Provocative "Tricycle" article on "The New Tradition of Early Buddhism"

The Watercooler
62

Just an aside here - but I’ve never even considered renunciation in this way, so this statement was quite surprising to read and got me thinking - hence this response :slight_smile:

I have always thought of restraint as being of the senses (all 6), to use wisdom in conditioning contact and where to pay Right Attention. ie part of the conditions that lead to beneficial states (4 Right Efforts), not about moral rules (like commandments). The kammic consequences of actions, speech and thought, are tied to states of consciousness, and not reward and punishment… ie very different to a ‘Christian’ sensibility or perspective . I think keeping a Christian moral framework severely undercuts the core of the teachings… how can D.O. be relevant in that case > and no wonder that rebirth is erased in many secular teachings…

Without rebirth though, the benefits and emancipation of the path are tiny by comparison. IN that case it is no wonder that motivation (and Samvega) to embrace the Practice with everything one has got (“like your head is on fire”), is so low…

The less the first Noble Truth is understood the less the impetus to practice fully, and herein lies the rub, The First Noble truth can be perceived by some as negative and unpleasant, upsetting and challenging, but without it, everything else is also compromised. The Buddhas position is that this is simply a statement of indisputable fact (A Noble Truth), not a negative spin on the world…

So the teachings are about how to become liberated from the cycle of Samsara, not about how to view Samsara as really ok (if only you know how to tweak a few things internally and fix things externally). It is this, that I see as a real tension all the time… Knowing people have to live this life, and not wanting them to get depressed and to despair. It is a challenge how to point attention in the ‘right’ way, to see both the problem AND the escape.

7 Likes
63

Thanks so much Sean, these are very satisfying answers!

Unintended, I assure you. And to be sure, this is a challenge for everyone, and I think there is no morality that exists that is up to the challenge.

Indeed, good point. The thing here is that apparently individual world-renunciation has a massive flow-on effect (the Buddha himself being a case in point.)

Indeed, at this point it’s the only thing that matters.

Indeed, yes.

This would be a really interesting topic to explore.

5 Likes
64

This is just an excellent discussion, and the more recent posts from Viveka, Florian, Sean, and Bhante really are the start of what I hope is a great, further renunciation discussion here. Renunciation seems to me such an important practice and psychological framework, such that its effect extends from personal mindfulness that can set the stage for deeper meditation, to a larger context wherein bigger picture concerns like the explosion of consumer debt, overconsumption, carbon emissions, or territorial disputes can be addressed. It seems to me that the practice of nekkhamma is an important psychological tool, the same way that dana and karuna are also psychological devices whereby we mitigate dukkha, and cultivate the capacity for practices that benefit us both individually as well as society collectively. This “massive flow-on effect” (per Bhante’s comment) that the Buddha exemplified is what, to my mind, makes the Early Buddhist path the most important and necessary path for the 21st century.

In other words, in a country “with shitty healthcare and no safety net. What is renunciation to us?” we are experiencing the rise of authoritarianism, heavy and angry splitting of our political discussions, violence, and a lack of capacity for problem solving. In my view, the psychology of renunciation brings people together; instead of hating and competing with each other, we set the table at least for the capacity to sanely focus on common solutions, vs. othering each other, and furthering the violence and the rise of dangerous authoritarian politics.

5 Likes
65

This. This is the best summation of American progressive culture I have ever seen. Certainly some food for thought

4 Likes
67

I’ve noticed an apathy and often distaste for renunciation in modern dhamma circles among lay people alot. I think people have really limited the idea of renunciation to this ideal of a monk in a lofty palace like monastery ignoring the cries of the world.

This isn’t accurate, it’s not accurate in the same way that the Thai National Sangha insists that monks cannot be involved in protests is inaccurate. I am tempted as I write this to blame the west for certain…behaviours that have happened, and in part it is to blame. But the problem is larger than that.

We, for some several years now, are in an abusive relationship with our own species. It is the longest and saddest one in history, and it has generated a system which encourages institutional abuse and exploitation.

I believe the reason why current society seeks to pervert and distort mindfulness so much is because when the transformative work of buddhism (and any genuine religion really) is working it sort of encourages similar conclusions to the unhealthiness of say…working ten years in an amazon warehouse until your body is falling apart. Or the issue of being a CEO of an emerald mine in Africa. It’s dangerous.

