Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
Now that I've thrown myself into the realm of mental anguish, I might as well revisit Nagarjuna in regards to the above question as well.
Please don't make your headache worse.
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Is rebirth essential to Buddhism?
- Thread starter Rick O'Shez
- Start date
Please don't make your headache worse.
That is just not a statement I can make any sense of.
Reincarnation, which seems to be what you are understanding rebirth to be, is am entirely unrealistic concept, at odds with the facts of observed reality.
It is also specifically denied by at least half of the core Buddhist concepts.
I can't even attempt to pretend that the Buddha taught it except as an allegory. People would look at him all weird otherwise, and for good reason.
Maybe the perception that he might teach some variant of reincarnation comes from excessive exposition to scripture literalism, I do not know. Ir strikes me as something that would be set clear and straight so early in the Dharma teachings that it would be cumbersome, even insulting, to make much of a fuss about it in writting. Dhamma students are supposed to grasp the basics and ask for clarification if need be, not to make am sport of obsessing over allegories and trying to make then literal despite knowing better than that.
Indeed, this is what I am investigating--the possible mechanisms connecting mental and physical. (besides consciousness and name-and-form being mutually interdependent--each giving rise to the other, and how Tanha and Upadana fit in with this.) I've read a sutta where Buddha describes rebirth, naming "craving as a fuel" at one point. I'll have to go see if I can find it.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
Feel yourself sitting with the Indian villagers of 2,600 years ago and teach them why they should follow the 'Noble-path'. Perhaps you too would talk like Buddha. That is why rebirth is important in nearly all religions except those who go to Pitris (Indo-Aryans) and Valhalla and never return.
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
OK, so clearly you're a sceptic. I was asking whether you could present any support for your interpretation in the suttas, which do repeatedly refer to rebirth and kamma. . As I said, similes in the suttas are clearly labelled as such. There is no indication that the stuff on rebirth and kamma is intended as simile or metaphor, so saying it is allegorical is pure conjecture.
Your argument about excessive literalism is a weak one, a traditionalist could easily argue that you have an aversion to the literal meaning and so have a strong need for it to be allegorical. We all bring our own baggage.
But anyway, which core Buddhist teachings specifically deny rebirth, and why?
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Here is the sutta I was thinking about.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn44/sn44.009.than.html
This part specifically
"This contemplative Gotama — the leader of a community, the leader of a group, the teacher of a group, honored and famous, esteemed as holy by the mass of people — describes a disciple who has died and passed on in terms of places of rebirth: "That one is reborn there; that one is reborn there." But when the disciple is an ultimate person, a foremost person, attained to the foremost attainment, Gotama the contemplative does not describe him, when he has died and passed on, in terms of places of rebirth: "That one is reborn there; that one is reborn there." Instead, he describes him thus: "He has cut through craving, severed the fetter, and by rightly breaking through conceit has made an end of suffering & stress."'
"So I was simply befuddled. I was uncertain: How is the teaching of Gotama the contemplative to be understood?"
"Of course you are befuddled, Vaccha. Of course you are uncertain. When there is a reason for befuddlement in you, uncertainty arises. I designate the rebirth of one who has sustenance, Vaccha, and not of one without sustenance. Just as a fire burns with sustenance and not without sustenance, even so I designate the rebirth of one who has sustenance and not of one without sustenance."
"But, Master Gotama, at the moment a flame is being swept on by the wind and goes a far distance, what do you designate as its sustenance then?"
"Vaccha, when a flame is being swept on by the wind and goes a far distance, I designate it as wind-sustained, for the wind is its sustenance at that time."
"And at the moment when a being sets this body aside and is not yet reborn in another body, what do you designate as its sustenance then?"
"Vaccha, when a being sets this body aside and is not yet reborn in another body, I designate it as craving-sustained, for craving is its sustenance at that time."
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
They weren't a load of ignorant peasants though. Indian thought was sophisticated and diverse in the Buddha's time, many different philosophies and beliefs.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
Yes, sophisticated. At least 6 other philosophies and Vedic religion in the region where Buddha preached (Samannaphala Sutta), the older Upanishads were already written so were some of the smritis, but most villagers would not go that far. Their main concern was the next birth.
Oh, I would hope that no one would find the exercise worth the while. I certainly do not.
The Suttas are, after all, just scripture. Buddhist scripture is not quite as susceptible to abuse as Abrahamic one, but the reasons lie more in the doctrine proper than in the scripture. It is still our duty to know better than to rely on texts alone.
Or to put in another way, it is not the Sutta's place to try and establish doctrine, and most certainly not in challenge of what is taught properly in person by actual living, discerning beings that may perceive and correct misunderstandings when they happen.
It is rather obvious to me that that language, far from being an attempt at describing any sort of reincarnation (with or without an atman, if that even makes internal sense) is what could be used at that time and place to talk about what would today be expressed in terms of social sciences and social psychology.
Besides, the text does not really make any sense in a literal reading. I just don't see how it could possibly be not meant as allegory.
Aren't the Suttas meant for audiences that have previously been taught about Anatta, Sunyata and other core concepts of the doctrine?
It would stand to reason that it is fair enough warning. If you disagree, well, I guess I will have to accept that, because I fail to see any room for doubt.
Why, of coirse, I have no respect and less regard for literalism. Literalism is a disease for religion.
I stand unconvinced that traditionalists would be any different. But I suppose so many centuries of exposure to over-valued literalists from Abrahamic traditions may cause a different perception in many people. I am sorry that it is so.
None. Rebirth is a core doctrine. It just can't fairly be understood as a form of reincarnation.
