... of the Dalai Lama's book, How to See Yourself As You Really Are. I'm in an area now where I need the help of quotes, so this is the source of all the quotes in this post.
Reincarnation is a given, but it is referred to as "cyclic existence," a thing to be overcome via insight, and by overcoming ignorance, which is seeing things as being existent in their own right, independently. You cannot believe your eyes or other senses:
Sensing everything as independent entities causes us to react with feelings such as lust and anger.
Consider a table. It looks substantial and independent, but it is not.
The same applies to the self:
Nowhere in the parts of the body and mind that form the basis for the "I" can we find the "I." Therefore the "I" is established not under its own power but through the force of other conditions - its causes, its parts, and thought.
This is not the same thing as nihilism, though. It is not saying that nothing and nobody exists, as things have a noticeable cause and effect; but the existence is dependent, mostly on the thought of the perceiver. Quantum physics, anyone?
Reincarnation is a given, but it is referred to as "cyclic existence," a thing to be overcome via insight, and by overcoming ignorance, which is seeing things as being existent in their own right, independently. You cannot believe your eyes or other senses:
Our senses contribute our ignorance. To our
faculties of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling, objects seem to exist in their own right. Presented with this
distorted information, the mind assents to this exaggerated status of things. Buddhists call such a mind "ignorant" for accepting this false
appearance instead of resisting it. The ignorant mind does not question appearances to determine if they are correct; it merely accepts that things
are as they appear.
Sensing everything as independent entities causes us to react with feelings such as lust and anger.
Consider a table. It looks substantial and independent, but it is not.
A table depends for its existence on its parts, so we call the collection of its parts the basics upon which it is set up. When
we search analytically to find this table that appears to our minds as if it exists independently, we must look for it as if it exists independently, we must look for it within this basis - the legs, the top, and so forth. But nothing from within the parts is such a table. Thus, these things that are not a table become a table in dependence on thought; a table does not exist in its own right.
From this viewpoint, a table is something that arises, or exists, dependently. It depends on certain causes; it depends upon its parts, and it depends upon thought. These are the three modes of dependent-arising. Of these, one of the more important factors is the thought that designates an object.
The same applies to the self:
Nowhere in the parts of the body and mind that form the basis for the "I" can we find the "I." Therefore the "I" is established not under its own power but through the force of other conditions - its causes, its parts, and thought.
This is not the same thing as nihilism, though. It is not saying that nothing and nobody exists, as things have a noticeable cause and effect; but the existence is dependent, mostly on the thought of the perceiver. Quantum physics, anyone?
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