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Consciousness is contrary to popular belief not an elaborate hoax created randomly by dead matter, quantum mechanics has long proven this. And further more, there is no evidence that indicates the brain creates consciousness, or free will, that also isn't evidence for it being a receiver. And there is a ton of evidence for the brain being a receiver: PSI research, (verifiable) near death experiences, (verifiable) reincarnation testimonies, precognitive dreams, shared dreams, shared psychic experiences and most easily testable shared psychedelic experiences, either in hyperspace or while conscious here. Though a regular DMT or 5MeO breakthrough should make you open minded enough to be able to objectively look at the evidence from there. Also practicing spirituality seriously will reveal life's wonders directly to you as well, constant synchronicity will eventually be the norm of the day.

You're the source. There is no reincarnation, since you never die, and there is nothing to stay back with , since you are everything. Your body is just a host for a part of your consciousness to experience this part of reality.

And maybe you're actually the reincarnation of the Buddha and Enlightenment is your destiny. Or maybe you'll just get hit by a bus tomorrow and none of this will matter. Skepticism is good. But it's no reason to throw rationality out the window.

Damn, you'd need reincarnation for that then

@charlie2dogs Do you really know the main teachings of Buddha? The main goal of Buddhism is to reach Nirvana. I don't know about enlightenment because everyone is having different opinions. Nirvana is also called "end of sufferings." My translation of enlightenment is Nirvana. And a person doesn't need to claim himself as a Buddhist to do things Buddha taught. It's the freedom in Buddhism. Which means you do or don't, we don't care. Reincarnate as this or that and ghosts and bla bla bla are some bed time stories which people told their children. The real reincarnation and this ghosts stuff are not the same as people think. @WhatAmI Buddhism will help you a lot. But... do not go for traditional beliefs and religion. Go for teaching. Especially, the core of his teachings. If you are not sure, you should search "Why Buddhists are so eager to reach Nirvana." If you agree, then move on. If not, search something else.

@Mal I'm not sure if you'll think this is related or not, but it's what came to mind after reading your post. If you have some free time start it at the 3:00 mark and listen for a few minutes. Not so much to do with "solving issues" as it is reincarnation and the nature of living beings and/or consciousness so maybe I'm off track.

The more I tread this path, the more I get the sense that this manifest world is not intended for what conventional society thinks it is intended for. This world is a place to be to solve our issues. Nothing more. It seems to me that enlightenment is a process of getting OFF of the manifest realm, rather than making good of it. This has some links to reincarnation, I know of reincarnation conceptually, but for the first time it's making sense to me - I must be reborn into this nonsensical realm in order to do something. The biggest tragedy is, the vast majority of souls with me on this journey have no idea what this "world" is really for. They still think it's about creating some kind of life here, and that this life "matters". I would appreciate your thoughts on about this. P.S. This is not an intellectual insight, but an emotional one.

@Ayla To be honest, I don't think the reincarnation concept is right. But I don't understand why so many teachers talk about it. And I was listening about some ideas that reincarnation is not really our ego reincarnating so I was like in a period of study. I would like to know what Buddha exactly said about the concept of reincarnation.

Here there's some kind of explanation, the concept of reincarnation is a misunderstanding, in fact has more to do with the law of Karma. I found this article "googling" You can read the whole article here: http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/reincarnation.htm Here there's an interesting part of the article: "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."

I think we cannot really understand reincarnation until we fully awaken, because the very concept of separate mind and body is somewhat incompatible with the principle of reincarnation. Personally what I (my ego) would like to take with me to the next life is my personal "achievements", memories, thoughts, concepts - everything that creates the false self which I'll be happy to drop in this very life. Once the false self is dissolved, what is left? What is IT that will be carried to the next life? I have no clue, all I know is that it will be impersonal.

Matt Kahn in an interview in this reaction: Than it is the one that has experienced those past reïncarnation. It was so funny yet genius.

So, the concept of reincarnation is taken in the broadest meaning? I mean, while there's still process of being born and dead there's reincarnation? I have to read about that, I know... hehehe...

@Khin yeah ! I agree! Reincarnation is Radically different than most people think.

