Many Buddhists tend to accept rebirth as a part of their religious faith. They rely on traditional belief and religious scriptures to reinforce their acceptance of rebirth. However, few make the effort to investigate what rebirth is and how it takes place. Among those who refute the doctrine of rebirth, there are very few who take the trouble to study and to investigate rebirth as a subject. Those who want to know what rebirth is and how it takes place, must study and investigate this subject just as they would study any other subject (chemistry, physics, etc.); after study, they will be able to understand to a certain extent.

Many people are reluctant to accept rebirth because they cannot understand it or because they do not remember their previous birth. Just because they cannot understands or remember their previous life is not a reasonable argument. remember that rebirth is a process that is not perceptible to the senses. Rebirth cannot be discovered by exact measurement and mathematical calculation or by the application of machines and scientific instruments. rebirth cannot be photographed, measured or weighed. This does not mean that it is non-existent. Even the materialist scientist does not limit himself to immediately experienced data. The limits of our experience are so narrow that if we did not permit our thinking to go beyond them, human thought would be poor indeed. Modern man has come to the conclusion that there is much in the universe that we cannot perceive by our ordinary sense or even by scientific instruments.

Those who want to understand the subject of rebirth fully, must first eradicate their defilements and emotions from the mind; when the mind is completely purified, they can focus their mind through their psychic power to trace back their previous births.

Historical Evidence

The teaching of rebirth has had a long history. From the dawn of civilization, rebirth has been universally held wherever men have lived, whether in primitive cultures or among highly civilized men. Rebirth is found in various forms in many ancient religions and philosophical systems in many parts of the world. Historical documents record that the belief in rebirth - viewed as transmigration or reincarnation - was accepted by some spiritual teachers and many ordinary men in the East as well as in the West.

The earliest record of the idea of rebirth is found in the ancient, Egyptian hieroglyphics, where the soul leaving the body is depicted in the form of a bird. Among the Greeks, rebirth was taught by Empedocles, Pythagoras and Plato. Among the early Christian Church fathers, the belief in rebirth was held by Clement of Alexandria (150-220), Justin Matryr, St. Gregory, bishop of Nyasa (257-332), Arnobius (290 AD.), Lactantius (early 14th century) and st. Jerome (340-420 AD.). Rebirth was officially declared a heresy in 553 AD. by the Council of Constantinople which was boycotted by the ten presiding Pope Vigilius. Philosophers who believed in the possibility of rebirth include Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and Schopenhauer (1788-1860).

Believe in One Life

Regarding life after death, we have only two alternative beliefs to choose from. One belief is that there is some sort of survival; the other death are usually influenced by the teachings of one religious teacher or another. Those who believe in annihilation have so far failed to present a philosophy that is acceptable to anyone who recognizes spiritual values. Hence it is regarding the nature of survival after death that we have to speculate about. We can neither prove nor disprove that we shall continue to exist after our present life has apparently ceased.

Some religions postulate eternal damnation in hell, or everlasting happiness in paradise after death. The eternal residence is believed to be determined according to the belief and the behavior of the individual during this single life-span here on earth. Is it reasonable to believe that the present, brief span of life is the only existence between two eternities of happiness and misery? Surely the few years we spend here on earth must certainly be an inadequate preparation for eternity.

Now we ask the question, "If a single life here decides the whole course of the future, why is one life only for a few weeks, and another for 70 or 80 years?" For one thing, the person who lives only a few weeks or years risks less chance of eternal damnation than does the person who lives up to 80. The person who lives only a few weeks or years cannot fully develop and mature his intelligence and understanding. He does not encounter all the pitfalls and temptations that life abounds with.

If there is only one life on earth, then how could an all loving God permit the heart-burning and sorrow that always accompanies the bereavement of a young child? Moreover, where is the justice and mercy of God who permits one to live only a few years, and permits another to live his full span of life, then consigns the people to eternal damnation or everlasting happiness - depending on the merits and demerits of this single life? In other words, is it reasonable to accept that our entire destiny in eternity is determined by our behavior here on earth - no matter how short or how cruel this single existence may be?

Psychic Power: Recalling The Past

Generally, advanced meditators can gain psychic powers by practicing concentration of mind up to the 4th jhana. One of these psychic powers is the ability to recall past lives. This power to recall past lives is gained by having access to memories that are available to the sub-conscious mind. Most men do not develop their purity and their concentration to the high stage necessary to achieve this power. Since only a few individuals have exerted themselves and have reached so high a stage of spiritual maturity, the rest of us must rely on the testimony of these saints, just as those who have not travelled to a foreign country have to put their trust in the statement of reliable travellers. Nevertheless, the fact remains that one of the powers of the human mind is the ability to recall the past. Those who have developed this power can directly confirm the doctrine of rebirth. Such persons can read their past just as one might recall a past incident of one's present life.

How To Recall The Past?

A writer on science and Buddhism, Historing Tan, offers an explanation on how man might recall the past. His memory theory is based on the principle of the conservation of consciousness as follows:

Psychologists who studied the memory of human thought speculated that memory was preserved in the protein molecules of the brain cell. On the other hand, physiologists who studied the structure of the human body with radio-isotopes found that nearly 98% of the cells are changed once in a year, and the protein molecules in the brain cell are metabolized almost entirely in one day or two days. The power of memory, however, is preserved to reflect impressions of many decades ago; if hypnotic methods are used, recall goes back to happenings of the past generations and to previous lives.

The question arises: in what way do the protein molecules transfer their memory to the newly-born ones while they are dying away? Some scientists have passed their memory over to the newly-born ones through electric impulses. If this is so, then the following conclusion is inevitable: If memory can be conserved in electric energy, why should the consciousness, which produces memory and imagination, not be possible to be conserved in the space which is full of electricity?

If the principle of the conservation of consciousness is valid, it offers a theoretical explanation for rebirth.

Psychic Research

All evidence of psychic research tends to confirm the teaching of rebirth.

Experiences of some reliable, modern psychics shed light upon this problem of rebirth. These experiences include ghostly phenomena, spirit-communication, alternating and multiple personalities, etc.

The phenomenon of secondary personalities has to be explained either as remnants of past individual experiences or as 'possession'. The former explanation appears more reasonable but the latter cannot be totally rejected.

How often do we meet persons we have never before met and instinctively feel that they are familiar to us? How often do we visit places and instinctively feel impressed that we are perfectly acquainted with those surroundings?

Spiritualism

Many Western spiritualists have now come to accept rebirth as a fact because it is the only valid explanation of certain data which cannot otherwise be fitted into the spiritualist concept. To give only one example, it is well known that spiritualist mediums find it impossible to contact certain people after death, while others are able to do so. This has always been a great difficulty to spiritualists, but the Buddhist answer is a simple one: not all are reborn into the so-called spirit world. Furthermore, some of these planes of existence are too remote from the human world to be accessible to any ordinary medium.

Hypnotism: A Technique For Investigating Rebirth

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