Common Misunderstanding about Buddhism

Buddhist believes that all people are reborn over and over again until they reach spiritual enlightenment and then Nirvana. In Buddhism good deeds are rewarded by receiving a better rebirth. Karma dictates a person’s rebirth including their financial state, appearance, class, health, species, and intelligence. Buddhist ultimate goal is to strive for Nirvana. Nirvana is the state that exists beyond the cycle of reincarnation, freedom from Karmic suffering, and provides a state of heavenly paradise.

Spirits are known as the souls of a people that are intangible and immortal. Buddhism affiliates spirits as souls of people who are in the constant cycle of reincarnation and suffering. It is a believed that the souls of people are what carry them throughout the universe in the cycle as Buddhists believe in a constant state of change and that the physical existence and identity is never permanent; thus, everyone is associated with a spirit in this cycle of reincarnation. However, some spirits in Buddhism are also seen as deities which are those who attained a level of enlightenment yet instead of enlightenment, they stay to

Hinduism is faced with a revolving wheel of life, death and rebirth called Samsara better known as reincarnation. They believe this life cycle is a direct relation to a person’s karma of deeds done. Karma “determines the kind of body, whether human, animal, or insect, into which he or she will be reincarnated in the next

Buddhism began in the fourth and fifth centuries before Christ by Siddhartha Gautama. The teachings of Buddha, also known as Siddhartha Gautama, are the major beliefs of Buddhism. Buddhism is a belief and religion based on an assortment of customs, principles, and practices. The name Buddha means the awakened one. Buddha’s teachings were of the termination of suffering, attaining nirvana, and absconding from the cycle of suffering and rebirth. Buddhism has spread all across Asia and throughout the world, now with between two hundred thirty million and five hundred million followers. Buddhism is largely based around the belief of Karma. Karma is the “action, seen as bringing upon oneself inevitable results, good or bad, either in this life or in a reincarnation” (Dictionary.com) or “the cosmic principle according to which each person is rewarded or punished in one incarnation according to that person’s deeds in the previous incarnation.” (Dictionary.com) In simpler words, how you live your life now determines how you will come back when your current soul expires. Buddhists live their lives in hopes of achieving to be placed in the highest state known as Heaven. The after-life stems from Karma and leads into Rebirth. Rebirth is a course of action where humans proceed within multiple lifetimes in one or more of the six states of after-life. Each lifetime begins with birth and ends with death. Buddhists believe that we should not fear death because

Buddhism believes in escaping the cycle of rebirths not through coming to an ultimate soul (it doesn't believe in this), but through Nirvana the ultimate relinquishing of attachment to materialism by transcending response to earthy feeling. In this way, one ends suffering by escaping the cycle of rebirths. and reincarnations. Karma from past life can affect the happenings in a present one according to both Hinduism and Buddhism, but Buddhism believes that one can escape this karma and cycle of rebirths by practicing the 8-fold path which culminates in Nirvana. With this Nirvana too, one gains a spirit of meditation or blissful mindfulness which is the epitome of the Hindu Moksha. (The Buddha Garden.)

Buddhism’s liberation from samsara is known as "nirvana" which literally means "blowing out" or "extinction," like quenching a flame. In Buddhist teaching, humans are bound to samsara through the flames of anger, ignorance and desire. So when one attains nirvana, one quenches anger (which focuses on the past), ignorance (which focuses on the present) and desire (which focuses on the future). In Buddhism, humans escape life and death by quenching all the anger, ignorance and desire while the physical body may still be alive. This is why Buddhists speak of rebirth rather than reincarnation. Nirvana is

Anatman is the idea of “no permanent soul” 3. A common misconception is that Anatman means people have no soul. In reality it describes the constant change of the soul during its time on earth. Buddhism holds that while there is no soul, the five elements that make up an individual orient themselves to form a new individual. With each cycle of rebirth, these aggregates, which include mind, consciousness, body, impulse, and feeling, will combine differently to form distinct individuals 4. While Buddhists believe in karma, a summation of positive and negative actions, they

The Question of Identity- One big belief in Buddhism is reincarnation, which is the idea that you are given new life after you pass away. With reincarnation, you may be reborn many times. Buddhist believe that life cycle to be birth, living, death, and rebirth. Buddhist also believe in the concept of Nirvana, which is a state of freedom and liberation from suffering.

