Rebirth

solfugid36
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Rebirth

Post by solfugid36 »

Hello all -
Is anyone else interested in Vajrayana but have trouble buying the concept of rebirth? It wasn't so much an issue when practicing Soto Zen or even Theravada, but with Tibetan Buddhism rebirth seems baked right into it.
I love the practices, the teaching, etc, but it's very hard at this point in my life to adopt this new belief that doesn't quite feel real to me. I understand that Vajrayana says to "investigate the teachings to find out if they are true, don't just take the Lama's word for it" but this is impossible in terms of rebirth.
Has anyone else been in the position?
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: Rebirth

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Yes, I have. But I found that once you really break down the concepts, it makes sense.
What part of rebirth you have difficulty with?


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Re: Rebirth

Post by Schrödinger’s Yidam »


I understand that Vajrayana says to "investigate the teachings to find out if they are true, don't just take the Lama's word for it" but this is impossible in terms of rebirth.
In terms of reincarnation I personally approached it the same way I approached (and rejected) Christian doctrine. Does it make sense? Is it internally consistent? Does it jive with the world I see around me?

I rejected Christian thought because I couldn’t reconcile an omnipotent and benevolent God with the horrors and apparent injustice I saw in the world.

You don’t get certainty, but it becomes at least credible investigating the ramifications that way.
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Re: Rebirth

Post by Tata1 »

solfugid36 wrote: Sat Jan 02, 2021 2:15 am Hello all -
Is anyone else interested in Vajrayana but have trouble buying the concept of rebirth? It wasn't so much an issue when practicing Soto Zen or even Theravada, but with Tibetan Buddhism rebirth seems baked right into it.
I love the practices, the teaching, etc, but it's very hard at this point in my life to adopt this new belief that doesn't quite feel real to me. I understand that Vajrayana says to "investigate the teachings to find out if they are true, don't just take the Lama's word for it" but this is impossible in terms of rebirth.
Has anyone else been in the position?
Rebirth is baked into all buddhism. Theravada and zen also.
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Re: Rebirth

Post by Schrödinger’s Yidam »


Rebirth is baked into all buddhism. Theravada and zen also.
Especially Theravada. The entire point of it is to stop reincarnating.
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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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: Rebirth

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

The hurdle people often run into when discussing rebirth (and why the concept at first doesn’t seem plausible) is that really, they start with the pretext of a "me" a “self” that is supposedly reborn, and then wrestle with how that can actually happen.

But there’s no place an actual “self” can be found. And actually, it’s precisely because there is no “me” that rebirth can take place. If there were a permanent self, then by definition, it would not change. And if it didn’t change, it could not take rebirth.

Yet, there is the constantly recurring, 'experience' of a self. An ongoing awareness. This experience flows constantly, even as thoughts change, and even as the body changes.

If we look at “what” is experienced as life, it comes down to two things: mind and body. If we look at “what” is reborn, either second by second or from one life to another, ultimately it is a subtle level of awareness. But this awareness has no solidity to it. It’s not a “thing” but more like what we might call an ongoing process. In a sense, it can be described (poorly perhaps) like the moment of waking up from sleep, except continuous.

Speaking of the body, in seven years, every singe cell in your body has been replaced. That means that by the time you are 21, you’ve already lived through three different bodies!
So, awareness doesn’t rely on a constant body.

The body is constantly changing.
The mind is constantly changing.

Thoughts change even faster than cells change. So, awareness doesn’t rely on a constant flow of thoughts either.

So, since awareness doesn’t depend on there being a constant state of body or mind, then there’s no reason to assume that rebirth isn’t entirely plausible.
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Re: Rebirth

Post by Budai »

It comes down to you having to realize that your consciousness is Transcendental to your body. What you are as a person isn't created solely by your body, but it is more of a Life-Force that permeates your body and is there infused within and without. Explore the idea of consciousness and what it is. There is a Buddhist idea that everything is a product of the mind, and that may set you free. Om.

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SilenceMonkey
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Re: Rebirth

Post by SilenceMonkey »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sat Jan 02, 2021 6:56 am The hurdle people often run into when discussing rebirth (and why the concept at first doesn’t seem plausible) is that really, they start with the pretext of a "me" a “self” that is supposedly reborn, and then wrestle with how that can actually happen.

But there’s no place an actual “self” can be found.
I think it's the illusion of self that is reborn.

A lot of what you're saying is arguments given to practitioners of different religions that believe in a permanent soul being reborn, but is it relevant to someone grappling with the concept of rebirth in the first place?

Reincarnation is profound... It's hard to understand and take in all of its implications if one doesn't see for oneself evidence of it in their own lives. It's by nature far removed from our everyday experience -- because our ignorance prevents us from seeing such things, veiling our perception of the profound aspects of reality. I think what often helps people start to understand it as a real phenomenon is not just reading about it theoretically in a philosophy text, but hearing stories of kids who have these past life memories, meeting people who have had them and people who can see these things...