Renunciation is no different. We hear about renunciation, we imagine a monk in a lofty palace monastery. Or secluded from the world in a forest, happily living their life and ignoring the cries of humans around them. But the suttas show us that real renunciation does not work this way.

Renunciation, both monastic and lay/personal, is a seclusion away from the abusive relationship we are trapped in with our own species. The system we are trapped in only works so long as we continue to function inside of it. If we were to realize on whole that it does not exist, it would fall apart.

If the system needs us in order to keep functioning, is it any wonder why we keep being told renouncing this world doesn’t work?

3 Likes
68

I want to highlight this a bit, and also bring up the fact that the EBTs we have were compiled by a certain group, mainly older male monastics. Their voices are generally way more prominent than the voices of women, younger folks, laypersons and people who are on the edge of the Buddhist community (new Buddhists, people who are interested in Buddhism but not really Buddhists, heretics like Devadatta and others, etc). So even though we know some of the ways that the early sangha was diverse because of the textual evidence we have, there is also just a lot we don’t know about this diversity because what was important to these less influential persons was just not passed on or canonized. In other cases, this stuff may have survived, but in “later” texts like the Jatakas (which are often de-emphasized in EBT or modernist Buddhist discourse).

Archeology may help somewhat here but not much. If we look at some early Buddhist archeological sites, we see tons of very worldly and even sensual imagery. Women and deities with large breasts and big hips for example, something which would seem to be anathema to the strict ascetic spirit of the monastic elders. So even though its easy to criticize some modern forms of Buddhism for not being “Buddhist” enough by pointing to the canonical Buddhist sources, we need to remember that these sources are themselves biased in certain ways.

I think this all gets to a further issue I have with some of the EBT discourse - the idea that what is in an “EBT” is what the Buddha himself said. I think that we need to step back a bit from this idea. Sure, EBTs probably contain much of what was taught by the Buddha, but these texts were not composed by the Buddha with pen in hand. They were composed by monks over generations, perhaps around a core set of doctrinal teachings that were taught by the Buddha (and probably in a different language). I think that having this kind of critical distance will free us from the kind of fundamentalist or protestant attitude that sometimes exists in certain religions, mainly that it is The Text which is the ultimate source of authority and truth. I’m not accusing anyone here of that, but I’ve certainly seen it in other quarters. Perhaps its just strong habit that Anglo-Saxon protestant cultures fall into.

8 Likes
69

Hi @Danamitra & others, thanks so much for an engaging convo. The thing I am emphasizing about the practice of renunciation, in response to Ven. Sujato’s question, is around meaningful material renunciation in a culture where there are few options for social movement for most people. You’re right that it’s a common misperception that renunciation is synonymous with the monastic vocation, and maybe I implied that a bit in my response above. So I want to flesh it out a little bit here.

I like that you’re emphasizing renunciation as seclusion from a certain kind of abusive relationship, particularly in relation to an unhealthy culture. What I’m thinking about here is what that seclusion actually looks like in practice. In American culture, a lot of people are trapped, economically, and don’t have a lot of room to disengage with the abusive system. Renunciation while still remaining a layperson demands that I have some wiggle room in my household economy to stop participating in some aspects of culture that I find harmful. What are those, exactly?

Most practitioners I know try to do this disengagement—renouncing unwholesome media, or buying only used clothes, etc. But unless one is free from substantial obligations like parenting, debt, or elder care, these renunciations don’t change one’s day to day lifestyle that much. I think a lot of folks project a kind of hedonistic delusion on American convert practitioners, implying that because American culture generally is one of excess and waste, folks are indulging in lives of excess individually.

I actually think Buddhism has been a wholesome influence on American culture in this way (and/or it’s converts self-select and were already drawn toward material simplicity). In every Buddhist community I know, both convert and heritage (and those classifications aren’t definitive), I don’t see a lot of excessive indulgence. And as I implied above, most people I know are working to middle class, with a lot of obligations, and not much room to maneuver toward simpler lifestyles. So any time we suggest that radical disengagement with an abusive system is morally superior, we marginalize people who are prevented from radical disengagement by their very real obligations, and I think that’s most people. To actually help people leave abusive relationships, they need safe places to go.

