Cognitive dissonance is due to holding two contradictory ideas at the same time. I don’t see how that necessarily applies to someone who believes in rebirth.
Interesting discussion!
When people ask me about “belief” in relation to Buddhist teachings, I ask them a few questions back:
- Do you believe in Gravity?
- Do you believe E = MC squared?
…etc etc
In Medicine we have a concept of “Levels of Evidence” such as Meta-analyses, which are summations of all the trials on a given question (avoids errors from one trial being too small etc), or randomised controlled trials, or cohort studies, or just having an “expert” think its the right thing. Obviously, the higher the level of evidence, the more likely it will make it into a guideline or set of policies and procedures for everyone to follow.
I think that concept applies here, you may not have absolute proof that rebirth and karma are accurate “theories” until you are enlightened and then realise them directly (or find out the Buddha was entirely wrong and some other dhamma is correct of course). However, it is perfectly reasonable to say that based on all the evidence before you, anecdotal, experiential, whether or not the individual mounting the argument is reliable or not (ie a true “expert” or not) are all valid considerations. If someone comes along and actually proves something to be wrong, them you ignore the experts and go with that.
In my personal experience, those not “believing” in rebirth and karma do so because it doesnt fit with their world view, and it doesn’t make sense to them. To them I say “No worries, friends!”. Not sure I would call that belief “xxxxx Buddhism” but would be happy for you to call it whatever other term you like “Vipassana-ist” or “Meditation-ist”, but the only thing I struggle with is calling it “Secular Buddhism”. Those believing in rebirth and karma do so because it seems like the most likely solution, although almost all wouldn’t “directly see it” (ie they didnt discover E = MC squared themselves, wouldn’t have a clue how to replicate that “proof” but are happy, like me, to go along with it as it seems like the most sensible approach. So, my “belief” in E=MC squared, is exactly like my belief in rebirth and karma. Haven’t proven it myself, but happy to go with it till I see a better solution… thats not blind “belief” IMO
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It is important to understand that the core of the Dhamma (the bits that liberates from dukkha) is Sandiṭṭhiko (verifiable here and now). Everything else is offered by the Buddha so you understand the full context of your situation. Let me offer an analogy:
Say you’re walking by a doctor minding your own business when he happens to casually mention that you’re sick. You reply to the doctor that you actually feel great. You’re young and have your whole life ahead of you. But the doctor mentions actually there are these events your past (say when you were 2 months old and cannot verify for sure) that lead you to your current sickness and this is how you expect the sickness to progress (kamma, heaven and hell, rebirth).
But he offers you this medicine (making sure that you’re current actions are not rooted in craving by as they are the source of your suffering/sickness) that will require you to drive for many days (seeing the 3 characteristics of the 5 aggregates that are presently enduring, seeing the source of your intentions via trial and error and therefore the source of your suffering) and if you choose to take it you should start to become less sick (ownership of the 5 aggregates).
If you’re not atleast open to idea that you’re sick and that it’s could be due to things in the past that you cannot remember and that there are outcomes of the sickness in the future, you’re never making that drive. If you’re open believing the doc on some level. You see that you could be sick by reflecting on some of the details of the ailments the doc has said. Or by seeing that the doc himself seems to be doing much better than you despite not having youth, money, etc then you will make the drive. You can of course doubt any of the things above while you’re making that drive because you cannot for yourself. But you’re not closed off to the idea so you keep driving.
You can also go to the other extreme and focus on just believing the past and future causes are absolutely true and focus your energy in making sure you never doubt it. You think that will cure you. You forget that the you need to drive and take the medicine.
Finally you arrive at the medicine and take it and you do indeed verify that you’re on the mend (stream entry).
Sidenote: One can say a dhammānusārī (Dhamma follower) or saddhānusārī (faith follower) is at the point where they’ve made the many day drive and are standing right there in front of the medicine. It would be impossible that they don’t take it now after all this driving.
All you have to do to fully overcome the sickness (arahantship) is keep taking the medicine (not act out of craving). You can still have some days that you doubt that if it’s the medicine that’s working or something else. But sooner or later you realise it’s indeed the medicine. So you keep taking it (eventual inevitability to full enlightenment (max 7 lives)). You still don’t know if the things about the past reason nor the future consequences are true. So you can still doubt them. But you’re never asserting that they definitely can’t be the case. But al you 100% know is that you’re getting better. So you don’t care if the other stuff is 100% true. It might be if the doc was right about the medicine.
You take the medicine enough to realise that you’re no longer sick and it makes no difference if you take the medicine or not (full enlightenment). You still don’t know if the stuff about the past is true or not nor the future consequences. All you know is that you’re not sick (Sandiṭṭhiko). This doctor is clearly a genius. So the other stuff is probably true and I could still have doubts about it. But if you’re not sick anymore whether you doubt it or not becomes irrelevant. Even the medicine can be chucked out since you dont need it (might be a good idea to keep the map and the empty bottle around in case others have the same sickness and you want to help em out).
No mysticism needed here. The necessary process is entirely verifiable here and now (Sandiṭṭhiko, Ehipassiko). Just don’t let your views get in the way of your driving and taking the medicine.
