Dear Buddhists, I have my doubts about the doctrine of rebirth. As I understand it, it is grounded in the doctrine of dependent origination, the circumstance that everything in this world is conditioned, thus there is nothing that comes from nothing and goes to nothing, all is subject to rebecoming. The process of rebecoming is subject to causal laws and we denote this as karma. A person who acts in evil ways will bring an evil existence onto itself through causal means.
On the micro level this seems rather evident, for example: A son who kills his mother will have to suffer the karmic repercussions for it both internally and externally, e.g. being consumed by anger and regret and being punished by his social community respectively.
HOWEVER, the doctrine of not-self states that the son's suffering in this regard is primarily result of his ignorance, false view, about his self. He suffers because of attachment to his mother, to his anger and regret, to his identity in the community etc. If the son was to give up all of it, and realize his true nature as 'no one' at all, he would live a free existence as simply being and free himself from samsara, the continual rebirth.
He would be freed from rebirth supposedly not just because he gave up attachments, but because he realized there ultimately was no one to be reborn. This seems to be in conflict with the doctrine of rebirth ultimately when it comes to the macro level.
Upon death the body breaks apart, consciousness ceases and so on. A person who is awakened to his true nature regards this to be a natural process, sees it clearly, has no attachment to it, no self is to be found, the aggregates simply dissipate. The only difference between this person and the non-enlightened person is that of perspective. The common person thinks there is a self, and supposedly this attachment is what leads to rebirth. But how? If death, absolutely and truly considered, is a mere transformation of the aggregates that come together to provide us with the illusion of the self, and any ground for the self as illusion breaks apart, surely the fate of the awakened and the non-awakened should be the same. The non-awakened might believe in rebirth, and thus submit themselves to suffering as long as they are still alive, but death does not discriminate.
What is the central circumstance that makes it so the ignorant person does get reborn and how is it reconcilable with the ultimate truth?
Biggest fundamental mistake is using the term and seeming to expect it to denote "not-self". This is still dualist. You also have a Western perspective on dependent origination being causal. It isn't causal in the way that once event, cause, what-have-you, necessarily precedes an outcome. In Buddhist philosophy or dependant origination things happen in concert instead of specific causes necessitating specific results say chronologically.
So at least in two fundamental ways you're trying to force Buddhism into Western modes of thought. Read more, revisit.
Joshua Turner
Read what? I have looked at scripture but it all seemed to not give the sort of explanations I am looking for.
Isaac James
It seems you are making the easy mistake of thinking that the cessation of rebirth means literal annihilation for an awakened being. This is not the case. This is essentially the apex of what level Nirvana can be discussed at. Conceptually, we can’t help but conceive of it in in terms of eternalism (the tendency when Mahayana is wrongly understood) or total annihilation (the tendency when Theravada is wrongly understood). We think either all experience/phenomena ceases, never to arise again, or it continues in some sort of ‘awakened state.’ Both are misleading. The honest answer is you will not understand why it is neither annihilation nor eternalism until you glimpse Nirvana yourself (in stream-entry). Here it may be helpful to explore some Mahayana teachings, such as the Heart Sutra (though again, be extremely careful to not interpret it as eternalism or any continuation of existence/being). Coming and going, being and non-being, existence and non-existence, birth and death, world and self: these are all just concepts, all just perceptions. The problem is that we are convinced that these perceptions are objective, true, solid, fundamental, ultimate, when they are in fact just perceptions, just views.
Isaiah James
I understand annihilationism to be wrong because it is predicated on the view that there is a self that can be annihilated, not because awakening represents the end of rebirth. The end of rebirth is surely already achieved at the moment of awakening, where you have shed yourself of all notions of self in relation to past/present/future. The problem I have is more so concerned with how believing in an illusion seems to make that illusion in apparent reality.
Henry Fisher
Based. Singularity cannot abide paradox and resolves all of them.
Aaron Scott
The prime error I think in considering Nirvana to be total annihilation is the belief that it is EXPERIENCE and phenomena which is the problem, rather than attachment, grasping, identification, objectification. The Arahant is canonically completely free from suffering upon the attainment of Arahantship in this very life. It is not like some sort of “partial Nirvana” which is fully completed after their death: it is perfect Nirvana here and now. There is in ultimate reality no difference between the Arahant before death and after death. Hypothetically, even if an Arahant was subjected to eons of hellish torture, there would be no dukkha because he is Gone to Suchness.
