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How many believe in reincarnation?
A newbie question, can we come back as lets say eagles or sea horses? Or just people? One other when you become enlightened you enter the cosmos correct? How is it described prease. THANKS guy peace and love.
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Still, i'll answer your questions from the traditional perspective. According to Buddhist tradition, the 'animal realm' is a 'lower' realm than the human realm. So you can come back as an animal, but it's usually because you generated a bunch of bad karma in your human lifetime. If you generally stay on the right track as a human, you'll be re-born as a human .. If you become enlightened and then you 'die' in the normal sense, you enter a place called 'Para-nirvana', the final nirvana. A place beyond birth, death, suffering, karma & samsara.
...you are already in the cosmos.
With metta,
Todd
b) Clinging to existence is a form of dukkha.
Given that, the conclusion is that even if it's true that we're either reborn or reincarnated, clinging to such a view is clinging to (self) existence, which is a form of dukkha and must be abandoned in order to progress on the path toward enlightenment. The longer we hold onto it, the stronger it's likely to be. Best to start detaching, facing the inevitability of death, losing all self-centered clinging.
Views greatly differ amongst practitioners, on many things, but the need for self-preservation is very strong and difficult to let go. The moment it becomes an issue of annihilation of an essence that is "yours", that goes from life to life and lets you keep living, it becomes possible to look at enlightenment in this way and to fear it. I don't think the Buddha actually taught that this transmigration takes place according to a sutra in which he rebukes a monk for thinking so (MN 38), but it's become a popular idea in Mahayana and Vajrayana...
no rebirth puts the Dharma too closely related to materialism.
Samsara is in this lifetime, Vincenzi. Anyway, weren't you saying earlier, when you first joined, that this was your last rebirth?
Metta,
Guy
A good deal of people do become Buddhists to alleviate suffering, but the (wrong) view that they're annihilating the part of them that lives again and again is frightening and they may not want to go that far. I have heard this expressed many times over. Enlightenment isn't the goal for many people, at least not in this life.
Literal rebirth views can lead to this fear, plus as I said earlier it's a form of clinging to existence. On both counts it's a hindrance to awakening/enlightenment. We should try and see rebirth in a non-personal way, a selfless way, and act out of compassion for the whole of sentient life and not for the self (or out of fear).
...that para-nirvana was better than death.
I don't remember saying that, maybe that I was working for it.
what do you think of terms like "deathless" and "un-become" for explaining Nirvana.
maybe after nirvana rebirth doesn't make sense, but it is not death that buddhists seek (it is the opposite). the farthest I have said in public is that this is my last rebirth as a human/in this earth.
We have to move beyond "conception" and "labels" to see the underlying reality, and then see both at the same time to understand how we arrive at the wrong conclusions. Enlightenment or awakening is the process of the mind breaking through its clinging-views and seeing directly the nature of all phenomena, which unbinds the knot of wrong views and allows one to come to peace, knowing that there's truly nothing destroyed by death.
That's the key. When we see nothing separate or permanent was born in the first place, we know that nothing is lost by death, and our fear of death dissipates (because there's no "I" to die!). We're simply going back to the emptiness from which we came, and new mind and form will arise again at some point regardless.
Metta,
Guy
I mostly agree, but rebirth doesn't imply believing the aggregates are unchanging or permanent... in fact, it just explains how they keep changing. rebirth is a similar process to reincarnation, but there's no atman (unchanging soul).
rebirth is compatible with anatta and with pratitya-samutpada... I guess it is easier to understand them "in parallel".
And yet @Vincenzi, MN 38.
From http://www.leighb.com/mn38.htm concerning transmigration:
Then the Blessed One said: "Sati, is it true, that such an pernicious view has arisen to you. ‘As I know the Teaching of the Blessed One, this consciousness transmigrates through existences, not anything else’?"
"Yes, venerable sir, as I know the Teaching of the Blessed One, this consciousness transmigrates through existences, not anything else."
"Sati, what is that consciousness?"
"Venerable sir, it is that which feels and experiences, that which reaps the results of good and evil actions done here and there."
"Foolish man, to whom do you know me having taught the Dhamma like this. Haven’t I taught, in various ways that consciousness is dependently arisen. Without a cause, there is no arising of consciousness. Yet you, foolish man, on account of your wrong view, you misrepresent me, as well as destroy yourself and accumulate much demerit, for which you will suffer for a long time."
and the construction doesn't seem as sanskrit/pali.
in a sanskrit dictionary I found amara for deathless...
and
māra: hindrance
mārana: death (and related terms)
(interesting... mara)
I will love to have the original pali sutra that speaks about deathless, but will venture to say that the concept used is a*-death
*a is a negation.
