A Beginner's Guide to Rebirth with Roger Jackson

Tricycle Talks

The idea that we are born again after death has been a source of fascination within and beyond the Buddhist world for millennia. Yet the history and scope of Buddhist approaches to rebirth hasn’t been widely explored by Western scholars. In his new book, "Rebirth: A Guide to Mind, Karma, and Cosmos in the Buddhist World," scholar Roger Jackson offers the first complete overview of Buddhist understandings of rebirth. Jackson has dedicated much of his professional life to examining interpretations of rebirth in different Buddhist contexts across cultures, including how Buddhists today wrestle with the concept. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle editor-in-chief James Shaheen sits down with Jackson to discuss views of rebirth across Buddhist traditions, how you can be reborn without having a self, and whether you have to believe in rebirth to be a Buddhist.