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Teaching in Buddhism

Rebirth in Buddhism refers to the teaching that the actions of a sentient being lead to a new existence after death, in an endless cycle called saṃsāra. This cycle is considered to be dukkha, unsatisfactory and painful. The cycle stops only if Nirvana (liberation) is achieved by insight and the extinguishing of craving. Rebirth is one of the foundational doctrines of Buddhism, along with karma and Nirvana. Rebirth was a key teaching of early Buddhism along with the doctrine of karma (which it shared with early Indian religions like Jainism). In Early Buddhist Sources, the Buddha claims to have knowledge of his many past lives. Rebirth and other concepts of the afterlife have been interpreted in different ways by different Buddhist traditions. The rebirth doctrine, sometimes referred to as reincarnation or transmigration, asserts that rebirth takes place in one of the six realms of samsara, the realms of gods, demi gods, humans, the animal realm, the ghost realm and hell realms. Rebirth, as stated by various Buddhist traditions, is determined by karma, with good realms favored by kushala karma (good or skillful karma), while a rebirth in evil realms is a consequence of akushala karma (bad or unskillful karma). Refn|group=note|This merit gaining may be on the behalf of one's family members. The various Buddhist traditions throughout history have disagreed on what it is in a person that is reborn, as well as how quickly the rebirth occurs after each death. Some traditions like Theravada assert that rebirth occurs immediately and that no "thing" (not even consciousness) moves across lives to be reborn (though there is a causal link, like when a seal is imprinted on wax). Other Buddhist traditions such as Tibetan Buddhism posit an interim existence (bardo) between death and rebirth, which may last as long as 49 days. This belief drives Tibetan funerary rituals. According to Sayers, these earliest layers of the Vedic literature show ancestor worship and rites such as sraddha (offering food to the ancestors). The later Vedic texts such as the Aranyakas and the Upanisads show a different soteriology based on reincarnation, they show little concern with ancestor rites, and they begin to philosophically interpret the earlier rituals. The idea of reincarnation and karma have roots in the Upanishads of the late Vedic period, predating the Buddha and the Mahavira. The Sramana schools affirmed the idea of soul, karma and cycle of rebirth. The competing Indian materialist schools denied the idea of soul, karma and rebirth, asserting instead that there is just one life, there is no rebirth, and death marks complete annihilation. From these diverse views, Buddha accepted the premises and concepts related to rebirth, but introduced innovations. The Buddha's detailed conception of the connections between action (karma), rebirth and causality is set out in the twelve links of dependent origination. However, much of traditional Buddhist practice has been centered on gaining merit and merit transfer, whereby an individual gains rebirth for oneself or one's family members in the good realms, and avoids rebirth in the evil realms. The Sotāpanna (Stream enterer) – Still has up to seven rebirths left
Sakadāgāmi (Once Returner) – Will only return for one more human rebirth
Anāgāmi – Will only return once more to a heavenly realm
Arahant – Has cut off rebirth completely, will not be reborn

