I Believe in Literal Rebirth - Poll

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism

I Believe in Literal Rebirth

Yes
47
58%
No
8
10%
Indifferent
8
10%
Undecided
11
14%
Meaning of Topic Unclear
7
9%
 
Total votes: 81

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Annapurna
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Re: I Believe in Literal Rebirth - Poll

Post by Annapurna »

Lazy_eye wrote:
Annapurna wrote:waht is a no brainer?
I think it could be argued that rebirth is not tenable without the existence of multiple planes.
We can prove 2.

Animals and humans.

Unless people want to argue we are animals.

But then you can also say animals are human.
You're right Anna, but that only partly solves the problem. How do we explain the proliferation of species? And what about the triple realm of desire, form, formlessness?

One world is enough for all of us
One world is enough for all of us
One world is enough for all of us


(sorry, couldn't resist...)
How do we explain the proliferation of species?
Don't know if it makes sense to others, but to me it makes sense,- the different species are a mirror of very yindividual kamma.

Even within one species, you have different kamma, a mirror of what was brought into this life, what arises here. A mirror of the last life/s.
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octathlon
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Re: I Believe in Literal Rebirth - Poll

Post by octathlon »

Sunrise wrote:
octathlon wrote:
octathlon wrote:"Anatta and Rebirth". :sage:
:twothumbsup:

I enjoyed this, will keep reading more of his stuff. Actually I realized that I have already read something of his-- I have his "Anapanasati" on my computer but only read it up through the description of the first tetrad. Stopped there feeling I wasn't ready to read further than that yet.
Hey Octathlon, this is just a suggestion, maybe you should read the heart-wood next: http://www.what-buddha-taught.net/Books ... o_Tree.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

extremely good read.

:namaste:
Will do, thanks!
:anjali:
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EricJ
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Re: I Believe in Literal Rebirth - Poll

Post by EricJ »

Sunrise wrote:Or maybe it is given as if "they say this happens" not as "I know this happens".

"I am actually not completely convinced that the Buddha taught rebirth for any other purpose than for morality. He taught it in different ways to different audiences. There are also many ways to look at his recollections of past dwellings. If you feel that as valid evidence that rebirth exists please go ahead."
I put these posts together because all of them really point to the same thing which prevents this discussion from being fruitful. The words of the suttas are right there. I really have no authority or enough knowledge of these things to say that your interpretations or those Bhikkhu Buddhadasa are wrong, and I probably wouldn't even if I did. Personally, I prefer to assume that the Buddha would not have used language which would cause his disciples to accept certain beliefs if those beliefs were not true. I prefer to think that the Buddha would not have presented fictitious tales as truth, which is another implication of an explicit rejection of literal rebirth as taught by the Buddha (in that there are various suttas in which the Buddha mentions his own past lives in detail or refers to the spontaneous birth of a new "being" (again, no self, soul, eternal substance) following the death of a person.) I prefer to think that the Buddha taught in a clear and direct manner.
Sunrise wrote:Susima sutta explicitly says that such realizations are not relevant to Nibbana.
Have I, at any point, said that anussati (past life recollection) is a crucial step in attaining Nibbana? No. My only claim with respect to these realizations has been that they are a means for verifying rebirth experientially. Susima's mistake lies in his conflating the insight attainments which lead to Nibbana with iddhis and mental abilities which can be developed by any person who cultivates states of highly refined concentration. The insights which lead to Nibbana are unique to the Buddha's dispensation. Concentration practice and anussati are not. But that certainly shouldn't suggest that it is unskillful to cultivate the latter attainments. The Buddha himself did so. Many of his disciples did so. As you can see in the sutta I have posted at the end of this response, these cultivations are praised. The error comes whenever people make them the basis of the path or falsely take them as the fruition of the path.
Sunrise wrote: Isn't this speculation about kamma? I do not see kamma like this (over many lifetimes). I see it moment to moment as that's the way it is verifiable. You will see the results of the way you direct your mind in this very moment or at a later time within this lifetime. For example, if i scold someone I will feel upset or angry or bad mental state now or later, in a few hours or in a few days or in a few years. In a few lifetimes? Well I don't know about that simply because I have no means to verify that. So I'll leave it and deal with this life.
No more speculative than the suttas. I haven't made a claim about kamma which is out of line with the suttas.

