This is a lovely idea and I think the commentators on this thread have indeed communicated with respect and compassion.
The trouble - for want of a better word - is that the whole notion of Right View, implies it’s opposite of Wrong View. Indeed, in the suttas, in the Early Buddhist Texts, the Buddha doesn’t just ‘imply’, he’s quite - repeatedly - explicit about what Wrong View is. And the trouble is…there’s that word again…the trouble is that moving deeper into Right View, with a deepening sense of stability and confidence within it, involves a kind of reification.
And, the Buddha encouraged monastics to wander about the place and teach the Dhamma. As far as I can see, according to the Early Buddhist Texts anyway, the monastics are not doing that if they aren’t clearly making distinctions between what the Buddha in the Early Buddhist Texts ('cos that’s as close as we can get - apart from our own personal practice) said and what he didn’t say; then frankly, they’re not fulfilling part of the job description that he laid down for those who have an opportunity or inclination to teach.
There is such a thing as Right View. And it’s at the top of a sequential Path. If you don’t dwell deeper into it, reify it even…I can’t see how the sequential, causal nature of the 8 Fold Path can fully begin to unfold.
According to the national census, over 90% of Thai people claim to be Buddhists. But… are they really?
I’m not quite sure whether I am a Buddhist or not, but it really doesn’t matter to me what I am called or what I call myself. My view towards life defines who ‘I’ am until there’s no longer this ‘I’.
I appreciate Ajahn Brahmali’s comment here:
I am confident in my appreciation of what the Buddha taught (= what Ajahn Chah, Ajahn Brahm, Aj Brahmali, and Bhante Sujato said the Buddha taught), and I’m open to listening to what the Buddha and these teachers of mine said. When I have a glimpse of the dhamma, then I know for sure that I am a Buddhist.
Of course, from what I’ve read so far, the Buddha ‘knew’ that rebirths are natural for those who are still in Samsara, and his teachings for awakening appeared to be based on rebirths. So, if we don’t open our heart to the possibility of rebirths, though we will be able to live a happy and wholesome life as good human beings, we would lose the advantage of understanding the Buddha’s ultimate teachings.
Thanks for your thoughtful and reasonable responses.
I knew this was going to be controversial, of course, but I really don’t think it should be. The problem, as I see it, is our conditioning, not the actual contents of the EBTs. But these are critical issues that have a far-ranging consequences, and for this reason we need to tackle them.
I hope you will forgive me for saying this, but if we cannot say the Buddha taught rebirth, then there is precious little we can say about his teachings. Rebirth is everywhere, and it is integrated into all the important teaching frameworks. Rebirth is just as central as any other important teaching you might want to name.
Let me just mention a few examples. Rebirth is specifically mentioned in the second noble truth and implied in all four. Birth in dependent origination is defined as rebirth; no other definition is found. Right view, as an aspect of morality, is consistently defined as including the view of rebirth. The gradual training usually includes the recollection of past lives. Awakening itself is always defined as the knowledge that there is no more birth. The Buddha specifically said he achieved this as part of his own awakening.
All of the above are core teachings expressed in straightforward prose. If anything can be attributed to the Buddha, it is these sorts of teachings. They are found in almost identical terms across all EBTs and all Buddhist traditions. They are not expressed metaphorically or in similes. There is no reason to believe that birth/rebirth in these contexts has any meaning except the literal one. Yes, we need to distinguish which teachings are figurative and which literal, and in this case the answer is hardly in doubt.
This is an important point. And this was indeed my point in saying that we should not hold on to our views too strongly. An open-minded attitude will take us much further.
Ok, but this needs to be qualified. The experience of awakening includes knowing and seeing things according to reality, such as seeing the four noble truths, which in turn includes rebirth. Although you are right that the Buddha’s views would still be conditioned, some of them would be conditioned by direct insight. As such they would accurately reflect reality. I should also add that I don’t subscribe to the idea that the Buddha was omniscient, just that he had insight into certain critical aspects of existence, especially suffering.
