The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rimpoche is an easier read than the Tibetan Book of the Dead (IMHO).

Newton's "Journey of Souls" is also quite good !

What differentiate your version of Buddhism from Atheism?

If anyone is interested ...

Crazy Wisdom, the 8 aspects of Padmasambhava by Trungpa is a free pdf book:
https://epdf.pub/crazy-wisdom-pdf-5eccd4c6db84b.html

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Journey Of Souls is not a faith book. Hypnotic regression has been used scientifically by doctors for many years to allow patients to access memories they could not access consciously. Well Doctor Newton was doing such to patients and found accidentally some accessed memories of between lives... so he did research on that and the result was that book. He regressed people to the period between lives and asked them questions.

So if they remembered what happened to them in 2nd grade, you would probably believe that. If they remembered leaving their body in their last life and what happened to them between lives would you? There is no difference in the hypnotic state or the scientific techniques used to retrieve these blocked memories either way. But yea one could chose to say the 2nd grade ones are real and past birth were all fake. We are free to believe anything we want. But one could regress that persons 2nd grade teacher and classmates and see if their stories match... but then as far as the between lives stuff, he hypnotized people with many different religious beliefs, even some who were atheists and they all described the same things and experiences.

If everyone in that 2nd grade class reported the same basic events and described the same place, one would be safe to assume it existed and those people were there. In the same way, if all kinds of people from different religions and different beliefs described the same place and experiences between lives, it too would be safe to assume it existed based on that evidence.

But then there is much more evidence as well. Near death experiences, very common and people find themselves out of their bodies. Astral projection, fairly rare but I did it once and found myself in my room across from my bed looking back at my body. This was not just a "mental" experience as when I snapped back into my body it was like I had just ran a marathon. I was breathing very hard and could not catch my breath and my heart was beating out of my chest like I had just ran or something. Very real and direct experience. Fully conscious during the entire experience.

The thing with belief is we choose the more likely to be true. For example, if I close my eyes and see just darkness, I don't believe everything has disappeared just because I no longer see it. There is no scientific proof it is still there if my eyes are closed, but using what I know, I am safe to assume everything is still there. If I have a friend that tells me he is going to Texas and I see him take a taxi, see a picture of him in the Texas airport, I am safe to assume he is there even with no scientific proof of it.

We have a lot of experience showing us we are not this body. We could loose an arm or leg and still be here. Now loosing parts of the brain affect how we can process data and communicate, but nevertheless, we are still conscious in some way. So the body stops working at some point and we who are still alive stop having a way to communicate with that consciousness that was in that body. Do we assume consciousness ended when that body stopped working? Or did it go on somewhere else?

I'd say the scientific thing based on a lot of indirect evidence is it goes on and is somewhere else. But I don't want to write a book here explaining all the different things that support this conclusion. I hit the main ones above but there are lot's more. Even things like babies being born with fully developed and distinct personalities. One baby comes out content, happy..... another angry with face red.... and on and on.

Karma too and cause and effect on subtle levels also can be proved through logic and observation, so can the relationship between thought and experience which proves through logic that consciousness does not have the same source "the body and brain" as thought. If consciousness can be directly experienced as separate from the body and it's mind, it is safe to assume it is not dependent on the body for it's existence, which like other things, also points to it's continuing on after the body ceases to work.

Anyone with a pleasant dream can claim this was a past life. Anyone can go ''channel'' some ''spirit'' or ''hear voices'' and claim stuff, but it's more likely they are talking to themselves and playing with their own subconscious. A lot of these so called ''experiences'' work just like dreams do, and sometimes they co-exist with nice feels (Happy Chemistry) and it feels so incredible that we insist we have proof.

An astral projection experience is not about karma and reincarnation. At best, it gives you an idea that you are more than a physical body.

But unless we can actually prove the existence of that which incarnates, and can show the process empirically, it can't be classified as science.

Nothing wrong with saying ''I believe in..'' But nowadays most claim their spiritual beliefs are facts.
Ever saw the video of Deepok Chakra vs. an actual quantum physicist??

There are scientists today that are saying there is massive evidence to support intelligent design. The evidence has to do with the probability of factors appearing randomly in the DNA chain, the odds against it happening through any means besides design are something like a trillion, trillion.... to the 20th power or something which basically makes it equal to impossible according to modern physics and mathematics. Also, the explosion of different species that happened during the Cambrian period.

