I understand the Buddha has given us a training to express our opinions as such and that is ‘safeguarding the truth’. We, of course, can choose to do this training or not.
SN 15 (among many other places) is full of suttas that are pretty hard to interpret as saying that birth is psychological in the Buddha’s teaching.
1 Like
Hi again Shaun,
no problem, it’s my pleasure, especially getting concrete (constructive) criticism/input from others, such as Dhammanando’s: Try jāti punappunaṃ, “birth again and again”.
How wonderful!
One of the contradictions I find in the whole rebirth and many lives theory is, at the same time proponents usually say we are to train in the idea of ‘this is not I, me or mine’, but the other lives are somehow ‘my’ lives, not as I have expressed ‘not mine but the lives of others’.
I accept that ‘not I, me, or mine’ is in the First Four Nikayas, but there seems to be another reading in other places or translation of the same sentence/phrase: ‘not I, me, myself’. I hope to do a study of this in the future. My initial impression is the first is adhammic and goes against what we actually see the Buddha and monks doing in the texts, saying ‘my robe and bowl…’ (I don’t accept the other popular theory of conventional and ultimate truth, only the Four Noble Truths).
1 Like
I said the First Four Nikayas. As I understand, the quotes you gave are in the fifth Nikaya.
Ah right, sorry. But anyways, these are ancient texts, so I don’t understand why would you exclude them.
yes, indeed seems hard for you to interpret those suttas in such a way and the fact seems to remain, they do not use the words jāti punapunam, or punajāti and we don’t seem to have clear evidence the Buddha used such terms.
For me the question is, which interpretation/view helps one end suffering in ‘this very life’. I give up the ones that don’t help me and if someone wants to convince me they will help me, I would have to ask them, have you seriously tried any other view? I have tried the traditional view and found it unsatisfying and ineffective.
Best wishes
But do we have a good understanding about the mechanism of gravity, for example? We have pretty good theories that describe how two different bodies influence each other but we don’t exactly know how it happens. Does something go across from one to the other?
I take an historical approach to studying Buddhist texts. Different people (or the same person at different times in their life) can take such an approach and draw the line at different points. The progression has been something like this for me:
- Only Pāli texts
- Only Sutta and Vinaya texts
- Not sub-commentaries or commentaries, including Abhidhamma which, I heard is placed with commentaries in the Mahayana
- Not the Fifth Nikaya
- the Four NIkayas in any language source
- not all of the Four Nikaya (some errant doctrine has probably been incorporated)
Its part of renunciation, for me.
best wishes
I wonder how many of those who hold the view of psychological-only-rebirth actually came to that view purely through their own thought process just from reading the Nikayas themselves, rather than coming across the view first in a modern monk’s teaching, such as Ajahn Buddhadasa or someone who got it from him and propagated it, and coming to accept it. I would guess the answer is very, very few or even none.
[quote]Staying at Savatthi. "Monks, there once was a time when the Dasarahas had a large drum called ‘Summoner.’ Whenever Summoner was split, the Dasarahas inserted another peg in it, until the time came when Summoner’s original wooden body had disappeared and only a conglomeration of pegs remained. [1]
"In the same way, in the course of the future there will be monks who won’t listen when discourses that are words of the Tathagata — deep, deep in their meaning, transcendent, connected with emptiness — are being recited. They won’t lend ear, won’t set their hearts on knowing them, won’t regard these teachings as worth grasping or mastering. But they will listen when discourses that are literary works — the works of poets, elegant in sound, elegant in rhetoric, the work of outsiders, words of disciples — are recited. They will lend ear and set their hearts on knowing them. They will regard these teachings as worth grasping & mastering.
"In this way the disappearance of the discourses that are words of the Tathagata — deep, deep in their meaning, transcendent, connected with emptiness — will come about.
“Thus you should train yourselves: ‘We will listen when discourses that are words of the Tathagata — deep, deep in their meaning, transcendent, connected with emptiness — are being recited. We will lend ear, will set our hearts on knowing them, will regard these teachings as worth grasping & mastering.’ That’s how you should train yourselves.”
Ani Sutta, SN 20.7[/quote]
2 Likes
fortunately I don’t hold the view of psychological-only-rebirth.
I don’t believe in any type of RE-brith, as RE-birth implies something from the previous birth can be identified with the subsequent birth.
I believe in many births for an individual (births of ego/the Five Clinging Aggregates, in this very life), but that is quite different, for me, to RE-birth. I know it can be quite hard to separate the two and the assumption could be made that in denying RE-birth, one denies multiple births, which, I think, are very clearly taught by the Buddha, e.g. in the first of the Tevijjā.
I agree with your estimation otherwise. I was one that came to psychological-only-rebirth via Bh. Buddhadāsa, but have now given that up.
1 Like
Thanks for your candor Bhante. And I respect that you came to that view yourself. It’s one I’ve never heard before and arguably makes more sense than psychological-only-rebirth. Though I agree with neither. 
Hi Brother-Joe,
With your view in mind; how do you view karma? My understanding is that karma can and does occur in one lifetime but is also something that is heavy influenced from past lives (which of course brings up the issue I always raise - ‘a self.’ Do you see karma to occur just in one single life time?
With Metta
My understanding is that karma can and does occur in one lifetime, but is also something that can be heavy influenced from past lives, just that I don’t consider any of those past lives to be mine. So this, to me, is about social or collective karma. Here in Australia, our living standard is quite good and that is due a lot to the hard work of past generations. What will be for future generations is up to our eradication of defilements and development of compassion and wisdom.
