According to Classical Theravada, what is reborn?

Exploring the Dhamma, as understood from the perspective of the ancient Pali commentaries.
SarathW
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Re: According to Classical Theravada, what is reborn?

Post by SarathW »

robertk wrote:
aflatun wrote:[q

Thank you for that Robert. So does that mean for this model, that there is as much discontinuity between one moment and the next, as there is between one life and the next? No "thing" passes on, but the next moment is conditioned by what preceded it?
Right! just as much continuity, and discontinuity .
thus there are three types of death. Khanika marana, momentary death, that we experience every moment, sammuti marana, conventional death at the end of each life, and absolute death when an arahat passes away.
What is the source for this description Robert?
Why do you say there is absolute death for arahat when they passes away?
Why Nibbana is called death less?
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
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robertk
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Re: According to Classical Theravada, what is reborn?

Post by robertk »

The dispeller of Delusion (pali text society) trans. Bhikku Nanamoli:
page 121, volume1:
"this division too should be known, namely momentary death (khanika-
marana), conventional death (samutti marana) and death as cutting
off (samuccheda-marana)
also path of purification xliii “
There are three kinds of death: death as
cutting off, momentary death, and conventional death. Death as cutting off belongs
to those whose cankers are exhausted (and are Arahants). Momentary death is
that of each consciousness of the cognitive series beginning with life-continuum
consciousness, which arise each immediately on the cessation of the one preceding.
Conventional death is that of all (so-called) living beings
For the meaning of amata - which can be translated as deathless, It is because as there is no more birth , that with samuccheda marana there can also be no more death. See dhammpada atthakatha I228. It is the complete cessation of the five aggregates.
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Re: According to Classical Theravada, what is reborn?

Post by Dhammanando »

Lazy_eye wrote:Hope so -- I would like to know what Pali term(s) are being translated as "unbroken flux of human consciousness," and whether or not this formulation occurs somewhere else in the suttas.
... purisassa viññāṇasotaṃ ... ubhayato abbocchinnaṃ ... — "A man's stream-of-consciousness that is uninterrupted between both [this world and the next]."

The phrase is unique to this sutta.
Yena yena hi maññanti,
tato taṃ hoti aññathā.


In whatever way they conceive it,
It turns out otherwise.
(Sn. 588)
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Re: According to Classical Theravada, what is reborn?

Post by Spiny Norman »

cjmacie wrote:.
I put this question (as in the OP) to both Bhikkhu Bodhi and Thanissaro Bhikkhu in post-talk Q/A sessions over the last couple of years. Both replied, in effect, that craving is reborn.
Or is that craving causes rebirth, and therefore suffering?
In the standard formula for dependent origination craving and clinging lead to becoming ( bhava ) in the 3 realms. From this it would seem that bhava is a cycle of birth and death, "powered" by craving and shaped by kamma.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

I'm not sure that anything is "reborn" though. Looking at DN15, it's more like a re-appearance of consciousness.

"Name-and-form
"'From consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-and-form.' Thus it has been said. And this is the way to understand how from consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-and-form. If consciousness were not to descend into the mother's womb, would name-and-form take shape in the womb?"
"No, lord."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
Buddha save me from new-agers!
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Sam Vara
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Re: According to Classical Theravada, what is reborn?

Post by Sam Vara »

Spiny Norman wrote:
cjmacie wrote:.
I put this question (as in the OP) to both Bhikkhu Bodhi and Thanissaro Bhikkhu in post-talk Q/A sessions over the last couple of years. Both replied, in effect, that craving is reborn.
Or is that craving causes rebirth, and therefore suffering?
In the standard formula for dependent origination craving and clinging lead to becoming ( bhava ) in the 3 realms. From this it would seem that bhava is a cycle of birth and death, "powered" by craving and shaped by kamma.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

I'm not sure that anything is "reborn" though. It's like saying that the wind is "reborn". ;)
Good points, Spiny. There is also the problem that if it is craving that is reborn, then we still cannot account for the personalised nature of that craving. If we are heirs to our kamma, etc., then who or what is associated with (owns? experiences?) the craving that is reborn? Just as I am not heir to anyone else's kamma, I don't inherit anyone else's craving.

