An Explanation of Rebirth
Bhikkhu Pesala
What is Rebirth?
Buddhists believe in life after death, and this is an important motivation for them to be careful about their actions, speech, and thoughts in this life. Whatever we do with intention is called kamma, which has impetus leading to results (vipæka). When people talk loosely about kamma in the sense of ‘fate’ they are referring to vipæka, which is the result of kamma, not
kamma itself. To understand why and how rebirth takes place, we need to understand about the law of kamma. It is a natural law, not unlike Newton’s third law of motion — to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. However, the law of kamma operates in the realm of morality, ethics, and psychology, though results often affect the physical realm too.
In Buddhism no Almighty God decides the destiny of beings, but kamma is an almighty force. Nevertheless, it is an extreme, and wrong, view to believe that everything happens because of past kamma. Using the analogy of a plant, past kamma is just the seed, present kamma is like the effort of cultivating the plant. Sunlight, soil, fertiliser, water, pesticides, etc. are also vital to the plant’s healthy growth. So past kamma is only responsible for about one sixteenth, the remainder is due to other causes.
An Explanation of Rebirth
