The intermediate body

In Mahayana Buddhism, the concept of the Intermediate Body (Thân Trung Ấm) is put forward to refer to the stage in which a person has died and the life in the physical body no longer exists, but a life exists in the invisible world. The self in this Intermediate Body is still the same self as in the life when it was attached to the physical body. Before death this person was Đậu, son of Mr Xoài; in the Intermediate Body this person still sees himself as Đậu, son of Mr Xoài. Until the affinity has run out and he must be born into another life, the Intermediate Body dissolves, life takes shape in a new womb, and at that moment the old self ends completely. The moment the Intermediate Body dissolves is always the same moment as when the father's sperm enters the mother's ovum. The Abhidhamma of the original Pāli Canon says: "when the final death-consciousness ceases, the first rebirth-linking consciousness appears". The old self has ended, so this person no longer sees himself as Đậu, son of Mr Xoài. The matter of the previous life is forgotten; this person bears a new form, a new name, a new lineage, a new fate.

Because of karma already created, which family a person's coming life will be born into is certain, and nothing can change it any more. The moment the final death-consciousness ceases is also the moment the sperm enters the ovary, and a new life begins in the form of a tiny foetus that the naked eye cannot see.

Among the father's 500 million sperm, there are those that carry only the X chromosome, which if united with the ovum will give a female foetus; there are those that carry the Y chromosome, which if united with the ovum will give a male foetus. But it is the person's own karma, whether to take a male or female body, that determines which kind of sperm will enter the ovum.

When the ovum is fertilised, the chromosomes of the sperm and of the egg combine into 46, a number necessary for life to appear. The human being at that time, although only a single cell, is already enveloped by destiny, because the chromosomes of father and mother have determined the sex, the colour of hair, the colour of eyes and also the build of the future child. These same chromosomes also determine whether the child who is born will become a great person or a dullard.

Chromosomes are spiral in shape like a string of jade or a string tied with bows, and contain thousands of hereditary units (genes), made of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), a chemical that holds the secret of human life and growth. Scientists are now trying to decode each gene in order to know their functions with certainty.

The chromosomes contain thousands of hereditary units, each with a clear task at each stage of growth. Each hereditary unit acts on its own or cooperates with other hereditary units. Some hereditary units fix the colour of the eyes, others fix the colour of the skin, and still others fix the length of the bones.

A human being inherits half the number of chromosomes from the father and half from the mother (46 in total). This fact is the source of the differences among individuals in humankind.

When the pairs of chromosomes in the ovum are divided in two, chance (governed secretly by the law of karmic consequences) decides which chromosome of each pair will stay and which will be discarded. So a woman can pass on to her child the colour of eyes and the intelligence she herself received from her ancestors, and illnesses as well. And it is likewise chance, by karma, that divides and selects the father's chromosomes. All of it proceeds like a vast lottery, because the chromosomes of the ovum and of the sperm can be divided in eight million different ways.

It is the child's own karma that has arranged this subtle and important creation.

First, the child's karma has determined which parents it will be born to, so that it receives the hereditary health, intelligence and appearance of that lineage. Then karma goes on to govern the combination and division of genes so that the child has qualities quite different from its brothers and sisters.

If in a previous life it often cared for the health of others, or used its strength for good deeds, then in the selection of genes it will inherit the genes that make good health.

If in a previous life it often passed on knowledge, taught with devotion, built schools, it now enjoys the genes that make a bright mind.

If it has much merit, it is born into a wealthy family and from childhood has everything in abundance.

Here, the law of karmic consequences has "put out its hand" and arranged each gene for the child.

When the sperm has united with the ovum, a very first consciousness appears. This is at the same moment as the real death in the old body. Before the sperm unites with the ovum, each side already has 23 pairs of chromosomes containing the genes (the segments of DNA molecules) that fix the later development. The chromosomes already form an extremely small region of spiritual space at the gamete (egg or sperm), but not enough to be called the very first consciousness. The mental quality of a sperm or ovum is too slight and simple to define it as a person. Only when the ovum and sperm have united is the spiritual power there multiplied, because genes (segments of DNA molecules) have been formed to determine the development of the brain, and only then does the very first consciousness of a person truly take shape.

This consciousness grows more and more complex gradually with the development of the brain cells. At first the embryo (the fertilised egg) seems to have only a very first consciousness slightly higher than the survival instinct of ordinary cells. When the brain cells develop according to two structures, the animal and the vegetative nervous systems; according to two hemispheres; according to the various centres, consciousness then also develops in two structures: the conscious and the unconscious.

After two months, the brain has developed completely with 15 billion cells. The conscious and unconscious have been established. However, the brain is still in a state of silent, simple activity; the foetus sleeps more than it wakes. Now and then the foetus wakes and plays a little before sinking back into deep sleep. Yet in that virgin brain there are in truth already all the complex seeds of good and evil formed by mental karma of the previous life. The thoughts of the previous life have already determined character and temperament for the next life.

Some people hold that if thoughts of the previous life create thoughts of the next life, then there must be some kind of consciousness that is not destroyed by death and that keeps intact the seeds of thought of the previous life to enter the new womb. And so an intelligent person will go on being intelligent, and a dullard will go on being a dullard?

In truth, the matter is not so simple. A person in a previous life may have been a scholar. But he was always jealous of the talented, fearing they would be better than himself. In the next life, he is a dullard. A farmer with little schooling may be anxious about his children's education and often help build the village school. In the next life he is a clever person who does well in study.

No consciousness leaves the old body to enter the new womb carrying the old seeds of thought. Only the law of karmic consequences from within the Essence determines everything. If in this life we have good thoughts and an outstanding character, it is only because in the previous life we often praised some saint, or even more, we often aspired to attain the greatness of that saint.

