Buddhism and Reincarnation - Essay Example

However, the fault with this explanation is that it is undeniable that there is an entity that does understand what it went through, is going through, and will be going through.

The Buddhists then further explain that “this lack of a fixed self does not mean lack of continuity,” as stated in the Buddhist Encyclopedia online. It also says that Buddhism uses a lot of metaphors, one of which is that of fire. In the same way that the flame of one candle to another and the fire spreading from field to field is dependent on the original fire, “there is a conditioned relationship between one life and the next; they are not identical but neither are they completely distinct.”  (The Buddhist Encyclopedia, 2008) But, seriously, a fire or flame is something far beyond compare to that of a being that has the capacity to store information, knowledge, and emotions from one life to the next, and retrieve and be able to tell them in such a detailed manner. In fact, in the reading, we were told that “The Enlightened One”, a real human being, was an ape in his past life, as told in the Great Ape Jataka tale. Supposedly, the real being should tell stories as real as his very existence, but we read the story and we find qualities in the Great Ape that biologists and archaeologists of different generations would have turned the whole world upside down just to find the legendary beast. The ape could not only talk to humans (in what language it was not mentioned), but also foresee events. We all know that apes can’t do these, even with the smartest technology available today or in the next hundred years. So granting without accepting for a moment that reincarnation is behind it, what is it that made the ape-like that if no entity has the capacocha nonaction between the lives he has lived, the entity that tries to be something better each time for it to reach nirvana?

Speaking of nirvana, which is immortality or deathlessness, what is supposed to be there? Is it just a collection of “living beings” with pointless beginnings (if any at all), and no ends as well? I mean, without recognizing a being that strove hard to be the best he can be and goes into nirvana is just hard to logically and emotionally process. I then wonder, in all the stories that Buddha told so vividly, I wondered if he, the being who spoke about all this, remembers what he originally was. Who is he? He has been so many things and yet, his genesis is shrouded with mystery, like all the persons who supposedly underwent samsara.

In the reading, a Buddhist text says that every living being has been a father, mother, brother, sister, etc. in the long course of samsara or reincarnation. I think about this and realize that if that were true, men would know exactly what to say when asked, “What do women want?” There would also be a lot fewer quests fewer from children to their parents because then, they would already know a lot, being reincarnated beings. I suppose also that cats and dogs would be able to do algebra or play scrabble together, with the help of technology of course. And all this happened without an entity that is being “reincarnated”, but simply a “person (however defined) was formerly one person (with a certain name and body) and is now a different person (with another name and body).”  (The Buddhist Encyclopedia, 2008)