You may think that, but the Buddha was quite clear on the nature of his Awakening:
Unshakable is the liberation of my mind. This is my last birth. Now there is no more renewed existence.
You are shouting from the rooftop that legions of people have been misled by moralizing priests, resident pot-stirrers and other unsavoury characters. Maybe the reality is more mundane: refuge in the Dhamma is sought as an escape from a violent world that is no longer appealing. And this is based on belief and faith, of course. But the Buddha’s invitation to come and see a verifiable doctrine differentiates one’s faith with that found in other theistic religions.
Yes, sorry. I meant to say that you are skirting past all other statements in the suttas that describe Nibbana as the cessation of the cycle of birth and death.
Recollection of past lives (up to many aeons worth of contraction and expansion) is a spiritual ability (iddhi) which can be attained by disciples. I’m not sure if there are cases of unenlightened people who are able to do so in EBTs, although it seems that ordinary ‘worldings’ can at least recollect some past lives.
Canon-wise it’s difficult to argue against rebirth. It’s not just found in so many formulas and as the natural understanding of the dependent origination. If you think about the alternative to the 8fold path, i.e. the 10fold path, you have right knowledge as the integral 9th path factor.
And Right Knowledge means the knowledge of my own past rebirths, the knowledge of rebirths of beings in general, and the knowledge of the destruction of the asavas. After that nibbana.
So a substantial part of the suttas dealing with the path just have the knowledge of rebirth right there, at the end of the path. That some arahants don’t have the first two knowledges is to be seen as an EBT fact, but a slight bummer for the texts rank arahants with all three knowledges higher.
The arahants who don’t ‘see’ can’t be called agnostics. I’m pretty sure that if we did a magical survey they would all be very much unshakably convinced in rebirth. It’s not direct knowledge, but no agnosticism either. The agnosticism about rebirth is, in Buddhism, a new and mostly western attitude. Buddhadasa is such an exception that he totally confirms the rule.
What I mean to say is that one has to be an agnostic in spite of the EBT, not justified by them.
OK, well whatever happens, happens. I just know it would personally drive me crazy, and be an unnecessary distraction if, in addition to attempting to remove my dart and put down my burden, and attain a complete release from suffering, I also took it as a goal to acquire visions or knowledge or whatever of other worlds, times and lives. Personally, I couldn’t care less whether those extra psychic phenomena ever occur in my mind. And I’m pretty sure that if I were totally liberated, I would even care, because the pangs of cosmic intellectual curiosity and the concern with future and past states of existence would have been extinguished. I would just abide under the tree, or wherever, experiencing the “bliss of renunciation”.
One only needs to see that greed, hate, and delusion are no longer present within to know that birth is destroyed according to the sutta below. I believe a number of bhikkhus have written that with stream-entry one gains knowledge of rebirth by understanding paticcasamuppada and gaining some kind of inferential knowledge, but I have never come across a sutta that says such a thing. I also don’t think that such an inference could ever be deductive and therefore it seems to me to be impossible to confirm rebirth merely by seeing conditionality operating in the mind. On my understanding of the suttas, nobody has actual knowledge of rebirth apart from those who have recollected their past lives after reaching the 4th jhana. Anyway, the sutta below suggests that knowledge of rebirth is not necessary to know one has realized the goal:
“Is there a method of exposition, bhikkhus, by means of which a bhikkhu—apart from faith, apart from personal preference, apart from oral tradition, apart from reasoned reflection, apart from acceptance of a view after pondering it — can declare final knowledge thus: ‘Destroyed is birth, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more for this state of being’?”
“Venerable sir, our teachings are rooted in the Blessed One, guided by the Blessed One, take recourse in the Blessed One. It would be good if the Blessed One would clear up the meaning of this statement. Having heard it from him, the bhikkhus will remember it.”
“Then listen and attend closely, bhikkhus, I will speak.”
“Yes, venerable sir,” the bhikkhus replied. The Blessed One said this:
“There is a method of exposition by means of which a bhikkhu—apart from faith … apart from acceptance of a view after pondering it—can declare final knowledge thus: ‘Destroyed is birth … there is no more for this state of being.’ And what is that method of exposition? Here, bhikkhus, having seen a form with the eye, if there is lust, hatred, or delusion internally, a bhikkhu understands: ‘There is lust, hatred, or delusion internally’; or, if there is no lust, hatred, or delusion internally, he understands: ‘There is no lust, hatred, or delusion internally.’ Since this is so, are these things to be understood by faith, or by personal preference, or by oral tradition, or by reasoned reflection, or by acceptance of a view after pondering it?”
“No, venerable sir.”
“Aren’t these things to be understood by seeing them with wisdom?”
“Yes, venerable sir.”
“This, bhikkhus, is the method of exposition by means of which a bhikkhu can declare final knowledge thus: ‘Destroyed is birth … there is no more for this state of being.’
