Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

General discussion, particularly exploring the Dharma in the modern world.
User avatar
Paul
Posts: 1726
Joined: Sat Feb 13, 2010 8:12 pm

Re: Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

Post by Paul »

5heaps wrote:
asunthatneversets wrote:Seems to make sense to regard rebirth as occurring moment to moment
nope, otherwise you would be an entirely different person each moment
That's not a problem though, is it? Each moment is completely unique and so nothing can literally move from time A to time B - but if we don't analyse things so completely that they fall apart entirely, we can say that one moment depends upon another via cause and effect. In effect it's like a zoetrope or flick-book. In that case you then have the case that it certainly seems that:
things are momentary, nevertheless objects function over time.
In the end, if we are very thorough in out analysis as per Nagajurna, we end up seeing that time and cause & effect are both empty.
Look at the unfathomable spinelessness of man: all the means he's been given to stay alert he uses, in the end, to ornament his sleep. – Rene Daumal
the modern mind has become so limited and single-visioned that it has lost touch with normal perception - John Michell
krodha
Posts: 2733
Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2011 10:30 pm

Re: Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

Post by krodha »

5heaps wrote: nope, otherwise you would be an entirely different person each moment, and thats not true.
Your position is based on the mutually interdependent presuppositions that time indeed exists and that an entity which spans time also exists. I'm not denying the conventional reality of such designations but to refute the manner of their fundamental and illusory manifestation (as the mere conventions they are) in the name of attempting to establish some type of inherency seems misguided.

Who or what would be an entirely different person each moment? My implementation of the phrase "moment to moment" in and of itself already says too much being that it subtly suggests a consecutive chain of moments(i.e. Time).
5heaps wrote: nor is it true that when you eat a french fry you end up eating 100s of them the longer you chew that one fry.
Again time, subject and object are assumed to be existent beyond the pale of conventionality.
5heaps wrote: the tough part of this basic version of dependent arising is understanding is that while things are momentary, nevertheless objects function over time.
They certainly appear to.
User avatar
Ogyen
Posts: 738
Joined: Sun Dec 06, 2009 5:36 pm

Re: Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

Post by Ogyen »

Thank you all for wonderful responses - you made my day with real worthwhile food for thought about this.

I like what Namdrol said, it rings true. However, it feels like a layered (cryptic) statement in its naked simplicity with loads of meaning and I know my mind is still grasping for meaning because I don't fully understand my own delusion of "I am." In this case, I know what I'm sensing is simply beyond my present comprehension. It's like I'm looking for the answer when it's staring me right in the face, and if I cock my head a bit, I can almost see its shadow out of the corner of my eye - it feels like it's hiding in plain sight.

So what fundamentally continues (per everyone's input- in essence) would be the delusion (per aforementioned 12 links of DO) and in that sense, I see how it would be a moment to moment rebirth. Simply because it moves moment to moment as all matter in this universe does not mean or assume that each moment happens randomly, in a vacuum or independently of the moment which preceded it... In effect, each moment is concatenated, because matter and causality dictate movement as far as we know in this way. Each moment is a direct result in effects of causes from the moment before it. While it's not the same moment, it's the flame lighting the next, how do you actually distinguish which is the 'new moment' and which is the 'old moment' until there is a 'sense of past' that tells you that the previous moment is no longer here. But where is the concrete-slap-me-now proof? Except my perception telling me things, but it so often doesn't tell me the whole truth... because of ignorance, because my eyes aren't so good to see through the delusion of me, so I think I continue from now and when then is yesterday, I think it was me doing those things. And while it is true, conventionally, my person carried these deeds and tasks, I am a sequential machine of choices often governed by the choices made prior to my present consciousness (there might be a gross broadstroke statement in there, so beware).

So I could not really be a new person each moment because I'm still concatenated by my karma in basic causality. I can choose differently each new moment though. But again, what I see is also dictated by the insight and clarity that is available to me in that very moment. If I can't see my choice of freedom, I cannot be free. If I cannot see my delusion, I cannot cease the rebirth process. Am I more or less grasping this part?

However there is no "me" that transmigrates, this much I've really understood, in the way that when someone has severe brain damage, they don't continue exactly as they had been pre-coma. If you consider just how conventional trauma completely changes a consciousness's aggregates in this life alone, imagine what eradication it performs with the falling apart of the body completely with an event as dissolving as death. Come to think of it, what in effect CAN survive but (and here is where I get fuzzy) the assorted amalgamated belief of the deepest level of consciousness which has by habitual force been propelled to believe it exists by many connected moments of will/aggregates that fundamentally root in the ignorance of the delusion "I am" ...

