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Rebirth & Reincarnation
What is the difference between rebirth and reincarnation?
Also, is believing in either one (or both) a necessity in the definition of buddhism?
Also, is believing in either one (or both) a necessity in the definition of buddhism?
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Spiny
Rebirth is a new you looking out at the world.
Many Buddhists believe in one or the other or both. It is not necessary to "believe" in either.
and other people's previous lives many, many times.
Buddha also talked about where some people
will be reborned.
The attempt to separate reincarnation from Buddhism
is truly remarkable.
In both cases a new tree is born. In the first the new apple tree is essentially the same as the old as it will produce the same kind of apples. In the second a new apple tree will grow and make apples but the apples aren't the same kind, it's its own tree, not totally the same but not totally different.
Rebirth happens whether one believes in it or not, it is a fact of Samsara. To deeply contemplate it and work the implications of such a fact into your world-view is beneficial to practice.
In the years before I even knew what Buddhism was about I came across several stories in the papers about young children having memories of "where they lived in a previous life" -- I even recall one account of a boy who told his parents his old address, and kept asking them when they would go "home"
Finally, the parents took this boy to the address, several states away, and there was actually a house there! Even more amazing, the boy knew his way around it. He said that "when you die you come right back" -- and stories like this that I read made me wonder about what really happens when you die.
There are numerous accounts from people all over the world, usually in early-age, able to remember some details of a prior life. In India, accounts like this happen all the time, as the concept of rebirth is very much a part of their society. I encourage you to explore these ideas for yourself.
There is an interesting book I read recently, Reborn in the West, that I would encourage you to read through if you are interested. You can read it online for free, although I borrowed a copy from a library.
http://www.fpmt.org/fpmt/osel/biographies-books-articles/90-organization/osel/896-reborn-in-the-west.html
there are 4 stages of enlightenment.
stream entry
once returner.
non returner.
arahant.
so, you dont get to choose, as far as Buddha taught.
Not all teachings would concur.
It is really the same.
Spiny
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/vonglasenapp/wheel002.html
I'm not putting the text forward as the last word on the subject, just something you might have liked to read.....
So do you think they are merely teaching methods or medicine that help the sick?
If I recall Atman was clinging to basically any state of being (be it infinite consciousness, spaciousness, etc).
Whereas AnAtman is a negation of that, but what is left is inexpressible and ungraspable.
So you're saying that having anything to say about it (dualistically) is irrelevant?
=]
And yes, there is a ghostbusters wiki haha... I guess us newbuddhists aren't the only people with much time on our hands.
Anyhow soul is in the dimension of mind. One translation of the fourth skanda can be soul. At least I have seen that. Other translations are 'substance of mind'. And then the more traditional: formations, volitions, etc
I recall reading that it is the transformation of fourth skanda that is liberation:
form - morality
feeling - concentration
perception - wisdom
formations (sankhara I believe) - liberation
consciousness - knowledge of liberation
Of course all of these nice quotations and teachings we find are slanted by the ideologies of the organization that promotes them. There are some differences in how buddhism is taught not only in different traditions but sometimes differences across the same.
Everyone who followed and taught after him for that matter. The Buddhadharma isn't simply an intellectual dogma passed on, its about actually realizing anatman in one's direct experience.
The principle of atman goes against impermanence and interdependence. The Buddha said that since phenomena are dependent upon one another and fleeting the 'I' isn't a fixed, permanent entity. That includes subtle mental states. In effect Atman is a thing that exists and anatman isn't a thing and it doesn't exist, quite different.
Even in the buddhist community buddhism is understood differently. For example there is the shentong and rangtong distinction which I am not educated to understand but I can intuit a certain perfume or vibe depending. And then there is Pali Canon versus prajnaparamita sutras.
Spiny
Spiny
Spiny
Rebirth leads to reincarnation. For "reincarnation," see "re-embodiment."
You are currently a reincarnation of your past incarnation: a re-embodiment of your past embodiment. But you are not at this moment a rebirth of your past birth. However, you got to this (re)embodiment through a process of (re)birth.
That would mean there's no deep conceptual thing to be learned here. It's just what part of the process you want to talk about.
Conrad.
The difference in the mechanism of rebirth vs reincarnation is an important point of Buddhism and wrapped up in it is a fundamental difference in the ultimate makeup of reality.
You're arguing for some different version of atman here that concurs with Buddhist theory. Chadrakirti's definition of Atman is: Ātman is an essence of things that does not depend on others; it is an intrinsic nature. The non-existence of that is selflessness.
Also from wikipedia In the Abhidharmapiṭaka (Pāli: Abhidhammapiṭaka), a treatise on metaphysics, the prime doctrine which allows pure Buddhist philosophy to successfully explain all phenomena is that all things happen with cause. Ātman is a conceptual attachment to oneself that promotes a false belief that one is intrinsic and without incident. This attachment further diverges one's route from the path to enlightenment and hence nirvāṇa as all forms of attachment do.
With both rebirth and reincarnation if you do good in life you have a favorable rebirth. If you do bad you don't. Works exactly the same way.
Maybe you do actually have a correct understanding that goes against 2,500 years of Buddhist logic. To convince me though you'll have to do more than make a blanket statement that they work the same way.
I could say happy and overjoyed are exactly the same thing, they are just words and the actual experience is identical. Most people have enough experience with these emotions to say that the actual emotional experience these words point to are different. In the same way someone who has sufficiently stilled their mind and perceived the subtle workings of the mind could say that the direct perception of atman and anatman are either the same or different. The Buddha said he found that they are different and one leads to liberation and the other leads to a birth in one of the formless realms. Not only Buddha but many masters that have come after him.
It's like the sky is blue. It's just an observation.
The application of this idea is to grasping. Just seeing that we change does not completely help us. We also have to accept change including losing what we love and getting things which we don't want like death.
“The Tathagata is not the aggregates; nor is he other
than the aggregates.
The aggregates are not in him nor is he in them.
The Tathagata does not possess the aggregates.
What Tathagata is there?”
Have fun.
The Buddha's answer to this is direct, simple, yet profound. He explains this through dependent origination:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.012.nypo.html
"Who, O Lord, feels?"
"The question is not correct," said the Exalted One. "I do not say that 'he feels.' Had I said so, then the question 'Who feels?' would be appropriate. But since I did not speak thus, the correct way to ask the question will be 'What is the condition of feeling?' And to that the correct reply is: 'sense-impression is the condition of feeling; and feeling is the condition of craving.'"
The same would apply for rebirth, which actually is a term for the continuity of a causal/karmic process and not of a self-entity.
Who is reborn is asked falsely, as the Buddha did not say 'he reborns'. The correct way to ask would be, 'What is the condition for birth?' And to that the correct reply is: 'with ignorance as condition i.e. false view and clinging to a self, birth arises'. The next birth is neither the same nor different from a previous birth in the same way that the flame of a newly lighted candle is neither same nor different from the previous candle, being merely a process of causal continuity instead of the passing on of an unchanging soul-entity.
As we can see, Dependent Origination only truly makes sense when we are not obscured by self-view. Before the realization of Anatta, D.O. can be grasped intellectually, but not fully actualized due to dualistic view, and therefore cannot be fully appreciated. Hence to realize D.O. we have to realize Anatta, then when everything becomes seen as causal processes, the insight into Shunyata (as in the secondfold emptiness, the emptiness of phenomena) can arise with further contemplations and pointers."
-
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2011/10/anatta-not-self-or-no-self.html