DeDanan
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I just found this explanation of Rebirth...
Rebirth
Unsatisfied desire for existence and sensual pleasures is the cause of rebirth.
Buddhists regard the doctrine of rebirth not as a mere theory but as a verifiable fact. The belief in rebirth forms a fundamental tenet of Buddhism. However, the belief in rebirth is not confined to Buddhist; it is also found in other countries, in other religions, and even among free thinkers. Pythagoras could remember his previous birth. Plato could remember a number of his previous lives. According to Plato, man can be reborn only up to ten times. Plato also believed in the possibility of rebirth in the animal kingdom. Among the ancient people in Egypt and China, a common belief was that only well-known personalities like emperors and kings have rebirths. A well-known Christian authority named Origen, who lived in 185-254 A.D., believed in rebirth. According to him, there is no eternal suffering in a (form of -purgatory-)*. Gorana Bruno, who lived in the sixteenth century, believed that the soul of every man and animal transmigrates from one being to another. In 1788, a well-known philosopher, Kant, criticized eternal punishment. Kant also believed in the possibility of rebirth in other celestial bodies. Schopenhauer (1788-1860), another great philosopher, said that where the will to live existed there must be of necessity life. The will to live manifests itself successively in ever new forms. The Buddha explained this 'will to exist' as the craving for existence.
It is possible but not very easy for us to actually verify our past lives. The nature of mind is such that it does not allow most people the recollection of their previous lives. Our minds are overpowered by the five hindrances: sensual desire, ill-will, sloth, restlessness and doubt. Because of these hindrances, our vision is earth-bound and hence we cannot visualize rebirths. Just as a mirror does not reflect an image when it is covered with dirt, so the mind does not allow most people the recollection of previous lives. We cannot see the stars during daytime, not because they are not there in the sky, but because they are outshone by the sunlight. Similarly, we cannot remember our past lives because our mind at present is always over-burdened with many thoughts in the present, day-to-day events and mundane circumstances.
A consideration of the shortness of our life-span on earth will help us to reflect on rebirth. If we consider life and its ultimate meaning and goal, and all the varied experience possible for man, we must conclude that in a single life there is not enough time for man to carry out all that is intended by nature, to say nothing about what man himself desires to do. The scale of experience is enormous. There is a vast range of powers latent in man which we see and can even develop if the opportunity is presented to us. This especially true today if special investigation is made. We find ourselves with high aspirations but with no time to attain them. Meanwhile, the great troop of passions and desires, selfish motives and ambitions, make war within us and with others. These forces pursue each other to the time of our death. All these forces must be tried, conquered, subdued and used. One life is just not enough for all this. To say that we must have but one life here with such possibilities put before us and impossible to develop is to make the universe and life a huge and cruel joke.
The Buddha doctrine of rebirth should be differentiated from the teachings of transmigration and reincarnation of other religions. Buddhism denies the existence of a permanent, god-created soul or an unchanging entity that transmigrates from one life to another.
Just as relative identity is made possible by causal continuity without a Self or Soul, so death can issue in rebirth without a transmigrating Soul. In a single life, each thought-moment flashes in and out of being, giving rise to its successor with its perishing. Strictly speaking, this momentary rise and fall of every thought is a birth and death. Thus even in a single life we undergo countless births and deaths every second. But because the mental process continues with the support of a single physical body, we regard the mind-body continuum as constituting a single life.
What we ordinarily mean by death is the cessation of the body's vital functions. When the physical body loses its vitality it can no longer support the current of consciousness, the mental side of the process. But as long as there is a clinging to life, a desire to go on existing, the current of consciousness does not come to a stop with the body's loss of life. Rather, when death takes place, when the body dies away, the mental current, driven by the thirst for more existence, will spring up again with the support of a new physical body, one which has just come into being through the meeting of sperm and egg. Thus, rebirth takes place immediately after death. The steam of memory may be interrupted and the sense of identity transferred to the new situation, but the entire accumulation of experience and disposition has been transmitted to the newborn being, and the cycle of becoming begins to revolve for still another term.
For Buddhism, therefore, death does not spell either the entrance to eternal life or complete annihilation. It is, rather, the portal to a new rebirth which will be followed by more growth, decay, and then till another death.
At the last moment, no renewed physical functioning occurs in a dying man's mind. This is just like a motorist releasing the accelerator before stopping, so that no more pulling power is given to the engine. Similarly, no more material qualities of Kamma arise.
