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Sorry for replying to this topic with a question. I've been quite bothered by this. Basically, I've read teachings from Master Hsuan Hua who said that a person would go through rebirth as multiple animals or plants simultaneously due to his 'soul' being fragmented (see below). In some other articles I read, he mentioned that these fragmented souls would need to join together again to take rebirth at a higher forms (e.g. multiple roosters' souls need to be integrated together to reborn as a horse, then multiple horse's souls then integrate to be a human.)
Are these proper teachings in Buddhism?
http://www.dharmasite.net/BuddhaRootFarm/
The Venerable Master Hsuan-Hua comments:
Question: "When you eat one bowl of rice, you take the life of all the grains of rice, whereas eating meat you take only one animal's life.
The Master: On the body of one single animal are a hundred thousand, in fact, sever million little organisms. These organisms are fragments of what was once an animal. The soul of a human being at death may split up to become many animals. One person can become about ten animals. That's why animals are so stupid. The soul of an animal can split up and become, in its smallest division, an organism or plant. The feelings which plants have, then, are what separated from the animals's soul when it split up at death. Although the life force of a large number of plants may appear sizeable, it is not as great as that of a single animal or a single mouthful of meat. Take, for example, rice: tens of billions of grains of rice do not contain as much life force as a single piece of meat. If you open your Five Eyes you can know this at a glance. If you haven't opened your eyes, no matter how one tries to explain it to you, you won't understand. No matter how it's explained, you won't believe it, because you haven't been a plant!
"Another example is the mosquitoes. The millions of mosquitoes on this mountain may be simply the soul of one person who has been transformed into all those bugs. It is not the case that a single human soul turns into a single mosquito. One person can turn into countless numbers of mosquitos.
"At death the nature changes, the soul scatters, and its smallest fragments become plants. Thus, there is a difference between eating plants and eating animals. What is more, plants have very short lifespans. The grass, for example, is born in the spring and dies within months. Animals live a long time. If you don't kill them, they will live for many years. Rice, regardless of conditions, will only live a short time. And so, if you really look into it, there are many factors to consider, and even science hasn't got it all straight." (Buddha Root Farm, 64) -
Tell a Theravadin that when you die your consciousness can get fragmented into many parts and be reborn into many animals or insects, I believe they are likely to give you a big silly smile. Tell them they can be reborn as a plant or some kind of vegetables? I am not sure what kind of reaction you are going to get from them. Never mind a secular Buddhist who doesn’t even believe in rebirth.
Looks like the Venerable Master’s borrows a lot of his ideas from Taoist beliefs. If what he said is from a Sutra, I would certainly like to know which Sutra states that a person’s consciousness can be fragmented upon death.
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Originally posted by Qdnboy:
Sorry for replying to this topic with a question. I've been quite bothered by this. Basically, I've read teachings from Master Hsuan Hua who said that a person would go through rebirth as multiple animals or plants simultaneously due to his 'soul' being fragmented (see below). In some other articles I read, he mentioned that these fragmented souls would need to join together again to take rebirth at a higher forms (e.g. multiple roosters' souls need to be integrated together to reborn as a horse, then multiple horse's souls then integrate to be a human.)
Are these proper teachings in Buddhism?
http://www.dharmasite.net/BuddhaRootFarm/
The Venerable Master Hsuan-Hua comments:
Question: "When you eat one bowl of rice, you take the life of all the grains of rice, whereas eating meat you take only one animal's life.
The Master: On the body of one single animal are a hundred thousand, in fact, sever million little organisms. These organisms are fragments of what was once an animal. The soul of a human being at death may split up to become many animals. One person can become about ten animals. That's why animals are so stupid. The soul of an animal can split up and become, in its smallest division, an organism or plant. The feelings which plants have, then, are what separated from the animals's soul when it split up at death. Although the life force of a large number of plants may appear sizeable, it is not as great as that of a single animal or a single mouthful of meat. Take, for example, rice: tens of billions of grains of rice do not contain as much life force as a single piece of meat. If you open your Five Eyes you can know this at a glance. If you haven't opened your eyes, no matter how one tries to explain it to you, you won't understand. No matter how it's explained, you won't believe it, because you haven't been a plant!
