I had the thought that if there is no believer present, no me or I that grasp any belief, then there will be no rebirth.
Thank you! And I like where you went in this post as well. I tell people all the time, I am a quite rationally-minded invidivual, who is naturally very skeptic of everything. Part of me even leans toward naturalism and these ideas around Nature being the only truth and such; however, I have studied Buddhism for a long time, and was caught in this cycle for many years of trying to rationalize or make sense of things I did not agree with. Then, one day finally, I realized it doesn’t matter if I agree with them or not, they are there for pondering, and being open to things outside of our wheelhouse is an extremely valuable trait not only regarding Dhamma, but politics, social arrangement, etc etc etc.
I think you are right that the more you ponder on these things, and use your rational mind, certain points of the teaching only seem more reasonable. Maybe not “quantifiable” by science in the peer-reviewed sense, but you know what I am saying, it to us as individuals can feel “real.”
I think Buddhism as a religious/philosophical system has such deep implications which bring us closer to the Real in the philosophical sense, but a lot of the modern chop and drop of certain schools/practices is to me only moving people away from that possibility. And I am in no way talking down to these other systems of thought, they are perfectly fine systems of inquiry, this is what people do. I just think we need to respect doctrine and the traditions that have brought us this information in the first place.
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Sadhu, Richard! I wish you a good week.
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The Buddha made many declarations about rebirth. By seeing and knowing his own rebirths was the final key to his awakening.
I suspect that’s if Stephen Batchelor would have done this, he may have not had a need to invent a philosophy without rebirth and kamma.
I had the same thoughts about this, that his teachers may have backed him into a corner.
Defining rebirth and kamma as a system of punishment and reward misses the mark. I think that’s another point that Stephen Batchelor may have had to adapt to his philosophy. Here’s a quote from his book “After Buddhism”:
“The doctrine of karma is a theory of cosmic justice. Rebirth is simply the medium within which such justice plays itself out: those who do good in this life will be rewarded in a future life, whereas those who commit evil in this life will be punished in one of the numerous Buddhist hells or will reborn as a ghost or an animal.”
Touché.
You’ve summed up the heart of this topic: how making up one’s mind too soon not only misses our great opportunity, but sends us down a path of wrong view upon wrong view until we’ve constructed a philosophy that isn’t Buddhism any longer.
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everything driving to Dhamma has something positive. 
Also the so-called heretical views are a constant from Buddha times. Buddhism would be more boring without it. Although if the doubt on rebirth arise, one can say this is an outsider idea.
At least I understand the discussion on rebirth is quite useless because the feeling of being akin with rebirth logics should arise inside the person. The only utility after the arising of this question is to investigate the possible obstacles. Then one can look with honesty into himself to detect what idea can cause rejection. If we feel the non-rebirth sounds an absurd idea there is no problem. If we feel both things are not a concern there is not problem.
The problem can exists if we feel more comfortable with the non-rebirth idea. When this sounds better than rebirth. Because in such case, there is arising of the idea of death and at that moment there is no knowledge or remembrance about key things like kamma and the arising of the individuality (atta). Then what’s happening at that moment in contact with that image of death.
The belief in non-rebirth is a wrong view because this can be an obstacle. The Buddha taught to identify the wrong views for practical terms, to avoid obstacles, and not because some intellectual coherence.
There is no special comfort by keeping rebirth or non-rebirth belief . In case of a life with strong sufferings, the nothingness idea and non-rebirth idea maybe can sounds good. In the case of a criminal life the rebirth idea can sound bad. In the case of losing a beloved being, the rebirth can sounds good. Etcetera. Many possibilities.
All Buddhists should aspire to non-rebirth although there is only one Path available in the whole Universe to realize that which is the Buddhas path. They arise to taught that. The nothingness of secularists is just an imagination because there is not any experience availabe in the Reality of such thing. Therefore, What is that idea at all?
