Take it or leave it!

Not really; ask e.g. Sujato about Right View, or the First Truth, and he will point out the presence of the samsara-rebirth idea inherent in those two, throughout the EBT - an idea that is not apparent here & now the way “this sucks” and “this doesn’t suck anymore” can be.

Someone can consider the Truths to apply here and now, as promised, and this can be enough to motivate a Buddh-esque practice of some kind. Suffering that is apparent, suffering-cessation that is apparent: these are not beliefs.

But rebirth, post-death kamma: these are beliefs, and they’re also what makes Buddhism a religion, a belief system. (The sociological aspect of this religion is the fourfold Sangha.)

We could argue until we are blue in the face regarding which aspects of the Buddha’s teaching are apparent here & now. Different dust in different eyes I guess? My conditioning and my recollections will certainly not be the same as yours.

I think some require “I’m confident enough to try it out”, but some others require “I believe it the way Xians believe in Heaven”. But I’m not trying to argue, I’m actually very confused about your seeing these as equally apparent here & now.

To the one having them, even hallucinations are apparent here & now, but that’s not quite the same sort of thing either… Xianity’s Heaven is apparent here & now in the same way that past-lives are, if we aren’t careful with what this means.

Faith and experience are intertwined in the dhamma. One leads to the other; faith becomes trust; what was held in faith, can become experience. This is not a doctrine to just learn and then keep aside or to just keep ‘believing’. There is a flow to the process:

"Monks, I do not say that the attainment of gnosis is all at once. Rather, the attainment of gnosis is after gradual training, gradual action, gradual practice. And how is there the attainment of gnosis after gradual training, gradual action, gradual practice? There is the case where, when conviction has arisen, one visits [a teacher]. Having visited, one grows close. Having grown close, one lends ear. Having lent ear, one hears the Dhamma. Having heard the Dhamma, one remembers it. Remembering, one penetrates the meaning of the teachings. Penetrating the meaning, one comes to an agreement through pondering the teachings. There being an agreement through pondering the teachings, desire arises. When desire has arisen, one is willing. When one is willing, one contemplates. Having contemplated, one makes an exertion. Having made an exertion, one realizes with the body the ultimate truth and, having penetrated it with discernment, sees it.

With adequate practice all these factors in N8FP etc start manifesting themselves in the practitioner- they become lived experience. You may or may not see past lives, but that is secondary to the task, if you will, of removing ignorance, craving and aversion, as that takes care of the rebirth issue automatically anyway. Having said that I find that having faith in rebirth gives an added dimension to motivate practice now and then, as it is not the easiest path to the top- a bit like having some energy drink to sip on while climbing the mountain!

with metta

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I guess not all Christians believe in heaven in the same way. Some Christians don’t believe in heaven at all and some Christians know heaven and union with God directly, although I might argue that this is an initial interpretation of an experience, rather than a more mature reading.

I guess that ‘recollection’ of past lives, the process of karma by which rebirth happens, and different states of existence, may all be hallucinations, and a lot of people suggest that engaging in meditation is a cause for these sorts of hallucinations. Many Christians for example would call what the Buddha saw just prior to enlightenment ‘hallucinations’, or if they are feeling charitable they might call them ‘visions’.

For me, I think that the meditative process increases clarity rather than decreasing it, and a natural outcome of the meditative process is direct experience into a broader sense of both joy and suffering than is sensed without it. But I am quite bias towards meditation.

This argument applies to everyone’s mystical/meditative experiences. After you observe how DN 1 describes people using these sorts of things to build up all kinds of unhelpful ideas, vacillating around in their ideas due to feelings, please tell me why Buddhist versions are held to a different standard.

Or, all y’all can simply admit to the presence of Xian levels of faith in core & essential aspects of Buddhism, and we can all move on without pseudo-empiricism hiding the fact of it.

I would say that there is no Christian standard and no Buddhist standard. I would say that there are various levels of maturity in the explanation of these meditative experiences.

Just like in science you might have a Newton explanation of gravity and a Einstein explanation of gravity. Einstein would be understood as the more mature of the two explanations.

How we move from a less mature interpretation to a more mature one is through repeated exposure to, and investigation of those experiences.

I am not one to think that the Buddha’s interpretation of these experiences is the last word on the subject, but from personal experience I do see a greater maturity and evolution in understanding. Just like Newton and Einstein.

I say all of this as a Christian, with no offence intended towards any Buddhists here.