[ddwayspd]

Just wondering who here practices Buddhism with a belief in re-birth and who does not. Either way, could you also give the reasons behind your belief.

[gyjsdtuwr]

Hi jack,

Well, in Zen rebirth is not an issue but I believe in it. I do not have heavy reasons; is more like an insight when I observe how nature is arround us; like understanding that "things" manifestate when some conditions are present and do not when that same conditions fade away.

[enfoires]

Hi Jack,

The idea of "re-birth" is a much later invention that has been cobbled together with patchwork to get around the problems that the Buddha's teaching of Anatta poses for reincarnation beliefs. It is often falsely substituted for the word "birth" (jati) in translations of the Buddha's teachings, but jati is not the word for reincarnation. Functionally, the idea of "re-birth"is a workaround, a "reincarnation that is not reincarnation", a "reincarnation that does not involve an 'atta'." It's patchwork, it's sloppy,and the Buddha didn't teach it.

You refer to "belief" in your request: "...the reasons behind your 'belief'." This is not a matter of "belief", any more than the question "do you believe in God, Allah, and/or the Flying Spaghetti Monster?" -- the question tends to presume the existence of the subject: "if you don't believe in God, why don't you believe in him?.." My non-belief is not based upon a belief with respect to the speculative view/superstition of "re-birth"; it stems from seeing and knowing for myself that such superstitions and speculative views are irrelevant to the Buddha's own, unique, liberative teachings and practices. I do not presume that the liberative teachings of the Buddha have anything to do with pre-Buddha beliefs in reincarnation and their assumptions that liberation is annihilation. I note that the Buddha proclaimed that his teachings were designed to quench suffering through the elimination of ignorance, craving and clinging, and I do not subscribe to the point of view that equates "suffering" with "round of re-births".

Personally studying and practicing the teachings of the Buddha, I find such superstitions and their various convoluted explanations wanting and irrelevant. I find that the Buddha's liberative teachings have no "loose ends", and are -- just as he himself claimed -- universal, timeless, relevant to everyone, visible to anyone, free of patchwork, and to be experienced by the wise for themselves. The idea of "re-birth" is none of these.

[hacyOrgachbic]

stuka,

Thanks. So what happens at the end of the physical body? Does some sort of life (not the soul, or a self delusion) get carried on somewhere else, eventually giving birth to another illusory self? Or does it end there i.e. ultimate nibanna?

If it does, what's the point, and things like suicide, would be just fine?

What was the Buddha talking about when he talked of rebirth then? He did talk of rebirth, and of samsara.

[vRmy0Fzg]

Some confusing excerpts from Buddhanet:

Take away the notion of a soul or a being living inside the body; take away all ideas of self existing either inside or outside the body. Also take away notions of past, present and future; in fact take away all notions of time. Now, without reference to time and self, there can be no before or after, no beginning or ending, no birth or death, no coming or going. Yet there is life! Rebirth is the experience of life in the moment, without birth, without death; it is the experience of life which is neither eternal nor subject to annihilation.

[ultramDoctoo]

What Stuka says is very reasonable and well said.

I also know that I live on a infinitesimally microscopic bubbling mote of dirt, water, fire, and air that's whizzing around a huge flaming sphere at 65,000 miles an hour...in a space that is believed to be infinite, that is full of bursting universes inside of larger universes, cyclical tidal forces, explosions that hurl flaming matter at a million miles an hour, whirlpools a billion times larger than Earth, dark energy fields, and black holes. On this tiny, dynamic, volatile speck of material chaos that we call home...there are creatures that are animated by air that have a strange habit of occasionally supersizing or miniaturizing, every once in a while a mountain of stone and fire collides with the planet with interesting results, and when atoms are mined for their smallest components freaky physics things start happening "in there". And don't get me started on the oddity of the human being morphing out of monkeys with the ability to do trigonometry and fly to the moon, and whether we should even exist in an environment that we are physically unprepared to live in without compensating radically for a variety of seemingly missing features and essential capabilities.

So, given the nature of where we're appearing, I wouldn't rule out anything. It's pretty darn strange here if we look close and far enough.

