And tonight I'm going to talk about the topic of rebirth.
And the reason I want to talk about this is because very often
this is like a controversial topic in Buddhism.
And often people disagree on whether it's necessary to
actually have confidence or believe in rebirth in Buddhism.
Or whether in fact it's possible to just discard rebirth and say
it's not really important in the Buddhist teachings.
It's not something that we need to believe in.
It doesn't really matter whether there's rebirth or not.
You can still be a Buddhist. And one of the things that I've
often found is when I read books about Buddhism, that sometimes
you come across statements like, a rebirth is not actually a
Buddhist belief. Rebirth is a pre-Buddhist belief
which Buddhism took on board when it emerged in ancient
India. In other words, it existed.
It was a cultural thing in India which already existed.
And then when Buddhism came, it just took on this cultural thing
which already existed in India at the time.
So this is always an important question.
Because if rebirth is not a Buddhist belief, then there are
good grounds maybe to reject it as not being so important.
And then finally I want to talk about this.
Well, what have given all the evidence about rebirth?
What should our attitude be towards rebirth?
Should we believe in it or should we not believe in it?
And how, not least, how should we believe in rebirth?
So the first thing is then to understand whether rebirth in
fact is important in Buddhism. And to get a grasp of this, I
want to tell a little bit of the part of the Buddha's story
himself before he was enlightened.
And the Buddha's search for enlightenment.
Because this search in itself sheds a lot of light on the
importance of rebirth in Buddhism or whether it's not
important. And as many of you know, many of
you already will know the Buddha's story.
I can start from when he was still a layperson before he even
went forth, before he became an ascetic who practiced in the
forest like other ascetics at the time.
And everybody knows, most people know who are Buddhist, that the
Buddha enjoyed a very privileged life before he became an
ascetic. He had all the pleasures that
people can have or had in those days two and a half thousand
years ago. And, and, and, he, it was only
when he realized the dangers in life, the dangers of,
particularly of old age, death, and also sickness, and he saw
the potential suffering in life, not only the potential
suffering, the real suffering in life, and the kind of suffering
that he also would have to go through later on, that he
decided that he would give up all those pleasures that he had
in great abundance compared to most people at the time.
So that's how the Buddha started his, his life by, or started his
kind of search, if you like, search for something beyond,
something more than just ordinary sensual life of most
people. The first thing the Buddha did
after he left his home life was to search for teachers, search
for other teachers who could tell him, show him the path
towards something more than just enjoyment of sensual pleasures.
And this is natural, we all, you know, want to, want to find the
easy way, and the easy way is obviously to have a teacher.
Rather than actually discovering everything for ourselves.
That's exactly what the Buddha did.
And the first two teachers that the Buddha had, and this is all
found in the discourses and the sutras that the Buddha taught
two and a half thousand years ago.
These two teachers, one was known as Alara Kalama, one was
named as Udaka Ramaputa, and they taught a path of
meditation. So he followed this path of
meditation, and he gained some very powerful and deep states of
meditation, by following their advice.
But then, when he actually gained those states, and he
reflected on them, he realized that these states only lead to
rebirth. They lead to rebirth in that
particular realm, which those states correspond to.
So this is interesting, if for no other reason, than to realize
that certainly rebirth was a very prevalent idea at the time
of the Buddha. You see that the Buddha
automatically, he actually wasn't the Buddha yet at this
point, he was the Bodhisattva, but he automatically thought in
terms of rebirth. And he rejected this particular
path precisely, because it only led to rebirth.
So this was not enough for him. And you realize that when you
read the discourses of the Buddha, it's full of rebirth
everywhere. I'm not talking about, for
example, if you read about some of the other ascetics at the
time of the Buddha, they would always talk in terms of rebirth.
They would talk about purification by rebirth.
Or you had the Brahmins who would talk about, the ideal of
the Brahmins was to actually get rebirth together with Brahma in
the future. So the whole Indian scene at the
time was about rebirth, basically.
And the Buddha obviously also thought in the same way.
So this is the first point to hear, the importance of rebirth
at the time of the Buddha. But then, of course, the Buddha
rejected that, because he saw the danger of rebirth.
It always leads to old age. It always eventually leads to
death. And for that reason, it is not
satisfactory. It is fraught with suffering and
problems. So the Buddha then left these
teachings, and he decided to go out of his own, and practice
what at that time was considered the most important spiritual
practice, which was asceticism. So he practiced asceticism to an
extreme degree, to the point where he realized, if I take
this asceticism any further, I am going to die.
He did things like extreme fasts, like eating a single rice
grain a day, like torturing the body, like we often see even
today in India, we see all this torturing of the body going on.
And he took it to the point where he, if he went any
further, he would die. So he realized, well, I have
taken this path to his conclusion, I can't go any
further, so maybe I am going the wrong way.
At that point he reflected that, well, I have tried, I have set
this path, but this isn't to its extreme.
