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Re: Accepting Rebirth

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 4:31 am
by Nibbida
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Re: Accepting Rebirth

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 4:50 am
by Individual
Nibbida wrote:
Individual wrote: ...Yes... and agnosticism seems to fall under one of the 52 wrong views, the one about the refusal to take a clear position.
jcsuperstar,
Do you mean that that enlightened individuals become omniscient? There are enlightened Zen masters have reported having no experiences of past lives.

Again, I'm not saying that I don't believe in rebirth across lifetimes or that I'm agnostic. I haven't said anything either way, because it's not relevant.

Having a list of 52 wrong views sounds a little dogmatic to me.
This sutta clarifies the scope of the Buddha's knowledge, and exalts him above the common, agnostic philosopher.

The list of 52 wrong views might be misunderstood in a dogmatic way, yes, but it still seems to be a very useful list of common wrong views, both back then and even today. Agnosticism can be a good thing if a person is honest about their ignorance and refuses to take a position simply because they don't know: they're still investigating. It becomes a problem, metaphorically described as "eel-wriggling," when a person adopts the label out of a refusal to acknowledge their ignorance and to further investigate what they don't know.

Re: Accepting Rebirth

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 5:39 am
by Dhammanando
Hi Nibbida,
Nibbida wrote:I didn't say whether or not I was agnostic about rebirth across lifetimes, only that there are enlightened individuals who are.
In the Theravada their claims to enlightenment (or the claims that their tradition makes on their behalf) would be dismissed without appeal. In the Theravadin conception of enlightenment one may be enlightened without recalling former existences, but not without understanding the conditionality of dhammas. To doubt or reject rebirth is to suppose that those dhammas denoted "causes and conditions for further becoming" might not in fact give rise to further becoming. To suppose this is possible only for one by whom the conditionality of dhammas has neither been understood intellectually nor penetrated by insight.

  • When dhammas become manifest
    To the ardent meditating brahman,
    All his doubts then vanish since he understands
    Each dhamma along with its cause.
    (from the Udana, sutta 1)
One needs to bear in mind that when those of non-Theravadin persuasion speak of 'enlightenment', they're often referring to something altogether different from the enlightenment of the Buddha's Buddhism.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu

Re: Accepting Rebirth

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 5:50 am
by Dhammanando
Hi Nibbida,
Nibbida wrote:Having a list of 52 wrong views sounds a little dogmatic to me.
The list is actually of 62 views.

Have you read the Brahmajala Sutta and seen what these views are, what the Buddha says about how each view arises and in what its error consists? If you have, then would you care to say which ones in particular struck you as being a dogmatic judgment on the part of the Buddha?

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu

Re: Accepting Rebirth

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 1:43 pm
by Nibbida
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.ight reasoning is put in place that makes anyone else's views "wrong" and easily dismissed. Whether or not it's true, it's a slippery slope to dogmatic thinking. To reiterate, this is not to say that I disagree with the principles discussed here.

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

Re: Accepting Rebirth

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 3:54 pm
by Dhammanando
Hi Nibbida,
Nibbida wrote:Are there many different kinds of enlightenment,
It seems that the term 'enlightenment' is used by different Buddhist schools to denote different things. For example, in the Theravada enlightenment consists in a progressive development of understanding, bringing about a gradual purgation of the mind from its fetters in four stages (stream-entry, once-returning etc.). Now if you go over to Zen Forum International and ask the posters there what Zen has to say about this, I expect Reverends Nonin and Jundo, and others, will tell you that practice in their school has no truck with any such notion of 'stages'.
or are non-Theravadin's not enlightened?
To judge from the Mahaparinibbana Sutta it would depend on whether non-Theravadins understand and cultivate the Eightfold Path.
  • "In whatever Dhamma and discipline the Noble Eightfold Path is not found, no ascetic is found of the first, the second, the third or the fourth grade. But such ascetics can be found, of the first, second, third and fourth grade in a Dhamma and discipline where the Noble Eightfold Path is found."
    (DN. 16)
Are Zen masters enlightened in the Theravadin sense? Are Tibetan lamas?
I don't know about Zen masters. The spiritual virtuosos of Tibetan Buddhism are believed by their devotees to be enlightened in a vastly superior sense to that of the Theravada.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu

Re: Accepting Rebirth

Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2009 5:28 pm
by Nibbida
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