The first noble truth claims that the five aspects of existence (khandhas) are suffering, that is, existence itself is suffering. Is there not a rather significant difference between a few more years or decades of existence/suffering and potentially endless existence/suffering? In fact, it is hard to imagine that the difference could be greater.
The purpose of seeing this for yourself is precisely to see how horrible it is and to give you a powerful push in the right direction. I don’t think it is a coincidence that the Buddha recalled his past lives just before he was able to make the final breakthrough to awakening. He was beginning to see the full scope of suffering, and it horrified him.
The main argument for rebirth is the Buddha’s claim to have discovered it. In the present day we might call this anecdotal evidence, but anecdotal evidence of the strongest kind. On top of this the Buddha shows us, through dependent origination, how our samsāric existence is sustained. The Buddha teaches from experience, and so I am not sure we should expect any other argument.
I agree that the “how to” is the crucial aspect of the Buddha’s teaching. But the point is that certain aspects of the nature of human experience – which is really what rebirth is, too – are powerfully interrelated with the “how to.” When the Buddha teaches about the three characteristics (impermanence, suffering, and non-self), this is a statement about the nature of human experience. But he teaches this to help us on the path. It is the same with rebirth. Understood correctly, this is nothing other than a particular expression of the first noble truth. And understanding this truth spurs us on.
The whole Buddhist tradition takes rebirth as a truth of existence. Has this entire tradition, including the EBTs, misunderstood such a core aspect of Buddhism? Or could it be that we in the modern world have not fully appreciated what these teachings are about? I am not saying we should throw out our views to readily, just that we should have a sense of humility. That humility will lead us to take these questions seriously and investigate them properly.
Right. And now imagine this going on potentially forever. This does not lead to “attempting to gratify the craving”, but to the exact opposite.
It is unfortunate that you read my comment in this way. I acknowledge that becoming a Buddhist is a process. During this process one may come to agree or disagree with certain aspects of the teachings. Eventually one may come to place sufficient confidence in the Buddha to take refuge. A natural part of this would be to take his teachings seriously and be open to what he taught. If one does not think the Buddha had awakened to any profound truth, there is hardly any basis for taking refuge. The word Buddhist needs some content, otherwise it is useless as a designation.
I don’t really have any problem with people who are sincerely searching and trying to find answers. My real beef is with those who know the teachings thoroughly – who have often studied and practiced them for decades – yet they reject rebirth while calling themselves Buddhists. They often claim that the idea of rebirth is just cultural baggage or speculative metaphysics, but they really should know better. In the process they are doing everyone a massive disservice.
But what does it mean to “sincerely take refuge”? Does it not mean that one intends to take the message of the Buddha seriously? Until one has seen the truth for oneself one has every right to remain uncommitted; in fact some degree of non-commitment is inevitable. The problem is that by rejecting rebirth one is not uncommitted. One is committed to a view that is in direct opposition to what the Buddha taught.
[quote=“Brahmali, post:23, topic:3811”]
I don’t really have any problem with people who are sincerely searching and trying to find answers. My real beef is with those who know the teachings thoroughly – who have often studied and practiced them for decades – yet they reject rebirth while calling themselves Buddhists.[/quote]
I think I can agree with this. I’ve marked this key word ‘reject’ for later.
This word ‘just’ is like ‘reject’, so that’s coming up.
For now, I think it’s apparent that Buddhist rebirth ideation uses local tools: past lives are in ca. Iron Age India; in heavens & hells as imagined by the culture(s) at large; in animal realms consisting of creatures in the surround while missing out on e.g. penguins, and so on.
Well, it is metaphysics. As for being speculative, that’s going to hinge on epistemology; this is probably where the main issues about rebirth are rooted.
I’ll put it this way: Is the content of the mind wholly built from the other five senses, or does some set of mind-content have absolutely no foundation on them?
