Rebirth vs. Reincarnation

[Nooj]

This isn't a dog, it's an echidna. This isn't a dog, it's a cat. This isn't a dog, it's a bird.

=/=

There is no such thing as a dog.

 

[LuisDantas]

Why, of course there is a dog - or a sense of self, as the case may be. It would be silly to claim otherwise.

But the Dharma, far as I can tell, claims that it is misleading to see that sense as reliable or as an indicator of a true, meaningful reality. And really, it is so obvious once one pays attention to things. To me the core doctrine of Buddhadharma is the idea of interdependent origination; it avoids _so many_ misunderstandings.

 

[Nooj]

Well yes, but there are more options than just black and white. For example, if you understand the self as conventionally real i.e. something which we use in our daily lives and we think of as real because it seems to describe reality accurately, that doesn't conflict with the idea that ultimately there is no such thing as a self.

 

[religion99]

there is no such thing as a self.

Self denying self! How logical.

 

[Nooj]

Since when did logic matter?

 

[religion99]

Since we have incomplete knowledge , we have to use logic and some other tools to find answers to the questions we don't know.

 

[Nooj]

And have you found the answers you were looking for using logic?

I think about the long philosophical effort of humanity. Thousands of years of effort, involving some of the smartest people who ever lived, throughout many different cultures and we haven't come to one universally accepted conclusion about anything. Reason, logic, faith, divine revelation have not helped us.

 

[religion99]

You can refer to this thread where we are trying to solve a problem using logic:

http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/science-vs-religion/119132-problem-suffering-13.html

 

[St Giordano Bruno]

The difference between reincarnation and rebirth is a bit like this - holding up a mirror and asserting this is not a mirror it is a looking glass. They are fundamentally the same thing one is only using semantics.

 

[religion99]

The difference between reincarnation and rebirth is a bit like this - holding up a mirror and asserting this is not a mirror it is a looking glass. They are fundamentally the same thing one is only using semantics.

There is a big difference in reincarnation and rebirth.

1. Proponents of rebirth start with the proposition that Self changes every instance. Recognition is illusion. So , if somebody claims to remember some past events , this is because memory of previous Self is preserved into the current Self as a result of a chain of transplantations of memory between all the consecutive transient Selfs. It is similar to the way culture is preserved from one generation to another generation.
2. Proponents of reincarnation start with the proposition that Self is permanent and is uncreated and indestructible. So , if somebody claims to remember some past events , this is because of the memory of the same Self of the past events.

As a side note , proponents of first case says Recognition is illusion. If everything is transient , where is the question of Re-cognition? Proponents of second case says Recognition is real and is the consequence of permanence of Things.

Definition of Recognition : an awareness that something observed has been observed before.

 

[work in progress]

I don't have the foggiest idea of what free will would be, but otherwise I agree.

What I mean is that, from a naturalistic perspective it is impossible to have a mind with complete libertarian free will to make decisions unconstrained by our neuro-chemistry and the effects of the environment upon us.

That may well be a misunderstanding to some degree. The anatta doctrine does not deny that there is a self, only that it is anything but an ephemerous and fragile construct.

I'm not surprised that there are problems translating meaning into different languages. Usually anatta is translated as "no self" in English.

Personally I think those attempts miss the point. Past lifes were never meant to be taken so literally IMO.

The prevailing opinion from brain science appears to be moving strongly in favour of what's called "Bundle Theory of Mind." There is a minority who support some explanation of continuous ego - usually a product of a physical brain, and there is at least one philosopher of mind - Ken Ward, who gets alot of attention for being one of the few who is still a substance dualist - looking for a method of incorporating a non-physical mind with a very physical body. He believes in the existence of a soul, while explaining everything from brain research that seems to be moving in the opposite direction. So, in my estimation, he gets a little too much attention for being a scientist who is trying to support the understanding of mind that is compatible with religious orthodoxy.

Bundle theory - that our consciousness is not continuous, but a useful sensory delusion similar to the patterns and models we create of external sensory data, began with the great Scottish philosopher David Hume. That wikipedia blurb I linked on bundle theory mentions a Buddhist connection; at least in that piece they claim that earlier Buddhist understanding was probably closer to the ego being an illusion.

 

[work in progress]

Do you have to understand it to accept it? I can't do maths to save my life. But I accept the findings of physicists without bothering to second guess their work, because I'm not qualified.

The problem here is that the increased understanding of mind from brain research continually flies in the face of the traditional concept in the West of an incorporeal mind trapped inside a physical body.

About 25 years ago, I picked up a book called "The New Story Of Science," which followed a theme established by Fritjof Capra's "Tao Of Physics" - that the full implications of quantum theory would bring science toward mystical understanding of nature.