According to the early Buddhist texts, accepting the truth of rebirth (glossed as the view that "there is this world & the next world" in suttas like MN 117) is part of right view, the first element of the noble eight fold path. While some scholars like Tilmann Vetter and Akira Hirakawa have questioned whether the Buddha saw rebirth as important, Johannes Bronkhorst argues that these views are based on scant evidence from the EBTs. He further writes that "in so far as the texts allow us to reach an answer the Buddha did believe in rebirth." As noted by Anālayo, a standard definition of wrong view in the EBTs "explicitly covers the denial of rebirth and the fruition of karma". The denial of rebirth is rejected as an "annihilationist" view in the Brahmajala Sutta (DN 1, Chinese parallel at DA 21, a Tibetan parallel also exists). The Samaññaphala Sutta (parallel at DA 27) also critiques the view of a school of ancient Indian materialism called Carvaka (which rejected rebirth and held that "all are destroyed at death"). According to this Sutta, to hold this view while living in a time when the Buddha's teachings are available is equivalent to being born dumb and dull. However, Anālayo argues that since there are different definitions of right view in the early texts, this "leaves open the possibility that someone may engage in practices related to the Buddhist path to liberation without necessarily pledging faith in rebirth. It does not leave open the possibility of denying rebirth outright, however, since that would amount to holding wrong view". Because of this, Anālayo writes that the question of rebirth may simply be set aside without going as far as to deny rebirth and affirm annihilation. An advice given in various EBTs is not to waste time speculating about what one might have been in the past and what they will be in the future. Such advice can be found in the Sabbasava Sutta (MN 2, with a parallel at MA 10). In contrast to this, various early texts regularly recommend the direct recollection of one's own past lives as one of the three higher knowledges which correspond to the realizations attained by the Buddha on the night of his awakening. According to Anālayo, there is a major difference between direct access to our past lives through mental training (which is encouraged) and theoretical speculation (which is not). Some early discourses also depict various Buddhist monks who seriously misunderstood the nature of rebirth. In one discourse, the Mahatanhasankhaya sutta (MN 38, MA 201), a monk comes to the conclusion that it is this very same consciousness that will be reborn (as opposed to a dependently originated process). In another discourse, the Mahapunnama sutta (MN 109, SA 58), a monk misapplies the doctrine of not self to argue that there is nobody who will be affected by the fruition of karma.

While the vast majority of Buddhists accept some notion of rebirth, they differ in their theories about the rebirth mechanism and precisely how events unfold after the moment of death. Already at the time of the Buddha there was much speculation about how to explain how rebirth occurs and how it relates to the doctrines of not self and impermanence. After the death of the Buddha, the various Buddhist schools which arose debated numerous aspects of rebirth, seeking to provide a more systematic explanation of the rebirth process. Important topics included the existence of the intermediate state, the exact nature of what undergoes rebirth, the relationship between rebirth and not self, and how karma affects rebirth. or a "stream of consciousness" (Pali: viññana sotam, D.3.105) as that which transmigrates. However, according to Bruce Matthews, "there is no single major systematic exposition on this subject" in the Pali Canon. Some Buddhist scholars such as Buddhaghosa, held that the lack of an unchanging self (atman) does not mean that there is a lack of continuity in rebirth, since there is still a causal link between lives. The process of rebirth across different realms of existence was compared to how a flame is transferred from one candle to another. Various Indian Buddhist schools like the Sautrantika, Mahasamghika and the Mahasisaka held that the karmic link between lives could be explained by how karmic effects arose out of "seeds" which were deposited in a mental substratum. The Sautrantika Elder Srilata defended the theory of a "subsidiary element" (anudhatu or *purvanudhatu) which corresponds to the seed theory. The Sautrantika school held this was a "transmigrating substratum of consciousness". It argued that each personal action "perfumes" the individual stream of consciousness and leads to the planting of a seed that would later germinate as a good or bad karmic result. This allowed them to explain what underwent the process of rebirth. The Sarvāstivāda Vaibhāṣika school on the other hand did not make use of the seed theory, since they held an eternalist theory of time, which held that phenomena (dharmas) in the past, present and future exist. Because of this, they argued that after an action was done by a person, it still continued to exist, and to be in a state of "possession" (prāpti) vis a vis the mindstream (santana) of the person who performed the action. According to Vaibhāṣikas, it was this which guaranteed the capacity of past karma to produce an effect long after it had been performed. The seed theory was defended by the influential Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu in his Abhidharmakosha. The Sarvastivada Abhidharma master Saṃghabhadra states that the seed theory was referred to by different names including: subsidiary elements (anudhatu), impressions (vasana); capability (samarthya), non disappearance (avipranasa), or accumulation (upacaya). According to Lobsang Dargyay, the Prāsaṇgika branch of the Madhyamaka school (which is exemplified by the philosopher Chandrakirti), attempted to refute every concept for a support or a storehouse of karmic information (including the alaya vijñana). Instead, some Prāsaṇgika philosophers argue that a karmic action results in a potential which will ripen later. This potential is not a thing and does not need a support. However, other Madhyamaka thinkers (which are classified as "Svatantrikas" by Tibetans scholars), generally adopted the Sautrantika concept of tendencies stored in the stream of consciousness. The Pudgalavada school of early Buddhism accepted the core premise of Buddhism that there is no ātman, but asserted that there is a "personal entity" (pudgala, puggala) that retains karmic merit and undergoes rebirth. This personal entity was held to be neither different nor identical to the five aggregates (skandhas). This concept was attacked by Theravada Buddhists in the early 1st millennium CE. It was also criticized by northern Buddhist philosophers like Vasubandhu.

