On Rebirth - Is it the same guy?

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Padmist
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Re: On Rebirth - Is it the same guy?

Post by Padmist »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 11:20 am
Padmist wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 9:47 am Malcolm: Nothings transfers from this life to the next, but aggregates are serially connected.

Malcolm: No entity passes from this life to the next, but the aggregates of the life are serially connected to the aggregates of the next, so there is a continuum.

Malcolm: Nothing transfers from this life to the next. Not even traces, karma or anything else.

Besides, aggregates, what can we say continues then? Mindstream? Consciousness?

That karma doesn't continue or traces is new to me. I must have misunderstood what Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche said in his book "Karma" that karmic traces or properties get transferred to the next life.

What can I read that would bring clarity / purity of understanding on this topic?
I think the point is, there’s not some kind of unbroken entity that moves from one moment to the next, or one lifetime to the next.
But rather, what happens here and now triggers the arising of what will happen there and then.
It becomes the cause of something specific to occur later.

How is it that some Buddhists think that the reborn person would know some details of his or her past?
Malcolm
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Re: On Rebirth - Is it the same guy?

Post by Malcolm »

Padmist wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 4:23 pm How is it that some Buddhists think that the reborn person would know some details of his or her past?
It's a continuum. The way one remembers past lives is that in a state of samadhi, one recalls events in reverse. Recollection of past lives is an abhijñā, not special to Buddhism. But it does depend on development of samadhi. For example, when you recall what happened to you 15 years ago, there is no actual presence of any of the events of 15 years ago. They all do not exist. You cannot say they are in your mind, nor can you deny your memory of them. Nor can you claim there is some entity that stayed in your mind which allows you to recall them. But you still recall some events from 15 years ago.

The same applies to past lives. The aggregates are serially connected, so there is some relationship with your past lives. Just the same, they do not exist now, and your ability to access those memories depends on your skill in samadhi, just as your abillity to recall past events in this life depends on your present mental clarity.
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: On Rebirth - Is it the same guy?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Padmist wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 4:23 pm How is it that some Buddhists think that the reborn person would know some details of his or her past?
The same way that you remember what you did yesterday.
There’s no entity happening within this lifetime either.
But we mistakenly experience being as though there was.
Then we cling to that, which is what the Buddha pointed out is the whole problem.
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
Padmist
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Re: On Rebirth - Is it the same guy?

Post by Padmist »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 4:46 pm
The same way that you remember what you did yesterday.

Okay. Good. So now we're back. There IS a continuation or remembering of what you did yesterday. If it's "The same way" as THAT....

I do remember what I did yesterday. I spent time with my girlfriend and I spent hours on my espresso machine, something I enjoy doing.

Today....I spent time with my girlfriend and I cooked meals.

Something continued from yesterday to today. The relationship and emotional connection with my GF and the memory of how to use my espresso machine.

If it's "The same way" as THAT....then if I die and is reborn, where is the knowledge, emotional connection and memory coming from?

A transfer from the past dead person? (I think we established that there is no transfer going on.)

or is there some kind of aerial/space/database/mind"stream"/consciousness-bank where this is stored in some form (8th conciousness? storehouse conciousness?) and the new reborn individual is "accessing" it? If this is so, then there is no transfering going on, but there is "continuity" or accessing going on.

What's the mechanics here?
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tobes
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Re: On Rebirth - Is it the same guy?

Post by tobes »

Nicholas2727 wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 3:57 pm
Malcolm wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 1:05 pm
Schrödinger’s Yidam wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 6:38 am
Madhyamaka is an intellectual construct. What’s needed is the experience of mind’s true nature, which is not an intellectual construct. And there’s a handful of ways to do that. Not all of them utilize discernment.
No, it is a deconstruction of Buddhist intellectualism, which is why yogacarins and gzhan stong pas dislike it so much. That’s why without proper understanding of Madhyamaka, people reify their experience of the nature of mind into something which is either existent (yogacara/gzhan stong) or nonexistent (gelug). It is for this reason Atisha declared that one must rely on Candrakirti for liberation. An experience of the nature of the mind is not enough for liberation.
Can you explain more the difference between the non-Gelug Madhyamaka view and the Gelug Madhyamaka view here? Do non-Gelug Madhyamaka followers say it is not existent, not non-existence, not neither nor both? While Gelugpas come out and say it is non-existent?
Yes, this statement needs qualification, especially given Gelug Mahamudra etc.
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: On Rebirth - Is it the same guy?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Padmist wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 8:53 pm What's the mechanics here?
The mechanics are that each thing causes the next thing to occur. If there is a cause for a memory to arise as to what happened yesterday, that cause is a collection of aggregates. If those causes are still “active”, then in the mind of a person born after me, the result will be that memories of what happened to me in this lifetime can also arise.

So, it’s not the same person in both lifetimes, but the causes for recollection in this lifetime trigger that recollection (for someone) later on, in another lifetime.

It’s like the way that a spoken story is passed along from one person to another. When the next person tells the story, is it the same story? Yes, and no,

Yes, the same in that the names and events in the story are identical to what they were when the story was told before.

No, because no unitary “thing” was passed along. I didn’t take a story written on paper out of my mouth and stick it into your mouth.

The story re-emerges because the components of the story are identical.

(By the way, I think this is a very important question that you are pushing. I’m not sure there is a satisfactory answer, and the Buddhist explanation is complicated, and im just trying to help convey the Buddhist explanation as best I understand it myself!)
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
Padmist
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Re: On Rebirth - Is it the same guy?

Post by Padmist »

Yeah its very subtle and requires time of contemplation to process.

It seems it always goes back to this aggregates though. What is it, where is it, and where can I learn more about it?
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heart
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Re: On Rebirth - Is it the same guy?

Post by heart »

Padmist wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 8:53 pm What's the mechanics here?
The mechanics are the five skandhas: https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Five_skandhas

You should read and study the Buddhas teaching instead of asking the same question over and over again. As long as you believe there is a real Padmist living in a real solid material world reincarnation will always seem difficult to grasp. You will imagine your soul/mind/atman as a small soap bubble floating from one body to the another and you will ask, over and over again, what is that bubble? What is the mechanics here?

/magnus
"We are all here to help each other go through this thing, whatever it is."
~Kurt Vonnegut

"The principal practice is Guruyoga. But we need to understand that any secondary practice combined with Guruyoga becomes a principal practice." ChNNR (Teachings on Thun and Ganapuja)
Schrödinger’s Yidam
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Re: On Rebirth - Is it the same guy?

Post by Schrödinger’s Yidam »


There’s no entity happening within this lifetime either.
But we mistakenly experience being as though there was.
This the our normal assumption that our identity, the “story of our lives”, is the essence of our being.
Then we cling to that, which is what the Buddha pointed out is the whole problem.
Yep.
1.The problem isn’t ‘ignorance’. The problem is the mind you have right now. (H.H. Karmapa XVII @NYC 2/4/18)
2. I support Mingyur R and HHDL in their positions against lama abuse.
3. Student: Lama, I thought I might die but then I realized that the 3 Jewels would protect me.
Lama: Even If you had died the 3 Jewels would still have protected you. (DW post by Fortyeightvows)
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yagmort
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Re: On Rebirth - Is it the same guy?

Post by yagmort »

can Madhyamika explain NDE?
stay open, spread love
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