This goes against MN 28
Hi, Bhante,
You list Wendy Doniger On Buddhism (2014) in your works cited. I think you meant On Hinduism (Oxford UP, 2014).
Hi Venerable I really enjoyed reading this essay!
Something I’ve heard people respond with regards to this is something like “why should I care about my future lives, then, since it won’t be ‘me’”?
Is there a good response to someone who is open to rebirth, but doesn’t see the point of e.g. kamma, because in their next life they will be “someone else”?
My own response to this is usually something like that ignorance will make things feel personal in the future, because that’s what ignorance is doing right now in this moment. As long as the tendency for “I-making and mine-making” persists in the mind stream, it will feel personal.
This makes me wonder why – as a someone who has been immersed in a Theravada tradition for probably 10 years now – why I still know so little about the commentaries and what interpretations they have of the suttas.
I’m guessing it’s because most commentaries are not even translated to English - and they’re huge. SNP’s commentaries were something like 10-15x the size of SNP (tr. by Bhikkhu Bodhi).
PTS has some commentaries done, but nothing in the public domain yet afaik. And even they haven’t any of the big four nikayas, except those of a few select suttas.
Hi,
I won’t answer for Ven. Sunyo, but one response to this is simply there will be the ongoing experiencing of dukkha by a being.
Do we now wish to experience dukkha even though, according to the above assertion, we (probably) don’t recall who/what we were in past lives?
If not, and we’re practicing the Dhamma to become utterly free of all dukkha, then what does it matter, fundamentally, if we’re not a being strictly identical to the being of a former life?
Also, the question assumes an identity, an “I.”
But as the Buddha taught, “…you’ll have no doubt or uncertainty that what arises is just suffering arising, and what ceases is just suffering ceasing.”
"‘Dukkhameva uppajjamānaṁ uppajjati, dukkhaṁ nirujjhamānaṁ nirujjhatī’…
LOL! Yes, thanks @Stephen! Now corrected.
This is a good point. But the problem remains whether anta is best captured by “extreme” or some other word. The most direct translation of anta is “end”, which fits most contexts. I would submit that “two opposites” is equivalent to “two ends”. I agree with your comment on “extreme”, but I also think it may at times be misunderstood. There is less scope for misunderstanding with “opposites”, it seems to me.
Yes, @Dogen, all these suttas do NOT speak about the survival of the world.
The All, the world is always momentary arising and ceasing. The end of the world can be known in this very life in this very body says a sutta. And it is known as the end of suffering.
All these suttas express that our notion that we live in a given world, is our perception of nicca and our lack of understanding (or blindness) of how everything we see, hear, think etc. conditionally arises at the moment we see it, hear it etc.
We live in a karmic vision of the world. The All as we perceive it, is not the All that a deva perceives or hell being or animal. The All is a contructed reality, dependly arisen, and not a given one. Seeing this one does not resort to the world exist or the world does not exist.
The Right view that there is father and mother also means that one may never go to that extreme that one regards oneself or others as mere impersonal processes, i believe. I am convinced this is the reason why this view is part of the list of mundane right views.
One is always also a person, a son of someone, born from a mother, maybe a father of a child, husband, wife etc. This right views prevents we go to that extreme that we regard ourselves and others in a mere impersonal way. Dhamma demands of us that we do never alienate from conventional truth but join/integrate conventional and ultimate truth. If we start to have problems to see ourselves as also a unique persons we are only stuck in this impersonal view. This is not the Goal of the Path.
Also in the suttas we see a Buddha that has not lost all sense of being a unique person, with a history, acting in the world etc.
No, do not go to that extreme that one can only see impersonal processes.
It is also one of the many pitfalls on the Path.
Thinking “it won’t be me” in a next life is wrong view and a wrong understanding. It implies there is a ‘me’ in this one which persists for one life and is then annihilated for a new being to arise in the next.
“ Suppose that the person who does the deed experiences the result. Then for one who has existed since the beginning, suffering is made by oneself. This statement leans toward eternalism. Suppose that one person does the deed and another experiences the result. Then for one stricken by feeling, suffering is made by another. This statement leans toward annihilationism. Avoiding these two extremes, the Realized One teaches by the middle way: …”
SN 12.17
Even in this life, anattā implies that it will not be the same being or self going through time. The Buddha’s teachings are no different whether moment by moment or life after life. We care because despite there not being a solid self, there is still a stream of causality which we identify with, and because suffering is bad. So long as someone is unethical, they will also be trapped in self-identity by implication, so they will continue to identify with the choices and consequences even if intellectually they profess non-self.
Our self is not somebody else. We aren’t the same person as another being. But we should still treat them with kindness, respect and compassion. Just as compassion and non-self are compatible, morality and non-self are no different. Suffering is painful. And doing bad things is painful in the beginning, middle, and after.
