forgive me if this question has been asked before in a thread. but i have to know............
what if i'm reborn as a Muslim or Christian, etc etc in my next life ? wouldn't i be ''going backwards'' by following these false religions ?
or would a Buddhist always be reborn as a Buddhist ? so far, most of the reincarnation stories i've read seems to have people reborn in the same countries, race and sex too...................is that true ?
many thanks.
This is a good question to ponder
How can a person be born with a religion?
You mean a baby can choose which religions he/she wants?
Religions are often "chosen" by our parents then as we grow older we choose either to follow or not.
er pardon me for saying this.... why bother about something.... very unreal... like talking about reborn/rebirth?
Just be good in actions, thoughts, and mind is the most important right?
Originally posted by 2009novice:er pardon me for saying this.... why bother about something.... very unreal... like talking about reborn/rebirth?
Just be good in actions, thoughts, and mind is the most important right?
Rebirth is just as important as anything in your life.
If I were to follow your logic, you will be telling a hardworking student, "why bother something very unreal like your career? Just be good can liao."
treasure your this life. you may not have a next life.
Rebirth is also one of the motivation for buddhists to accumulate more merits.
Originally posted by As romanista2001:forgive me if this question has been asked before in a thread. but i have to know............
what if i'm reborn as a Muslim or Christian, etc etc in my next life ? wouldn't i be ''going backwards'' by following these false religions ?
or would a Buddhist always be reborn as a Buddhist ? so far, most of the reincarnation stories i've read seems to have people reborn in the same countries, race and sex too...................is that true ?
many thanks.
This is a valid concern.
However, if you are to study Buddhism and understand Buddhism thoroughly and practice it in your life, then the seeds of Buddhism will be deeply imprinted in your consciousness.
In your next life, you will not be satisfied with Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc. Even if you are born in a non-Buddhist family, you will eventually grow out of it due to dissatisfaction. When your karmic seeds ripen and you meet the dharma again, something immediately resonates with your consciousness. That is because of the seeds you have planted in your past life. It just makes sense to you and you will be naturally drawn to it.
However, I think it is still best not to count on future life. Aim to attain enlightenment in this very life. We can never truly be sure of what is to come in the next life. Will we even be reborn as a human, let alone a Buddhist? It is actually a rare opportunity to be even reborn as a human, the chances of which the Buddha compared to a tortoise hitting a particular spot on the water surface once every 100 years, or the amount of sand in one's fingers compared to the rest of the beach.
Originally posted by kcockicht:treasure your this life. you may not have a next life.
The notion that there is no rebirth is a false view rejected by Buddha.
Countless practitioners from past to present have remembered past lives, including people in this forum. Buddha for one has remembered 91 aeons of past lives.
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:This is a valid concern.
However, if you are to study Buddhism and understand Buddhism thoroughly and practice it in your life, then the seeds of Buddhism will be deeply imprinted in your consciousness.
In your next life, you will not be satisfied with Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc. Even if you are born in a non-Buddhist family, you will eventually grow out of it due to dissatisfaction. When your karmic seeds ripen and you meet the dharma again, something immediately resonates with your consciousness. That is because of the seeds you have planted in your past life. It just makes sense to you and you will be naturally drawn to it.
However, I think it is still best not to count on future life. Aim to attain enlightenment in this very life. We can never truly be sure of what is to come in the next life. Will we even be reborn as a human, let alone a Buddhist? It is actually a rare opportunity to be even reborn as a human, the chances of which the Buddha compared to a tortoise hitting a particular spot on the water surface once every 100 years, or the amount of sand in one's fingers compared to the rest of the beach.
I like what you just posted. Learn something new.
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:The notion that there is no rebirth is a false view rejected by Buddha.
Countless practitioners from past to present have remembered past lives, including people in this forum. Buddha for one has remembered 91 aeons of past lives.
What is 91 aeons of past lives?
Originally posted by Fantagf:
What is 91 aeons of past lives?
Means billions of years of past lives. Uncountable.
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:Means billions of years of past lives. Uncountable.
Amazing, he can remember billions of years of past lives. Did he meditate to remember it?
Yes. He recalled them through his samadhi.
wow, this word is new to me.
Samadhi means meditative absorption.
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:Samadhi means meditative absorption.
I thought is one of the types of meditation. What is mediative absorption?
Originally posted by Fantagf:
I thought is one of the types of meditation. What is mediative absorption?
It is a technical term that usually denotes higher levels of concentrated meditation. It has been described as a non-dualistic state of consciousness in which the consciousness of the experiencing subject becomes one with the experienced object,[1] and in which the mind becomes still (one-pointed or concentrated)[2] though the person remains conscious.
In Buddhism there are 8 levels of jhanas which are states of samadhi.
