Why it is wise to believe in Rebirth

Discussion
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1) The person who believes in rebirth has nothing to lose, and everything to gain

Scenario A: There is factually no rebirth

  • Even though they were wrong, they gain nothing, they lose nothing. There is simply complete nothingness. (Some call this Nibbana)

Scenario B: There factually IS rebirth

  • Here they gain immensely. Since their views are in keeping with the true nature of reality, they are born again with Right View. Thus, they travel close to the road of enlightenment.

2) The person who does NOT believe in rebirth has nothing to gain, and everything to lose.

Scenario A: There is factually no rebirth

  • Although they were right, they gain nothing, they lose nothing. There is simply complete nothingness. (Nibbana?)

Scenario B: There factually IS rebirth

  • Here they lose in the gravest way possible. Since their views are not in keeping with the true nature of reality, they are born again with Wrong View. Thus, they travel for an unforeseeable series of lives clinging to ignorance. That is, until such time as they change their view.

The stakes are indescribably high. Choosing the one path, one can only win. Choosing the other path, one can only lose.

A wise person chooses the path of utmost safety.

MN 60 (https://suttacentral.net/en/mn601):

"“Since there actually is another world, one who holds the view ‘there is no other world’ has wrong view. Since there actually is another world, one who intends ‘there is no other world’ has wrong intention. Since there actually is another world, one who makes the statement ‘there is no other world’ has wrong speech. Since there actually is another world, one who says ‘there is no other world’ is opposed to those arahants who know the other world. Since there actually is another world, one who convinces another ‘there is no other world’ convinces him to accept an untrue Dhamma; and because he convinces another to accept an untrue Dhamma, he praises himself and disparages others. Thus any pure virtue that he formerly had is abandoned and corrupt conduct is substituted. And this wrong view, wrong intention, wrong speech, opposition to noble ones, convincing another to accept an untrue Dhamma, and self-praise and disparagement of others—these several evil unwholesome states thus come into being with wrong view as their condition.

A.iii “About this a wise man considers thus: ‘If there is no other world, then on the dissolution of the body this good person will have made himself safe enough. But if there is another world, then on the dissolution of the body, after death, he will reappear in a state of deprivation, in an unhappy destination, in perdition, even in hell. Now whether or not the word of those good recluses and brahmins is true, let me assume that there is no other world: still this good person is here and now censured by the wise as an immoral person, one of wrong view who holds the doctrine of nihilism. But on the other hand, if there is another world, then this good person has made an unlucky throw on both counts: since he is censured by the wise here and now, and since on the dissolution of the body, after death, he will reappear in a state of deprivation, in an unhappy destination, in perdition, even in hell. He has wrongly accepted and undertaken this incontrovertible teaching in such a way that it extends only to one side and excludes the wholesome alternative.’"

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Yeah but that’s ridiculous, you can’t trick yourself into believing something. I have no control over what I believe, either I do or I don’t. You can change your beliefs, but that’s not because you made the decision to, you just got more information or thought about it differently and now something else makes more sense to you, even if it’s taken on faith.

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This is a variation of Pascal’s Wager, recast into Buddhist form.

For centuries, cruel and highly authoritarian forms of Christianity bound up and terrorized the human heart, and they still do in some parts. People had convinced themselves that they lived in universe ruled by an authoritarian tyrant, one who demanded obedience. And they believed that the preeminent form of obedience this tyrant demanded was mental obedience - a conformity of one’s mind to The Doctrinal Truth. They believed horrible post-mortem tortures awaited one who could not get his belief system right, while paradisal post-mortem rewards were granted to those who could get their belief system right.

Of course, since belief is itself a conditioned phenomenon, constructed out of some combination of training, evidence and reasoning, and not something that simply answers to our wills, many people didn’t have the approved beliefs and were cognizant of their own internal doctrinal deviancy. This terrified them, since God supposedly knew everything. In addition to suffering from intense guilt and shame, people also suffered from the fear of divine wrath and devised all sorts techniques for mortifying their own minds, “for coercing and tormenting it”, to push their belief systems into the direction required by their imaginary totalitarian overlord, and by his not-at-all-imaginary totalitarian ministers on earth. Pascal’s wager was one such sad, desperate mind trick.

