the great rebirth debate

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
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BlueLotus
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Re: Is hell and hungry ghost realm to be taken literally?

Post by BlueLotus »

Lazy_eye wrote:"What do you mean, the earth isn't flat?"
"I don't believe the earth is flat, I have no credible sources to believe the earth is flat and I find most "flat earth" arguments incomplete and speculative but I think believing the earth is flat is necessary for survival on the earth." ;)
Spiny Norman
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Re: Is hell and hungry ghost realm to be taken literally?

Post by Spiny Norman »

BlueLotus wrote: As for nibbana it is mentioned in suttas as "cessation of suffering" rather than cessation of aggregates.
So do you now want to exclude all references to pari-Nibbana in the suttas? :tongue:
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Spiny Norman
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Re: Is hell and hungry ghost realm to be taken literally?

Post by Spiny Norman »

BlueLotus wrote:
porpoise wrote: Were the realms intended to be used as a method of classifying mental states? I don't see the evidence for it in the sutttas.
I think there is enough evidence to both interpretations so there is no need to stick to ONLY one. But starting from a position of aversion to the psychological content of the suttas isn't likely to facilitate an objective appraisal of meaning.
Sure, there is plenty of psychological content in the suttas, the problem is muddling up psychology with cosmology - and that often seems to result from an aversion to the cosmology, not from an objective analysis of content.

IMO it's very difficult for skeptics to read the suttas objectively because of their strong aversion to the cosmological content - it's like an atheist trying to read the Bible. So there is a need for suspension of disbelief, at least temporarily.
Buddha save me from new-agers!
Spiny Norman
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Re: Is hell and hungry ghost realm to be taken literally?

Post by Spiny Norman »

Lazy_eye wrote:Same thing happens in other religions. Fifty years ago, the scriptural literalists in Christianity agreed that the earth could not be more than 6,000-10,000 years old. Now that claim is increasingly rare, even among conservatives.
Yes, I take your point, but I think here we're discussing something more extreme. It seems there are people who want to exclude all cosmology from the suttas, which is the equivalent of an atheist rewriting the Bible.
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daverupa
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Re: Is hell and hungry ghost realm to be taken literally?

Post by daverupa »

porpoise wrote:So there is a need for suspension of disbelief, at least temporarily.
Perhaps with cosmology; there is no such need when investigating the Dhamma:
MN 79 wrote:Udayin, if someone should recollect his manifold past lives, that is, one birth, two births....thus, with their aspects and particulars, should he recollect his manifold past lives, then either he might ask me a question about the past or I might ask him a question about the past, and he might satisfy my mind with his answer to my question or I might satisfy his mind with my answer to his question. If someone with the divine eye, which is purified and surpasses the human, would see beings passing away and reappearing, inferior and superior, fair and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate...and understand how beings pass on according to their actions, then either he might ask me a question about the future or I might ask him a question about the future, and he might satisfy my mind with his answer to my question or I might satisfy his mind with my answer to his question. But let be the past, Udayin, let be the future. I shall teach you the Dhamma: When this exists, that comes to be; with the arising of this, that arises. When this does not exist, that does not come to be; with the cessation of this,that ceases.
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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BlueLotus
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Re: Is hell and hungry ghost realm to be taken literally?

Post by BlueLotus »

porpoise wrote:So do you now want to exclude all references to pari-Nibbana in the suttas? :tongue:
If you know any place in the suttas which states that the goal is parinibbana you are free to quote as I have requested you before. The goal I know is cessation of suffering, which is over and over again described as nibbana, experienced here and now.
pulga
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Re: Is hell and hungry ghost realm to be taken literally?

Post by pulga »

beeblebrox wrote: By the way, I'm always befuddled how something could be called literal, if the person never had an experience of such... to even associate the literalism.
The spirit realm is imaginary for most of us -- including myself -- but so is the doorway behind me as I sit typing at my computer. The imaginary gets a footing in reality by becoming a part of something more general -- with regards to the doorway, my being situated in this room, for instance. In other words the belief -- and fear -- of the realm of hungry ghosts is real for some. But that particular belief is ultimately grounded on what is bodily before them.
"Dhammā=Ideas. This is the clue to much of the Buddha's teaching." ~ Ven. Ñanavira, Commonplace Book
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BlueLotus
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Re: Is hell and hungry ghost realm to be taken literally?

Post by BlueLotus »

porpoise wrote: Sure, there is plenty of psychological content in the suttas, the problem is muddling up psychology with cosmology
No the problem here is insisting and enforcing a particular belief system which developed for many centuries by many different traditional influences as a necessity. The suttas are open for many interpretations and they have evolved for many centuries. Things have got added, terminology changed, contexts have changed, language semantics have changed. There is no need to gulp down everything as they are elaborated in commentaries by scholars. This makes Buddhism sound no better than fundamentalist Islamic dogmatism.

Let those who like to embrace certain beliefs do so. But that should not destroy the innate beauty of Buddhism which requires no blind faith to follow the path to its fruition. For those who do not want to take up beliefs, this matter of life-after and cosmology is irrelevant. What is relevant is the present moment. Buddha dhamma is still applicable to the present moment. Let's not destroy the beauty of this religion by insisting belief on anything we cannot verify.
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BlueLotus
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Re: Is hell and hungry ghost realm to be taken literally?

Post by BlueLotus »

porpoise wrote: It seems there are people who want to exclude all cosmology from the suttas
Meanwhile, there are people who don't really care if hungry ghosts actually exist or not. What matters to them is how to escape the "hungry ghost mental state", the constant need for sensual pleasures, in this very life. They neither deny nor accept unseen planes of existence. But they do not deny what they experience in the here and now.
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Aloka
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Re: Is hell and hungry ghost realm to be taken literally?

