About reincarnation and other Buddhist Dhamma

[Anonymous]

I’ve moved the last posts under ‘what’s outside my door’ here, so that we may continue from here…

seetoh said:

DasWARDEN wrote:
You are making it sound alot more complicated than it should be.

Which one are you referring to? The brain or the mind?

Ajeyya wrote:
a baby does not take on this new life immediately. there are memories of the past and if the child was from the hungry ghost realm, still able to communicate with those of the other world. sometimes the child smiles, sometimes cry….

it takes sometime for the child to eventually cut off from this previous birth and pay attention to the present one. there is a need to remember that there is one stream of consciousness (not any soul or being) that gets reincarnated into a new body….

That’s the info that’s helpful to me. The above contradicts to what I have in mind about reincarnation. However, I’m very open minded and willing to accept new ideas. So please provide more info on the above statements.

DasWARDEN said:

seetoh wrote:
Which one are you referring to? The brain or the mind?

I will put it in more verbose way:

The Mind and it’s faculty to reason, to think, to absorb and to classify are all but a result of the interaction between Neurons in The Brain through the use of Electricity – which is physically there when Nerves develop.

They then Overlap to shape our character, our personality, our psycho-motor skills – which in turn comes full circle to the ability to speak, to handle and to procure something that we would call: “perception of reality for the individual” which will vary because of:

1. external stimuli
2. environment
3. cultivation

For that, we comes to the point of: Paradigm.

No strange invisible empires and black hole universes involved for sure.

About reincarnation, it begins from the moment of conception. But before i go into this, it must be realised that there are a few modes of birth, and at this instant i will just give a simple note on womb-born and spontaneous birth, and egg-born

by womb-born, it means us, human beings, animals as well. egg-born is easy to understand as well, just as birds and most amphibians. as for spontaneous birth, well, this is where the unseen beings are involved.

a being with excellent merits may attain spontaneous birth upon death, and become a deva. deva is ‘ever-young’, always at the youthful age of 16 or 17. however, they too, come to a decline at the extinction of their kamma, subject to old age too at a certain time. however, their decline is not like us. their decline is depicted by the lack of lustre and glow of their body, and for the first time they will see their clothes withering, their garden with flowers withering (an interesting note is that when a deva is born, his ‘home’ is born as well, complete with gardens and thousands of kinds of beautiful flowers that never fades, until the point where the deva himself is withering, signs of the ending of that kamma which gave him that birth).

as for one with bad merits, he may get spontaneous birth as a lower being (namely our usual ‘ghost’) or even spontaneous birth to hells.

it is a misconception in our Chinese folklore to think that one will definitely become a ghost upon death, and wait for a reincarnation. reincarnation happened at the moment of death, where the kammic force moved from one being to another, and the only difference is just which kind of being one becomes, whether seen or unseen by the naked eye.

hence, a ghost or a deva or a human or an animal are all the same, all are ‘beings’, subject to kamma and to birth and death. the idea of reincarnation was already polluted by the television we watch, where we really believed that people die and linger around as ghosts for a moment before they go for their next ‘reincarnation’. but in actual fact, the spontaneous birth as a ghost is already a reincarnation as itself.

[Anonymous]

@Ajeyya wrote:

but in actual fact, the spontaneous birth as a ghost is already a reincarnation as itself.

The term “spontaneous” as I checked the dictionary that means “Happening or arising without apparent external cause; self-generated.” So I assumed this term used here is to imply solely on the karmic force. Meaning one goes to which realm after death due to his doings with no other beings manipulating the process. Am I right?

As you said, reincarnation happens immediately after death. Usually people say it’s the soul. Can I say it’s the mind? And what’s the difference between the soul and the mind?

[Anonymous]

In Buddhism, there is just the mind and matter, and the driving force of existence, kamma. there is no soul.

Yes, the definition of spontaneous in the dictionary applies. as said, it’s just a kammic force, good or bad, which will lead to the existence. in a certain kammic condition at the death moment, the person may be instantly reborn upon the dissolution of his present kamma as a human being to something else: hungry ghost, deva, naga, animal, human being, insect, yakkha, yama or whatever.

think of electricity. from some cause, hydraulic or whatever, it becomes an energy source to our home. a single switch turned on, and the electricity transforms and gives us light from the bulb. there is only a cause and effect, the cause in our homefront being a switch turned on, and the electricity’s ‘life’ is transformed from source to the electrical appliance.

similarly, if there is no more kamma, there will be no more being. if there is no electricity in the first place, there won’t be electrical appliances in this world.

and so, in Buddhism, meditation is the key towards the extinction of this kammic force, this electricity. there is no soul involved, nothing personal, nothing worth clinging on to.