What qualifies the sammā or right in the noble 8fold path is right view. Right view relating to rebirth includes: there is this world, there is the next world, there are beings spontaneously reborn, there is results of actions (kamma), there are sages who directly know these from their direct knowledges.
View of Rebirth, then is part of the medicine.
Namo Buddhaya
There is an interesting point here Bhante.
In regards to ‘right view siding with acquisition’ as it relates to the nussaripair.
The nussaris have transcended the plane of common people but the teachings are only moderately accepted & understood.
Now what are those teachings exactly because there are two distint categories here
- What is described as the general instruction
“Aggivessana, this is how the ascetic Gotama guides his disciples, and his instructions to disciples generally proceed on these topics: ‘Form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness are impermanent. The five aggregates are mentioned as if the listener is expected to know them.Form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness are not-self. All conditions are impermanent. All things are not-self.’ This is how the ascetic Gotama guides his disciples, and how instruction to his disciples generally proceeds.”
This must be included for this is explicit in the series about the nussaris as in
. "Monks, the eye is inconstant, changeable, alterable. The ear… The nose… The tongue… The body… The mind is inconstant, changeable, alterable.
"One who has conviction & belief that these phenomena are this way is called a faith-follower: Cakkhu Sutta: The Eye
The question is then whether they can be backwards in regards to
"And what is the right view with effluents, siding with merit, resulting in acquisitions? ‘There is what is given, what is offered, what is sacrificed. There are fruits & results of good & bad actions. There is this world & the next world. There is mother & father. There are spontaneously reborn beings; there are contemplatives & brahmans who, faring rightly & practicing rightly, proclaim this world & the next after having directly known & realized it for themselves.’ This is the right view with effluents, siding with merit, resulting in acquisitions. Maha-cattarisaka Sutta: The Great Forty
As it is reasonable to assert that rebirth is spoken of as ‘the next world’ there.
It’s more than that. They’ve taken the medicine (i.e. developed the eightfold path) and are simply waiting for the effects to kick in (seeing the four noble truths).
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Actually, yes that would be more accurate.
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I look forward to the discussion on this point too (i.e. whether or not one needs to have some level of “samadhi” to be a Dhammanusari/Saddhanusari), or if mere conceptual/intellectual acceptance is enough.
On a brief glance otherwise, based on the strength of acceptance and faith of many Buddhists around me (including many of those in Discuss/Discourse in Sutta Central), I believe a lot would qualify as Dhammanusari/Saddhanusari? Or is more needed…?
I don’t think that one can make any sort of case whatsoever for jhana being a requisite.
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Here’s how.
-
Noble 8fold path has been developed by the stream entry path attainer, as mentioned by Bhante @sujato
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Noble 8fold path includes right samadhi, which is defined as Jhānas.
But the nussaripair haven’t attained fruition of stream-entry and are only developing the path factors.
So if you say that having jhana is a requisite to being a nussari then you also assert they must’ve developed the jhanas before developing the jhanas as the path factor.
Do you see why? If one needs jhanas to become a nussari then there are only two possibilities
One gets jhanas before becoming nussari
One gets jhana in becoming nussari
If we maintain this logic then does it not follow that a person must likewise develop the other path factors before becoming a nussari and starting to develop the path?
I think this is backwards
See above where past tense is used for developed.
@Notez, you’re using present participle, developing.
Hence, there’s no issue when using past tense developed.
I beg to differ between the development leading to the first entering into the jhana and the further development of one has has been doing it.
As you put it, does it not follow that the nussari has the path factors?
Then what is the difference between him and a sotapanna who actually has the path?
Furthermore do you really think that a person can not have faith in the general instruction before having attained jhana?
I am just relying on Bhante @sujato’s answer here. The above is the difference.
It’s quite clear that most if not all pracitisng Buddhists have very strong faith in the dhamma as well, but we don’t call them all as faith followers. The criterion for becoming a faith follower is not that low.
Edit add on.
From commentary stories I remember of some people in their past lives from a previous Buddha didn’t attain to stream winning even though they mastered the tipitaka and are teachers of the doctrines.
So it’s possible to get quite far and deep into the dhamma without even being a path attainer.
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Namo Buddhaya!
If i say that jhana is not a requisite for nussari, i don’t set the bar low because i maintain that a nussari can’t be fixated in wrong disqualifying views. This is much more difficult than attaining jhana.
It also explains why people can be buddhist monks in past lives, attaining & studying much but still falling short of transcending the plane of common people.
How one defines jhana here matters much because the variant descriptions differ as to whether one would so describe any good thought associated with jhana factors, even if only lasting for a fingersnap, or not, etc.
I can see that one might want to maintain that becoming a nussari would be associated with kusala joy & happiness to some extent.
Just a quick quibble…
The saddhānusārī and dhammānusārī are both anusārīs. They’re not “nussaris”. Nussari is a fairly popular name for Thai Muslim women (a localisation of the Arabic نظيره), but a quite meaningless word in Pali.
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What a treat, thank you Bhante
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Thank you very much Bhante Sujato.