I don't see how MN 38 in any way contradicts what Vincenzi has said. It simply denies one proposed hypothesis about rebirth; i.e. that consciousness is permanent and is responsible for rebirth. It appears to me that what the Buddha is saying is that consciousness, as well as the other aggregates, are more of a by-product of rebirth rather than the driving force. The driving force, as I understand it, is not consciousness but craving.
Of course, I am open to the possibilty that I am wrong about this and I encourage everyone to come to their own conclusions as I do not want to be responsible for putting wrong views in peoples minds if they believe what I say is true when it actually turns out to not be true...
Metta,
Guy
that just explains that pratitya-samutpada is the process of rebirth, not transmigration.
for the record, I'm open for debate... it is just that it is not convincing to follow a path that ends being annihilationist.
specially with phrases like this*:
"consciousness without feature,
without end,
luminous all around:"
*from: Kevatta (Kevaddha) Sutt
Happens to me all the time.
Didn't the Buddha explain that birth and death are suffering? "Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta: Setting Rolling the Wheel of Truth" (SN 56.11), translated from the Pali by Ñanamoli Thera. Access to Insight, 14 June 2010, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.011.nymo.html
Therefore, wouldn't it make sense that Buddhists are striving to remove the causes for birth and death (i.e "escape" birth and death)?
The Buddha describes, to Vacchagotta, that Nibbana is like a flame which "goes out". In fact, this is the very origin of the word "nibbana", it is pre-Buddhist and was used to mean extinguish (e.g. "oh look, that flame just nibbana'd").
Presumably (and this is backed up by the elaboration in the Vacchagotta Sutta) the Buddha used the word Nibbana to negate wrong ideas of "going to a deathless state" when an Enlightened being reaches Pari-Nibbana. In order to "go to a deathless state" presumably there would be something which is "going to" this state...since Nibbana is the extinguishing of craving and since craving is the fuel for the arising of the five aggregates, then surely there can be nothing to "go to" anywhere...the cause for "going to" places has "gone out".
Metta,
Guy
it is along this lines: "nirvana/extinction of dukkha = heaven-after-anatta"
after a point, questionings about self, birth and death are irrelevant... but that doesn't imply death! (put this way it sounds obvious).
Metta,
Guy
Why underline in a translation the words of conventional reality that are not the essence or purpose of the teaching in terms of ultimate reality?
in short, suffering is the five categories of clinging
BTW, what does "clinging objects" mean?
It is said in scores, even hundreds of suttas, clinging is to regard the five aggregates as "I" and "mine"
There are five ways of clinging rather than five objects that cling
The Buddha recommended we should first have realisation rather than speak from blind faith.
What are you actually trying to say here? I cannot understand it.
For example, sankhara khanda is one of the five aggregates. Sankhara khanda is that aggregate that concocts or creates craving. But you appear to be saying the opposite, that craving creates the five aggregates.
If craving is dependent on an aggregate, how can it be the fuel for the arising of the five aggregates?
If craving is the fuel for the arising of the five aggregates, why did not the Buddha's five aggregates vanish the moment his mind extinguished craving?
The suttas clearly state when craving ends the five aggregates remain. The Pali language often is mistranslated therefore it is best to reconcile the suttas with experience or, at least, choose suttas that are not overly esoteric and describe dhammic realities plainly.
As I suggested, the core dhamma is not found in suttas to Vacchagotta. Vacchagotta was a wanderer.
With metta
6 CLING ON BABY ALIENS blow up toy inflateable alien
http://picclick.com/6-CLING-ON-BABY-ALIENS-390210375902.html
Here we go again...
Metta,
Guy
...(sorry for the long-winded and clumsy sentence, I probably could have seperated it into several sentences, but hopefully you'll see what I'm getting at)...
The Buddha's five aggregates were the effects of causes (of craving and kamma) from previous lifetimes. When the Buddha-to-be reached Buddhahood then his craving (which would have given rise to future birth after the death of his physical body) was removed and so he was not to be reborn again.
This is how I understand the Teachings on dependent origination and how it is not in contradiction with the Teachings on rebirth, but in fact they cannot be seperated. I don't believe that the Buddha was simply talking about momentary rebirth - we have talked about this before, I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree...
I may be wrong about any and all of the above, but it makes sense to me, so I am sticking with it for now because it seems to be the least forced, most obvious, interpretation of the Suttas that I have come across.
Metta,
Guy
I think you may be confusing this with the second link of DO where sankhara is wholesome or unwholesome volitional activity.
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But all suttas are irrelevant.
Besides, if this was our only life, why spend so much precious time doing nothing?