I have lived the life of a householder with great
pleasures, which is the other extreme.
Could there be another path to enlightenment?
Something which is neither sensual pleasures, nor the
opposite of sensual pleasures, which is the mortification of
the physical body. At this stage the Buddha
realized that, yes, he recalled his experience as a young boy
when he had a deep state of meditation, and he realized
that, yes, this, this deep state of meditation I had as a boy,
this is the path to enlightenment, this deep samadhi
state, known otherwise as the jhanas, this is the way.
It avoids sensual pleasures, it avoids sensual pain, it is known
as the middle way between those two.
And then, having understood this, he practiced this deep
state of meditation. And when he practiced those deep
states of meditation, his mind gained this incredible power,
incredible bliss, which then was the causal condition for
allowing him to penetrate the profound truths of reality.
Now once he had attained these states of meditation, the first
thing he did at that point was to ask himself, well, is this
idea of rebirth, is it true? Does it actually exist?
And you can see why he would ask this thing.
He realized that rebirth was a very big part of Indian culture
at the time. And obviously he also realized
that the idea of rebirth is spiritually extremely
significant. Whether there is rebirth or not
has incredible great bearing on spiritual practice.
Because that will decide how we're going to practice, how
we're going to relate to future lives, what we should do about
these matters. So because of that, the first
thing that the Buddha did, understanding that this was an
important spiritual question, was to direct his powerful mind,
this deep Samadhi mind, towards recalling his past lives.
This is what the Buddha did at this stage.
He started recollecting his past lives and thinking backwards,
step by step, recalling who he was in his most previous life,
whether he was of a particular clan, a particular family, what
his name was, what kind of happiness and suffering he
experienced, what kind of food he was eating, all these details
of his past lives he would recall at this stage.
And he would go back and back and back in time, recalling life
after life after life after life.
I'm sure you can straight away see how incredibly significant
this is. Because what this shows, of
course, is that the Buddha did not just take on board a
particular belief system at the time, which was present at the
time in India. He discovered this for himself.
And this is what we would expect.
The Buddha always taught the path of inquiry, of asking
questions, of finding out for ourselves what the truth is.
So we would expect the Buddha also to not just take on board
particular belief systems or cultural systems, but actually
investigate these things for himself.
And here is that discovery of the Buddha, the discovery of the
reality of rebirth. So from a Buddhist point of
view, this is not just a cultural thing, this is a
reality. And this is what this particular
thing shows. Not only is it a reality, it's
an integral part of the Buddha's awakening.
It's an integral part of the enlightenment experience, if you
like. It's not something which is
separate from that. So it's a very powerful thing.
So this is the first thing to realize, that rebirth is very,
very Buddhist indeed. And it's at the very heart of
Buddhism. Now after the Buddha had
realized and seen these past lives, his second question was,
well, what is the causal experience, the causal
connection that gives rise to these past lives?
How do these rebirths actually come about?
Is there any reason for these things?
And how is it that one gets reborn now in a good state, now
in a state of suffering? And at this point he saw beings,
various types of beings, dying and getting reborn.
And through that seeing how beings died and got reborn, he
was able to understand the law of kamma or karma, that we all
pass on in accordance with our actions, with what we do or what
we don't do. And this is the linkage that
links us from life to life, and life and life again, so on
almost forever backwards. And now is the interesting part,
because at this point the Buddha had discovered two of what is
known as the three, three true knowledges in Buddhism.
He had discovered the fact of past lives.
He had discovered how these past lives come about.
And now at the very last thing for him to discover, the third
of the last knowledge, is the knowledge of full enlightenment.
And it is very interesting to actually consider this for a
second. Why is it that the Buddha
actually recalled these past lives and understood the law of
kamma before he attained his full enlightenment?
And this is another way of showing the importance of past
lives in Buddhism. And the reason is very clear
when you think about it. When you understand and when you
see that you have been reborn again and again and again in the
past, doing the same stupid things over and over again.
Imagine that, it's terrible. Going through the same
experiences life after life. Sometimes going through much
worse experiences, not going through really, really terrible
experiences, a lot of times going through happy experiences.
But generally just the tedium of doing this thing hundreds, maybe
thousands, maybe millions of times, suddenly becomes just
unbearable basically. And then when you understand the
causal connection of kamma, that basically you are not in charge,
this all happens according to cause and condition, and you
cannot really control what's happening here, it starts to
become very frightening as well. Surely we don't want to just be
at the kind of mercy of this law of kamma, throwing us one day
one way, another life another way, moving around in this thing
called samsara, birth and death, without any clear direction
whatsoever. It's frightening.
And of course the Buddha saw this, he saw the danger in this.
And it's only when he realized this that he was able to turn
his mind towards enlightenment and towards the ending of this
whole thing called birth and death.
So birth and death, rebirth and death, is the cause which made
it possible for the Buddha to attain enlightenment.
