GOOD QUESTION
GOOD ANSWER
Ven. S.
Dhammika
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[05]
Rebirth
Where do beings come from
and where are they going?
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/she does not exist, then he/she
comes into being through the will of a god. He/she lives their life and
then, according to what they believe or do in their life, they either go
to eternal heaven or 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 60 or 70 years of
non-belief or immoral living. Likewise, 60 or 70 years of good living
seems a very small outlay for eternal bliss in heaven. for what he/she did
in those years on Earth 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 recognised branch of
science, phenomena like telepathy are increasingly difficult to fit into
the materialistic model of the mind.
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,
and 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
fertilised egg. As the embryo grows, it centres 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 in 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.
Buddhism offers the most
satisfactory explanation of where beings come from and where they are
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 fertilised 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-establishing itself in a new
fertilised 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.
What decides where we 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 karma. The word karma 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 if our lives are
determined by our karma, can we change it?
Of course we can. That is
why one of the steps on the Eightfold Path is Right Effort. It depends on
our sincerity, how much energy we exert and how strong the habit is. But
it is true that some people singly 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
pleasant and happy results. Meditation is one of the techniques used to
modify the habit patterns of the mind as does speaking or refraining to
speak in certain ways, and acting or refraining to act in 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 come 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 realise 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 will be reborn when we die?
Not only is there
scientific evidence to support 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 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 neighbours’ names and details about her
everyday life there. she also tearfully 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 child 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 living in England 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.
You say that talk about
devils is superstitious. Isn't talk about rebirth a bit superstitious too?
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 ever 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 Gust
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 Deli) could
accurately describe her previous life (at Muttra, five hundred miles from
Deli) 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 ways. 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 personalities 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 could bear the same relation to men and women as a
wireless message to the transmitting apparatus for mind".
Even very practical and
down-to-earth people like the American industrialist Henry Ford found the
idea of 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
futile if we cannot utilise 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 realised 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 in answering questions what
the theistic and the materialistic theories fail to . 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!
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Update : 01-03-2002
