Eternalism: rebirth vs reincarnation & individuality vs Self

Dhabba · June 15, 2024, 4:49pm

Hello Venerable,
with all due respect you chose to respond to my very first post where I tried to explain why I take the middle way when it comes to anicca, dukkha & anatta and avoid all extreme views - I was just writing down some thoughts on the topic and you happened to respond.

Please read the first post again carefully:

What is dukkha?

I will have a go at anicca, dukkha & anatta.

I don’t know if anyone will agree but this is my way of dealing with it by sticking to the middle way and avoiding extreme views.

There is no pain or sorrow whatsoever in the rupa/arupa loka planes beyond kama loka, but these will eventually come to an end.

And it is this impermanence that makes them dukkha.

But the actual experience while it lasts has no dukkha whatsoever, they are exclusively pleasant.

That is why disciples of The Buddha can remain the entire lifespan of such a plane of existence (millions of years) and then extinguish, unlike others in these planes who die and take rebirth:

”The lifespan of the gods of Brahma’s Host is one eon. An ordinary person stays there until the lifespan of those gods is spent, then they go to hell or the animal realm or the ghost realm. But a disciple of the Buddha stays there until the lifespan of those gods is spent, then they’re extinguished in that very life. This is the difference between a learned noble disciple and an unlearned ordinary person, that is, when there is a place of rebirth.”

”The lifespan of the gods replete with glory is four eons. An ordinary person stays there until the lifespan of those gods is spent, then they go to hell or the animal realm or the ghost realm. But a disciple of the Buddha stays there until the lifespan of those gods is spent, then they’re extinguished in that very life. This is the difference between a learned noble disciple and an unlearned ordinary person, that is, when there is a place of rebirth.”

It is the end (impermanence) of a such experience that makes it dukkha, not the actual experience itself.

And since death leads to rebirth one has to apply not-self to the experience since one is now in a different body and probably will not even remember these past experiences, unless one meditates.

To claim ”there is no self at all” is an extreme view that does not take into account that each and every past life experience is distinct to each other with their own characteristics and experiences, that all had a certain duration.

Yet at the same time all these past, current and future lives are all connected.

There is an actual being right now in the Tusita heaven that will take rebirth later on and become the new Buddha.

So the ”there is only the selfless khandhas”-view is too extreme for me.

It is only a shallow attempt for explaining why

”everything is dukkha”, but it has no depth to it and is not the middle way.

Surely distinctions between beings still has to be made?

”There is mother and father” = right view.

”My parents are actually only selfless khandhas, just like everyone else in existence” = extreme view.

The Buddha says we can hardly repay our parents for all they’ve done for us.

This extreme view also downplays the reality of good and evil:

Seeing all as ”selfless khandhas” still doesn’t say if it is a fool or wise person.

So even if one says there is ”only the selfless khandhas” distinctions between ”good and evil”, ”mother and father” ”the future Buddha” and so on, still has to be made.

How are these distinctions even made by ”the selfless khandhas” in the first place?

Can someone please explain?

One would think and hope it is the self-doer, as found in

”Attakārī Sutta: The Self-Doer (AN 6.38), that makes these distinctions.

Is the act of spreading metta all over the world dukkha?

How is this even painful, stressful or unsatisfactory?

Is there a self-doer spreading metta to other self-doers or is it the ”selfless khandhas” spreading metta to other ”selfless khandhas”?

Or maybe self-doers to selfless khandhas or vice versa?

I’m really curious to know.

Maybe better to also study ”Reverse Dependent Origination” and more importantly to stick to the middle way:

“Mister Gotama, does all exist?”

“‘All exists’: this is one extreme, brahmin.”

“Then does all not exist?”

“‘All does not exist’: this is the second extreme.

Avoiding these two extremes, the Realized One teaches by the middle way

Is the ”there is only selfless khandhas” really the middle way?

Isn’t it better say:

There is mother and father, there is good and evil and most importantly there is a self-doer.

There are distinct previous existences, all different to each other, that one can say belong to this ”very same self-doer”.

So no wonder Sāti the fisherman had the view he had about future lives, if it wasn’t for Dependent Origination everyone would come to the same conclusion just as Sāti did.

There is a duration when it comes to all conditioned things, this duration can make it seem permanent.

I get it, the reason there even is a ”only selfless khandhas”-view is because ’all feelings etc. are dukkha”.

but please keep the following in mind then:

Even if the wanderer Potaliputta and Venerable Samiddhi disagreed with eachother regarding actions (MN 136).

They both agreed on the following as something The Buddha actually taught:

“Reverend Samiddhi, I have heard and learned this in the presence of the ascetic Gotama: ‘Deeds by way of body and speech are done in vain. Only mental deeds are real.’ And: ‘There is such an attainment where the one who enters it does not feel anything at all.’”

