Answer from Ven Dr
K Sri Dhammananda:
You have asked an interesting question that addresses the fundamental Buddhist and Hindu thinking on life after death.There is a very great difference between reincarnation and rebirth, although both concepts pertain to a being coming back to life in an endless cycle of existences called samsara.
In reincarnation, a person is made up of two real entities called a body and a soul. In Hinduism, this body is made up of material parts that break up at death and return to their original state, to be reused again to make up other material parts. The atman (soul) on the other hand, comes from Brahman (in Hinduism, the Creating Principle).
Once created, the soul is trapped within the material body and because of maya it performs kamma (good or bad actions) that determines what kind of body the soul takes (human, animal or spirit) after death. Good actions result in good births, and evil actions result in births in unsatisfactory states. The aim is to replace maya with panna where one strives to free the soul from the body and attain reunion with Brahman in what is termed mokkha (final release).
In Buddhism however, while the terms samsara and kamma are used to describe the actions one performs which trap oneself in samsara, it is ignorance of the real nature of a person which causes him or her to act. Here ignorance means mistaking a combination of mind and matter for a personality or a self. What one mistakes for a body is not made up of matter, but a combination of a series of processes - solidity, fluidity, heat and motion.
We know from physics that what is called matter is really made up of atoms which in the final analysis are simply energy in constant motion. The ignorant mind mistakes this for real. This explains why a body grows imperceptibly into a child, an adult and an old man or woman. Everything is in a constant state of change. What is mistaken for a permanent soul, on the other hand is termed in Buddhism, mind. Mind is also another constantly changing process of feeling, perception, mental habits and consciousness. These too are always in a state of change and, therefore, have no permanent reality. These two processes (mind and matter) then act upon each other, giving an illusion of a person, who in reality does not exist.
A being, ignorantly thinks it is a real entity and acts, thinking, "This is I, this is mine." Those actions lead to further actions in a never-ending stream. At death, the matter separates from the mind, but the mind does not stop - it simply moves on, creates another body, lives another life, dies and goes on.
What propels these processes from one life to the next is craving, the will to live. What “dies,” because of the principle of change, is not exactly what is “reborn” although there is a continuity, just as in reality there is no body of water to call a “river,” which is made of innumerable drops of water moving endlessly. We conventionally call it a “river” although in reality no such thing exists because it is always changing.
There is no permanent soul that goes from body to body. Buddhists therefore say there is no reincarnation, merely a continuation of a process of endless cycles of birth, life, death and rebirth. When this process of becoming is stilled, we call it Nibbana (the ultimate freedom) where there is no more craving to live, so there is no more rebirth.
You have asked an interesting question that addresses the fundamental Buddhist and Hindu thinking on life after death.There is a very great difference between reincarnation and rebirth, although both concepts pertain to a being coming back to life in an endless cycle of existences called samsara.
In reincarnation, a person is made up of two real entities called a body and a soul. In Hinduism, this body is made up of material parts that break up at death and return to their original state, to be reused again to make up other material parts. The atman (soul) on the other hand, comes from Brahman (in Hinduism, the Creating Principle).
Once created, the soul is trapped within the material body and because of maya it performs kamma (good or bad actions) that determines what kind of body the soul takes (human, animal or spirit) after death. Good actions result in good births, and evil actions result in births in unsatisfactory states. The aim is to replace maya with panna where one strives to free the soul from the body and attain reunion with Brahman in what is termed mokkha (final release).
In Buddhism however, while the terms samsara and kamma are used to describe the actions one performs which trap oneself in samsara, it is ignorance of the real nature of a person which causes him or her to act. Here ignorance means mistaking a combination of mind and matter for a personality or a self. What one mistakes for a body is not made up of matter, but a combination of a series of processes - solidity, fluidity, heat and motion.
We know from physics that what is called matter is really made up of atoms which in the final analysis are simply energy in constant motion. The ignorant mind mistakes this for real. This explains why a body grows imperceptibly into a child, an adult and an old man or woman. Everything is in a constant state of change. What is mistaken for a permanent soul, on the other hand is termed in Buddhism, mind. Mind is also another constantly changing process of feeling, perception, mental habits and consciousness. These too are always in a state of change and, therefore, have no permanent reality. These two processes (mind and matter) then act upon each other, giving an illusion of a person, who in reality does not exist.
A being, ignorantly thinks it is a real entity and acts, thinking, "This is I, this is mine." Those actions lead to further actions in a never-ending stream. At death, the matter separates from the mind, but the mind does not stop - it simply moves on, creates another body, lives another life, dies and goes on.
What propels these processes from one life to the next is craving, the will to live. What “dies,” because of the principle of change, is not exactly what is “reborn” although there is a continuity, just as in reality there is no body of water to call a “river,” which is made of innumerable drops of water moving endlessly. We conventionally call it a “river” although in reality no such thing exists because it is always changing.
There is no permanent soul that goes from body to body. Buddhists therefore say there is no reincarnation, merely a continuation of a process of endless cycles of birth, life, death and rebirth. When this process of becoming is stilled, we call it Nibbana (the ultimate freedom) where there is no more craving to live, so there is no more rebirth.
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