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I wrote this as part of a Philosophy of Religion class I took at the local community college, thus the slightly more academic tone. I liked this paper though and thought it might be worth sharing. The prompt was to explore a chosen religion’s view of what happens after death. Buddhism has an interesting, if not ambiguous notion of this, so that’s what I chose. There was also a personal component, which I decided to explore after some deliberation. I think this experiential aspect makes it richer.
The world’s various religions place burdens on participants and would-be participants in
two primary ways: 1) epistemic burden, or what one must assent to intellectually despite
limited evidence, and 2) existential burden, or what one must relinquish, transform, or
endure psychologically/ontologically. Most religions seem to aim for a balance to maintain
stability and coherence. In many popular religions, the former is high and the latter
somewhat lower. For example, in Christianity, the epistemic burden is a significant ‘leap of
faith’ to belief in miracles, resurrection, Heaven/Hell realms, etc., while being offset by a
comparatively lower existential burden with respect to continuity of personal identity. The
self is maintained through life and death, giving respite to those from typical cultures where
ego is primary. Buddhism, on the other hand, inverts these demands, instead placing the
burdens on opposite poles: lesser epistemic burden, high existential burden.
Buddhism, and its claims of rebirth specifically, does not require a significant leap of faith,
if one at all, as it avoids strong metaphysical commitments. However, its ontological claims
may require another leap entirely, not one towards some metaphysical thing, but rather
away from the enduring self. No-self (anatta) requires the dissolution (or at least the
reframing) of the ego. The existential implications are more immediate and personal,
especially to someone who was raised in a dualistic culture that privileges the endurance
of self.
Buddhist rebirth and epistemic modesty
It’s important before we start to note several things. First, the spectrum of rebirth belief in
Buddhism is quite broad. Some traditions articulate complex narratives around this topic,
while others are more metaphysically restrained, such as Zen. This paper intentionally
emphasizes these minimal and philosophically restrained interpretations of rebirth,
however maximal interpretations will be briefly discussed in the next section. Second,
some traditions refer to rebirth with respect to emergence of ‘I’ in the present moment
and/or the performance of a sense such as in a new sound arising to an ear. We will focus
only on rebirth with respect to physical birth and death. Third, an important distinction
needs to be made between Buddhist ‘rebirth’ and Hindu (or other) ‘reincarnation’ which are
often mixed up. Buddhists do NOT believe in a soul, therefore when one dies, there is not a
soul that moves between beings as in reincarnation. (Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu)
Like many Buddhist concepts, rebirth is quite subtle, especially in minimal interpretations
like Zen, where speculative metaphysics are deprioritized and rebirth is largely left
underdetermined. If you were to ask a Zen monk “What happens after I die?” it wouldn’t be
uncommon for them to reply “How would I know?” or simply “Mu.” It’s not central to the
core practices of Zen and not emphasized as a primary vehicle for understanding, however
there is still a mechanism used to describe it which is quite modest and based on other
well-developed concepts of Buddhism.
Rebirth relies on three foundational Buddhist concepts: dependent arising, karma, and
anatta (no-self). The traditional Buddhist metaphor of one candle lighting another is often
used to illustrate the relationship between continuity and rebirth. The second flame is
neither entirely the same flame nor entirely different from the first; rather, it arises
dependently through causal conditions. In the same way, Buddhism rejects the idea of an
eternal self (anatta) that persists unchanged across lives, while also rejecting the notion
that death results in absolute annihilation. What continues is not a soul, but a karmic
continuity shaped by intentional action (karma) and conditioned by dependent arising.
Rebirth, then, is understood not as the transmigration of a permanent self or
consciousness, but as the continuation of an interconnected causal process.
Thich Nhat Hanh sums up the fundamental picture: “When you look into a person, you see
five skandhas, or elements: form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and
consciousness. There is no soul, no self, outside of these five, so when the five elements go
to dissolution, the karma, the actions, that you have performed in your lifetime is your
continuation. What you have done and thought is still there as energy. You don’t need a
soul, or a self, in order to continue.” (Thich Nhat Hanh, “Rebirth and the Nature of
Consciousness”)
Maximal interpretations and the Middle Way
Pure Land Buddhism provides a far more substantial cosmology and narrative about rebirth
compared to Zen. There are Heaven and Hell realms, transitional states called Bardo, and
generally a theme that sounds more like reincarnation. This seems to contradict the Zen
teachings, but within Buddhism this is accepted as a conventionally useful way to point to
the same ultimate truth. Buddhists often say that there are 84,000 Dharma doors to
understanding, allowing for detachment of the practice from literal forms and enabling the
teachings to be taught in different ways to myriad different people. Thich Nhat Hanh
describes this idea of skillful means in a Dharma talk, saying: “There are those who cannot
understand deep Buddhism. We have to allow them to embrace a form of Buddhism that is
more diluted, like medicine with some sugar in it.” (Thich Nhat Hanh, “Does Hell Exist”
12:30). There are even temples in China that practice both Pure Land and Zen together,
known as Chan–Pure Land dual cultivation, with the Middle Way allowing these two
seemingly metaphysically opposed concepts to be compatible. Both are skillful means
using conventional truths to arrive at the same ultimate truth. (Tran)
The Middle Way provides an interpretive elasticity that allows rebirth to function across a
spectrum from cosmological realism to existential transformation without fully abandoning
its core teachings.