So far, given the cultural context as above & anthropology in general and so forth (past life recall as a human eons before the planet coalesced around the sun, etc.), it doesn’t appear to be the case that the mind has access to such a special set; without that, there’s no way to demonstrate that one’s e.g. visions are indeed based on non-local information – self-deception is still possible.
So I think those asserting access to metaphysical knowledge of any kind (such as rebirth) will have to demonstrate that the mind has access to information that didn’t get in there from the other senses during one life.
Now, from earlier: the use of “reject” and “just” are illegitimate approaches that cause trouble in the same way that “accept” and “transcend” (for example) cause trouble. They are both claims about metaphysical certainty. The mind may yet be shown to have access to special sets of content that would confirm or deny one or another set of metaphysical claims… but that doesn’t seem to be forthcoming.
So, does such a metaphysical agnosticism utterly prevent Dhamma practice, up to & including Noble attainment?
Venerable Brahmali, thank you very much for your very detailed and thought-provoking responses to my earlier comments. I’ll have to save some responses for later, but there are a few comments I would like to make right now.
First, just as a matter of background on my general orientation toward the teachings, I think many people probably wonder whether my skeptical outlook toward some aspects of the Buddha’s apparent belief system undermines the fundamental reasons for following the Buddha and practicing the Buddha’s path in the first place. But I don’t think that is where the skeptical outlook actually leads. I view the Buddha as a heroic pathfinder who found a path to the end of human suffering. It seems to me that venerating and following the Buddha on that basis does not require attributing to the Buddha extensive knowledge of the nature, extent and duration of the cosmos, but only requires attributing to him a grasp of the central psychological and behavioral roots of our suffering, and of the means for cutting through those roots and ending that suffering.
To use a simile, if some people are trapped in a raging forest fire, and they are convinced that a heroic pathfinder has found a way to a cool and safe refuge in the middle of the forest, then for those people that pathfinder is both worth following and worth venerating subsequently for his achievement. They don’t have to assume that, in addition to his knowledge of how to get to the refuge, the pathfinder also knows such things as: (i) what the ultimate nature of fire is; (ii) what the ultimate nature of water is; (iii) what the ultimate nature of wood is; (iv) how extensive are the woods; (v) whether there is anything that lies beyond the woods; (vi) how long the woods and the fire will last into the future; or (vii) how long the people in the woods would survive the fire where they are before they die.
Now of course, the pathfinder might believe all sorts of things about the correct answers to these questions, and the people trying to get out of the fire might come to learn various things about what the pathfinder believes about fire, water, the extent of the woods etc. But it is not at all necessary to believe the pathfinder is right about all of that stuff in order to believe that he knows the path to the place of cool refuge. Similarly, if after long study of the discourses one is convinced the Buddha definitely believed P, for some given proposition P, it doesn’t follow that in order to follow the Buddha’s path correctly one must also believe P.
I think the Buddha’s central claim on our attention and veneration is that he came to understand deep truths about why we suffer, and also found a path to the end of that suffering. He discovered this path by restraining and modifying his intentional behavior in various ways, and by working with the contents of his own mind and with his “fathom long body” in deeper and deeper states of meditative absorption, successively liberating himself from the normal, ingrained human responses that make misery out of what we experience. After achieving his goal, he attempted to teach others what they should do in order to obtain the same results. The plausibility of the Buddha’s claim can be verified by trying the path out, and by observing its cumulative results - and also by observing the greater peace and serenity of others who have followed the path for many years. As one cultivates the practice, one can feel one’s own personal fire going out, so to speak, and so that gives one confidence that there might indeed be a way to put it out entirely by continuing along with the practice.
I agree that the Buddha certainly seems to have believed in rebirth, and that discussions that presuppose the existence of rebirth are common throughout the suttas. While some of those discussions can probably be interpreted as referring only to a kind of rebirth that occurs within this very life, I agree others cannot be thus interpreted. (By “rebirth within this very life” I mean that since we organize our experience thorough I-making and my-making, we experience the ongoing generation and cessation of the phenomena of experience as the ongoing moment-to-moment rebirth of that fictive self we are constantly weaving.)
