How does rebirth fit with the fact that everything is impermanent?
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One of the lessons Buddhism teaches is that everything is impermanent. Our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions, our bodies, our life. Everything. We are surrounded by death. We are mortals. There is an end to this.
However, Buddhism also has the concept of rebirth.
Actually think about it, rebirth is there due to impermanence. For if one dies and there's no rebirth, then death itself is permanent, which breaks impermanence! Now the point about kamma, sure it follows you from this life to the next, but it constantly changes depending on one's volitional actions. So a crude analogy is your physical self. Is Pips the 3 year-old boy the same exact Mr. Pips the 93 year-old man? Not really. Although there seems to be a "permanent-something" Pips from 3 to 93, that's only an illusion for everything change (impermanence): every single physical cell on Pips body grows, age, and got replaced. Every feeling, perception, volition, cognition change and get replaced from moment to moment. The perception of "permanence" is an illusion just like one sees a movie in the cinema with all its seemingly alive people and animals while in fact they're just a bunch of still frames appearing sequentially one after another.
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Dīgha Nikāya 1, the Brahmajālasutta, discusses theories of a self in great detail. Studying DN1, we realize that there are indeed very many theories of a self. For example:
DN1:1.30.1: There are some ascetics and brahmins who are eternalists, who assert that the self and the cosmos are eternal on four grounds. (etc.)
Regarding these theories, the Buddha indicates that all such the theories arise out of repeated contact with sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches or thoughts. Such theories are traps for those who crave the continued existence of these contacts.
The escape is to relinquish the craving, allowing the impermanence, letting go of continued existence and rebirth.
Regarding the Realized One after death, the Buddha said quite simply:
DN1:3.73.7: But when his body breaks up, after life has ended, gods and humans will see him no more.”
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Rebirth doesn't fit impermanence and anatta. It is the accepting of a psychological 'I', and the consequences of such a view of self.
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There is no difference in manner or extent between how rebirth happens in this very life from moment to moment and what happens from life to life. So ask yourself, how does rebirth in this very life that happens from moment to moment fit with the fact that everything is impermanent?
It is precisely because we are impermanent beings that we are reborn from moment to moment. Like you say we are surrounded by death! Indeed! We die and are reborn in every moment of this very life! How could something be any more impermanent!
So how does rebirth from life to life change the picture?? It doesn’t. In exactly the same way that we are impermanent and thus reborn from moment to moment... in just that way and for just the same reasons... we are reborn from life to life.
In summary, if you have no problem with understanding how impermanence fits with the true rebirth of beings from moment to moment you should have no problem with the true rebirth of beings from life to life. If it does perplex you, then you have most likely fallen to the extremes of eternalism or annihilationism. The Buddha did not teach these extremes, but rather taught the truth of the Middle Way.
Hope this helps!
Upvote:2
"Rebirth" is a moral teaching in Buddhism; about destiny due to action (karma).
"Impermanence" is a transcendent teaching in Buddhism.
"Rebirth" and "impermanence" are not intended to "fit" together.
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