The Danger of Rebirth

[tiltbillings]

The difference between right view without outflows(asavas) and right view which is connected to liberation is in your intention.

As for intention, see:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .irel.html

[tiltbillings]

clw_uk,

It would involved abandoning mundane right view because mundane view is a view with Effluents, it is correct but slightly mistaken.

The mundane sets one on the path to realise the supermundane

If you hold to the mundane you wont get the supermundane because you will still hold a view that has Effluents. It will hold you back

.

It not all clear as to what your point here about rebirth is.

The EFP is the tool set used to for awakening, and until there is awakening one is not free of the “Effluents.” That is stating the obvious. As for “abandoning mundane right view,” that is the point, isn’t it? But just like one cannot abandon the “I am” conceit by adopting a belief in anatta, one cannot abandon the “mundane” by adopting beliefs about what the super mundane is. Stating the obvious, abandoning the conceit “I am” as well as the “effluents” is a matter of cultivating insight, the experience of vipassana, into anicca, dukkha, and anatta.

What your position here is far less than clear. Now, it seems that you are arguing is that rebirth is a mundane view which the Buddha taught, but rebirth is not the truly true truth of the matter, which we will see once we get beyond the mundane.

So, please clarify for me, for an unawakened individual, when he dies, there is no rebirth? No anything? What really happens to him? And how do you know that?

[Jechbi]

It would involved abandoning mundane right view because mundane view is a view with Effluents, it is correct but slightly mistaken.

The mundane sets one on the path to realise the supermundane.

If you hold to the mundane you wont get the supermundane because you will still hold a view that has Effluents. It will hold you back.

I believe this is a complete misapplication of the terms "mundane" and "supermundane" and "effluents." By definition, mundane right view is not slightly mistaken. It is right.

Members of the ariyan sangha who have attained supermundane right view continue to have mundane right view simultaneously (at least that is my understanding). The moment you decide that mundane right view is slightly mistaken is the moment that you have strayed from right view.

Right view is fundamental.

When you talk about "abandoning the raft," that's a different matter entirely. I think you're getting things mighty confused here.

[clw_uk]

It is quite irony that this discussion appears when Venerable Dhammanando is not with us. Anyway..........

I hope you are not implying that I would use the illness of a Bhikkhu as an opurtunity to further some goal that you presume I have?

You are trying to argue that rebirth was only taught to a few groups, it just wasn't. Buddha talked about His past lives for all His disciples several times in suttas to emphasis the pain of samara and the path of Dharma. Never did He claim that rebirth was not necessary for anyone nor did He claim that it is some form of eternalism.

When the buddha discusses it is mostly to jains, brahmins etc, people who hold the view of self.

Past lives is the sense of self clinging at the aggregates and taking them up as self.
Remember the origin of identity, grasping at the aggregates, it is not about how rupa gets born and dies.

Samsara is the spining of the sense of self in the mind, it is not the physical world

Rebirth is eternalism

"passing away here HE reappears there"

The argument that you are likey to use that rebirth is not eternalism because it is a flux of becoming or a stream of consciousness was not taught by the buddha.

Rebirth is the end product of Dependent Origination and Nirvana is the end product of the reverse Dependent Origination. They are both sides of a same coin. The observation that you are taking one as the ultimate Truth while disregard another as folly is revealing a lot about your inadequate understanding on the topic.

Please show me where Dependent Orignation is stated as a model of rebirth, it isnt this was added later by the commentaries, dependent origination is about the arising and quenching of dukkha, about how self view comes to be

everytime there is contact there is feeling, craving, clinging, becoming, birth of Self the sense of I.

I suggest you re-evalute the buddhas dhamma and do not get all your understandings from what is written in the commentaries.

Stick with the notion that rebirth is unnecessary, you too won't see the truth of anatta. See the contradiction?

There is no contradiction my friend, i have never said it is unnecessary those are your words, i have stated that rebirth was taught by the buddha but it was mundane, a view with faults. Supermundane view does not contain a view of rebirth unless you mistake dependent origination as a rebirth model as you have done.

The realisation of Anatta is the realisation that the world is empty of a self and there can be no rebirth because there is no becoming again of "I" there is no "I" to be reborn, there is no rebirth.

If there is no rebirth, then death will be Nirvana which is simply absurd

Nibbana is empty of a self, it is dying before death my friend.

There is rebirth because you are not Arahant. That I'm certain of.

I dont claim to be.

