Lazy_eye wrote:Another (and to my mind deeper) argument is that without rebirth, there's no urgent reason to seek total liberation from samsara. If it's just a matter of getting through one's present life, we could just as well learn to manage samsara better, or achieve a higher-quality samsara.
Thanks for bringing that up, Lazy_eye.
I agree that if we do not hold the view that rebirth is a possibility, there is no urgent reason to seek total liberation. But I can't think of any examples of the Buddha sounding like it was urgent, can you? Can anyone find wording that makes it sound like he was exhorting others to follow his path, failure to do so was at their peril?
On the other hand, what's the urgency to be liberated if you have many lives in which to get there? Sure, you want to lead a fairly moral life so next time you'll be in as good a place or better off, but you have another chance or two. (This is a view which is particularly insidious if you're a non-monastic and a hedonist and find that, on the whole, you are having an enjoyable life without causing others to complain about your actions. A Good King Wencher, perhaps. Or a highly placed Brahmin. You're not particularly noticing all that suffering they talk about, but you sure are having fun. You can get to nibbana mañana.)
But, maybe the issue here is really that I needed to be more specific.
What I want to consider is that the Buddha was an agnostic, and taught an agnostic stance. That the Buddha taught a path in which he did not require that anyone hold a belief in rebirth, that he in fact asked his followers to let go of a belief in rebirth, but he did not deny that rebirth was the system either. This is consistent with all those times he says, -"If there is no other world then, having lived a good life, a life praised by your peers, you've done well"- and then also said, -"If there is another world, then you have lived a moral life and will be reborn in a good location."- A doubly-good throw of the dice, following his path, just as he always said.
In this case his follower admits that he just does not *know* which it is. This may be the only life we get in which case we should not waste it: pay attention! live in this moment! Or there may be a cosmic system based on morality, in which case we should behave ourselves as there maybe consequences.