Hello, Ajahn! Sending my respects to you, and hoping you are well.
Maybe ‘side’ could work in some contexts, as in two sides in a debate? Here is a potential translation of a later section in SN 12.15:
[Buddha:] “Kaccāna, one side says that the All will continue to exist.
The second side says that the All will no longer exist.
Without going to either of these sides, the Truthful One teaches a doctrine in between:
“Intentional activities are dependent on ignorance. …”
SN 12.15
The part on ‘sabba,’ which I assume Ven. @Sunyo plans on addressing in another essay, also makes more sense with this reading. That is one place where some people might say it means “everything” as in “all things,” although the Buddha quite clearly defines it as sense experience in various suttas.
But if we take into account the history and context of the word, it is like the idea that “after death there will be nothing,” vs. the idea that there is a kind of essence in things, i.e. a self, that will continue to exist.
Okay, so a final comment on your essay.
Do stream-enterers really know this? How then do you interpret the following sutta at AN 9.12:
There are these nine people who, dying with residue, are exempt from hell, the animal realm, and the ghost realm. They’re exempt from places of loss, bad places, the underworld. What nine?
There’s a person who has fulfilled ethics and immersion, but has limited wisdom. With the ending of the five lower fetters they’re extinguished between one life and the next. This is the first person …
Furthermore, there’s a person who has fulfilled ethics, but has limited immersion and wisdom. With the ending of three fetters, they have at most seven rebirths. They will transmigrate at most seven times among gods and humans and then make an end of suffering. This is the ninth person …
Up until now, Sāriputta, I have not felt the need to give this exposition of the teaching to the monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen. Why is that? For I didn’t want those who heard it to introduce negligence. However, I have spoken it in order to answer your question.
This would seem to mean that stream-enterers do not know exactly how long it will take for the final awakening to occur. They know that craving is the problem, and they also know that they still have craving. What they do not know is exactly how long it will take to eliminate it, nor that rebirth in the lower realms is impossible for them.
Bhante, I don’t understand why the quoted sutta should imply that Sotāpanna shouldn’t know these things?
Hi @Jasudho,
Not very satisfying because that is already the case even after the Teacher reached complete enlightenment. There are still trillions of beings having ongoing experiences of dukkha.
Thanks for pointing this out, but it is quite a long essay. I will try to find time to read it.
Hello Vaddha, I’ve often said this and agree, but it is my understanding - feel free to disabuse me - that one of the crucial points of the essay here is that the sutta in question should not be read as having to do with moment to moment existence. That the sutta is preoccupied with death as a special moment. Do I have that right?
Thank you for another essay, Bhante. These deep dives are great food for thought. I have no significant disagreement with your points.
As Venerable Vaddha mentioned, this idea is based on a wrong conception of a self. If not-self is too deep for the hypothetical interlocutor, I would suggest another approach based on goodwill and compassion. If they can agree that avoiding harming beings in this life is good and worth pursuing, they may be able to see that avoiding harm to this “future someone else” is similarly good and worth pursuing. In other words, it can be part of their development of goodwill and compassion. While this approach per se may not correct their self-view, every person has to start somewhere. They may be more open to not-self later.
I see it in much the same way as Ven. @Vaddha. What they need is a clearer understanding of nonself. I would suggest making a comparison to their present life. Would you do an evil act today because tomorrow you will be someone else? Obviously not, because, even though there is no self, you are not really someone else tomorrow. There is an all-important continuity. On top of this it certainly feels like you are carrying on. The same logic applies across lives.
Yes, I have too have considered “side” in the past, but I was not able to make it work in certain contexts. It is possible I didn’t try hard enough! In fact, “opposite” suffers from the same problem. It is hard to make it fit all contexts. This is no doubt part of the reasons why most translators have preferred “extreme”. However, I do think alternative renderings should be explored further. It is possible, with a bit of massaging, that either “side” or “extreme”, or both, can be made to work properly.
Well, the Buddha says he is concerned his disciples might become negligent, pamāda. The reason he says this is presumably his declaration that ariyas are safe from profound and prolonged suffering, which might make them relax their efforts, thus not achieving arahanship. The implication is that stream-enterers do not know this already. The Buddha probably wants as many arahants in the world as possible, because they are in the best position to carry the Dhamma forward, not least because of their impeccable conduct.
Hi Yeshe,
But the question was about an “I” asserting that it wouldn’t be the same “I” in another life. Quite personal.
And there is no “I” transmigrating in the first place, (MN38).
But a being, conventionally speaking, can only take care of their own awakening.
That’s why the Buddha said he could only teach but not accomplish this for others.