Another topic which gave rise to much debate among Indian Buddhists was the idea of the intermediate existence (antarabhāva). According to Andre Bareau, the Indian Buddhist schools were split on this issue. While the Sarvāstivāda, Sautrantika, Pudgalavada, Pūrvaśaila and late Mahīśāsaka accepted this doctrine, the Mahāsāṃghika, early Mahīśāsaka, Theravāda, Vibhajyavāda and the Śāriputrābhidharma (possibly Dharmaguptaka) rejected it in favor of an immediate leap of the consciousness from one body to the next. In the Abhidharmakosha, Vasubandhu defends the theory of the intermediate existence. He argues that each intermediate being is made up of the five aggregates, that it arises in the place of death and carries the "configuration of the future being." Furthermore, according to Vasubandhu, this conscious intermediate being becomes aroused on seeing their future parents joined in intercourse and it becomes envious of one of the parents. Because of this desire and hatred, it becomes attached to the womb where it conditions the first moment of "birth existence" (pratisamdhi). These ideas led to various maps for navigating the intermediate existence which are discussed in texts like the Bardo Thodol. In contrast to this, the Theravāda scholar Buddhaghosa argued that rebirth occurs in one instant as part of a process called "rebirth linking" (patisandhi). According to Buddhaghosa, at death, the sense faculties dissolve one by one until only consciousness is left. The very last moment of consciousness at death (cuti viññana) conditions the very first instant of consciousness of the next life, the patisandhi viññana, which occurs at the time of conception. The relationship is compared to that between a seal and wax. While they are not the same entity, the wax impression is conditioned by the seal. Therefore, in the classic Theravāda view, nothing actually transmigrates.

Ancient Buddhists as well as some moderns cite the reports of the Buddha and his disciples of having gained direct knowledge into their own past lives as well as those of other beings through a kind of parapsychological ability or extrasensory perception (termed abhiñña). Traditional Buddhist philosophers like Dharmakīrti have defended the concept of special yogic perception (yogi pratyakṣa) which is able to empirically verify the truth of rebirth. Some modern Buddhists authors like K. N. Jayatilleke also argue that the Buddha's main argument in favor of rebirth was based on empirical grounds, and that this included the idea that extra sensory perception (Pali: atikkanta manusaka) can provide a validation for rebirth. Modern Buddhists such as Bhikkhu Anālayo and Jayatilleke have also argued that rebirth may be empirically verifiable and have pointed to certain parapsychological phenomena as possible evidence, mainly near death experiences (NDEs), past life regression, reincarnation research and xenoglossy. Both Anālayo and B. Alan Wallace point to the work of the American Psychiatrist Ian Stevenson as providing possible evidence of rebirth. This is not just a recent phenomenon. According to Anālayo, ancient Chinese Buddhists also pointed to anomalous phenomena such as NDEs to argue for the truth of rebirth. Furthermore, according to Roger R. Jackson, the Indian Buddhist philosopher Śāntarakṣita (725–788) argues in his Tattvasaṅgraha that newborn children exhibit a wide range of complex desires, emotions and mental states that could not exist without the force of past habit, and thus they must be based on the habits acquired in a past life. Wallace also notes that several modern Buddhist figures, such as Pa Auk Sayadaw and Geshe Gedun Lodro have also written about how to train the mind to access past life memories. The Burmese monk Pa Auk Sayadaw is known for teaching such methods and some of his western students like Shaila Catherine have written about this and their experiences in practicing it. B. Alan Wallace argues that first person introspection is a valid means of knowledge about the mind (when that introspection is well trained by meditation) and has been used by numerous contemplatives throughout history. He writes that a well trained mind, "which may be likened to an inwardly focused telescope," should be able to access "a subtle, individual mind stream that carries on from one lifetime to another." Wallace proposes that a research project using well trained meditators could access information from past lives in an accurate manner and these could then be checked by independent third person observers. In his Pramanavarttika, Dharmakīrti defends rebirth by initially focusing on refuting the materialist doctrine of the Carvaka school, which held that the support (asraya) for cognition is the body and that when the body is destroyed, cognition is destroyed. Modern Buddhists who argue in favor of rebirth like B. Alan Wallace often begin by mounting similar arguments against materialism and physicalism, pointing to the current philosophical debate on the "hard problem of consciousness" and arguing that conscious properties cannot be reduced to physical properties. Indeed, according to Wallace "the metaphysical views of materialism are in fundamental conflict with the Buddhist worldview regarding the nature of the mind"