That should be monasteries, traditionally, but a huge lack here in American Buddhism is the presence of monasticism even as an option for most people. In the suttas, we see rich people either renouncing wealth and going forth, or becoming lay supporters. What do poor people do? They go forth, or take refuge and keep doing their obligations (and we don’t hear much about them, because the suttas favor the stories of monastics and wealthy laypeople). But I don’t know of any guidance for the poor layperson around renunciation except monasticism. So what happens when it’s not easy to go forth?

I suggest that the absence of a viable “monastic option” in a culture is one of the places modern Buddhism is failing to help American culture (or is being prevented by conditions from doing more). I think one of the most profound things that Buddhism has that can help us adapt and respond is the radically communal lifestyle of the monastic saṅgha. It’s a safe house from the abusive relationship. But if it’s not visible or viable in a culture, it can’t perform this function. One of the side-effects, then, of the globalized lay Buddhist meditation movements of the 20th century is the marginalization of the monastic vocation from the awareness of practitioners.

Once monasticism isn’t available as a refuge from poverty or the middle-class grind, renunciation for lay followers becomes just a psychological orientation: “letting go of anxiety about imperfection,” as a common quote puts it. In my youth I did a lot of disengagement from the abusive system, and it served me well, but I could only do that from within the rare privileged position of the lay Dharma bum—no money, no obligations, good health, good education, and lots of free time.

To loop this back to the OP around @Bernat’s excellent article, this (renunciation and vocation) is a place where there certainly is cognitive dissonance between lay people drawing on the EBTs for inspiration but not practicing in line with them. I don’t think we’ve reckoned as a lineage yet on the deeper implications of the intensive lay practitioner as a life path, and how it plays out in terms of the survival of the monastic saṅgha or lay people’s liberation journey itself.

8 Likes
71

Hi Sean,

I agree. I started by turning up at our local Thai monastery, seeing happy people, and sticking around. Having a long-term relationship with both monastic and lay practitioners there has been extremely valuable to me. It’s important role modelling, and it’s essential to know that monastics are just people, with strengths, weaknesses, senses of humour, and so on…

My New Zealand lay friends who have not had much contact with monastics have an uncomfortable relationship to the whole idea. On the one hand, they are enthusiastic about a small number of famous monastics (Bhikkhu Analayo being the latest), but they don’t have any inclination to seek out someone local, and tend to be quite negative about the whole idea of renunciation, perhaps because they have not seen a variety of quite normal, happy monastics that they can relate to.

4 Likes
72

Well this thread has morphed into a really rich and wide-ranging discussion of important topics that are both tangentially-related to Bernat’s original article and perhaps deserving of new threads of their own.

I’m really appreciating the discussion of renunciation in particular. I would love to see a discussion of what model(s) for serious, dedicated lay practice and lay teachers might or might not past muster with the many monastics who frequent these forums.

Like Sean I hold monastics in the highest regard, but I also have so much appreciation for and gratitude to lay teachers who have strong sīla and live lives of great simplicity in order to put Dhamma practice and service first. Aside from Sean himself I think about teachers like Shaila Catherine, Joseph Goldstein, Gil Fronsdal and Larry Rosenburg, just to name a few off the top of my head, who model renunciation and dedication to practice in a way that is if anything more inspiring to me personally because as a fellow lay practitioner they keep me from using the “well they’re monks so of course their practice is stronger” excuse. And they have immediate, first-hand knowledge of how to apply the Dhamma to challenges like earning a living, sex and family relationships that aren’t live issues anymore for monastics.

There’s no model for how to survive financially in, say, California while meditating 2-5 hours a day, studying the suttas, teaching and going on long retreat oneself whenever possible while trying to fund the whole thing from dāna - yet I can think of any number of teachers who are trying to do just that, and without a trust fund or wealthy benefactors I don’t see how it works.

I’m also under the impression that Ajahn Brahm and perhaps other monastics take a dim view of laypeople accepting dāna altogether, since by definition their sīla can’t compare with those who keep the full range of monastic precepts. But such objections, it seems to me, don’t fully take into account the system of dāna support for monastics in Asian culture, in which laypeople “make merit” by providing the means for others to practice full-time, while hoping that their good kamma paves the way for their own Dhamma practice in a future lifetime. That’s not only delaying one’s own practice but also fundamentally a transactional approach to dāna (not to say that it isn’t intermingled with much authentic generosity and letting go). So it would seem that there are no pure or perfect models.

Sean says:

“One of the side-effects, then, of the globalized lay Buddhist meditation movements of the 20th century is the marginalization of the monastic vocation from the awareness of practitioners.”

