the great rebirth debate

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

:? ...you think that eating each other and wallowing in greed, hatred, misery and delusion in the here-and-now is the better option...?

Why not if it pleases me or fills my holes? What does it matter - if one day it will end?

[stuka]

:? ...you think that eating each other and wallowing in greed, hatred, misery and delusion in the here-and-now is the better option...?

Why not if it pleases me or fills my holes? What does it matter - if one day it will end?

Eating each other and wallowing in greed, hatred, misery and delusion pleases you, and "fills your holes"...? What sort of sociopathic statement is that, really?

[Element]

If there is no escape what is the point of ending dukkha?

Buddha said dukkha is the prerequisite condition for the arising of faith in his teachings.

I think a better question is: "If I have not discerned dukkha, why do I bother taking an interest in Buddhism?"

[Element]

Why not if it pleases me or fills my holes? What does it matter - if one day it will end?

Tashi

The experience of dukkha includes the experience of unsatisfactoriness. If we think there are conditioned things in this life that can please us or 'filling our holes' will bring us happiness, why should we bother taking an interest in Buddhism?

Why do not we just spend our life making ourselves 'happy' by filling our holes?

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

The experience of dukkha includes the experience of unsatisfactoriness. If we think there are conditioned things in this life that can please us or 'filling our holes' will bring us happiness, why should we bother taking an interest in Buddhism?

If life contains things that are dukkha and some that are not, then indeed why would there be any motivation to pursue ethics of any kind? Just pursue the things that are not dukkha and you will not experience dukkha. The only reason to pursue ethics at all is if all of life without exception is dukkha.

[stuka]

The experience of dukkha includes the experience of unsatisfactoriness. If we think there are conditioned things in this life that can please us or 'filling our holes' will bring us happiness, why should we bother taking an interest in Buddhism?

If life contains things that are dukkha and some that are not, then indeed why would there be any motivation to pursue ethics of any kind?

Sounds rather sociopathic, don't you think...? Do you really believe that...?

Just pursue the things that are not dukkha and you will not experience dukkha.

And then they will change, decay, and fade away, and the dukkha will come.

The only reason to pursue ethics at all is if all of life without exception is dukkha.

Do you really think that? And if so, do you really think that that categorical, black/white statement applies to absolutely everyone who has ever lived, without exception...?

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

Sounds rather sociopathic, don't you think...? Do you really believe that...?

If we are momentarily going off the cliff into oblivion, why does it matter? Take as much as you can becauase tomorrow - no consequence.

Just pursue the things that are not dukkha and you will not experience dukkha.

And then they will change, decay, and fade away, and the dukkha will come.

So all life is suffering. Suffering is a universal and all-inclusive truth about life, not just particular things in life. Lord Buddha says idam dukkham and sabbam idam dukkham (i think, once). I don't think sabbam dukkham ever actually appears. But sabbam dukkham is what must be meant. Because as you just implied all things are dukkha. If the problem is universal liberation also has to be universal. So liberation is not just something that makes you feel better before you die. If liberation is universal it also has to include what happens after death.

[retrofuturist]

Greetings participants and observers of the Great Rebirth debate,

My observation of threads like this on other discussion forums is that often participants "talk past each other" because of different understandings on what exactly constitutes "annihilationism", or as it is in Pali, ucchedavada.

Therefore, I have created a new but related debate topic specifically addressing the topic of what constitutes annihilationism.

Ucchedavada (annihilationism) - what does it actually mean?
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=157

I would strongly encourage anyone who actively participates in Rebirth debates to take the time to check out the Ucchedavada (annihilationism) thread and contribute their opinions as to what exactly consitutes annihilationism.

Metta,
Retro.

[Cittasanto]

Hi retro and all
I am going to wait for your new thread to start before commenting if I have the inclination or wonder! but on this thread I am seeing some disdurbing things!
would it not be better to find common ground? than as others have mentioned point out sociopathic statements, or be too gun ho in how we post?
all traditions have the eightfold path try looking to it for guidance!
it is better to say nothing than something which can be taken badly!

[retrofuturist]

Greetings Manapa,

on this thread I am seeing some disdurbing things! would it not be better to find common ground? than as others have mentioned point out sociopathic statements, or be too gun ho in how we post?

The purpose of this sub-forum is to openly permit this kind of important and challenging discussion.

