Thusness found some very good posts in another forum, by a
forummer 'rizenfenix' and I am sharing it here.
http://newbuddhist.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4598
An object is seen by a hundred
different people like a hundred reflections in a hundred mirrors.
But is it the same object? As a first approximation, it’s the same
object, but one that can be perceived in completely different ways
by different beings. Only one who has attained enlightenment
recognizes the object’s ultimate nature – that it appears, but is
devoid of any intrinsic existence – as the direct contemplation of
absolute truth transcends any intellectual concept, any duality
between subject and object.
Buddhism’s position is that of the
‘Middle Way: the world isn’t a projection of our minds, but it
isn’t totally independent of our minds, either – because it makes
no sense to speak of a particular, fixed reality independent of any
concept, mental process, or observer. Rather there is
interdependence. In this manner, Buddhism avoids falling into
either nihilism or eternalism. Phenomena arise through a process of
interdependent causes and conditions, but nothing exists in itself
or by itself.
Colors, sounds, smells, flavors,
and textures aren’t attributes that are inherent to the objective
world, existing independently of our senses. The objects we
perceive seem completely ‘external’ to us, but do they have
intrinsic characteristics that define their true nature? What is
the true nature of the world as it exists independently of
ourselves? We have no way of knowing, because our only way of
apprehending it is via our own mental process. So, according to
Buddhism, a ‘world’ independent of any conceptual designation would
make no sense to anyone. To take an example, what is a white
object? Is it a wavelength, a ‘color temperature’, and or moving
particles? Are those particles energy, mass, or what? None of those
attributes are intrinsic to the object, they’re only the result of
our particular ways of investigating it.
Buddhist scriptures tell the story
of two blind men who wanted to have explained to them what colors
were? One of them was told that white was the color of snow. He
took a handful of snow and concluded that white was ‘cold’. The
other blind man was told white was the color of swans. He heard a
swan flying overhead, and concluded that white went ‘swish
swish’... The complete and correct recollection of the story aside,
the point being the world cannot be determined by itself. If it
was, we’d all perceive it in the same way.
That’s not to deny reality as we
observe it, nor to say that there’s no reality outside the mind,
but simply that no ‘reality in itself’ exists. Phenomena only exist
in dependence on other phenomena.
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On rebirth:
http://newbuddhist.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4215
Continuing consciousness after
death is, in most religions, a matter of revealed truth. In
Buddhism, the evidence comes from the contemplative experience of
people who are certainly not ordinary but who are sufficiently
numerous that what they say about it is worth taking seriously into
account. Indeed, such testimonies begin with those of the Buddha
himself.
Nevertheless, it’s important to
understand that what’s called reincarnation in Buddhism has nothing
to do with the transmigration of some ‘entity’ or other. It’s not a
process of metempsychosis because there is no ‘soul’. As long as
one thinks in terms of entities rather than function and
continuity, it’s impossible to understand the Buddhist concept of
rebirth. As it’s said, ‘There is no thread passing through the
beads of the necklace of rebirths.’ Over successive rebirths, what
is maintained is not the identity of a ‘person’, but the
conditioning of a stream of consciousness.
Additionally, Buddhism speaks of
successive states of existence; in other words, everything isn’t
limited to just one lifetime. We’ve experienced other states of
existence before our birth in this lifetime, and we’ll experience
others after death. This, of course, leads to a fundamental
question: is there a nonmaterial consciousness distinct from the
body? It would be virtually impossible to talk about reincarnation
without first examining the relationship between body and mind.
Moreover, since Buddhism denies the existence of any self that
could be seen as a separate entity capable of transmigrating from
one existence to another by passing from one body to another, one
might well wonder what it could be that links those successive
states of existence together.
One could possibly understand it
better by considering it as a continuum, a stream of consciousness
that continues to flow without there being any fixed or autonomous
entity running through it… Rather it could be likened to a river
without a boat, or to a lamp flame that lights a second lamp, which
in-turn lights a third lamp, and so on and so forth; the flame at
the end of the process is neither the same flame as at the outset,
nor a completely different one…