Lucas Lee
your question is essentially "where does the energy that you have go after death?", which is generally described as the subtle body. the subtle body is still in flux, holds on to the attachments and experiences of previous lives, and by our unenlightened standards, it is the thing that actually transmigrates. but remember that since the subtle body is in flux, it isn't actually 'you' either. becoming enlightened causes identification with god or with pure awareness, and the subtle body becomes self directed like water being poured back into the ocean. the transmigration stops because you are no longer looking for something permanent, you finally identify with what is permanent. for the rest of us, the subtle body transmigrates and looks for another body to experience with.
as far as the karmic issue, identification with god does indeed cause you to be above any kind of morality, since all things are just emanations of god. however we still understand that you shouldn't cause suffering when possible. since all things are ultimately an aspect of yourself you should still make an effort to be good and kind. someone who is unenlightened is still bound by morality though, and no amount of good works or bad works, or rationalization will change that
Thomas James
>the belief that it is EXPERIENCE and phenomena which is the problem, rather than attachment, grasping, identification, objectification It also should be said that the perception that there IS truly/essential existent experience in the first place is entirely dependent on the aforementioned attachment/grasping/objectification/identification.
Sebastian Fisher
I'd suggest first of all Nagarjuna. Some Zen Koans. But ultimately, you'll have to go past books and into experience--language itself, at least in how we consider it meaningful, it's ridden with structures which run counter to the ultimate point of Buddhist 'awakening', or at best it's very approximate.
Jordan Hall
>What is the central circumstance that makes it so the ignorant person does get reborn and how is it reconcilable with the ultimate truth? The ignorant person is effectively reborn. In conventional terms, a body breaks apart, aggregates arise again, and because there is still clinging, they once again take it as themselves: thus to them they have been reborn.
This is gonna be a weird hypothetical and completely lend itself to eternalism, but I hope you can consider it while doing your best to suspend such an extreme: Hypothetically, if (now in conventional terms) an awakened being were to go through the process of death and rebirth (perhaps in a vision or a vivid dream, let’s say), to them there would be no death or birth because (in ultimate terms) there is the wisdom that such notions are illusory, not fundamental. There was no one to actually die, no one to be reborn. Every single notion required to have a view that there was a birth or death would be seen as empty, just perceptions, just notions, not objective. ‘Suchness’ is the best word I’ve seen by Mahayana to describe this stuff. Things as they are. Perceptions are just perceptions, notions are just notions, concepts just concepts, all dependently (on aggregates, thoughts, other supporting notions) arisen, conditioned. No coming, no going, no birth, no death.
Noah Hall
I have read both of those. I have yet to encounter a systematic treatise that clarifies all aspects of Buddhist philosophy. Not saying it doesn't exist, just that I haven't found one yet that was actually properly philosophical and not just doctrinal. Nagarjuna was good, but not enough.
Cooper Garcia
try Clearing the Path by Nanavira and if you want to learn more about Nirvana, read The Nibbāna Sermons on seeingthroughthenet That should be plenty of material to get the answers you look for
Parker Miller
But if the aggregates break apart and arise again, why is there a continuation of clinging/false view? Similarly if the Arhat was to be reborn, how is there not a new emergence of false view/clinging as aggregates come into a new constellation and being?
Wyatt Turner
for the Arhat, in the ultimate sense the aggregates did not actually re-emerge. It appears as such to unawakened beings but in ultimate reality, there is no arising of aggregates. This is extremely hard if not impossible to wrap your head around without any direct experience. Stick to reading about emptiness, read more Nagarjuna, Aryadeva and Chandrakirti. That is as good as it gets when it comes to understanding it conceptually.
Hudson Richardson
the reason there is not more arising of aggregates is because the Arhat was not reborn. There was actually no Arhat to die and be reborn at all. There were never, in ultimate reality, any aggregates arising anywhere. This is what Nagarjuna deals with: it is one thing to recognize the emptiness/unreality of the self, but another to recognize that the emptiness of the self also implies the emptiness of all things, of all notions of things, of anything whatsoever. This is why certain schools of Theravada realism can be a bit off the mark when they think that there are ontologically existent aggregates independent of delusion/grasping, which are annihilated after the Arahant’s death.
Zachary Anderson
Thank you, I will. It's all still pretty complicated. Especially when there are people like Buddhadasa, arguably awakened, who seem to confirm my doubts. He even said that rebirth was not a question that concerns Buddhism at all.
Angel Barnes
youtu.be/odWIPhj-ivo this is unironically a great video for this topic. Just ignore when he starts speaking some sort of naturalist interpretation “the cloud becomes the rain which becomes the snow, the cloud did not die,” there he is just watering it down for Western materialists. Ignoring that part, everything he says is very deep authentic Dharma.
