This simile suggests that ‘state’ explains it better:
”Pahārāda, that despite those streams that flow into the great ocean, and the showers that fall from the sky, neither the decrease nor the fullness of the great ocean is evident—so, too, Pahārāda, although many monks attain the nirvana-element without residue, neither the decrease or the fullness of that nirvana-element is evident. AN8.19
Also this:
”There is that dimension (tadāyatanam) , monks, where there is neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor wind; neither …” Ud8.1
Nibbāna is a state (or result) solely defined by the absence of the defilements/fetters (kilesa/saṃyojana); once the fetters are uprooted—and consequently dukkha is not able to arise—that is Nibbāna.
Nibbāna is not an eternal state, nor is it a state that exists after the dissolution of the five aggregates. After the dissolution of the aggregates (parinibbāna), there is nothing left and no conditions for rebirth to take place.
When one is reborn, not much goes from one life to the next (maybe 1%, as a way to illustrate). Furthermore, with all things considered, all living beings are left with two options: to eventually reach Nibbāna, or to be reborn countless times in saṃsāra, starting almost from scratch for every birth.
You don’t get to keep your memories, your knowledge, your skills—basically everything you’ve learnt and accumulated during all of your current life.
Your kamma does affect what kind of rebirth you get, and surely the foundation of your new personality as well. Your kamma also continues on to the next life. However, rebirth is very much different from reincarnation, which is what the vast majority of people think rebirth is (both Buddhists and non-Buddhists).
Just as the seed from a piece of fruit that has fallen from a tree grows into a new tree, one’s kamma causes rebirth and the creation of a new individual.
There is no doer of a deed
Or one who reaps the deed’s result;
Phenomena alone flow on—
No other view than this is right.
And so, while kamma and result
Thus causally maintain their round,
As seed and tree succeed in turn,
No first beginning can be shown.
Nor in the future round of births
Can they be shown not to occur:
Sectarians, not knowing this,
Have failed to gain self-mastery.
From what I recall in the suttas, devas seem to remember their previous existence. And that may be the case for many petas and hell-beings as well. It seems that it’s mostly humans and presumably also non-human animals that can’t remember their previous life.
Maybe our nervous systems simply do not contain past life data (this seems to be true whether rebirth is real or not), and unless one has perfect samadhi, one cannot access any data outside the nervous system. Whereas in the other realms, consciousness is not nervous system dependent, and consciousness there is dependent upon some other substrate that grants them easier access to past-life data in some way.
While according to the texts a human can re-access past-life data after perfecting samadhi via the 4th jhana, I don’t think you’ll ever run into any human babies who are knowledgable engineers, or potters, or what-have-you, no matter how awesome at meditating they may have been in a past life.
Well, if Dhammaruwan was reciting those suttas due to past-life memories becoming available to him, it doesn’t seem to have been intentional on his part nor total. So he didn’t keep all the memories, skills, and knowledge, but just a small amount, and that small amount may have been accidental rather than intentional. If I remember correctly, the past-life memories are supposed to be from a life long ago when he was a monk and knew Buddhaghosa personally. It seems unlikely that over a thousand years ago, that monk consciously decided to remember some chants in several centuries’ time.
As for extraordinary intelligence, I’m pretty sure from the suttas we can infer that it comes from past good kamma, not from past-life memories. For example, in the Cula-Kammavibhanga Sutta:
“But here, student, some man or woman visits a recluse or a brahmin and asks: ‘Venerable sir, what is wholesome?…What kind of action will lead to my welfare and happiness for a long time?’ Because of performing and undertaking such action…he reappears in a happy destination…But if instead he comes back to the human state, then wherever he is reborn he is wise. This is the way, student, that leads to wisdom, namely, one visits a recluse or brahmin and asks such questions.
Assuming buddhist rebirth is true, I’m not sure being reborn as an amoeba is possible, I’m not sure that all organisms in kingdom animalia (which includes some amoebae) would be subject to rebirth. Some organisms might not be sophisticated enough to manifest consciousness and perhaps a nervous system is a requirement for conscious existence in the animal realm.
In any event, any rebirth as an animal is considered to be the result of bad kamma. The animal realm is a lower realm.
Do you mean the waking consciousness of an arahanth or the consciousness that ‘perceives’ nibbana?
The re-birth linking consciousness is a commentarial ‘over-classification’ of the first normal consciousness in a foetus. It is not mentioned in the EB suttas.
Not found when a arahanth doesn’t want to be seen by psychic means by Brahma and other devas- he can ‘enter’ nibbana and become essentially invisible. But during other times the normal functioning of the arahanth’s six senses continue, and the six consciousnesses related to those sense bases arise and can be detectable by those beings. Of course the body continues to inhabit the physical plane, in these scenarios.
Let’s compare that question to this question: when the Tathagata was still alive, was the Tathagata exist? If the Tathagata exists, which one is the Tathagata: the body, feeling, perception, thoughts, or mental formations?
Should they be different? As you already stated “waking” and “perceives”…Nibbana isn’t really Nibbana here is it?..What experiences Nibbana?
Consider the followings:
There is a sutra AN4.36 where the Buddha was asked what he is?..the answer were “Awakened”. Do we understand the meaning here?
"Just like a red, blue, or white lotus — born in the water, grown in the water, rising up above the water — stands unsmeared by the water, in the same way I — born in the world, grown in the world, having overcome the world — live unsmeared by the world. Remember me, brahman, as ‘awakened.’
If this entire teaching via the middle way were to lead to nothing, then it would be annihilation…that is not what the teachings teaches…and if it were, then there is no need to be on this path…as there is nothing to Know, nothing to see and nothing released.
