Personally I believe even the mind is an impermanent entity, constantly subject to change and utter reformation. I think the mind does proceed to have an effect on certain areas of existence beyond the physical body. I recently read and came to understand a buddhist monk's explanation of death, and why an enlightened being has no fear of it. While it's a bit too much to go into full detail right now, the theory is that once you extinguish the self you see that death is no different than one living moment to the next. The conscious is just a collection of impermanent processes constantly arising and falling, blinking in and out of existence. There is no one mind, one "soul" that permanently exists in a single form forever according to buddhist thought. There is, however, an essence of the self (still not a permanent soul though).

This essence is said to be the remainder of a conditioned mind, one that still harbours attachement/clinging. Because attachement has not been extinguished, this essence of your previous self seeks to grab on to it's previous physical form, and hence latches on to the first new life it finds that most closely matches it's karmic state in an attempt to re-establish the prior form. This is the difference between "rebirth" (prominant in buddhism) and "reincarnation" (prominant in hinduisma and probably others). It's not that "you" are reborn, it's that the essence of the "you" that was created lingers to continue it's karma, and join with a conscious entity to create a new one which carries the core attributes of it's previous lives.

Feel free to discuss .
mrdevious Reviewed by mrdevious on . On the buddhist concept of Rebirth Personally I believe even the mind is an impermanent entity, constantly subject to change and utter reformation. I think the mind does proceed to have an effect on certain areas of existence beyond the physical body. I recently read and came to understand a buddhist monk's explanation of death, and why an enlightened being has no fear of it. While it's a bit too much to go into full detail right now, the theory is that once you extinguish the self you see that death is no different than one Rating: 5