Chapter 34 Chapter 32 Karma and Reincarnation Theory in Western Countries

The sleepless have long nights, and the weary have long roads; A fool is ignorant of cause and effect, and the sea of ​​suffering is boundless. - Nalanda Karma and reincarnation theory in western countries Karma and reincarnation are fundamental principles of Plato's philosophy.Sentient beings are perpetually reincarnated in this need, and the bad karma they do in this half-samsara is punished in the other half-samsara.In The Republic we find the human karma, "It is the daughter of need," in whose hands sentient beings whose bodies disintegrate choose their reincarnation, Orpheus chooses the body of a swan, Turoszi The ape was chosen, and Agamemnon the eagle. "In the same way that some animals are reborn in human beings, or other sentient beings, the unjust enter the barbaric world, and the just enter the civilized world."

Before the Persian Gulf War, the contacts and exchanges between the East and the West triggered a rebellion against Hom’s theory of the end of the world, and thus began the pursuit of a deeper explanation of life.Interestingly, the Ionian Greeks of Asiamana had already started such a quest because they were influenced by India. Pythagoras(1) was born on a small island called Sham in 580 BC, and he traveled widely around the world.According to his biography, he studied Indian thought and it was he who taught the West the doctrine of karmic reincarnation. "It is not too much," Gabi said in his book "The Greek Thinker", "assuming that the curious Greeks already knew about the Buddha, in that age of active mental activities, they passed through the Persian Gulf and obtained more or less veritable. Oriental culture."

What Others Think About Reincarnation The Bhagavad Gita says: "Just as a man puts off a worn out garment and puts on a new one. So, the inhabitant of a body casts off his old body and takes up a new one." "Death is the affirmation of life, and life is the affirmation of death." Herododis: "The Egyptians advocated the theory of the immortality of the soul. When a person dies, it passes into another sentient being who is ready to receive it." Pythagoras: "Everything has a soul, everything is a soul, going back and forth in the organic world, following the eternal wishes and laws."

Plato: "The soul is older than the body. The soul continues to recreate life again and again." Ovid to Pythagoras: (translated by Darder) "What is called death is an old thing put on a new garment, Wearing all kinds of clothes, going back and forth between various residences. The soul is still one, only the form is lost. And as the soft beeswax is given to the new seal, to design such a face, or to leave such a mark, Shi Er for this, Shi Er for that. Only the graphics have changed, the beeswax remains the same. Death is the beginning of a new life that we have never experienced before,

Shapes change, I admit, and nothing lasts from beginning to end. " Schopenhauer: "In the earliest and most civilized ages of man we have discovered the doctrine of reincarnation. It is widely spread on earth as the belief of the great majority, and not as the true teaching of all religions except Judaism and two of the most subtle The religion from which the form developed. But, as already mentioned in Buddhism, this doctrine is almost the truth. Therefore, Christians console themselves by imagining an encounter with God in another world. In this world Here, a person regains his absolute individuality and immediately knows himself. In other religions, this encounter already exists, but it is only a hidden identity. In life and death, those who are closely related to us will be in the next life. , reborn with us, as now, they will have the same or similar relations and affections for us, be they friendly or malevolent."

"As already recorded in the "Veda" and other sacred scriptures in India, everyone knows that soul regeneration is the core of Brahmanism and Buddhism. Therefore, it is now spread in non-Muslim Asian countries. In this way, more than half of the human race people have a firm belief in this, it has a strong practical influence. This is also the belief of the Egyptians, Orpheus, Pythagoras and Plato, etc. actively and enthusiastically accepted this idea, and Dagolla The Greeks still maintain this belief. Greek mythology also teaches this system. There is no doubt that this is following the ninth law of Plato."

"In the Vorusna, the Ada specifically teaches the regeneration of the soul. There is nothing inferior to the regeneration of the soul as the basis of the sorcerer's fortune-teller." "Therefore, so long as one reflects on all this without prejudice, the belief in the regeneration of the soul itself expresses a natural belief in man." Hume: "Regeneration of the soul is an eternal system of life, which only philosophy can pay attention to." Disraeli: "There is no other system so simple and incompatible with our reason as the doctrine of reincarnation. It holds that the pains and pleasures of this life are the rewards and punishments of what we do in another life."