It was a sick and demented system. Somehow this system was alleged to have evolved from the teachings of a man who said kind and simple things like “love your enemy” and “blessed are the poor in spirit”. But who can account for the bizarre incoherencies that ravage the terrified and brutally subugated human mind.

Apparently this kind of slavish fear and subjugation exists in Buddhism as well, with the impersonal Law of Kamma playing the role of the tyrannical God. That shouldn’t be surprising, because wherever true and inspired holy men and women have been found in human history, who have found the key to liberating the heart from fear and misery through love, peace and renunciation, there have been 100 people standing behind and next to them, wearing the same robes, and eager to lock those hearts right up again through fear and misery. I don’t know how much of this sickness has deep roots in the native traditions of Asia, and how much might be due to the impact of Christian missionaries on Asian culture. But at least in the case of Western Buddhists, much of it probably comes from the baggage the refugees from Christianity are carrying with them from their old tradition into their new one.

We can’t simply choose what we believe. We can choose what we say, and we can choose what we pretend to believe, and we can choose how we act, and I suppose we can even choose what we _ desperately try_ to believe. But genuine belief is either there or it isn’t. There is no point in twisting one’s brain up into knots trying to make it believe the things you think it is required to believe.

There is no kammic Inquisition that has been set up to throw people into hell for not having the right doctrinal beliefs, or to send them on to a better place for having the right doctrinal beliefs. The universe doesn’t care whether you believe in rebirth or not. It doesn’t even know.

And believing in rebirth isn’t going to take the hatred and fear out of your heart, or put the metta there instead. It might make you behave in the way you think a “good Buddhist” is supposed to behave - but the motivation in that case will be nothing but sheer, self-interested, egoistic fear. There is much that can be lost in life from all this painful and self-involved mental torture; not only one’s own peace, but the chance to love and do well for others.

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Exactly.

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You make a good heartfelt case, and I am sympathetic - but the fact is that the Buddha beat Pascal by a couple thousand years. I’ll quote one relevant section from MN 60 (https://suttacentral.net/en/mn60):

"“Since there actually is another world, one who holds the view ‘there is no other world’ has wrong view. Since there actually is another world, one who intends ‘there is no other world’ has wrong intention. Since there actually is another world, one who makes the statement ‘there is no other world’ has wrong speech. Since there actually is another world, one who says ‘there is no other world’ is opposed to those arahants who know the other world. Since there actually is another world, one who convinces another ‘there is no other world’ convinces him to accept an untrue Dhamma; and because he convinces another to accept an untrue Dhamma, he praises himself and disparages others. Thus any pure virtue that he formerly had is abandoned and corrupt conduct is substituted. And this wrong view, wrong intention, wrong speech, opposition to noble ones, convincing another to accept an untrue Dhamma, and self-praise and disparagement of others—these several evil unwholesome states thus come into being with wrong view as their condition.

A.iii “About this a wise man considers thus: ‘If there is no other world, then on the dissolution of the body this good person will have made himself safe enough. But if there is another world, then on the dissolution of the body, after death, he will reappear in a state of deprivation, in an unhappy destination, in perdition, even in hell. Now whether or not the word of those good recluses and brahmins is true, let me assume that there is no other world: still this good person is here and now censured by the wise as an immoral person, one of wrong view who holds the doctrine of nihilism. But on the other hand, if there is another world, then this good person has made an unlucky throw on both counts: since he is censured by the wise here and now, and since on the dissolution of the body, after death, he will reappear in a state of deprivation, in an unhappy destination, in perdition, even in hell. He has wrongly accepted and undertaken this incontrovertible teaching in such a way that it extends only to one side and excludes the wholesome alternative.’"

