Reincarnation

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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ground
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Re: Reincarnation

Post by ground »

TMingyur wrote:
retrofuturist wrote:Greetings TMingyur,
TMingyur wrote:Why has he taught about hells and lower birth states resulting from wrongdoing? Fear mongering and fooling his audience?
I think that's best explained by the following sutta...

MN 60: Apannaka Sutta
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Metta,
Retro. :)
I think that the conceptual contradiction is just shifted to another terminological level. But to shift the issue is not to explain it in a way that it is conceptually graspable. It is just replacing terms and terminology.
e.g. what is "the next world"? "Literally" or not?


Kind regards
Now one may argue it is his intent, he knows but his audience doesn't so he chooses to apply terms and terminology that direct his audience to right practice.

But then ... it is said that he never says what is not true:
[1] In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be unfactual, untrue, unbeneficial (or: not connected with the goal), unendearing & disagreeable to others, he does not say them.

[2] In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, unbeneficial, unendearing & disagreeable to others, he does not say them.

[3] In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, beneficial, but unendearing & disagreeable to others, he has a sense of the proper time for saying them.

[4] In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be unfactual, untrue, unbeneficial, but endearing & agreeable to others, he does not say them.

[5] In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, unbeneficial, but endearing & agreeable to others, he does not say them.

[6] In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, beneficial, and endearing & agreeable to others, he has a sense of the proper time for saying them. Why is that? Because the Tathagata has sympathy for living beings."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Kind regards
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Re: Reincarnation

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings TMingyur,

It sounds like you have the appropriate resources then to answer your own question.

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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ground
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Re: Reincarnation

Post by ground »

retrofuturist wrote:Greetings TMingyur,

It sounds like you have the appropriate resources then to answer your own question.

Metta,
Retro. :)
My resources are not different from those everybody else has.


Kind regards
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Re: Reincarnation

Post by mikenz66 »

Hi Retro,
retrofuturist wrote: What I don't get, is why you and Tilt seem to interpret what I'm saying as rebirth denial. Sometimes it seems as if anything short of proclaiming "hurrah for literal post-mortem rebirth" from the hilltops gets interpreted this way.
Sorry, It's probably because I've never been convinced these arguments that involve labelling something "speculative" and thereby dismissing it. So perhaps I misunderstood the rest of your argument.

:anjali:
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Re: Reincarnation

Post by tiltbillings »

retrofuturist wrote:The specific relevance of Nanananda to this topic is his treatment of bhava and vibhava, as distinct to analyses on kamma, rebirth or dependent origination.

For example: From Nibbana Sermon 19 - http://www.beyondthenet.net/calm/nibbana19.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Saïkhata, or the prepared, is like a floral design. This prepared floral design, which is bhava, or existence, is made up, as it were, with the help of the glue of craving, the tangles of views and the knots of conceits. If one removes the glue, disentangles the tangles and unties the knots, the saïkhata, or the prepared, itself becomes asaïkhata, the unprepared, then and there. The same floral design, which was the saïkhata, has now become the asaïkhata. This itself is the cessation of existence, bhavanirodho. When one can persuade oneself to think of Nibbàna as an extinguishment, the term parinibbàna can well be understood as `perfect extinguishment'.
"This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond." SN I, 38. "If one removes the glue, disentangles the tangles and unties the knots, the saïkhata [sic], or the prepared, itself becomes asankhata, the unprepared, then and there." And the only way one can do this is by the actions one wills - kamma, which is the way of talking about the conditioning of one's willed actions. There is nothing in this quote that is distinct from kamma.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Reincarnation

Post by mikenz66 »

retrofuturist wrote: Why would he [Ven Nanananda] reject rebirth? The falsity of rebirth is a speculative view that cannot be verified.
Here are some quotes from Ven Nananada's Nibbana Sermons. They seem rather straightforward to me in their discussion of rebirth in the common Buddhist sense of bodies dying and bodies being born. Perhaps there are other ways of reading them.

Nibbana Sermon 5.
Nanananda wrote:One's former lives cannot be seen with one's own eyes by
running into the past. It is possible only by purifying one's
memory and directing it backwards. Similarly, the death and
rebirth of beings can be seen, as if with one's fleshly eye, by
the divine eye, by those who have developed it. So also the fact
of extirpating all influxes is to be realized by wisdom, and not
by any other means. The fact that the influxes of sensuality,
existence, ignorance, and views, will not flow in again, can be
verified only by wisdom. That is why special mention is made
of Nibbāna as something realizable.
Nibbana Sermon 18. http://www.beyondthenet.net/calm/nibbana18.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Nanananda wrote:This cooling off happens just before death, without igniting an­other spark of life. When Màra comes to grab and seize, the ara­hant lets go. The pain of death with which Màra teases his hapless victim and lures him into another existence, becomes ineffective in the case of the arahant. As he has already gone through the supra­mundane experience of deathlessness, in the arahat­taphala­samà­dhi, death loses its sting when at last it comes. The influx-free deliver­ance of the mind and the influx-free deliverance through wisdom en­able him to cool down all feelings in a way that baffles Màra.

So the arahant lets go of his body, experiencing ambrosial death­lessness. As in the case of Venerable Dabba Mallaputta, he would sometimes cremate his own body without leaving any ashes.[37] Out­wardly it might appear as an act of self-immolation, which in­deed is painful. But this is not so. Using his jhànic powers, he simply em­ploys the internal fire element to cremate the body he has already discarded.