So what he’s talking about is, in Erik Braun’s phrase, the “meditation en masse” movements started by Ledi Sayadaw and spread worldwide by Mahasi Sayadaw, U Ba Khin and their heirs. The whole idea of the 9 day intensive “boot camp” meditation retreat as well as dry insight practices and even the idea that laypeople (and monastics for that matter, if we’re being honest) ought to actually do some meditation started with them. And so did the focus on having a better life here-and-now rather than practicing to put and end to rebirth by reaching nibbana. A typical Goenka 9 day retreat is every bit as secular as an IMS one or an MBSR course.

Now the founders of Insight Meditation Society did their best to bring that already highly-secularized Burmese model back to the West in a still-drier way that didn’t compromise when it came to intensity of meditation practice. But is that “marginalization” of the monastic model or usurpation of its most salient and liberating practices by lay practitioners?

I’m thinking here of Bhante Dhammika’s (in)famous book “Broken Buddha” in which he says (I’m paraphrasing from memory) that the fact that there wasn’t a meditation manual of any note written between the Visduddhimagga in the 5th century and Mahasi’s “Manual of Insight” in the 21st tells you all you need to know about the level of actual meditation practice in the Theravāda tradition. Braun’s “The Birth of Insight” makes it abundantly clear that it was the threat of the extinction of Buddhism due to colonial forces that motivated Ledi Sayadaw to figure out a way to get Burmese monastics and laypeople to meditate, and that without it the monks might well have continued to spend their time elsewhere as they had for centuries.

Fast-forward to today and we have a tiny number of monastics, a large and vibrant Western insight meditation community whose teachers effectively compete with monastics for dāna and teaching authority in the public’s mind, and no clear path to sustaining either monastics or dedicated lay teachers.

In that context time spent splitting hairs about Theravāda vs. Early Buddhist rebranding kind of seems…unwise?

4 Likes
73

What exactly do you mean by “highly-secularized Burmese model”?

Take Mahasi Sayadaw, he often ended his discourses with the wish that the people in the audience would attain Nibbana soon. I would say, one of the key characteristics of the Mahasi sasana is the stern focus on entering the stream. Mahasi Sayadaw also did not offer 9 day courses. If you had a week, your practiced a week. If you had a year, you practiced a year and teachings were offered according to personal progress - including jhana practices. He starts his Manual of Insight with: “May virtuous people who practice as instructed in this book attain path, fruition, and nibbāna in this very life. Thus have I composed this manual on the practice of insight meditation.”

Mahasi Sayadaw did not play around. What is your understanding of secularized in this context?

1 Like
74

Thanks for your thoughtful comments Florian.

I certainly had Goenka-ji in mind more than Mahasi Sayadaw when I used the term “secularized” but I still think the characterization applies , albeit to a much lesser degree than either Goenka’s or the approaches of many of the post popular Western insight meditation teachers.

David Chapman has a useful summary of some of the key history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Theravadā meditation revivalists (see link below). Regarding Mahasi Sayadaw he says:

"Mahasi made several innovations. The most important was skipping samatha and the development of the jhanas (concentration states) and going directly to vipassana. He thought that samatha would take care of itself, if you practice vipassana correctly. The jhanas are not ends in themselves, so bypassing samatha is a practical shortcut.

Mahasi taught that one should aim directly for sotapatti, a first taste of nirvana. Experiencing sotapatti guarantees you cannot be reborn other than as a human or in heaven, and no more than seven more times. He said that sotapatti could reached by newcomers in a month.

Mahasi aimed his teaching particularly at lay people, rather than monks. He imported from the West the “meditation center” idea (not a traditional Asian institution). He eliminated ritual and minimized textual study."

Theravada Reinvents Meditation

So yes: single-minded focus on stream entry - but using techniques inspired by the Visuddhimagga that were created in response to the pressures of colonialism. It’s a pressure-cooker approach to meditation that clearly has been of great value to many people - while also being quite far removed from sutta-based approaches to practice.

Ven. Sujato goes into all of this in great detail in his book “A History of Mindfulness.”

75

Hi Kevin,

this I feel is getting too off-topic, so I keep it short. It seems, Chapman does not know what he is talking about. Regarding Mahasi Sayadaw and jhana I put a few quotes together here and here.