According to Richard P. Hayes, Dharmakīrti denied that mental events were a mere byproduct of the body, instead holding that "both mental events and physical events can be seen as effects of the same set of causal conditions." Eli Franco mentions that for Dharmakīrti, the position that cognition "can arise from the body alone, independent of their similar causes" at the moment of birth is irrational. That is, if the mind is not being conditioned by a previous cognitive event, then it cannot arise from inert matter. Dharmakīrti also argues that mental events can causally condition physical events, and thus there is no reason to privilege matter as being primary. With respect to the knowing (consciousness or mind) of an ordinary being just born: it is preceded by earlier knowing; because it is knowing. Willson notes that this relies on two further assumptions, the first is that any mental continuum must have previous causes, the second is that materialism is false and that mind cannot emerge solely from matter (emergentism). Consciousness, or the mental continuum, has characteristics that are distinct from physical characteristics. The substantial cause for any event is a prior event with the same character (i. e. it is a homogeneous cause). However, as Lucas notes, we should not take Dharmakīrti to be arguing in favor of a strict mind body dualism, since in all systems of Buddhist thought, the mind and body are deeply interconnected and dependent on each other. Dharmakīrti 's point is merely that consciousness cannot arise from physical factors alone, which does not entail that consciousness is totally separate from physical factors. Jacob Andrew Lucas provides a modern formulation of an argument for rebirth which draws on the work of Galen Strawson. Strawson argues against emergence as well as against proto experiential qualities and argues for a form of constitutive panpsychism. Lucas rejects constitutive panpsychism as a live option for a Buddhist due to various issues including the "combination problem" and because it supports the idea that the conscious subject collapses into micro experiences when the body dies. Lucas then proceeds to argue for an unbroken stream of consciousness or an indivisible cluster of conscious experience "that can neither arise from nor collapse into rudimentary factors that are devoid of the distinctive characteristics of consciousness." Theravada Abhidhamma makes a similar argument to Dharmakīrti's. According to the Abhidhamma teacher Nina van Gorkom, physical and mental events (dhammas) both depend on each other and on previous events of the same category (i. e. mental events must also be conditioned by previous mental events, and so on). In Abhidhamma, the mental event (citta) which arises at the first moment of life is called the rebirth consciousness or patisandhi citta. According to van Gorkom, "there isn't any citta which arises without conditions, the patisandhi citta must also have conditions. The patisandhi citta is the first citta of a new life and thus its cause can only be in the past."

