Does reincarnation really exists or is it just in the mind?

[confusedsoso]

Does reincarnation really exists or is it just in the mind? If it really exists what proof is there of reincarnation. I have trouble believing in reincarnation.

[Schrödinger’s Yidam]

You’re not going to get any type of convincing “proof”. It’s an article of faith.

Having said that, there are ways to approach the idea. Does it make sense? Is it internally consistent? Could the world we see around us be explained by the idea? If no, then clarify the sticking points. If yes, then have an open mind to the possibility it’s true. If you practice regularly with an open mind you’ll find the plausibility of it grows and grows.

[PadmaVonSamba]

Does reincarnation really exists or is it just in the mind? If it really exists what proof is there of reincarnation. I have trouble believing in reincarnation.

Do dreams really occur when you are asleep,
or are they just in the mind?

……..

Buddhists conveniently use the term “rebirth” rather than “reincarnation”, because there is a difference between the traditional Hindu view and the Buddhist view regarding what actually happens from the end of one life to the start of the next (and any period in between).

Specifically, the traditional Hindu view is that a permanent consciousness (atma) goes through a series of lifetimes, just as one goes through different clothes in a month, while still being essentially the same person.

The buddhist view is that no continuous “self” can be found, and that instead, an endless (and beginningless) flow of moments of conditioned causes and results arise and fall away. “You” aren’t who you were a minute ago. But the causes of what arose as your experience then are almost identical to the causes arising as your experience right now, so it seems like there is a continuous, truly existent “me” consciousness. These conditions continue, to various degrees from one lifetime to the next (karma).

Of course, conditionally and relatively, there are individual streams of consciousness. You have your mind and I have mind. My next rebirth won’t
reflect your actions of this life, and vice versa. Conditionally, this is the case. But ultimately, there is nothing that can be called “me”.

An easy way of understanding this is to consider two different rivers, such as the Ganges and the Amazon. Yes, relative to each other, they are two distinct rivers. But neither one of them itself is a singular, unchanging entity, even for a second. They are, each of them, composites. A constantly changing collections of parts: ever moving water, fish, dirt, and so on. This is like the buddhist view of the individual. And, just as an ever changing river may flow from one town to the next, consciousness flows from one body to the next.

If you think that there is s “me” that will come back as a cat or dog or whatever, but it’s the same “me”, that’s not the buddhist understanding of rebirth. On the other hand, if you understand emptiness (sunyata) and that “me” is constantly arising (and dissipating) every moment due to causes and conditions, then the idea that this can continue beyond the molecular body is quite understandable, and not so much a matter of “belief” as much as it is a way of interpreting what is really happening.

[Queequeg]

Examine your mind and find out for yourself.

[reiun]

Of course, a literalist view of rebirth offers hope eternal, same as what Christianity offers, and same mistake. Moment to moment, one second as one kalpa (and the opposite). as rebirth continually occurs, it should not be misunderstood that human collective experience is in fact buddha nature, available to any buddha.

[Aemilius]

There are previous discussions of related topics here in the Dharma Wheel:

Ian Stevenson and the Scientific Study of Reincarnation
https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?t=34931

How to get a reals sense of reincarnation being true? / Fear of death questions
https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?t=35712

Argentinian guy who remembers his past lives
https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?t=39102

[Aemilius]

Empirical Buddhist arguments in favour of rebirth:

"Ancient Buddhists as well as some moderns cite the reports of the Buddha and his disciples of having gained direct knowledge into their own past lives as well as those of other beings through a kind of parapsychological ability or extrasensory perception (termed abhiñña).Traditional Buddhist philosophers like Dharmakīrti have defended the concept of special yogic perception (yogi-pratyakṣa) which is able to empirically verify the truth of rebirth. Some modern Buddhists authors like K.N. Jayatilleke also argue that the Buddha's main argument in favor of rebirth was based on empirical grounds, and that this included the idea that extra-sensory perception (Pali: atikkanta-manusaka) can provide a validation for rebirth.