@randombodymind I hope you`ll not start worrying again...... Every object in this universe is endowed with four characteristics. They are Dharma, Karma, Prema, and Gyana. Dharma means nature. Everything has a definite nature; animate or inanimate objects. They’ve a nature. Monkeys have their nature; human beings have their nature. In the same way, metals have their nature; aluminum has its nature, copper has its nature. Nature is called Dharma. There is certain activity, definite activity, that is attributed; or that comes out of each object. It’s easy to say object, it can include also living beings. It is Karma. Then, the third is Prema, means love. There is love in every particle of this creation. Love is attraction, love means absorbing, the viscosity bring together. So many atoms come together, so molecule is made up to an object. A type of molecules and atoms get in to a shape, so we called this metal, this is copper etc. there is something that holds things together and disfrock of bringing together. Holding things together is called love or Prema. Love is present in the entire creation, in every particle of this creation. There is love and that is how there is reproduction happening. There is love, that’s how the planets are moving around orbits. There is love, so sun is shining, stars are shining. There is love in every atom, that’s why the electron is moving around the charged particle. The charge of attraction or in the entire creation is power or love. And Gyana. A body, which is listening and knows what is happening in the surrounding, is the consciousness. The knowingness present in our body also present in every particle of creation. How do we know? Only through the head? Only through the senses? No, our entire body has ability to know. The mind is not just in the head, it is all over the body. Suppose, when your name was called in a dormitory, you wake up, not the other person. But even in sleep, we have an ability to know. And this ability to know is permitting in our entire consciousness. And consciousness is present in all over the body and beyond the body; this is called Gyana. The knowingness of intelligence or the intelligence in the existence. You might have seen the touch-me-not plant; when you go near it, even if you’ve not touched it, it gets closed. The plants can feel as they know; similarly animals have their own degree of knowingness. The dog can sense, birds can sense something that is going to happen. If there is an earthquake, you can hear the birds behave few hours’ earlier making noises. Dogs can feel much earlier than you could feel it. So, there is a degree of knowingness present in the entire creation. It varies, like the level of love also varies. Say, how much love a dog expresses? Suppose you’re out even for few hours and comes back home and the dogs get crazy; jumps all over the place, jumps on sofa and jumps on you; it doesn’t know what to do. It wants to pour out all its love on you. It tries to express; it doesn’t say – I love you very much. It doesn’t say – I can’t live without you; but that moment it just flirts you with their moments. In the same way, the plants and trees in your garden do imit love, they express loves to you. What is Karma? Most used and often misunderstood word is karma. Karma is action. The action could be letting, could be in the form of tendency, and could be a future happening. So, there are three types of karma. Prarabdha, means the action which is manifest now; Sanchita Karma, means the future action which was proposed to do later; the collected karma, the present karma which is running in action and then the future karma that would happen. After listening to whatever we are discussion here now, and you’ll go back home and you might remember or you may totally forget it, this is Agami Karma; the future karma. So the impression in the mind is latent action; it is still action, but it is latent. Just like the memory; a memory functional now, other memories are latent within us. You know the mathematical table; but right now you’re not memorizing it. You no need to memorize every time; when you need it just pops up. So certain impressions, strong impressions in the mind remain and they form the future karma. Every habit is a sort of karma. Suppose you’ve been drinking coffee every morning; and one day you don’t drink, you get head ache. This is coffee karma. So, how to eliminate coffee karma? Either by drinking it or observing it. Being aware of a tendency in us will help us to overcome the tendency or experiencing the tendency will overcome the tendency. Here is the clay of Gyana, knowledge, awareness. Knowledge means the informative knowledge; here knowledge means awareness, the sense of knowingness. When you increase the sense of knowingness, your karma gets reduced. All the animals have got only the Prarabdha Karma; means the karma on which they do not have any controls. The nature runs them so they don’t accumulate a future karma. If you’re like an animal totally you don’t get any karma. But as a human being this is impossible; because our mind gets in to that impression. Now, Reincarnation – that’s another topic. Reincarnation means coming again in to a body. Our mind is energy and by the third law of thermodynamics – energy can’t be destroyed. If mind is energy, what happens to this energy when someone dies? Now when someone dies, what is happening? Death is almost like a sleep. What happens to you, when you sleep? Every night you go on to your bed and sleep and you never met you a sleep. If you meet your sleep; if you happen to understand your sleep, you can understand your death also. While sleeping, all consciousness, attempts of your mind shrinks and shrinks and then one by one you’re shut off from the outer experiences and moving inward, into a wide space. And then how you wake up in the morning; that’s the same energy, same consciousness which was shrunk now starts expanding and opens up and you wake up. When you carefully observe the mechanism the last thought that you get just before falling asleep, becomes the first thought when you wake up. This gives you a clue of your reincarnation. The mind which is full of different impressions leaves this body but the impressions remains with the mind like a balloon; and waits for a proper situation for the same mind to come down. And when there is copulation, when there is a proper room formation, then it just draws, pulls that mind into that room. And then a child is born. A body is gain. So, it is a last thought is more important. Whatever you do throughout in your life, at least in your last moment your mind should be free and happy. If you’re happy with the last moment before your leave the body, then you get a better body next time. It is almost impossible to get animal body after a human birth. It’s very rare; but still it is possible. Someone in the last moment keeps thinking about the chicken, and then he’ll born in the poultry firm. Because the last impression will be the strongest impression and that impression in that mind will produce such a circumstance, situation for the mind to come to the body. Karma is that which propels reincarnation. Stronger the impression, the nature of next life could be like that. The one thing that can erase the karma is awareness, self awareness. If you’re in total love then you’re free from karma. When you’re in total knowledge, total awareness that is what coming out of the circle of birth and death. You’re not bound by any impression; you’re free. What gives you the freedom is your awareness. Addictions are nothing but very very strong impressions in the consciousness. Whether it is alcohol, sex or drugs or anything; any addiction is like a compulsion or compulsive behavior is all is a part of karma. The karma is infinite. Creation is a not a linear function, it multi-dimensional. Truth is not linear, it is multi-dimensional. It’s like a spherical; in sphere every point is connected with so many other points; if it just a straight line one point is connected with only two points, one back and one front. But in a sphere, point is connected 3600 sides. There are many types of Karma; individual Karma, immediate family Karma, the societal Karma and time has Karma of its own too. When a plane accident happens, people of same karmas will be there. And different people of different karmas will escape from the plane as their life has not finished yet. It is almost impossible to pin down which karma brings effect what effect at deep level. Of the three different karmas, Sanchita, the karma which we’ve brought with us; Prarabdha, the karma which is yielding fruits right now; and Agami, the karma which we may incur in the future. Our Sanchita Karma, the karma which we have stored tendency can be burnt out; we can remove that, eliminate that with all this spiritual practices, prayers, service, loving people around us in the nature, meditation; all this erasing the karma which we’ve acquired. The Prarabdha karma, which is already yielding results, will have to be experienced. The third karma is Agami karma which we might meet in the future. Suppose you violate some loss of nature today and in future you’ve to experience. That is consequence. Every karma has a limited span of its results. Mainly five things come to us in our life from the Sanchita Karma. Five aspects in life came; birth and the place of birth, the parents from the past karma; your education and line of education, degree of education, how much you acquire knowledge; the wealth, the source wealth; your longevity and mode of death, how you’ll die. These five things come from Sanchita Karma, the karma we’ve acquired. Now, how rich we became, how much we can grow in awareness; our marriage, children, and our social work, all these is Agami Karma, the future karmas. And the future karma you can associate now; what you gain now becomes your future karma. So you’ve certain degrees of freedom to act now and acquire more karma. And you’ve certain fate or we call it certain destiny that you’re provided with, that you cannot change. Love is the common factor of entire creation. If you see birds, there is love in the birds. Your connectedness with that love takes beyond birth and beyond death. S.S.R.S.