Critiques of rebirth
Common critiques of rebirth are mostly related to 1) confusion about what is reborn, 2)
apparent contradictions between sects, 3) lack of empirical evidence, 4) moral continuity
without self, 5) Risks of nihilism from no-self, and 6) psychological issues related to the
destabilization of identity and personal meaning.
The first four critiques can be addressed within the internal logic of Buddhist philosophy.
These have been addressed in preceding sections, but in summary: (1) Better explanation
of the foundational concepts (anatta, karma and dependent arising) clears up most
confusion about what is reborn. (2) The Middle Way helps make apparent contradictions
compatible. (3) Rebirth is not posited as an empirically demonstrable transfer of a soul-
substance. (4) Moral continuity is bridged by the causal chain that one leaves behind on
death as karma.
These four comprise the lower epistemic burden and when understood well, do not require
the practitioner to make any great leap to belief. The latter two, on the other hand,
represent the real challenge in this religion.
The existential burdens of anatta
When one goes from a strong sense of individual self to exploring the idea that there is no
self, the result can be destabilizing. One risk is that anatta is misinterpreted as simply
‘nothing is real or matters’, that the self is nothing but an illusion. But Buddhist texts
repeatedly warn against both eternalism and nihilism. The Middle Way between these
points to the understanding that we are both empty (dependently arisen) but also
connected to something that persists as causal continuity whether our body is alive or
dead. The present moment, which is all that is directly experienced, would not be the same
without each of us and our contributions to the totality of causes and conditions.
Therefore, our universe as we know it right now, depends on us, just as we depend on the
universe. When viewed through that lens, life gains back meaning and the threat of nihilism
is made distant. One finds that this is a battle that must be waged often as the ego
frequently reasserts itself, thus the need for dharma practice through meditation,
mindfulness, and the way one lives in each present moment.
The lived experience and the problem of self
If the difficulty of Buddhism is less about the epistemology and more the existential
struggle with anatta, that difficulty should be visible in lived experience. As a nascent
practitioner of Buddhism myself, I have dealt with this dilemma directly. In a recent dream I
was confronted by a man who looked both somewhat like me and unknown, not me. He
grabbed me, restraining my arms and completely overtaking my physical faculties, then
asked forcefully, “Do you know who I am?”. A futile struggle ensued until I surrendered to
the unwinnable outcome… and then I relaxed, closed my eyes, breathed in deep as if in
meditation, and found my consciousness move out of my body into his and ‘I’ asked “Do
you know who I am?” back to my ‘self’. This moment did not invite a factual answer so
much as expose the instability of the one being asked. This, along with other thoughts and
dreams, has presented a real personal challenge of the loss of a stable standpoint within a
Buddhist framework of anatta. The difficulty was not in understanding the doctrine of no-
self, but in confronting the loss of a stable standpoint from which such understanding is
ordinarily secured. In this way, the resistance to Buddhism does not arise from the
implausibility of its claims, but from the demand that the subject of those claims be
relinquished.
Concluding thoughts
As we conclude, let’s return to an important question: What kinds of burdens do religions
place on a person? Some push the practitioner to accept significant claims that must be
taken largely on faith. Others place the burden on how one views oneself in the context of
the world. Both require a kind of leap: either toward faith in claimed truths or away from
one’s habitual understanding of self. Both can be complex psychologically, requiring a
significant effort to accept and live out the expectations in the present moment. Whether
or not this struggle is worthwhile is a much bigger question that the practitioner must
reckon with to truly know. Modern life typically pushes the question of worth toward
metrics that include inflation of ego: power, money, fame, and other worldly outcomes.
This struggle is not in that realm, but rather a will towards something much bigger. Perhaps
the burden worth examining is not simply what a religion asks us to believe, but what it asks
us to relinquish of ourselves.
Bibliography
Thich Nhat Hanh. “Thich Nhat Hanh on Rebirth and the Nature of Consciousness.”
Interview by Melvin McLeod. Shambhala Sun, January 2012. Plum Village.
https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/interviews-with-thich-nhat-
hanh/shambhala-sun-january-2012.
Thich Nhat Hanh. “Does Hell Exist? | Thich Nhat Hanh Answers Questions.” YouTube video.
n.d. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pMYebbFUeo.
Tran, An. “Pure Land-Zen Dual Cultivation in 13th Century Vietnam and Today.”
Buddhistdoor Global, January 23, 2025.
https://www.buddhistdoor.net/features/pure-land-zen-dual-cultivation-in-13th-
century-vietnam-and-today/.
Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu. Anattā and Rebirth. Interpreted by Santikaro Bhikkhu. Dhamma
lecture, Suan Mokkh, January 13, 1988. Liberation Park, 2016.
https://www.suanmokkh.org/system/books/files/000/000/070/original/880113_Ana
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