Plato says “Sleep comes after being awake and being awake comes after sleep. Likewise just as death comes from life so must death return to life again.”(Tolstoy) Plato is explaining that life is like a rotating wheel with only two parts. You will live and then you will die but then there has to be something after that which is life again and the circle restarts, and this process never stops. Plato says “They have stayed for certain appointed periods, some longer, some shorter, they are sent forth again into the generation of living things.” “The inhabitants of the upper realms live there longer than those of the lower realms and without the pains, but they are only more like the Immortals, not actually immortal themselves. When they have to fall down, they are forced to fall back again and are assigned to an appropriate status, depending on their nature and according to their deeds” (hellenismo). It may take years for a person to be reincarnated. And who or what you are reincarnated into depends on the nature of the spirit and what you need to do in your next life. Plato says it’s not by chance you get a certain body or born into a certain family it’s for a reason... “ Famous philosophers socrates and pythagoras also believe what plato believed. They believe reincarnation is real. In Hinduism, it is believed that an enduring soul survives after death, spends a variable amount of time in another realm, and then becomes associated with a new body.”. “Hinduism includes the concept of karma, the idea that the conditions into which one is born are determined by one's conduct in various previous lives”. Buddhists believe also that once some has dies they reincarnate but they believe that who you reincarnate to is based on your karma except for the Dalai Lama. They believe that the Dalai Lama doesn’t get karma because of their “devotion to complete compassion for all sentient beings”

The Buddhist theory of rebirth asserts that the fruits of some karma may manifest themselves in "future lives". This brings us to the Buddhist theory of rebirth. Similar concepts occur in other religious systems - e.g. the Platonic theory of the "pre-existence of the soul" and the Hindu-Jain theory of re-incarnation. Such reincarnation theory involves the transmigration of a soul. In Buddhism, however, it is the unripened karmic acts outstanding at the death of an individual, which conditions a new birth. The last moment of consciousness too is also a conditioning factor, but it is the store of unripened karma generated by volitional acts (the sankhâras) of previous existences which generates the destiny of the new individual. A newly born individual needs not only the genetic blueprint derived from the genes of the natural parents, but also a karmic blueprint derived from the volitional acts of a deceased person.

In Buddhism, they believe that when a person dies, their stream of mental energy is re-established into a new life. In order to escape the cycle, we must relinquish “what keeps us bound to the death/rebirth process” by releasing all “desire in the sense of wanting or craving anything in the world” to achieve the ultimate goal of Nirvana; liberation and extinction of all cravings (Dhammananda, 2001). Though Different Buddhist practices explain the process of rebirth differently, they all believe that rebirth is conditioned by the karma.

In the western world, a dominant belief is that after life, a person’s soul is sent to a place of eternal bliss, heaven, or a place of eternal damnation, hell. To Buddhists, this concept is not the norm. Buddhists believe that a person is reincarnated into another life form, either human or animal. What life form a person is reincarnated as is determined by the person’s karma. The concept of karma not only affects reincarnation, but also what path a person’s life takes. While much of the concept of karma is believable and comprehensible by a person of any denomination, some aspects are dependant upon a belief in reincarnation and that a person will eventually be punished for his sins or rewarded

Buddhism stands as a philosophy and a religion founding itself on the theory of a possible eternal soul. Until awakening is achieved, this eternal soul is locked in the vicious cycle of rebirth (Samsara). According to the Four Noble Truths preached by the Buddha, life is a perpetual suffering caused by desire and attachment, and freedom from suffering is only possible by practicing the Eightfold Path. The World is suffering in a succession of temptations and negative experiences from birth to death. Therefore Buddhism advises on searching to go beyond suffering, and only aspire to rest, nothingness, and liberation, into a final state called Nirvana. Happiness or Nirvana can eventually be achieved in a hereafter, another life, if man abandons any desire or perspective of action within his present life, in order to go past suffering.

The popularity of Buddhism as a world religion is typically defined by following the tenets of Buddhism through The Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. These tenets define the ability of a sentient being to attain enlightenment as human being, but also in the animal world. Buddhism holds a deep respect for the intelligence of animals, which define them as sentient beings capable of enlightenment. This type of enlightenment takes place over many lifetimes through the concept of reincarnation. Buddhism acknowledges the immortality of the soul in being able to leave the body after death, and to then travel into the body of another life form. This is one way to understand the different life forms that Buddha (aka. Bodhisattva) had taken over many lifespans, which often involve taking the form of an animal. This is one reason why the Bodhisattva acknowledges the sentient presence of animals as being equal to the lives of human beings in the karmic tradition. Therefore, the Buddha defines animals as a intelligent beings with a soul, which makes them ”sentient beings” capable of enlightenment over the course of many lives.

This happens with one simple solution. Planning. Before physical birth the soul choses what type of experiences it wishes to have (such as being charitable to those in his community) and chooses a body in which to live out that life. Sometimes, the soul may choose a body that will not be born or whose live will end rather shortly (a mother losing her baby). In these cases, the soul has decided to help another soul experience and learn from loss of a loved one. Between lives, the soul does not immediately become reborn. There is a time spent reflecting on the experiences learned.