Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 48-minute session, Alex Berzin explores how Buddhist philosophy and modern science converge on the nature of reality and mind. Opening with a concrete example of how the same object can be understood as a bathtub, telephone box, or vase depending on conceptual framework and use, Berzin argues this principle has profound implications for both quantum physics and everyday psychology. He shows how a problem can be either an overwhelming disaster or a manageable situation based solely on how we mentally frame it—neither view denies the problem’s existence, but one paralyses while the other enables rational response. Berzin then addresses a direct question about rebirth from a scientific perspective, carefully distinguishing Buddhist rebirth from a disembodied soul, and instead explaining it as the logical continuation of a stream of consciousness. He describes the mind not as a thing but as an event—awareness arising and engaging with experience—which must have continuity like matter and energy do in physics. The talk explores how habits, talents, and dispositions might carry across lifetimes not as physical substances but as abstract patterns inferred from repeated instances, and includes discussion of the Bardo or intermediate state between death and rebirth. Pitched at serious students of both traditions willing to examine foundational concepts carefully.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 S and B.mp3
UUID: 4a0186ba-5e3e-4a01-b621-0d11f6c21a10
Teacher: Alex Berzin
Collection: Science and Buddhism (Alex Berzin)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 48.4 minutes
Words: ~6,754
So they label this an object from an ancient civilization, but then they might think, they might get the brainstorm that this was a bathtub. In ancient times, people, because they found it lying down on its side, ancient times this was how people used to take a bath. They used to fill these glass boxes with water, and that’s how they bathed. And so now they call it a bathtub, and it becomes the latest craze, the latest fashion. Everybody has to have one of these in their home, and they have this ancient type of bathtub.
Now the question is, is that a telephone box for them? Is it? No. So what is that object? Well, what it is, is dependent on the whole culture, it’s dependent on how it’s used, it’s dependent on the conceptualizing process, you know, of the observer, of the person who’s involved with it, whether it’s a telephone box or it’s an ancient form of bathtub.
So like that, you know, it’s a similar type of thing, you know, is this a photon, I mean is this object matter or is it energy? It depends on the point of view. So this is something which Buddhism has an awful lot to talk about. What things are is very much dependent on how people conceptualize about it and use it. Right?
And it’s not only people, it’s anybody. I mean, this could be a for me, this is a glass of water. Right? Now somebody else might consider this a pitcher for wine, or somebody else could consider this something to put flowers in, it’s a vase, or a fish could consider this its home. You know, there are many different ways of looking at this object, and each of them has its own certain validity.
Buddhism talks about that quite a deal, quite a great deal, and it has many implications. It’s not just in terms of what the scientists are saying, matter or energy, it’s dependent on the point of view of the observer, but it has many implications in terms of our life. This again is something that Buddhism is calling the scientists to do, which is take your findings and think out what are the implications in terms of psychology, what are the implications in terms of, you know, how we lead our lives. So, for instance, we could have a problem. You have a problem with your kids or with your work or whatever it is, and we can label it in our mind, Oh my God, a problem!
And now you have an Oh my God, a problem! With a big black line around it, something big, heavy, concrete that’s sort of over your head as a black cloud, and then you go around, Oh, do I have a problem? And you get very anxious about it, get very upset, you get very nervous, you’re worried about it, and it really becomes something that becomes almost insurmountable because you’re just overwhelmed with this, Oh my god, do I have a problem? Buddhism is saying that, well, that is a fantasized way of looking at it. A fantasized way of looking at it is to put a big black line around it and say, Oh my god, a problem!
Well there’s an absence of that, an absence of the black line, which doesn’t mean that your problem doesn’t exist. It’s not saying that, well, if you just realize that you have no problem then you have no problem and it doesn’t exist. It’s not simple minded and stupid like that but rather it’s saying that you know, don’t put a big black line around it and saying, you know, Oh my god, a problem! When you take that away, what are you left with? You’re left with a clear view of, you know, Okay, I have a problem.
This problem has arisen, for this or that reason. You can see it clearly for what it is, and then you can start to deal with it. Then you can see, because this is, you know, it’s like, is it a bathtub, or is it a telephone box? Well, it an Oh my God problem? Or is it, Okay, you have a problem?
