Buddhism/Vedantafags

How do you justify your belief in reincarnation? Is there a metaphysical basis?

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Personal insights I’ve glimpsed through BOTH deep meditation and drug use

We should ban dirty hippies from Buddhism discussion

Digits confirm this truth.

Plato

I’m not here to claim to be a buddhistnim just here to tell you why I believe in reincarnation

What was his arguments?

>he didn't start with the Greeks
lmao

I'm an Indo-Europeanist at heart. Plato believed in transmigration. The Druids believed in it. The ancestors of the Hindus believed in it. It is, to my mind, a demonstrable proto-Indo-European belief. So I don't know if I share it, but I have respect for it.

I don't think the two have to be dissimilar. Pic related had a buddhist priests take on the western "enlightened hippie".
In a nutshell:
Buddhists spend years on end in study and discipline to achieve their vision of the divine
Western hippies consume enthogens to achieve their vision of the divine, then spend years of study and discipline to understand its meaning.

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Bhuddists don't believe in reincarnation they believe in rebirth.

near-death.com/reincarnation/research/ian-stevenson.html

Check this out. It's pretty interesting, regardless of your overall stance on rebirth. The widespread phenomena of children speaking about past lives to their parents is a very intriguing phenomena by itself, but if we can verify it to have further linkage to empirical data, then that's almost as good of an affirmation we can get.

After all, you've either had at last one lifetime previous to this, or you have not. It's a binary, with only two available options. The skeptic or naturalist says this is their first lifetime, and anyone else must be in the single other camp remaining.

The question I ask, as a believer in previous lives,is why there is no memory of the earlier incarnations? I've heard various explanations: it's the natural rule of our existence-plane (compared to that of the higher planes), we chose or need to forget to properly learn what we're supposed to learn, etc. My personal hypothesis extends from what we know of memory itself, namely that it's inherently "state-dependent".

We spend many hours dreaming each night, and when we awaken, we can only recall a few scenes at most, and this for no longer than a few minutes. A few minutes after waking, our entire night's dreams may well not have happened, for they are no longer in our memory recall.

I've had many experiences whereby entering a hypnagogic state during meditation or while in bed, spontaneously brings me the memory of dreams I had long forgotten. Thus, it's clear that memory and consciousness are directly connected. On this basis, my hypothesis regarding our past life memories are outside our access simply and solely because we are not at the level of consciousness whereby they can be recollected. When a person awakens to a sufficiently high enough state of consciousness, as the Buddha did, he spontaneously remembers his previous existences much like I do my previous dreams. My belief is that we have vastly more dreams than we realize, but since recollection of them is always done in our waking consciousness, they simply cannot be accessed. Thus, our life is lived believing we both had no previous lives, and merely a few short dreams each night, when the real answer is far different.

So ultimately, I do believe in rebirth, and this is my explanation for how I believe certain aspects of it may be hidden from us. What do you guys think?

Socrates proved that the soul is immortal, and the living come from the dead.

How?

read the book Fedon I guess

How do you make the distinction?

Buddhists believe less in a soul and more in a superior self of “Buddha nature” that pervades existence. Its is a aspect of that selfs karmaic bonds that are reborn into another life rather than an actual soul

Many schools of Buddhism either reject Buddha-nature and dont teach it at all (like much of Theravada) or they sometimes regard it as being a metaphoric device or upaya for designating everyone's inherent potential to attain buddha-hood. There are multiple schools of Buddhism that hold that Buddha-nature/tathagatagarbha etc is a real all-pervading thing (in a way that's sometimes similar to the Vedantic Atma) but that's not by any means a very mainstream teaching accepted by most Buddhist schools like the 8-fold path and the 4 truths.

Reincarnation implies an eternal soul that takes on different incarnations over time. Rebirth is a process of becoming that only occurs insofar as the causes/fuel (ignorance, greed, hatred, clinging, delusion) are present. Beings are described to be like fires - the fire burns because there is fuel allowing it to burn, and all the while there is nothing really constant or stable in the fire, no part of the flame is stable or lasting, it is only burning more fuel.

how can you gain anything from drug use other than mere delusion?

>delusion
hallucination

trips confirm

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Rebirth and reincarnation are effectively the same on the surface - when an unenlightened being dies, they transmigrate/reappear in another life. The ontological metaphysics (or lack thereof) that underlie the Buddhist version of rebirth are what set it apart, as summed up here: This actually applies to a lot of Buddhism - it teaches of effectively the same cosmology as the other Dharmic religions but the metaphysics are different. For example, Brahmins believed that salvation from Samsara was union with Brahma - either a literal personified God or the primordial creative force + awareness of the universe. The Buddhists also taught that there is a Brahma, but that it is not the creative force of the universe - it only appears that way because the lifespan of a Brahma is as long as an entire world-system, and a Brahma is the first being to appear with the appearance of a world-system before all other beings, so it appears that it is the original creator/creative force of it. Buddhism also teaches that a Brahma's awareness encompasses the entirely of a world-system, and that a human can reach this level of being through spiritual development (since the different realms of existence mirror mind-states). However, Buddhism states that this level of being, while it is a very high spiritual attainment, is not salvation from Samsara, which occurs with the cessation of objectification, insight into dependent origination...etc.
Buddhism doesn't deny the spiritual validity of other traditions (with their cosmologies, concentration practices, siddhis...etc), it just teaches a different approach to understanding all phenomena (including spiritual/immaterial phenomena) through vipassana/insight/dependent origination.

