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Question on Rebirth
Hey,
I know there is another rebirth post, but that one is becoming huge and somewhat chaotic, so I thought making a new one would be simpler.
I was wondering if there is any mention, or writings on rebirth in the sense of continuity, which refers simply to earthly continuation of material. If I look at myself and try to understand what is myself? I have a lot of trouble with the concept. If I label the self as what I am in terms of physical composition, then there is no self to me. Every cell in my body lives of it's own accord, but relies on every other cell to allow it to continue. My ability to write this is driven by skin cells, muscle tissue and its component cells, nerve axons, bones, ligaments, blood, oxygen, neurons (and all the cells which allow neurons to function) and much more. I guess I could call my self the product of these millions of cells, but it seems like an odd thing to do. Kind of like calling a coral and the dinoflagelletes which feed on it a self, because neither can survive without the other, in the same way as a cell cannot survive without its complimentary cells.
Basically what i'm trying to ask is, if when our cells die, even as separate entities, then is this not a form of rebirth? They will become another thing (at least in terms of our linguistic labels on them). Perhaps they will become nutrients for a worm, and perhaps the worm will die, and provide nutrients for a flower, and perhaps the flower will die and let grain grow, which will in turn go to a mill and become bread, and then it will come into a house and be consumed by a human, feeding cells. A sort of circle of rebirths I guess.
Is this tied in at all with the Buddha's concept of rebirth? Or perhaps some kind of cyclic existence related thing?:S
Thanks ahead of time for any reply!
I know there is another rebirth post, but that one is becoming huge and somewhat chaotic, so I thought making a new one would be simpler.
I was wondering if there is any mention, or writings on rebirth in the sense of continuity, which refers simply to earthly continuation of material. If I look at myself and try to understand what is myself? I have a lot of trouble with the concept. If I label the self as what I am in terms of physical composition, then there is no self to me. Every cell in my body lives of it's own accord, but relies on every other cell to allow it to continue. My ability to write this is driven by skin cells, muscle tissue and its component cells, nerve axons, bones, ligaments, blood, oxygen, neurons (and all the cells which allow neurons to function) and much more. I guess I could call my self the product of these millions of cells, but it seems like an odd thing to do. Kind of like calling a coral and the dinoflagelletes which feed on it a self, because neither can survive without the other, in the same way as a cell cannot survive without its complimentary cells.
Basically what i'm trying to ask is, if when our cells die, even as separate entities, then is this not a form of rebirth? They will become another thing (at least in terms of our linguistic labels on them). Perhaps they will become nutrients for a worm, and perhaps the worm will die, and provide nutrients for a flower, and perhaps the flower will die and let grain grow, which will in turn go to a mill and become bread, and then it will come into a house and be consumed by a human, feeding cells. A sort of circle of rebirths I guess.
Is this tied in at all with the Buddha's concept of rebirth? Or perhaps some kind of cyclic existence related thing?:S
Thanks ahead of time for any reply!
0
Comments
He simply said beings are reborn according to their actions or deeds.
He never said something like consciousness or the body is reborn.
Note: The term "rebirths" appears to not actually exist in this passage. It merely appears to be a liberal embellishment by the translator.
There is a discussion on another thread http://newbuddhist.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5111&highlight=evolution&page=2
At Savatthi. There the Blessed One said: "From an inconstruable beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. What do you think, monks: Which is greater, the tears you have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — or the water in the four great oceans?"
"As we understand the Dhamma taught to us by the Blessed One, this is the greater: the tears we have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — not the water in the four great oceans."
"Excellent, monks. Excellent. It is excellent that you thus understand the Dhamma taught by me.
"This is the greater: the tears you have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — not the water in the four great oceans.
"Long have you (repeatedly) experienced the death of a mother. The tears you have shed over the death of a mother while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — are greater than the water in the four great oceans.
"Long have you (repeatedly) experienced the death of a father... the death of a brother... the death of a sister... the death of a son... the death of a daughter... loss with regard to relatives... loss with regard to wealth... loss with regard to disease. The tears you have shed over loss with regard to disease while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — are greater than the water in the four great oceans.
"Why is that? From an inconstruable beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. Long have you thus experienced stress, experienced pain, experienced loss, swelling the cemeteries — enough to become disenchanted with all fabricated things, enough to become dispassionate, enough to be released."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn15/sn15.003.than.html
I see this to mean "rebirth" in a conventional sense. In this sense the human birth is indeed precious and all things are inter-connected.
