Questions about Rebirth (Buddhism)
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What is rebirth in Buddhism and how does it differ from reincarnation?
Rebirth in Buddhism refers to the teaching that a being's actions generate a new existence after death in a cycle called samsara. Unlike the Hindu concept of reincarnation, which assumes an eternal soul that transmigrates, Buddhism denies there is any unchanging self; some English-speaking Buddhists prefer the term rebirth or re-becoming because reincarnation implies a soul that carries over, which Buddhism explicitly rejects.
What are the six realms of rebirth in Buddhist cosmology?
Buddhist cosmology describes six realms of rebirth: the heavenly Deva realm, the Asura or demi-god realm, the human realm, the animal realm, the ghost realm called Preta, and the hellish Naraka realms. Good karma leads toward the three higher realms, while bad karma is believed to produce rebirth in the three lower ones.
What is the Buddhist teaching on the intermediate state between death and rebirth?
Buddhist schools disagree on whether an intermediate state exists. Tibetan Buddhism describes an elaborate bardo period that may last as long as forty-nine days, during which the consciousness experiences visions of peaceful and wrathful deities as described in texts like the Bardo Thodol. The Theravada scholar Buddhaghosa rejected the intermediate state entirely, arguing that the last moment of consciousness at death directly conditions the first moment of consciousness at conception with no gap.
How did the philosopher Dharmakīrti argue for the truth of Buddhist rebirth?
Dharmakīrti, who flourished in roughly the 6th or 7th century, argued in his Pramanavarttika that every event must be preceded by a prior causal condition of the same class. Since mental events must have previous mental events as their cause, the chain extends before birth into a prior life. His key premise was that matter and consciousness have totally different natures, so consciousness cannot arise from matter alone.
What is the four stages of awakening and how does each stage relate to rebirth?
The four stages of awakening progressively reduce the number of future rebirths. A Sotapanna, or stream-enterer, has up to seven rebirths remaining. A Sakadagami, the once-returner, will undergo one more human rebirth. An Anagami will return only once more, to a heavenly realm. An Arahant has cut off rebirth entirely and will not be reborn.
What was Thanissaro Bhikkhu's pragmatic wager argument for rebirth?
Thanissaro Bhikkhu drew on Majjhima Nikaya 60, the Apannaka Sutta, where the Buddha describes his teaching as a safe bet. If rebirth and karmic results are real, those who perform bad actions have made a bad throw twice; those who perform good actions gain a double reward. If there is no afterlife, those who acted well still lived a blameless and rewarding life, so they lose nothing by wagering on rebirth.