Also, as in AN10.95:
“…it’s not the Realized One’s concern whether the whole world is saved by this, or half, or a third. But the Realized One knows that whoever is saved from the world—whether in the past, the future, or the present—all have given up the five hindrances, corruptions of the heart that weaken wisdom.”
Thanks Venerable. Hmm… in Dutch the word is “overleven”, which I think means something more close to “stay alive” or more literally “beyond life”, not “not dying”.
I can say that ‘survival’ does of course have some other connotations as well, which did initially put me off from choosing it as a translation. But after getting used to it a bit more, it does seem a good alternative to ‘existence’.
Thanks Ceisiwr. I think it depends on how we interpret the words in context, instead of the words themselves. Isolated words never have an accurate or fixed meaning. For instance, “existence” and “nonexistence” too can be interpreted as either “(non)existence of an entity” or “(non)existence of mere processes”, depending. So it’s the context that gives the meaning. We need to think of my translations as “an entity survives” and “an entity doesn’t survive”. The rest of the Kaccanagotta sutta, and hopefully the essay, makes this clear.
You may also want to read some of the footnotes, particularly number 8. The Buddha used the terms atthi and natthi for right view as well, in particularly with reference to the six senses. This means these terms in themselves don’t imply an essence. The same would go for atthita and natthita (“existence” and “nonexistence”).
THanks dear AJahn. That’s what I meant indeed and I’ll clarify it.
Haha, that’s great! Because for many years I also wondered about “extreme” for anta and have used “sides” before in my private translations! “Opposite” is good too. I chose “extreme” for the sole reason to not divert too much from other translations in a single sentence.
To make it more familiar to the readers. But your feedback (and @stephen’s opinion) probably may make me change it. Although @Khemarato.bhikkhu has a good point as well.
I’ll read and reply to the rest of all your posts later. Thanks for all your interest!
Thanks Venerable. I had thought along some similar lines myself, although not in as much detail. It may be as you say, indeed. The meaning of “world” in both instances is different, but not completely different. “Most of the world” means most beings. And most beings think that beings will after death continue to exist forever or are annihilated.
I’ll see if I can find a good place to add something to this effect.
Ah! I think I wasn’t aware of that text. To me, it makes it more clear what the “world” refers to: “When rebirth exists old age and death come to be.’ They understand: ‘This is the origin of the world.’” Again, I’ll probably add it somehow.
I think you are both right about this. That’s why I stated that footnote as, “Some scholars explain …” What these scholars say is not fully in line with my own opinion. But I think it’s a reasonable and common enough interpretation to mention as a footnote. (Although I was thinking of omitting it altogether.)
My main gripe is in line with Ven. Vaddha: that in SN22.95, seeing that “external form” is without essence (sara) can’t mean knowing that all matter in the entire universe has no essence whatsoever. That’s simply outside the realm of empirical knowledge and can only be an intellectual idea. To know it has no self, though, that is empirically possible, because a self is always tied up with, well, oneself, with one’s own experience. To have insight into that, that is possible. So I actually think sara in this sutta indirectly implies a self as well, not just any kind of essence (like, say fundamental particles or quantum strings or what have you). The choice of this word, unique to this sutta in this context, is probably triggered by the similes more than by any metaphysical notions.
But what do you both think?
I think so too. I’ll need to go over the references again at some point.
But I’ve edited this one already. Thanks!
Could be! But people have suggested a lot of different possible interpretations of this obscure statement about the parents. I’m still inclined towards this one I shared a while ago.
We indeed have to be careful to not turn teachings into nonself into becoming completely impersonal emotionally. That’s a very good point. But because it’s a bit outside of the range of the discussion, I’ll leave it at this.
Thanks Ajahn,
I meant “a few lives” in the context of samsara, in light of their insight into the past. I don’t mean to say they know exactly how long. Indeed, they don’t know that. But they do know for a fact that their existence will end and that it can’t last long, comparatively speaking.
Even the limit of 7 future lives I think is knowledge unique to the Buddha, or else a way of saying “little lives”, with some special meaning of the number 7 just like the number 84.000 meaning “many”. So stream winners also don’t know this specific limit from personal knowledge. I think that sutta you quoted indirectly says as much.
But I do think they can see in their mind no karma that would lead to a lower realm.
I’ll make some changes in a future version to clarify what I meant. Thanks again Ajahn; all your feedback I will use, probably also about anta.
I would not call it a “special moment”, and I also don’t disagree with Ven. Vaddha. But I do think that atthita and natthita are specifically notions about what happens after death. This involves no self, is the idea.
However, moment-to-moment there also is no self, and stream winners know this as well. But crucially to Dependent Arising and the middle view of the Kaccanagotta Sutta, this knowledge also expands beyond this life. That’s the point I’m making here.