In the Buddhist tradition, we know that on the night of His enlightenment, the Buddha acquired three varieties of knowledge and the first of these was the detailed knowledge of His past lives. He was able to recollect the conditions in which He had been born in His past lives. Besides the Buddha, His prominent disciples (Ananda, for example)were also able to recollect their past lives. Similarly, throughout the history of Buddhism, saints, scholars and meditators have been able to recollect their past lives.
Buddhism believes in universal causation, that everything is subject to change, and to causes and conditions....When we talk of causes and conditions, there are two principal types: substantial causes, the stuff from which something is produced, and cooperative factors, which contribute towards that causation. In the case of mind and body, although one can affect the other, one cannot become the substance of the other...Mind and matter, although dependent on one another, cannot serve as substantial causes for each other. This is the basis on which Buddhism accepts rebirth.(An explanation given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama during a public teaching in New York, Oct. 1991; quoted by Sogyal, p.90)
Death is only a transitional period, a small change in the endless cycle of Samsara. Death is inevitable and simple, just like changing clothes, and there is nothing about it that we have to fear. Our conventional way of thinking makes us associate death with pain and suffering, and with the agony of separation from what is "mine." But death itself is not annihilation. Anyone, from a Bodhisattva to an ordinary person, is reborn from "beginningless" and will be reborn again, endlessly (Sofia, p.65). The Buddha said we have been born and we have died time and time again:
"Inconceivable is the beginning of this Samsara (the circuit of mundane existence); not to be discovered is any first beginning of beings . . . hurrying and hastening through this round of rebirths." (Samyutta-Nikaya, The Word of the Buddha)
Rebirth is part of the continuous process of change. Continuity is always there, owing to karma (Sofia, p. 65). We are not only reborn at the time of death. Look closely, and you will see that we are born and reborn at every moment. Even those few cells which last one’s entire life undergo constant internal changes. This is part of the process of birth, death and rebirth. Look at the mind too, you will find that mental states of worry, happiness and so forth are changing every moment. They die and are replaced by new states. So our physical and mental experiences are characterized by continuous birth, death and rebirth.
Buddhism teaches us that there are various realms, spheres or dimensions of existence. There are thirty-one planes of existence listed, but for our purposes, we are going to utilize a simpler scheme which enumerates six realms of existence. In general, the six realms may be divided into two groups, one of which is relatively fortunate and the other relatively miserable. The first group includes three of the six realms and they are the realm of the gods, the realm of the demigods and the realm of human beings. Rebirth in these fortunate realms is the result of wholesome karma. The second group includes the three realms that are considered relatively miserable. They are sometimes called the realms of woe, and they are the realm of animals, the realm of hungry ghosts and the realm of hell beings. Rebirth in these states of woe is the result of unwholesome karma.
The human realm (Manushya) is the most favored of the six realms because as a human being one has the motivation and the opportunity to practice the Dharma and to achieve enlightenment. One has this motivation and opportunity because the conditions conducive to practicing the path are present. In the human realm, one experiences both happiness and suffering. The suffering in this realm, though terrible, is not so great as the suffering in the three realms of woe. The pleasure and happiness experienced in the human realm is not so great as the pleasure and happiness experienced in the heavens. As a result, human beings are neither blinded by the intense happiness experienced by the beings in the heavens, nor distracted by the unbearable suffering that beings in the hells experience. Again, unlike the animals, human beings possess sufficient intelligence to recognize the necessity to look for a means to achieve the total end of suffering. It is therefore not only necessary to be born as a human being, it is also necessary to have the opportunity to practice the Dharma, to develop one’s qualities of morality, mental development and wisdom.
The Buddha spoke about the rarity and the precious nature of opportune birth amongst human beings. He used a simile to illustrate this point. Suppose the whole world were a vast ocean, and on the surface of this ocean there were a yoke floating about, blown about by the wind, and suppose at the bottom of the ocean there lived a blind tortoise which came to the surface of the ocean once every hundred years. Just as difficult as it would be for that tortoise to place its neck through the opening in that yoke floating about in the ocean, just so difficult is it to attain opportune birth as a human being.
Another comparison could illustrate the precious opportunity to be born into the realm of humans, and to be able to practice the Dharma. Just as if one were to throw a handful of dried peas against a stone wall, and just as if one of these peas were to stick in a crack in the wall, so to be born as a human being with the opportunity to practice the Dharma is similarly difficult. It is foolish to waste human existence along with the conducive conditions that we enjoy in free societies, the opportunity that we have to practice the Dharma. It is extremely important that having this opportunity we make use of it. If we fail to practice the Dharma in this life, there is no way of knowing where in the six realms we will be reborn, and when we shall have such a chance again. We must strive to free ourselves from the cycle of rebirth because failing to do so means that we will continue to circle endlessly amongst these six realms of existence. When the karma, wholesome or unwholesome, that causes us to be born in any of the six realms is exhausted, rebirth will occur, and we will find ourselves again in another realm. So now that we have the opportunity to practice the Dharma, we must do so without delay.
In Buddhism there is no belief in an abiding entity, in a substance that trans-migrates. We do not believe in a self that is reborn. This is why when we explain rebirth, we make use of examples which do not require the transmigration of an essence or a substance. For example, when a sprout is born from a seed, there is no substance that transmigrates. The seed and the sprout are not identical. Similarly, when we light one candle from another candle, no substance travels from one to the other, and yet the first is the cause of the second. When one billiard ball strikes another, there is a continuity, the energy and direction of the first ball is imparted to the second. It is the cause of the second billiard ball moving in a particular direction and at a particular speed. When we step twice into a river, it is not the same river and yet there is continuity, the continuity of cause and effect. So there is rebirth, but not transmigration. There is moral responsibility, but not an independent, permanent self. There is the continuity of cause and effect, but not permanence.
[For decades, doctors (e.g., Dr. Ian Stevenson???, Dr. Jim B. Tucker...???) at the University of Virginia Medical Center have conducted research into young children's reports of pat life memories. Researchers have studied more than 2,500 such cases, and their careful investigations have produced an impressive body of work.
"Each of us may be like a single train of thought in one large Mind....each of our minds may turn out to be small streams of consciousness that are all parts of a single larger Mind, a 'cosmic consciousness' as [Williams] James said." (p.217, Jim Tucker)
Sources:
Sylvia Cranston & Carey Williams, Reincarnation: A New Horizon in Science, Religion, and Society, (New York, NY: Julian Press, 1984).]
http://www.knowbuddhism.info/2009/03/rebirth-reincarnation-and-recognition.html
The Dalai Lama: My Spiritual Journey. (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2010). Collected by Sofia Stril-Rever, translated by Charlotte Mandell.
Sogyal Rinpoche. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. (New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 1992).
http://www.buddhanet.net/funbud10.htm
It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection.
Voltaire
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