I really don’t understand how one could think recollecting eons has any essential connection with nibbana. This is nibbana:
This is peace, this is exquisite — the resolution of all fabrications, the relinquishment of all acquisitions, the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Nibbana.
— AN 3.32
And this
Ah, surely, the five aggregates are burdens,
And the individual person is the burden-bearer;
Taking up the burden is suffering in the world,
Putting down the burden is bliss.
Having put down the heavy burden,
Without taking up another burden,
Pulling out craving along with its root,
One is without hunger, fully extinguished.
SN 22.22
Nibbana is all about cessation and the relinquishing of all acquisitions, physical and mental, and the complete eradication of all defilements, cravings and attachments. It’s not about getting some new acquisition, or filling one’s mind with some kind of amazing knowledge and powers, whether knowledge of past eons or even knowledge of the past day.
It’s so clear. Unfortunately the tradition has been polluted and perverted by the armies of deluded followers and siddhas who have pursued “the path” to gratify their vainglorious greed and magical cravings: to levitate, to read people’s minds, to project “mind-force” at their enemies, to work magic and miracles, and to see the past and future and master the whole cosmos. People are so addicted to getting things and gratifying their will to power that they cannot imagine that the culmination of the holy life results in the complete relinquishment of getting and a kind of freedom that does not depend on worldly power.
it is one thing to be truly agnostic about rebirth. it is not right view and it is not wrong view. you will not argue for or against rebirth. the most you you will say is ‘i am not sure yet’ and go no further. it is a reasonable place to be if you have heard the teaching but have not come to accept it yet.
it is entirely another thing to deny rebirth. this is called wrong view. the results of holding wrong view are stated in the teachings.
I don’t think he’s arguing against rebirth so much as arguing for agnosticism. And I think you can still have right view whilst being agnostic about rebirth, especially if you understand and see the truth about everything else regarding the Dhamma. That one sutta says that those monks achieved arahantship without ever recalling their manifold past lives. If they were actually practicing correctly and preserving the truth, then they were still agnostic about rebirth even as arahants. Unless you actually directly experience the truth of rebirth, it only makes sense to remain agnostic. You can have faith, but you still don’t know, not for sure. I think right view is something deeper and separate than intellectually believing in rebirth. It’s only regarding things you can actually know 100% for sure and that directly lead to liberation, and I think that’s regarding the 4 noble truths and the 3 characteristics, not rebirth. Rebirth may in fact be true, but experiencing it directly is not necessary for liberation, and therefore I don’t think it’s necessary to be a part of right view.
So how would those monks that never directly experienced past lives know that? I think that line can work both ways, actual rebirth and birth of the delusion of self. Those monks who never directly experienced rebirth, there is know way they could absolutely know it. Maybe they “understand” destroyed is birth, but they don’t absolutely know it. The Buddha even said not to think you absolutely know something unless you’ve directly experienced it. So either understanding is not the same as absolutely knowing, or birth in that context is meant in both ways and it only needs to be understood in one way for those monks who haven’t directly seen rebirth.
Although those monks said they had not recollected manifold past lives, shouldn’t we assume that they had seen clearly how dependent origination functions, including how clinging gives rise to becoming and birth? Can’t all Arahants declare for themselves: ‘Birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, done is what had to be done’ - it seems like it would be strange for someone to totally understand DO and declare that “birth is destroyed,” and yet remain skeptical about rebirth.
Many teachers make a distinction between mundane and supramundane Right view. I think you are mostly talking about the latter. Bhikkhu Bodhi on ‘mundane Right view’:
“Mundane right view involves a correct grasp of the law of kamma, the moral efficacy of action. Its literal name is “right view of the ownership of action” (kammassakata sammaditthi), and it finds its standard formulation in the statement: “Beings are the owners of their actions, the heirs of their actions; they spring from their actions, are bound to their actions, and are supported by their actions. Whatever deeds they do, good or bad, of those they shall be heirs.”[2]
More specific formulations have also come down in the texts. One stock passage, for example, affirms that virtuous actions such as giving and offering alms have moral significance, that good and bad deeds produce corresponding fruits, that one has a duty to serve mother and father, that there is rebirth and a world beyond the visible one, and that religious teachers of high attainment can be found who expound the truth about the world on the basis of their own superior realization.[3]”
Oh I don’t think they’re skeptical, just that they know that they can’t know absolutely for sure unless they’ve experienced it themselves. Dependent origination can show you how it would work, but not that it does in that way. You can see that it works exactly how it does in this life, without seeing proof of rebirth in that experience. Unless you actually experience your past lives or seeing people arising and passing away, then there is no way you can know for sure.
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.
