Reincarnation, Time, and Space (Surviving Death) 

Hmmm... Let me think about it. I've never been an addictive personality, at least not to the point where it became a clinical problem. But I've had some addictions, so maybe I could speak about it.

Ditto

@@HardcoreZen in the 12 steps, addiction is always seen as rooted in "self-will" and addiction to whatever it may be, is always actually addiction to self.

@@HardcoreZen addiction to nostalgia ?

I think the old idea of two kinds of addictions is still valid. Psychological (that is, things that you seek to subsume your ego discomfort) and physical (real biological hooks like alcohol and opioids) . Both are fascinating and they are related. I'm sure the line is a fuzzy one

So what is the difference between modern 'Secular Buddhism' and the Charvakans?

Thank you. I'd forgotten about that. I don't know much about the Carvakas except that sometimes they're called "materialists" I think. There were Indian thinkers who rejected ideas like reincarnation/rebirth.

"Are we kidding ourselves that the idea is frivolous?" Yes, very much so...even within the Zen tradition.

I don't think he said that Philip Kapleau wrote Life After Life, what I heard was he that he though he might have recommended it.

@@gregwallace552 Right you are! I should pay closer attention. Sorry.

@@marknoble2030 It's okay.

In India, rebirth (this is the right term) is the bad consequence, but unavoidable for most of sentient beeings. Every beeing, from naraka to deva, from devils in hell to angels in heaven, are to move in that frigging cycle of samsara.

Instablaster...

Did I write that? I know I've thought that from time to time. I'd file that under "Brad's personal speculations" rather than "Eternal Buddhist Truths." Still, it might make a good video.

@@HardcoreZen Yeah, it was one of your blog posts maybe a year or two ago... It's a cool topic, nonetheless.

@@HardcoreZen “To regard oneself as a bodhisattva is to regard all forms of being as forms that one can and does take, out of compassion for the world. And it is this recognizing of ourselves in other lives that is the true meaning of rebirth and its constant invocation throughout the Lotus Sutra; it shows us all past, present, and future existences as varying bodhisattva transformations of ourselves-in this very moment, right now.” - Shinozaki, M., Ziporyn, B.A., & Earheart, D.C. (2019). “The Threefold Lotus Sutra: A Modern Translation for Contemporary Readers”. (pp. lii-liii)

@@JimTempleman but be cautious, it can cause heavy "brain overload", examples abound (topic: religious pathologies)!

This makes sense. If all life forms are one, and all one is now, than other people are indeed your own past and future. Not their experiences and memories specifically, perhaps, but because 'you' as you think you are (separate from all else) are never born, you are always incarnated. Difficult to put into words but the concept is clear.

I'd like to say, karma is not a test, but the cause and effect system.

Paweł Wójcik I`m with you on the issue of the Buddha himself not necessarily believing in reincarnation and definitely not emphasizing it in his teaching. However, the idea that it might be benificial to believe in (and to teach) something that is not true does not sit well with me. If reincarnation is not real, then teaching children to believe in it is simply lying. We are taught that we are all buddhas, right? Buddhas that need to wake up and realize that we are buddhas. How is lying to us helping us realize the truth? And what else are our teachers lying about then?

@@marcusgronwall1340 Well, lying is a strong word. Throughout history when a new faith was being introduced it was always easier to introduce it by adapting its doctrine and mixing it with the current local beliefs. I believe that's how Tibetan buddhism got started with all it's deamons and stuff. This is also why Jesus' birthday is celebrated on 24th of December. Buddha might have used the same trick with reincarnation, as his intention was to help people and probably knew that if he had rejected something so fundamental, he wouldn't have gotten far with his teaching. Instead he used this idea to encourage people to cultivate the mind. As I've written in my previous comment, pondering the idea of reincarnation, really thinking about what is there that goes from one lifetime to another and simultaneously holding the view of non-self is kind of a zen koan for me. It can help with practice.

Paweł Wójcik I agree with everything you say about new faiths adapting older traditions to help them get a foot in the door, so to speak. Christmas on the 24th of December is a perfect example of this and as far as I am aware, all new faiths do this. And while it may be crucial for marketing reasons, it is still untrue. And to teach things that are at best unknown and at worst straight up untrue IS lying. Remember that most believers, Buddhists or belonging to other faiths, are not invited to look at the teachings of their tradition sceptically. While in Zen a certain amount of individualism is a good thing and the great masters of history did not necessarily agree with each other, most belivers of any faith are expected to believe what their teachers/priests/imams tell them. And if Buddhist teachers (even in Zen) are content with offering teachings that they themselves do not believe in, simply to "give the people what they want" or to stay relevant, then Buddhism is just another religion with no possible special claims about truth. And I confess, this is something I constantly struggle with, something I do not want to be true!