If we cut down all the trees, I believe that will cause a change in the environment to make drought and flooding more prevalent, with drought - dust storms and with flooding - landslides. So present and future generations would suffer.
1 Like
“How can there be no-self when there seems to be a self?”, probably in the same way the earth can be round even though looking around, the earth looks truly flat.
Or how looking at the sky, it truly looks like the sun is orbiting around the earth, and only by going through a lot of trouble can you prove otherwise.
I guess one key underlying assumption is whether one thinks one’s perceptions give a faithful account of things or not. In AN 4.49, the Buddha describes four “perversions of perception”, one of them being “‘Self’ with regard to not-self”.
Maybe it’s easier to think of the selfy feel of some phenomena as simply a biased perception, and not-self as just perceiving those same phenomena without self-colored glasses?
Personally, I think that might be a legit way to think about it, considering AN 4.49.
A way to think of memory without pointing towards “personal” is memory being just an account of events.
Just like a book on Roman history is an account of events, but we wouldn’t say that because it’s possible to record events and pass them around (in book form) this points to something personal.
We can even distinguish a book on Roman history from a book of Russian history, we could conclude definitively that they are not the same, and yet it doesn’t imbue the books with any essence beyond ‘not identical’-ness.
Thinking in this way, I don’t see a contradiction between not-self and remembering past lives, unless there is a flaw in my line of reasoning of course 
2 Likes
Hi Erik_ODonnell, I can see what you are saying. The problem is in practice and the way it is taught Buddhism is clearly making it personal and not an ‘account of events’. Hence we have the 14th Dalai Lama, your own personal karma to bring you to where you are now, and even the way many well-known Buddhist teachers speak about past lives and how your karma influences you… it’s very, very personal. Actually, sometimes I think Buddhism makes the idea of self much, much stronger than other religions. You are around for 100’s or 1000’s of lifetimes. Again re. the 14th Dalai Lama and your own ‘personal karma’.
That’s very sharp observation, friend! The old orthodoxies won’t like it at all 
I’m quite surprised by that answer of yours. Isn’t experience exactly the thing that gives you confidence in the path and practice?
Suttas say that the result of proper meditation is calming of the mind and great pleasure / joy among other things. If you start getting this, even in modest amounts - you know that you are on right path. If you practice for some time and don’t get any of this, it’s a sign: either the path is broken or you are doing something wrong and it’s time to try to practice differently. Which way you go is of course up to you. Many “cast doubt on this teaching” and become disinterested with Buddhism at that point, but we can’t do anything about this. And to accept the teaching blindly just because it was taught by Buddha? That’s argument by authority, I’m not interested in that.
No, not at all. Suffering is a problem in this life, especially that I don’t accept the rebirth, at least as described in the mainstream Buddhism. What @Brother_Joe described in this topic has much more sense, although I’m not sure to what extent it can be compatible with the suttas, I would have to investigate it.
Of course. He did advertise it as a way to end suffering in this life. And if that is possible, isn’t it a great news?
Sure we do have a good understanding of gravity. Firstly and most importantly, it is a fact of life, proven by countless experiments - in contrary to rebirth / reincarnation. There is not a single scientific experiment proving it’s existence. And for the details, yes - details of gravity are not yet 100% sure, but since it’s existence apart from being obvious is actually provable, I don’t need to understand it in detail. Since I have not seen a proof for rebirth I would like to at least know how it is supposed to work - and I haven’t seen a logically coherent description of how is that supposed to happen.
i can apply this argument to your case as well - doesn’t your success in being able to empirically ascertain veracity of one aspect of the Teaching give you enough reasons to trust in veracity of its other aspects?
i specifically emphasized the phrase in your post to show that it’s the person who’s at fault when something doesn’t work or seems false as long as there’re numerous statements to the contrary in the suttas, it’s not the suttas which is fishy, i.e. it’s not that rebirth is a fantasy, it’s that your faith in the Buddha and his Dhamma is deficient
i acknowledge limits to my cognitive and perceptual abilities and for things i can’t verify on my own i go by faith (following the rule of thumb indicated in the first sentence of my response), exactly as encouraged in the suttas
[quote=“tuvok, post:81, topic:5041”]
Suffering is a problem in this life, especially that I don’t accept the rebirth, at least as described in the mainstream Buddhism. What @Brother_Joe described in this topic has much more sense, although I’m not sure to what extent it can be compatible with the suttas, I would have to investigate it. [/quote]
Brother_Joe in his idiosyncratic interpretation of the Dhamma espouses quite heretical views in that they contradict and aren’t supported by the EBT
sure the EBT may misrepresent the Teaching of the historical Buddha, but they’re are the ONLY EARLY known source thereof and so it’s them and only them which a sincere Buddhist’s views and practice unavoidably must be true to
but why would you want to investigate the accuracy of Brother_Joe’s views against the suttas when your own views are in overt disagreement with them?
[quote=“tuvok, post:81, topic:5041”]
Of course. He did advertise it as a way to end suffering in this life. And if that is possible, isn’t it a great news?[/quote]
this sounds like a copout
he also advertised the doctrine of rebirth, whos news is just as great, isn’t it?
so provided you came to the Dhamma in order to alleviate or eradicate suffering and considering that you don’t believe in rebirth, your response still doesn’t give an answer why suicide isn’t a better way to escape suffering, because it can be done at any moment and is sure, as without rebirth this would be the ultimate end
1 Like