乾县铁佛寺移动版

ANSWER: Think of it as being like radio waves. The radio waves, which are not made up of words and music but energy at different frequencies, are transmitted, move through space, are attracted to and picked up by the receiver from where they are  broadcast  as words  and  music.  It  is  similar  with the  mind. At  death,  mental energy  moves through space, is attracted to and picked up by the fertilized egg. As the embryo grows, it centers itself in the brain from where it later ‘broadcasts’ itself as the new personality.

QUESTION: Isn't it the soul or the self that passes from one body to another when someone is reborn?

ANSWER:  Not  according  to the  Buddha.  In  fact,  he  taught  that  the  belief  in  an eternal soul or self is a delusion created by the ego and which further encourages the ego.  When we see that there is no eternal self, egoism, narcissism, conceit and self-centeredness disappear. The individual is not a solid rock but a flowing stream.

QUESTION: That sounds like a contradiction. If there is no self there must also be no identity, and if there is no identity how can you say that we are reborn?

ANSWER: It is like a football team which has been going for 95 years. During that time hundreds of players have joined the team, played with it for five or ten years, left and been replaced by other players. Even though not one of the original players is still in the team or even alive, it is still valid to say that 'the team' exists. Its identity is recognizable despite the continual change. The players are hard, solid entities but what is the team's identity made up of? Its name, memories of its past achievements, the feelings that the players and the supporters have towards it, its esprit de corps, etc.  Individuals  are  the  same.   Despite  the  fact  that   both   body  and   mind  are continually  changing,  it  is  still  valid  to  say  that  the  person  who  is  reborn  is  a continuation of the person who died - not because any unchanging self has passed from one to another but because identity persists in memories, dispositions, traits, mental habits and psychological tendencies.

QUESTION:  Okay  then,  if  we  all  lived  before,  why  can’t  we  remember  our former lives?

ANSWER: Some people can, at least during their early childhood. But it is true that most  people  cannot.  There  may  be  several  reasons  for  this.  Perhaps  the  nine months in the womb before birth erases all or most memories. Perhaps the shock of all the new sensory input at birth, after nine months of almost complete sensory deprivation, just wipes out all former memories.

QUESTION: Is one always reborn as a human being?

ANSWER: No, there are several realms in which one can be reborn. Some people are reborn in heaven, some are reborn in hell, some are reborn as hungry spirits and so on. Heaven is not so much a place as a state of existence where one has a subtle body and where the mind experiences mainly pleasure. Like all conditioned states, heaven is impermanent and when one's life span there is finished, one could well be reborn again as a human. Hell, likewise, is not a place but a state of existence where one has a subtle body and where the mind experiences mainly anxiety and distress. Being reborn as a hungry ghost, again, is a state of being where the body is subtle and  where  the   mind  is  continually   plagued  by  longing  and  dissatisfaction.  So heavenly   beings   experience   mainly   pleasure,   hell   beings   and   hungry   spirits experience mainly pain and human beings experience usually a mixture of both. The main difference between the human realm and other realms is the body type and the quality of experience. (责任编辑：admin)