What is Rebirth?
Rebirth refers to a one's mind taking one body after another upon death.
Our mind refers to all of our formless emotional and cognitive experiences. While we are alive, the body and mind are linked, but at death they separate. The body becomes a corpse, and the mind continues on to take another body. To emphasise the continuity of consciousness, we use the word "mindstream" to refer to our mind. Each person has a separate mind or mindstream.
When did Rebirth Begin?
Our Mind, that carries over from life to life has no beginning- its continuity is infinite.
Each moment of our 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 the past mind. One moment of our Mind was caused by the previous moment of our Mind. This continuity can be traced back to childhood and even to when we were a foetus in our Mother's womb. Even before the time of conception, our mindstream existed in another body.
What Does Rebirth Explain?
Karma and rebirth together explain many "unsolved" mysteries:
What Causes Rebirth?
Although all sentient beings have the Buddha nature or Buddha potential, their minds are clouded by Ignorance since beginning-less time. From Ignorance springs Craving and Aversion, which cause us to continually crave for life and its illusory pleasures while hating death and other displeasures. Each moment of Ignorance was produced from the preceding moment without a beginning. Although Ignorance has no beginning, it can be eradicated through the attainment of Wisdom in Enlightenment.
Is Being Reborn Good?
The idea of rebirth can be very comforting as it offers chances to amend the mistakes you have made in this life and time to further develop the skills and abilities you have nurtured in this life.
If we fail to attain Enlightenment in this life, you will have the opportunity to try again next time. If you have made mistakes in this life, you will be able to learn from your mistakes. Things you were unable to do or achieve in this life may well become possible in the next life.
Ultimately, the aim of the Buddhist is to end the wheel of rebirth- to be released from the cycle of birth and death. Out of Compassion, one who is released can also help to show others the path to liberation.
Can I Remember My Past Lives?
Our minds being obscured by Ignorance finds it difficult to remember the past.
Also, many changes occur in our body and mind as we die and are reborn, making recollection difficult. Not remembering something does not mean that it does not exist- we sometimes cannot even remember where we parked our car! However, some people can remember their past lives in meditation or through hypnosis.
What Decides How I'm Reborn?
The most important factor influencing where we will be reborn and what sort of life we shall have is Karma- our intentional physical and mental actions.
What we are is determined very much by how we have thought and acted in the past. Likewise, how we think and act now will influence how we will be in the future. A gentle loving person tends to be reborn in a heaven realm or as a human being who has a predominance of pleasant experiences. The anxious, worried or extremely cruel person tends to be reborn in a hell realm or as a human who has a predominance of painful experiences. The person who develops obsessive craving, fierce longings, and burning ambitions that can never be satisfied tends to be reborn as a hungry ghost or as a human being frustrated by longing and wanting. Whatever mental habits are strongly developed in this life will continue in the next life.
Can I Decide Where I'm Reborn?
Yes- that is why one of the steps on the Noble Eightfold Path is Perfect Effort. It depends on our sincerity, how much energy we exert and how strong the habit is. Some people simply go through life under the influence of their past habits, without making an effort to change them and falling victim to these unpleasant results. Such people will continue to suffer unless they change their negative habits. The longer the negative habits remain, the more difficult they are to change.
The Buddhist understands this and takes advantage of each and every opportunity to break mental habits that have unpleasant results and to develop mental habits that have a pleasant and happy result. Meditation is one of the techniques used to modify the habit patterns of the Mind as does speaking or refraining to speaking, acting or refraining to act in certain ways.
The whole of the Buddhist life is a training to purify and free the mind.
Is There Proof of Rebirth?
Not only is there scientific evidence to support the Buddhist belief in rebirth, it is the only after-life theory that has supportive evidence. During the last 30 years, parapsychologists have been studying reports that some people have vivid memories of their former lives.
For example, in England, a 5 year-old girl said she could remember her "other Mother and father" and she talked vividly about what sounded like the events in the life of another person.
Parapsychologists were called in and they asked her hundreds of questions to which she gave answers. She spoke of living in a particular village in what appeared to be Spain, she gave the name of the village, the name of the street she lived in, her neighbours' names and details about her everyday life there. She also tearfully spoke of how she had been struck by a car and died of her injuries two days later.
When these details were checked, they were found to be accurate. There was a village in Spain with the name the five-year-old girl had given. There was a house of the type she had described in the street she had named. What is more, it was found that a 23-year-old woman living in the house had been killed in a car accident five years before. Now how is it possible for a five-year-old girl living in England and who had never been to Spain to know all these details? And of course, this is not the only case of this type.
For example, Professor Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia's Department of Psychology has described dozens of cases of this type in his books. He is an accredited scientist whose 25-year study of people who remember former lives is very strong evidence for the Buddhist teaching of rebirth.