Because only then when he saw that was he able to turn his
mind away from samsara, rebirth and death, and towards
enlightenment, towards nibbana, if you like.
So from what I've said so far, you can see that rebirth is an
extremely important part of the Buddha's teaching.
It's not something you can just throw out and say, I can be a
Buddhist without believing in rebirth.
I can reject rebirth 100% as a stupid, non-scientific doctrine
and still be a Buddhist. It doesn't quite work that way.
You can still take on board some Buddhist principles, but if you
throw away rebirth completely, you've thrown away such an
important and essential part of Buddhism here, that it is, you
are in a sense, in my opinion, a kind of partial rebirth.
Not 100% Buddhist. But I want to inquire a little
bit further maybe on how important rebirth is in
Buddhism. And the first thing I want to
show is that because the Buddha actually realized rebirth, then
rebirth for a Buddhist becomes a reality.
It's something which actually is out there.
It's not just a doctrine or an idea.
It's a reality. Just like gravity is a reality,
and the laws of physics are a reality, so rebirth is a
reality. And because it is a reality, it
means that there's something called right view in Buddhism.
Because it is a reality, if we are going to look at the world
in the way the world actually is, then we are going to have to
take on board the doctrine of rebirth.
So right view in Buddhism, among other things, means to have some
faith, some acceptance, some acceptance of the idea of
rebirth. Without that acceptance, one
does not really fulfill this thing called right view.
So right view in Buddhism is nothing except the aligning of
one's ideas, the straightening out of one's ideas in accordance
with the reality of Buddhism, with the reality that the Buddha
himself taught. That's all it really is.
And this right view thing is actually very important, you may
think. It might not be very obvious to
you why right view is such an important matter.
But right view is actually the very first factor on the
Buddhist Eightfold Path. And of course the Eightfold Path
is the basic scheme in Buddhism for how one practices, how one
starts off and practices all the way to full enlightenment.
Right view is the beginning of that thing.
Because when you have right view, then it becomes natural
that you want to practice the spiritual life.
From that right view comes right intention.
If you believe in rebirth, you will tend to want to live a
moral life because you understand that not living a
moral life is going to lead to suffering, particularly for
yourself, but also for others, obviously.
And moreover, you also get the intention that you want to get
out of this whole idea of samsara, this whole idea of
rebirth and death. You had enough of it.
You want to get out of it. And for that reason, it leads to
right intention. Right intention then moves over
into right action. Because you have the intention
to be kind, to be good, to be moral, and to end this whole
cycle of rebirth, you start to act accordingly.
You act with kindness, you speak with kindness, and you have a
kind livelihood towards other beings.
Once your moral life is established, then you want to
straighten out your mind. You also want to have a moral
mind. So you want not to think
thoughts which harm other beings.
You don't want to have a defiled mind with all kinds of strange
defilements in there. Instead, you want to have a mind
of loving kindness, of compassion, of peace, of
tranquility. This part is called right
effort. Right effort is the overcoming
of the defilements of the mind, making the mind pure, making the
mind beautiful. Then, with that pure mind, you
are able to practice meditation. Meditation is called right
mindfulness in Buddhism, also known as satipatthana practice.
Essentially, now you are starting to become very peaceful
and have a very beautiful mind at this point.
And that meditation then leads to this deep state called the
jhanas, or samadhi states, if you like.
So you can see here how important right view is.
Right view is a foundation stone which allows the entire
practice, the entire Eightfold Path to take off.
Without that right view, your practice is going to be much,
much weaker. If you have completely wrong
view, you won't be practicing at all.
So for this reason, again, rebirth is very important
because it allows the path to happen.
Now, once you have attained that deep samadhi, which is the end
of the Eightfold Path, then that is when your mind is equipped.
It's equipped to actually penetrate the truth itself, for
you to become awakened, for you also to become enlightened, for
you to understand the same reality as the Buddha
understood. And what happens when you
understand that reality? What happens when you see what
the Buddha saw? And the interesting thing is
that in the suttas, in the discourses of the Buddha, it is
always said that the first thing you say or you realize when you
become an arahat, somebody who is fully awakened or
enlightened, is that you understand that birth has been
destroyed. There is no more coming to any
kind of existence. This is my last birth.
Now this you will see again and again and again in the
discourses. It is a standard and a very
common description of somebody who is fully enlightened.
They understand that rebirth has come to an end.
So the whole purpose of Buddhism, ultimately, there is
of course many other purposes, many lesser purposes if you
like, which also are very valuable and important.
But the ultimate purpose of Buddhism is to end this whole
thing called rebirth. This is what it is all about.
This is what it all comes down to.
So how can rebirth not be important if this is what the
path is all about? In fact, it is fundamental.
It is the core thing that we are seeking to overcome in this
Buddhist practice. So it becomes like the
all-important feature of the Buddhist path.
So these are just some reflections on the importance of
rebirth in Buddhism. I will give you some background
on how Buddhism talks about these things.
