The Way to a Fortunate Rebirth

I was thinking. The way I understand rebirth is just experiencing the cycle of life and kamma in this life (loosely translated, I guess). Since there is no “life after death”, the idea is that life continues like a dirty string. The death of the body doesnt end the continuation of the mind, experiences, and attachments. The ideai s to practice to clean the string so we realize the dirt only made us assume there is a string when there is none.

So, coming back again and again to that realization and Dhamma, is rebirth since extinguisment, says The Buddha, is in this life. Its always present-life no matter which how many lifetimes we have gone through.

Sorry, so in that since, instead of wondering of rebirth as if it were a life after death, think of it as a continuation of life until there is no more continuation because of attachment.

Philoosphy aside, just live and experience the cycle of life. If you see youself coming back to Dhamma, you are going away from rebirth. As you live the Dhamma, the further from rebirth you are.

The Buddha wasnt enlightened in the next life after death but the life he was at present. Then he said he realized everything and had no more rebirth. Fire went out.

Change perspective from life-after-death to life-after-life it may make more sense?

Thats how I understand and observe it. (and yes, the syncronicities also helps :slight_smile: )

One other thing. To be honest, comparing and contrasting to western views of religion kinda is a distraction. Im still a novice but I wasnt raised in other religious environments; so, wouldnt there be another way to explain Dharmic concepts without refering to other religious belief systems?

The Dhamma can support itself (being honest not rude)

Some western Buddhist might have an annihilationist view. If they have that view then that is wrong view. We need right view to follow the noble eight fold path. There is result of good karma and bad karma. There is this world and the next. The 31 planes of existence is real not some fake metaphorical place.

"And how are there three sorts of un-Dhamma conduct, dissonant conduct with the mind?
"There is the case where a certain person is covetous. He covets the belongings of others, thinking, ‘O, that what belongs to others would be mine!’
"He bears ill will, corrupt in the resolves of his heart: ‘May these beings be killed or cut apart or crushed or destroyed, or may they not exist at all!’
"He has wrong view, is warped in the way he sees things: ‘There is nothing given, nothing offered, nothing sacrificed. There is no fruit or result of good or bad actions. There is no this world, no next world, no mother, no father, no spontaneously reborn beings; no contemplatives or brahmans who, faring rightly & practicing rightly, proclaim this world & the next after having directly known & realized it for themselves.’ [3]
"This is how there are three sorts of un-Dhamma conduct, dissonant conduct with the mind.
"It’s by reason of this un-Dhamma conduct & dissonant conduct that some beings here, with the break-up of the body, after death, re-appear in the plane of deprivation, the bad destination, the lower realms, in hell.

There are sutta passage which suggest Nibbana as a transcendent reality to which the Arahant gains “access”, but the suttas don’t answer the question of what happens to a Buddha when he dies.