A Basic Buddhism Guide: Rebirth

There are three possible answers to this question. Those
who believe in a god or gods usually claim that before an individual
is created, he does not exist, then he comes into being through
the will of a god. He lives his life and then, according to what
he believes or does during his life, he either goes to eternal
heaven or eternal hell. There are others, humanists and scientists,
who claim that the individual comes into being at conception due
to natural causes, lives and then at death, ceases to exist. Buddhism
does not accept either of these explanations. The first gives
rise to many ethical problems. If a good god really creates each
of us, it is difficult to explain why so many people are born
with the most dreadful deformities, or why so many children are
miscarried just before birth or are still-born. Another problem
with the theistic explanation is that it seems very unjust that
a person should suffer eternal pain in hell for what he did in
just 60 or 70 years on earth. Sixty or seventy years of non-belief
or immoral living does not deserve eternal torture. Likewise,
60 or 70 years of good living seems a very small outlay for eternal
bliss in heaven. The second explanation is better than the first
and has more scientific evidence to support it but still leaves
several important questions unanswered. How can a phenomenon so
amazingly complex as consciousness develop from the simple meeting
of two cells, the sperm and the egg? And now that parapsychology
is a recognized branch of science, phenomena like telepathy are
increasingly difficult to fit into the materialistic model of
the mind. Buddhism offers the most satisfactory explanation of
where man came from and where he is going. When we die, the mind,
with all the tendencies, preferences, abilities and characteristics
that have been developed and conditioned in this life, re-establishes
itself in a fertilized egg. Thus the individual grows, is re-born
and develops a personality conditioned both by the mental characteristics
that have been carried over and by the new environment. The personality
will change and be modified by conscious effort and conditioning
factors like education, parental influence and society and once
again at death, re-establish itself in a new fertilized egg. This
process of dying and being reborn will continue until the conditions
that cause it, craving and ignorance, cease. When they do, instead
of being reborn, the mind attains a state called Nirvana and this
is the ultimate goal of Buddhism and the purpose of life.
How does the mind go from one body to another?
Think of it being like radio waves. The radio waves,
which are not made up of words and music but energy at different
frequencies, are transmitted, travel through space, are attracted
to and picked up by the receiver from where they are broadcast
as words and music. It is the same with the mind. At death, mental
energy travels through space, is attracted to and picked up by
the fertilized egg. As the embryo grows, it centers itself in
the brain from where it later "broadcasts" itself as
the new personality.
Is one always reborn as a human being?
No, there are several realms into which one can be reborn.
Some people are reborn in heaven, some are reborn in hell, some
are reborn as hungry ghosts and so on. Heaven is not a place but
a state of existence where one has a subtle body and where the
mind experiences mainly pleasure. Some religions strive very hard
to be reborn in a heavenly existence mistakenly believing it to
be a permanent state. But it is not. Like all conditioned states,
heaven is impermanent and when one's life span there is finished,
one could well be reborn again as a human. Hell, likewise, is
not a place but a state of existence where one has a subtle body
and where the mind experiences mainly anxiety and distress. Being
a hungry ghost, again, is a state of existence where the body
is subtle and where the mind is continually plagued by longing
and dissatisfaction. So heavenly beings experience mainly pleasure,
hell beings and ghosts experience mainly pain and human beings
experience usually a mixture of both. So the main difference between
the human realm and other realms is the body type and the quality
of experience.
What decides where will be reborn?
The most important factor, but not the only one, influencing
where we will be reborn and what sort of life we shall have, is
kamma. The word kamma means 'action' and refers to our intentional
mental actions. In other words, what we are is determined very
much by how we have thought and acted in the past. Likewise, how
we think and act now will influence how we will be in the future.
The gentle, loving type of person tends to be reborn in a heaven
realm or as a human being who has a predominance of pleasant experiences.
the anxious, worried or extremely cruel type of person tends to
be reborn in a hell realm or as a human being who has a predominance
of painful experiences. The person who develops obsessive craving,
fierce longings, and burning ambitions that can never be satisfied
tends to be reborn as a hungry ghost or as a human being frustrated
by longing and wanting. Whatever mental habits are strongly developed
in this life will continue in the next life. Most people, however,
are reborn as human beings.
So we are not determined by our kamma. We can change
it.