And that is an admirable way of practicing, and I don't want you to think that I am criticizing you for practicing this way. I also practice here and now, and I expect to verify the Dhamma based on experiential understanding. I don't sit down on the cushion and think about the mechanism of rebirth. I sit down and watch my breath. I just lack a strong skepticism concerning what the Buddha says about rebirth in the suttas.
Sunrise wrote: Trust me, if you can explain to me how rebirth happens without indirectly implying the notion of a self in the process I would gladly accept it. Where does it say in the suttas that the aggregates are reborn?
Again, you are reading in to my post and implying that I have claimed things I have not claimed. I haven't said, at any point, that the aggregates "transmigrate" or that there is a single set of aggregates across births which arise again and again. Rather, whenever the conditions are there (like ignorance), not-self aggregates dependently arise and, based on ignorance, self-view is created within the confines of the aggregates. That is what I meant by "aggregated being" and why I put "being" in quotation marks and added a "not-self caveat" in parentheses. My use of the word "being" is conventional and due to the limitations of the English language, which tends towards self view and subject-object. Any attempt to read a self in to a selfless coalescence of fluxating causes and conditions is based in ignorance and latent self-view.

Others have done a much better job of explaining how rebirth does not imply the notion of self. The typical simile is that rebirth is like using a burning candle to light another candle which is used to light another candle separately. The flame on the newly lit candle is not the same as the previous candle (no eternal , unchanging substance.) Rather, a multiplicity of conditions comes together and the result is a lit candle, which constantly changes throughout its duration. It's not the same from moment to moment (anicca, or "micro-rebirth" to describe Bhikkhu Buddhadasa's and your interpretation of rebirth). The fuel is craving and ignorance of the way things are. The "hand" which picks up the candle and lights the next candle is kamma.

Does Rebirth Make Sense? by Bhikkhu Bodhi
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... ay_46.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
An Explanation of Rebirth by Bhikkhu Pesala
http://www.aimwell.org/Books/Pesala/Reb ... birth.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Sunrise wrote: The text in bold sounds like there is something that leaves one body and goes to another body in everyday language right? What is this something? Consciousness?
No, because consciousness is an impermanent aggregate which arises in contact with a sense object and sense base. There is no "transmigration" of consciousness, as I've all ready said. As to what "this something" is, I am not going to speculate about what it could be. I think that explicit rejection of rebirth can arise from the speculations just as easily as incorrect interpretation of these views (such as imposing self on rebirth process), in that people can speculate about what these terms used by the Buddha mean, come to think that they refer to a soul or permanent substance, and explicitly reject rebirth based on their own erroneous interpretations of the Buddhavacana.

I merely posted the sutta as an example of language which clearly refers to literal rebirth. I notice that you and Bhikkhu Buddhadasa haven't addressed the implication of the phrase "sets this body aside and is not yet reborn in another body." Nor have you responded to the implications of that phrase of the Saleyyaka Sutta which I quoted in my previous post. You have implied that you are indifferent to rebirth, but at this point, you seem to be coming with reasons for rejecting the concept.
Sunrise wrote: Hold on there. Such realizations are not part of enlightenment jhanas according to the susima sutta. So it is unlikely that you will see your past lives before you become enlightened.
I'm not sure what you mean by "enlightenment jhanas," but if you are claiming that the cultivation of the fourth jhana is not the means by which a person can attain anussati, this is simply incorrect based on the suttic descriptions of jhana.
Lohicca Sutta wrote:"And furthermore, with the abandoning of pleasure & pain — as with the earlier disappearance of elation & distress — he enters & remains in the fourth jhana: purity of equanimity & mindfulness, neither-pleasure-nor-pain. He sits, permeating the body with a pure, bright awareness. Just as if a man were sitting covered from head to foot with a white cloth so that there would be no part of his body to which the white cloth did not extend; even so, the monk sits, permeating the body with a pure, bright awareness. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by pure, bright awareness. When a disciple of a teacher attains this sort of grand distinction, Lohicca, that is a teacher not worthy of criticism in the world, and if anyone were to criticize this sort of teacher, the criticism would be false, unfactual, unrighteous, & blameworthy..."

