Do you believe in rebirth?

[Rick O'Shez]

I mean life-to-life rebirth, not the moment-to-moment interpretation.

I see it as an intriguing possibility, but I don't hold it as a belief, and it doesn't seem relevant to my daily practice.

How about you?

 

[BSM1]

I don't believe in rebirth, nor did I believe in it in three of my previous lives. Seriously, I agree with you. It is intriguing but it doesn't (and shouldn't, imo) affect my day-to-day life.

 

[LuisDantas]

Rebirth of a personal consciousness? Heck, no. I neither find it conceivable nor desirable. Or, for that matter, compatible with Anatta nor with Interdependent Origination.

Rebirth IMO was always meant to be a description of the responsibility we have towards other people. I just can't see it making any sense with any more "person-oriented" interpretation.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Rebirth of a personal consciousness? Heck, no. I neither find it conceivable nor desirable. Or, for that matter, compatible with Anatta nor with Interdependent Origination.

Rebirth IMO was always meant to be a description of the responsibility we have towards other people. I just can't see it making any sense with any more "person-oriented" interpretation.

Rebirth as in a continous cycle of birth and death? Yes. Until we understand the true nature of life, we will always be in constant change and form. I am not sure, but I think the "having previous physical lives" is a Hindu belief. Whether it is or not it makes common sense to me. I never looked into that because I never has a feeling of being here previously. I dont believe I just popped from nothing. It does affect my practice because thats the point understanding the nature of life and relieving suffering and gaining liberation of the mind. If not, then we would be here temp. Never heard that in the Dharma.

 

[von bek]

I mean life-to-life rebirth, not the moment-to-moment interpretation.

I see it as an intriguing possibility, but I don't hold it as a belief, and it doesn't seem relevant to my daily practice.

How about you?

I do believe in life to life rebirth. However, I think I have finally acquired the wisdom to not argue the point with someone who doesn't.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

I do believe in life to life rebirth. However, I think I have finally acquired the wisdom to not argue the point with someone who doesn't.

Wisdom indeed! I've argued on both sides of the debate at different times. I certainly wouldn't attempt to airbrush rebirth out of the suttas as some try to do, it is clearly there. Such questions are easily set to one side, there is really no need to make a song and dance IMO.

 

[Ethics Gradient]

I mean life-to-life rebirth, not the moment-to-moment interpretation.

I see it as an intriguing possibility, but I don't hold it as a belief, and it doesn't seem relevant to my daily practice.

How about you?

I don't and also don't believe it particularity enhances the practice. It's the present moment that matters, not future or previous lives if you choose to believe in that.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Not any actual belief.

Just an educated guess of which involves a cyclic and arguably perpetual arranging and rearranging of atoms, for which we come about and go as anything else.

 

[Osal]

I mean life-to-life rebirth, not the moment-to-moment interpretation.

I see it as an intriguing possibility, but I don't hold it as a belief, and it doesn't seem relevant to my daily practice.

How about you?

Sure. No doubt in my mind. No difference in l2l and m2m. After all what are birth and death but moments? What is this appearance we call life but a series of moments?

 

[Peter Vredevold]

I actually do believe in rebirth.
It's just my belief though.

 

[Aupmanyav]

No. As Luis said, individual consciousness. Not possible. Recycle of material. Certainly.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Sure. No doubt in my mind. No difference in l2l and m2m. After all what are birth and death but moments? What is this appearance we call life but a series of moments?

How can there be "no doubt in your mind", given that we have no way of proving life-to-life rebirth? All we know for sure is that we have a "series of moments" between birth and death.

 

[Banjankri]

I mean life-to-life rebirth, not the moment-to-moment interpretation.

I see it as an intriguing possibility, but I don't hold it as a belief, and it doesn't seem relevant to my daily practice.

How about you?

I try to stay away from beliefs.

 

[Ratzzable]

It is an interpretation of the illusion of ones self and the connection with the mandalic system which is explanatory as a mantra entering the yantra

 

[Rick O'Shez]

I try to stay away from beliefs.

So do I. I have been practising satipatthana for some years, it is like phenomenlololology but easier to say.

 

[Kartari]

I'm in the same boat, Rick. I find the idea appealing, but ultimately hard to find feasible. Who knows, though.

I guess we're mostly a bunch of skeptical westerners here on RF, though. I expect traditional Buddhists (i.e. from Asia) would probably have a far higher rate of believers in rebirth.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

I mean life-to-life rebirth, not the moment-to-moment interpretation.

