Rebirth
Ven. S.
Dhammika
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!