[explication of various attainments and insights after attaining jhana, all beginning with the refrain "with his mind thus concentrated, purified, & bright, unblemished, free from defects, pliant, malleable, steady, & attained to imperturbability..." in reference to the explication of the jhana factors which occur immediately preceeding the explication of anussati and other attainments and iddhis"]

"With his mind thus concentrated, purified, & bright, unblemished, free from defects, pliant, malleable, steady, & attained to imperturbability, he directs & inclines it to knowledge of the recollection of past lives (lit: previous homes). He recollects his manifold past lives, i.e., one birth, two births, three births, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, one hundred, one thousand, one hundred thousand, many aeons of cosmic contraction, many aeons of cosmic expansion, many aeons of cosmic contraction & expansion, [recollecting], 'There I had such a name, belonged to such a clan, had such an appearance. Such was my food, such my experience of pleasure & pain, such the end of my life. Passing away from that state, I re-arose there. There too I had such a name, belonged to such a clan, had such an appearance. Such was my food, such my experience of pleasure & pain, such the end of my life. Passing away from that state, I re-arose here.' Thus he recollects his manifold past lives in their modes & details. Just as if a man were to go from his home village to another village, and then from that village to yet another village, and then from that village back to his home village. The thought would occur to him, 'I went from my home village to that village over there. There I stood in such a way, sat in such a way, talked in such a way, and remained silent in such a way. From that village I went to that village over there, and there I stood in such a way, sat in such a way, talked in such a way, and remained silent in such a way. From that village I came back home.' In the same way — with his mind thus concentrated, purified, & bright, unblemished, free from defects, pliant, malleable, steady, & attained to imperturbability — the monk directs & inclines it to knowledge of the recollection of past lives. He recollects his manifold past lives... in their modes & details. When a disciple of a teacher attains this sort of grand distinction, Lohicca, that is a teacher not worthy of criticism in the world, and if anyone were to criticize this sort of teacher, the criticism would be false, unfactual, unrighteous, & blameworthy.
These realizations may not be the insights which lead to Nibbana, but that certainly doesn't mean that one can't simultaneously cultivate liberating vipassana AND samatha up to a level of concentration which allows one to recall past lives. The Buddha cultivated both.


Regards,
Eric
I do not want my house to be walled in on sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.- Gandhi

With persistence aroused for the highest goal's attainment, with mind unsmeared, not lazy in action, firm in effort, with steadfastness & strength arisen, wander alone like a rhinoceros.

Not neglecting seclusion, absorption, constantly living the Dhamma in line with the Dhamma, comprehending the danger in states of becoming, wander alone like a rhinoceros.
- Snp. 1.3
Sunrise
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Re: I Believe in Literal Rebirth - Poll

Post by Sunrise »

EricJ wrote: Personally, I prefer to assume that the Buddha would not have used language which would cause his disciples to accept certain beliefs if those beliefs were not true. I prefer to think that the Buddha would not have presented fictitious tales as truth
Personally I think the Buddha taught rebirth for morality mostly for the people who already believed in it and there are places that he has talked about it as subjective reasoning not as an ultimate truth. For example:

In MN 68 he seems to have said that he talked about it not to deceive people or for personal gains:
Anuruddha, the Thus Gone One advises the disciples, do not waste time, before you die be born, in something higher. Telling them one is born there, another there, not to deceive people, not for prattling, not for gain honour or fame and not thinking may the people know me thus. Yet, there are Anuruddha, sons of clansmen who are born in faith and are pleased hearing it they would arouse interest and direct their minds to that effect. It would be for their good for a long time.

MN 68
In kalama sutta he has taken a more democratic stance in order to address all audiences:
Suppose there is a hereafter and there is a fruit, result, of deeds done well or ill. Then it is possible that at the dissolution of the body after death, I shall arise in the heavenly world, which is possessed of the state of bliss.' This is the first solace found by him.

Suppose there is no hereafter and there is no fruit, no result, of deeds done well or ill. Yet in this world, here and now, free from hatred, free from malice, safe and sound, and happy, I keep myself.' This is the second solace found by him
In MN 117 he seems to have said it is the right view for morality but not the noble right view:
"And what is right view? Right view, I tell you, is of two sorts: There is right view with effluents [asava], siding with merit, resulting in the acquisitions [of becoming]; and there is noble right view, without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path.

"And what is the right view that has effluents, sides with merit, & results in acquisitions? 'There is what is given, what is offered, what is sacrificed. There are fruits & results of good & bad actions. There is this world & the next world. ...

' This is the right view that has effluents, sides with merit, & results in acquisitions.....


Nonetheless you can always interpret these suttas to mean that the Buddha taught rebirth clearly and directly and thereby believe in it. If you think this faith helps your practice and that you will realize this knowledge some day and thereby your faith will be verified one day who am I to say otherwise.