There is another form of "rebirth" in the ultimate sense of the arising and passing away of the senses from moment to moment as described in Dependent Origination. It is this type of rebirth that an escape is possible when one realises that in reality there is no inherent self that truly persists. All arises because of causes and conditions and will dissolve when the conditions disappear.
He's trying to dissuade Sati from believing that and to dissuade him from believing rebirth is experienced by consciousness In other words, the issue is not rebirth, but Sati's beliefs about consciousness.
I heard thus. At one time the Blessed One was living in the monastery offered by Anàthapiõóika in Jeta's grove in Sàvatthi.
Then a certain monk approached the Blessed One, worshipped and sat on a side.
Sitting on a side the monk said to the Blessed One: “Venerable sir, how long is a world cycle?”
“Monk, a world cycle is very long and it is not easy to innumerate it as, `it's this amount of years' or `this amount of hundred years,' or `this amount of thousand years,' or `this amount of hundred thousand years'”
“Venerable sir, is it possible to give a comparison?”
The Blessed One said: “Possible. Monk, there is a huge rock which is seven miles by the length, breath and the height. It is without a flaw, not perforated and of the same thickness everywhere. After the lapse of one hundred thousand years a man comes with a cashmere cloth and touches the rock once. By this method the rock diminishes and vanishes, but the world cycle does not come to an end.
“Monk, so long is the world cycle. Many of these world cycles make a several world cycle and a collection of a hundred of the several world cycles make a several hundred world cycle and a collection of a thousand of the several world cycles make a several thousand world cycle and a collection of a hundred thousand of the several world cycles make a several hundred thousand world cycle.
“What is the reason? Monks, without an end is the train of existence, a beginning cannot be pointed out of beings enveloped in ignorance and bound by craving, running from one existence to another.” “Monks, it is suitable that you should turn away from all determinations, fade and be released from them.”
http://tipitaka.wikia.com/wiki/Pabbata_Sutta
http://books.google.com.my/books?id=IZg3AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA68&lpg=PA68&dq=Anguttara-Nikaya+I,+227-228&source=bl&ots=3iAwPDW73K&sig=K__rq2wRvlX3aYFe3yJBitjIocQ&hl=en&ei=pR6rS9zAH4GUkAW05t25DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CCMQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=&f=false
I think that people who believe in rebirth believe that something "special" is reborn, special and particular to the person who died.
If you think about the matter which is in your head, which supports your aggregate mind, that matter will have once been in stars and worms and trees and rocks and zillions of other situations.
Reality recycles, but that is a different thing to saying reality contains rebirth:)
Salome
Mat
For me on top of this mental constructs are also reborn. The actions / thoughts of one person can totally change another for good or bad. It's not just that the physical is passing from one thing to another, but also the ideas and karma.
We're like blotting paper soaking up the water and the dye.
I agree 100%, assuming you mean moment to moment "rebirth" in any given life.
As usual I'm using a simple example, in reality it becomes far more complex. But I hope it shows what I mean by the mental / karmic. Your a sort of bucket with holes dropped into a fast moving stream, some water misses some, some passes almost straight through, some slops around until the bucket falls apart, then moves down the stream into another bucket.
How could consciousness create the eye, which is physical matter?
A camera has an 'eye' but has no consciousness.
A dew drop can reflect the whole universe but has no consciousness.
:smilec:
I used the anaology of the Solar System in another post to represent Dharma, and I think it can be used again here:)
We seem to be agreeing at how the solar system is. The sun in the middle, the planets with their moons. We can talk about it wiithout issues, not just you and I, but all of us here. And the same for us here and Dharma, we are in agreement about the key parts, we can talk without contradiction about it.
So that is all good.
But when you say something, so seemingly innocuous as "but also from one beings life to another" something changes. Its as if you are saying something like, "When two asteroids collide in the solar system hey destroy each other and then a new asteroid appears elsewhere in the solar system."
It is a radically different kind of statement, and however it may seem to you, if you look at it with a critical eye you will see that it isnt innocuous.
Absolutism, and I agree, I think. I think of Karma as being the vast lattice of causes and effects that spreads out into the world, and not just the physical world but the emergent moral, mental and spiritual world.
But again, you are proposing something radically different, when you say that Karma exists, in the postmortem rebirth sense, after death.
This gives me another idea we can think about:
Karma is a great example of a core Dharmic term.
If you think about the other Dharmic terms that we use so often most of equally satisfy those three conditions.
