the great rebirth debate

[lyndon taylor]

What does this have to do with rebirth???

[nowheat]

I recall asking you if you saw a common thread -- this seems to suggest that you do. Would you please detail what it is you see as the common thread?

I actually don't see any such thread. Which was the reason why I am trying to coax you to cite the thread, because if the Vedic "view" is the problem that the Buddha was hoping to address vide DA, then what was that view? Given that there are so many views in the attested pre-Buddhist literature, what common denominator underlies those views (be it psychological or doctrinal or whatever), such that the brahmin, on hearing DA, would immediately understand that DA was directed against such-&-such aspect of their prior conditioning?

Well, that maybe explains where we went off the rails -- thanks. I'm not saying that what the Buddha was hoping to address with DA was the Vedic view. What the Buddha addressed with DA was the way *all* views that involve making assumptions about the world and/or the self that aren't well supported in evidence are going to lead us into trouble. Regardless of what era he taught in, and what the belief systems were of people around him, that would still have been the point: how the way we are so sure we know what's going on all the time is at the root of our suffering.

But in his day, the views that caused the most problem were the ones he talks about in DA: the rites-and-rituals and attavada (view of self) sorts of views, and he found a really terrific way to get that point across by using the structure of rituals, and particularly of rituals that modify the self, as the organizing principal of his core lesson. The old suttas in the Sutta Nipata, like the "Quarrels and Disputes" one I mentioned earlier in the thread, indicate that he hadn't always framed DA using the language of the Prajapati myth, and of rituals, and of what happens after the funeral pyre -- though his uses of consciousness and of name and of form indicates to me he was using, fairly early on, themes that are found in the Prajapati myth (whether that's because the Prajapati myth is built on the way folks saw the origins of life even without the myth, or the myth informed the way people looked at Creation, I have not enough knowledge of Vedism to say -- I'm not sure anyone knows -- and I don't think it matters. The classic 12-step DA uses the same way of looking at how we come to be -- it's there, regardless of how it came to be a structure the Buddha would find useful in explaining his point -- his point about *views* -- his *timeless* point about views).

What do you deem to be the origination of suffering if one has no views of self?

I'm with the RSPCA interpretation of DA. Our poor furry friends undergo the origination of suffering like the infant in MN 64. Anusayas do not require a full-blown view of self to be the condition for suffering to arise.

Maybe you could give me some examples, because I can't think of any way an animal without self suffers *dukkha*-type suffering.

I almost thought of one, though. I have often thought my shy Doberman experienced something like dukkha. She is always sure that when someone in the house is angry, they are angry at *her*. But I have a few problems with thinking that that is actually what the Buddha is talking about and that it doesn't involve self: she has a sense of self in that she is taking the anger as being directed at her self, and she is reacting to a painful feeling with aversion as she slouches out of sight. But I don't think this is what the Buddha is talking about as the actual origins of dukkha -- it is akin to dukkha; and it works from the same principal (in just the way causation on a cosmic scale is reflected in causation in DA; same mechanism but applied to a narrower set when generating actual dukkha); it is suffering, but it's not dukkha. Dukkha is something curable by knowledge, mindfulness, and effort. She does not have that ability -- and neither does the infant, which I took to be the Buddha's point in MN 64: that being free of dukkha doesn't mean you're liberated -- having no views yet doesn't mean you're awakened: you actually have to be able to be aware of what is going on and make the choices. Prior to growing up enough to meet that sort of criteria, what we experience as pleasure and pain isn't actually involved in dukkha.

[Spiny Norman]

As for Buddhadasa I dont think he "re-wrote" D.O. but simply explained it as it was, nothing he says goes against Dhamma and everything he says is aimed at non-clinging

I do think the "psychological" or "moment-to-moment" interpretation of DO is a major departure from what's described in the suttas because:

1. The nidanas are redefined, eg birth and death are redefined to be psychological rather than physical events as described in the suttas;
2. Conditionality ( paccaya ) is redefined to have the meaning of the nidanas shaping or influencing each other, rather than the nidanas arising in dependence on each other as described by the suttas. "When this is, that is.........when this arise, that arises";
3. Craving and clinging are redefined as exclusively short-term, rather than long-term, habitual tendencies.

I tend to use "psychological" instead of "moment-to-moment" because I think it captures this interpretation better, ie purely psychological as opposed to the traditional view of DO as a psycho-physical process. And of course we all work with aspects of DO moment-to-moment, the difference is about how many nidanas we consider.

“moment to moment” is the main thrust of DO. When we look at the early sketches in Suttanipāta of what later became DO, we find a pure ethic of liberation to be experienced in the present. This was the intention discussed well before a nidāna of doctrine had developed.