Both of them are ways of looking at it. If we just look at it without this big black line around it, then it’s going to enable us to be more clear minded about it. We’re not freaked out, we’re not upset and worried, oh my god, a problem! And we just see how did it rise, it arose because of this and that condition, this and that circumstance, and if I change it, you know, well, it arose from circumstances, then it’s something which is affected by these circumstances. Therefore, if I change the circumstances, I can, you know, effectively change and get rid of the problem.
And so you go about it in a very rational, reasonable type of way. So, this is by knowing the reality of a problem in this way, you know, of seeing that it’s something which is very much, you know, how you experience that problem is going to be based on how you conceptualize about it, you know, and don’t just have a simple mind conceptualization about it that it doesn’t exist, that doesn’t help. But if you can have a more valid and accurate idea of it, which is, you know, one that’s not based on freaking out, then you can approach it in a very reasonable type of way and find a solution. So this is really the most profound common meeting ground that we have between science and Buddhism. It’s the view of reality, You know, what actually is going on.
That and also the whole discussion of the mind, and how the mind works, the relation of the mind to the brain, you know, they talking about the same thing. All these sort of things, you know, you get quite a detailed discussion in Buddhism. And if we have many basic principles which are shared in common, which is the scientific method of verification, the idea of relativity and the importance of the observer, these sort of things, then it’s very possible to follow the type of program that the Dalai Lama always recommends. And what he always recommends is that, what we need in this world is both, material and spiritual progress, hand in hand. That to just try to develop, one way, you know, just totally materially, doesn’t satisfy things, you know.
People find, you know, who are in very highly materialistic type of societies, that, you know, all their gadgets don’t really make them happy, you know, you still have, you know, deeper types of problems. Also, you you shouldn’t go to the other side, the other extreme of only having spiritual type of progress and people starving to death, that obviously also is not the solution. And so what the Dalai Lama always calls for is to have both spiritual and material progress hand in hand, to have the two develop together so that we can improve the quality of human life. Because this, after all, is the aim of both science and Buddhism, is how to improve the quality of our lives. Any questions?
What would you like to talk about? Yes? The question is, you’d like to have a little bit of talk about rebirth and the scientific attitude towards it, or way of approaching it. Now, that’s a fairly large topic. Take a drink of water before we start Now, in order to really consider rebirth, what we have to do is have a clear understanding of what’s being discussed, because it’s very easy to reject rebirth and to say, That’s ridiculous, that can’t exist, when the idea of what we have, of what rebirth is, is something that the Buddhists would say also is ridiculous and doesn’t exist, and they would reject as well.
So, what we need to do is to get very precise understanding of, really, what are they talking about? Now we’re not talking about some sort of soul that flies with wings from one body into another body. It’s not that type of thing. Buddhists would also say that doesn’t exist. So what are the issues which are involved?
Now, first of all, what we want to try to do is come up with an explanation for everything. If it exists, it can be known, This basic axiom in Buddhism. So, we have all sorts of characteristics as human beings, and how can we account for them? There has to be some sort of explanation. So you have, for instance, a tiny child, an infant when they’re born, well they’re not just a complete blank.
There is certain habits which you know, a child will have, certain tendency or disposition. So, you know, two infants will be born, one will be, you know, very screaming and crying, another is going to be very calm. You know, so it’s not just completely blank. Now, there’s an awful lot about a child that we can explain in terms of genetics. You know, Buddhism wouldn’t disagree with that.
There’s a lot that can be explained in terms of family influence, society influence, we can speak on a Marxist type of level, the influence of the economic structure, all these sort of things certainly are influences to describe a human being, and the forces that make up this human being, why they act in a certain way. But, can those explain absolutely everything? And, you know, like for instance, let’s say if you have two identical twins, and so they both have the same genetic material, why is it that one of them is more accident prone than another? Why is it that one likes and has aptitude for science and the other one likes literature? Why is one of them more musically talented than the other?
These sort of things, you know, why does one of them get on better with adults? Or, you know, these sort of things are things which we can’t explain genetically because they have the same genetic material. And you can’t explain it, you know, so easily in terms of family and so on. So Buddhism is saying, well there must be some sort of explanation for these things. Now, what we are basically approaching now is the idea of a continuity.
