Rebirth and the Western Buddhist - Khamkoo

6 Details of Rebirth
Establishing the mere fact of rebirth by no means establishes
the whole Buddhist doctrine of rebirth. Points of
the doctrine that are important for the meditations on
the Stages of the Path are: (1) One is not necessarily
reborn as a human being, but in any of a limitless variety
of states of existence, most of them invisible to us. (2)
When human beings die, it is most unlikely that their
next rebirths will be human unless they have been
exceptionally virtuous. Almost certainly they will be reborn
in a lower state, with great suffering, and remain in
such states for eons before gaining another human existence,
which is the only state with an appreciable chance
of practising the Dharma. (3) One's past lives have no
beginning. One has experienced every possible samsaric
state infinite times and been in every possible relationship
with every other sentient being. Also (4) one passes
from one life to the next via an intermediate state. Let us
examine these points in the light of the evidence now
available.
1. Non-human rebirths
While there are limitless possible states of rebirth corresponding
to the limitless variety of karmas of sentient
beings, they are classified into five or six major realms,
according to which emotion predominates, as Milarepa
explains:
59