Carson Wright
I appreciate Buddhadasa’s interpretation because it is true that rebirth is only conventional. If an unawakened being could somehow be aware through the process of death and rebirth and remember past lives, there would be the effective experience of transmigration. However, in ultimate reality, the awakened being knows that there is no one to be born or die, and rebirth is merely convention. Rebirth is just as conventionally real and ultimately unreal as your sense of continuity/stable essential individual self from one moment to the next in this very life. Do not interpret Buddhadasa as annihilationist “you only live once,” he is merely pointing out that rebirth is conventional truth, not ultimate.
Eli Gonzalez
You'd also benefit from reading Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chogyam Trungpa.
Christian Rivera
Is it correct then that you should practice Buddhism not because you might be reborn in some hell, but simply for truth itself? And that a person who failed to awaken is in no danger at all, because it neither dies nor gets reborn?
Owen Cruz
also Seeing That Frees is quite good for meditations that emphasize emptiness
Asher Fisher
there is a Mahayana text which says the enlightened Bodhisattva dives into lakes of fire as if it were a pile of lotus flowers. It is a good image but again avoid seeing it as eternalism. Ultimately there is no self-existent bodhisattva, no self-existent hell, no self-existent lotus flower. The true purpose of Buddhism is indeed realization of ultimate truth which is the end of suffering. However it is necessary to practice sila/virtue and make good merit as a foundation for realizing Nirvana. Animals cannot realize Nirvana, and humans who are mentally like animals cannot realize it unless they bring themselves out of that blurred/deluded state into a properly moral/virtuous properly human state, in which case they would no longer be like an animal.
Benjamin Lee
>And that a person who failed to awaken is in no danger at all, because it neither dies nor gets reborn? They are in EFFECTIVELY in danger though, because they do not know the ultimate truth. To the unawakened being, they truly are suffering, there truly is hell and horror and endless aimless wandering in Samsara. The ultimate in a practical/phenomenological sense does not apply to an unawakened being, so they are effectively truly suffering.
Eh, I wouldn’t say truth itself, but self truth maybe. The simple concept of rebirth depends on the idea that the self is a metaphysical entity unto itself and not one purely made of material and material action. The former cannot be proven incorrect or correct. The idea of faith sidesteps this problem completely, saying that subjective reality is as important as probable or apparent reality. Tbh rebirth seems more in line with religious philosophy rather than academic philosophy in the same vein as Aquinus. (I would also say Kierkegaard, but he admits his faith is subjective).
Isaac Cruz
Extremely based post
Adrian King
Do I understand this right? If I regard everything in my experience to be primarily a phenomenon, without consideration for it's "formal nature" as say a category such as existence, I see things as they truly are, and taken to a consequence it will lead to both a realization of not-self and the cessation of suffering by giving up clinging? Because that is what I am currently attempting, it is doing trippy things to me
Sebastian Walker
>help! someone reaffirm my beliefs!
Jackson Edwards
On the contrary, I see what I am believing is not working
Landon Smith
get a good teacher to be safe so you don’t screw yourself into a more subtle/hard to detect delusion also practice mettā
Justin Diaz
>I see things as they truly are This doesn’t happen until you get a glimpse of Nirvana, but this sort of disposition leads there. Try to be aware though that as you observe things as mere phenomena, there is still implicit objectification going on, there is still subject-object duality (ranging from gross in identifying with thoughts and feelings, to subtle as identifying with the bare awareness of thoughts and feelings+sensations). This is present always in some way except with Nirvana.
Jacob Ramirez
Do I understand this right?
The common person experiences a phenomenon and then tries to determine its existence by subsuming it under some sort of formal structure
The enlightened person realizes that the phenomenon is already an expression of its existence, and any attempt to subsume it under a formal structure is muddying the waters
And if the latter is the case, is there a formal structure beneath the phenomenons existence, or is that already too great of an assumption?
Aiden Reyes
the enlightened person recognizes any fabrication/construction of any idea of “existence” in addition to the appearance/phenomena - as just more appearance/phenomena and that there is no getting around this.
Jacob Sanchez
I’m fairy certain this is what sankharas (fabrications/preparations) are in the law of dependent arising. Because of ignorance and clinging, you could say the mind fabricates a sort of overlay ontop of Suchness in which stable essence/existence is perceived in not just the focal point/sense of self, but in the Five Aggregates, in existence and non-existence, in “here vs there,” “internal vs external”...etc. Beings get lost in these fabrications, and worldlings are only analyze the world through concepts which have their foundation in these fabrications, so it is like they are looking at things through a pinhole or something. They don’t realize that concepts are just concepts, perceptions are just perceptions, and even if they indicated any sort of reality/ontological status of things - THAT TOO would still effectively be just experiential phenomena and appearance, just a perception. Another great translation of sankharas is “preparations” as in stage-show preparations. These stage-show preparations create the convincing show of self, other, existence/non-existence, birth and death, coming and going, which the mind gets hoodwinked into believing is real (since the stage-show preparations are so convincing on a sub-conceptual level and have the mind fooled).