Re: the subject of the mind, The New Story made a testable scientific prediction back when EEG's and brain imaging devices were still very crude: he said that comparing mental activity with brain activity would show that we were making decisions and performing mental tasks just before evidence of a physical action occurred in the brain. It was the author's view that our minds were unbounded and unconstrained by our physical world.

Unfortunately for the writer of the New Story, this hypothesis fell apart when brain research correlating brain with mental activity showed the opposite was occurring - the brain activity precedes conscious awareness of making a choice or a decision.

So, in the end, that's why the prevailing opinion of the brain researchers is that our sense of consciousness is an illusion no different than the shapes, textures, and colour patterns we see to describe the physical world around us.

 

[Nooj]

The problem here is that the increased understanding of mind from brain research continually flies in the face of the traditional concept in the West of an incorporeal mind trapped inside a physical body.

That's good, because that's not how Buddhism thinks of the mind.

 

[work in progress]

That's good, because that's not how Buddhism thinks of the mind.

Okay, but that's not very helpful! I just dropped in here to get a better description of what the differences are between the Buddhist and Hindu concepts of mind, and how they relate to the traditional Western dualism that most Christians believe in.

 

[crazyarghya]

hinduism is a polytheistic religion but buddhism has nothing to do with god.

 

[Breathe]

hinduism is a polytheistic religion

That's not quite correct. The answer is much more complex than that.

 

[Ben Bet Beh]

That's not quite correct. The answer is much more complex than that.

An Indian Christian friend of mine (perhaps simplistically) explained that Christians believe that God was incarnated once in the person of Jesus Christ. Whereas Hindus believe God (Brahman) incarnated several times throughout the ages.

Having said that, I am still wrestling with how Buddhists view reincarnation differently. There does seem to be an element of "spiritual atheism" when it comes to the Buddhist stance on being born again - not as yourself with there being no soul (if I understand correctly). However, in Hinduism, there is a soul. Yet, I'm not sure how that all works. I also am having a difficult time grasping how the Buddhist Dhali Lama plays into all of this. Is the current Dhali Lama the same as every other Dhali Lama's throughout the ages or not?

 

[LuisDantas]

Having said that, I am still wrestling with how Buddhists view reincarnation differently. There does seem to be an element of "spiritual atheism" when it comes to the Buddhist stance on being born again - not as yourself with there being no soul (if I understand correctly).

That is how I see it as well. One of the reasons why I see reincarnation as a concept that can't be reconciled with Buddhism.

However, in Hinduism, there is a soul. Yet, I'm not sure how that all works.

It is not always clear that the soul (Atman) of Hinduism is what reincarnates, or at least it is not necessarily true that it is comparable to more western conceptions of reincarnation. Far as I know, the reincarnation concept of Hinduism usually doesn't imply that personality or memories are in some way similar to supposed previous incarnations.

Which would make such a concept far closer to the Buddhist concept of rebirth than to the western idea of reincarnation, in my opinion.

I also am having a difficult time grasping how the Buddhist Dhali Lama plays into all of this. Is the current Dhali Lama the same as every other Dhali Lama's throughout the ages or not?

Nope. It is very clear from the tradition that survives to this day that the various Dalai Lamas are very different people from each other.

Perhaps more to the point, it is also even more clear from Buddhist doctrine that people can't really be the same even from one day to the next anyway.

I'm not really all that sure how the Lamas are understood to work or what the meaning of their succession is supposed to be, but it is my understanding that it is seen as a very rare occurrence, which only a handful of teachers are expected to ever achieve. And even then, they are taught from a young age, so it is not clear to me that they are expected to share more than a few memories with their supposed previous lifes.

 

[Breathe]

An Indian Christian friend of mine (perhaps simplistically) explained that Christians believe that God was incarnated once in the person of Jesus Christ. Whereas Hindus believe God (Brahman) incarnated several times throughout the ages.

That is correct; but describing Hinduism as polytheism is similar to describing Christianity tritheism. Although it may appear that way, that is not how they consider themselves or what they believe.

Having said that, I am still wrestling with how Buddhists view reincarnation differently.

It may be to your benefit to ask in the Buddhism DIR.

My own views on how rebirth, Three Marks of Existence, an*ātman (anatt&#257, śūnyatā, nirīśvaravāda, etc are interpreted are considered to be heterodox, so I don't really go into them.

To quickly sum it up, the way rebirth is interpreted in Buddhism has been described as "the candle light the candle": what you do in this life, your karma will create another being directly from it (a "you" but not you).

Y'know?

 

[Breathe]

Which would make such a concept far closer to the Buddhist concept of rebirth than to the western idea of reincarnation, in my opinion.

The Western conception of reincarnation is different to the conception of reincarnation in Dharmic thought - from what I gather, many Westerners believe that the personality is what reincarnates or something - am I right that this is common?


I don't know much about Western interpretations of reincarnation. I can only speak from experience on this. Sounds kind of strange, considering I'm a Westerner from a Western society.