Mundane right view is not abandoned because there is nothing to be abandoned. The arising and falling of thought is a natural process, we should put effort in observing them and they will fade away as all things. The act of abandoning is not required

It is when the mundane is taken as supermundane and clung to.

Your own interpretation of Samara, Buddha never said that. Yeah, I would love to see the original quote

Samsara is the spining of birth and death of self.

"Whatever monks or brahmans recollect their past life in its various modes, they all recollect the five aggregates affected by clinging or one or another of them."

What is the origin of identity? five aggregates effected by clinging.

Here the buddha is stating that one merely recollects the various moments of the sense of "I" or "Me" being born and that sense of self taking up the aggegates as identity.

Birth in the supermundane means the birth of self at moments this is important to remember.


The Awakened One, best of speakers,
Spoke two kinds of truths:
The conventional and the ultimate.
A third truth does not obtain.

Therein:
The speech wherewith the world converses is true
On account of its being agreed upon by the world.
The speech which describes what is ultimate is also true,
Through characterizing dhammas as they really are.


Therefore, being skilled in common usage,
False speech does not arise in the Teacher,
Who is Lord of the World,
When he speaks according to conventions.
(Mn. i. 95)

[clw_uk]

Now, it seems that you are arguing is that rebirth is a mundane view which the Buddha taught

Can you show me a post in this thread where i denied this?

but rebirth is not the truly true truth of the matter, which we will see once we get beyond the mundane.

Rebirth is a view that sets you on the path but it is not the ultimate truth, in short voidness is, there is no rebirth because the world is void of a self and anything pertaining to a self.

So, please clarify for me, for an unawakened individual, when he dies, there is no rebirth? No anything? What really happens to him? And how do you know that

This depends on which level you would like me to discuss.

Mundane level one says rebirth,

Supermundane, there is no rebirth. This is the teachings given to those who can understand, the buddhas core teaching.

They said to the Buddha: "500 laywomen have died. What is their future course?" On realizing the significance, the Buddha said: "Bound with delusion & acquisitions, it seems eternal. But for one who sees, there is Nothing." Ud 7.10

I wont to take reclairfy something that I think has gotten lost.

A) This thread is about how buddhists hold to a mundane teaching of rebirth as supermundane
B) How this holds back Nibbana
C) I dont deny the buddha taught rebirth, only that it is mundane, a view with effluents
D) There has been a mixing of supermundane dhamma with mundane dhamma over the centuries which is a great error.

Also I feel i need to state these facts.

I am not a Nihilist as i hold there is moral efficiency of actions

I am not an annhiliationist because I do not hold there is a permanent self to be annihilated

I am not a physcialist because I accept the exsistence of qualia

I am not a materialist as I dont hold that matter is all that exsists and can be known

I wanted to state this because there is a tendency in rebirth discussions that when someone says there is no rebirth they get accused of one or all of the above.

Metta

[clw_uk]

I believe this is a complete misapplication of the terms "mundane" and "supermundane" and "effluents." By definition, mundane right view is not slightly mistaken. It is right.

I didnt say it is not right, but it has effluents, what does effluent mean? It is a taint.

69. "When, friends, a noble disciple understands the taints, the origin of the taints, the cessation of the taints, and the way leading to the cessation of the taints, in that way he is one of right view, whose view is straight, who has perfect confidence in the Dhamma and has arrived at this true Dhamma.

70. "And what are the taints, what is the origin of the taints, what is the cessation of the taints, what is the way leading to the cessation of the taints? There are three taints: the taint of sensual desire, the taint of being and the taint of ignorance. With the arising of ignorance there is the arising of the taints. With the cessation of ignorance there is the cessation of the taints. The way leading to the cessation of the taints is just this Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.

Rebirth is a view but with a taint, it is ignorant. It is slightly mistaken. Not my teachings, Lord Buddhas.

Members of the ariyan sangha who have attained supermundane right view continue to have mundane right view simultaneously (at least that is my understanding). The moment you decide that mundane right view is slightly mistaken is the moment that you have strayed from right view.

They speak in conventions without being held to them, they speak about mundane teachings on rebirth without holding them.

Right view is fundamental.

Could not agree more friend

who has perfect confidence in the Dhamma and has arrived at this true Dhamma.

True dhamma does not contain the view of rebirth, one sees there is no rebirth.

[Mogharaja:]

Twice now, O Sakyan,
I've asked you,
but you, One with vision,
haven't answered me.
When asked the third time
the celestial seer answers:
so I have heard.
This world, the next world,
the Brahma world with its devas:
I don't know how they're viewed
by the glorious Gotama.
So to the one who has seen
to the far extreme,
I've come with a question:
How does one view the world
so as not to be seen
by Death's king?
[The Buddha:]

View the world, Mogharaja,
as empty —
always mindful
to have removed any view
about self.