“Don’t say that, Reverend Potaliputta, don’t say that! Don’t misrepresent the Buddha, for misrepresentation of the Buddha is not good. And the Buddha would not say this. But, reverend, there is such an attainment where the one who enters it does not feel anything at all.”

And this attainment where the one who enters it does not feel anything at all is of course Nibbāna:

“Reverends, extinguishment is bliss! Extinguishment is bliss!”

When he said this, Venerable Udāyī said to him, “But Reverend Sāriputta, what’s blissful about it, since nothing is felt?”

“The fact that nothing is felt is precisely what’s blissful about it.

And to top it off so it makes even more sense:

”It’s possible that wanderers of other religions might say, ‘The ascetic Gotama spoke of the cessation of perception and feeling, and he includes it in happiness. What’s up with that?’

When wanderers of other religions say this, you should say to them, ‘Reverends, when the Buddha describes what’s included in happiness, he’s not just referring to pleasant feeling. <——————

The Realized One describes pleasure as included in happiness wherever it is found, and in whatever context.’”

That is why ”Extinguishment is bliss”.

Compared to the goal of the practice (that attainment where nothing is felt) all the planes of existence and the khandhas engagement in these planes are regarded as dukkha, even the 100% blissful ones.

Otherwise one would be content with any of these and not strive further.

And only in that very context can one say ”all is dukkha”.

But ”all is dukkha” is not being said in this context at all by those who take the extreme view of ”there is no self at all”, ”the selfless khandhas”.

Rather this view is only projected on everything and everyone in existence as it was somehow very evident and obvious.

When it is in fact not very evident at all.

It is really quite natural that some meditators come to such conclusions as found in DN 1 and as even Sāti did in MN 38.

Remember that these various views from non-buddhists in DN 1 are not from some kind of speculation on their part, but from actual experiences they have had via meditation of recollecting their past lives in different planes of existence.

And Dependent Origination is also a very deep teaching and not so simple as some might have it:

”Then Venerable Ānanda went up to the Buddha, bowed, sat down to one side, and said to him, “It’s incredible, sir, it’s amazing, in that this dependent origination is deep and appears deep, yet to me it seems as plain as can be.”

“Don’t say that, Ānanda, don’t say that! This dependent origination is deep and appears deep. It is because of not understanding and not penetrating this teaching that this population has become tangled like string, knotted like a ball of thread, and matted like rushes and reeds, and it doesn’t escape the places of loss, the bad places, the underworld, transmigration.”

So that is why I choose to view anicca, dukkha & anatta from this middle way perspective and avoid all extremes.

So despite all that is mentioned in this very first post and all that is mentioned in the other posts where I responded to you regarding dukkha, rebirth, kamma, past lives (mentioning both The Buddha’s and Maha Moggallana’s past lives), impermanence in rupa/arupa loka (something only a Buddha points out), the views of partial-eternalists/eternalists and of course DO and Reverse Dependent Origination, Nibbāna & Self where I refute all the various extreme views by quoting from the suttas - you still respond in such ways as to attributing to me extreme views which I clearly do not have.

This makes it very difficult to discuss these things with you, because you also never respond to any of my questions.

Instead you attribute those very same extreme views that I am refuting, as if I have these extreme views.

Here you are clearly missing my point, impermanence is not so evident given the context of my arguements in the initial post above.

Spreading metta is of course not dukkha, this is your extreme view - not mine.

That is why I wrote in the post above:

So you claiming spreading metta is in fact dukkha is a very extreme view that I clearly do not have.
Yet you still write: ”since you already accepted that impermanence means dukkha, so too the metta spreading is dukkha due to it being impermanent”

I totally disagree with your extreme view that since spreading metta is impermanent is automatically dukkha.

Please study Reverse Dependent Origination and please understand that I also mentioned duration in my first post as a factor as to why one can’t have the extreme view of ”all is dukkha’

There is a duration when it comes to all conditioned things, this duration can make it seem permanent.

Metta corresponds to the brahma realms, not even brahma himself knew that this plane of existence is impermanent.

Yet by taking the extreme view of how ”all is impermanent” and not the middle way you choose to conclude that spreading metta is dukkha…

And despite this and numerous other things I wrote in later posts you still attribute in this last reply of yours in this discussion the following view to me:

???

How could you even come to the conclusion that I have such a extreme view that I deny individuality when I not only mentioned the self-doer, as found in
”Attakārī Sutta: The Self-Doer (AN 6.38) in my very first post but also reject the extreme view of ”there is no self at all” and ”there is only the selfless khandhas”?