The law of karmic consequences arranges everything without being obstructed by space, because in the Essence all positions are in one place, yet not confused with one another.

In the world of living beings, people observe variations that do not follow heredity. For example, in a flock of yellow-feathered birds a grey-feathered bird suddenly appears, even though they share the heredity of their parents. These variations have many causes: environment, temperature, chemicals, psychology.

It is the same among humans: siblings do not necessarily resemble one another. Strange variation has caused brothers and sisters to differ in temperament, appearance and talent. Here, it is the individual karma of previous lives that has directed this difference. They have the affinity to be brothers and sisters with one another, but each still carries his own separate karma from countless previous lives.

Moreover, genes are not the representatives of the law of karmic consequences. They are only one link in the chain of Cause and Effect. For example, a person has one extra chromosome, 47 instead of 46 like everyone else, and so has Down syndrome. This person is dull, frail and has a deformed face. Because of karma from a previous life, in the process of forming the parents' egg or sperm, one gamete came to have an extra chromosome, reserved for that unfortunate person. Just when that egg was released, it was fertilised, and the child was born to a harsh destiny. Because the illness is in the chromosomes, it is very hard to cure. Who knows, later, when the patient's merit reaches a good time, medicine may find a way to remove that harmful chromosome.

Scientists are groping their way into each gene in order to change human fate. Those with illness due to genes, that is, due to fixed karma that is hard to change, who knows, when they have enough merit, medicine may intervene in the genes to transform karma for them.

Only one thing is fixed: the law of karmic consequences. A karma will certainly have a karmic result. The rest is for each of us to choose, for ourselves, which kind of karmic result we will have, by how we create karma. If we want our life to be full of good, let us try to create many wholesome causes and regularly sift our own thoughts.

Some religions do not believe in the cycle of rebirth, and some who do scientific research also do not believe in it. But there are also some scientists who are investigating this matter objectively and seriously.

The American doctor Ian Stevenson, author of the book "Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation", after many years of research came to believe that "There may be life after death." He began trying to prove the theory of rebirth in 1961 on his first trip to India. Using a computer to analyse 1,200 cases regarded as rebirth, Dr Stevenson declared: "There is no reason to regard the theory of rebirth as superstition; on the contrary, it deserves serious study." He considered that in some cases the birthmarks and warts on a newborn's body might be traces of knife stabs or gunshots in a previous life.

In Greece, the philosophers Empedocles, Pythagoras and Plato taught about rebirth. Even the senior clergy of the early Christian church believed in rebirth. Only in 553, the council of Constantinople, under the presidency of Pope Vigilius, ruled that the cycle of rebirth was a heresy.

Many modern philosophers defended the theory of rebirth, among them Kant (1724-1804) and Schopenhauer (1788-1860).

Even among those who believe in the theory of rebirth there are many different views. Some hold that besides being reborn in a human or animal body, a person, according to his karma, may be reborn in a metaphysical world of deities, or reborn in hell, as a ghost or demon. So they believe that besides this physical space there are metaphysical worlds that are also objective, like physical space. There the beings do not have physical bodies but a special form that is hard to see with the eyes of people in the mortal world.

Nearly all religions accept that there are metaphysical realms that exist objectively, independent of human wishes. We need to distinguish the spiritual space created by the survival instinct of living beings, which is thoroughly subjective, from the metaphysical worlds that exist objectively according to the religious view.

In the subjective spiritual space, all supernormal powers and effects occur according to the wishes and beliefs of people. Even certain illusions of heaven, of hell, and of ghostly apparitions are created from here. Moreover, although spiritual space seems more wondrous and higher than physical space, it is still related to physical space because it is formed from the structure of the cells of living beings, from the structure of DNA. So because of a high structure of matter, cells form, DNA forms and the survival instinct forms, and spiritual space also appears from that same structure. Every living cell is covered by a tiny region of spiritual space. All the cells of the body form a large region of spiritual space around the body. Living beings with a brain, especially humans, have stronger spiritual space, and brain cells form a spiritual space stronger than ordinary cells.

We can compare spiritual space to the electric field around a conducting wire. When a current runs through a wire, immediately an electromagnetic field appears around the wire. This electromagnetic field is invisible but has great effect in modern technologies such as radar and radio telecommunications... People apply the properties of the electromagnetic field in countless fields, but what the true nature of this so-called field really is remains a secret.

Some scientists have taken up the concept of the ether again as a basis for a foundation of space. This concept was rejected long ago, but is beginning to be mentioned again.

The electromagnetic field also comes from matter. The field of spiritual space of living beings is the same, also coming from matter, but it must be an extremely special structure of DNA that is able to form a field of spiritual space radiating around it.

So spiritual space still depends on matter in order to exist. Mind and body cannot be separated. Mind and body have very different natures but still rely on each other to exist. Anyone who splits mind and body in two makes a mistake. It is for just this reason that when someone asked the Buddha:

"Are the self (mind) and the body (physical body) one or different?"

The Buddha was silent.

According to calculations, cosmic physicists hold that a quantity of matter many times greater than the matter now in the universe would be needed to fit the speed of movement of celestial bodies. And scientists conclude that there must exist a very large kind of "invisible matter" in the universe. Here we see the beginning of a coinciding continuity between scientific theory and the religious theory of metaphysical realms such as the heavenly realm and the hell realm. One day, science will widen the category of living environments to include invisible worlds, and we will regard the invisible world as also a form of existence to be reached after the death of this life.

However, we should be careful, because a real heavenly realm and a heavenly realm produced by an illusion of the mind are very hard to tell apart. Many people have fallen into superstition and wrong views by giving too much weight to the metaphysical realm and often having illusions of heaven in dreams.