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Karma and reincarnation?
Hi.
I am very new to buddhism, so please don't laugh if my understanding is way off. That's why I have come here, because I am confused on a few things.
From my understanding the teachings of Buddha are rational and scientific trans-theistic. They are not superstitions, but more like a teaching in psychology.
As far as I know most people believe karma is; your experience in life being determined by the morality of your decisions. If you cause a certain amount of suffering in the world, you will ultimately experience the same amount of suffering.
But I was told Buddha never actually said this. Is this just a superstition which has been adapted by some followers?
I was told karma is more like a principle, like gravity for instance.
For example:
And one last question is what the go is with reincarnation. Did Buddha actually ever say when you die you come back in another form which is influenced by the decisions of your past life? Does he actually say that there is reincarnation, previous and future lives and moral decisions influencing this whole process?
I have read parts of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and my understanding is that alot of metaphors are used to describe things. Like the peaceful and wrathful deities are not actually deities or spirits, but parts of the psyche, projections of the mind. And all the talk about death and rebirth isn't a physical death, but death of the mind and/or ego. And rebirth is a new perspective/personality sort of thing. If there is mention of other life's, reincarnation sort of things by Buddha, do some interpret them as metaphors with other meanings, in relation to the mind/psyche?
Thanks for any help!
I am very new to buddhism, so please don't laugh if my understanding is way off. That's why I have come here, because I am confused on a few things.
From my understanding the teachings of Buddha are rational and scientific trans-theistic. They are not superstitions, but more like a teaching in psychology.
As far as I know most people believe karma is; your experience in life being determined by the morality of your decisions. If you cause a certain amount of suffering in the world, you will ultimately experience the same amount of suffering.
But I was told Buddha never actually said this. Is this just a superstition which has been adapted by some followers?
I was told karma is more like a principle, like gravity for instance.
For example:
So could someone clarify on this issue?the karma of stealing would be:
1. the fact that you stole money reflects greed, which will result in material desire that's not satiated, which will lead to unhappiness
2. you don't learn the value of money, because it comes easily, which means that you'll be more inclined to have money problems in the future.
3. paranoid of getting caught, which will affect your quality of life.
4. you potentially getting caught, which will affect your job prospects, which will in turn affect your future job and income.
similarly, the karma of killing another being is said to be influenced by the intentions behind the act. i.e. killing some up in self-defence is different to the karma of killing someone for fun. could this be because the mentality of someone who kills in self-defence differs markedly from the headcase? e.g.:
1. you killing someone for fun reflects a truly depraved mind, and only if you really hated/were unhappy with life or perhaps consumed by your ego would you be compelled to do that. your karma is having to live with these disturbing thoughts.
2. if you kill for fun, you're more likely to hang around bad people, where there's a greater likelihood of you getting killed yourself
3. killing only in self-defence would imply that generally, you're not a violent purson who harbours angry thoughts, meaning that the above is less likely to be applicable to you
etc, etc.
And one last question is what the go is with reincarnation. Did Buddha actually ever say when you die you come back in another form which is influenced by the decisions of your past life? Does he actually say that there is reincarnation, previous and future lives and moral decisions influencing this whole process?
I have read parts of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and my understanding is that alot of metaphors are used to describe things. Like the peaceful and wrathful deities are not actually deities or spirits, but parts of the psyche, projections of the mind. And all the talk about death and rebirth isn't a physical death, but death of the mind and/or ego. And rebirth is a new perspective/personality sort of thing. If there is mention of other life's, reincarnation sort of things by Buddha, do some interpret them as metaphors with other meanings, in relation to the mind/psyche?
Thanks for any help!
0
Comments
I am new to this (lovely looking) chatsite. I hope I am allowed to give you my personal view or answer.
For me, the teachings of the Buddha are like psychology. They were taught to be examined rationally, applied and verified. This is called 'study, practice, realisation'. Realisation means the full experience or knowledge the application of the teachings bring deep genuine peace to the mind.
The Buddha taught a fair amount about karma. I would say your explanation is a general truth but not an absolute truth.
For example, if we examine the kamma of Adolf Hitler, its result was his personal suicide. Or for some of his collegues, imprisonment and execution. Thus, clearly our moral decisions will affect our future.
However, a painful result will not always be the case. For example, human beings can learn from the suffering they have caused to others and change for the better. In the Buddhist scriptures, there is a story about a mass murderer who the Buddha reformed. The mass murderer gained complete inner peace & enlightenment.
