If the scientists cannot prove the nonexistence of rebirth, it then behooves them to investigate if rebirth does in fact exist. The scientific method is to postulate a theory based on certain data and then check if it can be validated. Therefore, we look at the data. For example, we notice that infants are not born like blank cassettes. They have certain habits and personality characteristics observable even when they are very young. Where do these come from?

It makes no sense to say that they come from just the previous continuities of the physical substances of the parents, from the sperm and egg. Not every sperm and egg that come together implant in the womb to grow into a fetus. What makes the difference between when they do become a baby and when they do not? What is actually causing the various habits and instincts in the child? We can say it’s the DNA and the genes. This is the physical side. Nobody is denying that this is the physical aspect of how a baby comes into being. Nevertheless, what about the experiential side? How do we account for mind?

The English word “mind” does not have the same meaning as do the Sanskrit and Tibetan terms that it’s supposed to translate. In the original languages, “mind” refers to mental activity or mental events, rather than to something that is doing that activity. The activity or event is the cognitive arising of certain things – thoughts, sights, sounds, emotions, feelings and so on – and a cognitive involvement with them – seeing them, hearing them, understanding them, and even not understanding them.

Where does this mental activity of the arising and involvement with cognitive objects in an individual being come from? Here, we’re not talking about where the body comes from, for that is obviously from the parents. We’re not talking about intelligence and so on, because we can also give the argument that there is a genetic base for that. However, to say that someone’s preference for chocolate ice cream comes from the person’s genes is stretching it too far.

We can say that some of our interests may be influenced by our families or by the economic or social situations we’re in. These factors definitely have an influence, but it’s difficult to explain absolutely everything we do in that way. For example, why did I become interested in yoga as a child? Nobody in my family or in the society around me was. There were some books available in the area that I lived in, so you could say there was some influence from the society, but why was I interested in that specific book on hatha yoga? Why did I pick it up? That’s another question. Do things happen just by chance and so luck comes into play, or can everything be explained?