So when asked, you believe that the soul is reborn, I can honestly say, no, I have never seen a soul, and won't believe it till shown one. Then they ask, "Well what of you continues?" I guess I can say, my belief of Self that wants its way into an identity - and that delusion is also what causes the fundamental suffering, no? Because it's not true, and suffering is caused by the believing of things that are not ultimately true?

Sorry if I'm a bit all over the place, trying to wrap the noggin around this one.
Image Made from 100% recycled karma

The Heart Drive - nosce te ipsum

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget." –Arundhati Roy
5heaps
Posts: 432
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 6:09 am

Re: Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

Post by 5heaps »

asunthatneversets wrote:
5heaps wrote: nor is it true that when you eat a french fry you end up eating 100s of them the longer you chew that one fry.
Again time, subject and object are assumed to be existent beyond the pale of conventionality.
doesnt matter. in no instance is it correct to say that each moment is a rebirth
krodha
Posts: 2733
Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2011 10:30 pm

Re: Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

Post by krodha »

5heaps wrote:
asunthatneversets wrote:
5heaps wrote: nor is it true that when you eat a french fry you end up eating 100s of them the longer you chew that one fry.
Again time, subject and object are assumed to be existent beyond the pale of conventionality.
doesnt matter. in no instance is it correct to say that each moment is a rebirth
I respect your opinion, what may I ask is your view on rebirth?
User avatar
Paul
Posts: 1726
Joined: Sat Feb 13, 2010 8:12 pm

Re: Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

Post by Paul »

Ogyen wrote:So I could not really be a new person each moment because I'm still concatenated by my karma in basic causality.
I think you should investigate this more.

Things are either identical or are not identical. If two things are related by cause and effect they cannot be the same as one another. How could something cause something else that is identical to it? A seed causes a tree, but a seed is not a tree.
Look at the unfathomable spinelessness of man: all the means he's been given to stay alert he uses, in the end, to ornament his sleep. – Rene Daumal
the modern mind has become so limited and single-visioned that it has lost touch with normal perception - John Michell
User avatar
DarwidHalim
Posts: 418
Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2011 6:04 pm

Re: Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

Post by DarwidHalim »

The question of "what moves on" in rebirth is exactly same with the question "what moves on" from morning to the night or night to the morning or from this second to another second.

What moves on?

If you really search for it, there is nothing concrete move from this place to that place. What we see is the changing of this phenomena to another phenomena, where this phenomena is completely different with that phenomena.

Like a mirage, it looks like water, but there is no water there.

All appearances look like there is something there, but actually there is nothing there.

That is why majority of people get lost as compared to a small group of people who really try to find it and they will find nothing.
I am not here nor there.
I am not right nor wrong.
I do not exist neither non-exist.
I am not I nor non-I.
I am not in samsara nor nirvana.
To All Buddhas, I bow down for the teaching of emptiness. Thank You!
User avatar
LastLegend
Posts: 5408
Joined: Sat Mar 19, 2011 3:46 pm
Location: Northern Virginia

Re: Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

Post by LastLegend »

DarwidHalim wrote:The question of "what moves on" in rebirth is exactly same with the question "what moves on" from morning to the night or night to the morning or from this second to another second.
.
I agree.
It’s eye blinking.
User avatar
Grigoris
Former staff member
Posts: 21938
Joined: Fri May 14, 2010 9:27 pm
Location: Greece

Re: Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

Post by Grigoris »

The simple answer would be: the same thing that moves from one moment to the next during the bardo of life.
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
User avatar
Ogyen
Posts: 738
Joined: Sun Dec 06, 2009 5:36 pm

Re: Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

Post by Ogyen »

gregkavarnos wrote:The simple answer would be: the same thing that moves from one moment to the next during the bardo of life.
great - i'm really doomed then. :tantrum:
Image Made from 100% recycled karma

The Heart Drive - nosce te ipsum

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget." –Arundhati Roy
User avatar
Tilopa
Posts: 562
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2010 3:53 am

Re: Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

Post by Tilopa »

gregkavarnos wrote:The simple answer would be: the same thing that moves from one moment to the next during the bardo of life.
Correct - the continuum of the subtle clear light conciousness.
Malcolm
Posts: 42974
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:19 am

Re: Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

Post by Malcolm »

Tilopa wrote:
gregkavarnos wrote:The simple answer would be: the same thing that moves from one moment to the next during the bardo of life.
Correct - the continuum of the subtle clear light conciousness.

