takso wrote:but there is no transmigration of your mind happening.
how come ?
of course you can say that mind does not transmigrate but when we perceive with our mind to be this body, '' i am '' we could say that the mind has transmigrated into this body, and if we are in this delusion when we die, it will happen again.
Well, Buddhism rejects the term ‘transmigration’ or ‘reincarnation’ altogether, but why? Literally, ‘trans-’is a prefix meaning through or across. And transmigration denotes the movement or conveyance from place to place. If we mention that a soul would transmigrate from a body to another new body, it means the same ‘unchanging’ soul does the movement or conveyance throughout the time stream (past, present and future).
However, in the conventional reality, no ‘unchanging’ soul would transmigrate from one body to another and on this pretext, Buddhism upholds the term ‘rebirth’ or ‘re-arising.’ The Buddha sees in no transmigration of all things or matters but instead, in the constant and continuous transformation of all things or matters via the process of permeation (diffusion). Just like the orientation of energy in the cosmos i.e. energy would only transform - to transform is to change, to change is to become, and to become is to reborn. So energy is ever ‘reborn’ all the time in the dependent nature. By understanding well and observing thoroughly into the characteristics of energy, one could gain insight into the nature and its orientation.
In the case of rebirth, an individual soul does not migrate from a physical body into another one. No, it just won’t fit at all. Every individual or thing that exists would not be the same - it could only be in a similar condition e.g. twins are similar but never the same individuals (likewise, no two minds are the same). Every individual is unique respectively and no individuals would be the same even though they do share some sort of the same genes before time. For example, you may have heard in various stories whereby a spirit or ghost has the ability to possess into the body of an individual but it never absolutely overtakes the soul of the possessed individual. This is because one cannot simply exchange the soul at one’s whim and fancy. Even individuals with the most powerful magic charm could not perform this feat. Another example will be the human organ transplant cases, whereby the new recipients need to take immunosuppressive drugs to treat any transplant rejections – live long.
In Buddhism, rebirth refers to evolving consciousness or stream of consciousness of a person (upon death) and the new consciousness arising in the same person (in the new person) is neither identical to, nor entirely different from, the old consciousness, but forms part of a causal continuum or stream with it. The basic cause for this persistent re-arising of personality is the abiding of consciousness in ignorance; when ignorance is uprooted, rebirth ceases. For example, a flame is transferred from one candle to another, or a fire spreads from one field to another. In the same way that it depends on the original fire, there is a conditioned relationship between one life and the next; they are not identical but neither are they completely distinct.
And it is possible for rebirth to take place from a single source into different identities at any various point of time, just like how the genetic lineage works for generations. This is how we explain the destiny of being siblings, being life partners, being close friends in one’s lifetime. Somehow or somewhere before time, the so-called relevant individuals are inherited from the similar source of predecessors. Thus in the present lifetime one has the opportunity to meet and know with the relevant beings and not the other non-relevant beings (as per the law of attraction).
Ultimately, it is the wonder of nature that every created object or thing is neither identical to, nor entirely different from each other. This is how the conventional reality works i.e. not in-linear but in inter-dependence, inter-woven and inter-relation since the dawn of time in a very comprehensive and complicated network of existence. At the end of the day, the inter-connectedness of all things in the nature is what the principle of emptiness is all about - as per the teachings of the Buddha.