Ñāṇavīra on vipāka

[REddison]

I have a question for the half dozen or so Ñāṇavīra fans on this forum. I’m seeking the source and the precise wording of two half-remembered statements by him.

The first is to the effect that it’s much more difficult to believe in kamma and vipāka than in rebirth. Or it might be the other way round: it’s much easier to believe in rebirth than in kamma and vipāka.

The second is to the effect that the conception of a cosmos that is godless and yet nonetheless moral (as presupposed by the doctrine of kamma and vipāka) is quite alien to the West.

Do these ring any bells?

[Dogen]

@REddison

I have a question for the half dozen or so Ñāṇavīra fans on this forum.

Can I answer as a mere dilettante?

@REddison

The first is to the effect that it’s much more difficult to believe in kamma and vipāka than in rebirth. Or it might be the other way round: it’s much easier to believe in rebirth than in kamma and vipāka.

This is in “Seeking the Path”, Commonplace Book-9: Kamma vipāka is harder to accept than Rebirth.
Seeking the path _ early writings (1950-1960) & marginalia – Ñānavīra Thera – 2022 – Path Press Publications – 9789460900037 – 167d106cebd30af16f4adc3e25a87010 – Anna’s Archive.epub (3.2 MB)

@REddison

The second is to the effect that the conception of a cosmos that is godless and yet nonetheless moral (as presupposed by the doctrine of kamma and vipāka) is quite alien to the West.

It’s in “Clearing the Path”:

ctp_screen-view_v1.pdf

Page 303 (317 in PDF), end of the first paragraph: “The idea of a moral but Godless universe is quite foreign to European thought.”

[REddison]

@Dogen

Can I answer as a mere dilettante?

Yeah, dilettantes will do fine.

Thank you very much.

[Dogen]

@REddison

Yeah, dilettantes will do fine.

You’re much welcome!

[Sphairos]

Off topic here, but regarding your No. 2, see this in this talk about the Stoics and early Buddhists:

[Westbury08]

whats the context of godless here? meaning that brahma doesn’t exist? that would suppose that the whole of the cosmic order doesn’t exist.

If in fact there is Brahma, there is an abode he abodes in. That is the result of punna, sila, and samadhi. what is the point of bhavana instead of just bashing one’s head against our own thinking mind 24/7 if it were the case that brahma doesn’t exist?

[REddison]

@Westbury08

whats the context of godless here? meaning that brahma doesn’t exist? that would suppose that the whole of the cosmic order doesn’t exist.

I take Ñāṇavīra to be referring to the absence of a theistic deity in the Buddhist world view: a god who’s the creator and governor of the universe, the judge of his creatures’ actions and the assigner of rewards and punishments based on these.

As an affirmer of mundane right view, Ñāṇavīra wasn’t sceptical with regard to the the various classes of devas and brahmās depicted in the suttas, and so his use of “godless” shouldn’t be taken as denying the existence of these.