Venerable, you yourself wrote:

And I responded to this:

The point here is that what you happen to call Individuality is the what eternalists call Self.

You then try to make it seem like the Self of eternalists and partial-eternalists is somehow different to what you call Individuality - exactly the same thing.

Venerable, how could it seem that I deny rebirth when it was I who posted about the previous lives of both The Buddha and Maha Moggallana?

When it was I who posted how Sāti the fisherman viewed future rebirths, and it was I who posted the view of rebirth among partial-eternalists and eternslists?

This is what I mean, you attribute very strange and extreme views to me that I clearly do not have at all.

Remember, I am not the one with the extreme views regarding anicca, dukkha and anatta - I take the persective of the middle way.

What you happen to call Individuality is what the eternalists call Self.

Yet you still claim:

How exactly?

If you study the views of partial-eternalists and eternalists you see that they even have neutral feelings regarding the suffering that death and rebirth brings them.

And despite death and rebirth and sorrow they say:

And though these beings roam and wander (through the round of existence), pass away and re-arise, yet the self and the world remain the same just like eternity itself.

This is not any different to what you happen to call Individuality.

What I mean by that is the following, and please read carefully:

That which you call Individuality is also stuck in Samsara, forced to take rebirth after rebirth and has had countless past lives in this wandering with no beginning.

This wandering will not end for the Individuality, because it doesn’t know any escape from this wandering and instead concludes that this Individuality is eternal and even has neutral feelings to rebirth, old age, and death, and all the sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress that is experienced in this wandering.

From all this above it is ought to be very clear why they believe in a soul.

Only a Buddha, out of the countless billions of beings in the universe, teaches Dependent Origination. My point in the very first post I made was that without DO one can understand why Sāti the fisherman and the partial-eternalists and eternalists came to such conclusion as they did:

Exactly! It is a logical conclusion from the suttas that beings have infinite past life chains - I never denied this. I just pointed out that what you call Individuality is what the partial-eternalists and eternalists happen to call Self.

Now when The Buddha refutes the views of eternalists he does it with:

Having understood as they really are the origin and the passing away of feelings, their satisfaction, their unsatisfactoriness, and the escape from them, the Tathāgata, bhikkhus, is emancipated through non-clinging.

And that is exactly why I wrote:

And as we know thanks to DO: with feeling as a condition, craving comes to be.

And that is why I mentioned that both the wanderer Potaliputta and Venerable Samiddhi agreed: ‘There is such an attainment where the one who enters it does not feel anything at all.’” + ”But, reverend, there is such an attainment where the one who enters it does not feel anything at all.”

“Reverends, extinguishment is bliss! Extinguishment is bliss!”

When he said this, Venerable Udāyī said to him, “But Reverend Sāriputta, what’s blissful about it, since nothing is felt?”

“The fact that nothing is felt is precisely what’s blissful about it.

‘Reverends, when the Buddha describes what’s included in happiness, he’s not just referring to pleasant feeling.
The Realized One describes pleasure as included in happiness wherever it is found, and in whatever context.’”

It only thanks to that attainment where the one who enters it does not feel anything at all, that one can finally say that there will be no more continued existence.

No Venerable, I don’t think that you are an eternalist. I know very well that you are a ”mere cessationist” despite that extreme view of overreaching being refuted in the suttas:

I also have no clue if you actually have neutral feelings for the concept of individual streams of consciousness, having infinite past life chain.

What I do know is that ”mere cessationists” have many extreme views and never take the middle way and due to this:

have extreme views regarding dukkha where even spreading metta is considered dukkha.
extreme views where they deny a self or individuality in all possible ways and say ”there is no self at all” despite there clearly being a self-doer Attakārīsutta AN 6.38
“This is how he attends unwisely: ‘Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what did I become in the past? Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future? Having been what, what shall I become in the future?’ Or else he is inwardly perplexed about the present thus: ‘Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where will it go?’ - “When he attends unwisely in this way the view ‘no self exists for me’ arises in him as true and established.”

So no wonder there is a extreme view of that attainment where the one who enters it does not feel anything at all (Nibbāna) as well: ”there is only ”mere cessation””.

But when asking, in which plane of existence is AN 10.6 & AN 10.7 taking place?
Mere cessationists can’t answer and never will.

And even if The Buddha hints at there being light.

“Where water and earth,

fire and air find no footing:

there no star does shine,

nor does the sun shed its light;

there the moon glows not,

yet no darkness is found. <———————

This is also denied, because that doesn’t go well with the view of ”mere cessation”.

A very elborate explanation.

This is how I read the same text in a very simple way:

WHERE there is no water and earth,
fire and air, THERE no light from stars, sun or moon.
Yet no darkness is found THERE.