Hi, bdah.bdah wrote:I have trouble wrapping my mind around the concept of rebirth also. I have found it helpful, though, to think of rebirth as a day-to-day thing (rather than a lifetime-to-lifetime thing), with hundreds of little rebirths happening all the time.
I have habits that are the results of my conditioning. My conditioning develops because of actions (kamma) that I do over and over and over. When I find myself doing something out of habit, it's somewhat of a "rebirth" of that particular action, isn't it?
Perhaps this is a glaring misunderstanding of rebirth on my part, but I find it makes a bit of sense to me.
This isn't a glaring misunderstanding. It is part of the Theravada understanding of rebirth. Moment-to-moment rebirth is an aspect of the rebirth that also happens from lifetime to lifetime in traditional Theravada. In What the Buddha Taught, Walpola Rahula quotes the Paramatthajotika Commentary as follows, "When the Aggregates arise, decay, and die, O bhikkhu, every moment you are born, decay, and die." Phra Prayudh Payutto makes a similar point in his book Buddhadhamma. They just don't view this momentary rebirth as separate from rebirth after death.