Re: the great rebirth debate
Posted: Fri May 17, 2013 2:56 pm
I want to believe in rebirth. How can one argue for it?
Maybe if idealism was true, then kamma and rebirth would be less problematic. For example: new life is continuation of one long dream. Good kamma creates good dream while negative kamma creates nightmare, and if one doesn't intend - then eventually the dream will end. Just like the dream can be somewhat uncontrollable (these are results of previous done kamma), with illusion of objects and beings, maybe so is the world. But, how can we prove this?
Another idea is to posit some sort of new type of dualism where there are two distinct phenomenon:
a) awareness
and
b) phenomena which includes body, brain and mental states.
It means that there is passive awareness (a) observing mental and physical states (b). The difficulty is in what can awareness control and how? Is it eternal slave to (b) and can never separate from it? How would the path be possible then?
Some thoughts.
Maybe if idealism was true, then kamma and rebirth would be less problematic. For example: new life is continuation of one long dream. Good kamma creates good dream while negative kamma creates nightmare, and if one doesn't intend - then eventually the dream will end. Just like the dream can be somewhat uncontrollable (these are results of previous done kamma), with illusion of objects and beings, maybe so is the world. But, how can we prove this?
Another idea is to posit some sort of new type of dualism where there are two distinct phenomenon:
a) awareness
and
b) phenomena which includes body, brain and mental states.
It means that there is passive awareness (a) observing mental and physical states (b). The difficulty is in what can awareness control and how? Is it eternal slave to (b) and can never separate from it? How would the path be possible then?
Some thoughts.