Of course we can. That is why one of the steps on the
Noble Eightfold Path is Perfect Effort. If depends on our sincerity,
how much energy we exert and how strong the habit is. But it is
true that some people simply go through life under the influence
of their past habits, without making an effort to change them
and falling victim to these unpleasant results. Such people will
continue to suffer unless they change their negative habits. The
longer the negative habits remain, the more difficult they are
to change. The Buddhist understands this and takes advantage of
each and every opportunity to break mental habits that have unpleasant
results and to develop mental habits that have a pleasant and
happy result. Meditation is one of the techniques used to modify
the habit patterns of the mind as does speaking or refraining
to speak, acting or refraining to act m certain ways, The whole
of the Buddhist life is a training to purify and free the mind.
For example, if being patient and kind was a pronounced part of
your character in your last life, such tendencies will re-emerge
in the present life. If they are strengthened and developed in
the present life, they will re-emerge even stronger and more pronounced
in the future life. This is based upon the simple and observable
fact that long established habits tend to be difficult to break.
Now, when you are patient and kind, it tends to happen that you
are not so easily ruffled by others, you don't hold grudges, people
like you and thus your experiences tends to be happier. Now, let
us take another example. Let us say that you came into life with
a tendency to be patient and kind due to your mental habits in
the past life. But in the present life, you neglect to strengthen
and develop such tendencies. They would gradually weaken and die
out and perhaps be completely absent in the future life. Patience
and kindness being weak in this case, there is a possibility that
in either this life or in the next life, a short temper, anger
and cruelty could grow and develop, bringing with them all the
unpleasant experiences that such attitudes create. We will take
one last example. Let us say that due to your mental habits in
the last life, you came into the present life with the tendency
to be short-tempered and angry, and you realize that such habits
only cause you unpleasantness and so you make an effort to change
them. You replace them with positive emotions. If you are able
to eliminate them completely, which is possible if you make an
effort, you become free from the unpleasantness caused by being
short tempered and angry. If you are only able to weaken such
tendencies, they would re-emerge in the next life where with a
bit more effort, they could be eliminated completely and you could
be free from their unpleasant effects.
You have talked a lot about rebirth but is there any
proof that we are reborn when we die?
Not only is there scientific evidence to support the
Buddhist belief in rebirth, it is the only after-life theory that
has any evidence to support it. There is not a scrap of evidence
to prove the existence of heaven and of course evidence of annihilation
at death must be lacking. But during the last 30 years parapsychologists
have been studying reports that some people have vivid memories
of their former lives. For example, in England, a 5 year-old girl
said she could remember her "other mother and father"
and she talked vividly about what sounded like the events in the
life of another person. Parapsychologists were called in and they
asked her hundreds of questions to which she gave answers. She
spoke of living in a particular village in what appeared to be
Spain, she gave the name of the village, the name of the street
she lived in, her neighbors' names and details about her everyday
life there. She also fearfully spoke of how she had been struck
by a car and died of her injuries two days later. When these details
were checked, they were found to be accurate. There was a village
in Spain with the name the five-year-old girl had given. There
was a house of the type she had described in the street she had
named. What is more, it was found that a 23-year-old woman living
in the house had been killed in a car accident five years before.
Now how is it possible for a five year- old girl living in England
and who had never been to Spain to know all these details? And
of course, this is not the only case of this type. Professor Ian
Stevenson of the University of Virginia's Department of Psychology
has described dozens of cases of this type in his books. He is
an accredited scientist whose 25 year study of people who remember
former lives is very strong evidence for the Buddhist teaching
of rebirth.
Some people might say that the supposed ability to
remember former lives is the work of devils.
You simply cannot dismiss everything that doesn't fit
into your belief as being the work of devils. When cold, hard
facts are produced to support an idea, you must use rational and
logical arguments if you wish to counter them -not irrational
and superstitious talk about devils.
You say that talk about devils is superstition but
isn't talk about rebirth a bit superstitious also?
The dictionary defines 'superstition' as 'a belief which
is not based on reason or fact but on an association of ideas,
as in magic'. If you can show me a careful study of the existence
of devils written by a scientist I will concede that belief in
devils is not superstition. But I have never heard of any research
into devils; scientists simply wouldn't bother to study such things,
so I say there is no evidence for the existence of devils. But
as we have just seen, there is evidence which seems to suggest
that rebirth does take place. So if belief in rebirth is based
on at least some facts, it cannot be a superstition.