The Cambrian explosion was an event approximately 541 million years ago in the Cambrian period when practically all major animal phyla started appearing in the fossil record.

Scientists are saying based on what we now know about DNA and mutations within species, it is also impossible for natural selection to account for the huge explosion in species. Too many different body systems appeared "out of nowhere" and all at once. There are also zero connecting systems between the leaps.

Basically many scientists are now saying the evidence points to an intelligent design, which leads to the existence of a designer, or "god" although science has no evidence as to what exactly this or these "designers" would be. That book, Journey Of Souls, states the designers are us basically, between lives. Some hypnotically regressed persons have had memories of designing planets, solar systems, and animals, life forms on planets. Some also have talked about "tweaking the DNA of species" when the species was not adapting well to their environment. Explains why dinosaurs came to be, then disappeared. The creators of such are like us, not perfect, prone to mistakes or having a lack of complete knowledge. Also explains why scientists say they still have not discovered a missing link in humanoid development. It may not exist if the jump in development was simply some astral being like us tweaking the DNA through some means.

Karma, or cause and effect, is pretty well established as scientific fact. Where it tends to get into the weeds or in belief or possible non-sense is when we guess about the "effects."

Say I am really selfish, what are the effects of that? Such actions obviously lead to effects. Just contrast if I was selfless instead of selfish how different my effects would be as I go though life.

So there is karma or effects from what we do and are, the only "belief" part is about what exactly those effects are.

Like if I am rich and greedy, own apartments and kick out those poor who miss rent, what are the effects of that as far as the next life?

The way I look at it is karma does not exist to punish. It exists to teach. So what next life could teach a greedy person to not be that way? My logic says make them come back not only poor, but dependent on others. Poor with no means to become well off, due to ailments ect. In this way, this greedy person would have compassion for those less well off as they have experienced that.

When we have experienced a thing ourselves, we will have compassion for others with it as well. So the karma for not having compassion about a particular thing, would be for you to experience that thing yourself. That's my guess anyway.

A lot of karma can happen and be understood in one life. Like people who are in long marriages and have to learn and grow to save the marriage, or selfish persons having children, these can force one to change and grow in one life time. A rich person loosing all their money in a stock market crash.... A selfish self centered person finding an abandoned kitten...

I suggest you study palaeontology, but in any case it's digressing there. You quote a part of my post, in which I mentioned the concepts that are part of the Eightfold Path of Buddhism, and therefore its 'dhamma'. There is no scientific evidence for 'karma' and 'incarnation'. There are however anecdotes of people who interpret certain thoughts and dreams, birthmarks, or de-ja-vus as ''past life''. This is the choice of the person, to interpret the experience in such a way. ''The Buddha'' grew up in a Hindu context, so his interpretation makes sense in that context. Then there are also a lot of people who simply believe because reincarnation sounds spiritually logical to them, which means they fill the gap in their mind with a belief.

I do not believe such concepts should be taught if a path presents itself as ''experimental'', ''natural'' etc. I've participated in Buddhist meditation sessions. Thankfully not much intrusion of such concepts taught there, although all the leaders start with some sort of ''blessing'' in which they ask for ''all living beings to be liberated''. That's an issue for me too. You see, ecology functions thanks to the dead and suffering of many creatures. You can't have it both ways... have a world abundant in life and then seeking to liberate all of them from pain and suffering. That just doesn't work at all.

Trungpa is a known drunkard, drug addict and sexual abuser, and his school has been a cesspit of intoxication and sexual misconduct ever since it opened, and it still is. This is well known and is not disputed. Pema Chodrin just resigned because a rapist was instated into a high position at the school https://www.washingtonpost.com/relig...-group-leader/.

I also recommend "The Sunshine Report", which is a report on the degeneracy Trungpa and has little band of merry men.

It's not 'crazy wisdom', it's serious harm and I wish people would stop promoting this guy and his dangerous school already.

I'm not interested in versions of Buddhism because they are sects. People are free to be in a sects or to not be involved. Sect or no sect, religious or atheist, makes no difference. Nature's way is the same for everyone.