Personally I think "undecided or better still irrelevant" is the best position to take.
EricJ wrote:Have I, at any point, said that anussati (past life recollection) is a crucial step in attaining Nibbana? No.
Oh sorry I guess I must have misread you because you said:

Code: Select all

If "questions of rebirth are irrelevant" I don't see why the Buddha would have gone in to such detail describing the experience of past life recollection and how some people, based on misapprehension of the way things are, come to wrong conclusions based on such experiences. 
So I must have figured you imply that this faith is in any way relevant to Nibbana.
EricJ wrote:
My only claim with respect to these realizations has been that they are a means for verifying rebirth experientially.
How? Please provide me the instructions
EricJ wrote: Susima's mistake lies in his conflating the insight attainments which lead to Nibbana with iddhis and mental abilities which can be developed by any person who cultivates states of highly refined concentration.
Yes, I agree that the Susima sutta states that there so called "iddhis" are irrelevant to relinquishment and Nibbana. But as you say it does not explicitly deny such iddhis are impossible, just irrelevant. If it is relevant then all arahaths should gain such insights but there are some who don't so "iddhis" are not relevant to Nibbana
EricJ wrote: I don't sit down on the cushion and think about the mechanism of rebirth. I sit down and watch my breath. I just lack a strong skepticism concerning what the Buddha says about rebirth in the suttas.
I don't stand up and think of it either :tongue:
EricJ wrote: Others have done a much better job of explaining how rebirth does not imply the notion of self. The typical simile is that rebirth is like using a burning candle
OK so please explain it without using candles. When we die, there can be a continuation such as ....? What conditions cause what to be another "being" in another body? I am genuinely interested in your explanation
EricJ wrote: No, because consciousness is an impermanent aggregate which arises in contact with a sense object and sense base. There is no "transmigration" of consciousness, as I've all ready said. As to what "this something" is, I am not going to speculate about what it could be. I think that explicit rejection of rebirth can arise from the speculations just as easily as incorrect interpretation of these views
Noone is rejecting it. I am merely asking the guys who believe in it to kindly give me (the ignorant non-believer) some explanation. That's all :D

So how can you explain a continuation like when I die by body obviously decays but something continues. This is not a "thing" as you say but mere conditioned result? So what are these conditions and what are the results etc? I'm all ears.
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EricJ
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Re: I Believe in Literal Rebirth - Poll

Post by EricJ »

Sunrise wrote: Personally I think the Buddha taught rebirth for morality mostly for the people who already believed in it and there are places that he has talked about it as subjective reasoning not as an ultimate truth. For example:

In MN 68 he seems to have said that he talked about it not to deceive people or for personal gains
I cannot help but that that you have misread the meaning of the sutta, probably due to the fact that the Buddha uses the word "birth." You quote one passage of that sutta which uses the word "birth" and completely remove it from the context it occurs, namely, that the Buddha is telling his disciples about the ariya attainments ['be born in something higher' in this life] of disciples and also telling them why he feels the need to describe the accomplishments of his disciples to others.
Nalakapana Sutta, MN 68 wrote:Anuruddha, the Thus Gone One tells the disciples, without wasting time before you die, be born in something higher. Telling them one is born there, another there. Not to deceive people, not for prattling, and not for gain honour or fame and not thinking may the people know me thus. Yet, Anuruddha, there are sons of clansmen who are born in faith and are pleased, to hear it. Hearing it they would arouse interest and direct their minds to that and it would be for their good for a long time.

Here, Anuruddha, a bhikkhu hears, the venerable bhikkhu of this name has passed away, and the Blessed One has declared that he is enlightened. Now this venerable bhikkhu happens to be a person seen by that bhikkhu, or not seen by him. He hears, these were the virtues of the venerable bhikkhu, these, his thoughts, such his wisdom, he developed these abidings and was released. So this bhikkhu recollects that faith, those virtues, his learnedness, benevolence and wisdom and directs his mind to it. Anuruddha, in this manner too there is a pleasant abiding to a bhikkhu.
The sutta opens with recognition of the fact that the Buddha encourages his disciples to "be born in something higher." It's significant that he encourages them to do this before they die, which is a condition for rebirth. "Born of something higher" refers to ariyan attainments, which we can see in the rest of the sutta since this is what the Buddha offers as an example of "being born of something higher." "Not to deceive...not for prattling...not for gaining honor or fame...not thinking may the people know me thus" means that the Buddha does not mention the ariyan accomplishments of his disciples for his own personal gain or to brag.