"Modern Buddhists such as Bhikkhu Anālayo and Jayatilleke have also argued that rebirth may be empirically verifiable and have pointed to certain parapsychological phenomena as possible evidence, mainly near-death experiences (NDEs), past-life regression, reincarnation research and xenoglossy. Both Anālayo and B. Alan Wallace point to the work of the American Psychiatrist Ian Stevenson as providing possible evidence of rebirth. This is not just a recent phenomenon. According to Anālayo, ancient Chinese Buddhists also pointed to anomalous phenomena such as NDEs to argue for the truth of rebirth. Furthermore, according to Roger R. Jackson, the Indian Buddhist philosopher Śāntarakṣita (725–788) argues in his Tattvasaṅgraha that newborn children exhibit a wide range of complex desires, emotions and mental states that could not exist without the force of past habit, and thus they must be based on the habits acquired in a past life.

"Wallace also notes that several modern Buddhist figures, such as Pa Auk Sayadaw and Geshe Gedun Lodro have also written about how to train the mind to access past life memories. The Burmese monk Pa Auk Sayadaw is known for teaching such methods and some of his western students like Shaila Catherine have written about this and their experiences in practicing it.

"B. Alan Wallace argues that first person introspection is a valid means of knowledge about the mind (when that introspection is well trained by meditation) and has been used by numerous contemplatives throughout history. He writes that a well trained mind, "which may be likened to an inwardly focused telescope," should be able to access "a subtle, individual mind stream that carries on from one lifetime to another." Wallace proposes that a research project using well trained meditators could access information from past lives in an accurate manner and these could then be checked by independent third person observers."

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebirth_(Buddhism)

[Brunelleschi]

Of course, a literalist view of rebirth offers hope eternal, same as what Christianity offers, and same mistake. Moment to moment, one second as one kalpa (and the opposite). as rebirth continually occurs, it should not be misunderstood that human collective experience is in fact buddha nature, available to any buddha.

Uh, no.

Rebirth as in continuation is to be taken literally. To say that it simply means that we are being "reborn" every second and nothing more (i.e. annihilation upon death) is not the buddhist view.

[PadmaVonSamba]

Although many who acknowledge rebirth also hold the view of an inherently existing “self” (atma, soul, etc, which Buddhism rejects), it is interesting that those who reject the theory of rebirth tend to also hold some kind of view of an inherently existing “self”. They may say they don’t, in theory anyway. But when pressed to really detail what it is that they don’t believe, it usually means that there is some kind of actual “me” that isn’t reborn, but that this actual “me” simply ceases at death.

Of course, if there is no actual “me” to begin with, then there is no basis for their reasoning at all.

I think this is why one may need to truly grasp and understand how ‘no self can be found among the aggregates’ (there is no actual “me”) in order to understand what is meant by ‘rebirth’. In fact, it is precisely because there is no actual “me” that rebirth does occur, or even that is can occur.

[seeker242]

If it really exists what proof is there of reincarnation. I have trouble believing in reincarnation.

There is no proof that it's true. There is also no proof that it's not true. When it comes to proof, you have equal amounts on both sides.

[Johnny Dangerous]

I’m struggling to understand what it would look like for rebirth to “really exist”. Do memories really exist? What about ideas, concepts and feelings? Our bodies really exist (tm) in that they seem real enough right now, but in 100 years they will be something else. Similarly our body at the age of 10 is quite different from our body at the age of 45, but we can see that one state was related to the previous one. Beyond that, what experience as “our body” is just subjective sensory and mental experiences anyway… how do those “really exist”?

The body as a discrete unit never existed outside of our perception and belief that it was ours somehow, it was just parts of parts, elements and interactions. Still, those parts, elements, causes etc. will become something else. It’s the same with mental phenomena, they don’t start or cease, but continually become based on causes and conditions.

