Magewar Online Game - Where does the idea of karma or reincarnation come from in Buddhism?

Where does the idea of karma or reincarnation come from in Buddhism?

In Buddhism, the dogma is meant to be prodded and questioned and constantly reevaluated by the practitioners to test its validity. But what are the grounds for proclaiming the existence karma and reincarnation? Unless it's metaphorical? Buddhism is supposed to be a way to see the world as it is, a way to rid one's self of ignorance, self deception, and illusions. But many Buddhists talk about reincarnation as if it were a real, tangible, logical phenomenon. Perhaps can these concepts be tested with reasoning and meditation. Maybe in certain deep mental states, karma and reincarnation are the only logical solutions? ramble ramble ramble what do YOU think??? karma is in Buddhism as well. yes, but my point is that Buddhism is not a religion of faith. Buddha told his followers to test the teachings for themselves to prove them. In my mind, i don't see how Karma or reincarnation can be established through reasoning. Koshu, thank you very much for your answer. I see what you are saying. But there are many Buddhist teachers who go into great detail concerning reincarnation. The Dalai Lama, for example, explains the "steps of dying" and narrates the process by which the consciousness exits the previous body and manifests in the new body. This may just be an imaginitive way to teach people, but it led me to believe that the Buddhists thought they had death/rebirth all figured out. ^in one of his books waaaaiiit a minute......