Buddha's teachings on rebirth, mostly given to common people who already believed in reincarnation and to people of other religions (Brahmins) were strongly based in morality.
If we read the Theravaden Buddhist scriptures, Buddha did not explain how rebirth occurred meta-physically. In my mind, for Buddha, rebirth was a moral principle rather than a meta-physical principle. He taught rebirth to encourage ordinary people to be good, to avoid harming themselves and others. This is because morality itself is non-harming.
In Buddhism, morality is not social convention. It is non-harming.
Language is an interesting thing. The development of language has its roots in physical things. So when the Buddha used language, he naturally used terms that can be applied to both physical and mental things.
For example, "path". There are physical paths & spiritual paths. Or "birth". There is physical birth and mental birth, such as the birth of an "idea" or "becoming angry". Buddha taught there are four kinds of birth: 1. from an egg; 2. from moisture; 3. from the womb; and 4. due to karma.
If you watch the movie: "A Star is Born", you can see birth due to karma.
So with language, some people understand it this way and others understand it another way. In Buddhism there are the phrases:
If you then transform your thoughts into words and/or deeds, you will reap the consequences of those thoughts/words/deeds.
Have a look at this:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nanamoli/wheel248.html
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an04/an04.077.than.html
Rebirth and reincarnation, strictly speaking, are two different things.
Reincrnation implies the transmigration of an entity or soul.
Rebirth is more subtle....
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/bps-essay_46.html
The whole website itself is an extraordinary font of information.
I'd save it as a favourite and get to it.....
By the way:
We also have a thread titled "Daily Dhamma Drops" by Bikkhu Samahita.
Read today's entry.......
I can't improve on Dhamma Dhatu's answer so I won't try. There's a lot of good info on this site and plenty of resources to keep you learning so have fun here and if you feel like it you can tell us a bit about yourself on the New Member's thread.
Dhamma Dhatu,
I've been thoroughly enjoying your contributions and you've expressed some of the teachings in such a way as to make them more clear to me. Thank you so much and welcome to the forum.
The issues that you raise, karma and reincarnation (actually rebirth is a better word), are ones that nearly every Westerner entering the path of Buddhism has problems with. They are contrary to everything we have been taught all our lives. It is only natural then that it will take a while (maybe a long while) to sort it all out. That's normal, don't worry about it. This is where practice comes in because not everything in Buddhism can be accessed using our intellect (another problem for Westerners!).
The answers you have already received should set you on the right course. I would only add a few comments.
First, there is really nothing mysterious about karma. It is simply cause and effect. Actually I would say that morality has nothing at all to do with it. Morality, after all, changes from society to society. It is not a permanent thing but something that changes and it is quite impermanent.
All that karma is, is the law of cause and effect. If you create a cause, then you will also experience the effect. That's all it is. If you drop a ball (the cause), the effect will be that it will fall until it hits a surface. That's a very simple example, but it's basically what karma is about. What the Buddha taught is that karma extends beyond just simple Newtonian physics. It extends to everything we do. If we create negativity, then we will reap negativity. It's like it says in the Bible, as ye sow, so shall ye reap. If we plant the seeds of negative actions, then that is what we will experience. If we plant the seeds of positive actions, then we will experience happiness and benefit.
The failure to understand karma results in situations like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which has been going on for - how many thousand years now? If you think you can create peace by planting the seeds of violence and warfare, then you are sadly mistaken. Just look at the violence and suffering both sides experience in this conflict. And of course that is but one of many.
The Buddha's teaching on karma is revolutionary because he showed us that our lives are in our own hands, that we can't blame what happens to us on some deity or other people or randomness. We control our destiny, and only we can change it. The spiritual technology that the Buddha taught provides the means for achieving that end.
As for rebirth, that is the one that throws most people. First of all, you have to understand that the Buddha taught that there is no permanent, self-existing self. What we consider to be the self is nothing more than an idea, a habit, you might say. We have the habit of believing we exist as an entity separate and apart from everything else. The Buddha taught that this is a delusion, the basic delusion that ultimately results in the suffering that all sentient beings experience in one form or another. If you can understand that, then our whole perspective on death and rebirth shifts. There is no one to die, and no one to be reborn. However, the karma that we create in our lives always produces an effect, but it may not be experienced in this life as the conditions may not be right for the effect to manifest. The mass murderer who makes it to the end of his life without getting caught may think he got off scot-free, but that's not the case, as the Buddha taught. The karma that he created will create tremendous suffering for him in the future. That's how rebirth happens. The karma that we create in this life (and all previous ones) creates the conditions for rebirth to occur. So it is not a soul that is reborn or even an entity, just a karmic event, so to speak.
