What transmigrates from life to life?

Q & A
21

Fortunately, no.
As the Buddha taught, when greed, anger, and ignorance cease, rebirth ceases, and so there is no further rebirth or coming into any form of conditions after the final death of an arahant.
No conditions = no dukkha.

SN43.12
And what is the unconditioned?
Katamañca, bhikkhave, asaṅkhataṁ?
The ending of greed, hate, and delusion.
Yo, bhikkhave, rāgakkhayo dosakkhayo mohakkhayo—
This is called the unconditioned.
idaṁ vuccati, bhikkhave, asaṅkhataṁ.

Here asaṅkhataṁ is a synonym for nibbāna.
Also see Iti44.

:folded_hands:

22

Is there a sutta for this? My read of AN 10.95 is that the Buddha left this as an undeclared question to be answered not categorically but analytically.

23

What is your answer as to “who” transmigrates according to the suttas?

24

I’ll reread DN 15 but…what then is the answer to what “transforms” from life to life? You say it’s “conditions/processes,” but what are those conditions/processes called in the Nikayas?

25

But then the question is transmigration of what?

26

I’m glad you ask. It depends on which sutta we pick, for example for Mn144, the answer would be someone who takes up another body.

Where has he been reborn in his next life?
“Sāriputta, didn’t the mendicant Channa declare his blamelessness to you personally?”
…

When someone lays down this body and takes up another body, I call them ‘blameworthy’. But the mendicant Channa did no such thing.

For MN7, the answer for who does not transmigrate would be someone who understands the following and whose heart is freed from three asavas. The reverse answer for who transmigrates would be someone who does not understand the following and whose heart is not freed from three asavas.

They understand: ‘There is this, there is what is worse than this, there is what is better than this, and there is an escape beyond the scope of perception.’

Knowing and seeing like this, their citta is freed from the kāmāsavāpi, bhavāsavāpi, avijjāsavāpi. When they’re freed, they know they’re freed. They understand: ‘Rebirth is ended, the spiritual journey (brahma-cariyaṁ) has been completed, what had to be done has been done, there is nothing further for this place.’
This is called a mendicant who is bathed with the inner bathing.”

27

Indeed that is a good reply, if there was no who, then you’d need to be able to answer what.

My reply to @Adutiya would be:

  • That first, I don’t understand why people draw out the conclusion of there being no who. How did you come to this conclusion? Was it taught to you that way or did you come to it on your own?
  • Because suttas teach to not see “who”, mine, etc in form, feeling, perception, sankhara, vinnana.
    They do not teach there is noone, rather the opposite.
  • And even thou one is not to see the five aggregates as oneself or as theirs, suttas teach that one is still responsible for what they will do with them. It’s as if the five aggregates one has are not theirs but borrowed. And with borrowed things, one is not to do as they please but got to act responsibly.
28

This question is best understood by contemplating a single lifetime to begin with, before extending that understanding to past and future lives.

This is how I do it.

The infant becomes the child who becomes the teenager who becomes a young adult and finally.. Here "I’’ am!

I look at the photograph of the teenager and say “Well, that was me.” :grin:

Why?

The body, feeling tones, perceptions, volitional thoughts and consciousness I have today are not the same as those of that teenager. Let that sink in. The aggregates do not remain the same even from morning to night, let alone year to year (SN 12.62).

But I don’t feel or think that I change!

I think I am this present body and I think that I was that past body… I think “though the body may have changed, but its still mine”… I identify the changing bodily processual phenomena as a unitary Thing that has Form as an intrinsic quality. This is sakkayaditthi. And craving is the seamstress (AN 6.61).

Its like looking at a rainbow or a whirlpool or a flame and thinking that it has a form that is everlasting (nicca)… that is enjoyable (sukkha).. that can be possessed for all eternity or destroyed forever… (atta).

The basis for this is the craving and attachment that I have to be.. to exist. I find various grounds to base that existence on…one or the other of the 5 aggregates. And I delight in that experience. I never look at how I came to be.. instead I insist unwisely that I am this, I was that, I will be that (MN 2)… when pressed for proof I might point at my experience of the senses (vedana and sanna), or memory (sanna and sankhara) or thoughts and awareness (sankhara and vinnana)… etc.

This “I am” is processual too (AN 3.32).. its just a process of “I and mine making” occurring because of craving and ignorance.

I cannot conceive what I would be without these aggregates. So even if I do not think that I am these aggregates, I still hold to that whiff of something that I must be (SN 22.89)… this is the conceit of Self.

And so now it might be said that “I” am this process.. this mindstream.. this volition and intention.. kamma.

You see, I am still holding on. And that holding on is the very reason that these dependently originated processes continue. And these processes are the reason that the I and mine making keeps recurring… its an infinite loop!

There is an escape though. And the Buddha found it (SN 22.27).

One needs to see the Suffering in all this, to understand that this suffering has craving for existence at its heart, to let go of that craving and experience the cessation of Suffering by developing the 8 fold path… these are the 4 noble truths.