what does it matter if it is real or not, most will never know, what should be important is to achieve a state of liberation from the fictitious identity, the programing, the false belief, the desires of the identity and its ego, and be able to function in the moment of life as a being of consciousness, whereby you see the reality of the events that arise around you and within you, and you may choose to embrace or ignore what doesn't serve you well and that which would create consequences, so in reality reincarnation doesn't even matter whether it is true or not, and i think most who are talking about it are full of bull and just repeating what they have heard or read from someone else's words. If it isn't living experience for you , it ain't real

Nothing disappear after all. Just the form changed. But then, the change = dead because the previous form is no longer there and will never be there again. The nature is impermanent. The reincarnation is real. But it just not the same as most people think.

this is only another concept, but it might shed some insight into the nature of reincarnation. I think we as humans really underestimate our power. With the help of religion we are taught that we are simple beings under the control of a higher power which we have no chance of replicating. This entire existence is because of the contrast of nothing and something. The nothingness that makes up consciousness creates everything that we know. We are a creator. There was a study done in which people were told to think about a certain phenomenon (aliens, angels, god) before entering sleep paralysis. Of course the people that believed in UFOs and alien encounters were abducted and probed in a hyperrealistic experience. The people who strongly believed in God had a spiritual experience involving angels and heaven, or an image of Jesus. They all felt this was real, and that it really took place in real space. This is why there are so many different truths that are fought over, because something is real to everyone but not everyone can believe that everything is real. People become addicted to this world and their ego so much that if they leave too soon that attachment/manifestation has so much momentum that it doesn't end with the physical body. This is why suicide doesn't help people, the pain theyre experiencing doesn't end with the body. I think one of the benefits of enlightement allows you to break free of the physical and to experience it finally without attachment, which allows you to leave this existence when your body dies. In conclusion, we experience what we believe and create. These concepts might make sense and make me feel like I know these answers, but they are only that: concepts. I think reincarnation is just as real/not real as anything else you've created. All I know is it's fascinating to think about.

@LateBloomer hey your question was kinda answered at the top of this page! As a beginner in sds Just moove as much as necessary to continue the practice, but as few as possible! Just make shure the enlightenment-police isn´t watching while you moove thou, otherwise they might sentence you to reincarnation as hitler or smth ...not fun!