Alright? Now with continuity what we’re saying is that, for instance, in this lifetime we have continuity. Alright? And continuity of existence, continuity of awareness. Now, in order to really start to explain this, we have to describe a little bit about the mind.
You ask a big question, we have quite a lot of time still so we can talk about these things. Mind is quite interesting, particularly also from a scientific point of view, the relation of mind and the brain. Now, nobody in Buddhism is denying the brain, the nervous system, the neurons, all these things. Dalai Lama is very fascinated to learn about these things, to bring it into the Buddhist educational system. Now, this however is not what is being discussed by the word that is translated into English as mind.
Now again we get misled because of the English words that are used to translate. If you use the English word mind, then, well, what actually is the mind? And that’s pretty hard to get a group of people to agree on what we mean by the word mind in English because, well, is the mind the same as the brain, or is the mind the rational intellectual type of, you know, processes, you know, is the we make a difference in English between the mind and the heart. You know, the mind is sort of rational things, the heart is emotions and feelings, and of course, in the Asian languages, you don’t have two separate words like that for mind and heart. You just have one word which covers both of them, which is translated on for you know, you can only translate it with one word, so we translate it as mind.
You shouldn’t be misled by that. But mind in Buddhism is not talking about a thing. It’s not talking about a brain, it’s not talking about these sort of things, but rather it’s talking about an event or process. Something that’s happening with the brain. What is the brain doing?
What is the nervous system doing? What’s the process or events that it’s involved in? This is what mind is in Buddhism, you know, what they’re talking about. As I say, the word in English is misleading, we get confused, because we think of mind as a thing, you know, my mind is playing tricks on me, this person has a good mind, they’re out of their mind, you know, these sort of ways of looking at it. You know, picture in your mind as if it were a place or, you know, that type of thing.
Anyway, it’s talking about an event. And this event is usually translated as clarity and awareness. That again is misleading terms. Clarity, well both of these, first of all, should be understood in both a transitive and an intransitive way. So, to be clear about things and to make things clear.
To be aware of things and to make things what we’re aware of. Now, what this clear aspect is talking about is things arising, things dawning, d a w n. Again, in English we’d have to say arising to the mind or dawning to the mind, which again is a misleading way of speaking about it. But any case, something arises, right? So I see you and the vision of you arises, or you think an idea arises, and you have an emotional feeling, a feeling arises, something arises.
Right? It’s talking about the event of things arising. Now clear doesn’t necessarily have to be the English word clear, because I can take my glasses off and a blur arises. That’s not clear by our English word clear, but it’s this word that’s translated as clarity here in the definition. So it doesn’t have to be clear, a blur can arise, just anything has to arise.
You don’t have to be paying attention to it. Right? I’m looking at you but, you know, the wall is also arising, the appearance of the wall is also arising, although I’m not really paying attention to it. So, you know, there are many sort of things that covers, you know, this whole wide area. Something arises, and it’s not just something arising, because a mirror has that as well, you know, of an image appearing, but also there’s a type of involvement or engagement with that.
Now that’s usually translated by the word awareness. Awareness again, you know, makes us think awareness, unawareness, conscious, unconscious, these sort of things. But all of them are some engagement with the object. You’re deep asleep, something is arising, a darkness, a blankness, and there’s an engagement with it. Right?
You’re experiencing it. It’s, something which is, you know, the mind is dull, not, you know, not clear or something like that. But there’s that type, that sort of engagement. It is a category of engagement. Now, that engagement can be understanding what it is, knowing it, not really knowing it, being aware, not really being aware, all sorts of things, but some type of engagement.
So this function, this process, is what is the characteristic feature of life. It’s something which goes on every single moment of our existence. Now, you you could think, Well, when I’m asleep my mind is off. But your mind isn’t off when you’re asleep because if it were off, then how could you hear the alarm clock? It has to be on at some sort of basic level, some sort of minimum level, always, in order to allow us to be able to hear the alarm clock and wake up.
Otherwise you couldn’t hear it. So, like that, each moment we have something appearing, something arising, even if it’s a darkness, and some engagement with it. Now, so this is mind, Now, this function is something which continues each moment. It has with it a mechanism which is grasping for it’s the mechanism of grasping to continue to exist. Each moment we grasp to continue to exist.