Two other points, if I may, for anyone to pick up.

1) What here (i.e. in the terms of the OP) counts as "Classical Theravada"? I would have thought that there are so many different views expressed on rebirth (Abhidhamma, "three-life", "one-life", simultaneous, etc.) which could all count as Theravadan.

2) Is rebirth always held to occur against a conception of absolute time? (i.e. time that is universal and one-directional). In suttas, "past lives" are talked about as occurring in the historical past, occurring prior to the current life. Rebirth is taked about as occurring in the future. This is, of course, the only way that we can understand causality and conditioning, and suttas frequently divide time up into past, present, and future. Does this mean that time is absolute? That the Buddha merely talked as if it were? Is there any reason why our kamma could not cause us to be reborn in an age which we - in this life - would consider to be in the historical past?
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Re: According to Classical Theravada, what is reborn?

Post by Lazy_eye »

Dhammanando wrote:
... purisassa viññāṇasotaṃ ... ubhayato abbocchinnaṃ ... — "A man's stream-of-consciousness that is uninterrupted between both [this world and the next]."

The phrase is unique to this sutta.
robertk wrote:"unbroken flux.." is simply a description of the (beginingless) stream of namarupa in my reading. And yes that Buddha discerns this perfectly..
Thank you both!

Does this provide an answer to David's OP? To my eye, it looks a lot like 2.e in his list below. Though perhaps it could also be 2.c.
David N. Snyder wrote: 2.a. There is no self but there is a frequency transfer of kammic energies (some interpretations)
2.b. There is no permanent self, but there is an indeterminate, inexpressible self (pudgalavada)
2.c. There is no permanent self but there is citta which never dies (some Forest traditions and other modern interpretations in Theravada and Mahayana)
2.d. What is reborn? Neuroses (Trungpa)
2.e. There is no permanent self, but there is a mind stream which is individual and continues (some interpretations)
2.f. There is no self but there is a Ālāya-vijñāna (store-house consciousness) accounting for kamma and rebirth (Mahayana-Yogachara)
Or is this sutta too much of an outlier to be considered definitive?

In my understanding, 2.f. is actually part of 2.e. Or, rather. it's an elaboration that was developed in order to explain how kamma-vipaka works within the context of the "mind-moment" model...i.e., how does kamma manage to travel down the chain of cittas in order to produce vipaka?
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Re: According to Classical Theravada, what is reborn?

Post by Sam Vara »

Lazy_eye wrote:
David N. Snyder wrote: 2.a. There is no self but there is a frequency transfer of kammic energies (some interpretations)
2.b. There is no permanent self, but there is an indeterminate, inexpressible self (pudgalavada)
2.c. There is no permanent self but there is citta which never dies (some Forest traditions and other modern interpretations in Theravada and Mahayana)
2.d. What is reborn? Neuroses (Trungpa)
2.e. There is no permanent self, but there is a mind stream which is individual and continues (some interpretations)
2.f. There is no self but there is a Ālāya-vijñāna (store-house consciousness) accounting for kamma and rebirth (Mahayana-Yogachara)
In my understanding, 2.f. is actually part of 2.e. Or, rather. it's an elaboration that was developed in order to explain how kamma-vipaka works within the context of the "mind-moment" model...i.e., how does kamma manage to travel down the chain of cittas in order to produce vipaka?
If the stream is of mind, would this not be the same as 2c, as well? And how would they be differentiated from a soul which is individual and persists over time?
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Re: According to Classical Theravada, what is reborn?