When I was first getting into buddhism, I told myself that I wanted to know about past lives. But I would only believe it if I saw them myself through a lot of meditation practice or if someone close to me who I can trust sees these things and would tell me about it.

There's a lot of new age stuff going on surrounding past lives, but I would only believe someone talking about these things if they were a powerful meditator with the clarity and precision to see the reality without mixing in their own imagination and projections.
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: Rebirth

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

SilenceMonkey wrote: Sat Jan 02, 2021 8:22 am I think it's the illusion of self that is reborn.
Absolutely.
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Re: Rebirth

Post by Jeff H »

Personally, I think PadmaVonSamba’s posts have a ring of clarity. And to the OP, I’d suggest looking inward.

How do you answer PVS’s question about what bothers you when you think of rebirth? More than that, what do you think happens when we die? And why do you think that is a better explanation than rebirth? These are not rhetorical questions but personal examinations. You may well find that you have good reason to disbelieve rebirth.

If that’s the case then you need to examine your understanding of Buddhism. For example, without rebirth how would you account for karma and enlightenment? In the Abrahamic religions, a discrete soul is created once, lives in a body for 100 years and is then judged in eternity for the choices it made in that life. For materialists, when the body dies the self dies, so enlightenment is pointless. Buddhism isn’t about being good and doing good. Those are just beneficial side effects of seeing reality for what it is, which is enlightenment.
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Re: Rebirth

Post by Hazel »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sat Jan 02, 2021 6:56 am The hurdle people often run into when discussing rebirth (and why the concept at first doesn’t seem plausible) is that really, they start with the pretext of a "me" a “self” that is supposedly reborn, and then wrestle with how that can actually happen.

But there’s no place an actual “self” can be found. And actually, it’s precisely because there is no “me” that rebirth can take place. If there were a permanent self, then by definition, it would not change. And if it didn’t change, it could not take rebirth.

Yet, there is the constantly recurring, 'experience' of a self. An ongoing awareness. This experience flows constantly, even as thoughts change, and even as the body changes.

If we look at “what” is experienced as life, it comes down to two things: mind and body. If we look at “what” is reborn, either second by second or from one life to another, ultimately it is a subtle level of awareness. But this awareness has no solidity to it. It’s not a “thing” but more like what we might call an ongoing process. In a sense, it can be described (poorly perhaps) like the moment of waking up from sleep, except continuous.

Speaking of the body, in seven years, every singe cell in your body has been replaced. That means that by the time you are 21, you’ve already lived through three different bodies!
So, awareness doesn’t rely on a constant body.

The body is constantly changing.
The mind is constantly changing.

Thoughts change even faster than cells change. So, awareness doesn’t rely on a constant flow of thoughts either.

So, since awareness doesn’t depend on there being a constant state of body or mind, then there’s no reason to assume that rebirth isn’t entirely plausible.
If I make up a unique word and spell it with pebbles and each day I swapped out a different pebble for a new one, the word would exists no matter how many days past, like you're describing awareness does. However that does not imply that there is still the word spelled somewhere if one day i scattered the pebbles.
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: Rebirth

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Hazel wrote: Wed Jan 27, 2021 6:03 am
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sat Jan 02, 2021 6:56 am The hurdle people often run into when discussing rebirth (and why the concept at first doesn’t seem plausible) is that really, they start with the pretext of a "me" a “self” that is supposedly reborn, and then wrestle with how that can actually happen.

But there’s no place an actual “self” can be found. And actually, it’s precisely because there is no “me” that rebirth can take place. If there were a permanent self, then by definition, it would not change. And if it didn’t change, it could not take rebirth.

Yet, there is the constantly recurring, 'experience' of a self. An ongoing awareness. This experience flows constantly, even as thoughts change, and even as the body changes.

If we look at “what” is experienced as life, it comes down to two things: mind and body. If we look at “what” is reborn, either second by second or from one life to another, ultimately it is a subtle level of awareness. But this awareness has no solidity to it. It’s not a “thing” but more like what we might call an ongoing process. In a sense, it can be described (poorly perhaps) like the moment of waking up from sleep, except continuous.

Speaking of the body, in seven years, every singe cell in your body has been replaced. That means that by the time you are 21, you’ve already lived through three different bodies!
So, awareness doesn’t rely on a constant body.

The body is constantly changing.
The mind is constantly changing.

Thoughts change even faster than cells change. So, awareness doesn’t rely on a constant flow of thoughts either.