@@marcusgronwall1340 that is the tricky thing with the concept of "upâya" ("skilfull means"), one may be tempted to say, with F. Nietzsche, it`s "human, all too human".

Not really. I just think he was a very brilliant writer and insightful person.

My mother stopped by my room as she was passing out of this world. My friend David Coady briefly visited me after he died. Neither of them visited me in dreams as such, though I've had numerous dreams of my mother since she died. So who knows? My friend upon whom the "Letters" book was based never visited me as far as I'm aware.

@@HardcoreZen My dad died when I was pretty young, and showed up in dreams a lot, hasn't in ages. My Mom has quite a lot, too, in ways interesting.

@@HardcoreZen One of my favorite things about you (as I've noted before) is your authenticity. That's something I learned doing Zen, how to be steadfastly honest (which doesn't mean I don't lie). At any rate, your mother passed through on her way out, something you KNEW, so clearly, contact with the "non living" world is possible. Someone might say you were hallucinating (I've tried to debunk my own paranormal experiences a lot), but you know that's not true, just as I do. You did suggest the letters book was based on more than one person, you'd kind of randomly chosen Markie as I recall.

@@brookestabler3477, well, if there is rebith, then there is no dead persons who continue to be the same person.

@@wladddkn1517 Huh? If Joe is reincarnated as Susie, then Joe had to have died and his "Joeness" (according to those who claim to be reincarnated) continues to be Joe despite being present in Susie's body. I've not watched the thing Brad has written on here, have read one person who claims to be reincarnated's story, it struck me as not very credible. Show me an American who can speak Chinese because she learned it in her last life, I'll believe. As of right now, I don't know.

There's a difference between the 2 ideas. Reincarnation usually means the belief that there's a soul that travels from one body to another. Rebirth is used to mean what the Buddhists believe in, that the same causes and conditions remain together and can be the cause of another life. Like waves producing other waves made of more-or-less the same bunch of water.

@@HardcoreZen I know what the Buddhists think, but what do you think? When my teacher was asked about it, his response was "It doesn't really matter. Keep your mind on what's happening now,

Hard core Zen Come to think of it, that’s more or less what you’re pointing at I think. I’m a little slow sometimes.

It is the concept of the "hyle" (Aristoteles[?]), also discussed by ancient Greek philosophers.

Teilhard de Chardin "operationalizes" something like the world-spirit (ger.: "Weltgeist") in terms of his own Christology of the "Omega-man", if I remember right. He holds strongyly to the "realism-principle" (S. Freud), having been a scientist himself (archeaology, etc.). Now, past life memories seem, in general, rather to be an ana-thema for Christians---with certain exceptions, which however are usually branded as "heterodox" or even "heresies"---, respectively to be a subject for "bracketing", since the standard Christian world-view strongly favours a strictly "dual" two-worlds-teaching: here the "earthly existence" (therby often interpreting ones one and only life as the single occasion for putting all things right, so to say) and there the "heavenly spheres" (however people/communities operationalize them, e.g., as "elysium", as "God`s ultimate reign", as "totaliter aliter", and so forth) with Jesus the Christ (as messiah) sent and set as the "sole" meddler (according to the dominant teachings, at least). That`s the way I would interpret Teilhard de Chardin`s "approach" (which changed over his lifetime; he was more a seeker than a finder, except for his basic creed). Taken phenomenologically, "every(-non-)thing shining up" counts as "given" (i.e., data, datum); where it gets really interesting (or even hits existentially), interpretations (as ways of unfolding rationals, matrices, etc.) necessarily commence----unless one chooses "total bracketing" (which, yet, rather looks like a limes-phenomenon, approaching the "wall" of the "impossible", to put it in a zen-ish way).

@@gunterappoldt3037 I've not read tons of his stuff, mostly overviews and ideas about the Noosphere. I once listened to a Krista Tippet thing where she had a segment on his thinking, an open minded atheist evolutionary biologist, and one other, a theist I think, I don't recall, but it worked really well. He was ahead of his time in many ways, a scientist, and a very spiritual guy as a monk.

@@brookestabler3477 yes, he had an interesting life and wrote some inspiring books.

It can work.