In August 2007 the official Chinese news agency announced a new rule about the recognition of"living buddhas," an expression the Chinese use to designate reincarnate masters. Henceforth, "all requests for recognition of a reincarnation of a 'living buddha' must be approved by the Bureau of Religious Affairs," under penalty of law. The Dalai Lama has commented on these measures with humor:
This bizarre decision proves that its authors who somehow pride themselves in delivering 'reincarnation permits' understand nothing about either reincarnation or Buddhism. (Stril-Rever, pp. 68-69)
In the speech he gave when he presented the Nobel Peace Prize to the Dalai Lama, Egil Aarvik observed:
The process of recognizing a reincarnation implies entering what is, for a Westerner, terra incognita, where beliefs, thought and action exist in a dimension of existence of which we are ignorant, or that perhaps we have simply forgotten.
(Egil Aarvik, Oslo, December 10, 1989; quoted by Stril-Rever, p. 69)
The notion of the transmigration of the soul definitely does not exist in Buddhism. In Buddhism there is no independent and unchanging entity (something called "a soul" or "an ego"). What provides the continuity between lives is the ultimate subtlest level of consciousness (Sogyal, p.90). The Dalai Lama explains:
There are different levels of consciousness. What we call innermost subtle consciousness is always there. The continuity of that consciousness is almost like something permanent, like the space particles. In the field of matter, that is the space particles; in the field of consciousness, it is the Clear Light...The Clear Light with its special energy, makes the connection with consciousness."
(His Holiness the Dalai Lama, in a dialog with David Bohm, in Dialogs with Scientists and Sages: The Search for Unityedited by Renee Weber. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986, p. 237).
The successive existences... are not like the pearls in a pearl necklace held together by a string, the "soul,"... rather they are like dice piled one on top of the other. Each dice is separate, but it supports the one above it, with which it is functionally connected. Between the dice there is no identity, but conditionality.(H. W. Schumann. The Historical Buddha London: Arkana, 1989, p. 139).
"As one form changes into another, so is the mind born and broken up thence I tell my disciples how uninterruptedly and momentarily birth-[and death] takes place."(The Lankavatara Sutra)
Buddhist scriptures provide a clear account of this process of conditionality in the set of questions and answers between the Buddhist sage Nagasena and King Milinda:
The King asked Nagasena: "When someone is born, is he the same as the one who just died, or is he different?"
Nagasena replied: "He is neither the same, nor different...Tell me, if a man were to light a lamp, could it provide light the whole night long?"
"Yes"
"Is the flame which burned in the first watch of the night the same as the one that burns in the second... or the last?"
"No."
"Does that mean there is one lamp in the first watch of the night, another in the second, and another in the third?"
"No. It's because of that one lamp that the light shines all night."
"Rebirth is much the same: one phenomenon arises and another stops, simultaneously. So the first act of consciousness in the new existence is neither the same as the last act of consciousness in the previous existence, nor is it different."
Perhaps the best way of explaining rebirth is using an analogy of the flame and the candle. The flame burns until the candle is almost finished. As the flame begins to flicker out, a second candle is lit from the first. The flame of the first candle now dies out completely, leaving only the second candle burning. The flame burns away the second candle and, again, just before it reaches its end and flickers out, a third candle is lit from that . . . and so on, and so forth. The flame flickers and burns continuously and the candles are constantly being used up and renewed. The candles represent physical bodies; the flame, the mind. The two work harmoniously together — an interplay of mind and body. This combination of mind and body is what we usually think of as 'ourselves'. The body gets older and older as the years roll by until it falls into decay and, like the candle, is incapable of being used any more. The mind, like the flame, twists and turns constantly, the same yet not the same, different yet not different, from moment to moment, day to day, year to year, and from life to life. There is nothing permanent or static in the candle or the flame; they are constantly changing. There is nothing permanent or static in the mind and body either. In this impermanence there is no eternity and no annihilation. Instead there is a re-becoming process.
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
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