And I could go on for much more about this thing called rebirth
because it is everywhere to be found in the suttas.
I just wanted to bring out some of the more important statements
of the Buddha about these things.
And as you can see, it is essential in Buddhism.
It is a very core part of the Buddha.
It is a very important part of the Buddhist practice.
And for that reason, I will say again that you cannot really be
100% Buddhist if you reject rebirth out of hand completely.
This is impossible. This cannot be the case.
So how then do we gain, how do we come to accept this thing
called rebirth? I mean, fair enough that the
Buddha taught these things. How do we gain confidence that
there actually is such a thing as rebirth?
Because it is not very obvious. And if the Buddha taught so,
that does not necessarily mean that we ourselves should believe
in this thing. Why should we believe in it just
because the Buddha said so? And of course, the first thing
is that if you know what the Buddha taught and you have
respect for the Buddha, you have respect for his teachings, and
you know that his teachings work for yourself, then it becomes
natural to take on also his other teachings.
If you have taken on part of his morality, his meditation
teachings, and you practice them for yourself, and you realize
that they have made your life better, you have understood the
wisdom of these teachings, then it becomes natural to at least,
if you like, take on these ideas of rebirth as a hypothesis in
your life and use them in that sense.
Because when you respect somebody, you will tend to also
accept the way they teach things.
And this is what it is all about to go for refuge.
In Buddhism, we talk about going for refuge, the triple gem, the
Buddha, Dhamma, and the Sangha. And what this means, going for
refuge, means that when we have some questions in our life, when
we have some uncertainties about how to deal with the world, what
to do, we have a place to go. We have a place where we can
actually ask the questions, so to speak, from the Buddha, by
going to the suttas, or by going to somebody who is the Buddha's
representative, if you like, somebody you trust who knows
those teachings. And we can ask the questions
there, and we can find solutions to our problems in life.
And that is what going to refuge means.
It means that we have a place to go when there are difficulties,
when there are problems, and when there are questions about
spiritual practice. And because we take that refuge,
it also means that we at least don't reject the idea of rebirth
100%. Because by rejecting it, we are
not taking that refuge 100%, basically.
So that's the first way why and how we gain confidence in
Buddhism. Another way we can get
confidence in this idea of rebirth is by, at least for me
this is a very important way, is that sometimes you meet people
who say, well, I've actually experienced these things for
myself. I have seen this thing called
rebirth. I know that there is such a
thing as rebirth. When I meet somebody,
particularly as a monk you meet, occasionally you meet other
monks who say these things, and very often these monks are
people of incredible integrity, people of boundless kindness and
goodness, people who it's very difficult to think that they
would lie to you or they would say something which is not the
case. It becomes very hard to dismiss
that thing out of hand when they say, I've seen it, it's there.
There can be no doubt that these things exist.
And for me that certainly becomes a very powerful reason,
a very powerful reason to have confidence that there are such
things. Of course it's not an absolute
confidence, but it certainly is a very good reason for believing
in these things. So these are just some of the
ways in which one gains confidence in these teachings.
Another thing which is also interesting, and I've just been
reading a book quite recently called, what's called a
cross-cultural study of kamma, karma and rebirth.
And it's fascinating how many places around the world that
this idea of rebirth actually exists.
And also the idea of karma actually exists.
It's incredible how many places this is the case.
And particularly this book talked about tribes, Indian
tribes in North America for example, which had ideas of
karma and rebirth. It talks about many people in
Africa, African indigenous cultures, have ideas of rebirth
and karma. Tribes in Siberia which have
these ideas. Tribes in Melanesia like
Indonesia and some of the other Pacific islands.
You find it spread out almost evenly around across the globe.
You find that these ideas of rebirth actually exist.
Very fascinating that it exists so almost universally around the
globe. And then you start to look at
the different religions and you find again that almost all the
major religions have some sort of idea of rebirth in them.
Obviously Buddhism is one, Hinduism is one.
But then you go to the more western religions.
Take for example Christianity for one.
And it's very interesting that Christianity had an idea of
rebirth for a long time in its early history.
It was only at a certain council, I can't remember the
details, but a council in year 400 or something like that, when
it was decided that rebirth was not going to be an official
doctrine of Christianity. But until that time there were
many people in the Christian church and many of the early
gospels which actually taught rebirth.
And you find the same thing in Islam.
There are parts of Islam even to this day who believe in rebirth.
You find the same thing in Judaism.
So it's an incredibly universal thing.
And also very interesting is that if you ask people today,
you take random interviews, they'll say, for example in
Europe or even the United States, places which often are
very atheistic, which don't actually have any religion at
all, you actually find that very large percentages of the
population believe in rebirth. 30-40% of the population believe
in these things. Atheists believe in these
things. Agnostics, Christians, Muslims,
basically everybody. And this of course doesn't prove
anything about rebirth. But it's very fascinating that
if there is such a reality as rebirth and it's possible to tap
into that reality occasionally, occasionally there will be
people who maybe remember their past lives, or in some other way
you tap into that reality, then you would expect that there
would be a large number of people around the globe
scattered everywhere that had this belief, that actually
understood this as a reality. That's what you would expect.
