What is a soul?

  • Thread starter Thread starter lavikor201
  • Start date Start date
  • Replies Replies 24
  • Views Views 5K
It is strange but I don't think terribly difficult to explain... when you sleep you can go anywhere.... you can be in pain, you can be distressed... you can hang out with the sisters of Mercy, you can rule the world....yet never leave the bed and no one around you would know if you were air borne or dancing with bleezebub?... only difference is death is permanent and the final destination can be a continuous nightmare........ anyhow this is an analogy but closest I can come up with....
 
What is a 'soul'? A theoretical device to solve certain philosophical and theological problems, no more

You are born, live a while, and then die. That's it. Eternal cause and effect means that you will always leave your mark on the Universe, and still be in it in a sense even after your death, but I see no reason to believe in any sort of eternal soul - let alone an afterlife - other than wishful thinking.
 
but i thought buddhist belief that after you died you turn to other type of physical body/form like cats dogs depends on how good are you...but it has the same soul
 
but i thought buddhist belief that after you died you turn to other type of physical body/form like cats dogs depends on how good are you...but it has the same soul

No, Buddhists do not actually believe in reincarnation in that sense, despite the popular misconception. What carries on after death is not an individual soul as Christians and muslims perceive it.

The formal doctrine is called "dependent origination". The 'reborn' being is not the same as the one that died, it is the result of causal factors originating (as far as any causal factor can originate) in previous 'lives'. Every action we make and indeed thought we have has the effect of putting other processes in motion. These processes in turn become causes, with their own effects, and so on. At death these factors (whether a person is 'good', 'bad', etc) enter into the causal process ('karmic causality') which leads to another embodied sentient being born, the initial nature of that sentient depending upon actions of the now-deceased in one or more of their previous 'lives'.

It really isn't as complicated as it sounds, but my explanation was not the best, I fear. Simply, Buddhists believe not that a 'new' person is, or has the same soul, as the 'old' one, but that the 'old' persons actions caused the new person (or animal, or whatever). The better or more spiritually advanced (the better their karma) the deceased, the better start in a spiritual sense their successor gets - although that may not be obvious to them!
 
Last edited:

Similar Threads

Back
Top