Hope that helps clear up a little bit of the mystery!
Palzang
Ditto!:om:
Would not the karma of the mass murderer be amongst the families and friends of those he killed? From what I can gather, karma is not a superstition/mysterious force, but what you are saying there makes it seem like it is...
As far as I understand, karma will not always be felt by the individual who caused it. For example the poverty in countries like Africa is the karma of a whole society, even though the individuals who live there must reap its effects.
Is there anywhere I can read more into 'rebirth', i'd especially like to read what the Buddha himself had to say on it. I always thought the karma referred to when talking about 'rebirth', was a mental thing, because if someone who had created alot of bad karma, had not gained inner peace, they would need to gain inner peace to be reborn.
Also does anyone feel Jesus was essentially teaching the same thing as Buddha? Using metaphors etc. to describe the same things?
Really, the only Kamma you have to worry about, is your own.
You reap the consequences of what you do.
You don't get away with anything.
And it all counts.
Start from there, move on from there.
That's all there is.
Access to Insight
The Word of the Buddha
The information on these two sites is based on excerpts from the Pali Canon which comprise the earliest writings we have of what the Buddha actually taught.
Hope this helps!
No, there is nothing mysterious about it. Both cause and effect arise simultaneously, but the effect may not become obvious until the appropriate conditions arise. Whether the karma of the mass murderer would be amongst the families and friends of those he killed is a matter of conjecture. It is always a little dangerous to try to figure out the workings of karma as it is beyond our ordinary minds. Only the mind of a Buddha can "read" karma. Also understand that there are no victims in Buddhism. What happens to you is due to the causes that you yourself create.
There is such a thing as national karma, sure, but karma is exacting. If you create the causes, you will experience the results. Nobody else can do it for you. But the teaching on karma is not one of blame and punishment. The teaching on karma is meant to show you how to be in charge of your own life and your happiness.
Karma is the force that drives rebirth. Rebirth means just that, taking birth as a sentient being in any of the six realms of existence. In other words, even as a human in this life you can take rebirth in a lower realm or a higher realm, depending on one's karma and how it manifests. I'm not quite sure what you mean by saying that someone with a lot of bad karma needs "to gain inner peace to be reborn." Every sentient being experiences death and rebirth. It doesn't matter what kind of karma you have created in this life, you will definitely experience rebirth after you die (though not necessarily in the most pleasant of circumstances).
Of course he was teaching the same thing. What makes you think they were a hair's breadth different?
Palzang
Umm, contemporary christianity...
Thanks for the replies, i'm going to have to read into this myself, what you guys provided seems like enough to get started. Thanks alot!
Palzang
.......and, above all, read the Gospel of Thomas.
I myself look upon such matters from a Buddhist framework. The Buddha's path is divided into three areas of practise: (1) morality or ethics; (2) concentration or mind training; and (3) insight or wisdom.
All religions have the foundation of ethics and all religions have some mind training but this is not emphasised in all. For example, the older style religions, such as Judaism and Islam emphasise morality. What they share mostly with Buddhism is morality.
Christ's ethics were similar to Buddha's ethics in that non-harming and non-violence were emphasised rather than enforced social morality.
Christainity also strongly emphasises mind training. Mind training is unifying the mind, making it 'one'. Thus any teaching about unconditional love, compassion, forgiveness, oneness, non-judging, etc, is mind training. The bliss that can arise in mind training in Buddhism is known as the 'heavenly realms'. Buddha and Christ both taught the way to the 'heavenly realms'.
However, on the highest level, Christ did not teach extensively about insight as the Buddha did. Insight means understanding grasping at things possessively, as "I" and "mine", is how suffering occurs. The Buddhist teachings are characterised by the doctines of The Four Noble Truths, Emptiness and the Elements. This has a scientific character or one of Natural Truth.
Where as in both the Bible and in the non-Biblical scriptures, we can read Christ 'pointing' to this emptiness of self but in my opinion, it is not a salient teaching. It is not expounded as systematically as the Buddha did.
Thus, to end my rant, if you wish to learning about Buddhism and compare it to other religions, consider the framework of the Buddha's path, which is morality, concentration & insight.