The bolded, italicized part is indicative of the structure of this sutta, in which the Buddha describes the four stages of ariyan attainment, why he tells those on the path to attainment about these stages, and the result of telling people about these attainments. Namely, the arousal of interest, faith and direction on the path.

At no point, in this entire sutta (aside from describing the amount of times sotapanni, sakadagami, and anagami will be reborn) does the Buddha mention his rebirth teaching and the reasoning behind it.
Sunshine wrote: In MN 117 he seems to have said it is the right view for morality but not the noble right view...
The difference between these two forms of "right view" has less to do with one view being more "right" than the other (although, enlightened view is obviously transcendent and ultimate) than the state of the "person" who holds right view. "Right view without effluents" refers to the transcendent, liberating insight of the enlightened which results in a "falling away" [in the sense that the nibbanized are not samsaric] of the world as it is ignorantly 'known' to the unenlightened. Enlightenment, being the end of ignorance, leads to the cessation of consciousness, namarupa, the six sense spheres, all the way through every other link in the chain of dependent origination. This right view only occurs in one who has gained liberation. Right view without effluents is a fruition of the path. Right view with effluents is a an aspect of the Eightfold Path to awakening. It is a fundamentally different mode of 'experience.' How can an arahant/Buddha have 'right view' [with effluents] of something which is not perceived in enlightenment? I have a few excerpts which sum this up much better than I could.
http://emptyuniverse.110mb.com, Nibbana and the Cessation of Mental Effluents (Asava) wrote:It's important to emphasize that when we speak of the 'unconditioned,' it's not just in regard to phenomena being ultimately empty. For emptiness to have any soteriological value, the unconditioned must also include realizing emptiness experientially. It's this gnosis (nana) that is liberational. It's liberational because it brings to an end the cognitive and affective effluents that bind us to ongoing samsaric suffering. These mental effluents are: the outflows of sensuality, views, becoming, and ignorance itself. They are termed 'effluents' because they 'flow' out of the habitual, deluded mind, creating the metaphoric 'flood' of samsaric birth and death.

And so it's in this soteriological context that Nibbana is said to be the 'supreme emptiness,' because as transcendent gnosis it is empty of these very effluents. This liberation is beautifully and profoundly described in the Dhammapada, verse 93:

Effluents ended, independent of nutriment, their pasture — emptiness & freedom without sign: their trail, like that of birds through space, can't be traced.
Cetana Sutta, SN 12.38 wrote:When one doesn't intend, arrange, or obsess [about anything], there is no support for the stationing of consciousness. There being no support, there is no establishing of consciousness. When that consciousness doesn't land & grow, there is no production of renewed becoming in the future. When there is no production of renewed becoming in the future, there is no future birth, aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, or despair. Such is the cessation of this entire mass of suffering & stress.
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=5339&start=40#p83568, Nana quoting Ven. Nanananda's Nibbana Sermons wrote:What actually happens in the attainment to the fruit of arahant-hood? The worldling discerns the world around him with the help of six narrow beams of light, namely the six sense-bases. When the superior lustre of wisdom arises, those six sense-bases go down. This cessation of the six sense bases could also be referred to as the cessation of name-and-form, nāmarūpanirodha, or the cessation of consciousness, viññāṇanirodha.

The cessation of the six sense-bases does not mean that one does not see anything. What one sees then is voidness. It is an in-‘sight’. He gives expression to it with the words suñño loko, “void is the world.” What it means is that all the sense objects, which the worldling grasps as real and truly existing, get penetrated through with wisdom and become non-manifest.....
"All the sense objects" would be the totality of samsara, 'the All' which includes beings. Note the phrase "become non-manifest." The perception of the rebirth of beings becomes non-manifest in "right view without effluents." This is the right view of Buddhas and arahants. This does not mean that unenlightened beings, based on ignorant cognition, are not undergoing a mind-created samsaric process.

Samsara is not "there" for the nibbanized ("theie trail...can't be traced"). How can the nibbanized have "right view" of something 'they' aren't even 'viewing?' However, "right view with effluents" leads up to the liberating "right view without effluents." Soteriologically, "right view with effluents" is just as important as "right view without effluents" in that we cannot hope to achieve the latter without practicing the former.