I see it as an intriguing possibility, but I don't hold it as a belief, and it doesn't seem relevant to my daily practice.

How about you?

/Looks at the date/

I heard rebirth defined a couple of ways. The one I'm familiar with is the mind "dies" and continues until it gets to full understanding of life. So we're basically in a cycle. If that's moment-to-moment, that's how I understand it.

Rebirth as in reincarnation? Past lives. Actually, it makes sense, sense life is circular. Outside of that, it's not part of my practice. It's more understanding the nature of life to end rebirth. However, I don't know what the state of not having rebirth is like. The Buddha in the Lotus was talking about dying and leaving his teachings and Dharma to live on as he surpassed rebirth. As for Pali teachings, I'm not too sure.

 

[aoji]

I mean life-to-life rebirth, not the moment-to-moment interpretation.

Then what do you mean by "life-to-life rebirth"? "Rebirth" itself has to be defined. Life itself has to be defined. Just using the one word, "re-birth," opens it up to interpretation. Words mean different things in different languages, in different times, in different places. Do you mean "Re-incarnation"? If so, then what re-incarnates? Perhaps Buddha said what he said so that the listener did not have pre-conceived ideas of what he meant, that when he spoke of re-birth he wasn't talking about re-incarnation since using that word would close the listener's mind to what he was saying. Buddhist Studies: Rebirth

I see it as an intriguing possibility, but I don't hold it as a belief, and it doesn't seem relevant to my daily practice.

Whether you believe in it or not may not matter if in actuality it exists. Whether one believes in Karma may not matter if it actually exists. In both there is a sense of helplessness, that one is, but one didn't have a choice. Life goes on and the body and mind want to think that it is immortal, that it will live forever. We say that Life has a drive to produce off-spring that will keep Life living, that there is a biological drive to re-produce a species, that we recognize our own immortality through the continuation of our genes. If the body has this inherent propensity, an unconscious need, to reproduce, then why can't there be a parallel in Consciousness? And what if Consciousness is part and parcel of Life?

Then Buddhist rebirth is not re-incarnation, if what the listener assumes re-incarnates is the body and the mind and the ego that one identifies with (and such identification can only happen at-the-moment one thinks about it), that one acknowledges one is. Then, to make it clear to the listener that it is not a soul that one thinks ego-body-mind is, he could have termed it 'rebirth,' to go beyond the idea that the soul is what one thinks reborns (gets re-born). Just using the word "soul" would have created assumption in the listener. The listener would have had pre-conceived ideas what re-incarnates. How then to speak words which would not produce preconceptions? He could have used the word re-birth. But then that asks the question as to what gets re-born and why Karma should now be a master to that being. If our bodies, which shape what we will be, is governed by our immediate genes inherited from our parents, and if we are also a product of all past generations modifying our genes to be inherited by successive progenies, why can't there also be a Consciousness template that gets propagated? If we can inherit ill-health, diseases, height, weight, eye colour, hair coulour, flowing hair or baldness, etc., and knowing that how we think is the sum total of our experience from the time our egos started to form, then couldn't our consciousness also be a product of Consciousness itself?, a mirror image of Consciousness? Then it is our identification with the body-mind-ego that dies, the mirror image dies, but Consciousness, like Life, continues, and in a new life form it will then identify it consciousness as a mirror image of Consciousness, just as our life is a mirror image of Life. Believing in a Life force is therefore moot - it doesn't matter whether you believe in it or not. Believing in Rebirth is moot - it doesn't matter whether you believe in it or not. Believing in beliefs is moot - it doesn't matter where you believe in it or not. Believing in reincarnation is moot - it doesn't matter whether you believe in it or not. Believing in Karma is moot - it doesn't matter whether you believe in it or not. There is a difference between Ignorance and Innocence, though.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

I mean life-to-life rebirth, not the moment-to-moment interpretation.

I see it as an intriguing possibility, but I don't hold it as a belief, and it doesn't seem relevant to my daily practice.

How about you?

I agree also- about being on the fence on this

The whole idea of our bodies merely being a temporary vessel to harbor knowledge, information which was entirely transferable to another vessel by some invisible means - used to seem inherently absurd to me.

I can't really make that argument anymore!

 

[JeremK]

I do, but I personally don't care a huge amount. In my opinion, Right View is less important than the other seven steps of the Eight-Fold Path together. It's more important to live well in this life than place your bets on future ones.