Post by Lazy_eye »

Sam Vara wrote: If the stream is of mind, would this not be the same as 2c, as well?
It looked to me like they could be the same, or similar -- since the citta isn't something static.
And how would they be differentiated from a soul which is individual and persists over time?
As I understand it (based on some recent discussions), the difference is that one is a permanent, unchanging 'essence' while the other is in continual flux, morphing over time -- a little like that Godfrey and Creme video.

Whatever it is, it should be consistent with the Aññatra Sutta, where the Buddha rejects the view that "the one who acts is the same one who experiences" as well as the view that "the one who acts is someone other than one who experiences." Those who support the mindstream explanation say it meets this requirement.
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Sam Vara
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Re: According to Classical Theravada, what is reborn?

Post by Sam Vara »

Lazy_eye wrote:
And how would they be differentiated from a soul which is individual and persists over time?
As I understand it (based on some recent discussions), the difference is that one is a permanent, unchanging 'essence' while the other is in continual flux, morphing over time -- a little like that Godfrey and Creme video.

Whatever it is, it should be consistent with the Aññatra Sutta, where the Buddha rejects the view that "the one who acts is the same one who experiences" as well as the view that "the one who acts is someone other than one who experiences." Those who support the mindstream explanation say it meets this requirement.
Thanks for the video - it's great, and brought back memories of 1985! Have you seen this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5RK7DonYP8

I take your point about the "unchanging essence" issue regarding souls, but my sticking point here is that in order to be identified over time as the same thing or things, there must be something unchanging. If there were not, it would at some point pass from the category of citta or mind into something else. Something must persist for as long as the stream is "citta". This may, of course, fit your Annatra Sutta requirement above, according to some understandings of it. But it's also consistent with the conception of a soul as a simple substance which perceives.

Thanks for your contributions to this thread, L. Much appreciated for their clarity.
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robertk
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Re: According to Classical Theravada, what is reborn?

Post by robertk »

I take your point about the "unchanging essence" issue regarding souls, but my sticking point here is that in order to be identified over time as the same thing or things, there must be something unchanging. If there were not, it would at some point pass from the category of citta or mind into something else. Something must persist for as long as the stream is "citta".


each citta arises and passes away, never to come back. it lasts for an inconcievably brief moment. But it conditions succeeding cittas
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Re: According to Classical Theravada, what is reborn?

Post by binocular »

David N. Snyder wrote:From Rupert Gethin's Foundations of Buddhism:
The problem of personal continuity: self as
'causal connectedness'

We have seen how Buddhist thought criticizes the concept of
an unchanging self as incoherent; however, both ancient and
modern critics have argued that to do away with the self in the
manner of Buddhist thought in fact creates insurmountable
philosophical and moral problems. How can the experienced facts
of personal continuity-after all it is I who remember getting
up this morning and going to the shops, not you-be accounted
for? Again, central to the Buddhist world-view is the notion
of rebirth, but surely for this to be meaningful some part of a
person must remain constant and be reborn, which is precisely
what the teaching of no self seems to deny. Furthermore, if there
is no self, is not the whole foundation of morality undermined?
If I am not the same person as the one who robbed the bank
yesterday, how can I be held responsible? In fact does not the
teaching of no self render life meaningless and is it not tanta,.
mount to a doctrine of nihilism? For its part, Buddhist thought
claims that it has adequate answers to these questions and has
always categorically denied the charge that it is a species of
nihilism.13 The answers to these questions are all in one way ot
another to be referred to the particular Buddhist understanding
of the way in which things are causally connected.
(pg.140)
This seems to be spoken from an implicitly Christian perspective, or from one that values the worldly order of things over everything else.

One's own sense of a conitnuous self is a given, and with it, a sense of responsibility (however complex or limited). These don't need to be established to begin with, as they're already there.
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Re: According to Classical Theravada, what is reborn?