Kind regards
DDhatu
Hi Dhamma Dhatu,
Whilst I agree with almost everything you've written, there remains for us the fact that Buddha, within the suttas, was very clear about the migration of beings. Kamma was more than what we experience (and can thus directly verify) within this lifetime.
If we read the The Great Exposition of Kamma:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.136.nymo.html
Buddha clears up some misapprehensions regarding the topic, ie.
What is interesting, is that Buddha declares that he has seen Hell Realms directly in MN130 Devaduta Sutta (the Divine Messengers). After a lengthy expose he concludes:
So, as rational people who have not witnessed this for ourselves, how much do we take on board?
One thing that gets overlooked it general chats about the 'whys and wherefores' is the role "right or wrong view" plays at the time of death. It appears that a lifetime of immaculate conduct, whilst guaranteed at some point to yield good results, may be goofed up if wrong view predominates at the time of death.
This is very close to teachings that exist in the Tibetan school.
So, not disagreeing just enlarging a tad, if you catch my drift.
Namaste
The whole concept of rebirth can be more easily understood, I think, if we just examine the death and rebirth we all experience moment to moment. Generally, however, we don't let ourselves be aware of it. It's not something we want to examine because it disrupts our delusion of "self". But in reality we're not the same being from one moment to the next. We're always in a state of flux, changing in reaction to our environment, our state of mind, what we had for lunch... Our lives are more akin to the frames of a movie that we perceive to be one continuous stream than what we normally perceive life to be (i.e. a continuous, unbroken stream). That is something that is worth contemplation, I think, because in reality it is no different than what we call death and rebirth of the body. As the Karmapa said on his deathbed, "Nothing is happening!"
Palzang
Jesus predicted he would return when the world went to chaos. There are actually quite a number of predictions from numerous people, that the world will go to chaos and there will be a shift in conscioussness, or along those lines. I think when Jesus said 'I' will return, 'I' was his state of mind. So when he said the world will go to chaos, and I will return, he meant people will screw themselves over and there will be a global shift in consciousness.
I think 'heaven' and 'hell' was also this mindstate Jesus is talking about. I have heard Christians interpret the Bible in a way that says, all who die, don't go to heaven until Jesus returns.
Buddhists say the records of our past lives, the past of our race, past of humanity and all pre-human forms of life are stored in our subconscious. I think Jesus and Buddha, both reached the same mindstate and were both preaching about it.
I think when Jesus was saying all who die don't go to heaven until he returns, he was basically talking about reincarnation/rebirth in reference to his prediction of him returning (or shift in conscioussness)
These predictions are basically saying all of humanity is going to become enlightened. So if all of humanity was enlightened, rebirth, would be enlightenment, which would agree with what Jesus said about everyone whos dead going to heaven when he returns.
I hope that sort of makes sense. It's just my interpretation of Jesus ad Buddha being on the same page.
They do?
I think it's pointless to try to read hidden meanings into teachings and such. We'll never know exactly what Jesus taught because his most profound teachings were excised by Constantine and others as being too revolutionary and threatening to their own positions of power. As it also says in the Book of Mary Magdelene, the male apostles (there were also female ones, though you'd never know that reading the Xian Bible) were very jealous of Mary because she was the one who received the most profound teachings from Jesus. But they had their revenge.
Palzang
"There are those who, in virtue of concentration and other yogic practices, are able to bring the subconscious into the realm of discriminative consciousness and, thereby, to draw upon the unrestricted treasury of subconscious memory, wherein are stored the records not only of our past lives but the records of the past of our race, the past of humanity, and of all pre-human forms of life, if not of the very consciousness that makes life possible in this universe.
If, through some trick of nature, the gates of an individual's subconsciousness were suddenly to spring open, the unprepared mind would be overwhelmed and crushed. Therefore, the gates of the subconscious are guarded, by all initiates, and hidden behind the veil of mysteries and symbols."
I take a slightly different view of the question. I think that memories of past lives (and even future ones) can be accessed by those who have attained at least some degree of realization. Where are those memories stored? Well, I don't think they're stored anywhere actually. A realized being is able to access the three times, past, present, and future, at will. Such a being also has no boundaries between him/herself and all other beings. In other words, the realized being can "remember" his/her own lives as well as "read" the lives of other beings.
I'm not sure I'm explaining it very well, but I think it's a little different than what you're saying, retrospect. Or maybe not. Maybe just a different way of saying the same thing? Half of one, six dozen of the other?
Palzang