How bout this view?:
No re-birth, only re-death.
Have a good, you know 
Some people probably call you a pessimist, watch out
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In physics there is a past light cone for any event that cause that event. There is a past light cone that contributes the creation of this I. And there is a non-zero chance that this past Light cone be created; Otherwise, I would not exist now. So in future this special past light cone will be created again.
If you believe in infinity, the logical result - apart from believing in science - is that this version of you will be repeated infinitely. In the case of Nibbana, what is clear is that Nibbana is the absence of both suffering and the self (as the cause of suffering) , and this is possible in this life.
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Thanks so much for this. I’m finding it a fascinating read.
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“Infinity always gives me vertigo…
Vertigo…
Vertigo…”
Bruce Cockburn
I find myself perfectly content eventually being compost, and if a communion with the natural world is my true end, I shall find joy in it.
I believe in the Buddhist doctrine of rebirth and reincarnation as taught by Siddhartha Gautama.
However–no rebirth??–what happens next??
Well Nibbana of course!
This idea of rebirth has fascinated me since before becoming a Buddhist. And I often wonder how a mind conditioned to the degree is my mind could possibly understand such a metaphysical concept. But as I thought about it, I came up with as seemingly reasonable analogy. Rebirth might be like wifi. And in discussions with other non Buddhist people, I would often ask if they understand what wifi is and how it works. And of course most of us don’t.
Could wireless be analogous to rebirth? Let’s travel back in time 100 years, and ask a person of that time if they could understand the wireless transmission of bytes in packets being transmitted in the form of energy from one device to another. They would probably call for the men in white coats to come and take you away.
There is much beyond our limited understanding of the world. Doubting-of which I have done my fair share-is based on our very conditioned mind. Believing for the sake of it lacks reason but is emotionally satisfying. The middle path seems tlike the right view.
I confess my ignorance. With Metta.
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Nothing can not turn into something, and something can not turn into nothing.
Somebody I knew years ago was adamant that after death they would just go back to being part of the soil in the earth.
Yet without the soil, there would never be any life.
Not on land anyway!
Consciousness grows in the same way as a plant grows, from the soil up. I think it works the same as intelligence, we are born without any, and it grows as we grow!
Hello everybody by the way!
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Perhaps nothing is the goal. And somewhere, nothing, is sitting, looming, and ready to Awaken all of us to explain to us what it really is.
When all causes for something ceases without remainder, that something also ceases.
Best to use for the mind, as the body is seen as corpse for after death of arahant.
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These two statements are not necessarily contradictions or in tension, right?
Right. The body doesn’t turn into nothing. It transforms into a corpse which then transforms into dirt and worm food and decays into yet other forms of matter with other labels and so on. The something doesn’t turn into nothing, but rather transforms into something else depending on causes and conditions.
If we don’t wish to use the language of transformation we could say rather:
Right. When the body ceases it acts as a condition for the arising of a corpse. When the corpse ceases it acts as a condition for the arising of dirt and worm food. As dirt and worm food ceases it acts as a condition for the arising of yet other forms of matter with other labels and so on.
In this sense, the something doesn’t turn into nothing, but rather with the cessation of something it necessarily acts as a condition for the arising of something else depending on causes and conditions.
Here is where they might come into tension: if the cessation of something does not act as a cause or condition for the arising of something else, but is this ever the case? It is possible for something to utterly cease and that cessation not act as a further cause/condition for anything at all to arise in the future? If so, I haven’t seen it I don’t think. Can anyone else give an example of this happening?
Are you looking for a substance? Is the perception of Dependant Origination an endless stream? Do you sense a materialistic continuation of all these things of some sort? Or wouldn’t you say that Emptiness is more that of phenomena that need no basis of existence. The exact perception of something out of nothing, I think, is a part for the basis for Emptiness.
Nothing materialistic or substance based about it to my mind. It is possible to posit the questions above in a non-substantive manner. By mere observation we see what happens to the corpse. We can ask if we’ve ever encountered anything whose cessation did not act as a condition for the arising of something else. Seems a perfectly good question to ask to my mind that is not based on any assumption of substance or materialism, right?
Do you have an example of something that ceased and that cessation did not act as a condition for the arising of something else? The cessation had no causal relationship to anything else at all? I cannot think of a single example of this happening to my limited mind. Perhaps others can?
I would say that every moment is nonconditional to the next, that Emptiness is void of any self, therefore conditions are a convention of perception; they are not actually existing. You are observing a mirage and what you are truly seeking is Nibbana, the freedom from this maze of illusion.
Awesome.
Now, down in the every day conventional and mundane existence of things, can we say or do we say that the cessation of something, has no causal relationship to any other thing? Take the Teacher’s Nibbana for instance: did this not have any causal or conditional effects in this regular old conventional and mundane Samsara? Isn’t this very conversation an effect of the Teacher’s Nibbana?
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If you perceive this world incrementally, I would say even attaining Nibbana, which has no material reaction, creates effects for the Saha World as there are changes in even the worst types of beings, even hosts of maras came to listen to the Buddhadhamma from King Buddha, so the purpose of Enlightenment is to save this world from suffering, and to grant it freedom from material entanglement, Peace and dignity as opposed to ruin.
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You already know what I am going to say, and I already gave the example. The mind of an arahant after death ceases without anymore arising of any more minds.