Ambud on Reincarnation
I’m happy to see that there is a resurgence of interest in Buddhism in the United States.
It would be nice to undo some of the stigma created in the 60’s and 70’s as a result of false gurus and misinterpreted concepts of ‘free love’.
What is it that has so many suddenly embracing a spirituality that’s been around over 2500 years; apparently, it is the often misunderstood notion of reincarnation.
China has inadvertently created this new interest with its attempts to quell the beliefs and practices of the Tibetan people. Sort of ironic; China’s perversion of the age old practice of the identification of the Panchen and Dalai Lamas, has brought new interest to Buddhism.
Traditionally “living Buddhas” are identified in boyhood through a mixture of tests and divination by Buddhist monks after a lama dies. But this summer Beijing announced it would control the process and reserve the right to approve incarnations .
Tibetans have already seen this happen with the second most senior figure in Tibetan Buddhism, the Panchen Lama. There are now two rival Panchens. The boy recognised by the Dalai Lama is now 19, and is said to be in a Chinese prison.
-The Guardian
Read More.. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/nov/28/china.religion.
But what about reincarnation, does Buddhism actually embrace the idea of a permanent soul that moves from Life to Life, seems like something is askew here, how can a philosophy that denies permanence support reincarnation?
The simple answer is; it doesn’t.
We need to take a look at the difference between rebirth and reincarnation to help clear up some of this confusion. Rebirth happens from moment to moment; each thought we have, and all the cells that make up our body die and are replaced, often at lightning speeds. While the new thoughts that come, and the replacement cells that rejuvenate us are a direct result of our last moment, they are not the same. Essentially, we are reborn from moment to moment.
My favorite illustration of this is: shooting pool; when we hit the cue ball its energy forces the eight ball to move forward. The eight ball isn’t the cue ball, but its movement is certainly the result of it.
Reincarnation is different from rebirth since it espouses a movement of an entity from one lifetime to another. Of course this is dependent on what religion etc. we are referring to; Hinduism for example supports the idea of the soul (atman) moving between different realms of existence; when the body dies, the soul either resides in Hell until it repays all its sins or in heaven until it has worn out its welcome, and then incarnates into some sentient form on earth.
Buddhism on the other hand supports the notion of a sequence of lives stretching over countless millennia without a ‘self’ that ties these lives together as illustrated above. There isn’t a belief that the personality continues after death, only that in the last moment of life we condition the next moment of existence, like the cue ball hitting the eight ball.
Ambud
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