Practical questions - reincarnation, karma and samsara

[Sahaja]

How did the concepts of reincarnation and karma become so important and widespread among people when seemingly so few people remember and feel accountable for behaviors in past lives?

 

How did belief in the importance of ending the cycle of birth and rebirth become so widespread among people when seemingly so few achieve enlightenment (are successful) and most people seemingly want continuance of life (regardless that it might entail some suffering)? 
 

I am trying to improve my understanding of how these views became widespread among people from a behavioral or practical perspective. Not from a belief or authority perspective. 
 

note I use the word seemingly to reflect that this is my life experience with people’s behaviors that may be different from others. 

[Taoist Texts]

30 minutes ago, Sahaja said:

how these views became widespread among people from a behavioral or practical perspective. Not from a belief or authority perspective. 

these views do not come from any perspective. the perspectives and the views come from the inner objective certainty of an individual: "i know that i have lived before, i know that i am going to live after. i may not remember the exact details but i just know it."

34 minutes ago, Sahaja said:

enlightenment (are successful) and most people seemingly want continuance of life

apparently you think that these are mutually exclusive. but ppl did not want just continuation of life, historically people were certain that the life will continue in a better or a worse rebirth. continuation per se was not an issue. what they wanted was a better continuation, a better rebirth. And enlightenment is just the best one of all the possible better rebirths.

[Sanity Check]

If dinosaurs roamed the earth for millions of years.

 

Everything we walk on and breathe was dinosaur poop at one time or another.

 

The deepest philosophical perspective a human being can obtain: "Everything is dinosaur poop."

 

For those who believe in qi, shen, chi, spirit, soul, energy.

 

It makes sense for this spiritual energy to likewise be recycled over span of millennia.

 

For those who can tap into "previous lives" it doesn't mean they passed away and were reborn.

 

It means a fragment of a previous person's spirit was recycled and became entangled in the spirit of someone newly born.

 

Or they somehow tapped into the genetic memory of one of their ancestors.

 

With our eyes we can see that the planet recycles everything. 

 

The old tree dies to make space for the new and young trees to grow. 

 

It makes sense for similar patterns to play out in a spiritual sense.

[Gerard]

7 hours ago, Sahaja said:

How did the concepts of reincarnation and karma become so important and widespread among people when seemingly so few people remember and feel accountable for behaviors in past lives?

 

Through religion; in other words follow the rest like sheep.

 

The eagle, the lone wolf discerns by itself through relentless observation and careful analysis of the principles that exist within.
 

Self-realisation vs. faith. 
 

One example:

 

I spoke the other day to a Yang TJQ stylist at the park which I have seen practising for an entire year most early mornings all by himself. I decided to approach him and have a chat. Well, his practice is paying off. He said to me, we are a microcosmos placed between Heaven & Earth (San Cai). He is probably the first Tai Chi practitioner who I have spoken to which is focused on inner work rather than looking good in his routine performance. 
 

He moves extremely slowly; far from the style of TJQ that is so popular today:

 

 

I asked him about his year of birth: Fire Rooster. Ha! It makes sense now. 

 

 

Edited December 15, 2023 by Gerard

[Sahaja]

15 hours ago, Gerard said:

Through religion; in other words follow the rest like sheep.

 

The eagle, the lone wolf discerns by itself through relentless observation and careful analysis of the principles that exist within.
 

Self-realisation vs. faith. 
 

One example:

 

I spoke the other day to a Yang TJQ stylist at the park which I have seen practising for an entire year most early mornings all by himself. I decided to approach him and have a chat. Well, his practice is paying off. He said to me, we are a microcosmos placed between Heaven & Earth (San Cai). He is probably the first Tai Chi practitioner who I have spoken to which is focused on inner work rather than looking good in his routine performance. 
 

He moves extremely slowly; far from the style of TJQ that is so popular today:

 

 

I asked him about his year of birth: Fire Rooster. Ha! It makes sense now. 