And that is indeed also what you find.
It's not a proof, but it certainly is, in my opinion, a
supporting factor in this rebirth business.
So that is the Buddhist side of things, and it's also some of
the reasons why I think it is perfectly good to have a strong
confidence and a good confidence in rebirth.
But I also want to talk a little bit about the negative side of
this. What are the reasons we
shouldn't believe in rebirth? Because I think it's important
to be open about all these matters, and not kind of lock
ourselves away in a Buddhist kind of cocoon and pretend that
everything is, that's all there is to it.
There's of course much more to it than that.
And the first thing that I want to just point out is that the
Buddha, when he became enlightened, he actually
discovered rebirth. He saw it for himself.
And of course, once you see this thing for yourself, it becomes a
knowledge. It becomes something which is
undeniable. You cannot deny it anymore once
you have seen it for yourself. But for most of us, the
situation is very different. We haven't actually seen
rebirth. We don't know that there is
rebirth. We may have confidence, we may
believe that the Buddha was very wise, very enlightened, and all
these things. But because we haven't actually
seen it for ourselves, we have reasons to at least acknowledge
that we don't know, at least acknowledge that it is just a
matter of confidence or faith at this stage.
It's not something that we know already.
So, because we don't know it, there is good reasons not to go
around proclaiming that this thing is a certain matter.
And this shows us a difference, in my opinion, between belief
and confidence and faith in the Buddhist religion and what is
faith and belief in many other religions.
And this is important because sometimes we take words like
faith and belief, and these words are certainly very
powerful in Christianity and also in Islam, as far as I know,
and then we use them in Buddhism.
But we have to be careful because sometimes when we do
that, we also take Christian attitudes and Christian ideas or
Muslim ideas or whatever it is into Buddhism.
So we have to be careful not to, so to speak, paint Buddhism with
a Christian brush. Right?
So as to give, put Christian ideas into Buddhist teaching.
We have to be very clear about what Buddhism is all about in
these cases. And the point I'm trying to make
here is that in Christianity, faith and belief often are
tantamount to certainty, as far as I understand.
I'm not a specialist in this area.
I could be wrong, but that is my impression.
If you ask a Christian about, do you believe in God, he might
obviously say yes. And then you ask him, well, does
that mean that maybe God exists, maybe he doesn't exist?
He will say, no, no, no, God definitely exists.
That's my general understanding of how most Christians would
reply. So belief in many religions,
faith in many religions, has this sense of certainty about
it, that this is definitely true.
Whereas in Buddhism, faith and belief have more of their
original meaning. The original meaning of belief,
of course, is that you believe something, and it means maybe
it's true, maybe it's not. You have faith in something,
maybe it's true, maybe it's not. And that's why sometimes it's
nice to call this confidence, rather than faith or belief,
because then we distinguish ourselves a little bit from the
other religions. We don't cause so much
confusion. If you're confident about
something, it means maybe it's true, maybe it isn't.
Have you got confidence that the bus will arrive in five minutes?
Yes, I've got confidence it will arrive, but I'm not sure it will
arrive. There's uncertainty there.
This is the attitude that we should have towards something
like rebirth. We should have an attitude of
confidence, but not firm and absolute faith and belief,
simply because we don't know. We cannot be 100% sure, at least
not at this stage. So this is the first thing to
remember. The attitude towards rebirth
should be something like confidence about it.
Now the second thing I want to talk about, which I think is
very important, and that is the scientific outlook on rebirth.
I always feel uncomfortable if somebody calls me an
anti-scientific Buddhist who does not want to take into
account scientific facts, who is maybe a kind of Luddite, who is
not really up to scratch in what's happening in the modern
world. I always find that unfortunate,
and I think it's important. For me, one of the reasons that
I've always felt very confident about Buddhism is precisely
because I always felt that there wasn't so much conflict between
science and Buddhism, as there was maybe between science and
certain other faiths. That was why I felt this was the
right thing for me. I felt that I didn't have to
compromise any of my other principles so much.
And for that reason, it is of course important to take into
account what science says about this thing called rebirth.
And very often when we read scientific journals, when we see
what scientists say, very often they dismiss this idea of
rebirth out of hand, pretty much.
At this stage, we have to be careful, and we have to look at
why is it that these scientists dismiss this thing called
rebirth. And I have always found that
when I have read journals and articles about the mind, about
consciousness, usually the best people in the field of mind
studies, of consciousness studies, they admit that they
have no idea what these things actually are.
They admit that the understanding and the knowledge
of this particular field is still in its infancy.
People don't really understand consciousness.