[Anonymous]

@Ajeyya wrote:

In Buddhism, there is just the mind and matter, and the driving force of existence, kamma. there is no soul.

I see. So the term “soul” is not applicable in Buddhism.

Before I continue the questions for mind, could you please revise with me the 10 realms and which realm takes form.

[Anonymous]

Dear Seetoh,

Let me intervene abit.

Ajeyya, you maintain a website for Buddhism, do you not?

It would be better to discuss it there, we can provide a link from here, so people can read it, you get to promote http://www.twinpumpkins.com or http://www.twinpumpkins.blogspot.com and this forum does not become a learning center.

[Anonymous]

No problem, abductboy. In fact, there are many suttas that i’ve put in, into the Perfect Living section of TwinPumpkins.com, link as ab had placed above. 🙂 the texts are in pdf or html, can’t remember which is which, but those done earlier were all pdf, and later, html.

many questions do get answered in there, just requires some very careful reading.

and of course, if you do have any queries, you can still write to me, email me, or pm to me. however, at this point, i will explain in another thread, that i won’t be able to access the internet so easily.

[Anonymous]

@abductboy wrote:

… this forum does not become a learning center.

Hi abductboy, I’m sorry if my questions gave you the wrong idea. I should have rephrase it to another way of asking. I have no intention of making this forum becoming a learning center nor am I promoting Buddhism because I’m not a Buddhist.

What I want is to gather some info regarding the mind through interaction rather than doing bored reading. At least I can have someone to explain what he/she meant when replying me. Hope this clear any misunderstanding.

[Anonymous]

I understand.

But since you aren’t really discussing it, merely asking, I ask Ajeyya to post the answers in her own website.

She is the webmaster of her own website, which focus is mainly towards Buddhism.. thus it would be to her advantage to have those questions and answers written in her own website.

That would bring some traffic to her website as well as providing a update to her web.

[Anonymous]

😆 ya, i’m getting lazy on the updates, especially because i don’t have an internet connection at home. now i only go to internet cafe and they don’t have those CuteFTP stuff here.

but i might just do it another way, perhaps i’ll just revamp the forum site of twinpumpkins and put Buddhist stuff in there. hihi… that was the objection of my ex-partner, the male admin of the site, because he thinks that i’m too stupid to answer anything. 😆

[Author]

Posts

[Anonymous]

I’ve moved the last posts under ‘what’s outside my door’ here, so that we may continue from here…

seetoh said:

DasWARDEN wrote:
You are making it sound alot more complicated than it should be.

Which one are you referring to? The brain or the mind?

Ajeyya wrote:
a baby does not take on this new life immediately. there are memories of the past and if the child was from the hungry ghost realm, still able to communicate with those of the other world. sometimes the child smiles, sometimes cry….

it takes sometime for the child to eventually cut off from this previous birth and pay attention to the present one. there is a need to remember that there is one stream of consciousness (not any soul or being) that gets reincarnated into a new body….

That’s the info that’s helpful to me. The above contradicts to what I have in mind about reincarnation. However, I’m very open minded and willing to accept new ideas. So please provide more info on the above statements.

DasWARDEN said:

seetoh wrote:
Which one are you referring to? The brain or the mind?

I will put it in more verbose way:

The Mind and it’s faculty to reason, to think, to absorb and to classify are all but a result of the interaction between Neurons in The Brain through the use of Electricity – which is physically there when Nerves develop.

They then Overlap to shape our character, our personality, our psycho-motor skills – which in turn comes full circle to the ability to speak, to handle and to procure something that we would call: “perception of reality for the individual” which will vary because of:

1. external stimuli
2. environment
3. cultivation

For that, we comes to the point of: Paradigm.

No strange invisible empires and black hole universes involved for sure.

About reincarnation, it begins from the moment of conception. But before i go into this, it must be realised that there are a few modes of birth, and at this instant i will just give a simple note on womb-born and spontaneous birth, and egg-born

by womb-born, it means us, human beings, animals as well. egg-born is easy to understand as well, just as birds and most amphibians. as for spontaneous birth, well, this is where the unseen beings are involved.

a being with excellent merits may attain spontaneous birth upon death, and become a deva. deva is ‘ever-young’, always at the youthful age of 16 or 17. however, they too, come to a decline at the extinction of their kamma, subject to old age too at a certain time. however, their decline is not like us. their decline is depicted by the lack of lustre and glow of their body, and for the first time they will see their clothes withering, their garden with flowers withering (an interesting note is that when a deva is born, his ‘home’ is born as well, complete with gardens and thousands of kinds of beautiful flowers that never fades, until the point where the deva himself is withering, signs of the ending of that kamma which gave him that birth).