This way one is above & beyond death.
This is how one views the world
so as not to be seen
by Death's king.

Mogharaja was asking what is correct view, the buddha taught him which is the correct view, emptiness not rebirth, this is how to gain release.

[clw_uk]

The points I have put forward are not new, to quote Ajahn Chah

People don’t study that which is beyond good and evil. This is what they should study. "I’m going to be like this; I’m going to be like that," they say. But they never say, "I’m not going to be anything because there really isn’t any ‘I’." This they don’t study.

Rebirth is about merit, good and evil is it not?

Ajahn Chah replied with great force, "Hay, listen! There’s no one here, just this! No owner, no one to be old, to be young, to be good or bad, weak or strong. Just this, that’s all - just various elements of nature going their own way, all empty. No one born and no one to die! Those who speak of birth and death are speaking the language of ignorant children. In the language of the heart, of Dhamma, there are no such things as birth and death."

There is no I to be reborn, there is no birth, death, rebirth.

As the buddha states

In the same way, in the course of the future there will be monks who won't listen when discourses that are words of the Tathagata -- deep, deep in their meaning, transcendent, connected with emptiness -- are being recited. They won't lend ear, won't set their hearts on knowing them, won't regard these teachings as worth grasping or mastering. But they will listen when discourses that are literary works -- the works of poets, elegant in sound, elegant in rhetoric, the work of outsiders, words of disciples -- are recited. They will lend ear and set their hearts on knowing them. They will regard these teachings as worth grasping & mastering.

[puthujjana]

Stick with rebirth and hold onto it and you wont see the truth of anatta and emptiness in its full light.

I can't see a contradiction between rebirth and "the truth of anatta and emptiness in it's full light".
The thruth of anatta is fundamental for the buddhist version of rebirth.

[clw_uk]

puthujjana my friend, look at my above post first you may have missed me post it while you was typing your response, i feel it covers important aspects that i have been trying to get accross.


Now concerning rebirth, it was taught as eternalism

"Going from there HE REAPPEARS there"

Emptiness, the essence of the buddhadhamma is about how there is no rebirth, no I to be reborn at all, no rebirth.


However over the centuries anatta and emptiness were mixed with rebirth, there was mixing of the mundane and the supermundane, this is where all confusion about the true dhamma comes from in my opinion.


Metta

[Heavenstorm]

I hope you are not implying that I would use the illness of a Bhikkhu as an opurtunity to further some goal that you presume I have?

I would say its a unfortunate coincidence. Whether you made of that is entirely your own decision.

The argument that you are likey to use that rebirth is not eternalism because it is a flux of becoming or a stream of consciousness was not taught by the buddha.

You claimed that it was not taught by Buddha but the truth is your own novel interpretation. We clearly don't agree with you.

Please show me where Dependent Orignation is stated as a model of rebirth, it isnt this was added later by the commentaries, dependent origination is about the arising and quenching of dukkha, about how self view comes to be
everytime there is contact there is feeling, craving, clinging, becoming, birth of Self the sense of I.

This anti attitude towards the commentaries/Abhidharma is uncalled for, you are just like element, dismissing it just because it supports the rebirth doctrine very strongly.

I suggest you re-evalute the buddhas dhamma and do not get all your understandings from what is written in the commentaries.

Again, you are missing the point. Not everyone here share your anti attitude towards it. The commentaries is the elaboration of the suttas from Arya sangha, reading it is as good as listening to live teachings from those great elders.

There is no contradiction my friend, i have never said it is unnecessary those are your words, i have stated that rebirth was taught by the buddha but it was mundane, a view with faults. Supermundane view does not contain a view of rebirth unless you mistake dependent origination as a rebirth model as you have done.

Its not mistaken, period. You presume everyone who disagree with you that commentaries are the valid words of the Buddha, is mistaken. Thats simply a poor attempt at arguing.

Rebirth is strongly associated with the first noble truth, along with impermanence and suffering. Countless of teachings have been given on them in the Theravada centers.

The realisation of Anatta is the realisation that the world is empty of a self and there can be no rebirth because there is no becoming again of "I" there is no "I" to be reborn, there is no rebirth.

You are playing with words, there is rebirth and you have experienced it.

Nibbana is empty of a self, it is dying before death my friend.