"Another example is the mosquitoes. The millions of mosquitoes on this mountain may be simply the soul of one person who has been transformed into all those bugs. It is not the case that a single human soul turns into a single mosquito. One person can turn into countless numbers of mosquitos.
"At death the nature changes, the soul scatters, and its smallest fragments become plants. Thus, there is a difference between eating plants and eating animals. What is more, plants have very short lifespans. The grass, for example, is born in the spring and dies within months. Animals live a long time. If you don't kill them, they will live for many years. Rice, regardless of conditions, will only live a short time. And so, if you really look into it, there are many factors to consider, and even science hasn't got it all straight." (Buddha Root Farm, 64)I have read this from some where... couldn't recall
Sorry to tell you this is not correct view... it's just about fixed view of "myself", which will stick you to stress or dissatisfactory -
Originally posted by Aik TC:
Looks like the Venerable Master’s borrows a lot of his ideas from Taoist beliefs. If what he said is from a Sutra, I would certainly like to know which Sutra states that a person’s consciousness can be fragmented upon death.
Hello Aik TC, I'm not too familiar with Taoist beliefs. In what reference do you see Taoist beliefs in the Venerable's comments? Thanks!
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Below is an extract from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hun_and_po
The number of human "souls" has been a long-standing source of controversy among Chinese religious traditions. Stevan Harrell (1979:521) concludes, "Almost every number from one to a dozen has at one time or another been proposed as the correct one." The most commonly believed numbers of "souls" in a person are one, two, three, and ten.
One "soul" or linghun é�ˆé‚ is the simplest idea.[2] Harrell gives a fieldwork example.
When rural Taiwanese perform ancestral sacrifices at home, they naturally think of the ling-hun in the tablet; when they take offerings to the cemetery, they think of it in the grave; and when they go on shamanistic trips, they think of it in the yin world. Because the contexts are separate, there is little conflict and little need for abstract reasoning about a nonexistent problem. (1979:523)
Two "souls" is a common folk belief, and reinforced by yin-yang theory. These paired souls can be called hun and po, hunpo and shen, or linghun and shen.
Three "souls" comes from widespread beliefs that the soul of a dead person can exist in the multiple locations. The missionary Justus Doolittle recorded that Chinese people in Fuzhou
Believe each person has three distinct souls while living. These souls separate at the death of the adult to whom they belong. One resides in the ancestral tablet erected to his memory, if the head of a family; another lurks in the coffin or the grave, and the third departs to the infernal regions to undergo its merited punishment. (1865 II:401–2)
Ten "souls" of sanhunqipo 三é‚ä¸ƒé„ "three hun and seven po" is not only Daoist; "Some authorities would maintain that the three-seven "soul" is basic to all Chinese religion" (Harrell 1979:522). During the Later Han period, Daoists fixed the number of hun souls at three and the number of po souls at seven. A newly deceased person may return (回é‚) to his home at some nights, sometimes one week (é 七) after his death and the seven po would disappear one by one every 7 days after death. According to Needham and Lu (1974:88), "It is a little difficult to ascertain the reason for this, since fives and sixes (if they corresponded to the viscera) would have rather been expected." Three hun may stand for the sangang 三綱 "three principles of social order: relationships between ruler-subject, father-child, and husband-wife" (Needham 1974:89). Seven po may stand for the qiqiao 七竅 "seven apertures (in the head, eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth)" or the qiqing 七情 "seven emotions (joy, anger, sorrow, fear, worry, grief, fright)" in traditional Chinese medicine (Baldrian-Hussein 2008:522). Sanhunqipo also stand for other names.