Above my last comment, Alfalco asked two questions.
1. “Just one further question – where on this earth/realm does the mental body ‘reside’?”
- They are living right beside us. But we cannot see them.
- Their “bodies” have very little “matter,” less than even an atom in modern science. We cannot see an atom even with a standard microscope. That is how “subtle” or “fine” it is. That is why no one could see that woman’s gandhabba in the above video.
2. “Also, why is the ‘gandhabba’ concept not more of a major factor in Theravada school despite the fact that there’s scriptural support for it. It seems to be incredibly important to understanding rebirth and the workings of samsara.”
- Theravada school has also gradually become “ritualistic” (like Mahyana/Tibetan schools) in the sense that logic or reasoning is no longer taken into account these days.
- If someone logically considers the rebirth accounts and the fact that it is very difficult to get a human life, those two cannot be explained without the concept of gandhabba, i.e., a human can exist without a physical body. In ALL rebirth accounts, there is a gap of a few years between two consecutive births as a human.
- Those two births have the same gandhabba, i.e., it is the same human that is reborn with a different body only after a few years. That is why another birth with a physical human body is possible within a few years.
3. Anyone who does not believe in the concept of gandhabba: Please explain how two “human births” are possible within only a few years without the concept of gandhabba.
- The rarity of human birth is fully explained with many Tipitaka references in “How the Buddha Described the Chance of Rebirth in the Human Realm.”
- We also know that many babies die within a month or even a few days. Does that mean his/her “human existence” ended only after such a short time? There are so many contradictions!