Once the becoming stops, the causes and conditions have been exhausted, that’s Nirvana.

[PadmaVonSamba]

If it really exists what proof is there of reincarnation. I have trouble believing in reincarnation.

There is no proof that it's true. There is also no proof that it's not true. When it comes to proof, you have equal amounts on both sides.

…except that the ‘rebirth side’ has an especially good argument in that every moment of awareness of consciousness follows a preceding one. Along with that, awareness cannot be shown to spontaneously commence without a cause, and the physical properties of the brain (water, fat, salt, amino acids, etc), by themselves, cannot be shown to spontaneously produce awareness. They cannot be shown to be that cause.

[reiun]

If it really exists what proof is there of reincarnation. I have trouble believing in reincarnation.

There is no proof that it's true. There is also no proof that it's not true. When it comes to proof, you have equal amounts on both sides.

Russell's teapot is an analogy, formulated by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making empirically unfalsifiable claims, rather than shifting the burden of disproof to others.

Haven't seen those claims that can be taken as empirically unfalsifiable either, just arguments and "possible evidence", so still a skeptic. And it has been a long time . . .

As stated upthread, I agree it is appropriately an article of faith.

But, regardless, a question/focus (at least for me) always is: how to be fully alive in this moment?

[devr]

Does reincarnation really exists or is it just in the mind? If it really exists what proof is there of reincarnation. I have trouble believing in reincarnation.

Does anything ever exist outside mind? is a useful contemplation.

[Malcolm]

Does anything ever exist outside mind? is a useful contemplation.

Not really, since things do exist outside the mind.

[devr]

Does anything ever exist outside mind? is a useful contemplation.

Not really, since things do exist outside the mind.

Where is 'outside'?

[DNS]

All theories on the afterlife cannot be proven, nor proven false. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of theories, but to narrow it down to the 3 major ones:

Option 1:
There is no afterlife; it's nihilism for all. Our species arose out of chance, perhaps even a fluke of evolution and due to developing the intelligence to ask these questions, various religions and ideas arose. It's a mere quirk of existence that we ask these questions. There is no creator god, no rebirth, no afterlife.

Option 2:
There is an afterlife, an eternal heaven or an eternal hell, based on worship of a creator god and leading a moral life.

Option 3:
There is rebirth and each life is impermanent, be it human, animal, deva, or in a hellish realm.


Option 2 is typical of many religions, especially the Abrahamic religions. It has some rather silly descriptions of heaven, including basically an earth like existence of continual pleasure. Eventually, the inhabitants would get bored with such an environment. And it doesn't explain why some humans live very short lives, don't get the opportunity to do much sinning, nor redemptions, prayer, good deeds or anything else. When asked what happens to them; the response from those adherents is typically "they go to heaven" but why so easy for them and not so easy for us, who lived much longer?

Therefore, option 2 can at least be eliminated, in my opinion. And that leaves us with Option 1 and Option 3. Option 3 at least explains an equalizer; that we all have lived in various places, cultures, species, etc and progressed or regressed based on deeds and the fruits of karma. No, not a justice concept (a human made term), but simply a natural law of cause and effect. One might live a very short life (many humans and animals don't make it to even their first birthday; infant mortality) and then in another life, a very long life.

This of course does not prove rebirth, but it makes sense of the variations and lengths of life found in the world.

[Miorita]

DNS,
Thanks for interrupting this! It was going nowhere.

Miorita

[PadmaVonSamba]

Does anything ever exist outside mind? is a useful contemplation.

Not really, since things do exist outside the mind.

Where is 'outside'?

Nowhere. Saying “things do not exist outside the mind” is another way of saying “there is no outside of the mind”.

[devr]

Not really, since things do exist outside the mind.

Where is 'outside'?

Nowhere. Saying “things do not exist outside the mind” is another way of saying “there is no outside of the mind”.

Questioning whether things do actually exist outside mind is not the same as positing things do not actually exist outside mind.