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In countless rebirths, if the face we had in each life is inherited from the parents that bore us, whether we are an animal or a living form, what is the face of our original face before we were born?
We inherit nothing from any parent. Genetic inheritance is an ilusion, albeit a persistent one:
Do Bad Parents Karmically Beget Bad Kids?
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheDailyEnlightenment/message/649
Really?? Then can a fish give birth to a bird?
Fish can’t birth birds as they lack the conditions. Have u read the link?
The face I am referring to is our physical face. It is indisputable that we take a face bearing certain features or resemblance from our parents. From
a material plane of explanation, our parents produces the material body which gives is the skin colour, hair colour, eyes colour and maybe certain facial features that take resemblance of both or one. On a karmic level, definitely by the system of nature, our parents do produce the material body for us but the consciousness that embeds itself into that form will determine the substance that resides within which pilots that form whether to birth or as a stillborn, as a complete human or an incomplete human. That karma is definitely our own. Imagine the karmic imprints that ripens within our consciousness. Maybe internally as the baby grows. It is piloting it’s own growth spiritually while the food the parent consume is piloting it’s growth materially. Should some evil karma ripen in the baby’s mind and maybe the baby’s own thot stiffens it’s own growth in some unnatural ways, that may result in a human with deformities. This is also why in Sutras even reciting them to the kid may help pacify these latent evil currents of dark karmic tendencies which transform them.
From the link – “While ‘birds’ of similar karmic ‘feathers’ flock together as family, individual karma still exists.”
We don’t get our faces from parents. It’s due to us having similar karma with our parents that we look somewhat like them. In this sense, our parents are not at all responsible for how we look like – they are just conditions through which our karma bears fruit. They do not produce us literally. What food the baby in the womb consumes via the mother is part of the baby’s karma bearing fruit too.
Our consciousness definitely has alot to play in our birth. Where the mind and heart dwells will be our next dwelling and the state of the mind and heart it dwells determines that state of existence we be in whether it is heavenly or hellish. Our consciousness is like a store of rich and fertile bed of imprints archived like zip files.
In another Buddhist story about a queen who kills children or abort her children, apparently these children made a vicious wish to be reborn as the queen’s child and each time before they can reach adulthood, they will live a short life so that their mother can feel the pain of loss. Based on this story, our consciousness is able to program itself to execute a certain outcome due to one’s motivation if they are strong enough.
Back to the face thgy. Surely a monkey born from a pair of monkey parents will look like a monkey. Of course I dun deny the potential of karmic influences which in extreme cases, an animal born of their parents do not look like one’s parents due to mutation or organic anomalies which may occur out of the blue.
The point is that there is nothing genetically passed down from parents to the child. What the child has, face included, comes from the child’s karma. The parents are only means for the karma to be expressed. No original sin or virtue or whatnots was handed down.
If there is really such thing as genetic inheritance, Rahula would be very much like Siddhartha, and Siddhartha would be very much like Shuddhodana. It’s not that there is genetic mutation that they are different, but that they have different karma. Do read the link…
How would you consider the logic of DNA testing in this case, say in the case of paternity testing which is able to prove genetically who our real parents are?
On a material and organic basis, we do witness some fairly unexplainable phenomenon how someone can look the same as oneself even though their parents are not exactly the same parents who put us together. Maybe this is wat we mean by 由心所现。If only someone can do an animation on how the forces of karma works. Theism is very simple just some man up there doing so work but phenomenal forces is really the basis Buddhism is into unraveling and explaining.
‘… your DNA is a combination of your mother’s and your father’s DNA. Unless you have an identical twin, your DNA is unique to you.’ – http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/genetic/dna-evidence.htm
If our DNA is exactly the same as anyone else, including a parent, we would be a clone. Some DNA similarity means there is some karmic similarity. Karma cannot be cloned. Karma is NOT written entirely in DNA too, because that only governs physical tendencies.
Though DNA is used for tracing parents, it doesn’t prove that our DNA came from them. It only means for sure that there are some commonalities. If DNA is really passable this way, the Buddha should have had as many children as he could to multiply his DNA as much as possible.