However, we are experiencing how there is a continuity in Reality. It doesn’t care when one looks because we cannot see the things vanishing in a nothingness. This idea sounds like a magical trick, an spectacle for the children. I understand that with this question one should investigate to find where is the root of that idea and why this persist in our mind.
best wishes
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It should be clear from the context of my statement that you quoted that the same result is referring to after death.
Since by the belief of no rebirth, there’s nothing after death, what means is there for further greed or hate to arise as claimed to be the punishment?
Let’s use a very simple worldly situation. A psychopath, incapable of remorse or compassion, robs a bank, goes to hiding in some remote places, escaped the human law, lived out her life in comfort. Vs a devoted Bhikkhuni who trained so much harder than the monks to memorize the Vinaya, trained her whole life, yet not yet enlightened, but had established a super large amount of merits and good basis for the next life’s continued training. According to the belief of nothing after death, these two people will get the same result of nothing after death, making their efforts in this life time meaningless.
If there’s rebirth, then there’s the working of kamma, which is impersonally guiding these two people to two very different places which they start off with very different treasures of their mind and physical situations. It’s not so much punishment vs reward, unless one regard not putting one’s hand into the fire vs putting the hand into the fire as reward and punishment. Kamma is impersonal, it is not God, it doesn’t care about us doing good or bad deeds, it just operates, good gets good, bad gets bad. Like fire burns hands who gets into it, doesn’t burn hands which are wise not to get into it.
Suicidal people wants to die. They don’t believe in rebirth, or temporary forgot that rebirth exist, so they don’t see that death is not the end of their suffering.
I don’t see the relevance of this in context of belief in rebirth. What assumptions are made to produce that statement?
I explained in detailed 2 cases relevant to morality above, for someone who doesn’t believe in kamma and rebirth is more likely to fall trap into.
It’s better to make such statements about the suttas, if you had actually read them all, or at least most of them. I had read the 4 Nikayas, and it’s basically a crazy amount of mental gymnastics to weave them in as you suggested. Or else you’re just not following the Kalama sutta, not seeing the evidence of primary material, preferring to believe in your own pet theory and try to alter the perception of data to fit in your pet theory.
Also useful to read Evolution of Buddhism - Essays - Discuss & Discover (suttacentral.net) There are other teachers who declared no rebirth, no kamma. If Buddha really saw that there rebirth and kamma was not true, he would not have any social pressure to declare it as not true. The fact is he did declared them to be true, by his own direct realization, no less.
Have you read the rebirth evidences linked here yet? Batchelor, Brahmali, Rebirth, Choices - #3 by NgXinZhao
Well you know, in Police Code, an “autocycle” in the wording of terms of the Police who handle past and future life crime means that a perpetrator’s consciousness falls both into the state of commiting an offense, and experiencing an offense as the victim, because in the case of it then, it is the same person in multiple lifetimes, and their karma has caused them to hurt themselves, this can cause hellish rage and the person in question who is committing the crime, say, violence, can drag other referential (evil reincarnations) of that person into the “autocycle” and it can be a big problem, primarily because that means that the Law of karma has been severely broken. One person is committing many crimes at once, and won’t stop. The solution is a difficult one, and can be lifetimes of Police work to handle.
About rebirth. It’s death. Is there anything like a deathless birth? Just thinking 
Conditioned is mortal=Darkness
Unconditioned is immortal=Light
Light without darkness?
In beginning there was darkness. So without darkness there was no Light.
So the ending of darkness goal is too become a Light that doesn’t need darkness anymore? Which is hungerless?
Maybe those people they say doesn’t feel anything are actually Light beings without rebirth(hunger) 
I recently listened to the talk between Ven Brahmali and Mr Batchelor, that was linked in the first post.
I’m surprised that this wasn’t mentioned - that rebirth is supposed to be something that one can see the proof of, or the mechanism behind, for oneself if one meditates in the right way.