This, then, is the Buddha's extraordinary solution to the problem of overcoming death, a solution that completely outwits Màra.
:anjali:
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Re: Reincarnation

Post by tiltbillings »

retrofuturist wrote:This mana (conceit) is obscured and self-justified to whatever extent the truth of "sabbe dhamme anatta" has yet to be penetrated.To the extent there are thoughts of "I am", what is being called "rebirth" is really being conceived as "reincarnation", regardless of the words used.
Sure, and it is true of any Buddhist concept with we employ, they are going to be colored by our notions of "I am."
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Reincarnation

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Mike,

I'm sure you know of it (alas, I can't find it just now) but there's a sutta somewhere to the effect that when the Buddha or an arahant speaks, they are not misled by the meaning of the words.

The Buddha (and quite possibly ven. Nanananda if he's ariyan, which I predict he is) can speak as such about past-lives without being misled by the meaning of their words. Being misled in this sense would constitute any form of mana (conceit), and the subsequent false experience/perception of "self", and distorted extrapolation of "self" with reference to some various factor (see MN 1 for examples).

The question is, can we bring ourselves to understand their words without being misled by mana?

As Tilt says...
"it is true of any Buddhist concept with we employ, they are going to be colored by our notions of "I am."
... but not all such terms, when misinterpreted lead to what is, in effect, an eternalistic wrong view - hence the danger.

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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Re: Reincarnation

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Tilt,
tiltbillings wrote:"This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond." SN I, 38. "If one removes the glue, disentangles the tangles and unties the knots, the saïkhata [sic], or the prepared, itself becomes asankhata, the unprepared, then and there." And the only way one can do this is by the actions one wills - kamma, which is the way of talking about the conditioning of one's willed actions. There is nothing in this quote that is distinct from kamma.
Where are you going with this, and what is the point you are trying to make?

It is unclear to me, and it seems you are once again just railing against that which seems unfamiliar, with seemingly little regard for the actual topic and sticking to it.

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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Re: Reincarnation

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Mike,
mikenz66 wrote:Sorry, It's probably because I've never been convinced these arguments that involve labelling something "speculative" and thereby dismissing it.
Let's break this down for a moment.

I said, "The falsity of rebirth is a speculative view that cannot be verified."

So what does this mean?

To deny "rebirth" (as understood, conventionally in English) based on one's experience, you would have to experience death and then experience the absence of rebirth.

I do not see how this could logically be done, unless you could experience the future, here-and-now, and experience first-hand the lack of post-mortem continuity of experience.

Failing that, the view "rebirth is false" is necessarily speculative.

On the flipside "rebirth is true" is not necessarily speculative, because, like the Buddha, you could experience/recall 'past lives' and know it to be so, without recourse to speculation. If one's experience however, is not founded in the recollection of past lives, then the view "rebirth is true" would be speculative, for that person.

Don't think of the word 'speculative' as an insult or denigration - it simply means it is a view that has not been experientially validated by the person holding the view.

So, returning to MN 48 for a moment, which refers to speculation... "If a monk is absorbed in speculation about the other world, then his mind is enthralled". If one knows from experience things "about the other world" then good for them. But if they don't know it, it is speculation, and if it is speculation, the mind is enthralled.

There is no "dismissal" in that - this "dismissal" you refer to is an erroneous inference on your part and is unnecessarily boolean.

Something being "speculative" neither makes it right nor wrong. If a speculator speculates that the value of ABC Shares will rise, and they act accordingly, that neither makes their speculative view inherently right nor wrong.

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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Re: Reincarnation

Post by tiltbillings »

retrofuturist wrote:
"it is true of any Buddhist concept with we employ, they are going to be colored by our notions of "I am."
... but not all such terms, when misinterpreted lead to what is, in effect, an eternalistic wrong view - hence the danger.
What is worse, eternalistic wrong view or the annihilationist wrong view of nibbana, which is also susceptible to eternalistic interpretations.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Reincarnation

Post by tiltbillings »

retrofuturist wrote: It is unclear to me, and it seems you are once again just railing against that which seems unfamiliar, with seemingly little regard for the actual topic and sticking to it.
Actually, just following your train of thought which you started which has little regard for the OP:
I think that's as true as far as it goes, but I believe punabhava (commonly translated as rebirth) is actually the repeated false cognition of existence, rather than any post-mortem transmigratory event. Sometimes I don't think "rebirth", as it's used in Buddhist circles, isn't as far away from "reincarnation" as it ought to be. . . . To me, as I understand it, punabbhava has nothing to do with transmigration, whereas patisandhi does.
And "it seems you are once again just railing against that which seems unfamiliar" is a cheap shot.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Reincarnation

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Tilt,
tiltbillings wrote:What is worse, eternalistic wrong view or the annihilationist wrong view of nibbana, which is also susceptible to eternalistic interpretations.
Well, for starters, they're both wrong views (as defined by the Buddha)... and as Nanananda skillfully explains in the Nibbana Sermons, the commentarial tradition, in trying to prove that nibbana isn't annihilationist went too far and turned it into an extant thing (word-search 'bhavanirodha' in the Nibbana Sermons for examples).

Similarly, in an attempt to argue in favour of "rebirth", I believe some have a tendency to take it too far and slip into eternalism.

Why wilfully accept one wrong view in favour of another, when both need to be known to be false, and transcended? The method to walk between the two is anatta, not-self.

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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Re: Reincarnation

Post by Mawkish1983 »

(This is the most useful thread I've read in a while)
Last edited by Mawkish1983 on Tue Aug 30, 2011 6:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Reincarnation

Post by tiltbillings »

retrofuturist wrote:I said, "The falsity of rebirth is a speculative view that cannot be verified."
Which, again, is something you introduced into this topic. My point was that Ven Nanananda talked about rebirth in his books, Concept and Magic, in terms that pointed to the fact he accepted rebirth as part of the framework of the Buddha's teachings.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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