DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - The Wheel of Life and Death as mental states

**untostaronaf** · 09-23-2011, 01:33 AM

Is it necessary to become entangled in speculation about literal post-mortem rebirth?

No at all. When mind is stilled, aware, mindful, peaceful... the ideas and speculations of post-morten rebirth fade without leaving any trace.

Is it not enough to interpret rebirth as a series of different mental states we experience in the same lifetime? Between the many challenges that Buddha has left in his teachings there is the one about dropping all speculative views about any sort of afterlife or a previous life. The unaware mind, lacking Right View, results in cravings; from the coarse cravings of sensual pleasures to subtle and elegant ones like those about the believe in afterlives scenarios. Dropping them is not because of their existence v.s nonexistence -we can't know that- but as a fundamental condition to develop Right View and to awake from suffering.

I think it should be enough to understand rebirth as a series of different mental states in the unaware mind.

09-23-2011, 01:33 AM	#4
untostaronaf Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 448 Senior Member	Is it necessary to become entangled in speculation about literal post-mortem rebirth? No at all. When mind is stilled, aware, mindful, peaceful... the ideas and speculations of post-morten rebirth fade without leaving any trace. Is it not enough to interpret rebirth as a series of different mental states we experience in the same lifetime? Between the many challenges that Buddha has left in his teachings there is the one about dropping all speculative views about any sort of afterlife or a previous life. The unaware mind, lacking Right View, results in cravings; from the coarse cravings of sensual pleasures to subtle and elegant ones like those about the believe in afterlives scenarios. Dropping them is not because of their existence v.s nonexistence -we can't know that- but as a fundamental condition to develop Right View and to awake from suffering. I think it should be enough to understand rebirth as a series of different mental states in the unaware mind.
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