Quotes About Transmigration

Pessimism regards this world as imperfect, but it does not deny everything. In these terms, Indian Buddhism is certainly pessimistic, for it denies that the reality of this world is anything more than transmigratory existence. But it has one clear purpose, liberation, and it sets out along a defined road, religious training. Transmigration and liberation from transmigration: these are the two wheels of the chariot of Indian Buddhism, indispensable to its view of human life.

Buddhism divides living beings into five types: gods ( deva ), human beings ( manusya ), animals ( tiryañc ), spirits of the dead ( pert ), and inhabitants of the hells ( naraka ). These states of existence, among which living beings transmigrate (are reborn) depending on their karma, are called the five or six paths (see figure 14).

The idea of karma and transmigration are the foundation of Buddhist cosmology, whose purpose is to illuminate their nature and relationship to human existence. Unlike the modern scientific view of the cosmos, Buddhist cosmology is meaningless without the human element.

Of equal importance to the idea of transmigration is the concept of karma. Karma (also karman ) means "action," and it consists of both action and its power of influence. "Action" does not refer just to bodily movements, but also includes the actions of speech and mind. An action's power of influence is not confined to this life but extends to future lives as well.

The idea of transmigration hardly appears in the Hindu ?g Veda (12th–8th century B.C.E.), though by the time the new religious movements arose in the sixth to fifth centuries B.C.E., most of the important ones included a philosophy of transmigration, outstanding examples being Buddhism, Jainism, and the religion of the ?j?vikas. We also find the idea in Brahmanism in the new literature called the Upani?ads .

A buddha's mission is to rescue living beings trapped in the worlds of transmigration. A buddha appears in the world as a result of his aspiration toward enlightenment in former existences and his accumulation of various kinds of practice in a single world system (or, some say, in a trichiliocosm, described in chapter 4). ??kyamuni, th Buddha who appeared in India, was one such buddha.

The true nature of soul is right knowledge, right faith and right conduct. The soul, so long as it is subject to transmigration, is undergoing evolution and involution.

The three essentials of Hinduism are belief in God, in the Vedas as revelation, in the doctrine of Karma and transmigration.

As a Buddhist I was determined to root out all desires, including especially my "sick" desire for other boys and men. Only through ridding myself of all "hankerings" could I achieve nirvana and escape the endless cycle of rebirth. The odd thing is that the transmigration of the soul from one body (old and ailing) into another (a happy baby's) didn't sound so bad—in fact, it was what most Americans longed for.

Son spiritualisme (Mme Dambreuse croyait à la transmigration des âmes dans les étoiles) ne l'empêchait pas de tenir sa caisse admirablement. (L'Éducation sentimentale).

A cockroach stepped out from behind the ketchup, gave me a quick impassive once-over, decided that I was of the Brahmin faith, and walked earnestly across the table on errands of his own. Somebody had left a newspaper on the bench beside me, and I picked it up and swatted the cockroach, permitting his soul to transmigrate into the body of a quartermaster.

If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.

Presently he turned to me and said, just as one might speak of the weather, or any other common matter— You know about transmigration of souls; do you know about transposition of epochs—and bodies? I said I had not heard of it.

Hesitation before birth. If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.

First to explain ethical discipline: It's the root of higher transmigration; It's the staircase to liberation; It's the antidote to suffering;

The true nature of soul is right knowledge, right faith and right conduct. The soul, so long as it is subject to transmigration, is undergoing evolution and involution.