Then one can travel down the path of Disillusionment, Dispassion, Cessation, Peace, Insight, Awakening and Extinguishment (SN 47.32, SN 12.23).

A person is like a flame burning with the support of fuel (SN 44.9). The final extinguishment is likened to a flame going out (MN 72). And “I” could be likened to the keeper of the eternal flame (SN 35.28)!

What is it that would be extinguished? Its what is being brought into being and passed on from moment to moment, day to day, year to year, life to life.

Well what is that?

Simply, Dukkha samudaya (SN 12.51, SN 12.66).

29

Conditions change and transform moment by moment, life to life.

If we ask what transforms as the weather changes, isn’t it just various combinations of conditions without a “what”?
There’s no inherent or fundamental “I”, “me”, “mine” or “what” in the weather and the same applies to all beings.

It’s all causes and conditions, which are dukkha. And which can cease with the complete ending of the processes/conditions that perpetuate life and rebirth – the cessation of greed, anger, and ignorance.

As in DN15, if there was no birth could there be death? No. So the condition(s) that are needed for birth “automatically” are conditions that will lead to death. But there is no essential “what” in this any more than there is a “what” in conditions of water, kettle, and heat, leading to the arising/transformation of boiling water.

But I wouldn’t get hung up on “transformation.” It was just a word I hoped might lead to less reification of these ever-changing processes.

30

It’s easier to start with one’s current existence and then extrapolate to rebirth. In other words, what carries on within a single life is not fundamentally different from what carries on across lives. What carries on is a stream of related phenomena: there is nothing that remains exactly the same, but there is also a relationship whereby later phenomena are related to earlier ones. It is this relationship that gives the sense of continuity, that differentiates one stream of consciousness or one being from another.

A way of visualising this is to consider a river. If you look at a river at a particular point, the water molecules that flow by are constantly changing. The overall shape of the river, however, stays more or less the same, and only changes with the seasons, depending on the amount of rain that feeds it. A being is similar. The phenomena that you are made up of, especially the mind, are constantly changing, but your personality is more sticky, and only changes gradually over the long run.

The difference between a single life and rebirth is just the degree of change. Rebirth means a particularly abrupt change in the five khandhas. This is because the nature of the five khandhas depends on the particular realm you are born into.

This whole process is sometimes described as the stream of consciousness. Or you might call it the stream of the mind. It is a process that is every-changing, both within a single life, but also across lifetimes.

31

Apologies but I’m confused. So is “what” transforms or “transmigrates” simply ignorance and everything on up within dependent origination?

32

But what is that “someone”? You mention “someone” a few times and that this “someone” transmigrates.

33

My question would be then… what are the causes and conditions called? Ignorance/dependent origination and its objects?

34

Excellent, thank you for the reply. That helps a lot :folded_hands:

So is the stream of consciousness you speak the same as this stream of consciousness (viññāṇasotaṃ in Pali I think) in DN 28? If so, I think that’s the only place in the EBTs this term is used, right?

Or do you speak of mindstream as in “citta-santāna” as discussed here? If so, citta-santāna appears to be a post-EBT term, right?

35

Again asking about what? When we speak of beings we use who. Thou by what beings can be classified and described you may see MN98 which describes taxonomy of living creatures, you may check it out for details.

“I shall explain to you,” said the Buddha,
“accurately and in sequence,
the taxonomy of living creatures,
for species are indeed diverse…

36

If it’s any help, the part you’re referring to in DN28:

"Going further, they examine a person’s bones with skin, flesh, and blood.
And they understand of a person that their stream of consciousness is consistent on both sides: established in both this world and the next.”

has notes from the translator, Venerable Sujato:

“This is a unique description of the process of rebirth. Consciousness is a “stream” in that it flows and moves, ever-changing, and is not a static self-same entity. To be “established” (patiṭṭhita) is to be attached because of craving. | The phrase “consistent on both sides” (ubhayato abbocchinnaṁ) is unique. Ubhayato is used of “both ends” of a pole Ja 533:37.4. I think the sense is that one’s consciousness is consistent with regards to this world and the next. If one is attached to this world, one will be attached to the next, and vice versa in the next section.”

37

Yes, that’s what I had in mind. You are right that it is a rare term, but it seems consistent with the broader outlook of the early Suttas.

38

The basis of rebirth are greed, aversion and delusion.

39

Thank you, Bhante. This is supremely helpful and timely for me.

It makes me think of gradually wearing in a pair of leather shoes. Every time I wear the shoes, they fit a bit differently.

Can’t take the analogy too far! But, for me, it captures the sense of how things “fit” from day to day, week, to week, etc. And that carries over. The “stuckness” one might experience in family systems tells me how the personality attachments perchance carry over.

:folded_hands:

40

Ven @Brahmali & @Jasudho have given wonderful explanations. The key is to move from thinking in terms of fixed Things such as ‘who’ or ‘what’ to thinking in terms of Process based impermanent Phenomena.

If you would like yet another, more experiential way to grok the concept of a bunch of codependent processes moving from one physical locus to another try the Siri experiment.