Reincarnation or Rebirth?

“I don’t really understand that process called reincarnation but if there is such a thing I’d like to come back as my daughter’s dog.”

Leonard Cohen

People often confuse the terms reincarnation and rebirth. It depends on the school and philosophy, whether we are talking from the Buddhist or Hindu perspective. The main difference is that in Hindu philosophy the person’s individual soul is born into a new life. Therefore this is known as the concept of reincarnation. That means that the same soul takes a new body in next life.

Rebirth is a concept in Buddhism. In Buddhist philosophy, the existence of both body and mind are impermanent. The only thing that exists eternally is Oneness, the pure consciousness. The oneness is like an ocean where our consciousness merges when we die. As long we think we are separate drops from that ocean, we keep on re-birthing and dying on and on. Our karmic actions are what is reborn after we die, in the form of energy that lives in the world.

Tibetan Buddhism (which has slightly different traditions to other schools of Buddhism) uses the term reincarnation, though there is no concept for a permanent, individual soul. Great teachers, lamas, die happily because they know their spiritual knowledge, consciousness, will be born again in a new body. They can continue their studies of higher self, and help the others to find the same path of liberation. There are several examples of people who are shown to be reincarnated as deceased persons. Among Tibetan Buddhists lamas they have several difficult and even scary exams to prove if a young child is a reincarnated teacher. Tests include i.e. recognizing objects that the teacher owned and remembering old texts and teachings.

Remembering a past life

There is a question that comes up often when talking about rebirths and reincarnations: If we have been born many times before, why can’t we remember anything from the past lives? Sogyal Rinpoche points out the difficulty of remembering details from the same day, previous week, month or year. How could we remember things from a lifetime or more ago? He also says that our mind is protecting us from remembering all the things from the past. If there wasn’t a filter we would remember everything that has happened to us during different lifetimes, which could be too much to accept. Our minds would most likely be overwhelmed by what we’ve been through in previous lifetimes.

That being said, many people carry memories from their past lives. People might have images of who they were, at what period of time, who was their family and whether they were happy or not. One person might have memories from many different past lifetimes. It is not unusual to experience this, once a person starts to get deeper into his/her spiritual practice. As we practice meditation or yoga we will practice to master the mind, and open it up, to new higher energy levels. We can understand and experience the universal consciousness.

Let go of the thinking mind

Many people living in the modern world have a tendency to think that everything can be scientifically proven. While scientific tools and measurements are result of major development, they are still created by humans. Unfortunately some people are blind to what they would see if they just could switch off the thinking mind. Spiritual practice is not about thinking but observing and experiencing. By undressing unnecessary layers of the logical, analytical and thinking sides of the mind, we are inviting and giving space for the intuition and sensitivity to holistically understand what is the universe all about.

Yoga Philosophy series by Anni Rainio

1. 1. Is there afterlife?
   2. What makes life suffering
   3. Reincarnation vs. Rebirth
   4. Do our present actions affect our future life?
   5. Transcending the fear of death
   6. How to find life purpose
   7. Acting from compassion
   8. Process of dying according to Tibetan Buddhism
   9. Process of dying – Perspectives from Hindu philosophies
   10. Breaking the cycle of samsara
   11. Enlightenment

Recommended readings on life, death, and the afterlife

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

Four Chapters on Freedom

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About the Author

This blog post is written by Anni Rainio, Doron Yoga Teacher -alumni, who is doing her 300h yoga teacher studies at Doron Yoga & Zen Center. She wrote a thesis about process of dying and rebirth from the yogic and Buddhist perspectives. This series of Yoga Philosophy blog texts are giving tastes of her theoretical studies. Please feel free to comment and share your thoughts either here or to annirainio@gmail.com.

Check out Anni’s website: www.annirainio.com