So, Yes - it can be downright terrifying for Westerners who feel like they have finally shaken off the shackles of the church (and dispensed with all the “nonsense”) to be confronted with such concepts as kamma, rebirth, and hell in Buddhism - but obviously, they sought out Buddhism because there was something unsatisfactory about pure secularism, or whatever worldly philosophy or science they had come across before. Hell is, in fact, scary - but surely just because something is scary doesn’t mean it isn’t real?

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Well I personally don’t take it that far, and I don’t think that’s really the idea of kamma. It’s more just moving toward awakening or away from it. Moving toward it is good kamma, moving away from it is bad. The further you move away the worse off you’ll be, and vice versa. Honestly I’m at a point where I am willing to accept a version of actual rebirth, but I’m keeping the technical aspects of it extremely vague. Basically, at a certain point it actually becomes just as reasonable to trust or distrust someone’s claims, even without proof, especially after they have been right about everything else. That’s where I am now, it’s a 50/50 chance. I also think there could be some ways, where it is actual rebirth, but not in the way most people think, and still makes total sense scientifically. The miracle of consciousness may hold more secrets than we know. The fact that there is qualia, an experience at all, even though it’s no-self, is still pretty insane when you think about it. The mechanism for how that actually works, I think could explain a lot. Consciousness is an amazing thing, and I definitely won’t pretend to know enough about it to say one way or another. That’s why I think it’s totally reasonable, and I think the Buddha would agree, to remain on the fence for as long as you need. Temporarily suspend disbelief, but also temporarily suspend belief. I can think that it might be one way or another, but I don’t believe or disbelieve anything. So I think there is some form of actual rebirth, but I don’t believe, not until I have some direct experience to back that up. I think that’s how the Buddha wanted it anyways.

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Just to add some comforting words to this discussion; MN 22 (https://suttacentral.net/en/mn22):

“Bhikkhus, the Dhamma well proclaimed by me thus is clear…free of patchwork. In the Dhamma well proclaimed by me thus, which is clear…free of patchwork, those bhikkhus who have abandoned three fetters are all stream-enterers, no longer subject to perdition, bound for deliverance and headed for enlightenment.

“Bhikkhus, the Dhamma well proclaimed by me thus is clear…free of patchwork. In the Dhamma well proclaimed by me thus, which is clear…free of patchwork, those bhikkhus who are Dhamma-followers or faith-followers are all headed for enlightenment.

“Bhikkhus, the Dhamma well proclaimed by me thus is clear, open, evident, and free of patchwork. In the Dhamma well proclaimed by me thus, which is clear, open, evident, and free of patchwork, those who have sufficient faith in me, sufficient love for me, are all headed for heaven.”

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No that wasn’t my claim. I know there are many totally sincere believers in rebirth. I’m just arguing that if you don’t believe in rebirth, there is no way you can just make yourself believe in rebirth because, from an instrumental point of view, it seems like a good bet. Acquiring a sincere belief isn’t like buying a lottery ticket.

And if you don’t believe in rebirth, don’t torture yourself by thinking the Kamma Man is going to get you, or feel ashamed because pious defenders of orthodoxy who have no actual evidence for rebirth tell you you are a Bad Buddhist.

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Ahhh, thank you so much. I was in the process of looking for precisely that text! :slight_smile:

I have edited my original post to include it.

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That could be the Buddha. But it could be someone else. It sounds awfully scholastic for the Buddha - like something a theology teacher cooked up.

But in any case. The question is, whoever said it, whether it is s good argument or not.

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Sorry, I misread the ‘we’ that I was quoting and did not know you were speaking of a particular ‘we’, namely, people who do not believe in rebirth, I think, from your clarification.

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What do you think?

Scenario 1 - 100 years from now most humans alive now will have passed away. That is really not that long from now! If there is no rebirth, or anything else after death, then we will all be equally nothing…as far as we are concerned, subjectively speaking, it won’t have mattered what we believed one way or the other.

