I don't know if you're just skipping over the Gombrich quote:danieLion wrote:Kamma entails action, behavior, consequence, simple cause and effect, and complex cause and effect; but it does not entail rebirth. And Gombrich does not state that the Buddha required belief in rebirth; only faith in kamma.polarbuddha101 wrote:
I think Lonesome Yogurt's nailed it on the head here. The Buddha's doctrine of kamma entails rebirth and the first noble truth loses alot of its weight under a one life model.
And how does your post relate to the necessity/contingency and orginalism questions of the OP and subsequent discussions?
or what but he explicitly states that the Buddha's doctrine of kamma necessarily entails rebirth. In order to believe in the Buddha's formulation of the law of kamma one has to believe in rebirth. This doesn't mean that the Buddha's formulation of the law of kamma or the doctrine of rebirth are true it just means that kamma as taught by the Buddha is inseparable from rebirth. I don't see how anyone who's read the suttas could think otherwise and so I side with Gombrich on this matter.belief in the law of karma; and if that was not to be obviously falsified by every cot death, it had to entail belief in rebirth. pg. 27-28 of What the Buddha Thought
As I said earlier, the first noble truth seems to lose alot of its oomph when it isn't seen in light of the doctrine of rebirth. Thus, those who meditate but do not believe in rebirth (and actually disbelieve in it) are generally less likely to truly strive with all their heart and mind for the total cessation of dukkha and are more likely to meditate for stress reduction, greater peace of mind, and the ability to die with dignity which is awesome but it isn't the same as when someone thinks that they're trying to escape countless aeons of aging, illness, and death, greed, hatred and delusion. When one believes that beings (themselves included) hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are roaming and wandering on for this long long time dispassion would, I imagine, have a much stronger pull and so this means that people who believe in rebirth are certainly more likely to ordain as monastics and often are more likely to be serious lay practitioners (although this is clearly not always the case as there are plenty of lay buddhists just trying to get a better rebirth and plenty of secular buddhists who meditate everyday and take their practice seriously).
As far as explaining meditative capabilities by reference to past lives, I think that's ridiculous, probably counterproductive and that these sorts of statements when spoken as if they're fact do not preserve the truth. If people want to assert this sort of thing, then they have to qualify it by saying that it is their belief or conviction or that the tradition or scriptures say it is so but they must not state it as if fact without qualification unless they know that it is indeed a fact. The Buddha instructs that one should preserve the truth in such a way in this sutta: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; .
(Edited to qualify my generalizations)