Beyond The Horizon of Time 

Pre-existence and re-existence in Buddhist perspective 



“How can we live, turning a deaf ear, to the last dramatic questions? Where does the world come from? Where is it going? What is the supreme power of the cosmos? What is the essential meaning of life? We cannot breathe confined to a realm of secondary and intermediate themes. We need a comprehensive perspective, foreground and background; not maimed scenery, a horizon stripped of infinite distances. ” wrote Jose Ortega Y Gasset, in his book, Toward a Philosophy of History. 
Throughout human history, mankind has been interested in knowing about himself and the world he lives in, in terms of space as well as time. Today mankind has, to a great extent, discovered what lies beyond the farthest limits of his vision in space, with the aid of advanced electronic telescopes and other highly developed scientific instruments, together with his ever progressing mathematical skills. Regarding his knowledge of what lies beyond the horizon of time, however, there is very little to boast of. We know very little about, what happened in prehistory on the earth and much less in the universe; so is our knowledge about the future of these great masses of matter that we call the solar system, and the galaxies. In recent times, there has been much speculation about the origin and end of the earth and even of the universe. But all these efforts have been mostly imagination and conjecture. 


The Past and the Future 

What concerns us most in this book, however, is about the past and future of the human being. And what lies in the past, beyond the horizon of birth? What lies in the future, beyond the horizon of death? Mankind has been speculating about this all important question, from time immemorial. There are numerous myths and beliefs connected with this question in all primitive cultures. In fact, all religions contain some form of belief about what happened before birth, and what would happen after death. 


As far as the modern scientist is concerned, however, he knows nothing and says nothing regarding what lies beyond these two horizons of time, though it is so important to the ordinary human being. In fact, the scientist would discard the question as baseless; for, it seems to be based on the assumption that there is a permanent soul in man with a past present and future, which the scientist does not accept. 
Although everyone feels the presence of a “self” or soul within, the scientist points out that these feelings are nothing more than what they are – mere feelings. The reality of the soul cannot be proven scientifically, because no one has perceived it objectively, and therefore it is not acceptable to modern science. Hence the question of pre-existence and re-existence does not arise, for the scientist. 


One might object to this, of course, because there has been much scientific investigation carried out by researchers regarding this subject and that many scientists believe in pre- existence and re-existence. The answer, unfortunately, is that scientific investigation has not proved these theories beyond 


doubt, and that the belief of a scientist does not become a scientific fact, without scientific proof. For proper scientific investigation to be carried out, in this case, there must be reliable communication between two persons in two periods of time: 

 (1)one present somewhere in the past, and
(2) another present somewhere in the future. If they are both living in the present, then it is a matter of communication between two localities.


The purpose of this essay, however, is not so much to prove or to disprove this concept of rebirth, whatever the scientists may have done or said so far. Our purpose is to examine this concept of ”pre-existence and re-existence” from a Buddhist perspective. But before we do so, it would be necessary to examine the meaning of this concept, briefly.