- Rebirth
- Dr. Peter Della Santina
In this chapter, I will look at the effects of karma in the next life
or, to put it another way, I will elaborate on the idea of rebirth. But before we begin to
talk specifically about the Buddha's teaching on rebirth, we may do well to spend a little
time on the concept of rebirth in general.
Rebirth is a concept with which many people have difficulty. This has
been especially true over the past century or so, when we have become increasingly
conditioned to think in what are regarded as scientific terms, that is to say, terms that
many people naively take to be scientific. This attitude has caused many people to discard
the idea of rebirth
because they think that it smacks of superstition and belongs to an
old-fashioned, outdated way of looking at the world. For this reason, I think we need to
redress the balance by creating a degree of open-mindedness toward the concept of rebirth
in general terms, before we begin to consider the Buddhist teaching on the subject. There
are a number of approaches we can adopt in attempting to make a case for the reality of
rebirth. One line of argument is to recall that, in almost all the major cultures of the
world at one time or another, there has been a strong popular belief in rebirth. This is
particularly true of India, where the idea can be traced back to the very earliest period
of Indian civilization. In India, all the major religions--theist or atheist, schools of
Hinduism or unorthodox doctrines like Jainism--accept the truth of
rebirth. In other cultures, too, belief in rebirth has been common. To take just one
example, in the Mediterranean world, belief in the reality of rebirth was widespread
before and during the first few centuries of the common era. Even today, it persists among
the Druze, a Middle Eastern sect of Islam. Consequently, belief in the reality of rebirth
has been an important part of the human way of thinking about the world and our place in
it.Then there is the testimony of recognized authorities who belong to various religious
traditions. In Buddhism, it was the Buddha himself who taught the truth of rebirth. We are
told that, on the night of his enlightenment, the Buddha acquired three kinds of
knowledge, the first of which was detailed knowledge of his own past lives. He recollected
the conditions under which he had been born in the past, and was able to remember what his
name and occupation had been in innumerable former lives. Besides the Buddha's testimony,
we have that of his principal disciples, who were also able to recall their past lives.
Ananda, for instance, acquired the ability to remember his past lives soon after he was
ordained as a Buddhist monk. Similarly, throughout the history of the Buddhist tradition,
accomplished practitioners have been able to remember their past lives.
Nonetheless, neither of these two arguments for the reality of rebirth
can be expected to be wholly convincing in the rational and scientific environment in
which we live, so perhaps we need to look a bit closer to home, so to speak. Here we
receive help from a very unexpected source. Some of you may be aware of the fact that in
the past three decades there has been a vast amount of scientific investigation of the
question of rebirth. Such research has been undertaken by psychologists and
parapsychologists. Through this research we have gradually built up a very convincing case
for the reality of rebirth, a case developed along scientific lines. Many books have been
published in which the details of these investigations are described and discussed.
One scholar who has been particularly active in this area in recent
years is Professor Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia, in the United States. He
has published his findings in about twenty cases of rebirth. One case, which has received
widespread attention, is that of a woman who was able to recall her life lived more than a
hundred years earlier in a foreign land, under the name of Bridey Murphy--a land she had
never visited in her present life. I will not go into the specific details of cases here,
because anyone interested in the scientific evidence for rebirth can read about it for him
or herself. Nonetheless, I think we are now at a point where even the most skeptical among
us must admit that there is a lot of circumstantial evidence in favor of the reality of
rebirth. In constructing a case for the reality of rebirth, however, we can also look even
closer to home--namely, within our own experience. We need only recollect and examine that
experience in the truly Buddhist way to see what conclusions we can derive from it. All of
us have our own particular capabilities, our own particular inclinations and
disinclinations, and I think it is fair to ask whether these are all really the result of
chance and social conditioning in early life. For instance, some of us are more capable in
sports than others. Some of us have a talent for mathematics, while others have a talent
for music. Still others like swimming, while others are afraid of water. Are all such
differences in our abilities and attitudes merely the result of chance and conditioning?
There are often dramatic and unexpected turns in the course of our personal development.
