Rebirth and the Western Buddhist - Khamkoo

4 Logical "Proofs": the Theory of
Rebirth
When they seek to persuade students of the truth of
rebirth, Tibetan lamas do not lean heavily on the observational
evidence summarised above, but rely mainly on
supposed proofs by logical reasoning. We may instance
the widely read books by His Holiness the Dalai Lama 67
and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. 68 On encountering such concise
presentations of the standard Buddhist arguments
for rebirth, Western students often react with incredulity
that intelligent men could expect them to accept such
manifest illogic as some of the arguments contain. It
is worthwhile to look into the reasons for this failure of
communication. Close study of the arguments does not
make them much more convincing by Western standards,
but can give us some appreciation of why they are
put forward. ·
We are fortunate that a prominent Tibetan logician, the
Venerable Losang Gyatso (LG), principal of the Buddhist
School of Dialectics at Dharamsala, has recently published
an unusually full account 69 of the logical arguments in
favour of rebirth. Having been checked by the Dalai
Lama, it may be taken as authoritative. I have translated
the relevant chapter, and here pick out the important
points from its hundred pages of argument, adding my
own critical comments, mainly from a scientific viewpoint.
In the succeeding chapter, I shall enlarge on the
reasons why Westerners find the arguments hard to
accept.
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