Post by Sam Vara »

robertk wrote:
I take your point about the "unchanging essence" issue regarding souls, but my sticking point here is that in order to be identified over time as the same thing or things, there must be something unchanging. If there were not, it would at some point pass from the category of citta or mind into something else. Something must persist for as long as the stream is "citta".


each citta arises and passes away, never to come back. it lasts for an inconcievably brief moment. But it conditions succeeding cittas
Thanks, r. You're another one who expresses things clearly! I guess I'm having difficulty getting my head around the idea that they are separate, and yet somehow connected through the conditioning process. If they are connected in some kind of causal link, then that would appear to require some kind of enduring essence by which they are linked. If they were completely separate, then there would be no possibility of one conditioning another. To use a crude analogy, a series of billiard balls colliding would be separate, and would indeed be conditioning each other. But they would all be of one material substance, so the enduring factor here would be "matter". What we would have is a persisting system of matter in motion.

Is this idea of a succession of cittas purely there in order to solve the problem of personal continuation being compatible with anatta, or is there other support/evidence for it?
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Re: According to Classical Theravada, what is reborn?

Post by Lazy_eye »

Sam Vara wrote:
Thanks for the video - it's great, and brought back memories of 1985! Have you seen this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5RK7DonYP8
I hadn't seen this. It's quite powerful.
I take your point about the "unchanging essence" issue regarding souls, but my sticking point here is that in order to be identified over time as the same thing or things, there must be something unchanging. If there were not, it would at some point pass from the category of citta or mind into something else. Something must persist for as long as the stream is "citta".
Yes, there is an aspect to this that I'm not fully clear on as well. I was trying to formulate my question awhile back, in another discussion, but couldn't quite nail down what my concern was exactly. I think you've conveyed it well here.

I've been enjoying this thread and have learned from it -- thanks for your contributions!
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Re: According to Classical Theravada, what is reborn?

Post by DNS »

Lazy_eye wrote: Does this provide an answer to David's OP? To my eye, it looks a lot like 2.e in his list below. Though perhaps it could also be 2.c.
David N. Snyder wrote: 2.a. There is no self but there is a frequency transfer of kammic energies (some interpretations)
2.b. There is no permanent self, but there is an indeterminate, inexpressible self (pudgalavada)
2.c. There is no permanent self but there is citta which never dies (some Forest traditions and other modern interpretations in Theravada and Mahayana)
2.d. What is reborn? Neuroses (Trungpa)
2.e. There is no permanent self, but there is a mind stream which is individual and continues (some interpretations)
2.f. There is no self but there is a Ālāya-vijñāna (store-house consciousness) accounting for kamma and rebirth (Mahayana-Yogachara)
Good posts from everyone! I'm still leaning toward 2.a. for the Classical view position, it seems to have the least amount of "subtle self" but perhaps 2.e. could be an option for Classical too. The problem is that if there is continuity then it implies at least some sort of something, a subtle self, intentions, kamma, etc that continues. If there is no continuity then it's just nihilism as I noted earlier. So we are working with the Classical assumption for this discussion that rebirth is real.

For Modern Theravada (interpretations) I believe one or more of 2.b. c, d, e, f would be the view.

For Mahayana I believe it would also be one or more of 2.b., c, d, e, f.

Which one is right? I guess that's for each of us to figure out. :meditate:
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Re: According to Classical Theravada, what is reborn?

Post by DNS »

I think RobertK describes the Classical view well here:
robertk wrote: There is only citta, cetasika and rupa that arise and cease instantly. However each citta (in conjunction with cetasikas) potentially conditions succeeding cittas which means there is a stream - neverending, unless khandha parinibbana occurs- of these elements.
There is no problem at all talking about people and self as long as one understands that these are mere linguistic terms of convenience to identify who and what.
robertk wrote: each citta arises and passes away, never to come back. it lasts for an inconcievably brief moment. But it conditions succeeding cittas
There is some continuity, but nothing permanent passing and seems to sound similar to 2.a. Some issues with that Classical view might be the new being is sort of the same, as in the same "series" but also in many ways a completely different person or being, which would have issues with beings being heir to their kamma as Gethin notes (see quote in one of my previous posts).
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