Buddhists do not maintain that the present life is the only life between two eternities of misery and happiness; nor do they believe angels will carry them to heaven and leave them there for all eternity. They believe that this present life is only one of the indefinite numbers of states of being and that this earthly life is but one episode among many others. They believe that all beings will be reborn somewhere for a limited period of time as long as their good and bad Kamma remains in the subconscious mind in the form of mental energy. The interpretation of the subconscious mind in the Buddhist context should not be confused with that given by modern psychologists since the concepts are not exactly synonymous.
What is the cause of rebirth? The Buddha taught that ignorance produces desires. Unsatisfied desire is the cause of rebirth. When all unsatisfied desire is extinguished, then rebirth ceases. To stop rebirth is to extinguish all desires. To extinguish desire, it is necessary to destroy ignorance. When ignorance is destroyed, the worthlessness of every such rebirth, is perceived, as well as the paramount need to adopt a course of life by which the desire for such repeated births can be abolished.
Ignorance also begets the illusive and illogical idea that there is only one existence for man, and the other illusion that this one life is followed by states of eternal pleasure or torment.
The Buddha taught that ignorance can be dispelled and sorrow removed by realization of the Four Noble Truths, and not through any other source. To disperse all ignorance, one must persevere in the practice of an all-embracing altruism in conduct, intelligence and wisdom. One must also destroy all desire for the lower, personal pleasures and selfish desire.
How does rebirth take place? When this physical body is no more capable of functioning, energies do not die with it, but continue to take some other shape or form, which we call another life. The kammic force manifesting itself in the form of a human being can also manifest itself in the form of an animal. This can happen if man has no chance to develop his positive kammic forces. This force, called craving, desire, volition, thirst to live, does not end with the non-functioning of the body but continues to manifest itself in another form, producing re-existence which is called rebirth.
Today, there are people in various countries who have spontaneously developed memory of their past births. The experiences of these people have been well-documented in newspapers and periodicals. Some of these people never accepted that there was such a thing as rebirth until memory fragments of their previous lives came to them. Much of the information they revealed about their past lives has been investigated and found to be valid.
Through hypnotism, some people have managed to reveal information of previous lives. Certain hypnotic states that penetrate into the subconscious mind make the recalling of past lives possible.
Rebirth or becoming again and again is a natural occurrence not created by any particular religion or god. Belief in rebirth or disbelief does not make any difference to the process of rebirth or avoiding rebirth. Rebirth takes place as long as craving for existence and craving for sensual pleasures or attachment exist in the mind. Those strong mental forces prevail in each and every living being in this universe. Those who hope and pray that they be not born again must understand that their wishes will not materialize until they make earnest efforts to eradicate their craving and attachment. Having seen and experienced the uncertainty and unsatisfactoriness of life under worldly conditions, wise people try to rid themselves of these repeated births and deaths by following the correct path. Those who cannot reduce their craving and attachment must be prepared to face all unsatisfactory and uncertain situations associated with rebirth and becoming again and again.
Is Rebirth Simultaneous?
Another difficult thing to understand about rebirth is whether the occurrence of rebirth is simultaneous or not. This is a controversial issue even amongst prominent Buddhist Scholars. According to Abhidhamma, rebirth (conception) takes place immediately after the death of a being without any intermediate state. At the same time, some others believe that a person, after his death, would evolve into a spirit form for a certain number of days before rebirth takes place. Another interpretation regarding the same belief is that it is not the spirit, but the deceased person's consciousness or mental energy remaining in space, supported by his own mental energies of craving and attachment. However, sooner or later rebirth must take place. The spirits (petas), who are beings born in spirit forms, are unfortunate living beings and their lives in the spirit form is not permanent. It is also a form of rebirth which is temporary.
Another concept that many people cannot understand is that in the process of rebirth a man can be reborn as an animal and an animal can be reborn as a man. The animal nature of the man's mind and the animal way of life adopted by him can condition him to be born as an animal. The condition and behavior of the mind is responsible for the next existence. On the other hand, a person who is born in animal form, owing to certain mental abuses during a previous birth, could be reborn as a human being, if that animal has not committed any serious evil acts. It is a well-known fact that some animals are very intelligent and understanding. This is a clear evidence to prove that they are tending towards the human life. A person who is born as an animal can again be born as a human being when the bad kamma which conditioned his birth as an animal is expended and the good kamma which was stored becomes dominant.
Dying Moment
In the dying man's consciousness, there are three types of consciousness (Vinnana) functioning at the moment of death :rebirth-linking consciousness (patisandhi-citta), the current of passive consciousness or the current of life-continuum (bhavanga) and consciousness disconnecting the present life (cuti-citta). At the last moment of a man's present life the (patisandhi-citta) or rebirth-linking consciousness arises, having the three signs as its objects. The patisandhi-citta remains in the course of cognition for five faint thought-moments Javana and then sinks down into bhavanga. At the end of bhavanga the cuti-citta arises, disconnecting the present life and sinks down into bhavanga. At this very moment comes the end of the present life. At the end of that bhavanga another patisandhi-citta rises up in the next life and from this very moment the new life begins. This is the process of death and rebirth according to Buddhism, and only in Buddhism is the process of these natural phenomena found explained in minute detail.