“Further, bhikkhus, having heard a sound with the ear … … Having cognized a mental phenomenon with the mind, if there is lust, hatred, or delusion internally, a bhikkhu understands: ‘There is lust, hatred, or delusion internally’; or, if there is no lust, hatred, or delusion internally, he understands: ‘There is no lust, hatred, or delusion internally.’ Since this is so, are these things to be understood by faith, or by personal preference, or by oral tradition, or by reasoned reflection, or by acceptance of a view after pondering it?”
“No, venerable sir.”
“Aren’t these things to be understood by seeing them with wisdom?”
“Yes, venerable sir.”
“This, bhikkhus, is the method of exposition by means of which a bhikkhu—apart from faith, apart from personal preference, apart from oral tradition, apart from reasoned reflection, apart from acceptance of a view after pondering it—can declare final knowledge thus: ‘Destroyed is birth, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more for this state of being.’”
What if, your vipassana experience showed you that birth and death were delusory concepts, and that all there is and ever was, was illusions arising and passing away?
Here’s some reading for you. This was at the end of the Skeptic Dictionary article; afterwards, maybe hunt through Google Scholar, for example, or a local library. Challenging cherished beliefs is difficult work.
Mills, Antonia and Steven Jay Lynn. “Past-Life Experiences.” in Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence. (2000). Etzel Cardena, Steven Jay Lynn, and Stanley C. Krippner, editors. American Psychological Association, pp. 283-313.
Shroder, Tom. (1999). Old Souls: The Scientific Evidence for Past Lives. Simon and Schuster.
Spanos, Nicholas P. “Past-Life Hypnotic Regression: A Critical View,” The Skeptical Inquirer, Winter 1987-1988.
Thomason, Sarah G. (1987). “Past tongues remembered?” Skeptical Inquirer, 11:367–75, Summer.
Wilson, Ian. (1982). All in the Mind - Reincarnation, Hypnotic Regression, Stigmata, Multiple Personality, and Other Little-Understood Powers of the Mind. Doubleday.
I can indicate that current evidence is weak in various ways without having to advance any claim of my own. Go ahead and ask such a question; however, it has nothing to do with how the evidence for rebirth is to be assessed.
Sure thing. Here’s the conclusion to the Skeptic article:
For my part, I have to agree with Stevenson’s own assessment of his work: he’s provided evidence, but no compelling evidence for reincarnation. I see no way to move forward using his methods or his data, so I see his work as a colossal waste of time. On the positive side, however, I agree with him that past life regressive therapy, which uses hypnosis, is rife with methodological problems, not the least of which is the problem with suggestion contaminating any evidence that might be uncovered for a past life. Hence, past life regression cannot provide good evidence for reincarnation. Neither can collecting more stories from children who claim to have lived previous lives unless better methods of documentation, questioning witnesses and alleged experients, and verifying claims are developed.
We don’t have to refer to the presence/absence of any evidence for any other view at all, not annihilation and not theism and not any other sort of claim. The evidence for rebirth is currently uncompelling, and new research is needed if any compelling evidence is to be presented.
Well, at least we agree that it’s a legitimate criticism.
One last thing:
Your biases color how you look at it. That’s true for everyone; we can therefore agree that the removal of bias is the best way to examine these sorts of claims. That’s what science attempts to do: remove biases so that observation can be clear and unmuddled. It’s an explicit goal, and it’s why there are correct ways to set up experiments, why there is a peer review process, and so on.
Thanks Bhante, One of the concerns of secular Buddhists such as Sam Harris, is that by believing in re-birth, the belief could de-value the life living now. For instance, a Buddhist can do good deeds, meditate, and believe that heaven is waiting for him/her and so reduce their concerns for worldly matters.
This of course seems ok, but it is too close to the Muslim extremists believing that dying in Jihad will mean going to heaven.
An example, a monk could tell me (wrongly) that by ridding our society of Muslims, we will be doing good and so reap rewards in the afterlife. (As in Burma)
Can you address the the difference in the Buddhist’s view of this life and re-birth and the Christian and Muslim beliefs of going to heaven? Especially the case, where Buddhist can be told to do things in this life to reap rewards in Heaven?
No need to necessarily evoke Muslim extremism. The belief in rebirth could also foster the attitude “Eh, let me do it next life”. And of course the attitude “look at this ugly, poor, stupid fellow. They must have done terrible things in the last life - probably deserve it”
Any view of what occurs at death can be channeled into something unwholesome. Having the view that one is annihilated at death with no results from one’s actions in life gives free license for a bad person to do really bad things.
The problem is, its not really up to us what the Dhamma is about - it is what it is. It’s very arrogant to think we can just retrofit the Buddha’s teachings, as if we know better. If we really knew better than him, it would be pointless to be his disciple wouldn’t it?
You might want to read up on hiri and ottappa, two important Dhamma concepts that the Buddha called “the guardians of the world.” This essay by Ven. Bodhi is a good introduction:
