Reincarnation / rebirth

What is reincarnation/rebirth? Clinging to self in Buddhism.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• reincarnation
• rebirth
• buddhism
• karma

[spuzvica999]

tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

[lookatmepleasesir]

@KevinSolway I'm positing the existence of the human body and brain, with its conditions, constraints and limitations. And even though streams of cause and effect split up into multiple streams, that doesn't mean there is no linear cause and effect.

[KevinSolway]

The important thing to understand is that streams of cause and effect split up into multiple streams. It doesn't matter what you posit to exist, whether it be an "I" or whatever else. Even when your "I" is no longer generated - when it is dead - its effects will continue.

[lookatmepleasesir]

@KevinSolway I experience my memories, senses, thoughts, and other conscious experiences, never the experiences of others. How another person's consciousness effects mine depends on my conditioning.

[KevinSolway]

@lookatmepleasesir It's okay to speak of "streams" of consciousness, so long as we keep in mind that these "streams" split up into countless other streams. One stream can turn into a thousand streams. Buddhists don't take this reality into account.

[lookatmepleasesir]

@KevinSolway are consciousnesses are not separate and are linked by cause and effect, but saying we aren't streams of consciousness because we are interconnected and effect the world and each other is like saying that there are no streams because streams have effects that branch out into the ecosystem.

[KevinSolway]

@xander7ful If reincarnation were true then it would be obvious to everyone. The fact that people have to go to great pains to show even the possibility of the slightest hint of an effect, means to me that it isn't true.

[xander7ful]

@KevinSolway You have not read about Dr. Stevenson's work carefully enough. When people asked him if he believed firmly in reincarnation, he would say NO. He was aware that his work was laying the groundwork to prove reincarnation, but wasn't hard, scientific evidence.

[KevinSolway]

@xander7ful Stevenson's work constitutes some of the best evidence *against* reincarnation, since if his "best cases" are the best evidence there is, then the evidence is laughable. It's not even close to being hard evidence.

If a child was born with the ability to speak, say, complex, advanced German, permanently (ie, not just fleetingly), despite that they had never heard German ever before, then that might be evidence of *something*, but the kind of evidence that people offer is a joke.

[KevinSolway]

@lookatmepleasesir "Do you agree that we are each a stream of consciousness"

Since your consciousness can affect and change my consciousness, and since my consciousness can affect and change your consciousness, it means that our consciousnesses are not separate, but are linked by cause and effect. Cause and effect is like a branched web rather than a narrow channel.