So, since awareness doesn’t depend on there being a constant state of body or mind, then there’s no reason to assume that rebirth isn’t entirely plausible.
If I make up a unique word and spell it with pebbles and each day I swapped out a different pebble for a new one, the word would exists no matter how many days past, like you're describing awareness does. However that does not imply that there is still the word spelled somewhere if one day i scattered the pebbles.
Personally, I like to use LEGO building blocks as an analogy, but pebbles are good. I had a feeling of sitting on a warm beach...

Using your analogy, yes, it’s true. That word would no longer exist. But the Buddhist argument would be that it actually never really did exist (in any ultimate sense) to begin with, but merely had the very real appearance of occurring, due to our mental projections.

And yet, here we are.

It’s a bit like star constellations. We see the shape of the Big Dipper and Little Dipper as sort of flat connect-the-dots images only because of our point of view from the Earth. In fact, they are already like the scattered pebbles in your analogy. If viewed from somewhere else in the galaxy, we’d see that they don’t really have that “Dipper” (or ‘bear’) shape.

So, I think this gets back to that hurdle. If one starts with “there really is a me but what happens to it?” as a starting point, then scattering the pebbles makes a difference. The point that the buddhist argument makes is that there was never anywhere in all those pebble where the invented word in your analogy actually existed inherently. Likewise, there is nowhere in our component makeup where the “self” can be found to truly exist.
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Re: Rebirth

Post by Hazel »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Wed Jan 27, 2021 12:24 pm
Hazel wrote: Wed Jan 27, 2021 6:03 am
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sat Jan 02, 2021 6:56 am ...
If I make up a unique word and spell it with pebbles and each day I swapped out a different pebble for a new one, the word would exists no matter how many days past, like you're describing awareness does. However that does not imply that there is still the word spelled somewhere if one day i scattered the pebbles.
Personally, I like to use LEGO building blocks as an analogy, but pebbles are good. I had a feeling of sitting on a warm beach...

Using your analogy, yes, it’s true. That word would no longer exist. But the Buddhist argument would be that it actually never really did exist (in any ultimate sense) to begin with, but merely had the very real appearance of occurring, due to our mental projections.

And yet, here we are.

It’s a bit like star constellations. We see the shape of the Big Dipper and Little Dipper as sort of flat connect-the-dots images only because of our point of view from the Earth. In fact, they are already like the scattered pebbles in your analogy. If viewed from somewhere else in the galaxy, we’d see that they don’t really have that “Dipper” (or ‘bear’) shape.

So, I think this gets back to that hurdle. If one starts with “there really is a me but what happens to it?” as a starting point, then scattering the pebbles makes a difference. The point that the buddhist argument makes is that there was never anywhere in all those pebble where the invented word in your analogy actually existed inherently. Likewise, there is nowhere in our component makeup where the “self” can be found to truly exist.
I can see this as a good argument for why one should not consider the death of the brain as an argument against rebirth, while simultaneously not relying on positing an eternal self. Similarly, to keep the pebble analogy going, that word actually still exists in some manner, albeit in the form of memory and not spelled out with those particular pebbles, because the word was not the pebbles. Maybe I enjoyed my time with the pebbles so much I spell it out again. The word will still not be the pebbles, but it will be pebbly again.

I don't see it as an argument *for* rebirth, but maybe that's not what is intended here. It is still very useful to ponder.

My primary takeaway is that I should double down on my studies of emptiness. My second take away is that I should continue to try to articulate my doubts instead of just ignoring them. I wont gain understanding unless I explore them.

And thank you :-).
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Re: Rebirth

Post by SilenceMonkey »

solfugid36 wrote: Sat Jan 02, 2021 2:15 am Hello all -
Is anyone else interested in Vajrayana but have trouble buying the concept of rebirth? It wasn't so much an issue when practicing Soto Zen or even Theravada, but with Tibetan Buddhism rebirth seems baked right into it.

I love the practices, the teaching, etc, but it's very hard at this point in my life to adopt this new belief that doesn't quite feel real to me. I understand that Vajrayana says to "investigate the teachings to find out if they are true, don't just take the Lama's word for it" but this is impossible in terms of rebirth.
Unless you find a tradition which teaches how to see the karma of past lives. This is part of the curriculum of the Pa Auk tradition of Theravada in Burma. And you hear about people who will have this ability arise spontaneously from tantric practices.

