hinduwoman

Geo, rebirth is the point.
Christianity and Islam gives you only one-shot chance at salvation. Hinduism allows you to try again and again until you get it right. What is more you are allowed to get it right through a variety of ways --- not only one. is it not more consistent with a merciful god?

Dr. Jagan Mohan

Hindus believe that ultimately ALL souls acheive Moksha. Not a single soul is left to eternal damnation. That is what matters. No Judgement Day, No Damnation, No Hell, No Heaven.
Time does not matter. THe end matters. And yeah it doesnot matter if you are a Hindu or a Christian or an Atheist

Say an Atheist living a Moralistic life, reaping positive Karma has a better chance at reaching the ultimate goal of life (i.e of Moksha.. maybe he/she might go on to find the truth about life and existence) than a Hindu or Christian or anybodyelse who keeps burdening his/her soul with negative karma which might take a number of years to resolve.

[ October 03, 2002: Message edited by: Dr. Jagan Mohan ]</p>

monkey mind

From my (simple) understanding of Buddhism, this is a brief explanation of how the rebirth works. Keep in mind that in Buddhism, if you wish to understand rebirth, you must understand it alongside the teachings of karma and dependent origination. There are plenty of writings on these subjects that provide a far greater explanation then I could hope to achieve.

Basically Karma is stored in a part of out conciousness referred to as the Alaya Conciousness. This part of the conciousness works in two ways. It is a storehouse for the karma we accumulate, and it correspondingly affects the processes of the rest of out conciousness. Basically when we perform an action, it plants a seed in the Alaya conciousness, when that seed come to fruition, it affects our conciousness and consequently out behaviour.

When we die, our Alaya Conciousness is freed from our mortal bodies. If we have heavy karma and many attachments, the Alaya conciousness will immediately rush out to find a new body to inhabit accordingly. Thus, if you karma is such that you are attached to a violent life, your alaya concious (when freed from the last body) will find a new body that corresponds to this attachment.

As far as being born in hell, it's believed that when you create very heavy karma, such as killing and all that nasty stuff, it is believed that the weight of the karma obscures your Buddha nature by levels and levels of ignorance. This ignorance causes your alaya conciousness to basically chose a hell realm where you will endure many sufferings until you lose some of your ignorance.

The Alaya conciousness, unlike other parts of our conciousness, is believed to exist apart from the material, meaning it isn't dependent on our brain cells to function.

Hope that explains a little bit of how Buddhists believe it works. If your interested, look for a book called "Fundamentals of Buddhism" (don't know the author), it is distributed freely and can be found on the net.

There may be some schools that picture a type of "judgement" scenario in between the death and birth, but I haven't heard of it. I welcome any corrections.

[ October 03, 2002: Message edited by: monkey mind ]</p>

muon

I've got to add that this "alaya consciousness" stuff is peculiar to only certain Buddhist sects (particularly certain Mahayana and tantric sects, including Tibetan Buddhism.) It's really foreign to Theravadin thought, where it would be borderline heretical, and isn't found or is de-emphasized completely in Zen schools.

The fundamental thing to know about rebirth in Buddhism (besides the fact that many Buddhists, particularly Zen and some Theravadims, take the whole thing as a metaphor and not literal truth) is that the whole process is thought to function according to an automatic law of nature, and not through any judgement or intervention by a personal entity. The point is not to be reborn at all.

An interesting take for secularists is the psychological interpretation of rebirth expressed by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu. See <a href="http://www.suanmokkh.org" target="_blank">www.suanmokkh.org</a> for more information, particularly essays.

Dr. Jagan Mohan

The Hinduism rebuke of Buddhism also relies on this 'causal body' or alaya consciousness.

Buddhism emphasis on the no-soul doctrine makes it difficult for it to explain the 'dependent causation' and the cycle of birth and rebirth. In Buddhism the difficult question is: What actually reincarnates? What exactly connects one life existence to its reincarnation? If it is the alaya consciousness, then on what basis is the existence of soul rejected?

In Hinduism, the Soul has a number of vital sheaths, some of which are intrinsic to the Atman or soul, and others foreign.

The Causal Body is one such sheath that covers the soul as dirt covers a mirror. The causal body accumulates karmic seeds which force the soul to rebirth as per the karmic resolutions into a body which inturn produces a mind-thought consciousness peculiar to that rebirth and sex.

Once all Karma is resolved to emptiness and no more karma is left to generate this causal body, the soul is 'set free' from reincarnation. Theistic Schools add that Moksha is when the Soul realises its ultimate oneness and identity with the Supersoul or Brahman. That is why Moksha is also called 'Mukti' or 'liberation'.

Sarpedon

In one of the more elegant hindu myths I've heard, the dead soul walks up to Yama, who is wearing a mirror as a breastplate, looks in the mirror, and sees what the next incarnation will be. Yama is seen more as a passive witness, where it is the person's karma that really makes the "decision".

monkey mind

Right, I thought the alaya conciousness idea explained the idea of rebirth pretty good, so I liked it. I'm sure theres plenty of others, but your right the main point is that it happens without any outside influence. And yeah, the idea is if you follow any of the buddhist paths, then you shouldn't have to worry about rebirth anymore =)

Also, good point about considering it metaphor. I think that is how you can apply the idea of rebirth and make it of some benefit. what's the use of a belief if you don't get any benefit until your dead? It can provide a comfort to have a sound life after death theory, but most importantly it should help you understand life before death.

Thank you for that site link. I read his talk about "life is a prison" and it blew me away... excellent stuff.

[ October 04, 2002: Message edited by: monkey mind ]</p>

monkey mind

Hmm. That's a good question. In my view, it seems that the idea of the soul is rejected by Buddhist teachers just because they believe that term tends to be misinterpretted by people. Some religions seem to say (at least superficially) that there is the soul, then outside of that is God. In Buddhism I think they just try to emphasize as much as possible that it's all internal.

However, if you were to use the term 'soul' in Buddhism, I think it would be a better reference to 'Buddha Nature' then the alaya, as the alaya is what you want to get rid of. The Buddha-Nature is permanent and fixed, and therefore doesn't undergo rebirth per se, but you always have it.

Thank you =)

Answerer

Well, soul simply meant a permanent 'self'. In Buddhism, there is no such as an object having an independent existence as it simply violates the Dharma's precept of causes and conditions. Therefore, because of this, Buddhism emphasis on selflessness instead of the concept of a indestructible soul.
Meanwhile in Buddhism, the main reasons of sentinel beings having to undergo various cycle of life and death(samara) is mainly due to their attachments to materialistic things and ignorance of constant changing and interdependent realities around them. So, the hindi's concept of recarnation can't really imply in Buddhism's ideology of samara in this case.
As for the question of what actually reincarnates, I suppose that the answer to that question is itself, very vague(partly becuase I found it hard to explain in words). Anyway, most monks and buddhists don't see things as having a separate existence(like soul), rather they viewed everything as a large interdependent system. In the other words, they try to aviod setting or giving definitions to objects or 'self' as it is meaningless and pointless for them to do so since everything don't exist 'alone'.
Well guys, I hope that I'm not very vague for the last part.