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Buddhism for Beginners



Extract :
Buddhism for Beginners

What is rebirth ?

Rebirth refers to a person's mind taking one body after another under the power of ignorance and contaminated actions. While we are alive, our body and mind are linked, but at death they separate. Each has its own continuum. The body becomes a corpse, and the mind continues on to take another body.

This process of rebirth under the control of ignorance and contaminated actions is cyclic existence, the cycle of constantly recurring problems that we experience. In cyclic existence, sentient beings take rebirth in any six types of life forms. Some of these life forms - hellish ones, hungry ghosts, and animals - experience more suffering than happiness. Other life forms - humans, demi-gods, and gods - are considered relatively happy births. Beings repeatedly take rebirth in all of these life forms until they free themselves from ignorance and attain liberation.

How did our mind begin ? Who or what created it ?

Each moment of mind is a continuation of the previous moment. Who we are and what we think and feel depends on who we were yesterday. Our present mind is a continuation of yesterday's mind. This is why we can remember what happened to us in the past. One moment of our mind was caused by the previous moment of mind. This continuity can be traced back to childhood and to being a fetus in out mother's womb. Even before the time of conception, our mindstream existed. Its previous moments were linked to another body.

Our mind has no beginning and its continuity is infinite. This may be difficult to grasp initially, but if we use the example of a number line, it becomes easier. From the "0" position. Looking left, there is no first negative number, and looking right, there is no last, highest number. One more can always be added. In the same way, our mindstream has no beginning and no end. We all have had an infinite number of past rebirths, and our mind will continue to exist infinitely.

In fact, it would be impossible for our mindstream to have a beginning. Because each moment of mind is caused by its previous moment, if a beginning existed, then either the first moment of mind had no cause or it was caused by something other than a previous moment of mind. Both of those alternatives are impossible, for mind can only be produced by a previous moment of mind in its own continuum. By purifying our mindstream, we can make our future existence better than our present one.

What connects one life with the next ? Is there a soul, atman, self, or real personality that goes from one life to another ?

Our mind has gross and subtle levels. The sense consciousnesses that see, hear, smell, taste, and tactile sensations, and the gross mental consciousness, which is busy thinking this and that, actively function while we are alive. At the time of death, they cease to function and absorb into the subtle, and finally extremely subtle, mental consciousness. This extremely subtle mind bears the imprints of our actions (karma). After death, the continuity of the subtle mind, which is neither static nor an independent entity, leaves one body, enters the intermediate state, and then takes rebirth in another body. After the subtle mind joins with another body body at the moment of conception, the gross sense consciousnesses and the gross mental consciousnesses reappear, and the person again sees, hears, thinks, and so forth. This extremely subtle mind, which goes from one life to the next, is a constantly changing dependent phenomenon. For this reason, it is not considered to be a soul, atman, self, or real personality. Thus the Buddha taught the doctrine of selflessness - that there is no solid, independent, findable thing that can be isolated as a person.
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