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i believe in resurrection
I believe Karma is from Hinduism. It means that your deeds in this life will dictate your circumstances in the next life. While it is good to be reincarnated into bigger and better things in each lifetime, they realize that it is and endless, and essentially pointless cycle when you consider the fact that you'd be doing this for eternity. Therefore, they also believe in moksha, which is freeing oneself from this cycle through understanding and enlightenment. EDIT Buddhism and Hinduism share some principles because they have common roots. After refreshing my memory, I believe that the same/similar concepts are also in Buddhism (instead of moksha, it's nirvana).
karma is a reasonable act of God that does not always act the way you may wish. reincarnation is an odd idea that seems to have little to no literal logic. and no evidence.
Do you Buddhists believe in rebirth as an animal in the next life? Are you going to be a dog or a cow in the future? Does the soul transmigrate into the body of another person or some animal? What is the difference between transmigration and reincarnation? Is it the same as rebirth? Is karma the same as fate? These and a hundred similar questions are often put to me. A gross misunderstanding of about Buddhism exists today, especially in the notion of reincarnation. The common misunderstanding is that a person has led countless previous lives, usually as an animal, but somehow in this life he is born as a human being and in the next life he will be reborn as an animal, depending on the kind of life he has lived. This misunderstanding arises because people usually do not know-how to read the sutras or sacred writings. It is said that the Buddha left 84,000 teachings; the symbolic figure represents the diverse backgrounds characteristics, tastes, etc. of the people. The Buddha taught according to the mental and spiritual capacity of each individual. For the simple village folks living during the time of the Buddha, the doctrine of reincarnation was a powerful moral lesson. Fear of birth into the animal world must have frightened many people from acting like animals in this life. If we take this teaching literally today we are confused because we cannot understand it rationally. Herein lies our problem. A parable, when taken literally, does not make sense to the modern mind. Therefore we must learn to differentiate the parables and myths from actuality. However, if we learn to go beyond or transcend the parables and myths, we will be able to understand the truth. People will say "If such is the case why not speak directly so that we will be able to come to an immediate grasp of the truth?" This statement is understandable, but truth is often inexpressible. [Ed comment: we as human beings are limited in understanding "Buddha Knowledge". We cannot speak TRUTH, only words ABOUT Truth] Thus, writers and teachers have often resorted to the language of the imagination to lead the reader from a lower to a higher truth. The doctrine of reincarnation is often understood in this light. What Reincarnation is Not Reincarnation is not a simple physical birth of a person; for instance, John being reborn as a cat in the next life. In this case John possesses an immortal soul which transforms to the form of a cat after his death. This cycle is repeated over and over again. Or if he is lucky, he will be reborn as a human being. This notion of the transmigration of the soul definitely does not exist in Buddhism. Karma Karma is a Sanskrit word from the root "Kri" to do or to make and simply means "action." It operates in the universe as the continuous chain reaction of cause and effect. It is not only confined to causation in the physical sense but also it has moral implications. "A good cause, a good effect; a bad cause a bad effect" is a common saying. In this sense karma is a moral law. Now human beings are constantly giving off physical and spiritual forces in all directions. In physics we learn that no energy is ever lost; only that it changes form. This is the common law of conservation of energy. Similarly, spiritual and mental action is never lost. It is transformed. Thus Karma is the law of the conservation of moral energy. By actions, thoughts, and words, man is releasing spiritual energy to the universe and he is in turn affected by influences coming in his direction. Man is therefore the sender and receiver of all these influences. The entire circumstances surrounding him is his karma. With each action-influence he sends out and at the same time, receives, he is changing. This changing personality and the world he lives in, constitute the totality of his karma. Karma should not be confused with fate. Fate is the notion that man's life is preplanned for him by some external power, and he has no control over his destiny. Karma on the other hand, can be changed. Because man is a conscious being he can be aware of his karma and thus strive to change the course of events. In the Dhammapada we find the following words, "All that we are is a result of what we have thought, it is founded on our thoughts and made up of our thoughts." What we are, then, is entirely dependent on what we think. Therefore, the nobility of man's character is dependent on his"good" thoughts, actions, and words. At the same time, if he embraces degrading thoughts, those thoughts invariably influence him into negative words and actions. The World Traditionally, Buddhism teaches the existence of the ten realms of being. At the top is Buddha and the scale descends as follows: Bodhisattva (an enlightened being destined to be a Buddha, but purposely remaining on earth to teach others), Pratyeka Buddha (a Buddha for himself), Sravka (direct disciple of Buddha), heavenly beings (superhuman [angels?]), human being
I think it's metaphorical. I'm not a student of Buddhism, by any stretch of the imagination. But for what it's worth, I think any honest mystical investigation can lead to the conclusion that pretty much any religious concept "might as well be true" if taken metaphorically. As for karma and reincarnation, I agree that karma = "you are what you think" basically, which does logically extend into world events at least in some ways. And I think reincarnation is logical metaphorically if your view is that a human consciousness is not an isolated object or soul, but only seems so because of individual point of view... the metaphor being that at death, the 'higher self' or whatchamacallit is unchanged, only your conscious POV as a living creature is gone ... and presumably other conscious POVs do come into existence, which'd be roughly like reincarnation of yours. The bit about doing evil meaning reincarnation as a lower creature seems bogus to me, unless again, it's purely metaphor describing a way that it might as well be, considering the need for balance between the inflicting of suffering and suffering itself. I suppose the escape from samsara would just refer to the bliss of whatever part of the universe is not enjoying/suffering a conscious point of view as some creature, that I think we are capable of imagining a little bit and which we like to call enlightenment or whatever.
Karma AND reincarnation are from Hinduism. Gautama was a hindu, almost certainly. Where does the similarity between passover and communion come from? Jesus was a Jew.
Basically Buddha saw, the life as it is, a suffering. He was seeking a way out from this life which he saw as suffering and death every moment. In his pursuit he realised that there is no way out from this existence. Because every work you do has its effect in time and bears its sewwt or bitter fruit and you are bound to work every moment, even thinking is a work which bears its fruits. So his meditation went deep to find out how it all statrted to begin with. So he found that he and all have gone through several reincarnation stating from an animal state evolving to human state. The remeady he found was to enter into a high state of Nirvana=non-existence, cessation; by cutting or living out the tangled knot of all previous karma from million births. So his discovery was a state of consciousness of non-exixtence. But it is believed that before entering that state he looked back and because he had a universal sympathy, vowed that so long as there is suffering in the world he will enter into Nirvana and nor escape from existence. It is believed that one can work without bearing and dragging its results.
Hi, your statement that 'Buddhism is not a religion of faith' is perhaps a bit too simplistic. Our entire life consists of things we need to take 'on faith' although we are not aware of it. For example, the famous 1+1=2 is accepted by everybody, but how many people do you know who have gone through the very extensive mathematical proof of it? So, like everyone else, we take it on faith, and reasoning tells us that it must be correct as everybody uses it as the basis of mathematics. Several things in life cannot be easily reasoned or verified directly by ourselves. Rebirth is one such a thing; it is not possible to verify this scientifically, but neither is it possible to prove that it is nonsense. The concept of karma (better said the law of cause and effect) is very closely connected to rebirth/reincarnation and it is just as impossible to scientifically confirm or to deny. Both concepts were very common in India a long time before Buddhism appeared, but a fair number of scholars are convinced that eg. references to rebirth have been carefully removed when the texts for the current Bible were assembled and edited. So these ideas are not as uncommon as we may think. A similar question can be asked in Christianity: if there is no rebirth, what exactly continues into heaven, hell or the resurrection? So although the common Christian thought is that we die at the end of our lives, still something continues, whether it is called rebirth or not... As a westerner with a scientific background, I have been facing the same questions, and my personal conclusion was that the entire Buddhist view of life and how the world works is a lot more consistent, logical and all-encompassing then any other view I know of (especially compared to the Christian approach with which I was brought up). However, one can only logically reason within any system of thought when one accepts some of the basics of that system, at least provisionally, and in that case, Buddhism is remarkably logical and consistent. Good luch in your quest!