Could you say which early sketches? How do you know they are early? And how do you know they are more authentic than later material?

For me the pivotal point is the way the nidanas are defined, because they give DO it's meaning. The suttas I know of which define the nidanas are MN9, SN12.2 and DN15, and these seem to support the traditional view. Are you saying these 3 suttas are all later additions, and that they are corruptions?

[Spiny Norman]

Greetings,

If there is no rebirth and consciousness just ends with termination of brain than what use is Nibbana? ...

The ending of lobha dosa moha.

Yep.... true regardless of precisely what rebirth is, and whether it is so.

Metta,
Retro.

Sure, that's the old "relevance of rebirth to practice" argument. Clearly some people find the teachings on rebirth and kamma relevant, and some don't.

[Spiny Norman]

Please quote where someone has said "there is no rebirth"

A number of people are arguing that rebirth is a metaphor. Though this keeps getting muddled up with the "relevance of rebirth to practice" debate.

[lyndon taylor]

How about we talk about what is the relevence of rebirth at your death, which I assume is inevitable??

[daverupa]

How about we talk about what is the relevence of rebirth at your death, which I assume is inevitable??

Two points come up in this respect:

1. The Buddha's teaching on rebirth was not in and of itself a motive for the pre-Buddha's going forth - disease, aging, and death were. Those particular facts only occurred to him after he had trained in the fourth jhana, long after his going forth.

2. Whenever the Buddha found people who weren't upholding their own metpahysical views, but who were instead inquisitive and yet perplexed about these metaphysical issues, the Buddha taught them via the Wager, not via rebirth.

So the approach of being motivated by rebirth-view, while useful for some, is nevertheless wholly inessential and, perhaps we can say, not very good dhammaduta for many people when it is insisted upon in certain ways.

[ancientbuddhism]

My thesis is twofold: that we have misunderstood what the Buddha is doing with his mentions of rebirth because we have not understood the way the Buddha uses language throughout the canon, and that the other reason for the misunderstanding is because we haven't understood what dependent arising is, if it's not endorsing a view of the cosmic order...

I could have missed something, but where have you actually shown a text-critical analysis of 'the way the Buddha uses language', pointing to parallels or 'linguistic echos', as Norman/Gombrich would show, in the Vedas or Upaniṣads, to support your 'thesis'?

Otherwise, you could post here again in this or that thread, today or months later, and the discussion still remains circular.

I'm not sure what you missed, but I must have missed the part where I said something that indicated I believe the Buddha used language in a way that was imitating someone else so that it would have parallels or 'linguistic echoes'. I thought what I'd said was that there wasn't an expectation that teachers would speak in clear and literal ways the way we expect them to -- I'm pretty sure anyone reading the Upanisads would notice this -- but that I suspected that the Buddha was doing things with the structure of his argument that were quite remarkably brilliant, by which I mean using techniques that no one might have thought of. My argument included a point made in passing about Sariputta's moment of understanding -- if one of his most brilliant students didn't get it at first, it wasn't that he was being obvious, or talking just exactly the way everyone else did.

I also thought I'd said, at least once or twice, that what I'm arguing should be clear from the suttas alone. It is an internally consistent way of understanding what's going on that makes the inconsistencies some of us recognize in the traditional view (the "I don't discuss cosmological questions I only speak of dukkha and the cessation of dukkha" accompanied in the suttas by statements that are understood by many to be statements about cosmological questions -- those sorts of failures of logic; the direction to be more concerned with one's own life in the future than with our effect on those whose lives we touch and all life; the nothing-to-be-reborn issues) go away. If my argument is circular it is, I suppose, because it's meant to be self-supported by just the suttas, by understanding what is being said, as well as the way it is said, with the only real outside support coming from seeing how it measures up in practice. In just the same sort of way that the traditional interpretation has its own internal consistency, what I'm suggesting also has internal consistency. If that sort of circularity seems like a failing to you, well, I'm sorry that it does.

You have made the claim that the method or style or ‘field’ as background for the Buddha’s teaching of DO, is connected to the Vedas, no?

What would connect the DO in the Nikāyas to the Vedas, if such can be found, is through citing the relevant texts and specific language, both of the Nikāyas and vedic materials.

Surly you understand what is asked with reference to a textual or linguistic connection, from suttanta to another body of texts? What is asked is to show this connection for what you suggest is ‘what the Buddha actually meant’ with DO and the vedic materials mentioned as underpinnings to your thesis.

Such an argument cannot be accepted as ‘self-supported by just the suttas’ when its thesis is pointing to vedic materials as part of its claim.

[lyndon taylor]

How about we talk about what is the relevence of rebirth at your death, which I assume is inevitable??