Post by Aloka »

BlueLotus wrote:
porpoise wrote: It seems there are people who want to exclude all cosmology from the suttas
Meanwhile, there are people who don't really care if hungry ghosts actually exist or not. What matters to them is how to escape the "hungry ghost mental state", the constant need for sensual pleasures, in this very life. They neither deny nor accept unseen planes of existence. But they do not deny what they experience in the here and now.
:goodpost: Yes, there are clearly plenty of sincere practitioners with this approach and it is certainly not rejected by all Buddhist teachers.
Last edited by Aloka on Tue Dec 11, 2012 6:39 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Nyana
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Re: Is hell and hungry ghost realm to be taken literally?

Post by Nyana »

porpoise wrote:Sure, we don't know whether what the suttas say is actually true - but that's a matter of personal belief and disbelief, and should not be confused with looking at what the suttas say.
Indeed. And this also pertains to major statements such as the four noble truths. Materialists can't accept the four noble truths because for them matter is the the origin of suffering, not craving. Thus, materialists with a penchant for some Buddhist practices have to reinterpret all of the statements pertaining to the four noble truths and dependent arising, as well as either reinterpret or dismiss all of the statements pertaining to rebirth and the other realms of existence. That seems like a lot of conceptual effort to exert in order to justify maintaining belief in a questionable worldview.
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Re: Is hell and hungry ghost realm to be taken literally?

Post by Nyana »

BlueLotus wrote:No the problem here is insisting and enforcing a particular belief system which developed for many centuries by many different traditional influences as a necessity.
Who's insisting that you or anyone else believe in the Buddha's dhamma?
BlueLotus wrote:The suttas are open for many interpretations and they have evolved for many centuries.
This is a gross overstatement on both counts.
BlueLotus wrote:Let's not destroy the beauty of this religion by insisting belief on anything we cannot verify.
Let's not claim that the dhamma-lite you're advocating is the Buddhadhamma.
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Aloka
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Re: Is hell and hungry ghost realm to be taken literally?

Post by Aloka »

Ñāṇa wrote:Let's not claim that the dhamma-lite you're advocating is the Buddhadhamma.
If I remember correctly, this extraodinary expression "dharma lite "was first used by the Tibetan Buddhist Alexander Berzin in his 'Berzin Archives'

for example:

"Dharma Lite vs Real Thing Dharma"

http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/ar ... _lite.html

..and from "Dharma Lite vs Hard Core Dharma":
There’s something else that I thought would be helpful to speak about here in our first meeting, sort of introductory things, is a distinction that I make between Dharma-Lite and Hard-Core Dharma. Dharma-Lite is like Coca-Cola Lite – it’s not “The Real Thing,” but it tastes nice and it’s not fattening, so there’s not so much harm from it. And then there’s Hard-Core Dharma, The Real Thing. And it’s very important, I think, to recognize the difference between these two and to have a realistic evaluation of where we’re at and what actually we’re doing with the Dharma and not to confuse Dharma-Lite for The Real Thing.

So let me talk about this a little bit, define what I mean here by Dharma-Lite and Hard-Core Dharma. One issue is rebirth. Now, rebirth is absolutely central to Dharma and there’s no denying that. If we look in terms of the three levels of motivation that we find in the lam-rim, the graded stages of the path, what’s the first level? Working to improve our future lives. How can you possibly do that if you don’t believe in future lives? Then it’s a farce. Then gaining liberation. What do we mean by liberation? Liberation from uncontrollably recurring rebirth. If you don’t believe that rebirth exists, why in the world would you want to get liberated from it?

And then enlightenment is the state in which we can help others to achieve liberation from rebirth. So again rebirth is essential. And recognizing everybody as having been your mother. Well, that’s rebirths. If you think in terms of the highest class of tantra, anuttarayoga, the whole process there is one of transforming the process of death, bardo, and rebirth. Well, if you don’t believe in rebirth, what are you doing with a sadhana, with a tantra practice, trying to transform that? Then it becomes almost a game that we’re playing, a fantasy that we don’t really believe in – it’s not so much that we don’t believe in it, we don’t even take seriously what it’s talking about.

And so Hard-Core Dharma is based on understanding and conviction in rebirth.

http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/ar ... ipt_2.html
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Re: Is hell and hungry ghost realm to be taken literally?

Post by Lazy_eye »

Ñāṇa wrote:Materialists can't accept the four noble truths because for them matter is the the origin of suffering, not craving.
Not necessarily. Not all physicalists -- or even the majority -- are reductive in this way. Some are property dualists -- that is, acknowledging that we can make a meaningful distinction between mental properties (such as craving) and material ones (e.g. brain chemistry).

Materialism/physicalism is a broader spectrum of thought than you're implying here. Your statement above represents the views of "reductive materalists".

It seems to me (as I was arguing earlier) that a more serious sticking point is the end of suffering, since death makes such an objective redundant. But craving as the origin of suffering -- even small children know that to be true!
Last edited by Lazy_eye on Tue Dec 11, 2012 7:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Nyana
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Re: Is hell and hungry ghost realm to be taken literally?

Post by Nyana »

Lazy_eye wrote:Not all physicalists are reductive in this way. Some are property dualists -- that is, acknowledging that we can make a meaningful distinction between mental properties (such as craving) and material ones (e.g. brain chemistry).

Materialism/physicalism is a broader spectrum of thought than you're implying here. Your statement above represents the views of "reductive materalists".
With property dualism mental properties are still caused by physical processes.
Lazy_eye wrote:But craving as the origin of suffering -- even small children know that to be true!
No, they don't.
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