking a more or less linguistical dilemma (that of universals) and turning it into a metaphysical one. I don't think his arguments were great, especially the one at the end of Book 5 of the Republic, but they were certainly rational.
Moreover, reason isn't the same thing as experience, and sometimes it isn't enough on its own. That's why the Buddha warns not to just accept spiritual teachings on reason alone, but to test them out and see if they really do lead to welfare and happiness. I think Thanissro Bhikkhu sums up well the reasons well in his introduction to AN 3.65:
As for teachings on rebirth, whether or not they're true, they're not illogical; they simply rely on premises that certain people (e.g., strict materialists) reject. In addition, concepts such as rebirth are really more means to an end (or tools to be used) than dogmas, i.e., they're only useful if they're being used appropriately, leading one towards the experience of happiness and peace of mind that's said to lie at the end of the path. One thing people seem to have trouble understanding is that the Buddha's teachings are pragmatic in nature. This is made clear in MN 22, where the Buddha likens his teachings to a raft:
"As you say, lord," the monks responded to the Blessed One.
The Blessed One said: "Suppose a man were traveling along a path. He would see a great expanse of water, with the near shore dubious & risky, the further shore secure & free from risk, but with neither a ferryboat nor a bridge going from this shore to the other. The thought would occur to him, 'Here is this great expanse of water, with the near shore dubious & risky, the further shore secure & free from risk, but with neither a ferryboat nor a bridge going from this shore to the other. What if I were to gather grass, twigs, branches, & leaves and, having bound them together to make a raft, were to cross over to safety on the other shore in dependence on the raft, making an effort with my hands & feet?' Then the man, having gathered grass, twigs, branches, & leaves, having bound them together to make a raft, would cross over to safety on the other shore in dependence on the raft, making an effort with his hands & feet. Having crossed over to the further shore, he might think, 'How useful this raft has been to me! For it was in dependence on this raft that, making an effort with my hands & feet, I have crossed over to safety on the further shore. Why don't I, having hoisted it on my head or carrying on my back, go wherever I like?' What do you think, monks: Would the man, in doing that, be doing what should be done with the raft?"
"No, lord."
"And what should the man do in order to be doing what should be done with the raft? There is the case where the man, having crossed over, would think, 'How useful this raft has been to me! For it was in dependence on this raft that, making an effort with my hands & feet, I have crossed over to safety on the further shore. Why don't I, having dragged it on dry land or sinking it in the water, go wherever I like?' In doing this, he would be doing what should be done with the raft. In the same way, monks, I have taught the Dhamma compared to a raft, for the purpose of crossing over, not for the purpose of holding onto. Understanding the Dhamma as taught compared to a raft, you should let go even of Dhammas, to say nothing of non-Dhammas."
The good news is, one can practice Buddhism without believing in rebirth, or one can even take a non-literalist approach to rebirth if they so choose. As for myself, I'm agnostic when it comes to the postmortem rebirth. I am, however, a firm believer in moment to moment rebirth, which is readily observable in the here and now. The Buddha himself spoke about punabhava, literally 'again becoming.' The way I understand it, becoming (bhava) is a mental process, which arises due to the presence of clinging (upadana) in the mind with regard to the five-clinging aggregates, and acts as a condition for the birth (jati) of the conceit 'I am,' the self-identification that designates a being (satta).
There's rarely a moment when the mind isn't clinging to this or that in one or more of the four ways (MN 11). Our identity jumps from one thing to another, wherever the clinging is strongest. Our sense of self is something which is always in flux, ever-changing from moment to moment in response to various internal and external stimuli, and yet at the same time, we tend to see it as a static thing. It's as if our sense of self desires permanence, but its very nature causes it to change every second. As the Buddha warns in SN 12.61:
Change is, of course, a fact of nature. All things are in a perpetual state of change, but the problem is that our sense of self ignores this reality on a certain level. From birth to death, we have the tendency to think that this 'I' remains the same. Now, we might know that some things have changed (e.g., our likes and dislikes, our age, the amount of wrinkles we have, etc.), but we still feel as if we're still 'us.' We have the illusion (for lack of a better word) that our identity is who we are, a static entity named [fill in the blank], and we tend to perceive this as being the same throughout our lives.
That said, the conventional use of personality is a function of survival, as well as convenience. However, clinging to our personalities as 'me' or 'mine' is seen as giving continued fuel for becoming, i.e., a mental process of taking on a particular kind of identity that arises out of clinging. Our sense of self, the ephemeral 'I,' is merely a mental imputation — the product of what the Buddha called a process of 'I-making' and 'my-making' (AN 7.46, MN 72, MN 109) — and when we cling to our sense of self as being 'me' or 'mine' in some way, we're clinging to an impermanent representation of something that we've deluded ourselves into thinking is fixed and stable. It becomes a sort of false refuge that's none of these things. So regardless if postmortem rebirth is true, this process of 'I-making' and 'my-making' can be seen here and now, and it's the stilling of this mental process that leads to freedom, liberation, awakening (AN 6.104).
Nevertheless, the process of dependent co-arising, while predominately mental, is a process of conditionality that's traditionally understood to occur moment to moment and over multiple lifetimes, and there's nothing to preclude it from doing both. It's not logically impossible that a new psycho-physical organism can be also born via the same process at the time of death of the physical body whereby the last consciousness of a being at the time of death immediately conditions the arising of a new consciousness, hence statements like, "... when a being sets this body aside and is not yet reborn in another body, I designate it as craving-sustained, for craving is its sustenance at that time" (SN 44.9).
But in either interpretation, rebirth is the continuation of a process — nothing 'remains,' nothing 'transmigrates,' etc. — there are merely phenomena that condition other phenomena in the interdependent process we call life. The only difference I see is that one side believes this process ceases at death, regardless of whether there's still craving present in the mind, and the other doesn't. If you're interested, you can find more of my thoughts on the subject of rebirth here.
I don't know what happens when it's all over - and trying to figure it out beforehand isn't getting me anywhere I need to go.
-bf
If you are clinging to any of those concepts even in sleep or dreams, perhaps better to believe in karma, rebirth, etc...
Once we label birth and death, we then have to figure out how to connect the dots. These words do not pertain to actual reality, they are just concepts without referent. Better to just be quiet and look directly into your own mind and find out whether these things exist. A great unfolding of the passions!
If you think that consciousness is an epiphenomena of matter, forget buddhism. None of it beyond the ethical will make any sense to you.
It's probably this one, the one with the poison arrow parable.
True. At the most fundamental level, we're all made up of energy. Everything in the universe is fundamentally made up of the same thing, energy. The only thing that separates Oxygen from Carbon on the periodic table is the number of electros, protons, and neutrons in the atom. Those particles are all energy.
You are also correct in that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it only transforms, if you will. Similar to how water goes from being water as we normally thinnk about it, then evaporates and becomes water again. The water is never destroyed, it just transforms. Same with us