Scenario 2 - there is experience beyond death (e.g., rebirth) and perhaps it is not the same for everyone, perhaps it depends in part on the views we held and acted on…in this particular scenario, there is a lot more at stake.

Sounds like a fairly strong argument to me actually - although I can understand someone objecting “why should I believe in Buddhist rebirth though? out of all the possibly beliefs in an afterlife - Other people say I should believe in God, or the tooth fairy or whatever, and if I don’t I’ll be punished in the afterlife”…
All I can say is that I have faith in the Buddha and not in the tooth fairy. I would argue there is a big difference, but I don’t feel capable of explaining my faith in a way that would necessarily come across as a compelling argument to someone else, especially one without faith and who insists on physical, objective, third person, hard-scientific evidence.

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I sought out Buddhism because I became convinced that hate is not conquered by hate, and that the only way to freedom and the end of suffering is to put down the rod of violence, gradually relinquish all attachments, including conceptual ones, unravel the delusions of egoism, and make a place for pure, selfless and universal love in my heart.

I also reject the modern secular path, since it teaches that the point of life is to eat, drink, fuck, play and acquire stuff - and also to make babies so that the same cycle of cravings perpetuates itself. I could see that those things also did not provide a path out of suffering.

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I came to Buddhism for similar reasons - I think they are all quite good!

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I don’t think I understand why in the second scenario there is more at stake. Even though all people now alive will be dead in 100 years, won’t there be other people?

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I hear what you’re saying, and I understand.

To me the logic of my original post was simply an attempt at providing sound advice.

Suppose you have two friends, one of whom says: ”We may not wake up tomorrow, so let’s spend the day taking drugs and going wild."
Another friend offers: “Since there is a chance that we will wake up tomorrow, it makes sense to act in a way that we will not regret.”

To me, the second friend is to be considered wise. And his admonishment is not intended to be any kind of subjugation, but rather it should be seen that his intentions are good.

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I also like this, and if you find rebirth truly and utterly profoundly impossible for you ‘believe’ in, in any way, I don’t think that anyone would advocate that you should

And if that has been your experience, generally, that’s pretty unfortunate. Internet condolences, I suppose I can offer?

But this

IMO relies on a very particular ‘actual’. Consider it in light of other statements:

These aren’t exactly neutral words here. They seem to presume a fundamental assumption that laboratory-nondemonstrable suggestions from any source at all are all equally ‘wild/quixotic’ regardless of any qualifying detail they could possibly have: rebirth is as ridiculous as Elvis’s ghost that I just made up, uncritically, that is what the underlying belief seem to be. Is this wrong?

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Oh come on though, that’s a false equivalency. If someone says the world is gonna end tomorrow I’ll think they’re insane. But if someone says the world is gonna end and I see the sun exploding, then the person who says it’s smarter to wait just in case would be ridiculous. That’s obviously not the same either, but we’re not talking about the world ending, we’re talking about something happening after death. This is very different. Saying the wiser choice is to believe something because that belief may affect what happens after you die is a far more provocative claim then the world probably isn’t going to end. Besides, when the Buddha talks about right view, I don’t think he meant believing without evidence. Yes, trusting him will do well for you, but saying you’re not gonna believe in rebirth outright has nothing to do with trust. Wrong view is a mind set, I mean that’s what kamma is all about. If you’re mind set is that you’re totally with all the buddhist ideals and concepts and you practice, but you’re holding out on rebirth until you get more information, well that is still right view in my eyes. That is still a mind set moving you toward awakening, it’s still good kamma. The point is, you can’t choose to believe something because it might be better to believe it, either it makes sense to you or it doesn’t, the next best thing though is holding off judgement until you get more experience and information, that you can choose to do.

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Also pertinent - and perhaps the puzzle piece that can reconcile us all in the Dhamma (believers in rebirth and disbelievers/those on the fence) From MN 95 (https://suttacentral.net/en/mn95):

“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.”

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Yes! I love that.