To expand the question slightly: is there any way in which one can know which aspect one is lacking in before one can attain stream entry (or become a dhammanusari or saddhanusari)? Or is it a case of trial-and-error where one has to traverse samsara through multiple lifetimes and somehow fortuitously arrive at stream entry? I guess this explains why certain questions pop up from time to time (e.g. do I need to do XXX in order to arrive at this goal, etc).
For example, I understand that a development of the noble eightfold path is necessary for one to be a stream-enterer. It could be that one is lacking in (say) Right View or Right Speech etc. But how would I know what I’m lacking in? E.g. a math teacher would be able to assess a student’s performance and advise that student to improve in algebra in order to get A in an exam, if that student is weak in algebra.
This is somewhat akin to the analogy originally used in this thread: e.g. the aspiring faith follower who is figuring out if the dosage of medicine or method of administration is correct or not (!), or if that follower is on the correct route on his/her day drive!
Thank you everyone! Have a good week ahead.
Though, interestingly, there’s some very notable exceptions from interventions with such huge effect sizes, gathering higher levels of evidence is unethical. The example I always hear is “you don’t need an RCT for penicillin”, but a more visceral example would be something like the effect of bandages. Nobody will ever narrow the confidence intervals on how much bandages reduce the hazard ratio of severe bleeding, because that experiment would require monstrous treatment of the control group. It’s only for interventions with smaller effect sizes that more sophisticated analysis is necessary or appropriate.
Returning to the metaphor, I think teachings like, “don’t murder your own parents” and “don’t waste all your money gambling” are the bandages of spirituality, practices like deep meditation, monasticism, etc are the meta-analyzed RCTs, and things like rebirth fall into a category like the theories around the molecular mechanism of action for several drugs, where there just isn’t a viable way for ordinary people to actually make the direct observations necessary to make definitive conclusions.
Namo Buddhaya!
Not meant to substitute Bhante’s response but i think this is interesting too.
In general there are disqualifications to becoming anussari.
“Endowed with these six qualities, a person is capable of alighting on the lawfulness, the rightness of skillful mental qualities even while listening to the true Dhamma. Which six?
“He has not killed his mother; he has not killed his father; he has not killed an arahant; he has not, with corrupt intent, caused the blood of a Tathagata to flow; he has not caused a split in the Sangha; and he is a discerning person, not slow or dull-witted. SuttaCentral
One can draw out that a discerning person is certainly not such that holds pernicious wrong views
Here are some sutta examples of pernicious wrong views
As he was sitting there, the Blessed One said to him, “Is it true, Arittha, that this pernicious viewpoint has arisen in you — ‘As I understand the Dhamma taught by the Blessed One, those acts the Blessed One says are obstructive, when indulged in, are not genuine obstructions’?”
“Yes, indeed, lord. I understand the Dhamma taught by the Blessed One, and those acts the Blessed One says are obstructive, when indulged in are not genuine obstructions.”
“Worthless man, from whom have you understood that Dhamma taught by me in such a way? Worthless man, haven’t I in many ways described obstructive acts? And when indulged in they are genuine obstructions. I have said that sensual pleasures are of little satisfaction, much stress, much despair, & greater drawbacks. I have compared sensual pleasures to a chain of bones: of much stress, much despair, & greater drawbacks. I have compared sensual pleasures to a lump of flesh… a grass torch… a pit of glowing embers… a dream… borrowed goods… the fruits of a tree… a butcher’s ax and chopping block… swords and spears… a snake’s head: of much stress, much despair, & greater drawbacks. But you, worthless man, through your own wrong grasp [of the Dhamma], have both misrepresented us as well as injuring yourself and accumulating much demerit for yourself, for that will lead to your long-term harm & suffering.”[2]
Then the Blessed One said to the monks, “What do you think, monks? Is this monk Arittha Formerly-of-the-Vulture-Killers even warm [3] in this Doctrine & Discipline?”
“How could he be, lord? No, lord.” Alagaddupama Sutta: The Water-Snake Simile
As he was sitting there, the Blessed One said to him, “Is it true, Sāti, that this pernicious view has arisen in you — ‘As I understand the Dhamma taught by the Blessed One, it is just this consciousness that runs and wanders on, not another’?”
“Exactly so, lord. As I understand the Dhamma taught by the Blessed One, it is just this consciousness that runs and wanders on, not another.”
“Which consciousness, Sāti, is that?” [1]
“This speaker, this knower, lord, that is sensitive here & there to the ripening of good & evil actions.”
“And to whom, worthless man, do you understand me to have taught the Dhamma like that? Haven’t I, in many ways, said of dependently co-arisen consciousness, ‘Apart from a requisite condition, there is no coming-into-play of consciousness’? [2] But you, through your own poor grasp, not only slander us but also dig yourself up [by the root] and produce much demerit for yourself. That will lead to your long-term harm & suffering.”
Then the Blessed One said to the monks, “What do you think, monks? Is this monk Sāti, the Fisherman’s Son, even warm in this Dhamma & Vinaya?”
“How could he be, lord? No, lord.” Mahatanhasankhaya Sutta: The Greater Craving-Destruction Discourse
I think it is generally a matter of not holding pernicious wrong views and having faith in the instruction.
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