Well, have there been any scientists who believe in
rebirth?
Yes. Thomas Huxley, who was responsible for having science
introduced into the 19th century British school system and who
was the first scientist to defend Darwin's theories, believed
that reincarnation was a very plausible idea. In his famous book
'Evolution and Ethics and other Essays', he says:
In the doctrine of transmigration, whatever its origin, Brahmanical
and Buddhist speculation found, ready to hand, the means of constructing
a plausible vindication of the ways of the Cosmos to man... Yet
this plea of justification is not less plausible than others;
and none but very hasty thinkers will reject it on the ground
of inherent absurdity. Like the doctrine of evolution itself,
that of transmigration has its roots in the world of reality;
and it may claim such support as the great argument from analogy
is capable of supplying.
Then, Professor Gustaf Stromberg, the famous Swedish astronomer,
physicist and friend of Einstein also found the idea of rebirth
appealing. Opinions differ whether human souls can be reincarnated
on the earth or not. In 1936 a very interesting case was thoroughly
investigated and reported by the government authorities in India.
A girl (Shanti Devi from Delhi) could accurately describe her
previous life (at Muttra, five hundred miles from Delhi) which
ended about a year before her "second birth." She gave
the name of her husband and child and described her home and life
history. The investigating commission brought her to her former
relatives, who verified all her statements. Among the people of
India reincarnations are regarded as commonplace; the astonishing
thing for them in this case was the great number of facts the
girl remembered. This and similar cases can be regarded as additional
evidence for the theory of the indestructibility of memory. Professor
Julian Huxley, the distinguished British scientist who was Director
General of UNESCO believed that rebirth was quite in harmony with
scientific thinking. There is nothing against a permanently surviving
spirit-individuality being in some way given off at death, as
a definite wireless message is given off by a sending apparatus
working in a particular way. But it must be remembered that the
wireless message only becomes a message again when it comes in
contact with a new, material structure - the receiver. So with
our possible spirit-emanation. It... would never think or feel
unless again 'embodied' in some way. Our per venalities are so
based on body that it is really impossible to think of survival
which would be in any true sense personal without a body of sorts...
I can think of something being given off which would bear the
same relation to men and women as a wireless message to the transmitting
apparatus; but in that case 'the dead' would, so far as one can
see, be nothing but disturbances of different patterns wandering
through the universe until... they... came back to actuality of
consciousness by making contact with something which could work
as a receiving apparatus for mind. Even very practical and down-to-earth
people like the American industrialist Henry Ford found the idea
or rebirth acceptable. Ford was attracted to the idea of rebirth
because, unlike the theistic idea or the materialistic idea, rebirth
gives you a second chance to develop yourself. Henry Ford says:
I adopted the theory of Reincarnation when I was twenty-six. Religion
offered nothing to the point.. Even work could not give me complete
satisfaction. Work is fume if we cannot utilize the experience
we collect in one life in the next. When I discovered Reincarnation
it was as if I had found a universal plan. I realized that there
was a chance to work out my ideas. Time was no longer limited.
I was no longer a slave to the hands of the clock... Genius is
experience. Some seem to think that it is a gift or talent, but
it is the fruit of long experience in many lives. Some are older
souls than others, and so they know more... The discovery of Reincarnation
put my mind at ease... If you preserve a record of this conversation,
write it so that it puts men's minds at ease. I would like to
communicate to others the calmness that the long view of life
gives to us.
So the Buddhist teachings of rebirth does have some scientific
evidence to support it. It is logically consistent and it goes
a long way to answering questions that theistic and the materialistic
theories fail to do. But it is also very comforting. What can
be worse than a theory of life that gives you no second chance,
no opportunity to amend the mistakes you have made in this life
and no time to further develop the skills and abilities you have
nurtured in this life. But according to the Buddha, if you fail
to attain Nirvana in this life, you will have the opportunity
to try again next time. If you have made mistakes in this life,
you will be able to correct yourself in the next life. You will
truly be able to learn from your mistakes. Things you were unable
to do or achieve in this life may well become possible in the
next life. What a wonderful teaching!