as for one with bad merits, he may get spontaneous birth as a lower being (namely our usual ‘ghost’) or even spontaneous birth to hells.

it is a misconception in our Chinese folklore to think that one will definitely become a ghost upon death, and wait for a reincarnation. reincarnation happened at the moment of death, where the kammic force moved from one being to another, and the only difference is just which kind of being one becomes, whether seen or unseen by the naked eye.

hence, a ghost or a deva or a human or an animal are all the same, all are ‘beings’, subject to kamma and to birth and death. the idea of reincarnation was already polluted by the television we watch, where we really believed that people die and linger around as ghosts for a moment before they go for their next ‘reincarnation’. but in actual fact, the spontaneous birth as a ghost is already a reincarnation as itself.

[Anonymous]

@Ajeyya wrote:

but in actual fact, the spontaneous birth as a ghost is already a reincarnation as itself.

The term “spontaneous” as I checked the dictionary that means “Happening or arising without apparent external cause; self-generated.” So I assumed this term used here is to imply solely on the karmic force. Meaning one goes to which realm after death due to his doings with no other beings manipulating the process. Am I right?

As you said, reincarnation happens immediately after death. Usually people say it’s the soul. Can I say it’s the mind? And what’s the difference between the soul and the mind?

[Anonymous]

In Buddhism, there is just the mind and matter, and the driving force of existence, kamma. there is no soul.

Yes, the definition of spontaneous in the dictionary applies. as said, it’s just a kammic force, good or bad, which will lead to the existence. in a certain kammic condition at the death moment, the person may be instantly reborn upon the dissolution of his present kamma as a human being to something else: hungry ghost, deva, naga, animal, human being, insect, yakkha, yama or whatever.

think of electricity. from some cause, hydraulic or whatever, it becomes an energy source to our home. a single switch turned on, and the electricity transforms and gives us light from the bulb. there is only a cause and effect, the cause in our homefront being a switch turned on, and the electricity’s ‘life’ is transformed from source to the electrical appliance.

similarly, if there is no more kamma, there will be no more being. if there is no electricity in the first place, there won’t be electrical appliances in this world.

and so, in Buddhism, meditation is the key towards the extinction of this kammic force, this electricity. there is no soul involved, nothing personal, nothing worth clinging on to.

[Anonymous]

@Ajeyya wrote:

In Buddhism, there is just the mind and matter, and the driving force of existence, kamma. there is no soul.

I see. So the term “soul” is not applicable in Buddhism.

Before I continue the questions for mind, could you please revise with me the 10 realms and which realm takes form.

[Anonymous]

Dear Seetoh,

Let me intervene abit.

Ajeyya, you maintain a website for Buddhism, do you not?

It would be better to discuss it there, we can provide a link from here, so people can read it, you get to promote http://www.twinpumpkins.com or http://www.twinpumpkins.blogspot.com and this forum does not become a learning center.

[Anonymous]

No problem, abductboy. In fact, there are many suttas that i’ve put in, into the Perfect Living section of TwinPumpkins.com, link as ab had placed above. 🙂 the texts are in pdf or html, can’t remember which is which, but those done earlier were all pdf, and later, html.

many questions do get answered in there, just requires some very careful reading.

and of course, if you do have any queries, you can still write to me, email me, or pm to me. however, at this point, i will explain in another thread, that i won’t be able to access the internet so easily.

[Anonymous]

@abductboy wrote:

… this forum does not become a learning center.

Hi abductboy, I’m sorry if my questions gave you the wrong idea. I should have rephrase it to another way of asking. I have no intention of making this forum becoming a learning center nor am I promoting Buddhism because I’m not a Buddhist.

What I want is to gather some info regarding the mind through interaction rather than doing bored reading. At least I can have someone to explain what he/she meant when replying me. Hope this clear any misunderstanding.

[Anonymous]

I understand.

But since you aren’t really discussing it, merely asking, I ask Ajeyya to post the answers in her own website.

She is the webmaster of her own website, which focus is mainly towards Buddhism.. thus it would be to her advantage to have those questions and answers written in her own website.

That would bring some traffic to her website as well as providing a update to her web.

[Anonymous]

😆 ya, i’m getting lazy on the updates, especially because i don’t have an internet connection at home. now i only go to internet cafe and they don’t have those CuteFTP stuff here.

but i might just do it another way, perhaps i’ll just revamp the forum site of twinpumpkins and put Buddhist stuff in there. hihi… that was the objection of my ex-partner, the male admin of the site, because he thinks that i’m too stupid to answer anything. 😆

[Author]

Posts