Not Identity, but Continuity
Flame from candle to candle
No-Self
6 Elements form a human = earth, water, fire, air, space, consciousness
And five aggregates – material form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness
Conditions for Conception:
Three factors are necessary for the birth of a being (MN I, 266): Coitus of the parents, the
mother being in the proper season to conceive, and the presence of a Gandhabba/
Vi~n~naan.a. The first two conditions produce Gabba, that is, the fetus formed in the
mother’s womb. Conception becomes complete with the influence from a surviving
consciousness.
Arahant = no rebirth
Has been freed from cycles of rebirth
Non-returners
Those who have abandoned the five lower fetters are all due to reappear spontaneously in the Pure Abodes and there attain final Nibbāna, without ever returning from that world.
Once-returners
Those who have abandoned the three lower fetters and attenuated lust, hate, and delusion are all once-returners, returning once to this world to make an end of suffering.
Stream-enterers
Those who have abandoned three fetters are all stream-enterers, no longer subject to perdition, bound for deliverance and headed for enlightenment.
To enlightenment
Those who are Dhamma-followers or faith-followers are all headed for enlightenment.
To heaven
Those who have sufficient faith in me, sufficient love for me, are all headed for heaven.
Samsara
Cycle of rebirth
5 human destinations: hell realms, animals, hungry ghosts, humans, gods
4 kinds of Generation
Egg-born, Womb-born, Moisture-born, Spontaneous
Stream of Consciousness
Needed to continue personality between this world and next. Also dependent upon conditions for perception.
Buddha: Good, monks. So you say thus, and I also say thus: `When this does not exist, that
does not come to be; with the cessation of this, that ceases.’