Evan Lewis
>worldlings are only analyze *worldlings only analyze
Daniel Moore
Also the stage-show preparations description is apt because of the manner in which people watching a film or watching a stage-show can often get caught up in it, can get so immersed in the show that they forget it is just a show and they take it as really happening/really real. It is the same with forgetting that perceptions are just perceptions, views are just views, sense of self is just phenomenal sense of self, perception of anything being vs not-being is only perception. All these things are merely phenomenal appearance and the process of any sort of objectifying/perceiving ontological existence in these appearance, is also just phenomenal appearance (if it wasn’t phenomenal appearance, you wouldn’t experience it).
Andrew Nguyen
Outsider here. How is such a teaching reconcilable with Kant? If I look around me as an enlightened person surely I am still able to interact with the world, no? I am not lost in some sort of trance. I still see people in front of me, furniture, objects in general. And me seeing them as objects is already an act of subsuming some appearance under categories. How is an 'unadultered' perception of the world even possible under this consideration?
Robert Turner
yes you don’t fall into some sort of inoperable vegetable state. The Buddha himself went to teach for decades walking around India after his enlightenment. The cognitive structures and the overlay are still there, but you are no longer hoodwinked by these appearances, no longer convinced that these perceptions and overlays have any objectivity/solidity (and that any sense of objectivity is too still just phenomenal experience). This is why Nagarjuna taught of the Two Truths: conventional truth and Ultimate truth. An awakened being engages in the world of convention with no problem, all the while knowing it is as mere convention without objectifying things. A lot of people, for instance, hear the doctrine of anatta (not-self) and think “that’s ridiculous, of course I am a self, I clearly perceive things through a focal point and sense of self!” It is true that there is a focal point in experience, a SENSE of self, but that’s all it is: a phenomenal sense of focal point, a sense of self. The problem comes from objectifying it, seeing it as ontologically existent while not realizing that that very sense of ontological existence IS TOO just phenomena, just experience.
Gabriel Lewis
Does this not lead down an infinite regress of judgements? E.g. "I have this focal point and it is mere phenomenn" "This judgement originated from a focal point and it is a mere phenomenon" …
It seems like the dualism is inescapable, even if the judgement is not consciously uttered or vocalized
Lucas Edwards
yes which is why you can’t think your way into Nirvana. Meditation is required to sort of light up the whole stage-show at once, so you can clearly see that you are only in a theatre and that the show isn’t actually happening but is a mere show. If you try thinking your way there, you will just as you said create an infinite regress of duality because of the nature of language and cognitive structures. You cannot see through the game of the overlay/cognitive structures by playing it.
Chase Mitchell
I don't take judgements to be something you necessarily think here. I mean that the judgement "this focal point is a phenomenon" must necessarily play out in the same way that the judgement "this is a chair" plays out
Luke Rogers
yes well that is a big difficulty in meditation. If you are observing the sense of self/focal point in meditation, and you spot the sensations pretending to be the self (and recognize them as such), then a second focal point appears in relation to it, and this can go on for a long time. The actual manner in which the whole of experience is lit up and seen as it is, is very mysterious, and I am not at all some sort of qualified meditation teacher to explain how to do it. However, I’m pretty sure it should involve the strong ability to observe the periphery of your experience (in all the six sense doors) in addition to your more selective direct attention. Also another great metaphor to illustrate how convention and ability to operate does not disappear is the idea of a magic-show. Lets say you are watching a magic show and then you go over and see all the tricks the magician has up his sleeve, all the techniques. You see that the magic is not REAL and you know how it operates. Now even if you watch the show from the front, you will still not be enamoured like everyone else who thinks it is real magic, because you know how it works. It is the same magic show, but you have properly understood it, and seen through the illusion.
Grayson Peterson
can this apply to protestantism
Sebastian Richardson
Nice to read a post that makes me think. Thank you.
Jaxon Reyes
You will be answered, either tomorrow or next 4 - 6 decades, but you will be eventually answered. There is no need to ask such a question.
Luis Scott
The short answer is: Partially.
Dominic Miller
Man not even the dalai llama is into this shit anymore
Easton Torres
the dalai lama talks about dependent arising and emptiness a lot, all the time that is probably what he talks about the most other than compassion
Jaxon Murphy
bump
John Lewis
It's not really hard to get. You are, but 'you' are not. You will exist forever and give rise to more than you could ever imagine. Meanwhile 'you' don't exist.