Didn’t the Buddha go into the fourth jhana and then see his countless previous lives, he was part of this clan and ate this food, etc.?
I would assume that Ven Brahmali has attained the fourth jhana, so did he not see his past lives? or is a monk not allowed to speak about meditation experiences? I’ve heard other monks answer questions that clearly indicate that they have reached jhanas. I think it would be the end of the debate if a monk said “look… I’ve seen it for myself, it’s real.”
And for Mr Batchelor, if this question of rebirth was such an issue that it seems to have caused him to disrobe, did he not put the time and effort into trying to get to the fourth jhana and see rebirth for himself? What else in this world could possibly be as important and as interesting as that?
I just thought that it was a strange omission, as there is one way to see “proof” of rebirth, while everything else is just opinion. I type this out with ultimate respect for everyone here and mean no offense.
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It’s not wise to assume these kinds of things. All we have control over is our own practice.
I do remember that there is a rule in the vinaya (not sure which one) that prohibits a monastic (monk or nun) to discuss or proclaim to lay people about their attainments.
Yes, you should be slightly sceptical when you come across such things and “take things with a grain of salt” and always come back to what the Buddha taught.
Another thing to consider is the audience of such talks. There are a lot of talks that are available of say someone like Ajahn Chah were he speaks of a meditation experience/s but the audience he is speaking to are fellow monastics, which I understand is not a violation and is well within the Vinaya.
Should these talks have been made available? Not sure, it all depends on the intention.
Another thing to consider is if the talks were given in a different language other than english, in such cases the translator and the translation comes into the mix. Did the person who was translating the talk have a full grasp of the subject that was being spoken of? Did the translator have their own opinions of the subject and perhaps that would’ve ‘crept in’ into the translation? These are some of the things that you need to consider when listening/watching to these talks.
In the end, always come back to the what the Buddha taught 
jhana is a prepatory practice to the creation of the mind made body which is a preparation for the recollection of past lives.
It was already becoming rare for monastics to be able to master these practices in canonical times, se SN (link to be dug up later, its the one with the false monastic).
However already in that period it was acknowledged that complete liberation from suffering was possible without these psychic powers. (Ibid).
There are plenty of children out there who remeber thier previous life, Dr Ian Stevenson? has interviewed many of them.
With regards to proof, you may take the testimony of these children or go find out for yourself through direct experience.
For any one seeking complete liberation the only reason to devote ones life to the recollection of the past would be if succeeding in remembering was the only thing that could convince us to stop clinging on to the whirl and to truly let go.
Metta.
It’s both refreshing and inspiring to see two individuals having a courteous debate without simply trying to drown the other person out, score points or let egos reign; they were both uncommonly kind. As a result, about a year after watching it, I still recall their main points (because they were so clearly and calmly presented, not because of my recall skills).
In simple terms in my case, the first thing that prevented me being open to it was culture; I don’t recall a serious discussion on reincarnation ever prior to encountering Buddhism. Most people I know would likely dismiss it out of hand, whatever that means. I’m not saying that makes the idea of rebirth wrong, just that we are herd animals and can easily and inadvertently start deciding ‘truth’ to some degree based on (assumed) popular opinion.
I’m not sure I agree that this would make their efforts in this life meaningless for two reasons.
- The devoted Bhikkhuni almost certainly experiences a happier and internally lighter life than the psychopath*.
- The devoted Bhikkhuni may bring benefit to those around her in this very life, even if there’s no continuation after death.
I’m also not sure that meaninglessness necessarily proves rebirth. It proves only that we might want to believe in rebirth, divine judgement or perhaps some other mechanism to ‘balance the equation’.
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I Agree. I was raised to believe the Christian beliefs of heaven and hell and reincarnation was considered ridiculous. So even 25 years after I ceased believing in a creator god and those concomitant beliefs, the idea of rebirth was just too close for comfort. The theme of this thread is that many people have been able to trust the word of the Buddha enough to be able to set aside the weight of biases and make more balanced judgements.