That would be a tantric perspective (Gelug), but the Prasanga perspective is the one I outlined above.
User avatar
Tilopa
Posts: 562
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2010 3:53 am

Re: Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

Post by Tilopa »

Namdrol wrote:
Tilopa wrote: Correct - the continuum of the subtle clear light conciousness.
That would be a tantric perspective (Gelug), but the Prasanga perspective is the one I outlined above.
Although in the Gelug tradition much emphasis is placed on sutra nevertheless the view of tantra is always held to be superior.
User avatar
PadmaVonSamba
Posts: 9443
Joined: Sat May 14, 2011 1:41 am

Re: Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Personally, I like the idea that your mind isn't moving anywhere at all...
...it's this damned stream of visitors who keep showing up, lifetime after lifetime,
each one claiming to be the real "me".

:rolling:

My understanding of this (and it is only my understanding) is very simple.
Mental patterns tend to replicate themselves pretty closely.
The way the Buddha expressed it, like the wheel of the cart that follows the ox who pulls it.
That is why it feels like you are the same person from moment to moment.
But they do not replicate themselves exactly. Everything changes.
This is why you are not exactly the same person from moment to moment.

Rebirth:analogy

If you are driving a truck that is carrying a pile of wooden boards, and the truck turns over near a river,
the pile is dispersed, and all the boards go into the river,
float down stream, and wash up in different places.
But some of those boards also wash up in the same place, in another grouping.
Other boards may wash up somewhere else.
These boards are like the aggregate causes of cognition (but not actual cognition itself) ,
and the truck turning over is like the body when an ordinary person dies.

Suppose another person finds a lot of those boards and puts them into his truck, into a new "pile".
Maybe that wood will be burned up, or made into a table or something.
This is like the causes of cognition moving from one body to another.
The cognition, the 'consciousness' did not move,
but what moves are the causes of cognition, or of consciousness.

Suppose another truck turns over and the wood boards falls out into the river,
but these wood boards happen to have first been made into a boat.
Then when the boards (boat) falls into the water, it retains its shape.
All the boards float down stream, but having first been assembled into a boat,
they arrive downstream as essentially the same boat.

This is like what happens to realized beings, such as some lamas, when they die,
because they have organized their minds into vessels rather than just a loose stack of mental aggregates.

It's not a physical thing that moves on. There is not some cartoon thought balloon floating invisibly through space,
out of a corpse one place and into a fetus somewhere else.
.
.
.
.
.
.
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
User avatar
DarwidHalim
Posts: 418
Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2011 6:04 pm

Re: Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

Post by DarwidHalim »

Since we have been living in dualistic habit, it is very normal for us to find out the ontological status of what is moving on.

However, you will not be able to find the exact answer that can describe what is moving on.

In dependent origination, continuity will occur.
In dependent origination as well, that continuity is free from any substance.

Everything is continue, but there is nothing in that everything.

How are you going to define such thing in one word?

Word has a dualistic nature, unavoidable. If you say this is tall, it means it cannot be short. But in reality, if you see your ring finger, when you compare it with with little finger, your ring finger is taller. But if you compare it with middle finger, your ring finger is shorter.

So your middle finger is short or tall?

You cannot answer that with language which has dualistic nature. The middle finger can be tall and short.

If you are trying to find one what that can express these 2 possibilities at the same time, there is no such word. If yes, it means yes, if no, it means no. In dualistic language there is no word that can tell you yes and no and the same time.

To counter this, because of duality nature, we have to say thing in 2 way. It is long RELATIVE to this. It is long RELATIVE to that. If you remove the word relative, you cannot express thing precisely something that can be tall and short at the same time.

This is the consequence of language which is dualistic.

However, if see the word dream, rainbow, and mirage, you know conventionally that it is happening, there is such thing, but at the same time, there is nothing inside. They are the perfect word that express reality.

If you say a car, that car sound like it is real, but at the same time inside has something. That is a daily word such as car, house, etc. is not a good word to describe reality.

Because Buddha speak to human, Buddha has to use the language that human understand. For Buddha, car and a dream are exactly same. But for ordinary human, car and dream are different. For them car is real, dream is not real.