Now this is something which, you know, you can prove to ourselves if we stick our head underwater. Put your head underwater, what happens? After a few moments, we run out of breath, and you want very much to take your head out of the water. Why do you want to take your head out of the water? You want to take it out because we grasp to continue to exist.
If we didn’t have that basic grasping, which is sort of the life preserving principle or the instinct for self preservation, as it were. If we didn’t have that, then we wouldn’t want to take our head out of the water. I mean it wouldn’t occur to us to take our head out of the water. We have that with each moment, right? Now that is the force which is providing the energy behind the inertia that sort of keeps us going from moment to moment.
That keeps that, you know, things arising and an engagement with it, moment to moment going on. Now, Buddhism says everything is logical, you you have logical, rational explanations, so let’s look at it logically. If you look at it logically, if moment one produces moment two by this mechanism, you grasp to continue to exist, and so that provides the energy to generate the next moment. If one produces two, and two, three, and three, four, then what is so special about four that it shouldn’t produce moment five? By the same mechanism, should produce five even if that moment four is the moment of death.
Because what’s so special about the moment of death? It itself was generated by the moment right before it which had grasping for a continuity of existence. It itself is going to have grasping for continuity of existence and why shouldn’t that produce a next moment of this mind stream, of this something arising and the function of things arising, allowing things to arise, and engagement with it. Because it’s saying that continuity is something which doesn’t make any logical sense for it to go, you know, it’s going all along and then all of a sudden cause and effect no longer is the case and it just goes to absolute zero, produces no effect. Or for it to have started from absolute zero and all of a sudden get going.
It doesn’t make any sense. So what Buddhism is positing is something like what we have in science already, the law of conservation of matter and energy. Matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only be transformed. Likewise, this function of mind, this function of things arising and an engagement with it, that quality is something which can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only be transformed. Know, so life can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed.
Okay, now what are the consequences of that? The consequences of it are, well, has it actually worked? The consequences of it are, where is this coming from before you’re born? We have to consider that because now we get into the whole discussion of, well, you have a well, first of all, can the material things I mean we have two categories of things, we have material things and we have the, you know, ways of being aware, the sort of function we’re talking about of things arising and an engagement with it. Now material things are the basis for that.
Right? I mean, you have to have a basis for it. So, you know, you have a body, which is a basis for, you know, brain, these sort of things for things arising, and that’s only on a gross level, you can have more subtle levels, but things arising and engagement with it. Now, is that you have the continuity of matter, right, of the body. So the matter of the body is coming from material things, it comes from the sperm and the egg, grows from that, the sperm and egg came from the parent’s body, that goes back to their sperm and egg, the sperm and egg of their parents, so you have continuity of matter.
And you can say that likewise all the atoms etc. There’s going to be some continuity of that. But there has to be something in addition to the matter because there’s a difference between a live body and a dead body. So there has to be something in addition to just the physical matter. When you talk about continuities, continuities work not only in terms of having a basis for the continuity, but continuity works in terms of having previous moments in the same category that are providing a continuity.
So it’s not that, you know, you could have just, you know, some matter and you put it in Frankenstein’s machine and, you know, electricity comes down, you know, from the lightning and, you know, now the monster lives. Right? Well, even in that case, you know, the the source is in a sense coming from the lightning, it’s not just from the matter that’s there. So this function of being aware of things arising and engagement has to come from a previous moment of you know, its own continuity. Although, of course, it needs some material basis for it.
Now, question is, how does that get there? Because we have sperms and eggs, and not every sperm and egg produces a fertilized, not every sperm and egg produces a baby, not even when it’s fertilized, not everyone is going to connect with the side of the uterus and then grow into a child. So there has to be something that is there in addition to the material substances which is accounting for this becoming a life, for this being alive. Now we have several alternatives, again, very scientific way of approaching things. What are the possibilities?
Possibilities are that, well, it comes from the parents. Now, if it comes Because we have to have something in similar category, being its predecessor, to make its continuity. It’s not just the matter. Matter, the genetic material, all that stuff, granted, coming from the parents. It’s the spark of life, where does that come from?