It's a very profound thing, and very, very hard to get a grasp
on. So that is the first thing to
understand, that although science has a position on
rebirth, it hasn't got an understanding of the mind, which
is very sophisticated as yet. It's working on it, but it
doesn't really understand the mind.
And if you don't understand the mind, you cannot understand
rebirth, because the precursor for believing in rebirth is that
there can be such a thing as a mind which is separate from the
material body, that the mind has, in a sense, a life of its
own. It is not 100% dependent on the
body for its existence. So for this, it's important to
remember that we need to realize this.
So when science often rejects rebirth, in my opinion, as far
as I can see, it's often without having the firm evidence which
is required for rejecting it. So why is it then that science
rejects rebirth? And I think that the thing of
rebirth is often considered a religious thing in scientific
circles. And because science and religion
has often been at loggerheads over many centuries, and science
has been saying one thing, one thing, one thing, one thing,
science has tended to dismiss religious beliefs as just
beliefs, and for that reason hasn't really taken them
seriously. But, of course, just because
something is a religious belief does not mean that it's wrong.
And in this particular case, it is my conviction that science
just hasn't yet arrived at a point where it can take a
meaningful position on this thing called rebirth.
So, and I also remember that, what I find very fascinating
about science, I remember when I was in, I can't remember whether
it was high school or at university or what it was, I
remember reading about scientific revolutions.
And I remember in very particular, I remember reading
about this English physicist called Martin Rutherford, I
think his name was. And I remember he was saying,
this was towards the end of the 19th century, and this was at
the time when physics was advancing very, very fast, and
they were describing the atomic models with protons and neutrons
and all this sort of stuff. And he said that, well,
everything is now coming together so beautifully in
physics. The periodic table has been
sorted out. We understand how all these
atoms are made up. We understand how molecules are
made up. And it's only a matter of a few
years now before everything is sorted out, before we have full
understanding of physics. And then, of course, a few years
after he said that, came Albert Einstein along with the theory
of relativity, and then soon after that, you got this idea of
quantum mechanics. And this turned physics
completely upside down. And I think today they are just
as far away from finding the final solution to these things
as they were at the time of this Martin Rutherford 120, 10, 20
years ago. And this is because science goes
through revolutions every now and again.
And maybe one day, I think it's quite possible, that science
will go through the revolution when it will realize that
actually there is such a thing as a mind which is a part, and
can be a part, from materiality. At the moment, science cannot
see that. But I think it's quite possible
that this will change over the years.
Maybe it won't. Maybe it will.
But I certainly think it is possible.
So that is the scientific, in a sense, rejection of rebirth,
most generally speaking. But it's also very fascinating
to understand and to realize that there are some very
interesting signs going on in the area of rebirth.
And this is what I want to talk about next.
This is the scientific, in a sense, evidence for rebirth.
And the most interesting of this scientific evidence is a man who
died only a few months ago, a man called Ian Stevenson, who
used to teach at the University of Virginia in the United
States. It's quite a prestigious
university in the U.S., actually.
And he taught there, and he studied what he called past life
memories in children. And he studied this over several
decades. And this is some of the best
scientific evidence which is available for rebirth.
And it has made quite an impact in many ways, I think, in the
scientific world, although, of course, it's not been accepted.
And what he did, he traveled around the world because there
was a phenomenon everywhere around the world whereby small
children tend to recall past lives.
They tend to say something. Sometimes they go up to their
mother and say to their mother, You're not my mother.
My mother lives over there. And very often the mother gets
very upset. Of course I'm your mother.
I know more about that than you do.
So you shouldn't be so sure about that.
But often the child is very insistent that it has some
memory of something else. He lived somewhere else because
he was there. He lived somewhere else before.
And he would point to a house, point to a village, talk about
people which the parents have never heard about.
And this is a global phenomenon according to this Dr. Ian
Stevenson. He did research in the United
States, in Europe, in large parts of Asia, in Africa, in the
Middle East. And everywhere he found these
children who remembered past lives.
And of course, I'm sure you can imagine what his methodology
was. His methodology was to ask these
children in great detail about those memories and then check it
up, check out whether that village, that house that they
were talking about, those people that they mentioned, those names
that the children were talking about, do they actually exist?
Are there such places? And he came up with some
extraordinarily fascinating results.
And some of those cases he had were just not explainable in any
scientific way. Apart from assuming that there
must be something called rebirth, some reason why these
children actually could remember these things.
Very, very powerful evidence as far as I can see.
And very difficult to refute. And I have not heard of anybody
who has really successfully refuted this evidence.
Some of the other things that he showed, he showed, for example,
also spoke to certain children who had birthmarks in particular
places. And these were children who had
remembered dying, for example, a very painful death, for example,
through being shot. And of course, because they were
shot, that birthmark they had corresponded to the place they
were shot. And then by investigating
whether such a person existed who was shot, he would often
find that that particular person that this child remembered did
exist. And they died in exactly that
way. And the child had the
corresponding birthmark in this life.
