Bhante Sujato has often vigorously opposed the view that kamma is responsible for everything that happens to people. But he seems to be fighting uphill against a massively heavy army of conservative tradition and cultural resistance that doesn’t want to hear it.
There is a strong need in many people to believe that everything that happens in the world doesn’t just have a cause, but also has a moral reason. In the Christian tradition, such thinking leads to theodicy: theories of God’s plan that strive to make moral and providential sense out of everything. Buddhists have their kamma theories which strive to do the same.
But sometimes the complex causal patterns of nature just come together to produce suffering. There is no purpose, no justice, no reason, no balance in it. It just happens. Ship + sailor + ocean + storm yields anguish, drowning and death. No purpose, no invisible hand of kammic retribution. It just happens.
The Buddha taught a path of liberation from the painful travails of this purposeless world of jostling causal conditions that we can neither fully understand nor control.
It seems to me there are at least these three responses to the experience of violence and aggression at the hands of others:
“That bastard. I’m going to get him, and do to him what he did to me.”
“There is no point in adding the painful toxin of my own anger and hatred to the toxicity of the anger and hatred that have already come my way. Hatred is not defeated by hatred.”
“I deserve this somehow.”
It seems to me that the second response is the most skillful. The first grasps the burning sword of dosa and wields it outward. The second grasps the same burning sword and points it inward. Only the second lets it go.
Focusing on one perspective may not be the best long-term strategy, but on a case-by-case basis, as we get to know someone, we can begin to offer others.
It is a fine line, I think, between acknowledging that a practitioner has concerns regarding their perspective on rebirth and kamma, and reinforcing a mindset that views abuse as unavoidable and deserved. Hopefully, when we respond to that person, we are keeping that in mind.
Those are 3 views, but there are many, many more than that. If it were simple for people to discern what was the best view and which is healthiest, there would be much less suffering in the world. Therapists would be out of a job and Sutta central would be as big as Facebook.
Probably a less provocative and more open question where nuanced views could be aired. Who knows, we might find that one-lifers and multi-lifers have more common ground than this thread leads us to believe.
I’m going to assume from the silence that the EBT’s say nothing specifically directed to validating fears.
IMO the ethics of right speech may be implicated.
I assume the problem with validating fears has to do with a judgement that the validation is incorrect or misleading.
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Regarding the Reflecting on Rebirth: An Understanding That Can Go Beyond Faith and Theory thread. I shared a critical view based on my experience about rebirth and it was welcomed. I did so in the spirit of sn36.21; of what “one can know for oneself”.
Yes, ultimately the issue comes down to what is actually true, and what isn’t. And given that certainty about what is true is rarely attainable, we are then led to the question, “What is actually probable, and what isn’t?”
Another issue is how much of a “faith pass” should be granted to the propagation of extraordinary beliefs, when they can produce pain. If a child came to her parent and said, “I can’t sleep! There is a monster under my bed!”, I doubt most of us would think very highly of the parent who said, “You’e right. There is a monster under your bed. So pray very hard because other wise he might drag you down to hell.”
Is that parent’s case strengthened if they say, “Well, this is our faith. It is our religion that there are demon monsters under everyone’s bed?”
EBTs (ie the Buddha), says from his experience of the world, that it is valid that somethings should be feared and that even if you don’t have direct experience of them, belief in them is still very valuable. When the tiger is ready to pounce- the correct response includes fear. It motivates action. In this situation it motivates practice and is therefore valuable.
Whether you accept rebirth or not is up to you. If you don’t, you just continue to practice. It is counterproductive to try to force yourself to believe in something you don’t believe in.
Those who experience rebirth for themselves find it awe-inspiring, fearful, if not life changing. It is a constant reminder in the back of one’s mind, that there is only one problem, and only one solution - the noble eightfold path.
From another perspective, it gives those people who want to enjoy life many opportunities to do so- it also provides many chances for the ardent Buddhist practitioner to escape the cycle of rebirth, if they cannot become enlightened in one lifetime. I suppose in that sense, it is much better than annihilation after one lifetime.
I entirely agree. This is a better way of discussing the issue which could involve the suttas, or our own experience-based understanding of kamma/rebirth.
“There are five things, Bhāradvāja, that may turn out in two different ways here and now. What five? Faith, approval, oral tradition, reasoned cogitation, and reflective acceptance of a view. These five things may turn out in two different ways here and now. Now something may be fully accepted out of faith, yet it may be empty, hollow, and false; but something else may not be fully accepted out of faith, yet it may be factual, true, and unmistaken. Again, something may be fully approved of…well transmitted…well cogitated…well reflected upon, yet it may be empty, hollow, and false; but something else may not be well reflected upon, yet it may be factual, true, and unmistaken. Under these conditions it is not proper for a wise man who preserves truth to come to the definite conclusion: ‘Only this is true, anything else is wrong.’”
“But, Master Gotama, in what way is there the preservation of truth? How does one preserve truth? We ask Master Gotama about the preservation of truth.”
“If a person has faith, Bhāradvāja, he preserves truth when he says: ‘My faith is thus’; but he does not yet come to the definite conclusion: ‘Only this is true, anything else is wrong.’ In this way, Bhāradvāja, there is the preservation of truth; in this way he preserves truth; in this way we describe the preservation of truth. But as yet there is no discovery of truth.
“If a person approves of something…if he receives an oral tradition…if he reaches a conclusion based on reasoned cogitation…if he gains a reflective acceptance of a view, he preserves truth when he says: ‘My reflective acceptance of a view is thus’; but he does not yet come to the definite conclusion: ‘Only this is true, anything else is wrong.’ In this way too, Bhāradvāja, there is the preservation of truth; in this way he preserves truth; in this way we describe the preservation of truth. But as yet there is no discovery of truth.”