But there are some concepts in Dharma that are not satisfied by those conditions, they seem utterly incompatible with them. I think Rebirth is one such concept:
I just thought of this point, so it may be bunkum, but what do you think?
If you are happy with that kind of explanation, that's fine. I am not though, it is another "candle flame passing" metaphor that doesn't satisfy me at all:)
Looking forwards to your thoughts:)
Mat
Why do contemporary Buddhists teach about re-linking consciousness?
I can remember Thich Nhat Hanh said something similar to this. Can't remember which book though.
I'm sorry I know I keep going on about this but no-one has still explained what the difference between this and Hindu transmigration is. Apart from saying it's not.
I've listened to HHDL talking on this and thought yep that's Hindu reincarnation under another name.
I think the idea is that reincarnation involves something much more "soul-like" than rebirth.
Dont forget that the Buddha discovered anataman. This to me suggests that buddhist rebirth is Hindu reincarnation somehow squeezed onto the no soul doctrine. It just doesn't make any sense to me:)
Thanks RenGalskap, I really appreciated your answer.
Yet I still have some questions regarding the sutta posted by Dhamma Dhatu.
It sounds like Sati is electing consciousness as a mediator between a person and their karmic actions:
“it is the same consciousness that runs and wanders through the round of rebirths, not another.”
“Venerable sir, it is that which speaks and feels and experiences here and there the result of good and bad actions.”
But, the Buddha rejects his assertion, and doesn't see consciousness as a unified thing, or having any moral components to it.
My question is, where do the karmic potentials of a person "reside" ? It can't be the body since it dies, and as Sati found out, it can't be consciousness.
That's right. Rebirth.
P
I know very little, but I've heard that with Hinduism a person is sort of like an onion. There is a person's atman, then a subtle body/bodies, then a gross body. The gross body dies, but the subtle body carries karmic potentials into the next life.
The Buddha was simply clarifying to Sati that each conscious moment arises in dependence on the preceding one, this is true whether we consider moment-to-moment or life-to-life rebirth. This sutta is incorrectly assumed to support the idea that the Buddha didn't teach rebirth.
P
How inconvenient.:p
P
Rebirth as dependent origination. Yet in this definition, the object is annihilated.
Reincarnation = software removed from one PC, installed into another.
Rebirth = electricity unplugged from one PC, plugged into another.
That's great! Ha!:)
Nar sorry don't get that. So what is reborn on the other computer? What is the the electricity? Some external thing that makes beings live. I don't think I get what you mean, this sound like some Greek thought or Taoism or even some forms of Brahmanism.
I dunno.
Electricity = something other than personal soul? Something that is neither individual not plural? not a "what" so the question "what" is reborn is meaningless?
I think in pictures. If i can't make a picture of something I can't understand it.
:crazy:
So, I looked at another sutta, the Annatra Sutta,
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.046.than.html
in which it sounds like consciousness can cause the development of a body:
"From consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-&-form. From name-&-form as a requisite condition come the six sense media." SN 12.46
This is quite confusing... which comes first, consciousness or the bodily basis?
What is being reborn? Consciousness remains after we die and gets implanted on another physical matter? Would you mind giving me some clue?
Would you care to spend a few hours of your time on these documents?
The Dependent Origination
Anatta and Rebirth
The Danger of I
These will set a lot of things straight for you. At least it did for me (I was a strong believer of rebirth few months back). I have referenced these texts with the suttas and find no contradictions so far. Most of the texts I have read before on rebirth, completely contradict the Buddha's teachings as reflected in the suttas
The whole point here is this:.
Maha-cattarisaka Sutta
Too much indulgence with the whole rebirth thing is ego clinging clearly. The desire to have continued existence... Not a factor of the right path
I think such a belief arises from the observation that immoral people can enjoy happy circumstances, while some moral people suffer awful situations. It suggests the results of our moral actions aren't necessarily immediate. Yet if we believe in karma, there has to be a way to balance the equation, so it speak. Hence the idea of latent karma that will be experienced in future lives. So, where is this latent karma hanging out? In the mind? I have no idea.
Like Sati, we want to elect some candidate that will facilitate moral retribution after death.
The teaching quoted is concerned with the origin of suffering.
Ignorance conditions, colours or obscures consciousness, resulting in ignorant sense contact, which leads to suffering.
The Buddha is not discussing the origin of life here but the origin of suffering.
The sutta in Pali states: "avijjāpaccayā saṅkhārā; saṅkhārapaccayā, etc".
