Death and life after it remain an unsolved mystery despite the immense efforts that human beings have put to gain an understanding of the events that take place when a person dies. Different religions have diverse beliefs about life after death. The most popular of these beliefs is reincarnation or instead rebirth. Reincarnation is subtle and poorly demarcated in both Hinduism and Buddhism. Nonetheless, the two religions share some similarities as well as stark differences. Hinduism and Buddhism beliefs on the nature and immortality of the soul is ironically similar, yet distinctive,
A comparison between samsara/nirvana and karma/rebirth is critical in understanding the core differences between Hinduism and Buddhism. Köllen (2016) contends that k arma is based on the law of cause and effect. Basically, every human action has its corresponding consequences and human beings reap what they sow. Karma is a concept which is embraced as a natural law in Buddhism. It is basically the deliberate acts of the body, speech, and thoughts. It is argued that actions that are purely motivated by self-indulgence, hate, and delusion have no karmic impacts. It is a common belief among the Buddhist that an individual undergoes birth and rebirth until he/she finally reaches a state of Nirvana ( Lin & Yen, 2015) . It is in this states that the cycle is broken.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Basically, people are what they are and behave in certain ways, based on their actions in a previous incarnation. What a person is in the present day is an outcome of who they were and what they did during their initial incarnation. Buddhists believe that a person’s character, behavior, as well as the type of life he/she will live in the next life is highly contingent on their actions in the present life ( Köllen, 2016) . Nonetheless, this notion is not embraced by Hinduism, since it is a common belief that an individual can break the cycle of rebirth despite the class that he/she is born into. Rebirth, on the other hand, occurs when the effects of karma continue in different lifetimes. The Hindu belief that a soul reincarnates or is reborn over and over again. Concurrently, this suggests that there is no eternal essence of a person’s self that dwells in the body.
Karma and rebirth are highly comparable, though this argument is inferred, seem to suggest that no soul or subtle essence of a person’s self-transmigrates from a single body to the other in a different life ( Lin & Yen, 2015) . Nonetheless, a causal relationship exists between an individual’s different lifetimes. Furthermore, the person who has been reborn is neither the same nor a different person from the dead one. Nonetheless, one significant difference between the two concepts is that rebirth is contingent on three primary factors which are the female ovum, the male sperm, and karmic energy. Based on this concept, the power acquired from karma is what leads to human survival, leading to rebirth.
Hinduism and other Indian religions believe in the law of Samsara. Samsara denotes the everlasting sequence of life, death, and re-embodiment. One core similarity exists between Samsara, Karma, and rebirth. Both the three concepts talk of the immortality of the human soul which is resurrected and reincarnated over and over again across different lifetimes ( Aich, 2013) . Nonetheless, while karma and rebirth argue that a person is neither different nor the same when he/she is reborn, the law of samsara is based on an illusion which allows an individual to perceive himself/herself as an autonomous being, instead of recognizing the connection between the self and the reality. According to Samsara, illusion motivates individuals to behave in ways that outcome karma, which in turn results in recurring cycles of action and rebirth.
An individual is only able to break the samsara illusion only when they embrace the unity of all things. Samsara also shares another similarity with karma since it also emphasizes the impacts of one’s actions on others lifetimes. Karma is a concept based on cause and effect, in that, an individual’s actions determine the kind of life that they will live in the next life. Similarly, in Samsara, past actions have a significant impact on future ones. Moreover, the concept is also characterized by a lot of unpredictability just like in karma, since an individual is uncertain about their reincarnation, as well as the suffering that may result from past actions. Karma and Samsara seem to suggest that if a person, for instance, spends most of his/her time inflicting pain on others, misery is what awaits them in the next life. Similarly, a person who lives as an altruist, by dedicating his/her life to helping others, will have a happy and prosperous life in the next lifetime. Both Buddhists and Hindus perceive the concept of samsara in the same manner since they believe that life is a vicious cycle of misery which is perpetuated via samsara
Nirvana is one of the most confusing and misunderstood concepts in Buddhism. Nirvana, according to the Buddha, is the final goal. Apparently, Buddha was able to come to this state during his enlightenment. As a result, focused on teaching others so that they could also experience this realization. Nirvana means to extinguish or to unbind. It is in this state that individuals are liberated from that which binds them such as desire, hate, lust, and jealousy, among others. People are able to achieve a state of bliss when they have overcome these binding factors. Notably, the attainment of this goal frees human beings from the perpetual cycles of birth and rebirth. Nirvana is similar to Maslow’s highest hierarchical stage which is self-actualization. Out of all the four concepts examined in this paper, Nirvana is perhaps the most distinctive on from all the rest. While the other concepts stress the recurrence of birth and death, Nirvana does not. Instead, Nirvana is the only way in which man can free himself from the vicious cycles of misery, birth, and rebirth.
The most spectacular difference between Nirvana and other concepts such as samsara, karma, and rebirth is that human beings do not have to die in order to reach the state of Nirvana. In all the other concepts, an individual has to die so that they can reincarnate and hopefully get a chance at redemption. Nonetheless, once a person detaches himself/herself from the pleasures and desires of life, they reach the states of Nirvana ( Lee, 2017) . This is why monks isolate themselves in the mountains so that they can detach themselves from the human factors that bind them, such as desire, jealousy, and hate, among more. History mentions only a few individuals such as Buddha who have reached this state ( Lee, 2017) . Even after death, a person who has already reached Nirvana has no need to reincarnate since he/she has freed themselves from the confines of life. In Nirvana, human beings are devoid of both suffering and desires, and their consciousness comes to an end. Nirvana is therefore very different from the other three concepts.
Hindus and Buddhists hold similar yet opposing views on the issues of life, death, and reincarnation. A comprehensive analysis of four primary concepts brings into light the main similarities and differences of Hindus and Buddhists in terms of their life and death-based beliefs. Nirvana is the most distinctive of all the concepts since as compared to others, it does not focus on death and rebirth, but rather, how man achieves the ultimate goal by detaching himself from various desires.
References
Aich, T. K. (2013). Buddha philosophy and western psychology. Indian journal of psychiatry , 55 (Suppl 2), S165.
Köllen, T. (2016). Reconceptualizing profit-orientation in management: A karmic view on ‘return on investment ‘calculations. Philosophy of Management , 15 (1), 7-20.
Lee, J. K. (2017). The Pedagogy of Happiness and Death: From the Perspectives of Buddhism and Christianity. Online Submission .
Lin, C. T., & Yen, W. H. (2015). On the naturalization of karma and rebirth. International Journal of Dharma Studies , 3 (1), 6.