According to Thanissaro Bhikkhu, part of the reason the Buddha recommended having conviction in the truth of rebirth was that his teaching on the nature of human action would be incomplete without reference to rebirth. Thanissaro argues that the distinction that the Buddha draws between skillful and unskillful actions is based on the consequences of these actions, and that this provides a strong motivation to do good as long as rebirth holds. This is because actions can sometimes take many lifetimes to yield their results (and thus bad persons do not always experience bad consequences in one lifetime as can be seen in SN 42.13 and MN 136) and therefore only a multi life perspective can lead to "a complete and convincing case that unskillful actions should always be avoided, and skillful ones always developed." He further argues:If we embrace a materialistic worldview, we will naturally seek satisfaction and fulfillment by turning our attention to the outside world, looking for novel sensory and intellectual experiences as well as new material acquisitions. Likewise, when we focus on decreasing our level of suffering and pain, once again our orientation will be outward, looking for scientific and technological breakthroughs to relieve our suffering. Human desire for ever greater happiness seems to be insatiable, and a materialistic worldview strongly supports materialistic values and a way of life centered on the never ending quest of consumerism A materialistic outlook that focuses our attention on the bounties of the external physical world simultaneously blinds us to the inner resources of the human heart and mind. If all our efforts go toward the alleviation of suffering and realization of happiness by external means, the inner ways that we might pursue the good life will be unexplored. A materialistic worldview provides no rationale for making a commitment to ethics or spiritual practice of any kind. Material values and consumerism are naturally aligned with materialism, which reduces meditation to a means for making a materialistic way of life more bearable. According to Alexander Berzin, acceptance of rebirth also has positive moral consequences, particularly in our practice of the Buddhist path. Berzin writes that an understanding of rebirth allows one to better cultivate compassion and loving kindness towards all beings, since it allows us to see how in past lives, we have been related to all beings and how they have been our mothers (and vice versa). Likewise, we have also been many different types of beings in the past (male, female, animals, numerous nationalities etc). According to Berzin, this reflection allows us to better relate to other sentient beings.

In the 1940s, J. G. Jennings interpreted the teaching of rebirth in a less than literal sense. Believing that the doctrine of anatta (not self) is incompatible with the view that the actions of one individual can have repercussions for the same individual in a future life, Jennings argued that the doctrine of actual transmigration was an "Indian dogma" that was not part of the original teachings of the Buddha. However, rebirth could instead be understood as the recurrence of our selfish desires which could repeat themselves "in endless succeeding generations". In this interpretation, our actions do have consequences beyond our present lives, but these are "collective not individual." The British Buddhist thinker Stephen Batchelor has recently posited a similar view on the topic: He argued that since there is no substantial entity or soul (atman),  "there is no one born, there is no one who dies and is reborn. Therefore, the whole question of rebirth is quite foolish and has nothing to do with Buddhism in the sphere of the Buddhist teachings there is no question of rebirth or reincarnation." However, Buddhadāsa did not completely reject the rebirth doctrine, he only saw the idea that there is something that gets reborn into a future womb as "trivial". Instead of this 'literal' view, he interpreted the true meaning of rebirth as the re arising of the sense of self or "I" or "me", a kind of "self centredness" which is "a mental event arising out of ignorance, craving, and clinging." According to Buddhadāsa, this is what "rebirth" truly means on the ultimate level (paramattha) of discourse. Hindu traditions consider soul to be the unchanging eternal essence of a living being, and in many of its theistic and non theistic traditions the soul asserted to be identical with Brahman, the ultimate reality. Thus while both Buddhism and Hinduism accept the karma and rebirth doctrine, and both focus on ethics in this life as well as liberation from rebirth and suffering as the ultimate spiritual pursuit, they have a very different view on whether a self or soul exists, which impacts the details of their respective rebirth theories. Rebirth and karma doctrine in Jainism differ from those in Buddhism, even though both are non theistic Sramana traditions. Jainism, in contrast to Buddhism, accepts the foundational assumption that soul exists (Jiva) and is involved in the rebirth mechanism. Further, Jainism considers that the rebirth has a start, that rebirth and redeath cycle is a part of a progression of a soul, karmic dust particles emanate from ethical or unethical intent and actions, these karmic particles stick to the soul which determines the next birth. Jainism, further asserts that some souls can never achieve liberation, that ethical living such as Ahimsa (non violence) and asceticism are means to liberation for those who can attain liberation, and that liberated souls reach the eternal siddha (enlightened state) that ends their rebirth cycles. Jainism, like Buddhism, also believes in realms of birth and is symbolized by its emblematic Swastika sign,

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