Because Buddha want to point it out to us, he tell us reality is (like) a dream, mirage, etc.

The best way to see what is going on is through those simile, not definition. Because definition requires yes is yes, ni is no. Definition cannot express something which is yes and no.

Dream, mirage, rainbow can express well the thing which is yes and no. Yes in appearances, no in substance of those appearances.

Back to the topic. What is moving on?

You are searching for ontological answer. You will not get it.

Even people say clear light, for those who don't understand clear ligh is just like a soul.

Using different name, but give you same problem - there is something continue.

That question can not be answered satisfactory, but can be understand perfectly. Because of that understanding , the true answer will make you mute if you want to find the exact word.

The best answer I guess is what is going on is like what is going on in the dream, nothing inside, but continue.
I am not here nor there.
I am not right nor wrong.
I do not exist neither non-exist.
I am not I nor non-I.
I am not in samsara nor nirvana.
To All Buddhas, I bow down for the teaching of emptiness. Thank You!
User avatar
Grigoris
Former staff member
Posts: 21938
Joined: Fri May 14, 2010 9:27 pm
Location: Greece

Re: Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

Post by Grigoris »

Ogyen wrote:
gregkavarnos wrote:The simple answer would be: the same thing that moves from one moment to the next during the bardo of life.
great - i'm really doomed then. :tantrum:
Don't worry about it! At least you'll be in good company! ;)
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
User avatar
cloudburst
Posts: 400
Joined: Thu Apr 07, 2011 4:49 pm

Re: Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

Post by cloudburst »

Namdrol wrote:
The so called "Prasanga" branch of Madhyamaka generally rejects the idea that consciousness transmigrates.

N
What sophistry is this? :stirthepot:
Can we expect some terse qualification, or are you actually claiming that Prasangikas do not accept transmigration?
Malcolm
Posts: 42974
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:19 am

Re: Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

Post by Malcolm »

cloudburst wrote:
Namdrol wrote:
The so called "Prasanga" branch of Madhyamaka generally rejects the idea that consciousness transmigrates.

N
What sophistry is this? :stirthepot:
Can we expect some terse qualification, or are you actually claiming that Prasangikas do not accept transmigration?
Prasangas accept transmigration, but they reject that any of the aggregates transmigrates. Svsatantrikas assert that consciousness transmigrates.

Prasangas assert that the mistaken imputation "I am" (which is actually a non-existent) appropriates the series of aggregates, generates action, and experiences its results.

As I said, all that transmigrates is delusion.

N
User avatar
Ogyen
Posts: 738
Joined: Sun Dec 06, 2009 5:36 pm

Re: Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

Post by Ogyen »

Namdrol wrote:Prasangas accept transmigration, but they reject that any of the aggregates transmigrates. Svsatantrikas assert that consciousness transmigrates.

Prasangas assert that the mistaken imputation "I am" (which is actually a non-existent) appropriates the series of aggregates, generates action, and experiences its results.

As I said, all that transmigrates is delusion.

N
not to sound asinine - but what is the consciousness that does not get destroyed then?

I understand it's free of aggregates, clearly these fall apart with the body that dies - but what is stored in the consciousness to move on - the delusion itself?
Image Made from 100% recycled karma

The Heart Drive - nosce te ipsum

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget." –Arundhati Roy
Malcolm
Posts: 42974
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:19 am

Re: Question about "what moves on" in rebirth

Post by Malcolm »

Ogyen wrote:
Namdrol wrote:Prasangas accept transmigration, but they reject that any of the aggregates transmigrates. Svsatantrikas assert that consciousness transmigrates.

Prasangas assert that the mistaken imputation "I am" (which is actually a non-existent) appropriates the series of aggregates, generates action, and experiences its results.

As I said, all that transmigrates is delusion.

N
not to sound asinine - but what is the consciousness that does not get destroyed then?

I understand it's free of aggregates, clearly these fall apart with the body that dies - but what is stored in the consciousness to move on - the delusion itself?
Consciousness is an aggregate, and conventionally speaking, is momentary. There is no such a thing as a permanent consciousness. Ergo, there is a stream of moments of mind appropriated by the delusion of self-identity, but there is no consciousness, no entity at all that transmigrates per se. The continuum of rebirth is maintained solely by a delusion that appropriates the five aggregates, matter, sensation, perception, formations, and consciousness as a self.
Post Reply

Return to “Dharma in Everyday Life”