@Khin Thanks for clarifying, I need to read more about reincarnation. I have the Tibetan book of the dead to read as soon as I finish other book I am reading, thanks!

@abrakamowse The idea of reincarnation is very different in Buddhism. But not many understand it. Reincarnation in Buddhism doesn't mean you fly out of your body and possess another body. Reincarnation is all based on Cause and Effect nature. Everything that are existing in present moment are simply causes for the Future. So the future is always caused by now or past. However because this present moment disappear as another present moment appears (Impermanence nature), there is no future or past. Only present moment. That is simply a reincarnation. So we came to be alive because something in the past caused us to be alive. Doesn't mean our souls jumping from a body to another.

I don't get the idea of reincarnation if there's no self, what is it going to reincarnate? There's nothing to reincarnate.

Recently I came across the definition of the term, Samskara, which is defined as: Every action, intent or preparation by an individual leaves a sanskara (impression, impact, imprint) in the deeper structure of his or her mind. These impressions then await volitional fruition in that individual's future, in the form of hidden expectations, circumstances or unconscious sense of self-worth. When I think of karma, I get a sense that our actions leave a 'cosmic' impression, in the 'ether' of the universe, which is to say ourselves. Our actions augment the universal patterns of energy that determine all of causation, analogous to what David Hawkins identified as attractor patterns. They leave imprints on consciousness itself, that are irreversible. What goes around, comes around. I always thought this was true from a young age, and again there is a term Saṃsāra, which is the repeating cycle of birth, life and death (reincarnation) as well as one's actions and consequences in the past. Karma is a law of consciousness, so to speak, it is to say that nothing is ever forgotten or dismissed, and as a result, there isn't one grain of sand that is out of place, as Alan Watts would say.

Well... I'm Theravada. I think of Nirvana as Enlightenment. Maybe my translation is a little off. After reach, I kind of thought Nirvana and Enlightenment are a little different in some people mind. When they say Enlightenment, it's more like realization of truth. Ya know... realizing the real nature. For Nirvana, one must pass through the state of realization and being one with the nature which is nothingness. Not many talk about Nirvana in this western country though. But......... I don't think that is a problem. Once one knows the true nature, one sure will accept the teachings of Buddha automatically because they are exactly what you see in your enlightenment experiences. In Theravada, every words of Buddha was kept and learned. All about Hell, heaven, reincarnation things are not the same as what most people believe. They are actually very different. Soooooooooo different. The annoying part maybe tons of rules. Don't worry, you won't go to hell if you don't follow all those rules. I don't even think of Buddhism as religion because it's not believing. All Buddha taught was reality. You believe it or not doesn't matter. Whatever happening around you will still be happening whether you notice it or agree with it or like it or not. That is why life is suffering because we are pitiful. We are pitiful because we think we have control over many things but ............... We actually don't.

For the first 10 months on my own path I was really against looking deeper into Buddhism and study its principles because I just didn't want do become a religious person. I was really scared of that. I'm learning to become a scientist and my whole life I laughed about religious people so I had this limiting belief all set. Then, after enough pealing away the layers of bullshit belief I learned a lot about Zen. First from Alan Watts' lectures and books and then researching it on my own. What I like about Zen is that even Zen masters wouldn't probably call themselves Zen masters, not even Zen students. Probably they would call them self ordinary people. They don't belief in anything and don't want you to believe in something. Even if you look into reincarnation, they don't believe that you have a soul that is reincarnated. They just watched for hundreds of hours and came to the realization that as one center of consciousness fades away another wakes up. So as long as this goes on, there always will be creatures who "know themselves". And as you are everything you the self will manifest in one of these centers of consciousness having the experience of being limited. That's basically it. Just an observation. So, now I tend to look very deeply into Zen Buddhism because they have such sharp knifes to cut bullshit belief and don't want you to belief anything. The basic idea of the Soto school - if I got it right - is just to sit down erectly and see all of this for yourself. The only books they have like Shobogenzo basically give you pointers in which direction to look. That's why I really fell in love w/ Zen and had to get rid of my limiting belief. Do you have to do the same? Fuck no. You can chose whatever framework you like for you own journey. Or you don't pick any framework and just do any practice. For me personally I try to look into a lot of things and then get the methods and ideas that make me realize the most and I go crazy on them. Cheers,

@Cuzzo Thanks for your reply. I think to facilitate the enlightenment journey, I may follow Buddhism, dismissing the mystical/ supernatural aspects and following more on the aspects more pertinent to true spiritual development. I'm not quite sure how they manage to reconcile the ideas of no self and the void with karma and reincarnation. Also, I'm not quite familiar with their take on morality, as I would suspect that they would ultimately see morals as fictitious, perhaps abiding by a particular code only to facilitate self-realization, not due to some intrinsically proper ideal.