Likewise, by establishing a particular forum as a Free-For-All, albeit one where members must still be nice to each other, we aim to keep other areas of the site free from vociferous debate.

A time and a place for everything, with well established boundaries, and the opportunity to fine tune your experience by sticking to forums aligned with your practice.

Metta,
Retro.

[christopher:::]

Greetings participants and observers of the Great Rebirth debate,

My observation of threads like this on other discussion forums is that often participants "talk past each other" because of different understandings on what exactly constitutes "annihilationism", or as it is in Pali, ucchedavada.

I'd agree with that. Also different ideas about what constitutes rebirth.

[stuka]

Sounds rather sociopathic, don't you think...? Do you really believe that...?

If we are momentarily going off the cliff into oblivion, why does it matter? Take as much as you can becauase tomorrow - no consequence.

If it were the case that there is no retributory afterlife, there would still be the small difficulty of the matter of cause and effect in this life. Jeff Dahmer found that out, by and by.

You are artificially taking the position that only an absolute sociopath would actually hold. I welcome you to actively and enthusiastically pursue and explore your specious position and line of reasoning and argumentation to the very fullest, and see for yourself just how far your proposal of a doctrine of "I'll just do what I want, take what I want,perpetrate whatever I want upon just whoever and whatever I want, just as I please", takes you, and to report your eventual conclusions back to us from your prison cell.

In short: the Buddha did not teach that there are no consequences to actions.

Just pursue the things that are not dukkha and you will not experience dukkha.

And then they will change, decay, and fade away, and the dukkha will come.

So all life is suffering.

The Buddha did not teach that. He said, "There is suffering", or "This is suffering". He pointed out the fact of suffering, and offered his solutions to the various ways he saw that we cause suffering for ourselves and others. What a good cat he was.

Suffering is a universal and all-inclusive truth about life, not just particular things in life.

As you say. however, suffering is our response to events in life, and not an intrinsic quality to the fact of life itself.

Lord Buddha says idam dukkham

"This is Suffering". Yes.

NOT "Life is suffering".

and sabbam idam dukkham (i think, once).

...you think, once...? Try to do better than that, eh...?

I don't think sabbam dukkham ever actually appears. But sabbam dukkham is what must be meant.

You are way out on a limb here.

Because as you just implied all things are dukkha.

I did not imply or state that at all. The only reason any and/or all things carry the potential to cause us dukkha is because of our own potential to attach to them as "Me and Mine". All things are intrinsically neutral.

If the problem is universal liberation also has to be universal.

And so the Buddha's teachings of liberation are universal -- and he declared them as such -- for anyone mature enough to fully embrace them.

So liberation is not just something that makes you feel better before you die.

What a sad distortion you offer here. The liberation from all suffering that the Buddha's Noble Teachings promise is not a matter of "just making one 'feel better before they die'". Drowning oneself in a bottle can deliver that sad sort of delusion. You sadly underestimate the reality of suffering, and what suffering really is. Perhaps you express such naïvité because you have never experienced real suffering at all.

If liberation is universal it also has to include what happens after death.

"What happens after death" is a matter of speculation and speculative view. What is happening here and now is real. Suffering only ever happens in the here and now.


(Edited by poster to remove harsh speech)

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

If it were the case that there is no retributory afterlife, there would still be the small difficulty of the matter of cause and effect in this life. Jeff Dahmer found that out, by and by.

Where is it said that absolutely all karmic fruits are reaped in this single lifetime, for everyone?

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

Suffering only ever happens in the here and now.

As a result of past causes. Furthermore, such causes are in nature exactly alike to their results. Regarding a karmic fruit, is there a "first cause" or "beginning"? If not, it makes no sense to say that the karmic fruit which is my present consciousness "began" at my birth.

[zamis]

The point is the Buddha speaks of a dead monk having a certain number of rebirths ahead of him. This sort of statement cannot be understood as referring to anything other than multiple lives.

Sure it can. You seem to be employing an Argument Ad Ignoratium. The lone example of the fact of my own understanding would defeat that argument; however, there are plenty of other Theravada practitioners who rightly understand it otherwise as well.

Sorry, I have missed the explanation of your own understanding as it pertains to the stream enterer, once returner... please point me to the post where I can read it.