Nibbana is not reached until you reached Arahantship (Which you haven't), my friend. Not before and certainly not at the point of death as you tried to evade my point.

"Whatever monks or brahmans recollect their past life in its various modes, they all recollect the five aggregates affected by clinging or one or another of them."

What is the origin of identity? five aggregates effected by clinging.

Here the buddha is stating that one merely recollects the various moments of the sense of "I" or "Me" being born and that sense of self taking up the aggegates as identity.

Birth in the supermundane means the birth of self at moments this is important to remember.

Thats not what the Buddha said, you completely taken it out of context. He meant literally that everyone have experienced rebirth and monks can recollect them through the traces of attachment found in their aggregates.

[clw_uk]

You claimed that it was not taught by Buddha but the truth is your own novel interpretation. We clearly don't agree with you.

Please read my posts fully, i offer you that same respect, i have stated the buddha taught rebirth just not the kind you find in the abhidhamma. Do you speak for everyone?

This anti attitude towards the commentaries/Abhidharma is uncalled for, you are just like element, dismissing it just because it supports the rebirth doctrine very strongly.

I am only interested in the buddhas teachings, of dhamma.

In the same way, in the course of the future there will be monks who won't listen when discourses that are words of the Tathagata -- deep, deep in their meaning, transcendent, connected with emptiness -- are being recited. They won't lend ear, won't set their hearts on knowing them, won't regard these teachings as worth grasping or mastering. But they will listen when discourses that are literary works -- the works of poets, elegant in sound, elegant in rhetoric, the work of outsiders, words of disciples -- are recited. They will lend ear and set their hearts on knowing them. They will regard these teachings as worth grasping & mastering.

Rebirth is not concerned with emptiness, rebirth as central to the teachings as supermundane was something that got added later by disciples.

reading it is as good as listening to live teachings from those great elders.

The buddha advised us not to believe something because it is tradition.

You presume everyone who disagree with you that commentaries are the valid words of the Buddha, is mistaken

The buddhas passing was way before the commentaries, he could not have written them.

Rebirth is strongly associated with the first noble truth, along with impermanence and suffering

Where is rebirth in the first noble truth?

"Now this, monks, is the noble truth of stress:1 Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are stressful; association with the unbeloved is stressful, separation from the loved is stressful, not getting what is wanted is stressful. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are stressful.

Where is rebirth? There is birth, but the higher dhamma is about the birth of self, not rupa, thats why the buddhas dhamma is about emptiness, to realise the folly of self view not about the folly of rupa being rupa. Stop putting words in the buddhas mouth, this will make much de-merit.

Remember the noble truths are supermundane, rebirth is mundane with EFFLUENTS, this is the mixing of the mundane and supermundane i have talked about that leads to much confusion.

there is rebirth and you have experienced it.

There is no me to experience it

Nibbana is not reached until you reached Arahantship

Nibbana is the death of self, of I-making.

He meant literally that everyone have experienced rebirth and monks can recollect them through the traces of attachment found in their aggregates.

They recollect I making in relation to the aggregates, not the aggregates themselves. Dont take my word for it, listen to the buddha

Whatever monks or brahmans recollect their past life in its various modes, they all recollect the five aggregates affected by clinging or one or another of them

Look at this and consider what is the origin of identity?
What does emptiness concern?


If you would be so kind, if rebirth is so important, supermundane, why does the buddha call it right view with TAINTS?

Ignorance comes from taints

Ignorance will lead you to dukkha, not to nibbana.

Also this is not my view, not my own novel teachings but that of the buddha and all who understand the folly of mundane dhamma and the correct understanding of the supermundane dhamma.

Ajahn Chah replied with great force, "Hay, listen! There’s no one here, just this! No owner, no one to be old, to be young, to be good or bad, weak or strong. Just this, that’s all - just various elements of nature going their own way, all empty. No one born and no one to die! Those who speak of birth and death are speaking the language of ignorant children. In the language of the heart, of Dhamma, there are no such things as birth and death."

People don’t study that which is beyond good and evil. This is what they should study. "I’m going to be like this; I’m going to be like that," they say. But they never say, "I’m not going to be anything because there really isn’t any ‘I’." This they don’t study.

Ajahn Chah

[tiltbillings]

Me: "So, please clarify for me, for an unawakened individual, when he dies, there is no rebirth? No anything? What really happens to him? And how do you know that?

Craig:

This depends on which level you would like me to discuss.

Mundane level one says rebirth,

Supermundane, there is no rebirth. This is the teachings given to those who can understand, the buddhas core teaching.