Dante: "Then, the son born of your flesh will return to the world again." Emson: "From the preparations that our instincts urge, we have innumerable experiences of no apparent value. We must reason about our fate before we assimilate or eliminate these experiences over many lifetimes." Rayson: "Why can't I experience new experiences as many times as I acquire knowledge? Am I acquiring too much from unsolvable reincarnation?" Huxley: "Like the theory of evolution itself, the fundamental source of the doctrine of regeneration is truth." "Daily experience familiarizes us with the fact that we are genetically nominally combined. Each of us is distinctly marked by our parents, or more distant relatives. More specifically, the sum of our predispositions to behave in a certain way, which we call character, can often be traced back to a long succession of ancestors and collateral families. It is therefore fair to say that this essence of character, morality and intellect in men is indeed transmitted from one body to another, truly Passed from one generation to the next. As a newborn baby, characters are latent in them, and their ego is nothing more than a latent capacity. However, they become real characters at an early age. From childhood until adulthood, they Dim or obvious, weak or strong, evil or honest, gradually revealed. Each manifestation is affected by meeting with other characters. If not otherwise affected, this character will be transferred to the new body .

"Hindu philosophers call this character, or explain it as kamma. It is this kamma that moves from one life to the next, with reincarnation linking them together. They believe that this kamma is renewed in each life, and that this renewal It is caused by one's own behavior, not just a factor of birth." Tennyson: "If I come from the lower way, all past experiences, It is ingrained in the mind and body. You may forget your shortcomings. Because this is not the first time I have forgotten, The mood of memory no longer recalls. " Wadsworth: "Our birth is but a dream and oblivion,

The soul lives with us, The star of our life landed in another place. Coming again from far away, Not forgetting everything, It's not clear. " Shelly: "If there is no reason to believe that we existed before the existence of this actual reality, there is no basis for assuming that we will continue to exist after this existence has actually ceased." Professor Francis Bowen of Harvard University exhorted Christians to accept the theory of reincarnation and wrote: 'Our life on this earth is rightly considered a training and preparation for an eternal existence after death.However, if it is limited to this single body of life and death, the time it takes to achieve such a great goal seems to be too short.Sixty or seventy years is certainly not enough time to prepare for eternity.However, this transitional period of the soul is tightly restricted in this narrow pattern, what can we be sure about? Why doesn't it continue to extend continuously for a long time, and the same individual once Giving new life again and again to countless bodies, giving each life the training, the formed character, and the indulgent temper and disposition it received in the previous life.There is no need to remember the past history, even if it bears fruit, because the past history is buried deep in the present body.How many great chapters in any one life have been forgotten? Though they may have helped to a great extent to build the mind and reason which distinguished one man from the other.Our responsibility is in no way diminished by these omissions.We still seem to be responsible for the misuse of time, although we have forgotten how and what to waste it.We reap the fruits of pain even now, through our feeble bodies, through many forgotten desires and capacities for depravity, capriciousness, and sinful deeds.They are forgotten simply because there are so many of them. "

"If it is said that each birth is an absolute innovation, the first beginning of a new life, we may be justified in asking: Why was such a distinctly different soul constituted in the first place? If, say, regeneration is included in the In the world's mysterious governing system, these differences disappear. From this point of view, everyone is justly born into this world through his previous life experience. Sinful inheritance is very difficult to accept. Yes. But no one can complain of his temper and disposition, for it may be said that he has inherited it from himself, that is, from his former self in a past life. What we call death is but another life It is our own fault, if not higher and better than the life that has just ended." past lives: "I lay flat on the seashore, Dreaming of a little sky, Listening to the waves break and roar, The sun clings to my face. I spread my slightly brown palms and fingers, Playing with pale pebbles, Waves come and go, The sound is like thunder, jumping happily. The pebbles are smooth and round, Warm in my hands, Like little visible figures, Sitting in a pile of sand. Grains of sand and stones shimmer slightly, flowing softly through my fingers, the sun shines on it, I also started to dream: How was it all in the past, How many years have they passed through, I once lay on the sands of forgetfulness, Just like me today. The waves roll, the sand glistens, Shine as bright as now, in the hands of my past, The grains of sand are warm and beautiful. I forgot when I came here, Can't remember where my home is, Forgot the strange and savage names, I call it the roaring sea. I only know that the sun shines, and still shining, On my long yellow fingers, Small pebbles are piled up. "(2) [Note] (1) Pythagoras remembered that he had participated in the Tega War as Euphopos in his previous life, and Epidochus had been a boy, a girl, a bird, and a fish in the sea in his past life. (Frag.117, Dalles). (2) Francis Calfort, Anthology of Modern Poetry, (edited by A. Maslow, London, also published in "Ceylon Buddhist Events", 1927.)