 

 

Interesting post. Yesterday after I wrote these questions,  I was at the park practicing Bagua and qigong by myself next to a group doing yang tai chi to music. Not sure I would have anything as profound to say if asked as I am just an old wood goat.

[Maddie]

22 hours ago, Sahaja said:

How did the concepts of reincarnation and karma become so important and widespread among people when seemingly so few people remember and feel accountable for behaviors in past lives?

 

How did belief in the importance of ending the cycle of birth and rebirth become so widespread among people when seemingly so few achieve enlightenment (are successful) and most people seemingly want continuance of life (regardless that it might entail some suffering)? 
 

I am trying to improve my understanding of how these views became widespread among people from a behavioral or practical perspective. Not from a belief or authority perspective. 
 

note I use the word seemingly to reflect that this is my life experience with people’s behaviors that may be different from others. 

 

I suppose in a similar way that any other religious belief came into being. 

[Sahaja]

22 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

these views do not come from any perspective. the perspectives and the views come from the inner objective certainty of an individual: "i know that i have lived before, i know that i am going to live after. i may not remember the exact details but i just know it."

apparently you think that these are mutually exclusive. but ppl did not want just continuation of life, historically people were certain that the life will continue in a better or a worse rebirth. continuation per se was not an issue. what they wanted was a better continuation, a better rebirth. And enlightenment is just the best one of all the possible better rebirths.

Thanks good answers.

 

On reincarnation and karma just seems that it would be more efficient at behavioral modification if people could remember and connect the dots from past lives to their current lifetime. It seems it’s more used as a filler explanation after the fact when stuff happens that otherwise seems random, arbitrary or unfair. Reincarnation may exist but if it falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound?
 

[Maddie]

11 minutes ago, Sahaja said:

Thanks good answers.

 

On reincarnation and karma just seems that it would be more efficient at behavioral modification if people could remember and connect the dots from past lives to their current lifetime. It seems it’s more used as a filler explanation after the fact when stuff happens that otherwise seems random, arbitrary or unfair. Reincarnation may exist but if it falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound?
 

 

There are lots of cases of young children supposedly remembering past lives with great detail. I don't know for sure but one could speculate that perhaps this is one source for a belief in past lives? 

[Sahaja]

42 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

I suppose in a similar way that any other religious belief came into being. 

I see a slight difference to some other popular religions that don’t seem to be based on things that manifest in this current physical world like enlightenment while alive and the results of personal karma appearing in this current physical world from a prior existence. Seems like this is a higher hurdle of evidence (current physical world  manifestation) than what these other religions seem to say - do what I say and you will have a good afterlife, just trust me. 
 

 

[Sahaja]

3 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

There are lots of cases of young children supposedly remembering past lives with great detail. I don't know for sure but one could speculate that perhaps this is one source for a belief in past lives? 

I don’t disagree just seems like the amount of evidence compared to the seeming importance of the view is not in balance. 

[Maddie]

1 minute ago, Sahaja said:

I don’t disagree just seems like the amount of evidence compared to the seeming importance of the view is not in balance. 

 

Ultimately any claims about what happens in the afterlife made by the living is going to be speculation, including the speculation that there even is an afterlife. 

[stirling]

In Buddhism teachings come at different levels - relative and absolute:

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths_doctrine#:~:text=In Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā the,convention and an ultimate truth. 

 

Ultimately relative teachings are not true, but are used as a scaffolding to build understanding. Reincarnation and karma are both relative teachings, and do not point to anything ultimately real, or permanent.

 

Just as in Buddhism, daoist realization is seeing through the delusions of these relative ideas.

[Mark Foote]

On 12/14/2023 at 9:03 AM, Sahaja said:

How did the concepts of reincarnation and karma become so important and widespread among people when seemingly so few people remember and feel accountable for behaviors in past lives?

 

How did belief in the importance of ending the cycle of birth and rebirth become so widespread among people when seemingly so few achieve enlightenment (are successful) and most people seemingly want continuance of life (regardless that it might entail some suffering)? 
 

