No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man. -Heraclitus
In seven years from now every cell in your body would’ve changed . Yet in seven years you would still be you.
The sands on the banks of the river Ganga are no longer the same as a century ago . Even the waters themselves have flowed on . Yet the Ganges will remain the same a century from now.
It is something common that I recognize , and will recognize in the past and present. Something that connects the two.
Buddha believed in no soul , nor did he believe in a God. Yet , he believed in reincarnation , that past attachments were the reason for rebirth. If he did not believe in a soul , what then connected you previous , present and next?
There is continuity in the way your cells change, in the way the sands on the bank of the river are washed away . There is no abrupt shift. You develop new cells to replace the old cells , but not all at the same time . There is a continuation from your body now , to your body in seven years. Yet , when compared after an interval of seven years , ignoring the transient forms, you have changed .
In Hinduism , we visualize a soul that changes bodies , but remains the same. There will be a change from you now to the you in your next life , and the soul connects the two . If not for the soul , what is it that reincarnates under the influence of attachment?
Buddha looked at this human birth as the river at a particular instant . Constant and the same in that brief interval of time. When the human life was reborn , it was the river at another particular instant in time . Essentially different from the previous form of the river . Yet , it is still looked at as the same river. It is the conceptual definition of the river that we see in common .
He saw the ideal, like that of the river , the similarity in all of us , that continuously incarnated as a human life. The will that was drawn to the pleasures of this Maya, that continues to take this form. You could generalise it as un-manifested energy that continuously manifests itself as a human life. It is like a thought that always culminates into the form of a thinker.
Filed under: Philosophy | Tagged: karma, Philosophy, Reincarnation, Buddha, Ganga, Paticca Samuppada, Heraclitus
The river still flows in the same place. The sands and waters may change, but the location in terms of latitude and longitude remains the same(don’t start off about erosion and change of course now).
The cells change but they don’t all change together. The place they remain in is exactly the same. The body can be considered a place, just like a river.
The soul is an entity which remains the same and changes it’s location and shape. I didn’t know Buddha was atheist(as in didn’t believe in god), funny if you look at it. That means Buddhism is a religion of atheism.
you happen to be applying a hindu frame of mind to the problem . discard the concept of soul and still ask how reincarnation is possible
I admit I’m not able to. The soul is embedded in my mind. I can’t ascribe reincarnation to another school of thought. It’s one of the handicaps you acquire when you’re brought up in a religious household.
but you are also endowed with intelligence
this topic was the high point in that philosophy course i took