Buddhism as a religion is not so much about the divine or learning about it as it is about liberating human beings from samsara which rests upon the belief that after this life there will be another life which might be better or worse than this life depending upon our moral and spiritual intentions in this life. The proof for this, if we can call it that, is since we have been born once already (which is quite obvious) then the absolute certainty we will not be reborn again is not a hundred percent. And we need a hundred percent to be sure.
In this respect, Buddhism is not a simple religion about the divine which generally involves manipulating human beings to think, feel, and act in ways that seem to be good for the individual and the society they live in. And as history shows us, religion is sometimes good for the business of adaptation, i.e., Darwinian fitness—but I dare say Buddhism would be much better.
The atheists are satisfied to roll the dice and take their chances with their belief that when you are dead, that’s it. No rebirth; no reincarnation. The Judeo-Christian religion is betting on an afterlife with God, in fact few people know that Judaism does, as a matter of fact, believe in reincarnation.
As we might expect, if Buddhism receives any criticism for accepting rebirth as a fact, it comes from atheists who are practicing Buddhism. It’s not that they have a hundred percent proof that there is no afterlife, they just say that since the Buddha denied a soul or ātman there is nothing that is reborn. But they are wrong on both counts as I have tried to show in many of these blogs. The are wrong about the ātman and that there is no transmigrant that fares on and continues (sandhāvat saṃsarati) which is consciousness.
The atheists who are practicing Buddhism appear to be cut from the same cloth as the neuroscientists who have a difficult time giving up their materialist view (a settled theory for them) that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. Have enough brain cells and out pops consciousness.
There is no way to end this dispute which has been going on even before the Buddha appeared in the world.
While those in neuroscience believe they have proven there is no such thing as life after death and that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the brain, the physical, real world which they depend upon, is not so physical as to be a real ‘something’.
Reality is more like nothing that can create the illusion of something. It satisfies the law or rule that something cannot suddenly spring out of nothing since this ‘something’ doesn’t really exist insofar as it is an illusion. But of course we understand this, because we are dealing with spirit or Mind—not matter.
Truth be told, matter, including biological matter and brains is something but something that can only be illusory which comes from the real which is Mind that is “no thing” (i.e., not something). Hence, an afterlife is real enough even though it is an illusion stemming from the real, which is Mind which is not something.
This brings us to the biggest advance in human thought and science which is the notion of illusion or in Sanskrit, Māyā. It was the Buddha who taught us how to exercise control over illusion; not falling prey to lives of suffering in repeated rebirths.
As he gradually goes up the higher stages, he will realise a state of Samadhi where he comes to the understanding that the triple world is Mind itself. The Samadhi he attains is called Māyā-like. He will further free himself from all images, perfect his knowledge, and realise that things are unborn, and entering upon the Samadhi called Vajravimbopama, will obtain the Buddha- body. — Lankavatara Sutra
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