Sati the fisherman's son held that consciousness transmigrates. Buddha clearly taught consciousness is not self. Consciousness is not what Nyanatiloka Mahathera calls a stream of life. What do you call that which carries kammic imprint? Thanks.

[Element]

Sati the fisherman's son held that consciousness transmigrates. Buddha clearly taught consciousness is not self.

Regarding Sati, Buddha taught consciousness is also dependently arisen, that without a sense organ, there is no arising of consciousness.

[stuka]

Where is it said that absolutely all karmic fruits are reaped in this single lifetime, for everyone?

Indeed, who has said it?

[stuka]

Suffering only ever happens in the here and now.

As a result of past causes. Furthermore, such causes are in nature exactly alike to their results.

Sounds like a Hindu belief. The Buddha taught that suffering is due to present craving through ignorance.

Regarding a karmic fruit, is there a "first cause" or "beginning"? If not, it makes no sense to say that the karmic fruit which is my present consciousness "began" at my birth.

That is a problem inherent to your own superstitious/speculative view. That it makes no sense is your problem and not mine. The Buddha's Noble teachings don't have any such loose ends.

Also, as Element points out, you are reifying "consciousness" into an entity, a "thing",an Atta. The Buddha pointed out that the various types of consciousness arise and disappear according to the activities of each of the sense bases that support them. His teaching does away with any need for such speculations:

"When a disciple of the noble ones has seen well with right discernment this dependent co-arising & these dependently co-arisen phenomena as they have come to be, it is not possible that he would run after the past, thinking, 'Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what was I in the past?' or that he would run after the future, thinking, 'Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future? Having been what, what shall I be in the future?' or that he would be inwardly perplexed about the immediate present, thinking, 'Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?' Such a thing is not possible. Why is that? Because the disciple of the noble ones has seen well with right discernment this dependent co-arising & these dependently co-arisen phenomena as they have come to be."

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

[stuka]

Sorry, I have missed the explanation of your own understanding as it pertains to the stream enterer, once returner... please point me to the post where I can read it.

That is because I didn't post one.

Sati the fisherman's son held that consciousness transmigrates. Buddha clearly taught consciousness is not self.

And Sati also held that the Buddha taught that "consciousness" was "that which 'carries karmic imprint'". Nyanatiloka can call "it" whatever he wants, but he is nonetheless proposing some kind of Atta, and just calling it something else.


But don't take my word for it. We'll let him go ahead and shoot himself in the foot here:

The term bhavanga-sota ["subconscious life-stream"], is identical with what the modern psychologists, such as Jung, etc., call the soul...

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... 4.html#ch2

Buddha didn't take too kindly to Sati for his eisegesis, did you know...?

Consciousness is not what Nyanatiloka Mahathera calls a stream of life.

He calls it a "Subconscious life stream", as we see above. The model of a "subconscious" is a form of reified consciousness, any way you cut it. Did you deliberately leave out that sticky little "subconscious" bit? Did you think that I would not check your source...?

What do you call that which carries kammic imprint? Thanks.

I don't.


Meaning that I don't bother to postulate anything that "carries kammic imprint". No need at all here to run after the past or the future, or to be perplexed about the present:

"When a disciple of the noble ones has seen well with right discernment this dependent co-arising & these dependently co-arisen phenomena as they have come to be, it is not possible that he would run after the past, thinking, 'Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what was I in the past?' or that he would run after the future, thinking, 'Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future? Having been what, what shall I be in the future?' or that he would be inwardly perplexed about the immediate present, thinking, 'Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?' Such a thing is not possible. Why is that? Because the disciple of the noble ones has seen well with right discernment this dependent co-arising & these dependently co-arisen phenomena as they have come to be."

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

[stuka]

Nyanatiloka Mahathera says in "Kamma and Rebirth"

And further I wanted to point out that the kamma-process and rebirth-process may both be made comprehensible only by the assumption of a subconscious stream of life underlying everything in living nature.

Hard to disagree with that, actually.

He further asserts that:

The term bhavanga-sota [subconscious life-stream], is identical with what the modern psychologists, such as Jung, etc., call the soul...
...
Thus this subconscious life-stream, or bhavanga-sota, can be called the precipitate of all our former actions and experiences, which must have been going on since time immemorial and must continue for still immeasurable periods of time to come.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nyanatiloka/wheel394.html#ch2

What say ya'll?

Looks like an Xtian-style immortal soul from here. Fused with Sati's heresy as well.