What Is Rebirth; What Is Reincarnation?

This is an extension of my earlier article on "Are Reincarnation & Rebirth The Same?".

For those unfamiliar with the concept of rebirth in the Buddhist context, rebirth and reincarnation have the same meaning. In the Buddhist context, there is a subtle difference. “Rebirth” simply means to reborn. “Reincarnation” takes on a more precise process. Let us take a person “XYZ”. In reincarnation, the same “XYZ” is being reborn. “XYZ” is being reincarnated as the same “XYZ”. It remains the same entity taking on a new body.

Rebirth conveys a new dimension in Buddhism. In Buddhist teachings, there is no unchanging permanent "soul" called an eternal soul. A person consists of the physical body and the conscious mind. The body and mind are in a continuous flux, ever changing. Every second millions of cells in our body die and new ones appeared. We can see the body changes only through time. But we can’t see the changing mind-consciousness. The body ages, but the conscious mind never ages. This, we can personally experience throughout our life. Even when we get old and tired, our mind remains the same. This "mind" is explained in numerous terms, such as consciousness, energy, vibration, light, spirit, life-force and many other terms. In the Buddhist context, this mind-consciousness exists in a continuous flux vibrating continuously. When this body expires, this stream of vibratory mind-consciousness continues with its journey to affix itself to the most appropriate medium that fits its store of past actions. Once this happens, a "rebirth" takes place.

Rebirth is the re-linking process after death. This process is like when you strike a billiard ball, the first ball will knock against the next one, and the next one will knock on another ball. Although the next ball is not the same as the previous one, the movement was caused by the previous ball. When “XYZ” dies, his rebirth is not exactly “XYZ”, but bearing the actions of “XYZ”. “Rebirth” is therefore a process of “continuing” another life. “Reincarnation” is a process of “becoming again” of the same person in another new life.

The Buddha expressed this rebirth process as “ not exactly the same, nor completely different”. It is a life-continuum; just like the striking force of the cue on the one ball, followed by the process of the resulting force to knock on the other balls.

There is a very important message to this concept of rebirth. It does not matter who you are or what you want to believe. The universal truth is this. Your actions are the only indication of what you are in this lifetime and what will become of "you" after death. Every volitional action that we commit throughout our life is "recorded" with clockwork precision, and stored in our storehouse of consciousness. These actions, in Buddhist parlance is called "karma" in Sanskrit (or kamma in Pali) There will be a mix of good and bad actions in our storehouse of consciousness. When this life expires, the life-stream of consciousness continues its journey to affix itself to the most appropriate entity in the most appropriate condition and location, to continue life with whatever that are consistent with our storehouse of consciousness and to actualize whatever that are in our storehouse of consciousness. The actualization of events in our life is what we called the results of our past kammic actions stored in our storehouse of consciousness. These results are either good or bad, depending on our past actions. Good past actions bring good results to our life. Bad past actions generate bad results to haunt us. This is the eternal law of cause and effect, the principle of compensation, or what the Buddhists call it the Law of Kamma.

So please take heed if you find this explanation reasonable.

My personal message is this. We are creatures same as other living beings, except that our consciousness is at a very high level enabling us to think and reason. The danger is that we may regress in our behavior to go against the natural order of things, by committing evil deeds hurting others. We need to live a wholesome life in order to enjoy our present life, notwithstanding rebirth or reincarnation or going to hell or heaven. Now at this very moment is most important. How we live and conduct our life is more important than what we choose to believe. Life is actually about energy. Energy is the life-force of our existence. Energy generates vibrations. The whole universe is energy in vibrations. Each of us is a vibrating entity, generating waves of energy. If we generate negative energy in our thoughts and actions, we attract negative vibrations causing harm to us. Likewise if we generate positive vibrations , we attract positive vibrations protecting us and enabling us to live in peace and happiness.

Take care.