As for why so, because reincarnation is denied by most of the doctrine, by various perspectives. Consider for instance Interdependent Origination, Anatta, Sunyata, out of the top of my mind.
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
It does actually, you just don't like it.
However if you can give some specific examples of what doesn't make sense I'd be interested to hear them.
By the way, any problems with the traditional view of rebirth also apply to moment-to-moment interpretations.
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No. I challenge that statement and find it worrisome that the claim is even made.
Then again, I suppose I might think otherwise if I could make any sense of the idea of rebirth as "reincarnation without atman". But the plain fact is that I do not. Once I understand rebirth, and all the more so when I get a grasp of Interdependent Origination and related concepts, it becomes plain as day that rebirth is not at all a variation of reincarnation, but rather a direct challenge and denial of that rather un-buddhistic concept.
As long as you disagree, you will not reach a consensus with me. Not without basically proving me that I am failing at the very basics of understanding the Dharma, which of course I would hope my early and later teachers, and then my own insight and research, taught me better than doing.
In any case, I would have no use for whatever a "Buddhism with reincarnation-lite in place of rebirth" would be. Nor would anyone really, I suspect; it would be a very schizo doctrine, frankly, and IMO as unhealthy as they come. The distinction between rebirth and reincarnation is just too central to the doctrine and practice.
In all honesty, what does not make sense is seeing similarities between rebirth and reincarnation.
I have no idea how you manage to. I truly do not.
Far as I know, I follow the traditional view of rebirth, which happens to also be the moment-to-moment interpretation. So... what do you mean here?
What do you think of the idea of the propagation or rebirth of psychological habits, skills, and hang-ups via the collective egregor/mara? Is that not a way to transmit psychological quirks from person to person?
Uh... I thought that was what I was claiming to be the traditional view (and mine as well)?
Also, it is a particularly important example of the concept I personally consider the very essence of Buddhism: Interdependent Origination.
It is of the nature of humans, and quite possibly inherent to sentient beings of any kind, to seek communication, mutual influence, and the creation of fragile yet valued senses of identity and individuality. It is entirely possible that such a creation is even necessary (at least early on) as some sort of instinctive defense against the risk of being submerged into collective streams and becoming disfunctional as a result.
One of the many reasons why I consider reincarnation far too unrealistic a concept to serious consider is because it is utterly contradictory in my eyes.
I have on occasion described it as the claim that people who are entirely different and have no means of even meeting each other should be nevertheless considered somehow a direct extension of each other, and supposedly the earliest of the two is a bigger influence in the shaping of the later than most anyone who actually met and lived with him (or her).
I suppose that might conceivably still actually happen... but it is rather clear to me that it can only be said to happen often by ridding the idea of any true meaning. In observable reality, people are so consistently and so deeply shaped by their actual environment an circunstances that I can't help but feel that reincarnation is probably just wishful thinking.
I would expect a world where reincarnation (as opposed to rebirth) happens in a meaningful way even 1% of the time to have, among other features, lots of people who show strong afinity for learning other languages and understanding almost instinctively cultures that are alien to their own, just to mention a particularly obvious consequence.
Most certainly. And it seems to be significant and well demonstrated enough, or at the very least to my own satisfaction.
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Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
No, they are different views. The traditional view takes passages like the one below at face value, the moment-to-moment interpretation interprets rebirth as a purely psychological process, the continual rebirth of self-view for example. Of course these two interpretations are not mutually exclusive and the underlying principle is the same. It works the same way day-to-day or life-to-life.
As far as I know the only school that rejects the traditional view is Secular Buddhism, which has a purely naturalistic approach.
"Here, student, some woman or man is a killer of living beings, murderous, bloody-handed, given to blows and violence, merciless to living beings. Due to having performed and completed such kammas, on the dissolution of the body, after death, he reappears in a state of deprivation, in an unhappy destination, in perdition, in hell. If, on the dissolution of the body, after death, instead of his reappearing in a state of deprivation, in an unhappy destination, in perdition, in hell, he comes to the human state, he is short-lived wherever he is reborn. This is the way that leads to short life, that is to say, to be a killer of living beings, murderous, bloody-handed, given to blows and violence, merciless to living beings."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.135.nymo.html
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I must have missed it. Sorry. (just finishing up mu coffee here, waiting for brain fog to clear.)
Alrighty.
Metaphorical sparks blown about by the wind, waiting for a place to land.
Spiny, I can't make heads or tails of what you are saying. I truly have no idea of how you perceive a "face value" that is still different from rebirth.
I get a strong feeling that you are projecting an atman into a teaching that can only make sense with anatta.
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
Not at all, I am well aware of the implications of anatta, as should be clear from my posts in other threads here.
The fact remains that the only Buddhist school which rejects the traditional view of rebirth is Secular Buddhism. It is what it is. I don't have a problem with you rejecting the traditional view, quite a lot of western Buddhists do. But please stop pretending it doesn't exist.
At first glance, it would seem that what you call consciousness is to a significant extent a result of perceiving circunstances and reacting to them interactively.
So it seems to me that it can be both be said to be entirely clould based and to not be, depending on how much relative weight one gives to the words "entirely" and "based",
But I find myself wondering where Mara entered the picture here. It is just not obvious to me.
I beg to differ. This thread does lead me to doubt it quite directly.
Rather, the fact remains that you believe that to be the truth, while to me it is a self-contradictory statement, mainly because your understanding of what the traditional view would be is itself so self-contradictory.
I take it that you are insisting that my view is somehow not the traditional one?
Sorry, I will need reasons to make such a momentous concession, and you are just not giving me any.
And allow me to say just once that I am making no pretense and I will not take lightly to be unfairly told that I am. I expect better faith than that.