I am trying to improve my understanding of how these views became widespread among people from a behavioral or practical perspective. Not from a belief or authority perspective. 
 

note I use the word seemingly to reflect that this is my life experience with people’s behaviors that may be different from others. 
 

 

The definition of right view depends in part on the definition of wrong view; the definition of wrong view was given as follows:
 

“There is no (result of) gift … no (result of) offering … no (result of) sacrifice; there is no fruit or ripening of deeds well done or ill done; there is not this world, there is not a world beyond; there is no (benefit from serving) mother and father; there are no beings of spontaneous uprising; there are not in the world recluses and brahmans… who are faring rightly, proceeding rightly, and who proclaim this world and the world beyond having realized them by their own super-knowledge.”
 

(MN III 71-78, Pali Text Society III p 113-121)

 

“Beings of spontaneous uprising” appears to be a reference to fairy-like beings that spring into existence without parents (several classes of fairy-like beings were believed to exist in Vedic folklore; see notes, SN III 249, Vol III pg 197).
 

Right view, said Gautama, is twofold. First, there is the right view which is exactly the opposite of wrong view; this, however, is the view “that has cankers, that is on the side of merit, that ripens unto cleaving (to new birth)”. The right view which is “[noble], supermundane, cankerless and a component of the way” is:
 

“Whatever … is wisdom, the cardinal faculty of wisdom, the power of wisdom, the component of enlightenment which is investigation into things, the right view that is a component of the Way in one who, by developing the [noble] Way, is of [noble] thought, conversant with the [noble] Way–this… is a right view that is [noble], cankerless, supermundane, a component of the Way.”
 

(Ibid)

 

 

(Making Sense of the Pali Canon: the Wheel of the Sayings, by yours truly)
 

"There is fruit or ripening of deeds well done or ill done" would be right view "that has cankers, that is on the side of merit, that ripens unto cleaving (to new birth)”.

Here's a dialogue where the brahmin Dona questions Gautama the Sakyan about would become of Gautama after death:

 

"Then your worship will become a human being?"

 

"No indeed, brahman, I'll not become a human being."

 

... "Who then, pray, will your worship become?"

 

Brahmin, those asavas whereby, if they were not abandoned, I should become... a human being,--those asavas in me are abandoned, cut off at the root, made like a palm tree stump, made non-existent, of a nature not to arise again in future time.  Just as, brahmin, a lotus, blue, red, or white, though born in the water, grown up in the water, when it reaches the surface stands there unsoiled by the water,--just so, brahmin, though born in the world, grown up in the world, having overcome the world, I abide unsoiled by the world.  Take it that I am a Buddha, brahmin.

(AN text ii, 37; iv, IV, 36; Pali Text Society AN II Book of Fours p 44)

 

 

Much the same thing, 500 years later:

 

Jesus said to His disciples:  Make a comparison to Me and tell Me who I am like.

... Thomas said to Him:  Master, my mouth will not at all be capable of saying whom Thou are like.  

Jesus said:  I am not thy Master, because thou hast drunk, thou hast from the bubbling spring which I have measured out.

(The Gospel According to Thomas, coptic text established and translated by A. Guillaumont, H.-CH. Puech, G. Quispel, W. Till and Yassah ‘Abd Al Masih, p 9 log. 13, ©1959 E. J. Brill)
 

 

I realize I'm not actually answering your fundamental question, how did a belief in reincarnation become so widespread.  I just wanted to point out, that the people I respect the most in the history of the world did not actually share in that belief, even though their followers may have.  Gautama got so tired of Ananda asking him the fate of individuals who had perished, that he told Ananda to judge for himself based on how they lived their lives; a dodge if ever there was one.


