Rebirth and the Western Buddhist - Khamkoo

44 Rebirth and the Western Buddhist
because the youth or decline of the body does
not bring about youth or decline of the mental
consciousness. (p. 84)
Neither reason appears established, since interference
with the brain (e.g. with electrodes) can certainly affect
the mental consciousness, and mental changes with age
are evident to all. Thus it is hard to see what he means.
(b) That the whole body does not act as substantial
cause of the mind seems obvious at first sight since it
would mean that the whole body turned into mind, thus
disappearing. But as the example of the lamplight suggests,
the process of conversion could be imperceptibly
slow, with the material body being replenished by food
etc. before it became apparent. Indeed, the operation of
the nervous system consumes chemical energy which
eventually must come from food, and one might point to
this as just such a process. The Dalai Lama offers the
following consequences in refutation:
With the development or decline of the body,
the mind would necessarily be subject to the
same processes. Further, mind could appear in
a corpse (since according to materialist views,
mind is but a function of the elements.) 80
Losang Gyatso adds:
It would follow that a sage (ri~?hi) engaging in
ascetic practices would have a weakened mind;
... or else it would follow that just as a weakening
of the body's warmth acts as a substantial
cause for developing a cold sickness, so the
weakening of the body would act as a cause
developing the intelligence. (p. 89)
One is struck by the crudity of the alleged consequences,
which ignore all the complexities that must be involved