Is it too much to ask that people try to think for themselves about important moral issues, and don’t turn every question into a subject dueling text-proofing from the EBTs? In order to know that it is bad and hurtful to walk up to someone and punch them in the face, one doesn’t need to find an EBT text in which the Buddha says, “Monks, there is the case where a bhikkhu walks up to someone and punches him in the face. This should not be done by that bhikkhu.”
On as forum dedicated to the EBTs is seems pretty reasonable to refer to the EBTs. Furthermore, on a forum where the commitment to maintaining a friendly atmosphere as been continuously emphasised, it is reasonable to insist that users are do not go round verbally punch people in the face, and show some basic manners.
If you’ve really that much contempt for the forum and everyone on it, might I suggest you keep you sarky snipes to yourself and wander off back to the forum retirement you spectacularly announced but a few months ago.
You better watch out, because I heard there’s a really tough gang of metta practitioners on this forum. They’ve been known to suffuse a guy or two - especially rebirth deniers - with a mind of loving-kindness, and then dwelling having suffused the whole world with a mind of loving kindness that is far-reaching, widespread, immeasurable, without enmity, without malevolence.
So because a few people are contemptuous of those who reject rebirth, that gives you the go ahead to act in the same way? That is an excuse that belongs on the children’s playground.
It’s exactly these sort of vitriolic, really venomous, broad generalizations that are so repulsive. You’re really good at writing these venomous diatribes, but it’s not a good skill to have and one you’d be better off not continuing to improve with paragraphs like the above. You admit that you’re averse to how other people use their minds, so why make that aversion stronger by giving words to them and airing them publicly?
No one else on this forum who has problems with rebirth goes to these rhetorical lengths to disparage others who believe in it. Doug Smith (dougsmith) sets a good example of how to skillfully have doubts about rebirth without disparaging others. You’d do well taking a page from his book.
@aminah that’s not fair. I wrote the OP for this thread and asked that people share what they think. What they think. I don’t want the thread hijacked into another discussion of textual exegesis, of which there is surely no shortage at Sutta Central. I’m sorry if I was curt, but have been treated the same way when my participation in a thread was found not to be on the topic the thread creator had indicated.
What you are calling a friendly atmosphere is only friendly for some. For others, the atmosphere is a pervasive culture of psychological intimidation and exclusion, where skeptically-minded people are routinely cowed into silence and submission by the voices of authority and orthodoxy, and where only some attitudes about what is true or false in Buddhist texts, culture and tradition are valued.
I gather at least some of the people here seem to appreciate the questions I have raised, and my willingness to critically challenge some orthodox outlooks. It is never going to be exactly pleasant when challenging questions are raised, and where people are asked to think critically about their current religious beliefs. And frankly, most people don’t have the stomach to deal with the predictable angry blowback that comes from outraged doctrinal conservatives whenever their psychological red lines are crossed. So the conservatives are empowered to hold sway, and the dissenters retreat into submissive lurking.
I made a mistake in retreating and retiring before, because I got too easily frightened off when some people began attacking and digging into the financial reports of a bunch of good and nice people I know.
There are two separate issues here: 1) mode of expression 2) ideological content (for want of a better phrase). The friendliness I am interested in very strictly only concerns the first point, and excuse my frankness but in my opinion you have been dishing out a continuous flow of rudeness (although, I want to be quick to note, not only that - you’ve made many beautiful contributions, too) since you rejoined.
I think there’s a lots of space for your views to be accommodated and appreciated here. I myself have expressed directly to you that I’ve all the time for receiving your views while disagreeing with them (and I think others have, too). I have no time, however, for your many, many low-grade unkindnesses.
The saddest thing about it, is that you don’t seem remotely willing to consider the fact that you might play even a teeny-tiny role in the dissatisfaction you find in discussion here, or inclined to consider that dropping thinly (or not at all) veiled scorn might be more conducive to rich, mature intellectual exploration; or that suspending the caricaturisation (or downright misrepresentation) of people’s views so they fit some gross, binary narrative for the purpose of railing against might free up the airspace for a better quality of conversation that better serves your own interests.
I’m truly sorry you don’t feel this is a friendly environment for you at the moment and very much hope this changes. The only thing I can think to recommend is that giving up the hostility and may lead to this place being less hostile for you.
I had to read the paragraph by @DKervick twice before I started to understand why one might describe them as vitriolic, really venomous, broad generalizations that are so repulsive.
For (1) I would recommend a rewrite to
I confess I respond with strong aversion to all forms of cultishness: I get triggered when I judge that people …
This shifts the emphasis of the inference to the person doing the judging/making the inference. Thus putting the emphasis on the thinking of the person who is trying to think for him/her self.
And yet in either form the sentences seems to me to express motherhood-and-apple-pie (to use an US expression) ideals; to say that it’s not good to “surrender our intellects and capacity for independent critical judgment over to authority figures in order to win the approval of a teacher or a master”.
On it’s own I’m thinking that you wouldn’t have a strong reaction to [1]. Yes? No?
…
For (2) I removed one phrase. I’m wondering how you find (2) now?
In broad terms I agree with where I think you were trying to go with your comments.
However, the sentence above seems to me to illustrate one pattern of communication you rightly want to avoid.
Developing the skill of clean, productive communication takes a considerable amount of practice. It’s a lot easier if done with supportive friends. Which, in addition to learning more about the EBT’s, is one of my goals here.
Just as you say it is a skill to develop, I’ve always been very happy to be open about my great fallibility and great distance from perfecting good speech. It is a training and we can but try our best.