As for literal rebirth, I don't know and don't care -I just do my best to be clear about where I am and what time it is here in Wonderland, where everything is odd (though oddly taken for granted by most). I'm here, and it's now...I find it hard enough to stay clear on just this...I don't need to get distracted by what is, at least for me, an abstractive imponderable that has no answer.

[Roxanjbra]

I don't need to get distracted by what is, at least for me, an abstractive imponderable that has no answer.

Fair assessment.

I'm here, and it's now...

There's no "I"!!!

[mxzjxluwst]

There's no "I"!!!

Ultimately, true. But it's practice that makes that clear, not just "believing" it or thinking it.

[AdvertisingPo]

Ultimately, true. But it's practice that makes that clear, not just "believing" it or thinking it.

Same goes for rebirth, I suppose. It's one of those itching issues though, you have to admit. Like the whole mind reading thing, I have an inkling that I've met such a person.

[PZXjoe]

Like the whole mind reading thing, I have an inkling that I've met such a person

There are many who can communicate beyond the physical mechanics of language. This was once very common, and when conditions are right it will be common again.

[Xxmlqevq]

There are many.

Didn't expect that from you trike. You've had such an experience?

[Caursedus]

who can communicate beyond the physical mechanics of language. This was once very common, and when conditions are right it will be common again.

Oh, you mean like body language?

EDIT: Ah you said physical mechanics of language, which would include body language.

[Hujkmlopes]

Oh, you mean like body language?

No.

[GooogleGuy]

No.

Ah you said physical mechanics of language, which would include body language.

You either have experiential knowledge of this, or you believe it. You're not crafting your replies according to what you think you should say best-fit for me are ya?

[osteoftex]

from post #4

Jack, you asked a question and I answered it,and gave the reasons for it.

Now you are asking me to speculate upon irrelevant conjectural matters, and in doing so proselytizing the "re-birth" superstition to me, which now appears to be the reason for starting the thread in the first place.

The point is the quenching of suffering. The Buddha was clear on that, and so was I. Brahmavamso's "without 're-birth' we might as well die and be done with it" fallacy is a circular argument that only appears to make sense from its own perspective, that of its own assumptions. From any other angle it's nonsense.

In the context of his own teachings, the Buddha spoke of "jati", "birth", which carries the same sort of meanings as it does in English, including the "birth" if ideas, and the "birth" of self-view. He spoke of the nidanas of the paticcasamuppada as "arising and taking birth" depending upon each other. The Buddha never taught reincarnative "re-birth" of a "non-atta", or especially of any kind of "consciousness" -- and the latter of the two he humiliated a monk for claiming he taught, in MN 38.

Samsara for the Buddha was the misery of habitual patterns of thought that produce suffering in the here-and-now.

[ZonaPutaX]

You're not crafting your replies according to what you think you should say best-fit for me are ya?

No.

The more familiar we are with mind, the more we know about how it works...but it's just more mind in action. Note it, move on.

[duminyricky]

The more familiar we are with mind, the more we know about how it works...but it's just more mind in action. Note it, move on.

Yes oh great enlightened one.

[fotodemujerahldesnugdo]

Samsara for the Buddha was the misery of habitual patterns of thought that produce suffering in the here-and-now.

Exactly so. The more familiar we are with mind, the clearer we see the dissatisfaction associated with the constant "becoming" stream that the mind is habituated to. Observing it without involvement in it reveals a constant rebirth of agitation and combustion that causes anguish in varying degrees.

[SpecialOFFER]

Jack said:

There's no "I"!!!

from post #7

Sure there's an "I". Its just that no Atta can be found among its constituent parts.

[TNOULbr2]

Brahmavamso's "without 're-birth' we might as well die and be done with it" fallacy is a circular argument that only appears to make sense from its own perspective, that of its own assumptions. From any other angle it's nonsense.

I have to disagree with that. If you and I both have no evidence of something, we can neither prove it or disprove it. We can only come to a conclusion given our experiences. My view on it, remains sceptical, although slightly inclined to believe it might be so, given what I thought about mind reading, and my recent experience of it that made me feel that it might very well be true.