Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001

I had a question on your view on reincarnation and went to Buddhist  pages for feedback, I have brain damage although born normal there's not much left.  Wonder if rebirth is real and if one can be born human again next life like everyone else with normal human intelligence and no brain damage.  How does this work?  Isn't there basic design to human being?  Was born normal but had accident and wires melted and lost human intelligence.  So wonder if there is rebirth and I can get normal human body and brain next life to be like everyone else with the same basic design.  How does this work?  Also if die with dementia what happens?  Know these are odd questions wanted to get Buddhist perspective.
 
 

    When one leaves a lifetime or an existence, one does not move from one body to another, as a soul that changes physical manifestations, as
most religions teach.  The Buddha teaches that everything that one
considers the self arise from causes, the nama (intelligence,
consciousness or the element that knows) as well as the rupa (all
other elements, from a dead body and minerals to electricity, air and
space).  These realities arise and fall away with extreme rapidity
wherever they arise, according to conditions, and are succeeded by
others so fast we could not normally witness their continuous
succession.  The citta that falls away is gone forever, and new ones
arise while there are conditions for them to arise, and when the cuti
('death' or ending that existence) citta arises, the next citta could
arise anywhere, according to the kamma (past action) that causes the
next rebirth.  If it were a kusala kamma (good deed) one might be born
a deva (beings in a heavenly plane) with no use for a human brain
whatever.  It has nothing to do with the dead body of the last life. Or if by some akusala kamma (bad deed) one were born an amoeba or some single cell life form on this earth, what use would it have for a human brain?

    But as one could never tell which kamma in our billions of billions of  lifetimes in samsara (continuous rebirths) would be the one to condition our next rebirth, one should accumulate as much kusala as    possible while we are able, so that our future births could be the result of good deeds.  All life forms with rupa arise with kamma as        conditions for both the nama and a good part of the rupa.  The kamma
that caused rebirth would cause the very first rupa to arise, then other causes such as utu (temperature) and ahara (nutrition, rupa that causes other rupa to arise) come into play as well.  That kamma would
determine, together with many other conditions such as other kamma
accumulated and ready to produce results, as well as the times he was
born in, the environments and abilities of the person, would play their parts (the sampati (positive) and vipati (negative) factors), the nama and rupa of the next lifetimes.  In other words, whatever happened in this lifetime to the body would end here in this lifetime, the kamma that determines the next rebirth would create that existence's corresponding rupa.  But as kusala would always bring good things, one should always do as much good deeds as we are able, and one of the good and wise deeds is to study the dhamma as much as one can.  (Please read also Q&A 2 for further information.)

    Now one is reading this message, there is sight, seeing, thinking,         touching, hardness/softness, temperature, movement, tension, hearing,  sounds.  All these things are real, right now, before you.  You could     increase your knowledge of their characteristics, you do not even need  your brain to experience realities that appear right now, where people    with all their brain intact might never be able to accumulate  knowledge about if they had never known about the Buddha's teachings.  They are also the only real treasure you can take with you no matter where your next life will be.  May the kusala of studying the truth, and therefore the greatest and most beneficent knowledge, keep you and bring you the best comfort in the dhamma .

Background photo: Intergalactic 'Pipeline' Funnels Matter Between Colliding Galaxies by Hubble.site
February  21, 2001