The paccaya here is singular. It means "conditions", like shampoo conditions hair or fabric softener conditions clothing or like exercise conditions muscles.
The word "paccaya" here does not mean "as a requisite condition comes".
Paccaya here is not a noun ("requisite condition") but a verb.
For example, of a person gets drunk, there are three results, namely, immediate happiness, a hangover later and an addiction or tendency later again causing craving for alcohol.
It is incorrect to think immoral people enjoy happy circumstances because being addicted to sensual pleasures, unnecessary material wealth and fleeting fame is not "happiness".
The result of kamma is immediate. Immediate pleasure immediately sows the seeds of displeasure and many underlying mental defilements.
For example, by robbing a bank and obtaining vast wealth, there is also an underlying fear of getting caught.
Kamma is not cosmic justice.
I think it's wrong to connect the law of khamma 'moral retribution'. The theory of kamma is the theory of cause and effect, of action and reaction; it is a natural law which has nothing to do with the idea of justice, reward and punishment. Kamma means only 'volitional action', not all action. Kamma by itself never means its effects – that is known as the 'fruit' or result of kamma. Volition may relatively be good (skillful) or bad (unskillful), just as a desire may be good or bad. Good kamma (kusala) produces good effects and bad kamma (akusala) produces bad effects.
The above makes it quite clear that theory of kamma makes little sense without some form of 'rebirth'. Why is the theory of kamma mentioned so often in the scriptures? It fits perfectly with the Hinduism... but seems problematic in Buddhism if we exclude the possibility of some sort of literal rebirth.
This is just an observation...
Where the socks go?
thanks for your explanation, especially the pali.
You mentioned that kamma was not cosmic justice, but its hard to see the idea of kamma with rebirth as not functioning in that way.
For example, when the Buddha is addressing Ananda in the Maha-kammavibhanga Sutta: The Great Exposition of Kamma, MN 136, he says:
16. (ii) "Now there is the person who has killed living beings here... has had wrong view. And on the dissolution of the body, after death, he reappears in a happy destination, in the heavenly world.9 But (perhaps) the good kamma producing his happiness was done by him earlier, or the good kamma producing his happiness was done by him later, or right view was undertaken and completed by him at the time of his death. And that was why, on the dissolution of the body, after death, he reappeared in a happy destination, in the heavenly world. But since he has killed living beings here... has had wrong view, he will feel the result of that here and now, or in his next rebirth, or in some subsequent existence."
When I read this sutta, it sounds like an affirmation that no matter what (including death) the "good guy" will prevail, and the "bad guy" will lose.
Traditionally it's karma.
P
He taught loads of things actually.
P
The Buddha did advise against speculation and clinging regarding the continuity of future lives. But drawing the conclusion that the Buddha didn't teach about future lives is completely wrong. Read the suttas.
P
The point is that suffering is synonymous with the continuation of the cycle of birth and death. Read the suttas more carefully.
P
One could argue that all those other things he may have taught (economics, cosmology, justice, metaphysics...) are all part of the greater body of suffering reduction...
People confuse the purpose and content of the Buddha's teaching. Yes, the purpose is cessation of suffering, but this is a separate issue from content, ie what the Buddha taught. Some people tend to confuse these things deliberately in order to promote a particular view.
P
I agree. The solution to the problem of suffering is all encompassing, its isn't just about suffering.
metta
Mat
I believe that this passage is usually read as being a description of mental phenomena. In other words, "sense media" refers to mental processes involved in perception, not to physical sense organs. In the next paragraph it says that the cessation of consciousness leads to the cessation of name-&-form, which leads to the cessation of the sense media. Consciousness is a mental phenomenon. The cessation of consciousness doesn't mean the cessation of the body, so name&form must be a mental phenomenon also. The inclusion of "name" in "name-&-form" reinforces this. Similarly, the relationship of name&form and the sense media suggests that the sense media are mental phenomena also.
The Annatra Sutta has the Buddha saying that the idea that the person who creates kamma and the person who experiences the fruit of kamma are the same is one of two extremes to be avoided. Instead of either extreme, the Buddha teaches dependent origination.
Yes, we do. :-)
Part of dukkha is the perception that we aren't getting what we're entitled to, and that other people are getting things they're not entitled to. The Buddha taught a path that leads to the end of this desire for moral retribution.
Ohh Dear ...
Very cool, thanks!
Can any one recommend some commentaries on the pali suttas? It's so easy to misunderstand what the words exactly mean.