 

[Jenn]

While I personally do believe in karma and reincarnation (albeit not the way karma is usually described and not for the reason I am giving here), for some it might be a comforting way to cope with the unfairness of life within the framework of good/bad we have been fed since birth.  When good things happen, it is because you deserve and earned it because of your good karma.  When bad things happen, it is payment for past or ancestral karma.  In reality, most of life is probably just random, which is much scarier to cope with.  Especially when we have been indoctrinated since birth that if you are honest, work hard and care about others you will succeed and if not, you will fail - which is a sentiment that lines up very well with the idea of karma.  In reality, many who work hard and do everything right in life fail and struggle, and many who harm others, cheat and put in little effort succeed.

 

Also, you know, being all enlightened and "escaping reincarnation" makes you look really bad a** on your insta, so there is that 😋

 

[Maddie]

37 minutes ago, Jenn said:

Also, you know, being all enlightened and "escaping reincarnation" makes you look really bad a** on your insta, so there is that 😋

 

That's basically what it boils down to lol 😂

[Master Logray]

On 12/15/2023 at 5:08 AM, Sanity Check said:

For those who can tap into "previous lives" it doesn't mean they passed away and were reborn.

 

It means a fragment of a previous person's spirit was recycled and became entangled in the spirit of someone newly born.

 

Or they somehow tapped into the genetic memory of one of their ancestors.

 

 

I always think similarly.  The phenomenon of reincarnation is simply someone (like young children) remembers something belong to a deceased person with verifiable details.   Instead of applying the deep theory of reincarnation, it can be explained by possession, subtle linkage with spirits, access to stored memory, access to someone's akastic records,  and other telepathic situations.   These are more likely and simpler possibilities.   Although I believe in the existence of reincarnation, I think it is not a systemic or unavoidable as stated in different religions.

 

 

[Sanity Check]

21 hours ago, Jenn said:

 In reality, many who work hard and do everything right in life fail and struggle, and many who harm others, cheat and put in little effort succeed.

 

 

"Patrick Geddes: Conditions of degeneration in the organic world are approximately known. These conditions are often of two distinct kinds, deprivation of food, light, etc. so leading to imperfect nutrition and enervation; the other, a life of repose, with abundant supply of food and decreased exposure to the dangers of the environment. It is noteworthy that while the former only depresses, or at most distinguishes the specific type, the latter, through the disuse of the nervous and other structures etc. which such a simplification of life involves, brings about that far more insidious and through degeneration seen in the life history of myriads of parasites."

 

..

 

Over the long term, struggle might be the healthier path.

 

A reward in and of itself.

[Nintendao]

On 12/17/2023 at 4:12 AM, Master Logray said:

On 12/14/2023 at 4:08 PM, Sanity Check said:

For those who can tap into "previous lives" it doesn't mean they passed away and were reborn.

It means a fragment of a previous person's spirit was recycled and became entangled in the spirit of someone newly born.

Or they somehow tapped into the genetic memory of one of their ancestors.

 

I always think similarly.  The phenomenon of reincarnation is simply someone (like young children) remembers something belong to a deceased person with verifiable details.   Instead of applying the deep theory of reincarnation, it can be explained by possession, subtle linkage with spirits, access to stored memory, access to someone's akastic records,  and other telepathic situations.   These are more likely and simpler possibilities.   Although I believe in the existence of reincarnation, I think it is not a systemic or unavoidable as stated in different religions.

 

A clue to something like this has been observed in organ transplant recipients...

 

[Master Logray]

1 hour ago, Nintendao said:

 

A clue to something like this has been observed in organ transplant recipients...

 

 

Spirit hopping vs. transfer of information, could be both.

[Jenn]

On 12/15/2023 at 10:38 AM, Sahaja said:

On reincarnation and karma just seems that it would be more efficient at behavioral modification if people could remember and connect the dots from past lives to their current lifetime. It seems it’s more used as a filler explanation after the fact when stuff happens that otherwise seems random, arbitrary or unfair. Reincarnation may exist but if it falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound?