However, for the unenlightened, as a basic fact of [conventional, samsaric] experience there is "this world and the next world." With ignorance as the foundation, beings arise and experience samsara. "All that we are is the result of what we have thought." While we are unenlightened, we must cultivate right view of samsaric existence as it occurs to the ignorant mind, as opposed to the wrong views which we habitually superimpose on samsara (arbitrary notions of pleasure/ease/satisfaction, permanence, and self). Part of this right view, as you must have seen in the Maha-cattarisaka Sutta, is "this world and the next world" and "mother, father, and spontaneously reborn beings."
Sunshine wrote:Oh sorry I guess I must have misread you because you said: So I must have figured you imply that this faith is in any way relevant to Nibbana.
First of all, you are conflating two different things. Your post which garnered my response ("Have I at any point said that anussati is a crucial step in attaining Nibbana?") was "Susima sutta explicitly says that such realizations are not relevant to Nibbana." I agree that anussati is not a necessity for nibbanizing. However, right view, including "this world and the other world" and "mother, father, and spontaneously reborn beings" is absolutely relevant to the fruition of the path. That is the gist of my post which you just offered in your rebuttal to my claim that I have not "at any point said that anussati is a crucial step in attaining Nibbana."
Sunshine wrote: How? Please provide me the instructions
I have all ready given you a sutta which details how to develop anussati. It suggests cultivating the jhanas and directing your mind to the recollection of past lives. Or you could cultivate sila, samadhi and panna until sotapatti, whenever doubt ceases. Or you could cultivate the path factors until you are enlightened.
Sunshine wrote: OK so please explain it without using candles. When we die, there can be a continuation such as ....? What conditions cause what to be another "being" in another body? I am genuinely interested in your explanation
There is no "continuation." That would imply that there is a permanent, underlying factor which continues. Rather, conditions and causes (like ignorance, latent kamma, the union of a mother and father, the four nutriments, the "gandhabba") coalesce and an aggregated "being" (anicca, anatta, constantly subject to change, never the same from moment to moment) is the result. Rebirth is just another link in the samsaric matrix of shifting causes and conditions which ignorant beings create.

Rejection of the idea that there is some sort of kammic 'connection' between the arising of one 'being' and the arising of 'another being' (rebirth) seems to be based on the erroneous notion that rebirth implies that there is something which "possesses" kamma. This is incorrect. This would be self-view. Rather, kamma is everything we ignorantly take to be "us." There is thinking but no thinker, hearing but no hearer, intentional action but no active agent, ad infinitum. I tend to think of kamma as 'input' in to samsaric existence.. ("all that we are is the result of what we have thought"). 'We' [and samsara, 'the All'] are conascent with and the output of kamma (in the sense that we take a selfless process of action, causes and conditions to be self, performed by self, cognized/experienced by self, or independent of an assumed self). Samsara is the output of kamma and ignorance. Rebirth is a coalescence of kammic input [past action, present action (craving, ignorance..), actions of others (sexual reproduction)] which is based in beginningless ignorance. The implication of rebirth rejection is that ignorance has a beginning, as well as an end independent of Nibbana. This is false.
Anguttara Nikaya 10.61-62 wrote:"A first beginning of ignorance cannot be conceived, (of which it can be said), 'Before that, there was no ignorance and it came to be after that.' Though this is so, monks, yet a specific condition of ignorance can be conceived. Ignorance, too, has its nutriment, I declare; and it is not without a nutriment. And what is the nutriment of ignorance? 'The five hindrances,'[61] should be the answer.

"A first beginning of the craving of existence cannot be conceived, (of which it can be said), 'Before that, there was no craving for existence and it came to be after that.' Though this is so, monks, yet a specific condition for craving for existence can be conceived. Craving for existence, too, has its nutriment, I declare; and it is not without a nutriment. And what is the nutriment of craving for existence? 'Ignorance,' should be the answer. But ignorance, too, has its nutriment; it is not without a nutriment. And what is the nutriment of ignorance? 'The five hindrances,' should be the answer.
Sunshine wrote:Noone is rejecting it. I am merely asking the guys who believe in it to kindly give me (the ignorant non-believer) some explanation. That's all :D

So how can you explain a continuation like when I die by body obviously decays but something continues. This is not a "thing" as you say but mere conditioned result? So what are these conditions and what are the results etc? I'm all ears.
See my post above. There is nothing which 'continues.' I am not going to give you an explanation because the Buddha discouraged his disciples from trying to understand the specific, mechanical details of kamma/rebirth (apart from what he had all ready explained to them). You are the one who has implied that rebirth, to be true, must require some continuity of previous aggregates or a permanent substance which possesses kamma or exists independently of the fluxating causes and conditions which make up samsaric existence, not me. I am not going to answer a question based on a fundamentally mistaken proposition.