A Buddhist faces death not as a crisis in life but as a normal event, for he knows that whoever is born must suffer, 'decay', and ultimately die. Or, as someone so aptly puts it, 'Everyone is born with the certificate of death at his birth.' If we could all look at death such an intelligent and rational way, we would not cling to life so tenaciously.
'Ayamantima jatinatthidani punabbhavo"
This is my final birth and there is no more rebirth for me.
(Dhamma Cakka Sutta).
-ooOoo-
(* I edited your post only to offer an alternate term to the word the system censored)
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If you send the money with Western Union you can specify the city/ town where it is collected and that the person collecting it has id with them. It may be more expensive this way though.
Have a Happy...
DeDanan
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An elderly couple go to a sex therapist's office.
The doctor asks, "What can I do for you?"
The man says, "Will you watch us have sexual intercourse?"
The doctor raises both eyebrows, but he is so amazed that such an elderly couple is asking for sexual advice that he agrees.
When the couple finish, the doctor says, "There's absolutely nothing
Wrong with the way you have intercourse."
He thanks them for coming, he wishes them good luck, he charges them
£50 and he says goodbye.
The next week, however, the couple return and asks the sex therapist
To watch again. The sex therapist is a bit puzzled, but agrees.
This happens several weeks in a row. The couple makes an appointment,
Have intercourse with no problems, pay the doctor, then leave. Finally,
after 5 or 6 weeks of this routine, the doctor says, "I'm sorry, but I have to ask.
Just what are you trying to find out?"
The old man says, "We're not trying to find out anything.
She's married and we can't go to her house.
I'm married and we can't go to my house.
The Holiday Inn charges €98.
The Hilton charges €139.
We do it here for €50, and I get €43 back from BUPA!"
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Who makes the decision on granting the tourist visa? Is it the (Foreign) Embassy in Bangkok or is the decision made in the country to which the person wants to go?
In the case of Ireland the decision is made in Ireland, Dept of Foregin Affairs and Dept of Justice. Nearly always refused on first application and you have to appeal the decision.
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Hi All,
I have bought 3 books on Buddhism, they tell me about: Buddha’s life, His teachings, The 4 Noble Truth’s, Eight Fold Path. The different Buddhist schools and Meditation styles.
But no basic answers to the questions I asked above so I can understand the BASICS of what Theravada Buddhists believe about Re-Birth and beyond.
If asked what happens after death in the Roman Catholic belief I might answer:
If one leads a “good” life and follows the 10 Commandments (rules) worships God then after death one might expect to go to Heaven for eternity. Live there in the presence of God and be reunited with family and loved ones.
If one leads a “evil” life after death one might expect to go to H€ll for eternity and not be happy there!
Basic and Clear (true or not is another question)
Ok, Buddhists believe in a cycle of Re-Birth, how you lead your life influences how you come back (does a superior being make the decision?) The cycle ends when one becomes “Enlightened” (?) and then enters Nirvana (?)
Is Nirvana a permanent state?
Can anyone clarify what Theravada Buddhists believe about Re-Birth and beyond.
Have a Happy…
DeDanan
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Thank you Dr. Pat for your support, I hope it proves beneficial for all!
DeDanan
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Hi Andyinkat,
When I said it is better to experience Thailand as an innocent, well I thought you had “condom sense” don’t go there with out one. And dare I say but if you find a BG who is ok about not using a condom “well its your life” SHORT AS IT MAY TURN OUT TO BE!!!
You seem concerned about the cost, all I can say on this subject is no where on earth will you get better value for money.
The real cost in Thailand is not what you might pay on the occasion, it is the cost like any addiction, of the knowledge once caught in Thailand’s Web you are hooked!!!
For most of us who are hooked, when we leave the Kingdom we are thinking how soon can we get back. In the last 3 years I have been to Thailand 9 times, however if I won a free trip all expenses paid to anywhere in the world Yes it would be Thailand.
Have a Happy…
DeDanan.
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How do you say:
Up to you!
Have a Happy...
DeDanan
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[QUOTE=Snark,Mon 2004-05-24, 23:52:57]To compete with others ultimately only serves the ego. To say something which elicits a refute is as much an error as to refute another: you offer nothing other than an attempt to sway a person to your own thinking.
Productive thought is to quietly speak your own wisdoms, prepared to withdraw them should they serve to create strife. For in creating that strife, the one who has spoken first is as much in error as those who rebut and refute.