Now this spark of life, with this quality of things arising and engagement with it, if it comes from the parents, into the sperm and the egg, then how does it get there? There has to be some sort of mechanism for it coming from the parents into the sperm and the egg, and at a certain time or moment when it comes to it. So does it come to it like with an orgasm? Does it come to it like with the ovulation cycle? How does it get there?
And if we can’t come up with any mechanism for it, and nobody’s ever experienced it, and we have no idea of that happening, then it’s not coming from the parents. I mean that’s not a possibility then. Because now we’re not talking about a transference of attitudes from the parents to the child. That obviously occurs, not always, but certain attitudes can be transferred, you can have influence. We’re not talking about attitudes, we’re talking about the basic function of things arising, allowing things to arise, and an engagement with it, this sort of event.
Okay, if it doesn’t come from the parents, then we have only two other possibilities. Either it comes from God, right? Which would be that, you know, you have the sperm and the egg, and God puts his finger on it and says, Let there be life, and then it becomes alive. And there are many arguments, it’s not really the place to go into that here, but there are many arguments in terms of that, whether that makes any sense. Because you know then where does God get this life force?
Or the other alternative is that it comes from previous moments of continuity of that particular mind stream, which is going to have continuity in a baby. So it’s talking like this, that you start to get into some sort of discussion of what are the arguments for rebirth. Then, of course, you can get much more detailed into the actual mechanisms of it, how habits, talents, these sort of things carry on. That gets even more complicated, I don’t know if you really want to get into Maybe we want another question. Yeah?
So in relation to that, if you follow organisms back, you get to a Well, the question is, I mean, to repeat for the others in the audience, how do we actually know when when there’s a life force present or not? Because it’s hard when you trace back this life force to know, well, do rocks have this force or matter or these sort of things? And Buddhism would say no, that you don’t have this type of phenomenon happening. Now again, we have terminology. Terminology is going to be quite important here, because, life and life forms are, again, something which aren’t.
You you could have, let’s say, two objects here on the table. Right? And in one language, I could have a word which covers both of them. Right? And in another language, you might not have a word that covers both of them, you might have a word that’s only talking about one of them.
Alright? Now, that happens to be the case when we’re talking about this term sentient beings, which you’ll find in a lot of translations, which some people will then call living beings. Now that’s misleading because we’re not talking in Buddhism about life the way that we’re talking about it in the West. Life in terms of what are the processes which characterize life. Now, whether the brain, when medical death occurs, these sort of things, that’s perhaps the type of question that you’re talking about because scientists do have difficulty saying, When exactly do you have medical death?
Brain death, heart failure, you know, you keep the person alive on machines, this sort of thing, you know, is there life there? But, in general, what we’re talking about in Buddhism is not life in the sense of the western word life, of photosynthesis and all these sort of things in which plant life also comes in. We don’t have a word in Buddhism that covers both plant life and animal life. So the word sentient being, aside from the fact that it doesn’t mean anything in English, is certainly not to be translated as living being, except in a very, very loose type of way because then you get misled by it. Sentient being is talking about, by the way, something with limited awareness, limited mind because a Buddha is not a sentient being and it’s talking about any anything which has this quality of mind that I was just talking about, of things arising and an engagement with it.
Not only that quality but also that it can perform certain actions and will experience the results of those actions. And so, you know, when we have that sort of definition, then, you know, it’s very clear that a rock doesn’t have this. So what is also very marvelous about Buddhism is that all its terminology, all its technical terms, have very specific definitions. Nothing is wishy washy, airy fairy. It’s very clearly defined, and what our task is, as Westerners coming in, is to not just you know, let do with the terminology that was come up with a hundred years ago by the pioneer translators, but, you know, when a lot of it is very misleading, which it is, to try to go to the definitions and then find English words or phrases that actually mean what they’re talking about.
If we can do that, then we’re actually translating and we’ve established a basis for communication. Because, you know, when we get these ideas Buddhism, science, they’re completely in opposite fields. A lot of that’s based on the misleading ideas that we get of Buddhism based on the faulty translations or the translations in terminology which is so nineteenth century and loaded that it doesn’t really communicate. That’s an important point. Yep?
