Hi Suave,
Originally posted by Suave
Reincarnation, as well as karma are observable. The problem isn't reincarnation, it's that people misunderstood this to mean an unobservable type of reincarnation. We all become different living creatures after we die, that's an observable fact.
Buddhism is based mainly on the teachings of the Guatama Buddha which were passed down by oral tradition and then codified in the Tripitaka. Now, I will admit that I never finished reading through the Tripitaka (at the time I was more fond of the Hindu Vedas) but nothing I had ever read in Buddha's teachings would indicate that he was anywhere close to being a scientific materialist. Basically, his metaphysic breaks down into the following (any Buddhists on the board can feel free to correct me)
All life is suffering, this suffering is caused because of our attachment to self or soul, or our "separateness" from everything, our ultimate objective is to become one with everything, a condition known as Nirvana. Until we reach this state, we are locked in a constant cycle of birth and death and rebirth, in which we keep coming back. The principle of
Karma states that our actions in these lives have consequences good and bad and that these consequences may manifest themselves in this life or our actions in a previous life may have consequences that are only realized in future lives.
In any event, this is
not a recycling of matter or energy, it is really
you, the eternal soul that goes on from life to life. That according to Buddha is the problem, that cycle will continue until you learn to cease to be you.
Buddhist schools are split on the question of whether reality is real or an illusion, most Theravadans believe in the existence of the world and consciousness, while most Mahayana Buddhists believe that everything that we perceive is false.
Anyway, Buddhism is not an objective science based on observable phonomena and repeatable experiments, it is a faith.
- SEAGOON
