I’ve been reading about Buddhism lately, but can’t seem to find the answer to this question or maybe I’m missing it. OK, someone with good karma is supposed to have a rebirth in favorable conditions, but how exactly is that person sent there? What causes a person to be born as say Bill Gates’ next son and funnels him and ensure he gets there?
Asians seem to think that this is managed by a government bureaucrat called Yama king of hell.
“Asians” covers a lot of people, and not all of them are Buddhists. It would be like saying “Caucasians” are all Christians with the same Christian beliefs.
It’s a lot more ridiculous than that. At least a majority of Caucasians do belong to Abrahamic faiths, Indian Hindus being the only major exception.
In contrast, the largest denomination in Asia is Moslem, but with large numbers of Christians, Hindus, Daoists and various tribal and regional religions and a relatively small number of Buddhists.
So it’s more akin to claiming that Africans all hold Jewish beliefs.
There are multiple answers.
In Tibetan Buddhism, there is a transitional period referred to as the Bardo, during which a well prepared mind can skip the queue and achieve a higher rebirth or avoid rebirth at all. This is discussed in the Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thodol)
Yama has already been mentioned.
Keep in mind also the concepts of soul-less-ness (anatman) and impermanence (anicca), which change how one thinks about reincarnation. There is no indivisible nugget of ‘you-ness’ that is born in a new body. The being that is reborn continuous with, but not the same as, the being that dies. Thinking about it this way allows you to consider it more as a kind of spiritual momentum, with no need for a judge or traffic director, with one death causing a new birth in one of the realms. (this is where you get all the analogies with waves and billiard balls)
I should warn you that buddhism threads on the dope often wind up as complete dog’s breakfasts.
I’m not supposed to say but … they ask me. Please don’t tell anyone.
Quoth Blake:
How is it a majority if all of the Indian Hindus are an exception? It seems to me that Indian Hindus are a majority of almost any categorization which includes them.
Only if the category excludes all the other populous nations on Earth.
For some back-of-the-envelope figures, India has about a billion Hindus. It also has around 200 million Moslems/Christians/Jews, Pakistan has ~150 million, the Middle East ~400 million, Europe ~400 million, North America 350 million.
Then you add in the Christian/Moslem/Jewish populations of Bangladesh, AllTheOtherstan, North Africa and so forth. Then you add in the Caucasian Abrahamic populations of South and Central America, Australia, Africa etc.
At the end of the day, a clear majority of Caucasians belong to Abrahamic faiths. It’s not a 95% majority, but around 60% of Caucasians belong to Abrahamic faiths.
While there are a lot of Indians, and while most of them are Hindus, a lot of them are not, and there are a lot more Caucasians outside India than within India.
There you go. Nicely put!
For values of Asia which do not include China, Japan and South-East Asia. In Asia as more conventionally defined, however, far from being a “relatively small number” Buddhists are probably the most numerous religious tradition. Islam is no. 2.
Not even close.
Buddhists make up about 20% of the population of China, about 10% of the population of Japan and about 15% of the population of SE Asia. IOW Bhuddists are only a tiny minority even in the regions that you seem to think are Buddhist strongholds.
I await eagerly a reference for your claim that “Buddhists are probably the most numerous religious tradition” in Asia.
If you’re asking how, according to Buddhist tradition, this happens, it is apparently undecided, with various points of view on the subject.
It isn’t the most popular religious tradition in Asia by a longshot but there are certainly Buddhist strongholds like Thailand (95%), Cambodia (90%), etc.
Numbers on Buddhism in Japan are both high and low depending on how you ask the question. A large majority of Japanese will identify as being Buddhist if asked what religion they prefer, but 70% of the population also describes themselves to be non-religious. Birth records in Japan assign everyone to a local Buddhist temple in their precinct so if you asked them, almost 100% of the population would be Buddhist. There are a lot of non-practicing ‘Buddhists’ in that sense but from what I’ve read the number of actual, practicing Buddhists in Japan is still something more like 20%, not 10%. Conversely, based on a quick look China appears to be more like 10% Buddhist and not 20%. (that 10% of China that is Buddhist still amounts to over 1/2 the entire US population so its not the trivial smattering of people it might sound like).
This site has a lot of various geographical analysis of religious populations around the world.