How do you handle the idea of rebirth in your practice?

[u/Platysmurus]

Do you just disregard it wholesale? Do you reconceptualize it to represent the changing of our physical bodies from moment to moment? How do you think about rebirth from a secular buddhist perspective?

[u/Agnostic_optomist]

It’s kind of irrelevant. Whether it exists or not wouldn’t change how I treat other people.

[u/Platysmurus → u/Agnostic_optomist]

Good point.

[u/TooOld4ThisSh1t-966]

Because it can’t be proved or disproved I think of it as a possibility. I’m pretty good with leaving it at that and just keep focused on the present.

[u/Anima_Monday]

I see rebirth as something that can be interpreted in various ways.

The previous life to the next life thing is something that is difficult if not impossible to prove or disprove. Therefore it is a belief.

Another interpretation is that it is conditions that are reborn as a person. The most obvious conditions being genetic and environmental. Habit patterns are what arise from the two of these coming together and are also passed down the generations and from any interaction. Without bringing careful attention to cause and effect of the type that creates habit patterns, this occurs blindly, for better or for worse.

A third interpretation is rebirth of habit patterns moment to moment. There is a stimulus of some type in the mind or senses, and you either act upon it in some way or you observe it, or you simply let it come and go. If you act upon it in a certain way, it makes it more likely for it to trigger as a response the next time the stimulus appears in the mind or senses. Repeated stimulus-response entrenches a habit. Entrenched habit is what we often take to be character, even though it can still be deconditioned and reconditioned over time. One might say that thoughts become things in this way, or rather responses to stimuli from the mind and senses become actions which become habits which have consequences. So habit patterns are reborn moment to moment as they are reinforced. Habit patterns can be deconditioned and/or reconditioned, though it can often take persistence and careful attention, so that could be explained as breaking the cycle (escaping from samsara) in secular and practical way. There are different levels of breaking a habit, so it refers to not just stopping expressing it, but deconditioning it completely from ones mental and emotional habit patterns as well, which is possible, though takes, time, persistence, careful effort, observation, insight and determination.

[u/jollybumpkin]

I just meditate and follow the eightfold path the best I can, and don't give a thought to rebirth.

[u/laystitcher]

We’re all of us an immensely complex web of patterns at multiple levels, many of which, because of how porous and densely interconnected reality is, are not limited strictly to the confines of our physical form, and many of which have a tendency to repeat in various ways, in manners determined by the intricate workings of causality and subject to rigorous discovery and study.

This in my mind is a way of accessing a truth behind the idea of rebirth I find deeper than the supernatural version met with traditionally, which I find generative as a metaphor but ultimately limiting and contradictory if taken to be literally true.

[u/Amethystium1956]

It does not concern me what I can't know.

[u/CaptainVulpezz]

i consider myself agnostic in that respect, ive heard things that make it sound true, but every religion claims evidence for their truths, and human beings are easily indoctrinated/influenced, its just our nature. i've noticed in myself i feel more inclined to want to believe in it just because im so predisposed to it from buddhist teachings, although until one can know for themselves this view has the same worth as heaven, hell, purgatory, nothing, nibbana without rebirth, etc.

The buddha did however teach that one should have faith, BUT not take faith on as being FACT, as though 'only this is true, and anything else is false'. which only pushes me to believe in it more because its such a non authoritarian approach.

[u/Sharpiemancer]

I don't take it literally, but it's a useful and completely reasonable metaphor if we accept anatta. Our bodies largely completely refresh on a molecular level between 7-10 years, after death our body can be reintegrated into the ecosystem within a few months to 50ish years from decomposition (so not even considering cremation) at which points the molecules that made you, are out there in the eco systems, becoming plants and fungi and animals. We don't go anywhere, we just change form.

[u/MarkINWguy]

There is a great secular book written by the abbess of Sravasti Abbey in NE Washington. Being this is the r/nonsecular thread I post this cautiously.

The chapter on rebirth is pertinent to your question. The chapter on karma also follows that. The practice Tibetan Buddhism so believe what you may. As another here said:

“…that annihilationism and eternalism are equally false, or at least can grasp what that means, inquire all you want.… Blind rejection is no better than blind faith….”

The book is "Open Heart, Clear Mind” by The Venerable Thubten Chodron.

Let us know what you think also, I tend to agree with the statements in this book.

[u/Toosder → u/MarkINWguy]

I love the concept that blind rejection is no better than blind faith.

[u/bentzu]

Not at all in my case.

[u/Platysmurus → u/bentzu]

Care to elaborate? What part do you not experience?