Okay. There’s a question about there’s been one case of rebirth which has gotten a lot of publicity recently, which is of one Tibetan lama, Lama Yeshe, who was teacher of Buddhism in the West, and his reincarnation is found in a baby Lama Osel. And so the question was when you have a period of time between the death of one person and the rebirth, then what happens during that period of time? How is it accounted for? And basically, you have quite a sophisticated analysis, which goes on in terms of, in Buddhism, the process of dying.
You know, it’s broken down into about an eight step process, although there are several explanations. There’s explanation that Buddha gave of a ten step process, so it’s not that everybody goes through exactly the same. It’s fairly close, but, you know, different energy systems and so on can be slightly different. But basically, what happens is that this function of being aware of things arising and engagement with it, remember we were talking about how it has a basic support in material things, but it’s not equivalent to that. Now, what’s happening is we have a gross body, and we have gross mind.
We have three levels of both of these actually. There is the gross awareness, the gross mind, which is sensory consciousness. Now, seeing people, hearing them, etc. Then there’s the subtle level of consciousness, which is mental consciousness, primarily conceptual. Then, so our ideas, the way we think.
Then there’s a, you know, things get more and more subtle. So you can have, for instance, on a gross level, I see you. Right? Then on a more subtle level, I can think about you. That’s more subtle.
Even more subtle, I can dream about you. Even more subtle, I can be asleep without dreams. Even more subtle, I can be unconscious, faint. More subtle under an anesthesia, more subtle in a coma. So we get down to the subtlest level, and the subtlest level is just like the radio being on.
Remember I was talking about how when we’re asleep, there has to be some sort of minimum level there that would allow us to hear the alarm clock. So like that, going down to that extent, you know, extended from that, we have the subtlest level which is just this mere function of, you know, something arising, something, some engagement, which is providing the continuity. Now, in terms of the body, there’s the gross body, which is the body of flesh and bones, then there’s the subtle body, which would be, the various types of subtle energy systems that we have. Now this again is something that science is starting to acknowledge, that there are subtle energy systems within the body which aren’t visible, you know, which don’t have a visible thing that you can pinpoint, for instance acupuncture and the channels of which the in which the energy flows within the body. Well, like that, you have Chinese acupuncture, have the Tibetan acupuncture, which is a different system, you have a whole description of chakras and channels and these sort of things in the Buddhist description.
These are subtle bodies. And then this and now each of these act each of these levels, the body acts as a support for the consciousness. So for gross consciousness, which is visual and audio sense consciousness, the gross body acts as a support for that. So, the eyes, the ears, that sort of thing, the brain. For the subtle consciousness, you have the energy system is the support for that, which means that when you’re feeling very nervous, or tense, or worried, or upset then that acts as a support for all sorts of wild, crazy ideas in your head of being worried, anxious.
These sort of things, you know, they’re related to each other. So, like that, we get down to the subtlest level of consciousness, and that has the subtlest energy, which is just sort of, you know, if the subtlest consciousness is like the radio being on, with the grosser levels being that it’s on some station or with some volume, this would be the subtlest energy would be like the the electricity or the energy to keep that you know, to maintain the radio being on. Okay, so we die. When we die, what happens is that the grosser level, that consciousness, withdraws. Not withdraws isn’t quite exactly the image, but the consciousness, you know, this being aware, something arising and engagement with it, can no longer be supported by the physical basis.
Right? I mean, that’s what happens when you die. Physical basis fails to support consciousness, so then you get the dead body. Now it withdraws, that function withdraws gradually through eight steps, Alright? With all sorts of appearances, experiences, and things that are described in terms of that, you know, and and you have with Kubler Ross and people like this, you know, some data of people who have come to near death and come back who are verifying that in fact you do have certain, you know, standard appearances and experiences during this process.
Anyhow, that process is very similar to the process of how we fall asleep, that becomes very interesting. And if you can slow down enough the process of how you fall asleep, you could become aware that in fact we do, you know, the gross consciousness withdraws from the senses, although I mean there’s some basic minimum level that’s staying there, but it withdraws so that you don’t actually see or hear on a gross level. So that also goes through these stages. Now, it goes through these stages and you get more and more subtle, right? And as the physical basis no longer will hold the consciousness, that level of consciousness will no longer continue, you’ll get down to the subtlest level.
