乾县铁佛寺移动版

‘ Giving   up   false   speech   he   becomes   a   speaker   of   truth,   reliable, trustworthy, dependable, he does not deceive the world. Giving up malicious speech he  does  not repeat there  what he  has  heard here  nor does  he repeat here what he has heard there in order to cause variance between people. He reconciles  those  who  are  divided  and brings  closer together those who are already friends. Harmony is his joy, harmony is his delight, harmony is his love; it is the motive of his speech. Giving up harsh speech his speech is blameless, pleasing to the ear, agreeable, going to the heart, urbane, liked by most. Giving up idle chatter he speaks at the right time, what is correct, to the point, about Dhamma and about discipline. He speaks words worth being treasured up, seasonable, reasonable, well defined and to the point.’ M.I,179

5. REBIRTH

QUESTION: Where do we humans come from and where are we going?

ANSWER: There are three possible answers to this question. Those who believe in a god or gods usually claims that before individuals are created, they do not exist, then they come into being through the will of a god. They live their lives and then, according to what they  believe or do during their  lives, they either go to eternal heaven or eternal hell. There are others, humanists and scientists, who claim  that the individual comes into being at conception due to natural causes, lives, and then at death, ceases to exist.  Buddhism does not accept either of these explanations.

The first gives rise to many ethical problems. If a good god really creates each of us, it  is  difficult  to  explain  why  so  many  people  are  born  with  the  most  dreadful deformities or why so many babies are miscarried just before birth or are still-born. Another  problem with the theistic explanation  is that  it  seems very  unjust  that a person should suffer eternal pain in hell for what they did in just 60 or 70 years on earth. Sixty or 70 years of non-beliefs or immoral living does not seem to deserve eternal torture. Likewise, 60 or 70 years of virtuous living seems a very small outlay for eternal bliss in heaven. The second explanation is better than the first and has more  scientific  evidence  to  support  it  but  it  still  leaves  important  questions unanswered.   How    can   a    phenomenon    so   amazingly    complex   as    human consciousness develop from the simple meeting the sperm and the egg and in just nine  months?  And  now  that  parapsychology  is  a  recognized  branch  of  science, phenomena like telepathy are increasingly difficult to fit into the materialistic model of the mind.

Buddhism offers the most satisfactory explanation of where humans come from and where they are going. When we die, the mind with all the tendencies, preferences, abilities and characteristics that have been developed and conditioned in this life, re- establishes  itself  in  a  fertilized  egg.  Thus  the   individual  grows,   is  reborn  and develops a personality conditioned both by the mental characteristics that have been carried  over from the  last  life  and  by  the  new  environment.  The  personality  will change and be modified by conscious effort and conditioning factors like education, parental influence and society and once again at death, re-establish itself in a new fertilized  egg.  This   process  of  dying   and  being  reborn  will   continue  until  the conditions that cause it, craving and ignorance, cease. When they do, instead of being reborn, the mind attains a state called Nirvana and this is the ultimate goal of Buddhism and the purpose of life.

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