Again, it's very, very, very powerful evidence and very
powerful in my opinion. And it's very hard to really
understand how such a causal connection could happen unless
it is through some sort of mechanism like the idea of
rebirth. But of course, just because
there is evidence or one person has come up with a lot of
evidence does not mean that the scientific community is going to
jump onto that and say, yes, this must be true.
It takes much more than that. I just want to show that there
is some evidence that is really true.
And so the scientific community is, if you like, at least
slightly split. There is something also on the
side of rebirth. So what then should our attitude
be? How should we then look at
rebirth? There is the negative side that
science doesn't believe in rebirth.
And we have to take that seriously.
We cannot, as modern people, reject the scientific viewpoint
of things. That would be silly to say.
But there is something to do. Science and Buddhism should, in
my opinion, go together as far as possible unless science
itself oversteps the bounds. And if there are certain
doctrines in Buddhism which turn out to be wrong, well, okay,
then maybe we have to accept that, that certain things are
actually wrong. And maybe these are things which
weren't taught by the Buddha in the first place anyway.
The other side of the story is that the Buddha did teach
rebirth. And because people who are
Buddhists and have faith in this thing have to take what the
Buddha said extremely seriously, we cannot reject rebirth
outright either. So the way to look at rebirth is
to take a kind of middle way, the famous middle way in
Buddhism, neither to reject it outright nor to go around
proclaiming it as an absolute truth.
But somewhere in the middle there is where people who are
Buddhists should find themselves.
So if you find that you are somewhere in the middle there,
then that is a very good starting point for being a
Buddhist. So whether you have 90%
confidence that there is rebirth, or maybe you only have
20 or 30% confidence, you are somewhere on the scale.
And you can definitely on that basis, I would say, count
yourself as a Buddhist. I myself, I have very strong
conviction that there is such a thing as rebirth.
But at the same time, I'm also open to the possibility that
there isn't rebirth. I haven't seen rebirth for
myself. This is the truth.
And because of that, I'm open to the possibility that there isn't
rebirth. And I ask myself the question,
what will happen if science one day came up with evidence that
was so powerful, so strong against rebirth, that I couldn't
reject it, that I had to accept it?
What would I do myself, being a Buddhist monk?
And the truth is, I don't think it's going to happen.
I think it's extremely unlikely. I'm certainly open to the
possibility. But if that were to happen, I
realize I would have to disrobe, or at least very likely I would
have to disrobe, because the Buddhist path, and particularly
the monastic path, is so completely intertwined and so
completely mixed up with this idea of rebirth.
Take it away, and essentially it loses its meaning.
So that is my position on that. And it is not as if I'm about to
disrobe anything, because I have very, as I said, I have very
strong confidence in this thing called rebirth.
And I think it's extremely unlikely that science is going
to show it to be untrue. I think rather the contrary is
much more likely, that science itself is going to come around
and slowly go through a revolution whereby it starts to
understand that there is more to the scientific worldview than is
presently acknowledged to her. So that is just a talk on
rebirth for you. So if you have any questions or
any ideas of your own or anything you want to discuss,
this is a good time to bring it up.
Any particular issues that you want to talk about concerning
rebirth, or anything else maybe? Okay, that's very easy.
Nobody has any questions? Usually this is a controversial
topic, usually it's something people want to have a say about.
Are you all convinced there is rebirth?
Yes? Well, that's a very good point.
And of course, according to Buddhism, of course that's the
case. If you don't believe in rebirth,
it doesn't really help you at all.
All it means is that you have wrong view and you're going to
act maybe against the Buddha's teachings, you're going to do
all kinds of stupid things, and then you end up having a bad
rebirth on top of having a rebirth at all.
So it's bad news. Yes, it doesn't matter what you
believe, because it's a reality. It's like the laws of physics.
Whether you believe in the laws of physics or not, they're still
going to affect you. If you jump, you're going to
come down again, right? Gravity.
It's the same thing with rebirth.
It's a reality. No?
Yeah? Good.
Okay. Yes?
Yes. Yes.
Yes I think the main thing about
Buddhism is it's a teaching which doesn't talk about any
particular beginning. It doesn't actually have a
beginning as such. So it actually goes on. which
are a bit like the Big Bang, and then you have the big crunch
after the big bang, and then the big bang again after that, one
after the other. And this is essentially the
Buddhist cosmology. The Buddhism doesn't really have
all that much to say about evolution on earth as such.
There are certain creation suttas or discourses that were
possibly taught by the Buddha, but it's difficult to know
whether these are mythological or whether they actually
describe a reality. I don't really want to get maybe
too much into that. But as far as I'm concerned, I
don't see any contradiction between the ideas of evolution,
which is basically essentially creatures coming out of the sea
and becoming on land. I don't see any essential
contradiction between evolution and Buddhism as far as I'm
concerned. They're compatible theories.