Let me take my own case. I was born into a Roman Catholic family in the
United States. There was absolutely nothing in my early background to indicate that I
would have traveled to India by the age of twenty, and that I would spend the next
two-and-a-half decades of my life predominantly in Asia, where I would become deeply
involved in Buddhist studies. Then, too, there are those situations in which we sometimes
feel a strong presentiment that we have been in a particular place before, although we
have not visited it in our present lifetime. On other occasions, we feel that we have
known someone before: we meet a person for the first time, and yet very soon we feel that
we have known that person all our lives. Alternatively, we can know someone else for years
and still feel we do not really know him or her. Experiences such as these, when we feel
that we have been in a particular situation before, are so common and universal that, even
in the culture of contemporary France, which knows almost nothing of rebirth, there is a
well-known phrase for them--the expression deja vu, which means "already seen."
If we are not dogmatic, when we add up all these indications and
suggestions--the belief in rebirth in many cultures and ages throughout the history of
human civilization, the testimony of the Buddha and his prominent disciples, the evidence
provided by scientific research, and our own personal intimations that we have been here
before--I think we will have to confess that there is at least a strong possibility that
rebirth actually is a reality.
In Buddhism, rebirth is part and parcel of the continuous process of
change. Indeed, we are not only reborn at the time of death, we are reborn at every
moment. This, like other important teachings of Buddhism, is easily verifiable by
reference to our own experience and to the teachings of science. For example, the majority
of cells that compose the human body die and are replaced many times during the course of
a lifetime. Even those few cells which last an entire lifetime undergo continuous internal
change. This is part of the process of birth, death, and rebirth. If we look at the mind,
we find that mental states (such as worry, happiness, and the like) appear and disappear
every moment. They pass away and are replaced by new and different states. Therefore,
whether we look at the body or the mind, our experience is characterized by constant
birth, death, and rebirth.
Buddhism teaches that there are various realms, spheres, or dimensions
of existence. Some texts list thirty-one such dimensions or planes of existence, but for
our purposes we will make use of a simpler scheme, which refers to six such realms. These
six realms can be divided into two groups, one that is relatively fortunate and the other,
unfortunate. The first group includes the realm of the gods, the realm of the demigods,
and the realm of human beings. Rebirth in these fortunate realms is the result of
wholesome karma. The second group includes the realm of the animals, the realm of the
hungry ghosts, and the hell realms. Rebirth in these realms of woe is the result of
unwholesome karma.Let us now look at each of these realms, beginning with the lowest.
There are quite a few hell realms in Buddhism, including eight hot hells and eight cold
hells. In the hells, living beings suffer incalculable and indescribable pain. It is said
that the suffering experienced in this human world as a consequence of being pierced by
three hundred spears in a single day is only a minute fraction of the suffering
experienced by the denizens of hell. The cause of rebirth in hell is repeated violent
behavior, such as habitual killing, cruelty, and the like.
Such actions are born of aversion, and living beings who commit them
suffer the pains of hell until the unwholesome karma they have generated through such
actions is exhausted. This last point is important, because it gives us occasion to note
that, in Buddhism, no one suffers eternal damnation. When their unwholesome karma is
exhausted, the denizens of hell are reborn in more fortunate realms of existence. The next
realm is that of the hungry ghosts. Living beings in this realm suffer chiefly from hunger
and thirst, heat and cold. They are completely bereft of the things they desire. It is
said that when the hungry ghosts see a mountain of rice or a river of fresh water and run
toward it, they find that the mountain of rice is only a heap of pebbles and the river
only a ribbon of blue slate. Similarly, it is said that in the summer even the moon feels
hot to them, while in the winter even the sun is cold.
The foremost cause of rebirth as a hungry ghost is avarice and
miserliness born of attachment and greed. As with the denizens of hell, the living beings
in this realm are not condemned to eternal existence in the form of hungry ghosts, because
when their unwholesome karma is exhausted, they will be reborn in a more fortunate realm.
In the next realm, that of animals, living beings suffer from a variety of unhappy
circumstances. They suffer from the fear and pain that results from constantly killing and
eating one another. They suffer from the human beings who kill them for food or for their
hides, pearls, or teeth. Even if they are not killed, many domestic animals are forced to
work for people who drive them on with hooks and whips. All this is a source of suffering.