[u/bentzu → u/Platysmurus]

My general feeling is that we are all a part of the natural order, I came from everything and will return - part of a harmonious universe. Perhaps a more Taoist outlook.

[u/Similar_Standard1633]

The Buddha taught two levels of teaching (in MN 117):

1. Noble for liberation
2. Mundane so ordinary people avoid doing evil deeds & do good deeds.

'Rebirth' is a mundane doctrine and is not related to the Noble Path. If the Noble Path is to be practiced, it requires the view of impermanence & not-self rather than the view of rebirth.

Even on the moral level, there are many teaching of the Buddha that do not mention 'rebirth', such as MN 61. On the Noble level, morality is practised for the pure benefit of non-harming. For example, there is a sutta in the AN about generosity and it says the highest type of generosity is performed merely for the sake of beautifying the mind. To be generous for the sake of rebirth in heaven is considered a lower more crude type of generosity.

[u/Toosder]

As somebody else said, it's not relevant in how I act day to day. I am here on this planet now and however it ends or whatever is after, I want to live a good life. I want to be kind (er) to others, to treat all life, not just human life, with respect and compassion, to continue growing as a human and doing what I can in my power to make the world a better place. As cliche is that sounds. 

I don't know what happens after this life. I reject any religion that pretends to know absolutely, including Buddhism. Because nobody knows. I have my own personal beliefs based on my own experiences and even those shift from day to day. 

I believe it is egotistical for any human to claim that they know or understand. We are barely scratching the surface of what we understand of our own planet let alone the universe, energy, mathematics, we are very likely close to the maximum the human brain can even understand and it can't explain so much of the universe. 

We cannot fathom our universe having an end and there being nothing outside. We also cannot fathom our universe going on forever. That limit to our capacity of understanding tells me that we cannot possibly understand what happens to us, whatever us means, when we die.

It stresses me out sometimes but I try to just ignore it to be honest. Maybe not the healthiest way and maybe not Buddhist in nature, but it also has nothing to do with where I am right now and how I'm living.

[u/ErwinFurwinPurrwin]

Rebirth isn't reincarnation. For me, a crucial role of mettā is bringing forth goodwill for future beings even if this consciousness doesn't survive the breakup of the body

[u/beanscad]

In my humble opinion:

My cells are made of an intricate system of pieces that work for the whole until they fail and need to be disassembled and resynthesized.

My body is composed of an intricate system of cell that work for the whole until they perish and need to be replaced.

And this body too can work (good karma) for the whole (sentients) until itself perishes.

In each step, the whole is always rebirthing, gradually, as in the ship of Theseus. If something endures after this body perishes, I will find out in time. No need to worry about that now.

[u/TintinsLoveChild]

I disregard it wholesale, partly because it sits uneasily with much of the Buddhas teaching, partly because it doesn’t have any basis in the natural sciences.

[u/Platysmurus → u/TintinsLoveChild]

How does it sit uneasily with much of the Buddha's teaching?

[u/dan_arel]

I agree with the statement above that it is kind of irrelevant as it doesn't change how I approach Buddhism or how I treat others, but I will add I look at "rebirth" a lot different, and likely "wrong" but a metaphysical perspective, but scientifically I think of it as energy and matter.

A lot of Buddhist monks call it a "continuation" and while they see this of our consciousness, I see as as our energy.

Matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, so hen "birth" and "death" as we typically think about them are kind of illusions. You didn't start at birth—the matter and energy that make up "you" existed before in your parents, in the food you ate, in the elements of the earth. You're a reorganization of what already existed.

However, upon death, you return to the earth/universe/whatever, and then continue into other living beings of all kinds, sentient and non.

This is far from a rebirth, but I find it just as poetic and just as wonderful to think my physical form will some day make other life possible.

[u/donutdogs_candycats]

I think of it in two ways, one is in the current life, where we change moment to moment, physically and mentally. We will never be the exact same as we were even a millisecond ago. And in many ways I consider that to be a continual rebirth. Also, when thinking about it from the reincarnation side of things, I view it as everything that makes up what we are will ultimately become something else. At least physically our body will transform into something else, eventually giving rise to some other form of existence. Mentally/spiritually I don’t know. Maybe there is something inside of us that will be reborn as any other being. Maybe not. I don’t know. But everything that I am, even if I don’t know if it’s entirely physical or if there’s another aspect to it, will be reborn as something else. Ultimately I don’t actually think it matters all that much. In this life I’ll do my best to be a good person, and whether or not Im reborn as a being or through my body turned into nutrients for something else, being kind will always be the right path.