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SillyPutty
Veteran
One last question before the day is through... then it's off to meditation land for awhile for me.
If reincarnation/rebirth is, in fact, a reality for us, then what happens when we come back again in our next life? Do we pick up where we left off like a bookmarked page in a novel, or do we have to basically relearn every single thing all over again? And I don't mean as a child we have to relearn everything. The fact that we have to relearn everything in life is a given. What I mean is, is it, perhaps, easier the next time around and we learn the lesson very early in life and do not struggle with it?
For instance, let's say in this lifetime you have rose above the feelings and poor actions related to jealousy. You are not a zen master, but you are pretty close to not having that emotion creep into your mind at all. So assuming you don't become enlightened and have to be reborn (and back into a human form, nonetheless), would you pretty much not have to relearn the pitfalls and horrors of jealousy again? Or do you think it's all fair game if you're not enlightened, and you'll have to relearn everything the hard way again?
I just always wonder this, because I remember as a child sitting in my 2nd grade classroom and thinking to myself, "My god... I'm only in 2nd grade, and have so many more years to go." I thought it was such a strange thought-- almost like I felt as if I had done this song and dance before (not school itself, but just life), and I kind of just wanted to fast-forward to the good stuff.
If reincarnation/rebirth is, in fact, a reality for us, then what happens when we come back again in our next life? Do we pick up where we left off like a bookmarked page in a novel, or do we have to basically relearn every single thing all over again? And I don't mean as a child we have to relearn everything. The fact that we have to relearn everything in life is a given. What I mean is, is it, perhaps, easier the next time around and we learn the lesson very early in life and do not struggle with it?
For instance, let's say in this lifetime you have rose above the feelings and poor actions related to jealousy. You are not a zen master, but you are pretty close to not having that emotion creep into your mind at all. So assuming you don't become enlightened and have to be reborn (and back into a human form, nonetheless), would you pretty much not have to relearn the pitfalls and horrors of jealousy again? Or do you think it's all fair game if you're not enlightened, and you'll have to relearn everything the hard way again?
I just always wonder this, because I remember as a child sitting in my 2nd grade classroom and thinking to myself, "My god... I'm only in 2nd grade, and have so many more years to go." I thought it was such a strange thought-- almost like I felt as if I had done this song and dance before (not school itself, but just life), and I kind of just wanted to fast-forward to the good stuff.
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Thanks.
if you want to know why your life is the way it is, look at your past.
if you want to know your future, look at the present.
From what I've read in Buddhism, it is not only possible to be reborn as an animal or hungry ghost/hell being but that it will be extremely difficult to take rebirth as a human in the future. I don't believe we lose the merit we accumulate but from what I've read it's quite possible that we will lose the dharma in future rebirths. Someone please correct me if I am wrong as I am not sure about this.
The Hindu version of reincarnation does seem more comforting but I suppose it depends on the existence of a soul (Atman) whereas Buddhism believes in no abiding self, that we are reborn with only our potentialities and whatever merit and karma we have accumulated in this life.
Again, I could be wrong about all of this and I'm really not sure what to believe expect that I have come to believe in reincarnation/rebirth. Although it's not hard proof, I have watched so many videos, and have read books and case studies that have convinced me that it is very possible.
Many of us would have probably heard about people during the Buddha's time who would attain full enlightenment or one of the lower stages of enlightenment upon their first hearing of the Buddha's teachings. Now how is that possible? A lot of these people were non-believers and in fact some were people who had harboured extremely wrong or even destructive views. However, upon their first meeting with Buddha and hearing just a Sutta-length sermon by the Buddha or sometimes even just a single verse of his teaching, they were able to immediately attain one of the four stages of enlightenment
The Buddha is said to have categorized people into four different types of lotus in accordance with their distance to achieving enlightenment. The people I mentioned above are said to be like a lotus bud which is sticking out of the surface of the water and is ready to bloom when touched by sunlight. This type of lotus represents people who are able to readily understand the Dhamma at first hearing. So how did these people get to become this type of lotus without prior practice during the lifetime in which they met the Buddha? The explanation that many teachers have given is that these people had in previous countless lifetimes been developing the ten perfections and accumulating merit to the point where they have already become really really close to reaching enlightenment and therefore when they met the Buddha, he provided the ray of sunlight upon which they fully bloomed instantaneously.
Although this implies that there is an overall forward trajectory heading towards enlightenment through the development of the ten perfections over the countless lifetimes, this trajectory is not necessarily a linear one, but there may be periods of ups and downs along the path. So, for example, during a lifetime as a human you may have managed to overcome anger, but then you also had committed some very negative karma causing you to be reborn in hell upon death. As there is intense suffering in hell, extreme anger is said to be the predominant state of mind for hell-beings. Therefore, after your negative karma has been exhausted and you eventually take rebirth in the human realm again, then it is expected that you would have to unlearn the anger which was re-imprinted into your stream of consciousness during your lifetime in hell. This is the reason why a lot of the teachers I have encountered would often emphasize the importance of virtue and the dangers of being reborn into the lower realms. Apart from the massive suffering which occurs there, one also acquires/reacquires a lot of unwholesome mental qualities through rebirth in such realms. In this way, rebirth in the lower realms is seen as a really serious obstacle towards reaching enlightenment.
Short version: You don't possess past and future lives but rather you participate in them. And it is because of that participation in the life you are living at THIS very moment that compassion matters.
Every act of compassion is not only for the benefit of the recipient of that compassion and the giver of it--compassion is for all beings, spatially and temporally.
Supposedly, everyone else who has developed their Ten Perfections nearly fully would have to wait around through various rebirths for a Buddha to appear and then to attain enlightenment upon hearing his teachings. I guess that's the reason why during the Buddha's time there were so many people who would attain enlightenment upon hearing just a verse or one sermon by the Buddha. These were probably the ones who were basically fully developed and had been waiting around for him to appear.
Of course, anyone who doesn't want to wait around can make the resolve to become a Paccekabuddha/Pratyekabuddha. However, as I understand it, this would require you to develop the Ten Perfections to a much higher degree than the normal disciple who attains enlightenment (ie. arhants/Sāvakabuddha ). However, this is reasonable given that it is obviously much harder to discover the Truth solely on one's own than by receiving detailed instructions from a wise teacher.