I think so, but then all life is learning. I always get twitchy about elitism here ... if we mean experience, what order of experience are we talking about? Western cultural values? How do indigenous peoples fit into the scheme of things? Can you learn 'it' in a hermitage? In a field? In a city? What is it we need so many lives to learn?
Yeah, RJM, all things have to be learnt. The problem is about books. Which one is the right one? Scriptures? Science?
Vast subject. The inner peace of freedom from worldly desire, is learned from the eventual disappointment of the material world?
I'm not against rebirth as such, life goes on, but as you know, I find little support for 'my' reincarnation as it's commonly spoken, as it all seems rather confused.
I accept your views on rebirth. It's you who first explained it to me @Thomas along with several other things
I would not say that I had any disappointment. For me it was the question - To remain a theist or abandon all. To abandon so many, hundreds, thousands, is a catastrophe. But finally, I took the jump. There. You don't find support but you continue. I rejected it.
I don't think the desire ever goes away. One just learns to stop clinging to desire and struggling against what they can't change. Suffering isn't desire or pain, but the self-inflicted wounds we give ourselves out of our lack of acceptance. The controversial lesson there is to know when to fold 'em.
That is what Krishna aid in BhagawadGita (2.57): "yaḥ sarvatra anabhisnehah, tat tat prāpya śubha aśubham; na abhinandati na dveṣṭi, tasya prajñā pratiṣṭhitā." One who is unaffected by whatever good or evil one may obtain, neither praising it nor despising it, that person's wisdom firmly established. https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/2/57/
I've been listening to John Bulter (thanks to @Ella S). He talks about being 'present' and in the 'presence'. I think, too often, the idea of reincarnation is a postponement, a putting off of the 'one thing necessary'. If one were serious, then this is the life, this is the one shot, this is the moment, do it now ... that kind of thing ... don't gamble on tomorrow, tomorrow never comes. In that sense it's an unfortunate doctrine, and should be seen as such. It means you failed, and there's no guarantee you'll get this opportunity again, nor that you'll fare any better next time round, the assumption is it's cumulative, but I don't see it.
A Buddhist might say to this that due to the beginningless, endless perspective of Samsara, an infinite number of future opportunities exist, and that even if the individual learning experience may not be cumulative, one of the future opportunities is bound to include favorable circumstances for escaping Samsara. This without detracting from your exhortations regarding "doing it now". Just because a stochastic outcome exists, the truly staggering timeframes envisioned in Buddhism should give food for thought.
I watched it too. Peaceful and enlightening, imo. A reminder … My problem would be with continual reincarnation on planet Earth, not with the idea of a progression of the soul through rebirth into ever higher states and worlds and dimensions. Perhaps. Who knows. Imo a lot of this stuff was originally a 60s and 70s reaction to western Christian institutions; it was an expansion of viewpoints coming from an interest in eastern religions that questioned conventional Christian standards of heaven and hell and sin and morality. But today when it is no longer seen as so adventurous or rebellious to question standard religion (or to be part of a website like IO that goes outside the box) some of the ideas that once seemed cutting-edge revolutionary, now seem quite fuddy and 60ish, imo?
An escapist's view, not accepting the truth. Samsara may be beginning-less and endless, but human life is not. Anatta (You have no substance). What will be reborn? You cannot put your foot in the same river again. Gate, Gate, Samgate, Parasamgate. Karmas continue.
Agreed. I don't take issue with Buddhist doctrine, rather with ill-informed western and perhaps populist views.
