Understanding the Mind

A Reason to Believe: What’s Your Best Argument for Reincarnation?

When the oil of an oil lamp is exhausted, the flame goes out because the flame is produced from the oil; but when our body dies, our consciousness is not extinguished, because consciousness is not produced from the body.

Looking in from the outside, it may seem like Buddhists are accepting reincarnation as a matter of faith, without any critical thought. My goal here is to explain what Geshe-la says is “the most important reason establishing the existence of reincarnation,” one that does not rely on new-agey notions of dream premonitions or past life recall, nor on anecdotal stories of ‘transference of consciousness’, and not even on the “scriptural authority” of Buddhist tradition, but on the logic of cause and effect.

If we turn to the book Introduction to Buddhism, there is a section called “Understanding the Mind,” which precedes the section on “Past and Future Lives.” From the start, Geshe-la makes a hefty claim: the mind is not the brain nor a function of it. Instead, he says that “Knowing and perceiving objects is the uncommon function of the mind” (p. 14), which of course begs the question: What is the function of the brain? The brain carries out all our involuntary bodily actions (e.g., heartbeat, digestion, hormone regulation), and instigates all our involuntary verbal actions (e.g., hiccups, coughing, sneezing); this is the converse of Geshe-la saying that “All intentional bodily, verbal, and mental actions are karma” (p. 25, emphasis added). In short, the brain does not create karma because its actions are autonomic, not intentional—although sometimes we can switch from one to the other, such as when controlling the breath.

Elsewhere, Geshe-la adds that “Our nervous system and the chemicals that make up our brain and body may be able to shape what kind of thoughts and feelings develop, but there is nothing within the brain or the body that can transform into mind” (emphasis added). Here, he is referring to primary and secondary causes of mind, also rendered as “the main, or substantial, cause and various contributory conditions.” To explain the difference between these two, an analogy is in order: Where does an oak tree come from? An acorn! Yet this seed by itself cannot give rise to an oak tree. Without air, sunlight, water, and soil, the seed will not sprout. But amongst all these ingredients for an oak tree, how can we tell which one is the so-called main cause? All of them are necessary, for if any one of them was missing, the seed would remain dormant. So, necessity cannot be what distinguishes causes from conditions.

Geshe-la answers, “The substantial cause transforms into the effect, whereas the contributory conditions enable this transformation to occur.” We do not say that it is water or soil that turns into a tree—only the seed carries this potential. Therefore, it is the seed that actually transforms into an oak tree, while the contributory conditions serve to bring this transformation about. Another example is given:

A clay pot is produced from its substantial cause—the clay it is made of—and a number of contributory conditions, such as the potter, his wheel, and the kiln, which serve to mould the clay into the particular form of the pot.

In short, the substantial cause is that which is transformed, while the contributory conditions are the transformers.

Geshe-la goes on to say that “The substantial cause of a thing must be something of similar type or substance. Thus, the substantial cause of a clay pot must be clay and the substantial cause of a gold coin must be gold.” So, obviously, an apple seed cannot be the substantial cause of an oak tree, which is a basis for saying that they are not part of the same continuum of cause and effect. Likewise, since mind or “subjective experience” has a subjective nature, then its main cause must also have a subjective nature. This cannot be the brain, for neither matter nor unintentional actions have subjective properties that can transform into subjective experiences. Instead, non-virtuous intentions transform into experiences of suffering, and virtuous intentions transform into experiences of happiness—the main point being that virtue and non-virtue are both subjective in nature, just as the experiences to which they give rise. Again, none of the autonomic functions of the brain are subjective in this sense—we actually experience minds of anger and love, but our heartbeat and digestion usually go about unnoticed; there is meaning behind words of blame or praise, but hiccups and coughs* have no meaning at all (* unless done intentionally!). It is on this basis that Geshe-la concludes:

The only thing that can transform into one moment of mind is a previous moment of mind. If this is the case, then where does the first moment of mind of this life come from? The only possible answer is from a previous moment of mind. This is the most important reason establishing the existence of reincarnation.

It is the foregoing inferential reasoning that, for Buddhists, establishes that body and mind arise from different continuums. The continuity of mind from life to life is explored in the second essay.

P.S. We should still consider whether there is an evolutionary basis for the emergence of our subjective minds. For example, our physiological immune response to a foreign invader: Is there a “me vs. not me” cognition or understanding occurring when my body fights off a virus? Our home computers also have anti-virus programs, but they are simply following the rules of their programming. As one artificial intelligence researcher said, “syntax is insufficient for semantics.” That is to say, the computer really does not understand the content of the information it is processing; the meaning is imputed from the side of the programmer, not the program.