The principal cause of rebirth as an animal is ignorance. The blind,
heedless pursuit of one's animal desires; preoccupation with eating, sleeping, and sexual
gratification, accompanied by disregard for the need to develop one's mind and practice
virtue--all these lead one to be reborn as an animal. Now, when we say, for instance, that
aversion is the cause of rebirth in the hells, that attachment is the cause of rebirth
among hungry ghosts, and that ignorance is the cause of rebirth in the realm of animals,
it does not mean that an isolated act motivated by aversion, attachment, or ignorance will
result in rebirth in the corresponding class of living being. What it does mean is that
there is a definite, proven relationship between aversion or hatred and rebirth in the
hells, just as there is between attachment and greed and rebirth among the hungry ghosts,
and between ignorance and rebirth among the animals. If unimpeded and unobstructed by
countervailing virtuous actions, actions habitually motivated by these unwholesome
attitudes are likely to lead to rebirth in these three states of woe.
I am going to skip the realm of human beings for the moment in order to
go on to the realm of the demigods. The demigods are physically more powerful and mentally
more acute than human beings, yet they suffer because of jealousy and conflict. According
to ancient Indian mythology, the demigods and gods share a celestial tree. While the gods
enjoy the fruit of this tree, the demigods are custodians of its roots. Consequently, they
are envious of the gods and constantly attempt to take the fruit from them. They fight the
gods but are defeated and suffer greatly as a result. Because of this rampant jealousy and
conflict, rebirth among the demigods is unhappy and unfortunate.
As in the case of the other realms, there is a cause of rebirth among
the demigods. On the positive side, the cause is generosity, while on the negative side,
the cause is jealousy and envy.
The realm of the gods is the happiest of the six realms. As a
consequence of wholesome actions done in the past, observation of the codes of good
conduct, and the practice of meditation, living beings are reborn among the gods, where
they enjoy sensual pleasures, spiritual happiness, or supreme tranquillity, depending on
the level of the realm in which they are born. Nonetheless, the realm of the gods is not
to be desired because the happiness of the gods is impermanent. No matter how much they
may enjoy their existence, when the force of their wholesome karma is exhausted, the
effects of their good conduct and experience of meditation spent, the gods fall from
heaven and are reborn in another realm. At that moment, it is said that the gods suffer
even more mental anguish than the physical pain suffered by other living beings in the
other realms.
The gods are reborn in the heavens as a consequence of their practice
of good conduct and meditation, but there is also a negative factor associated with
rebirth in the heavens, and this is pride.As you can see, we have an affliction or
defilement associated with each of these five realms--hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals,
demigods, and gods--namely, aversion, attachment, ignorance, jealousy, and pride,
respectively. Birth in any of these five realms is undesirable. The three lower realms are
undesirable for obvious reasons--both because of the intense suffering in them and because
of the total ignorance of the beings who inhabit these realms. Even rebirth in the realms
of the demigods and gods is undesirable because, although one experiences a certain degree
of happiness and power among them, existence there is impermanent. Besides, the
distractions and pleasures in these realms keep the beings there from looking for a way
out of the cycle of birth and death. This is why it is said that, of the six realms of
existence, the most fortunate, opportune, and favored is the human realm. This is also why
I have left our discussion of the human realm until last.
The human realm is the most favored of the six realms because, as a
human being, one has the motivation and opportunity to practice the Dharma and achieve
enlightenment. One has this motivation and opportunity because the conditions conducive to
practicing the path are present. In the human realm, one experiences both happiness and
suffering. The suffering in this realm, though terrible, is not as great as the suffering
in the three realms of woe. The pleasure and happiness experienced in the human realm are
not as great as the pleasure and intense happiness experienced by beings in the heavens,
nor are humans overwhelmed by the unbearable suffering that beings in the hells undergo.
And unlike animals, human beings possess sufficient intelligence to recognize the
necessity of looking for a means to achieve the total end of suffering.
Human birth is difficult to gain from a number of points of view. First
of all, it is difficult from the point of view of its cause. Good conduct is the foremost
cause of rebirth as a human being, but truly good conduct is exceedingly rare. Second,
human birth is difficult to gain from the point of view of number, for human beings are
only a small fraction of the living beings who inhabit the six realms. Third, it is not
enough simply to be born as a human being, because there are countless humans who do not
have the opportunity to practice the Dharma. It is therefore not only necessary to be born
as a human but also to have the opportunity to practice the Dharma, developing one's
qualities of morality, mental development, and wisdom.
