aka[DoW];3537868 said:
As I understand Buddahism, you attribute no self awareness to the universe (that which I call God) and when you die, you can either be reincarnated here on Earth again to atone for sins in past lives or progress to nirvana if you are righteous enough.. is this correct?
Canonical Buddhism rejects the notion of a self-aware, Creator God (
issara-nimmana-vada), labeling it a form of wrong view (
miccha ditthi). This is on account of the eternalistic, deterministic tendencies of theism, which do not accord with reality as understood in Buddhism. Not only is a Creator God rejected, but godly beings are entirely stripped of any capacity to control a being's fate, whether by providing salvation or offering final judgement.
Upon death, it is commonly believed by Buddhists that post-mortem rebirth occurs, which must be distinguished from reincarnation. The notion of reincarnation presumes the existence of an entity (often a soul, or
atman) that may repeatedly incarnate. This very idea is rejected in Buddhism through the Buddha's teachings on
anatta, the soul-less, impersonal, non-self characteristic common to all phenomena, conditioned and unconditioned alike. To be overly concerned about one's destiny after death is to be disconnected from our present reality.
The idea of sins from past lives does not align well with the Buddhist concept of
karma. Often, people confuse
karma for a deterministic system of cosmic judgment. This is not so. Based on the Buddha's clear description of
karma in the
Nibbedhika Sutta (AN 6.63), karma refers to intention, or actions of a volitional nature. The Buddha taught that beings are owners of their
karma and heirs of their
karma in the
Upajjhatthana Sutta (AN 5.54), meaning one's volitional actions (
karma) plant the seeds of intention and yield fruits (
vipaka) to be experienced further along in the path. At the same time, in the
Acintita Sutta (AN 4.77), the Buddha proclaims that the precise workings of the results of
karma are unconjecturable, leading to madness and vexation for whomever obsesses over them. Given this information, it should be clear that
karma and determinism should not be confused.
Generally, in the cosmological scheme of rebirth, an unenlightened being may take birth in any of the five (sometimes six) realms, not to "atone to past sins," but in accordance with their
karma, which is an impersonal system of action and reaction (often conceived of as cause and effect) within the moral sphere. Thus, countless beings take birth in the realms of
samsara, the cycle of suffering (
dukkha).
Lastly,
nirvana is conceived of as the extinguishing, blowing out, or cooling of the flames of worldly existence. Although this correlates with righteousness in the sense that right (
samma) practice leads to liberation from suffering,
nirvana is not a reward or place to which a being "goes." It is likewise unconjecturable, ultimately representing the complete eradication of the conditions for the arising of suffering.
