Rebirth and the Western Buddhist - Khamkoo

Details of Rebirth 69
been one's mother, and recommends Santideva's method
of developing Bodhicitta, which avoids the fearsome difficulties
of these infinities.
One does not have to read many Buddhist texts to
become aware of the arbitrariness of the insanely large
numbers frequently quoted and the lack of mathematical
sophistication of the Buddhist pandits. It seems unlikely
they really understood how unbridgeable is the gulf
between the finite and the infinite. We can take their
"infinities" non-literally when necessary. They are meant
to impress on us that we have endured far more existences
than we care to think, but surely not to take away
all hope of Liberation.
4· The Intermediate State
The intermediate state is contemplated in Lam-rim
meditations on the mechanism of samsara, as a more
straightforward alternative to the twelve links of Dependent
Arising (prafftya-samutpiida), and is of natural interest
since we all have to pass through it.
The majority of earlier Buddhist schools, including the
Mahasanghikas and their branches, the Ekavyavaharikas
and Kukkupkas, and the Vibhajya-vadins, Mah1sasakas,
Dharmaguptakas and Theravadins, denied that there was
an intermediate existence (antariibhava) between death
and rebirthY 0 - 1 The Theravadin text Visuddhimagga,12 2
and texts by Nagfu:juna 123 and Candraklrti/ 24 teach that
the aggregates of the rebirth existence re-emerge immediately,
without a gap, in dependence on those of
the dying existence when these cease. Nothing whatsoever
passes from one existence to the next-it is like
one lamp being lit from the flame of another. The Mahiiprajfiiipiiramitii-siistra,
125 attributed to Naga:rjuna, also asserts,
in refutation of a claim that a subtle body continues
after death to form the body in the intermediate exist-