It should be noted: none of the states of samadhis are enlightenment. Nirvana transcends all states. Enlightenment is about the realisation of the nature of reality, and not about any altered states of consciousness.
Through meditation, it is taught that one can develope all sorts of psychic powers. However I would not advice people going into it until after enlightenment. However for a more thorough discussion of these powers, the dharma teacher and arhat Daniel Ingram discussed his experience in http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/318001
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:It is a technical term that usually denotes higher levels of concentrated meditation. It has been described as a non-dualistic state of consciousness in which the consciousness of the experiencing subject becomes one with the experienced object,[1] and in which the mind becomes still (one-pointed or concentrated)[2] though the person remains conscious.
In Buddhism there are 8 levels of jhanas which are states of samadhi.
It should be noted: none of the states of samadhis are enlightenment. Nirvana transcends all states. Enlightenment is about the realisation of the nature of reality, and not about any altered states of consciousness.
Through meditation, it is taught that one can develope all sorts of psychic powers. However I would not advice people going into it until after enlightenment. However for a more thorough discussion of these powers, the dharma teacher and arhat Daniel Ingram discussed his experience in http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/318001
Thanks for your explanation. I still don't get it, think too profound for me.
Originally posted by Fantagf:Thanks for your explanation. I still don't get it, think too profound for me.
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
Which part?
These parts:
It has been described as a non-dualistic state of consciousness in which the consciousness of the experiencing subject becomes one with the experienced object,[1] and in which the mind becomes still (one-pointed or concentrated)[2] though the person remains conscious.
It should be noted: none of the states of samadhis are enlightenment. Nirvana transcends all states. Enlightenment is about the realisation of the nature of reality, and not about any altered states of consciousness.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
-- something out of context, what is samsara?
Even the highest states of mundane samadhi like the 8th jhana of neither perception nor non-perception is still a state of samsara.
Samsara is any temporary states that are still not freed from the afflictions of ignorance, the mind's affliction, desires, clinging and attachment, and so on.
The jhanas are very profound meditative states, but beings who mastered such states without attaining enlightenment will only at best gain rebirth as one of these meditation gods. They will still die eventually after millions or billions of years, and take birth again in another realm, possibly in the 3 lower realms if they have past bad karma. Therefore heaven is not safe and secure according to Buddhism. Nothing is secure because you eventually die and get reborn. They are still a realm of samsara, and samsara means the world of suffering. The world of cyclic existence and rebirth, which means one keeps cycling from one birth to another, from one plane/realm of existence to another, continuously and uninterruptedly, according to one's karma. And Buddhism aims to end all sufferings even in this very lifetime (and thus in the future lifetimes, since one cuts off the causes for uncontrolled rebirth).
The 8 jhanas are made of 4 form jhanas and 4 formless jhanas. The first four jhanas have corresponding heavens where the Brahmas live in a world of forms. This is contrasted to the lower heavens, which is below the 8 jhanas heaven. The lower 6 heavens belong to the plane of sensual desires. In these 6 heavens, devas still have sex and enjoy other pleasures and enjoyment of their senses.
In the 4 form brahma realm, those beings do not have sex, and do not enjoy pleasures of senses. Rather their bliss is of a subtle kind that is not born of sensual pleasures.
For example the Buddha described the first level Jhana as follows:
“he enters & remains in the first jhana: rapture & pleasure
born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought & evaluation.
He permeates & pervades, suffuses & fills this very body with
the rapture & pleasure born from withdrawal. Just as if a skilled
bathman or bathman's apprentice would pour bath powder into a brass
basin and knead it together, sprinkling it again & again with water,
so that his ball of bath powder — saturated, moisture-laden, permeated
within & without — would nevertheless not drip; even so, the monk
permeates... this very body with the rapture & pleasure born of
withdrawal. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture
& pleasure born from withdrawal.”
Note: pleasure born from withdrawal. It is not a pleasure born from sensual experiences. But from detachment and absorption into a state of bliss that suffuses the whole body but is not born from sensual experiences, not from outer stimulus. This is actually a state that can be experienced in meditation and I also have some prior experience of this. This type of bliss is actually much more profound, subtle, beautiful and more powerful bliss than any kind of sensual bliss, including orgasm, drugs, etc. It does not derive from outside stimulus.
Now, the 8 jhanas get subtler and subtler as you enter into higher states of jhanas, from the 1st, to the 2nd, to 3rd and so on.