Why is this? They were spoken not to serve as an arguement but only to give information. True. They may appear to serve that original purpose, but what then? To place value on them is an error for they are only words. They served only to create strife. Was that the reason why they were spoken?
While an arguemt may serve a purpose, as each expresses a different view, is it not far more productive for each person to quietly express their own unique view? The discourse then becomes a presentation for each person to make his own comparison.
A person goes to school. He competes at sports. He competes in the classroom. He may win great fame and notoriety. But until he learns his own wisdoms and expresses them, he will forever remain at that school. The dissertation, the thesis, will be rejected automatically as long as it only bears arguements, rebuttals of others works and efforts.
Should someone wish to refute what I state here, it too will be deleted. I will bow to the wisdoms of others. I have spoken my peace, and have moved on. There are more than enough arguements in the world without my contributing.
Should there be a forum on Buddhism? Will this create strife and dissention as each seeks to ague his own viewpoint?[/QUOTE]
Sorry Stark i had to "Quote" you before you delete it. I do like some of what you say BUT want to suggest a different view about the forum
Will this create strife and dissention as each seeks to ague his own viewpoint?
OR
Will this create understanding as we learn from the viewpoints of others?
Probably Both !
DeDanan
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Any thoughts from the system administrators on this subject?
Is a new forum section a possibility?
Having read the posts I think a wider definition of the forum than originally suggested is a better option.
The majority of the posts are in favour of some form of forum on this topic.
UP TO YOU!
Have a Happy...
DeDanan
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Ominous - Nam Kao!
I just had a word with him on the phone, that’s put the wind up…
Has me thinking too
Have a
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Hi Andyinkat,
Private Dancer is a good read and I am sure many of us can relate to many parts of it.
For what you have in mind “Money Number One” the single mans survival guide to Pattaya. By Niel Hutchison will have more detailed advice.
However, my advice would be not to research this aspect of Thailand too much, it is best go as an “innocent” and enjoy the learning experience. To know too much about this fantasy world in advance would spoil the experience.
Nana and Soi Cowboy are worth a visit, stay clear of the clubs in Pat Pong, go upstairs in a Pat Pong club at your peril.
Most of all have respect for all. The only real “Prats” are those who are ignorant and treat the girls badly.
Have a Happy… (I’m sure you will)
DeDanan
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First I would like to see a dedicated forum for Buddhism Q&A,
We have 14 different topics in the general area. There is room for the Buddha in here.
Directly or indirectly Buddhism IS going to have an influence on your future if you plan to spend any length of time in LoS.
We all have questions, give us the room to express and discuss our views in a Buddhist / Farang Forum.
Up to you!
Have a Happy...
DeDanan
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On Subject, Kiss and Tell
On a Trip to LoS I paid a visit to Soi Cowby early one evening, while there I had a couple of drinks with a fit young lady who worked in Baccrara. It was early in the night and I decided to move on without “partaking” so to speak.
A couple of nights later I went to Baccrara again, this time in the company of a nice young lady. The first lady I met in Baccrara did not delay in informing my new friend that I was in the club recently and she could not remember if I went with her short time!!!
Have a Happy…
DeDanan
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Windy,
Sorry to hear that,
DeDanan
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Snark,
What’s the story with the "Deleted"?
Let us all who have an interest in Buddhism have our say, there will be enough gobshites who will try to knock us.
Yours
DeDanan
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Hi Stroll,
Go for it! and keep us informed!!!
The first Western Abbot in Thailand is Ajahn Sumedho an American born 1934. In 1974 Wat Pah Nanachat was founded, dedicated to training Western Monks.
Have a Happy…
DeDanan
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Ok Snark,
I don’t want to match with’s with you. I just wish to open a forum where us mere mortals can discuss Buddhism in an open way, with out any condescending.
Lets have a open Q&A Forum for anyone with a interest in Buddhism.
Have a Happy…
DeDanan.
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Thank you Lads for your replies, each post contains a gem! If I can ever be of service, pm me. My business is security equipment "security cameras" and Furniture some from Chaing Mai.
Have a Happy…
DeDanan
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Hi Totom, Snark and anyone else with an open mind,
I am a new comer to Buddhism and have many questions and ideas / views. Is it time the Admin’ opened a Forum on Buddhism? Come on Dr Pat & George et al ..
Have a Happy…
DeDanan
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Only two replies and none talking about actual experiences, is this subject Taboo! Not a good time to be a PI..
Spirits, Good And Bad
in Buddhism
Posted
Hi All,
Spirits good and bad have a big significance in Thailand, is this part of Theravada Buddhist belief?
Have a Happy...
DeDanan