But I classify the Buddha’s belief in rebirth as similar to others of his beliefs that are detachable from his knowledge of the path. For example, the Buddha probably believed various things about the geography of the Indian subcontinent that nobody today would believe. Also, like many other ancient thinkers in his same era, he he seems to have believed that that there were four fundamental elements out of which all worldly objects were made. However, many contemporary Buddhist thinkers, including relatively orthodox ones, seem quite happy to reinterpret that teaching about the elements in more phenomenological and figurative terms: referring to the “watery” aspects of our experience, etc. Why not do the same thing with rebirth? One can think of the Buddha as a spiritual instructor par excellence, not a great natural philosopher or cosmologist.
In my comment about our lack of certain knowledge about the Buddha’s awakening experience, I didn’t mean to suggest that there is no evidence that the Buddha believed in rebirth. I accept that the Buddha believed, and so to some extent taught, rebirth. My suggestion was only that we know little about the awakening experience itself, since different and not easily reconcilable accounts of that experience are given in the suttas - and also since no one who has not had that experience can no or certain what it consists in. One interpretation of that experience is that it simply consisted in the final extinction of the fires of greed, hatred and egoistic delusion, followed by the convinced realization that the last lingering flames of that fire had indeed gone out, and that the task had thus been completed and the goal of the holy life had been accomplished. If that is the case, then the Buddha’s awakening, properly understood, consisted entirely in the cessation of various kinds of painful and defiling mental states, not the further acquisition of extraordinary positive states of knowledge.
One reason to worry about the role of rebirth and other such doctrines in the teaching of the path is that a person might in fact be near the completion of the path, but then frustrate their own attainments with the proliferation of needless extra worrying and suffering because they have convinced themselves that they should be able to start seeing devas, scan the entire history of supposed past lives, or levitate physical objects. It seems dangerous to me to incorporate into one’s pursuit of the path the expectation of such magical and extrasensory attainments.
I agree that if a person who does not believe in rebirth through countless lifetimes comes to have that belief, it would probably have some effect on their outlook. Perhaps it would intensify one’s sense of samvega. But if one has acquired strong samvega without believing in rebirth, then what does it matter? If someone tells me that the gods are preparing to rain molten lava on me two years from now, and if for whatever reason I started to believe them. then that would probably increase my sense of urgency about liberating myself from the roots of suffering before that hideous event happens. But it would be odd for me to say, “I should convince myself that the gods are going to rain lava on me, so that I can have an even stronger desire to end suffering.” And teaching people that they are going to suffer for millennia, rather than just another few decades, when one has no basis for that belief other than faith in a testimony one cannot verify, strikes me as a worrisome practice.
What about dreams ? The absurd, grotesque and fantastical content of dreams are not sense-impressions. Yet, they produce the same effect as sensory cognition. We sweat, moan, toss around with fright or other emotions because the images are very much real during the time of dreaming. Doesn’t this indicate that the physical senses are not the only source of knowledge ?
The way I see it, rebirth is merely the fruition of kamma beyond the death of the physical body. The necessity of the reality of rebirth follows naturally from the Buddha’s teaching on kamma and the process of dependent origination. How else could the process continue?
Those who reject rebirth must necessarily reject the unambiguous way that kamma and dependent origination are presented, over and over and over and over again, in the suttas. They must then redefine what rebirth means, redefine what kamma is, redefine what dependent origination means, even redefine what the Buddha and his awakening means! And this redefining of the core of the Dhamma is necessarily based on their own conditioning and suited to their own predilections. These formed views become the lens through which they read and hear the teachings, the interpretation of which further strengthens and hardens that lens in a form of positive feedback.