The Buddha used a simile to illustrate the rarity and precious nature
of opportune birth among human beings. Suppose the whole world were a vast ocean, and on
the surface of this ocean a yoke floated, blown about by the wind. Suppose, further, that
at the bottom of the ocean there lived a blind tortoise who came to the surface only once
every hundred years. The Buddha said that it is as rare to attain opportune birth as a
human as for that tortoise to place his neck through the yoke when rising to the surface.
Elsewhere, it is said that to be born as a human being with the opportunity to practice
the Dharma is as rare as it would be to throw a handful of dried peas against a stone wall
and have one pea stick in a crack in it.
Thus it is foolish to waste human existence, not to mention the
fortunate conditions that we enjoy in free societies such as the opportunity we have to
practice the Dharma. It is extremely important that, having this opportunity, we make use
of it. If we fail to practice the Dharma in this life, there is no way of knowing where in
the six realms we will be reborn, or when we will have such a chance again. We must strive
to free ourselves from the cycle of rebirth because failing to do so means that we
continue to circle endlessly among these six realms of existence. When the karma,
wholesome or unwholesome, that causes us to be born in any of the six realms is exhausted,
rebirth occurs, and we find ourselves again in another realm.
It is said that all of us have circled in these six realms since
beginningless time. It is also said that if all the skeletons we have had in our various
lives were heaped up, the pile would exceed the height of Mount Sumeru, that if all the
mother's milk we have drunk in our countless existences were collected together, it would
amount to more than all the water in all the oceans. Now that we have the opportunity to
practice the Dharma, we must do so without delay.
In recent years, there has been a tendency to interpret the six realms
in psychological terms. Some teachers have suggested that the experiences of the six
realms are available to us in this very life. This is true as far as it goes. Men and
women who find themselves in prisons, tortured, killed, and so forth are undoubtedly
experiencing situations similar to those of the hell beings; those who are miserly and
avaricious experience a state of mind similar to that of the hungry ghosts; those who are
animal-like experience a state of mind similar to that of animals; those who are
quarrelsome, power-hungry, and jealous experience a state of mind like that of the
demigods; and those who are pure, tranquil, serene, and exalted experience a state of mind
similar to that of the gods.
And yet, although the experiences of the six realms are to some extent
available to us in this human existence, I think it would be a mistake to assume or
believe that the other five realms of existence do not have a reality which is as real as
our own human experience. The hell realms and the realms of the hungry ghosts, animals,
demigods, and gods are as real as our human realm. You will recall that mind is the
creator of all things.
Actions done with a pure mind (motivated by generosity, love, and so
forth) result in happiness, in states of existence like the human realm and the realm of
the gods. But actions done with an impure mind (motivated by attachment, aversion, and the
like) result in unhappy states like those of the hungry ghosts and hell beings.
Finally, I would like to distinguish rebirth from transmigration. You
may not know that, in Buddhism, we consistently speak of rebirth, not transmigration. This
is because in Buddhism we do not believe in an abiding entity, or substance, that
transmigrates. We do not believe in a self that is reborn. This is why, when we explain
rebirth, we make use of examples that do not require the transmigration of an essence or a
substance. For example, when a sprout is born from a seed, there is no substance that
transmigrates. The seed and the sprout are not identical. Similarly, when we light one
candle from another candle, no substance travels from one to the other, even though the
first is the cause of the second. When one billiard ball strikes another, there is a
continuity; the energy and direction of the first ball is imparted to the second. The
first ball is the cause of the second billiard ball moving in a particular direction and
at a particular speed, but it is not the same ball. When we step twice into a river, it is
not the same river, and yet there is continuity, the continuity of cause and effect. Hence
there is rebirth, but not transmigration. Moral responsibility exists, but not an
independent, permanent self. The continuity of cause and effect exists, but not
permanence. I want to end with this point because we will be considering the example of
the seed and the sprout, and the example of the flame in an oil lamp, in Chapter 10, when
we discuss interdependent origination. Thereafter, we will better understand how
interdependent origination makes moral responsibility and not-self compatible.
-oOo-
[Taken from Peter Della Santina., The Tree of Enlightenment. (Taiwan:
The Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation, 1997), pp. 85-95].
-oOo-
Sincere thanks to Ti.nh Tue^. for typing
this article.