So what goes into future lives is, you know, what is providing the continuity going into future lives is a continuity of the subtlest level of consciousness and the energy that’s supporting it, sort of like a stream, right? Stream of continuity, the image is a river, it’s not always the same water, it’s always changing but there’s a stream So we have that. So that means that our gross body doesn’t go into future lives. Our sense consciousness, that doesn’t go into future lives. Our mental consciousness, our ideas, these sort of things, that doesn’t go into future lives, the energy systems doesn’t go into future lives, it’s just a continuity of the radio being on.
Now the description of what happens after it’s gone down to the subtlest level is similar to what happens when you go to sleep. You go to sleep and then after you’re asleep you get dreams. Dreams are a slightly more gross level than the subtlest level. You know, because you’re involved with some sort of ideas, visions, these sort of things, and it is a reflection of what we’ve experienced before. So likewise, you have what’s called the Bardo or in between state.
And this in between state is similar to that, you know, various things, you know, appearances will be experienced in accordance with what we’ve experienced before and how, you know, things are going to be in the future, you know, what type of direction that mind stream is going in. Then what is said is that this period, this in between period or Bardo, Tibetan Book of the Dead by the way is one of the books that talks about that. Well, it’s gotten the name Tibetan Book of the Dead in English, the Tibetan title has nothing to do with that. Then it becomes sensationalized, right? And this is the Tibetan book of the dead.
Well, it’s not. There are many books which describe this Bardo period, this in between period. The one that was translated and called Tibetan book of the dead just happens to be one of them. So anyway, you have this in between period. It lasts for seven days.
At the end of the seven days, then one would take rebirth. Now if that doesn’t occur, then again the consciousness will become more subtle again, go down to the subtlest level, and then again get into this bardo period of a little bit more gross, And but it’s still the physical basis. It’s just this subtle energy, the subtlest energy. It’s not getting into any type of body. Like you have a dream body, that’s a subtle energy form.
So you can get this seven day period repeated seven times, so up to forty nine days. And then after that, you’re gonna take rebirth somewhere. Now that might not necessarily be as a human being. You know, in Buddhism, we’re talking about any life form can generate any other life form. You can be born as a cockroach.
You can be reborn as, you know, anything. So, you know, if there’s longer than that delay, then, you know, some other life has intervened, some other period of life which could have been very short, you could be a fly a hundred times type of thing before you generate something else, you know, something more human. So, you know, there’s this type of process of how it’s of what’s occurring. Now another thing, I mean, you know, since we’ve gotten this far in the detailed description, we might as well add a little bit more. And you have what is going on in terms of habits and dispositions, tendencies, these sort of things that’s going from one lifetime to another.
How does that work? Now, what you have is basically, you know, understandable in terms of the description of what is a habit or a tendency. Now we can have a habit, let’s say, of every morning I eat oatmeal. Here’s a person who eats oatmeal every morning, they have a habit of eating oatmeal. Now what is the habit?
Habit is not something which is physical. I mean, you know, Buddhism, we have all the definitions of things, you know, and the whole metaphysical picture of what are what are habits, what is you know, these sort of things. What’s a habit? It’s not something physical. You don’t have a little box of oatmeal that’s sitting in your head jumping out, you know, each morning.
It’s not some sort of conscious, you know, way of being aware or anything like that. We’re not talking we’re not saying, you know, eat oatmeal, eat oatmeal, eat oatmeal all the time. That’s our habit. But what is it? It is simply we have certain events.
And these events, you know, last week, you ate oatmeal. The next day, you ate oatmeal. Next ate you ate oatmeal. Alright? So you have just certain events, certain experiences.
Now based on those experiences, we can infer, we can say this person has the habit of eating oatmeal every morning. Right? Well, is that habit? It’s not something physical, it’s not in their head, it’s not, you know, something that’s conscious, not a way of being aware, but it’s just something abstract that we can impute or infer onto a pattern of many instances of things. Right?
Now, if you look within one lifetime at various instances you can say there are certain habits. Now if you look within one lifetime, you know, of one person, well, obviously there’s not, you know, where is the five year old? My name is Alex. Where is the five year old Alex inside, you know, the thirty year old Alex or the forty year old Alex? Well, not there.