Yeah. Right.
Yeah. Sure.
I think that's a good point. But there's always a problem
with interpretation. It's not just a matter of
interpretation. It's a matter of the reality.
Because the suttas were taught two and a half thousand years
ago. When the Buddha talks about
expansion and contraction of the world, that's what basically, if
you want to translate it literally, that's what it means.
It's not exactly clear what it means.
Does it mean a big bang or does it mean something else?
It's very convenient to think it's a big bang because it fits
with modern theories. But it's very hard to actually
be absolutely sure that's what it's all about.
So there's always going to be some uncertainty there.
But personally, I think there's very good grounds for believing
he was talking about precisely that.
So, yes, I agree with you. And this is exactly what I was
talking about before. You start reading the suttas of
the Buddha, his discourses. You start getting understanding
of what he taught. And you find that actually
there's so much wisdom there. There's so many beautiful
teachings. And you can't just throw it out
of the window, you know. There's something you can lead
your life by. And you find that you actually
gain in happiness, you gain in peace, you gain in all these
beautiful things that you want. So something is working there.
Something is right. And then, of course, precisely
as you say, you gain in confidence in these teachings.
And even those things you don't know for yourself, you're no
longer willing to just throw them out and call them rubbish
because you realize there's something beautiful going on
here. Yes?
Okay. This is actually a very
important question. And this is something I thought
maybe I would touch on tonight. But sometimes you can just touch
on too many topics and you sort of lose completely the thing.
And that's the thread of the discussion.
But according to Buddhism, and this is a very profound teaching
of Buddhism, that there isn't actually anything being reborn
again. And this is what is so strange
in a sense because most other ideas of rebirth around the
world have an idea of a soul or some kind of permanent entity
inside of us which goes from birth to birth.
In Buddhism, what essentially gets reborn again is the mind.
The mind moves on from one life to another.
But the mind in Buddhism is not like the soul in any other
religion. It's not a permanent entity in
its own right. It's an ever-changing reality of
the mind. So it is this ever-changing
reality called the mind which gets reborn from one life to
another. And this is a very profound
teaching. And this is what we call a
non-self in Buddhism, this idea of anatta.
It's called in the Pali language, the ancient Buddhist
language. And it's a non-self idea.
And it's a bit like sometimes it's accepted, it's explained a
bit like a candle. If you have a candle, for
example, and you light one candle with another candle,
well, did anything go across from one candle to another one?
And the answer is nothing really went across, but somehow the
flame was transferred from one to the other one.
And in a similar way, you can maybe picture rebirth.
It is a continuity. There is a mind which continues,
but there's nothing permanent there which goes on.
Make sense? Kind of, yeah?
Okay, yes? Yes, it does, because the thing
about Buddhism is that you don't just believe in the human realm.
You believe in beings in many realms, particularly animal
realm. So rebirth is much more than
just being reborn as a human being.
It's also being reborn as an animal.
And in fact, according to Buddhism, you can be reborn in
all kinds of different states. And because there are so many
possibilities, you know, human beings can come from all these
various realms and then get reborn as humans.
And then when you die, you can either become a human being
again or you can be reborn as something else.
All according to your kamma, all according to your actions.
So depending how you live this life.
If you live a good life, generally speaking, you get a
good rebirth. If you live a bad life,
generally speaking, you get a bad rebirth.
Yes? I think there's a lot to be said
for that idea, actually. And I know that those people who
really know the discourse of the Buddha very well, there actually
is a lot of evidence in those discourses that there is such an
in-between state. So in a sense, you die, the mind
goes off to this in-between state, and it takes a while
before your kamma, your actions from the past life, actually
ripen and then give effect to a particular rebirth.
And this is actually a very controversial topic because
according to the orthodox Theravada point of view, there
is no in-between state. And yet, when you look at what
the Buddha taught, it seems to be very clearly implied in his
teaching that there is such a thing.
So I am certainly in favor of the existence of an in-between
state. So you can continue celebrating
Halloween and having good fun. Okay, so let's just pay respects
to the... Okay, one more question here.
What is the meaning of the word, and what is the meaning of the
word, in the sense of the word? Essentially, yes, because the
whole point here is that there is a continuity, right?
If you think about how you are in this life, there is basically
continuity here. You know, who you are today is
pretty much who you were yesterday.
There is a continuity there. And because it is the mind which
continues from one life to the next, there is a similar kind of
continuity across lives, and that is precisely why it is so
important to develop the mind, to be a good person.
Because by developing the mind, by being a good person, you are
in a sense lifting up the mind, you are making the mind
beautiful and pure, and then you will carry that beautiful and
pure mind into the next life. That is how it works.
And that is why a beautiful and pure mind will get reborn in a
beautiful and pure place. It is like magnetic attraction
almost. That is the way it works.
So yes, you tend to take things with you, the way you are in
this life. Your character traits carry on
from life to life usually. It is a good reason to practice.