The first four jhanas are form jhanas, where beings in these 4 jhana planes still have attachment to corporeal form and body, even though they do not experience sensual desires. However in the 4 formless jhanas, it is totally formless, i.e. infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, and neither perception nor non-perception. Such beings do not have a body or form, they do not have attachment to any forms, their only state of existence is this formless space, consciousness, nothingness, or neither perception nor non-perception. It is a much subtler state of bliss and they can stay there for millions or billions of years until their karma and absorption runs its own course and they will again cycle through the various samsara realms.
Now, attaining enlightenment is a different matter from attaining these subtler states of meditative absorption.
Enlightenment concerns about insights into the nature of reality where one penetrates and realises the impermanent, empty, dissatisfactory, no-self, dependently originated nature of all experience. It is through these insights that one progressively breaks subtler and subtler clingings and attachment (known as the ten fetters) until eventually one becomes entirely free from the cycle of rebirth in samsara.
It should be noted that there are two types of meditation: samatha meditation is one-pointedness, concentration meditation that leads to jhana experience but not liberation or enlightenment. There is also vipassana meditation which means investigating and being aware of the true nature of all sensations and experiences in our direct present sensate reality. This will lead to enlightenment and liberation. Some people practice samatha meditation first to build a strong concentration foundation for futher vipassana practice, while some people go straight into vipassana (insight meditation) from the beginning.
In the Hinayana path, there are 4 stages of enlightenment, called the stream enterer, the once returner, the non returner, and the Arhant.
The stream enterer had a sudden glimpse of Nirvana and had some experiential, but not full, realisation of no-self. He will as a result give up the 3 lower fetters of false views of personality-self, the clinging to useless rituals and superstitions, and any skeptical doubts about the triple gems (because he already has a direct experience of what is being spoken). A stream enterer is guaranteed to attain full liberation (Arhantship) in no more than 7 lifetimes even if he dies before he could complete his journey. He is also assured that he will no longer fall into the 3 lower realms of hell, ghosts and animals, and could only be reborn either in the human or the deva (heaven) realm. However if he practices hard, he can ascend all the way to complete liberation in his very life before dying, so it is not necessary to wait for his next life.
The non-returner, second stage, has a higher level of experience and realisation and as a result removed sensual craving and ill will, the next 2 fetters, to a high degree. However he has not completely removed those 2 fetters. As a result, he is guaranteed to attain full liberation either in the human realm or the deva realm in the next life, even if he dies before he could complete his journey. However if he practices hard, he can ascend all the way to complete liberation in his very life before dying.
The non-returner, third stage, has has a higher level of experience and realisation and as a result has completely removed sensual craving and ill will, the next 2 fetters. And because he has cut off all sensual clinging, and removed such a fetter, it implies that he has cut off the root cause of rebirth in the Sensual realm of existence, which is the realms before the jhana realm. However at this stage, the anagami has not cut off the 5 higher fetters, which include clinging to form and formless states of jhana. He has not cut off craving and clinging to corporeal form, and also attachment to jhanic states. That is why as a result, if he dies before he attains full Arhatship, he will be reborn in the 4th Jhana plane and attain Arhatship from there, even though he will no longer return to the sensual realm or the human realm.
The Arhant, has basically cut off all of the 10 fetters and as a result has completely freed himself from being bound to the 3 states of existence, the sensual plane, the form jhana plane, and the formless jhana plane of samsaric rebirth.
The ten fetters are in total:
i m a buddhist (amateur one indeed) mainly because i feel strongly as part of being an asian...
to me, all good religion helps one to transcend to better beings...it is right not to over ponder what the next life is...which is not the original ideals of Buddhism....as i recall Buddha has said to his followers not to ask how the universe begin...as it is not possible to know and a waste of time to ponder over it....but to the scientists this could be key to understand how life has evolved....we should not overly react to buddhist ideals in this sense.... buddha's focus is on rightful thinking and actions - on transcending...on balanced view of self and life to lessen repercussions...
to make a zither sound right..not to pull the string too tight or too loose...not to make oneself go without food to achieve realization...be practical in the search for truth and to transcend with the right balance...
before one realize or transcend, one has to experience, and necessary to suffer practically in order to gain understanding and insight in order to find its root causes, thereby to face and correct them so that it would not be repeated...
Originally posted by RoyFang:How can a person be born with a religion?
You mean a baby can choose which religions he/she wants?
Religions are often "chosen" by our parents then as we grow older we choose either to follow or not.
Why not? The child is born in a family of a different religion.
Originally posted by As romanista2001:forgive me if this question has been asked before in a thread. but i have to know............
what if i'm reborn as a Muslim or Christian, etc etc in my next life ? wouldn't i be ''going backwards'' by following these false religions ?
or would a Buddhist always be reborn as a Buddhist ? so far, most of the reincarnation stories i've read seems to have people reborn in the same countries, race and sex too...................is that true ?
many thanks.
False religon??? LOL. All religions are false.