Two points come up in this respect:

1. The Buddha's teaching on rebirth was not in and of itself a motive for the pre-Buddha's going forth - disease, aging, and death were. Those particular facts only occurred to him after he had trained in the fourth jhana, long after his going forth.

2. Whenever the Buddha found people who weren't upholding their own metpahysical views, but who were instead inquisitive and yet perplexed about these metaphysical issues, the Buddha taught them via the Wager, not via rebirth.

So the approach of being motivated by rebirth-view, while useful for some, is nevertheless wholly inessential and, perhaps we can say, not very good dhammaduta for many people when it is insisted upon in certain ways.

Once again you have every right to speak for yourself, but I would caution you to try not to apply your opinions and beliefs to everyone else, rebirth is inessential to you, but not inessential to everyone.

At least I should thank you for being on topic, a lesson some of our other posters seem unable to learn!!!

[mikenz66]

Hi Spiny,

“Moment to moment” is the main thrust of DO. When we look at the early sketches in Suttanipāta of what later became DO, we find a pure ethic of liberation to be experienced in the present. This was the intention discussed well before a nidāna of doctrine had developed.

Could you say which early sketches? How do you know they are early? And how do you know they are more authentic than later material?

See, for example Sutta Nipata 4.11
http://www.leighb.com/snp4_11.htm
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .irel.html
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

The last two chapters of the Sn are often cited as being very early suttas.


Mike



Mike

[ancientbuddhism]

...Could you say which early sketches? How do you know they are early? And how do you know they are more authentic than later material?

For me the pivotal point is the way the nidanas are defined, because they give DO it's meaning. The suttas I know of which define the nidanas are MN9, SN12.2 and DN15, and these seem to support the traditional view. Are you saying these 3 suttas are all later additions, and that they are corruptions?

I would rather devote another thread to discussing DO in the Suttanipāta. But for our purposes here, K.R. Norman’s translation should suffice. See The Group of Discourses (Sutta Nipāta) (PTS No. 45, 1991/2001), a copy can be found in the Library. A good place to begin is Sn. V.2. Ajita’s Questions, V.4. Puṇṇaka’s Questions and V.5. Mettagū’s Questions. There are other contexts of what could be called ‘early DO’, for lack of a better term, throughout the Sn., but these will give a context for questions about the cause of dukkha and what it is to be beset with ‘birth and aging’ (jātijaranti), in a concise, present life context. Also on the topic of Sn. and DO, look in the Library for The Theory of ‘Dependent Origination’ in its Incipient Stage, by Hajime Nakamura.

I would not designate these sections of Suttanipāta as 'more authentic'. Why the Suttanipāta is considered 'early' is academic theory, e.g. the lack of stock phrases and idiom that later developed into the doctrinal pericopes found in the larger collections.

Also, with reference to what could be called a DO of the present moment, the Loka Sutta of SN. 12.44 gives us a model for looking at this. Rather than post all that again, look at this discussion here.

[daverupa]

Once again you have every right to speak for yourself, but I would caution you to try not to apply your opinions and beliefs to everyone else, rebirth is inessential to you, but not inessential to everyone.

It may be essential to your practice, but it isn't essential to the practice in the same way that the eightfold path is essential to the practice for everyone. This is an essential (!) difference worth highlighting, so let us be clear about it.

[daverupa]

Also, with reference to what could be called a DO of the present moment, the Loka Sutta of SN. 12.44 gives us a model for looking at this. Rather than post all that again, look at this discussion here.

You know, I wonder if the idea of The All and how it is created, per that sutta, is being connected in nowheat's thoughts with a description of Purusa/Prajapati as the (ritually-constituted/constructed) All. Maybe this is the comparative bedrock for further unpacking DO as a reworked Vedic precedent?

[lyndon taylor]

it is pretty essential if your belief in rebirth is what gives you the motivation to practise the 8fld path in the first place, if rebirth was so unimportant why did the Buddha include it over and over in the scriptures, believe it or not, some people actually practise the 8fld path to gain a favourable rebirth, without that belief there may be no practise at all. Its just important to deliniate between what we individually think and believe, and what is universally true. Rebirth may be universally true, but their may be no way to prove or disprove it. But making statements like "rebirth is entirely unessential to the practise of Buddhism" definetly isn't true for everyone, and smacks as a secular version of the fundamentalist extremism that is being criticized.

Rebirth is mostly only unimportant or inessential to people that don't believe in it, to people that do believe it can be very important indeed.

[Jhana4]

I don't believe that a belief in rebirth is a necessary condition for there being a point to Buddhism.

The teachings and all of the recommendations make people's lives happier in the here and now.

That point is even made in the often cited Kalama Sutta.