Hi Sujato, this is an important point I believe. I myself started meditation after seeing reports of the benefits of it (and then really got into it when learnt from Ajahn Brahm’s books that not only could it make you become a better person, but it could give you also access to deeper truths that you cannot see otherwise). With rebirth however, unlike meditation, I believe that the implications for oneself, rather than being pleasent and immediately beneficial,are quite scary and would not appear to be beneficial unless we radically change many of the values and ways of thinking that we learn in our society. I mean as far as I understand it, rebirth means that we are totally ‘unsafe’ and not in control of the future (cf the Danda Sutta). So no matter how much you plan and try to have things work out nicely in this life, when you look at the larger picture, and you realise that you may be reborn as say a chicken or a pig in a factory farm, things become terrifying. I guess acceptance of rebirth, if thought of carefully, and if the law of karma is accepted with it (though there is also the problem that the latter is next to impossible to prove scientifically with these kinds of studies, since for example some karma apparently ripens over extremely long periods), would necessarily bring with it a total change in the way most people live : ie much more serious preoccupation with making good karma than say spending lots of energy eg in saving money or investing in property to be safe when we’re older later in life (as many of us do), or worrying about retirement plans etc. All these things that are important to many of us become quite insignificant. And it also would have implications in our behaviour to eg animals and the environment, since we would not treat animals in factory farms as we do if we really think that in next life we might be one of them, or that if the ones we are growing now might have been our daugther or mother in a previous life. So whereas one can do meditation just to have a less stressful life, accepting karma and rebirth can be quite scary would have profound implications on the choices we make in our life and the values of our society. I looked up a video on James Leininger http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9u2EpK35PY and revealingly the first comment one reads below is : 'My only fear of death is reincarnation ’
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