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Let me repackage my thoughts then, because I consider myself fortunate to be in that category of people.
I could copy + paste entire paragraphs from the OP, as it parallels my own experience and I expect will be the experience of many more people as Buddhism spreads West. Like you, I found Buddhism to instantly feel “right”, until encountering the counter-culture ‘snag’ of reincarnation teaching. I was disappointed at the time to confirm that traditional Buddhists do in fact teach this…
…and like you, I put that aspect of Buddhism on the backburner for a time. I didn’t even consciously decide to revisit the idea of rebirth but by chance recently after dwelling on the views presented in DN1 for some time, I can’t explain why concisely, a lightbulb turned on. At the very least, I am currently fully convinced that it is impossible for me to rule out rebirth, even if I cannot confirm from personal experience. At the end of the day, it’s no more absurd than any of the other ideas regarding existence, and if assumed (on ‘faith’ for now) adds wholesale motivation to daily practice.
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Something that can get in the way, IMO, is this idea that the ideas of non-Western people are somehow “cultural”, but the ideas of Westerners are not cultural, not local and idiosyncratic, but somehow the normal, standard, objective way of doings things.
For example, the conceit in psychology that findings from samples of mostly white, American college students generalize to universal truths about human psychology (aka WEIRD bias ).
My point I guess is just that materialism/physicalism is just as much “cultural baggage” as anything else.
It’s a bit naive (and maybe a bit chauvinistic?) to think one is without any cultural baggage. It’s all baggage no matter where you’re from
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I would recommend reading the essays from the contest here:
I have read 7, and it’s amazes me of how much I had learnt, even thought I thought I knew a lot of the past life recall of kids cases, I now can have more confidence of the medium, NDE, and apparition types too. And it helped me drop more materalism baggage I didn’t knew I was still carrying around.
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After reading those essays, has your understanding of citta and vinanna changed or become more clear? If so, would you elaborate in a new topic?
A new topic is too much work for me. I just reply briefly. From the accounts of NDE and people who remembered being in spirit form while between lives, it seems that they refer to the mind-created body. It could be a form of rebirth (as devas?) or it could be the in-between lives that the EBT speaks of.
Some of the statements of NDE people gels well with Ajahn Brahm’s teaching on the nimittas. Redder than red. Most clear, etc. It’s due to separation from the physical body that such things are experienced. Indicating some support for deep Jhanas.
I just thought of an interesting thing. As DN1 stated, that there’s many different levels (7) of mind-bodies which people in the nihilism camp thinks of as self but they are all not self according to Buddhism.
There’s the physical body made of the 4 elements, the deva bodies, the mind-made bodies of Brahma, the other 4 are the 4 arupa minds.
In the EBT there’s mention only of the complete overcoming of forms at the arupa stage after the 4th Jhana, no more sense input only then. Whereas Ajahn Brahm’s Jhana is more of first Jhana already body disappeared.
There could be confusion if one ignores the deva body and mind-made body levels. So could be that the overcoming of the body is the physical body in the first Jhana of Ajahn Brahm, but can be in contact with the mind-made bodies of the Brahma realm.
Thanks for triggering this thought. It helped to resolve some puzzle I had.
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Thank you Adutiya for linking this illuminating debate. Since I definitely sympathize with the perspective of Ajahn Brahmali I find Batchelor makes some interesting arguments too. He definitely touches some critical issues. His problem is that he seems to be too intertwined with what he calls a “pragmatic” perspective, for which he is unable to reflect on the conditions as well as for his later pleading for existential “uncertainty”, which seems to be rooted, at least partially, in delusion.
Anyway some things remain important for me. At one point in the discussion, Batchelor calls the Noble Truths “Four Noble Tasks” and claims they are not at all a concept from EBT but probably a later invention/development. Does anybody have more knowledge or sources on that claim?
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