based and nopilled

Look at hinayana/theravada buddhism, where it's more like momentum and inertia of material elements, with aspects of the mind being elements as well in play with everything else
The things that happened before create the things that happen now create the things happening in the future.
You desire, grasp, and thus generate more of what chasing and desiring create, and are pulled along with it.
Stop stirring shit up.

That's liberation. It's not that there is a soul that is reborn, there is a process of life which is bad and we must stop it.
Logically, blowing up the whole world would be a logical step except you'd have to consider how that might cause unintended life after or elsewhere.

Transmigration of souls is an essential part of Platonism, present in Pythagoreanism and various Mysteries like Orphic and the Bacchic, it's a commonality in prechristian Europe.

>Buddhism doesn't deny the spiritual validity of other traditions
Is there a textual basis for that or do you just take an especially conciliatory approach? Because I constantly see angry Buddhists deny the validity of other spiritual traditions (especially Hinduism) on Yea Forums and say stuff like because they don't have X Buddhist teaching or because they have Z fallacy that they are doomed to suffering/ignorance etc
> For example, Brahmins believed that salvation from Samsara was union with Brahma - either a literal personified God or the primordial creative force + awareness of the universe.
Not exactly, the Upanishads don't equate Brahman with the universe but instead say that it is unborn, unconditioned, eternal, untouched by and transcendental to everything including the universe, "being, consciousness, bliss", it's a lot more subtle than simply "the awareness of the universe",

> The Buddhists also taught that there is a Brahma, but that it is not the creative force of the universe - it only appears that way because the lifespan of a Brahma is as long as an entire world-system, and a Brahma is the first being to appear with the appearance of a world-system before all other beings, ... Buddhism also teaches that a Brahma's awareness encompasses the entirely of a world-system, and that a human can reach this level of being through spiritual development .. However, Buddhism states that this level of being, while it is a very high spiritual attainment, is not salvation from Samsara, which occurs with the cessation of objectification, insight into dependent origination...etc.
Not to sound rude but this appears to be basically all copy and pasted from the pre-Buddhist Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, there was just a thread discussing this the other day see:

warosu.org/lit/thread/S13380482

In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad Prajapati/Hiranyagarbha/Virat (all 3 names for the same thing or different aspects of the same thing) is exactly as the Buddhists describe Brahma, he is the first being to appear with the appearance of the universe, he is unique to that universe and lasts as long as it does, he is the creator of all other beings, and his awareness encompasses everything, and humans are taught to be capable of attaining union with him or becoming him through certain practices, but the major theme of the Brihadaranyaka is that the attainment of Prajapati etc is not final liberation and is greatly inferior to genuine liberation because for among other reasons Prajapati is still a limited being who is subject to fear and dissatisfaction. The whole point of the Brihadaranyaka is to explain that this is not the highest achievement which is actually the Supreme Brahman and the union with It that is genuine liberation and which is reached in part through achieving freedom from desire. This teaching appears in the other Upanishads as well. It's as though Buddha heard the Brihadaranyaka and then described Prajapati as Brahma and then Buddhism subsequently fell victim to the misunderstanding that the Brahma he described (actually Prajapati) was what Hindus regard as the Supreme Being they are supposed to attain union with when in reality the Brahma of the PC that Buddha talks about corresponds perfectly to Prajapati and has nothing to do with the Brahman of the Upanishads. Brahman is actually described in the pre-Buddhist Upanishads with much of the same adjectives that Buddha would later describe Nirvana with.

>Is there a textual basis for that or do you just take an especially conciliatory approach?
The Buddha was taught Jhana by the other Brahmins of his day, the other contemplatives of other traditions in the PC are taught to have knowledge of past lives, capability of siddhis...etc.
Spiritual development does not equal liberation/Nirvana. Buddhism acknowledges the validity of other traditions to be conducive to spiritual development, but not that they can lead to ultimate freedom from suffering ie Nirvana.

>BEFORE ABRAHAM WAS, I AM

I justify all of my beliefs by how well they move me towards happiness and fulfillment. Reincarnation provides an ez moral and ethical model to follow.

>Is there a metaphysical basis?
Pure material cause and effect is sufficient for me for now. I don't know if there is more, but sooner or later I'll know thanks to my practice.