Taking with people who see can radically change your perspective on things.
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Re: Rebirth

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

If you really understand the meaning and implications of anatman (“no self”) then you will immediately see that rebirth is occurring every moment, supported by, but not dependent on physical conditions. Whether it’s just a fingernail trimmed off, or the compete decomposition of a corpse, makes no difference. The illusion of self is arising constantly. That’s the essence of samsaric existence.
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Re: Rebirth

Post by Tata1 »

solfugid36 wrote: Sat Jan 02, 2021 2:15 am Hello all -
Is anyone else interested in Vajrayana but have trouble buying the concept of rebirth? It wasn't so much an issue when practicing Soto Zen or even Theravada, but with Tibetan Buddhism rebirth seems baked right into it.
I love the practices, the teaching, etc, but it's very hard at this point in my life to adopt this new belief that doesn't quite feel real to me. I understand that Vajrayana says to "investigate the teachings to find out if they are true, don't just take the Lama's word for it" but this is impossible in terms of rebirth.
Has anyone else been in the position?
I think most of the resistence to the idea of some kind of continuity of experience after death may be a byproduct of the assumption that consciousness is a byproduct of matter. So maybe challenging that assumption whether through buddhist means, or scientific might open up a lot of possibilities
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Re: Rebirth

Post by Supramundane »

To the poster who mentioned that rebirth is not an issue in Zen, this may give you food for thought.

"For Buddhism, the dualism between life and death is only one instance of a more general problem, dualistic thinking. Why is dualistic thinking a problem? We differentiate between good and evil, success and failure, life and death, and so forth because we want to keep the one and reject the other. But we cannot have one without the other because they are interdependent: affirming one half also maintains the other. Living a "pure" life thus requires a preoccupation with impurity, and our hope for success will be proportional to our fear of failure. We discriminate between life and death in order to affirm one and deny the other, and, as we have seen, our tragedy lies in the paradox that these two opposites are so interdependent: there is no life without death and--what we are more likely to overlook--there is no death without life. This means our problem is not death but life-and-death."

"Firewood becomes ash, and it does not become firewood again. Yet, do not suppose that the ash is after and the firewood before. You should understand that firewood abides in the phenomenal expression of firewood, which fully includes before and after and is independent of before and after. Ash abides in the phenomenal expression of ash, which fully includes before and after. Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, you do not return to birth after death.

This being so, it is an established way in buddha-dharma to deny that birth turns into death. Accordingly, birth is understood as no-birth. It is an unshakable teaching in the Buddha's discourse that death does not turn into birth. Accordingly, death is understood as no-death.

Birth is an expression complete this moment. Death is an expression complete this moment. They are like winter and spring. You do not call winter the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring."

Zen Master Dogen - Genjo Koan
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Re: Rebirth

Post by WeiHan »

I don't really like approaching this topic from a metaphysical/philosophical angle. Instead, I like credible cases that are rigorously documented. It is known that philosophy is intended for endless debates. Science approach suits me better.
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Re: Rebirth

Post by Jeff H »

I take what I think of as a pragmatic approach. Since I don’t consider rebirth an issue that can be definitively resolved from the relative perspective, I simply consider it to be extremely useful. Enlightening, if you will. I compare it with the only two competing views I know of, the materialist and religious.

For materialists, you live, you die, that’s it. The legacy of your life is the stuff you leave behind and the effect you had on those around you. The benefit of this belief is encouragement to make the most of your one shot, for its own sake.

The religious* posit an eternal soul created once, at your birth. You’ve got one physically manifested lifetime to discover, assimilate, and act upon specific beliefs, or not. When you die your legacy is to reap the consequences of your choices for eternity. The benefit of this belief is to interject a moral imperative into making the most of your one shot.

I have sincerely held both of those beliefs, but learning what Buddhists meant by rebirth was liberating for me. Karma, no-self, and rebirth strike me as a profoundly sensible way to explain all the good, the bad, and the ugly I see around me and in me. I don’t claim to fully get it yet and I have no realizations, but as a working hypothesis it helps me understand and order my life far better than I did in the 58 years before I discovered it.

*I’m referring mainly to Abrahamic religions which are the only ones I’m familiar with.
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Re: Rebirth

Post by lnn »

SilenceMonkey wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 6:23 pm
solfugid36 wrote: Sat Jan 02, 2021 2:15 am Hello all -
Is anyone else interested in Vajrayana but have trouble buying the concept of rebirth? It wasn't so much an issue when practicing Soto Zen or even Theravada, but with Tibetan Buddhism rebirth seems baked right into it.

I love the practices, the teaching, etc, but it's very hard at this point in my life to adopt this new belief that doesn't quite feel real to me. I understand that Vajrayana says to "investigate the teachings to find out if they are true, don't just take the Lama's word for it" but this is impossible in terms of rebirth.
Unless you find a tradition which teaches how to see the karma of past lives. This is part of the curriculum of the Pa Auk tradition of Theravada in Burma. And you hear about people who will have this ability arise spontaneously from tantric practices.

Taking with people who see can radically change your perspective on things.
I am a student studying Buddhism right now and also had apprehensions with regards to the idea of rebirth given the foundation of karma in Buddhism. I am confused at how one's karma can follow with them into a next life without there being an atman for that karma to link itself to? Does anyone have any insight into how this cycle of samsara continues for a specific individual if that individual is not grounded to one specific being?
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