 

This is probably an unconventional view, but personally I think karma isn't so much that whats happens to us is based on how we lived our (current and past) lives, but what we do to ourselves in response to the random things that happen to us in life.  When something happens that makes us angry, sad, ashamed, guilty, etc or we allow ourselves have obsessive desires, if we don't manage those in a healthy manner they stay with us in the body in the form of subtle tension and blockages and compound over time as we pile in more and more unresolved negative feelings and desires.  Eventually these simple emotions warp into complex or "high minded" emotions like hate / shame / pride / etc as more and more unresolved feels twist and fold in on themselves until we can barely recognize "ourselves" from who "we" really are.  All these become twisted and matted together, so that it is next to impossible to manage your emotions in a healthy manner.  An emotion should flow through the body in the moment and dissipate once it has "done what it needs to do", but if it is blocked by tension and prior unresolved emotions, instead it further ingrains that feeling in the body and also you experience that feeling in increasingly dysfunctional ways, because the whole matted network of tension and blocked emotions connected to the simple emotion you should be feeling are engaged.  Now a flash of simple anger than should dissipate quickly if your healthy becomes more extreme, stays with you, and you experience other emotions that shouldn't engage like shame / disgust / hate / etc because things are too tangled together.

 

Resolving karma is then process of untangling the matted mess of causal chains we allowed to compound unchecked.  Once you do this huge process and remove all that tension and resolve those emotions and desires, you are no longer affected by karma, because you are free of your past karma, and now know how to process events in life without allowing them to carry with you (and what to do if something does linger).  Also as you remove these "knots" within yourself, it becomes clear how you ended up with them in the first place, which give you the insight to move through life more deftly and avoid situations that cause excess negative emotions for yourself (and in those you interact with).  

 

IMO this ties into reincarnation because of how the subtle bodies all affect one another.  For example if you have a physical ailment that is not resolved, in time it begins to impact you in ways beyond physical such as mentally, emotionally, energetically, and eventually affects your spirit.  And the longer left unchecked, the harder it is to resolve because it must be done within all the affected subtle bodies.  When you are reincarnated, anything lingering in your spirit comes with you, but the rest is left behind.  However over time in your "new" life, those unresolved parts of your spirit start to manifest slowly through the various subtle bodies at some point in your life impacting you physically / emotionally / etc and remain until they too are resolved in the same manner you resolve your karma from your current life.  Once you finally resolve a past-life karma, even though you don't have the memory of the exact events, you still witness (and undo) the chain of causality within yourself, and therefore benefit from the lessons in the same way you benefit from unravelling your current life karma.  

[dwai]

To understand karma one has to understand the layers of existence in the transactional reality. The physical body (called the sthula sharira) is just a tiny part of the whole. There is a subtle body (called linga sharira) which is rooted in a causal body (karana sharira). All karmic effects come from this karana sharira. Think of it as a seed state which stores all the consequences of our karma (actions). 
 

When we come into the transactional realm, a part of those karma phala (consequences of our past actions) are brought with us. It is easily understood in the form of certain traits or predilections we might have from a very young age. Some are activated at other key points in our lives (eg when we turn 23-25). These affect how we live and act/react in the world. 

[Master Logray]

9 minutes ago, dwai said:

To understand karma one has to understand the layers of existence in the transactional reality. The physical body (called the sthula sharira) is just a tiny part of the whole. There is a subtle body (called linga sharira) which is rooted in a causal body (karana sharira). All karmic effects come from this karana sharira. Think of it as a seed state which stores all the consequences of our karma (actions). 
 

When we come into the transactional realm, a part of those karma phala (consequences of our past actions) are brought with us. It is easily understood in the form of certain traits or predilections we might have from a very young age. Some are activated at other key points in our lives (eg when we turn 23-25). These affect how we live and act/react in the world. 

 

Is it a Hindu teaching or Buddhist, or your own research?

[dwai]

45 minutes ago, Master Logray said:

 

Is it a Hindu teaching or Buddhist, or your own research?

This is a Hindu teaching. I have verified empirically 

[Gerard]

[Cobie]

 

I do not need the whole truth to live, only my own experience.  
 

 

Edited December 27, 2023 by Cobie