How about giving a straightforward answer to my questions. No dancing around. Tell us from each level, and tell us how you know.

[clw_uk]

First of all sorry if my response was not clear enough

Me: "So, please clarify for me, for an unawakened individual, when he dies, there is no rRebirth? No anything? What really happens to him? And how do you know that?

Why do you cling to a sense of self? There is no rebirth. This is truth.

Nothing, what so ever, should be clung to

Buddha

Tell us from each level

The following quote explains both levels in accordance with my understanding.

They said to the Buddha: "500 laywomen have died. What is their future course?" On realizing the significance, the Buddha said: "Bound with delusion & acquisitions, it seems eternal. But for one who sees, there is nothing."

How do I know this, through following the advise of the wise, through practice and contemplation of the here and now, where the truth is to be found and not be just believing what is tradition, what is scripture but through scrutiny of what is taught.

[mikenz66]

Dear clw_uk,

Remember the noble truths are supermundane, rebirth is mundane with EFFLUENTS, this is the mixing of the mundane and supermundane i have talked about that leads to much confusion.

Your entire argument appears to rest on your assertion that anyone who disagrees with you is confusing the mundane with the supermundane. I don't personally see any confusion between conventional and ultimate language regarding issues such as rebirth in sources that I trust.

It appears to me that you are simply projecting confusion where none actually exists and playing games with language (such as highlighting words like I and me).

Metta
Mike

[clw_uk]

Your entire argument appears to rest on your assertion that anyone who disagrees with you is confusing the mundane with the supermundane.

There is no mixing of the mundane and supermundane, e.g. lets take supermundane anatta and mix it with mundane view of self.

There is a self but all things are not self, see what errors it brings to confuse the two

There is emptiness of self but I will be reborn, see the error?

I highlight those words because that is where the error is.

If rebirth can be supermundane then you should be able to answer these questions for me

Why is rebirth called right view with TAINTS?
What are taints a cause of?
Why does right view without effluents not contain teachings on rebirth?
Does the mundane lead to nibbana?
Can the teaching of emptiness of self include teachings or rebirth, of comming again?

[Element]

It is quite irony that this discussion appears when Venerable Dhammanando is not with us. Anyway..........

Heavenstorm

I do not see the irony.

These discussions have been held countless times previously with Venerable Dhammanando.

The result is always the same.

Kind regards,

E

[Element]

The thruth of anatta is fundamental for the buddhist version of rebirth.

puthujjana

It is best to provide some reasoning behind your point.

Regards

E

[clw_uk]

Heavenstorm

In relation to Samsara being the birth and death of self, since I doubt you will take it from me how about from a wise teacher such as Ajahn Chah

To become glad, is to be born; to become dejected, is to die. Having died, we are born again; having been born, we die again. This birth and death from one moment to the next is the endless spinning wheel of samsara.

Samsara, as well as dependent origination, is not about the earth, the universe or about physical birth.


http://www.what-buddha-taught.net/Books ... n_Chah.htm

[Element]

Well quoted from Ajahn Chah Craig

This is in essence with the Buddha's teaching, as found in the supramundane suttas such as MN 38.

From delight & clinging, comes birth.

From sorrow & lamentation come death.

From death comes dukkha.

[tiltbillings]

Craig: First of all sorry if my response was not clear enough

Me: "So, please clarify for me, for an unawakened individual, when he dies, there is no rebirth? No anything? What really happens to him? And how do you know that?

Craig: Why do you cling to a sense of self? There is no rebirth. This is truth.


(Namaste; a Hindu greeting acknowledging the shared god with everyone, the atman. The Buddhist greeting would be anjali.)

That I use conventional language does not mean I am clinging to a sense of self.

So, please answer the question, what happens on a conventional level, to the individual who dies?

Craig: Nothing, what so ever, should be clung to?”
Buddha

Okay; however, that does not answer the question.

Me: “Tell us from each level”

Craig: The following quote explains both levels in accordance with my understanding.
They said to the Buddha: "500 laywomen have died. What is their future course?" On realizing the significance, the Buddha said: "Bound with delusion & acquisitions, it seems eternal. But for one who sees, there is nothing."

Would you be kind enough to explain in detail how this not very good translation answers the question on each level.

Craig: How do I know this, through following the advise of the wise, through practice and contemplation of the here and now, where the truth is to be found and not be just believing what is tradition, what is scripture but through scrutiny of what is taught.

And I have not done any of this in my 40 years of practice? Of course, you do not know.