If you are a lay person with no previous meditation practice and limited time, yes, you usually skip samatha. But that’s only half the story.

His meditation teacher the Mula Mingun Sayadaw first established a meditation center in 1918. And there is a distinction to be made between meditation monks, who only spend time meditating, and “normal” students in the Mahasi sasana. Besides their meditation center they have a school that teaches textual study of “Mahasi thought”, suttas, commentaries and so on. Mahasi himself was not only the chief questioner at the sixth council, but also one of the main editors of the tipitaka and commentaries.

And I would argue, that a single-minded focus on stream-entry is the opposite of secularized, isn’t it?

1 Like
76

Thanks for pointing these things out, Florian. Perhaps another source of confusion is that if people just read introductory instructions distilled from Sayadaw Mahasi and other Burmese teachers, all they see is meditation instructions. However, it is important to remember that these instructions were for people who are already familiar with the Dhamma, so there is a lot of background information that is “taken as read”. And even if you examine the introduction to the most basic instructions from Mahasi Sayadaw (e.g. Practical Insight Meditation), it is far from secular:

The old masters of Buddhist tradition suggest that you entrust yourself to the Enlightened One, the Buddha, during the training period, for you may be alarmed if it happens that your own state of mind produces unwholesome or frightening visions during contemplation. Also place yourself under the guidance of your meditation instructor, for then, he can talk to you frankly about your work in contemplation and give you the guidance he thinks necessary. These are the advantages of placing trust in the Enlightened One, the Buddha, and practising under the guidance of your instructor. The aim of this practice and its greatest benefit is release from greed, hatred and delusion, which are the roots of all evil and suffering. …

2 Likes
77

Interesting conversations unfolding in this thread.

I resonate a lot with @SeanOakes reflections summarised in his last remark:

I couldn’t agree more. I think there’s a few of us feeling this way, but not enough proactivity around this. What should a lay practitioner do if they want a level of dedication resembling that of monks? Many would be happy to join a sort of secular monastery, a lay Buddhist community, I would — but there are very few, and starting one must be very hard work and a financial challenge. Some practitioners spend time jumping from monastery to monastery or join a retreat center as resident staff for a year or two.

As a collateral benefit from the pandemic, I spent three months at Amaravati, UK. With the monastery closed to the general public (and therefore much quieter than usual) and their amazing library, it was absolutely wonderful. The only reason I didn’t stay longer is that in the end doing the work of a lay resident plus continuing to work on my thesis full time was a bit much. But that was an exceptional situation. Other than that, the closest thing I know to what I was describing above is a young vajrayana community I’m friends with and where I have spent short periods several times, but that tradition has a strong history of serious lay yogin(i)s and a place for that status in between monasticism and laity.

Any knowledge on places like what I’m describing is very welcome - I’m aware there’s a related thread in the forum.

6 Likes
78

When I read @KevinK’s use of “secularized,” I wonder if the word “laicized” might be more useful, and respond to some of the points you’re making here. What Ledi Sayadaw and the Vipassanā Movement did, including later teachers like Mahasi and U Ba Khin, and continuing with contemporary ones like U Tejaniya, is craft a form of liberation-oriented (rather than merit-oriented) lay practice. These monks don’t spend a lot of time encouraging lay people to ordain, and they’re known for their meditation teaching rather than their developing of a thriving monastic saṅgha, though many of them did lead monasteries. Thus the birth of the “meditation center.”

So the birth of the modern lay movement is initiated by Burmese monastics trying to preserve serious Dharma practice (and not just meditation, but also study) in the face of colonialism. It’s an interesting contrast to the Thai Forest system, which wasn’t primarily oriented around resisting colonial destruction (though it had to resist capitalist destruction, which is a similar demon), and which retained an emphasis on monasticism.

@KevinK, I think it can be profitably read both ways. One of the things that’s most revealing in this conversation is the way that usurpation of liberating practices from monastics by laypeople is unfolding in the direction of the “life-affirming” approach @Bernat describes, even though through an EBT lens that would be a contradiction. In hindsight, we might see that this was a likely fruit of the lay meditation movement—despite the efforts of Mahasi and others to embed the meditation teachings in right view, it’s entirely possible for people to go deep in meditation without their fundamental worldview changing. Maybe that’s a useful gloss of “secular”: rejecting right view as described in the suttas, but still finding benefit in practices descended from them.