I sincerely hope that those who do this can still attain to the Noble Path. But, if anything is a worrisome practice, it’s that.
Well, for me, the reality of kamma is a constant presence in my life, and its fruits seem to be both immediate and pervasive. If I knowingly and with intention cause harm to another conscious being, or if I descend from a higher way of living to succumb to base sensual cravings, or yield to anger or hatred, I seem to experience the harmful effects right away. Those unwholesome actions are defiling corruptions implanted in my mind that bear fruit as the dukkha of ill-will from the very moment I perform the action. On the other hand, if I intentionally do good for others, or pervade my experience of the world and other people with kindness, joy and the will to do good, the dukkha-reducing effects of that wholesome orientation are apparent immediately.
The way I have come to interpret what is happening is to realize that we all have a deep fundamental orientation toward bliss, peace and ultimate freedom, and a deep underlying awareness of and sympathy for the suffering of ourselves and other beings, a sympathy which carries with it an aversion to and rejection of all suffering and all of the causes of suffering. If we intentionally do a harmful thing, we immediately turn ourselves into an object of self-aversion or self-rejection. Those negative attitudes toward ourselves are painful. The pain will start right away and have an intensity dependent on the amount of harm we perceive ourselves as having caused. Similarly, we are naturally disposed to feel loving good will toward the things that cause liberation and peace, and if we make ourselves into bringers of peace, we thereby make ourselves into things we can and do love.
So all this is a way of saying that it doesn’t seem to me at all necessary to posit distant future events in future lives to understand karma and its fruits. If with your second to last breath you get angry at your spouse and shout at her, you will experience the dukkha of your outburst right then and there, and during your last breath. If somebody were to say to me, “Well, I did this bad thing yesterday, but so far I haven’t experienced its harmful fruits for myself, so those fruits must be coming in the future,” I would say in response, “Really? Maybe you should look deeper.”
Sense impressions from the five senses are the blocks that the mind uses to build e.g. dreams. Having these blocks put into unique shapes by the mind is nothing new, it does this all the time. But dreams are still sights, sounds, etc. What you have to do is find something in the mind that isn’t built up from the local content of the other five senses.
There’s that word again. This accept/reject is a false dichotomy, and really clouds things up.
Accepting or rejecting a given set of metaphysical claims: these both fall to the same criticism. One needs a Xian sort of faith in either case, because the claim outstrips actual empirical reach.
I’ll ask it plainly, just because I’m curious: name the fetter(s) that cannot drop away unless there is a belief in rebirth.
I’m agnostic on rebirth. I’m also atheist. However, I’m not an anti-theist in the kind of rabid Richard Dawkins sense. I see many people’s belief in a deity (and afterlife) to be beneficial for their good conduct. Sometimes, a theistic belief can accompany more pernicious beliefs that lead to violence and unethical conduct. The God (and afterlife) beliefs therefore can be seen as an amplifier of these other beliefs, for better or worse.
What follows might be kind of abstract but I think it can be somewhat related. One of the practices from the bodhisattva teachings of the northern schools is to consider all beings as our mother. The explanation for this is that because of beginningless saṃsāra all beings have been our mother. However, we could equally say that because of beginningless saṃsāra all beings have been our murderers. Obviously, one of these two perspectives is more useful for developing the path.
I guess what I’m trying to say is beyond looking at true or false, what is useful? Liberation by wisdom alone may not be for everyone, and it may actually be harder in many cases.
Thanks for taking the time to explain your definition of kamma. What I see is that you are providing evidence for my position: to reject rebirth leads to the need to redefine kamma as well. They are inextricably linked.
[quote=“daverupa, post:30, topic:3811, full:true”][quote=“Mkoll, post:27, topic:3811”]
Those who reject rebirth
[/quote]
There’s that word again. This accept/reject is a false dichotomy, and really clouds things up.[/quote]
It’s not false at all. There are people who accept rebirth and reject it. That fact doesn’t preclude the existence of people that fall somewhere in the middle.
