239. Q. Upon what is the doctrine of rebirths founded?
A. Upon the perception that perfect justice, equilibrium and adjustment are inherent in the universal system of Nature. Buddhists do not believe that one life—even though it were extended to one hundred or five hundred years—is long enough for the reward or punishment of a man's deeds. The great circle of rebirths will be more or less quickly run through according to the preponderating purity or impurity of the several lives of the individual.
240. Q. Is this new aggregation of Skandhas—this new personality—the same being as that in the previous birth, whose Tanhā has brought it into existence?
A. In one sense it is a new being; in another it is not. In Pālī it is—"nacha so nacha añño" which means not the same nor yet another. During this life the Skandhas are constantly changing;[[13]] and while the man A. B., of forty, is identical, as regards personality, with the youth A. B., of eighteen, yet, by the continual waste and reparation of his body, and change of mind and character, he is a different being. Nevertheless, the man in his old age justly reaps the reward of suffering consequent upon his thoughts and actions at every previous stage of his life. So the new being of a rebirth, being the same individuality as before, but with a changed form, or new aggregation of Skandhas, justly reaps the consequences of his actions and thoughts in the previous existence.
241. Q. But the aged man remembers the incidents of his youth, despite his being physically and mentally changed. Why, then, is not the recollection of past lives brought over by us from our last birth, into the present birth?
A. Because memory is included within the Skandhas; and the Skandhas having changed with the new reincarnation, a new memory, the record of of that particular existence, develops. Yet the record or reflection of all the past earth-lives must survive; for, when Prince Siddhārtha became Buddha, the full sequence of his previous births was seen by him. If their several incidents had left no trace behind, this could not have been so, as there would have been nothing for him to see. And any one who attains to the fourth state of Dhyāna (psychical insight) can thus retrospectively trace the line of his lives.
242. Q. What is the ultimate point towards which tend all these series of changes in form?
A. Nirvāna.
243. Q. Does Buddhism teach that we should do good with the view of reaching Nirvāna?
A. No; that would be as absolute selfishness as though the reward hoped for had been money, a throne, or any other sensual enjoyment. Nirvāna cannot be so reached, and the unwise speculator is foredoomed to disappointment.