Rebirth (Buddhism)
[4][17][18] Some traditions like Theravada assert that rebirth occurs immediately and that no "thing" (not even consciousness) moves across lives to be reborn (though there is a causal link, like when a seal is imprinted on wax).
Some English-speaking Buddhists prefer the term "rebirth" or "re-becoming" (Sanskrit: punarbhava; Pali: punabbhava) to "reincarnation" as they take the latter to imply an entity (soul) that is reborn.
[32][33][note 3] Numerous other terms for rebirths are found in the Buddhist scriptures, such as Punagamana, Punavasa, Punanivattati, Abhinibbatti, and words with roots of *jati and *rupa.
[32] According to Damien Keown, the EBTs state that on the night of his awakening, the Buddha attained the ability to recall a vast number of past lives along with numerous details about them.
The early Buddhist conception of rebirth is one in which consciousness is always dependent on other factors, mainly name and form (nama-rupa) which refers to the physical body and various cognitive elements (such as feeling, perception and volition).
[54] While some scholars like Tilmann Vetter and Akira Hirakawa have questioned whether the Buddha saw rebirth as important, Johannes Bronkhorst argues that these views are based on scant evidence from the EBTs.
[39]: 28 The Samaññaphala Sutta (parallel at DA 27) also critiques the view of a school of ancient Indian materialism called Carvaka (which rejected rebirth and held that "all are destroyed at death").
[39]: 28–29 However, Anālayo argues that since there are different definitions of right view in the early texts, this "leaves open the possibility that someone may engage in practices related to the Buddhist path to liberation without necessarily pledging faith in rebirth.
In contrast to this, various early texts regularly recommend the direct recollection of one's own past lives as one of the three higher knowledges which correspond to the realizations attained by the Buddha on the night of his awakening.
In one discourse, the Mahatanhasankhaya sutta (MN 38, MA 201), a monk comes to the conclusion that it is this very same consciousness that will be reborn (as opposed to a dependently originated process).
[65] It argued that each personal action "perfumes" the individual stream of consciousness and leads to the planting of a seed that would later germinate as a good or bad karmic result.
[68] The Sarvastivada Abhidharma master Saṃghabhadra states that the seed theory was referred to by different names including: subsidiary elements (anudhatu), impressions (vasana); capability (samarthya), non-disappearance (avipranasa), or accumulation (upacaya).
[69] According to Lobsang Dargyay, the Prāsaṇgika branch of the Madhyamaka school (which is exemplified by the philosopher Chandrakirti), attempted to refute every concept for a support or a storehouse of karmic information (including the alaya-vijñana).
[71] The personal entity concept was rejected by the mid-1st millennium CE Pali scholar Buddhaghosa, who attempted to explain rebirth mechanism with "rebirth-linking consciousness" (patisandhi-citta).
[77] Ancient Buddhists as well as some moderns cite the reports of the Buddha and his disciples of having gained direct knowledge into their own past lives as well as those of other beings through a kind of parapsychological ability or extrasensory perception (termed abhiñña).
[81] Modern Buddhists such as Bhikkhu Anālayo and Jayatilleke have also argued that rebirth may be empirically verifiable and have pointed to certain parapsychological phenomena as possible evidence, mainly near-death experiences (NDEs), past-life regression, reincarnation research and xenoglossy.
[39]: (SIII) [82][83] Both Anālayo and B. Alan Wallace point to the work of the American Psychiatrist Ian Stevenson as providing possible evidence of rebirth.
[85] Wallace also notes that several modern Buddhist figures, such as Pa Auk Sayadaw and Geshe Gedun Lodro have also written about how to train the mind to access past life memories.
"[89] Wallace proposes that a research project using well trained meditators could access information from past lives in an accurate manner and these could then be checked by independent third person observers.
[86] Besides defending the status of the Buddha as an epistemically authoritative or reliable person (pramāṇa puruṣa), Indian Buddhist philosophers like Dignaga (c. 480–540 CE) and Dharmakīrti (fl.
c. 6th or 7th century), as well as later commentators on their works, also put forth philosophical arguments in favor of rebirth and especially directed against the reductionist materialist philosophy of the Carvaka school.
[66] According to Martin Willson, this kind of argument is the most commonly used in the Tibetan philosophical tradition to establish the truth of rebirth and in its most simple form can be put as follows:[97]With respect to the knowing (consciousness or mind) of an ordinary being just born: it is preceded by earlier knowing; because it is knowing.Willson notes that this relies on two further assumptions, the first is that any mental continuum must have previous causes, the second is that materialism is false and that mind cannot emerge solely from matter (emergentism).
[100] Lucas rejects constitutive panpsychism as a live option for a Buddhist due to various issues including the "combination problem" and because it supports the idea that the conscious subject collapses into micro-experiences when the body dies.
The American monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu has argued for the acceptance of the Buddhist idea of rebirth as a type of pragmatic wager argument (Pali: apaṇṇaka, "safe bet" or "guarantee").
According to Thanissaro Bhikkhu:[107]The Buddha's main pragmatic argument is that if one accepted his teachings, one would be likely to pay careful attention to one's actions, so as to do no harm.
Alan Wallace writes that nihilistic and materialistic views which reject rebirth "undermine any sense of moral responsibility, and this is bound to have a profoundly detrimental effect on societies that adopt such beliefs.
"[111] He further argues:[112]If we embrace a materialistic worldview, we will naturally seek satisfaction and fulfillment by turning our attention to the outside world, looking for novel sensory and intellectual experiences as well as new material acquisitions.
Irrespective of our personal survival, the legacy of our thoughts, words, and deeds will continue through the impressions we leave behind in the lives of those we have influenced or touched in any way.The Thai modernist Buddhist monk Buddhadāsa (1906–1993) also had a rationalistic or psychological interpretation of rebirth.
Instead of this 'literal' view, he interpreted the true meaning of rebirth as the re-arising of the sense of self or "I" or "me", a kind of "self-centredness" which is "a mental event arising out of ignorance, craving, and clinging."
[125][128][129] Jainism, like Buddhism, also believes in realms of birth[note 7] and is symbolized by its emblematic Swastika sign,[131] with ethical and moral theories of its lay practices focussing on obtaining good rebirth.
