b4 anything, I respect Buddhism and its peace-loving nature.
just one question, there seems to be many references/quotations
made of several scholars supporting this theories. May I know how
can they be proven creditable?
Maybe, if that is achieved, then it is easier to understand.
According to Buddhism, three criteria allow a
statement to be considered valid: verification by direct
experience, irrefutable deduction, and testimony worthy confidence.
Here, therefore, we are talking about the third
category.
In everyday life we are continually being
impregnated with ideas and beliefs that we take as true because we
accept the competence of those who provide the information. They
know what they are doing, because it works, so it must be true.
That is where confidence becomes a factor. However, most of us
would be quite incapable of proving scientific truths by ourselves.
Quite often, too, such beliefs - like that of the atom seen as tiny
particles orbiting an atomic nucleus - continue to influence
people's view of things long after they have been abandoned by the
scientists themselves. We're ready to believe anything we are told
as long as it corresponds to an accepted view of the world, and to
be suspicious of anything that doesn't. In the case of the
contemplative approach, the doubt that many of our contemporaries
feel about reincarnation/rebirth is due to the lack of
contemplative practice.
Lots of things are seen as supernatural, until
eventually we discover how they happen, or until the time comes for
someone to have that experience for themselves. As the Roman
philosopher Marcus Cicero is quoted to have said, "What cannot
happen, will never happen, and what can happen, is not a
miracle."
Understand that your doubts regarding
reincarnation/rebirth are not shortcomings of intellectual prowess,
rather a cautious approach to an ideology that is perhaps new,
different and therefore seemingly difficult to conceptualize.
However, I present that you are here asking questions and voicing
concerns, and for now that is enough as it is within this place
that fellowship abounds.