Do you accept that the Buddha awoke to something outside outside of your current empirical reach? And are you practicing to awaken to the same thing?
By the way, they aren’t metaphysical claims. Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy and its genesis is proliferative thought. Recollection of past lives is a result of direct perception—the very word “recollection” should make this clear enough, but see DN 2 for a helpful metaphor.
I would guess doubt (vicikiccha). Why? See bold below—I also thought of bolding the “Teaching” but I’m a little less sure about that.
It seemed to me that I wasn’t redefining kamma. I am assuming the standard idea, I take it, that wholesome mental actions and wholesome intentional bodily actions generally bring pleasure to their agent, while unwholesome mental actions and unwholesome intentional bodily actions generally bring pain to their agent. What I was suggesting is that kamma bears these fruits for its agent much more immediately than is often appreciated. As a result, we do not have to assume the existence of future lives to accept the reality of kamma in that standard sense.
The most comprehensive definition of kamma that I know of is below. I’ve bolded the relevant part. It seems you are denying or are doubtful about the third of those sorts.
[quote=“AN 6.63”]“‘Kamma should be known. The cause of kamma should be known. The diversity in kamma should be known. The result of kamma should be known. The cessation of kamma should be known. The path of practice for the cessation of kamma should be known.’ Thus it has been said. In reference to what was it said?
“Intention, I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, and intellect.
“And what is the cause of kamma? Contact is the cause of kamma.
“And what is the diversity in kamma? There is kamma to be experienced in hell, kamma to be experienced in the realm of common animals, kamma to be experienced in the realm of the hungry shades, kamma to be experienced in the human world, kamma to be experienced in the world of the devas. This is called the diversity in kamma.
“And what is the result of kamma? The result of kamma is of three sorts, I tell you: that which arises right here & now, that which arises later [in this lifetime], and that which arises following that. This is called the result of kamma.
“And what is the cessation of kamma? From the cessation of contact is the cessation of kamma; and just this noble eightfold path—right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right samādhi—is the path of practice leading to the cessation of kamma.
“Now when a disciple of the noble ones discerns kamma in this way, the cause of kamma in this way, the diversity of kamma in this way, the result of kamma in this way, the cessation of kamma in this way, and the path of practice leading to the cessation of kamma in this way, then he discerns this penetrative holy life as the cessation of kamma.
“‘Kamma should be known. The cause of kamma… The diversity in kamma… The result of kamma… The cessation of kamma… The path of practice for the cessation of kamma should be known.’ Thus it has been said, and in reference to this was it said.[/quote]
Yes, correct, I am declining to accept the third claim about when the result of kamma arises. But I do not think I am redefining kamma. The passage you have presented goes well beyond giving a definition of kamma. It also makes several non-definitional, substantive claims about some of the conditions under which the results of kamma arise. I am still accepting the standard definition of kamma, but not accepting that specific further AN claim about one of the conditions under which kamma arises.
For comparison, I assume there are at least some Buddhists who do not believe in literal brahma realms. The Buddha apparently did believe in such realms, and thus he believed that some of the results of kamma arise, for some beings, in brahma realms. But it seems to me that one can perfectly well follow the Buddha’s path without following him in those beliefs about Brahma realms.
This implies that the physical senses come first and the content in the mind is only the result of sensory contact. But doesn’t this contradict the Dhamma where the Buddha says that all phenomena are preceded by the mind ?
From a materialistic or a rational viewpoint, the empirical data conveyed by the senses is the only source of knowledge using which we can reason, judge etc. But the Dhamma places the mind first. I think this is what yoniso manasikāra is all about. Radical attention that is basically a reversal of the conventional way of looking at the world.
The Buddha knew of such realms in the sense that he saw them for himself. He didn’t believe in them in the sense that you believe in the non-existence of them. See my post to daverupa about metaphysics for more information and a sutta that makes this clear.