1 Like
79

Hi Sean,

The observation about this being a likely fruit is interesting, but I’m not so clear that this is the result when embedded in a Buddhist culture. There is a core group of Thai people (almost all female) at my local Monastery who do serious meditation practice, but whose practice is strongly grounded in sila and merit.

1 Like
81

I find the discussion interesting but it also reveals an ‘idealism’ in the sense that we often seem to assume that we have a choice between a life-affirming and a life-reluctant approach. What we see in the suttas is a spiritual landscape where life-reluctance was basically the dominant spiritual discourse of the professionals. They just debated the ‘how’. In comparison, the immigrating Brahmins seem to be naive in pursuing an immortal existence as a deity or in brahmaloka.

Today the dominant discourse is life-affirming. Life-reluctuance is so far out there that it’s enormously difficult to ‘explain’ it to people - it comes off as weird or depressing. The dominant discourse is a challenge even for the inspired monastic.

We can lament that contemporary lay practitioners don’t live up to the spirit of the suttas, but I think this is inevitable, and that the bigger question is: what are the conditions for even remotely approximating the natural spiritual environment in which the fundamental tenets of Buddhism were crafted. In other words: how can we today develop a worldview in which karma, rebirth, and liberation are the natural background in which our thoughts and practices are embedded? I think this is very difficult to achieve and requires isolated communities who emancipate their internal and external discourse from the insinuations of the public realm.

7 Likes
82

Good one. Yes, I do mean wholesomeness in a modern American context—I was speaking about contemporary progressive culture there. But sex for laypeople has always been kusala when undertaken ethically within the appropriate cultural bounds—we wouldn’t have parents and children as the east and spouses as the west (DN31) if sex for laypeople were categorically unwholesome, and we wouldn’t have the variant of the 3rd precept for householders, kāmesu micchācāra, which only prohibits sexual misconduct, not sex itself. But you’re absolutely right that the suttas are pretty sex-negative overall. This changing is very much part of the world-affirming turn Bernat is writing about.

1 Like
83

This is a good observation. I see the same at the Asian monasteries where I’ve practiced, like Chammyay Yeiktha in Burma, where there was a strong lay contingent, mostly women, similarly grounded. So I should be clear that I’m talking about this in the context of European-lineage worldviews. What if it turns out that although the Burmese Sayadaws who initiated the lay meditation movement included view in their transmission, and their 1st generation students (like the founders of IMS) tried to transmit it, but that view wasn’t able to survive two generations in diaspora. So now we have a generation of lay teachers whose deep worldview is more shaped by European scientific humanism than Buddhism. I think we see this throughout the movement in the West now.

6 Likes
84

My scattered thoughts on this subject, in note form:

  • I’ve been dabbling a bit in Vajrayana/Dzogchen lately, despite my initial reluctance due to all the scandals I’ve heard about it (not to mention my love for more EBT stuff). Well, I must admit that they’ve really got their sales pitch down, especially for laypeople and women. Also, they seem more willing to include a lot of magical/mystical elements (like deity devotion) than most Buddhists I’ve seen in the west….it’s just much more interesting and colorful than what you are going to get at an Insight center. So I dunno, maybe Tibetan really is here to stay as the dominant stream of Buddhism in the USA. I don’t think I would have come to that conclusion a year or two ago.
  • When I first started getting into the Nikayas, I was surprised by how different the Buddha’s teachings for lay people were compared to what he said to monks. He doesn’t really seem to encourage austerity at all, but rather spending wisely on pleasure, family, and charity. SN 3.19 in particular stood out for me. Even Anagamis like Citta were often business people, even if they were celibate. And I don’t recall reading anything about lay people going on long retreats… am I missing something, here?
  • As for Goenka — while I’m not much of a fan personally, I must admit that they do a great job at attracting young people. Surely they’ve got a future.
  • Zen and non-Goenka insight (like Spirit Rock stuff) seem very Boomery and are aging out.
  • I don’t see how belief in karma and rebirth are necessarily conducive to renunciation. There are lots of spiritual/New Age types who are fine being reincarnated over and over again to gain new experiences (or to help Consciousness “know itself,” or whatever) and don’t seem especially bothered by the idea of spending another Aeon or two (or three, or four….) exploring the cosmos again and again. I believed in reincarnation before I read any EBTs, and had no good sense of any sort of “end goal” or “escape from samsara.”
4 Likes