tiltbillings wrote:Make believe? Oh, dear. Can't have that. Banish imagination from one's practice and in one's attempt at understand others.
It's a fine line between imagination for the sake of walking a mile in another's shoes, and objectifying them. Better, in either case, is the testimony of that particular phenomenological point of view, i.e. the person with the belief in question who can self-report what that means for their practice.
kirk5a showed us an example of how simple this can be - in that example it wasn't the relevant precept that applied, but the dream plus rebirth-view.
In any event, you have committed a hasty generalization fallacy re: "banish imagination...".
Shame on me. My mistake. '"banish imagination..."' I thought that was just humorous drama, not an argument.
If a person asks a question such as chownah did, they should also be able offer an answer, if asked, what they think an answer to that question might be. That becomes a basis for dialogue, for mutual exploration, in that it helps clarify for the questioner and those reading the question what is being actually being asked, and it spreads out any heavy lifting in both directions rather than expecting one side to provide the answers to a weighty question. It simply makes for a more interesting and useful dialogue. Lyndon's counter question to chownah also helped.
Rebirth, like any conceptual notion taught by the Buddha, can play a role in one's motivation based upon what one understands, and it can further one's understanding. Experientially, the concept of rebirth is a way of relating to samsara, as are such concepts as nibbana or anatta, which, according to the Buddha's teachings, are open to experiential verification. And what rebirth and nibbana or anatta means to the individual -- how one finds oneself in samsara -- will change, should change, with practice and insight.
These things can be talked about, which was the point of my counter question to chownah.