Does exist life after death for Buddhism

A forum for beginners and members of other Buddhist traditions to ask questions about Theravāda (The Way of the Elders). Responses require moderator approval before they are visible in order to double-check alignment to Theravāda orthodoxy.
Post Reply
dianabluda10
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2013 9:24 am

Does exist life after death for Buddhism

Post by dianabluda10 »

Frequently Buddhism says "reborn" and not "reincarnation".
What does this mean?
Means that there is not life after death and the human ( or animal ) that will born after me will NOT me but another sentient ?
This means that after death in Buddhism there is not any life for ME ( death = end of ME ) ?
Dennenappelmoes
Posts: 48
Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2013 10:34 pm

Re: Does exist life after death for Buddhism

Post by Dennenappelmoes »

Hello dianabluda10,
These are profound questions and I am sure people will refer you to other postings and useful resources. Just a tiny preliminary comment for you though; Non-self is a key factor here. You're asking "is there still ME when I die?" and, in a way, what a Buddhist would say is "there is no ME while you live either". Conceptions of rebirth vary alot across traditions, but as I understand it, a common ground is the idea that there is no "you", there is a flow of mindstates that follow one after the other, that are caused one after the other, always evolving and changing, and each next mindstate will continue to cause a new mindstate regardless of death. We, our consciousness, will continue to receive experiences throughout.
In Buddhism you let go of the idea of a fixed "me", and rather accept that you evolve over time, each next moment you've turned into something new, caused by the previous moment, both in the physical world and mentally.
:anjali:
User avatar
retrofuturist
Posts: 27839
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:52 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

Re: Does exist life after death for Buddhism

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,

This sutta might help to answer the question, in the context of the post made by Dennenappelmoes

MN 38: Mahatanhasankhaya Sutta
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
5heaps
Posts: 334
Joined: Wed Dec 16, 2009 12:19 am

Re: Does exist life after death for Buddhism

Post by 5heaps »

'you' are a particular set of mental dispositions and habits in a human mind. just as your name will end, the thing that that name refers to, namely those mental dispositions in your human mind, will also end.

however due to causes and conditions the final moment of mind in this lifetime will act as a cause for the first moment of mind in the next lifetime.

at that time a new mind, perhaps a human mind, with human dispositions will be produced in dependence on the causes and conditions of previous lifetimes. buddhism and other meditative traditions that have mastered the mind explain that if you undertake actions in which you fail to realize the rights of others because you are too busy overestimating and inflating your rights, this will produce incredibly unhappy and painful future mental dispositions.
A Japanese man has been arrested on suspicion of writing a computer virus that destroys and replaces files on a victim PC with manga images of squid, octopuses and sea urchins. Masato Nakatsuji, 27, of Izumisano, Osaka Prefecture, was quoted as telling police: "I wanted to see how much my computer programming skills had improved since the last time I was arrested."
Bakmoon
Posts: 637
Joined: Sat Mar 10, 2012 3:14 pm

Re: Does exist life after death for Buddhism

Post by Bakmoon »

dianabluda10 wrote:Frequently Buddhism says "reborn" and not "reincarnation".
What does this mean?
Means that there is not life after death and the human ( or animal ) that will born after me will NOT me but another sentient ?
This means that after death in Buddhism there is not any life for ME ( death = end of ME ) ?
Buddhists generally dislike the term reincarnation because it literally means that there is a soul that incarnates after death by taking on a new body, and Buddhism describes it in a very different way.

Buddhism teaches that a person is made up of 5 types of things. They are form (the physical body), feeling (the sensation of something as pleasant, unpleasant, or neither), perception, volition, and consciousness. All of these things are dependent on conditions and are impermanent. Also, none of them can be regarded as being one's self, or belonging to one's self in any ultimate sense.

Essentially, a person is a continuous process of impersonal physical and mental phenomena that come into being, cease, and be replaced by another physical or mental phenomenon. When a person dies, this process continues.
The non-doing of any evil,
The performance of what's skillful,
The cleansing of one's own mind:
This is the Buddhas' teaching.
hopedhamma
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu May 02, 2013 11:34 am

Re: Does exist life after death for Buddhism

Post by hopedhamma »

To answer the question, There's no Me to reborn, and those who have studied this through will know that there are only citta and Chetasika reborn. The citta that does the reborn task is Juti-citta as well as chetasika. The act of these 2 is to move from one existed person to another existed person.

Reincarnate or reborn is just the wording, but the fact is this..

Life after death is a new life that was being influenced from karma factor. "We" today is the life after death of the previous life...."We' will be reborn and will ask this type of question again and again the next life if we don't have enough Jhana (wisdom) to know exactly the real dhamma condition to become Sodabham Ariya.
User avatar
vinodh
Posts: 45
Joined: Tue Jan 13, 2009 8:00 am
Location: Hamburg, Germany
Contact:

Re: Does exist life after death for Buddhism

Post by vinodh »

Bakmoon wrote: Buddhists generally dislike the term reincarnation [...]
Western Buddhists that is :quote:

I presume the Indic term for rebirth is either "Punarbhava" [again-become] or "Punarjanma"[again-born].

I often wonder how English-speaking Buddhists (subtly) distinguish between the terms "Rebirth" and "Reincarnate". I personally don't find any difference at all :thinking: .

That said, English is not my first language !

V
http://www.virtualvinodh.com

Buddhists Texts in Brahmi Script : http://www.virtualvinodh.com/brahmi-lipitva

yo dharmaṁ paśyati, sa buddhaṁ paśyati
One who sees the Dharma, sees the Buddha

na pudgalo na ca skandhā buddho jñānamanāsravam
sadāśāntiṁ vibhāvitvā gacchāmi śaraṇaṁ hyaham

Neither a person nor the aggregates, the Buddha, is knowledge free from [evil] outflows
Clearly perceiving [him] to be eternally serene, I go for refuge [in him]
User avatar
badscooter
Posts: 406
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2012 1:07 am
Location: New Jersey

Re: Does exist life after death for Buddhism

Post by badscooter »

If there is no "self", then whose past lives did the Buddha see when he said he saw all "his" past lives? How did he know they were his?
"whatever one frequently thinks and ponders upon will be the inclination of one's mind"
Post Reply