Also, I have no intention in engaging in this discussion any longer.


Regards,
Eric
Last edited by EricJ on Tue Aug 17, 2010 2:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
I do not want my house to be walled in on sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.- Gandhi

With persistence aroused for the highest goal's attainment, with mind unsmeared, not lazy in action, firm in effort, with steadfastness & strength arisen, wander alone like a rhinoceros.

Not neglecting seclusion, absorption, constantly living the Dhamma in line with the Dhamma, comprehending the danger in states of becoming, wander alone like a rhinoceros.
- Snp. 1.3
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mikenz66
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Re: I Believe in Literal Rebirth - Poll

Post by mikenz66 »

PeterB wrote:There is a parallel in Ajahn Chah JC...some people love to quote him apparently dismissing Sutta study and the like. But he knew enormous amounts of Sutta and commentary by heart...

The great teachers adjust what they are saying to the needs of the listeners.
Yes, in cringe when people wheel out Ajahn Chah one-liners. The one-liners are so context-dependent. Quotes like: "Don't read books! Read your own heart instead", are rather meaningless without the context of who he was talking to or about.
http://www.ajahnchah.org/book/Training_Heart1_2.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
As far as we should be concerned about the ancient monks' tradition, a monk should spend at least five years with his teacher. Some days you should avoid speaking to anyone. Don't allow yourself to speak or talk very much. Don't read books! Read your own heart instead. Take Wat Pah Pong for example. These days many university graduates are coming to ordain. I try to stop them from spending their time reading books about Dhamma, because these people are always reading books. They have so many opportunities for reading books, but opportunities for reading their own hearts are rare. So, when they come to ordain for three months following the Thai custom, we try to get them to close their books and manuals. While they are ordained they have this splendid opportunity to read their own hearts.
And, like Ajahn Buddhadasa, Ajahn Chah also talks about literal rebirth at times...
http://www.ajahnchah.org/book/Knowing_World1.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Know all things that appear. Do they cause us to suffer? Do we form attachment to them? Such as the teaching that birth is suffering: it doesn't only mean dying from this life and taking rebirth in the next life. That's so far away. The suffering of birth happens right now. It's said that becoming is the cause of birth. What is this ''becoming''? Anything that we attach to and put meaning on is becoming. Whenever we see anything as self or other or belonging to ourselves, without wise discernment to know that such is only a convention, that is all becoming. Whenever we hold on to something as us or ours and it then undergoes change, the mind is shaken by that. It is shaken with a positive or negative reaction. That sense of self experiencing happiness or unhappiness is birth. When there is birth, it brings suffering along with it. Aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering.
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bodom
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Re: I Believe in Literal Rebirth - Poll

Post by bodom »

Thanks Mike. This is From No Ajahn Chah:
You’d think that people could appreciate what it would be like to live in a person’s belly. How uncomfortable that would be! Just look at how merely staying in a hut for only one day is already hard to take. You shut all the doors and windows and you’re suffocating already. How would it be to live in a person’s belly for nine months? Yet you want to stick your head right in there, to put your neck in the noose once again.

If you’re afraid of illness, if you are afraid of death, they you should contemplate where they come from. Where do they come from? They arise from birth. So, don’t be sad when someone dies - it’s just nature, and his suffering in this life is over. If you want to be sad, be sad when people are born: "Oh, no, they’ve come again. They’re going to suffer and die again!"
Why are we born? We are born so that we will not have to be born again.
http://www.dharmaweb.org/index.php/No_A ... eflections" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

:anjali:
Last edited by bodom on Tue Aug 17, 2010 2:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
Liberation is the inevitable fruit of the path and is bound to blossom forth when there is steady and persistent practice. The only requirements for reaching the final goal are two: to start and to continue. If these requirements are met there is no doubt the goal will be attained. This is the Dhamma, the undeviating law.

- BB
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Re: I Believe in Literal Rebirth - Poll

Post by bodom »

And here he refers to moment to moment rebirth:
The "One Who Knows" clearly knows that all conditioned phenomena are unsubstantial. So this "One Who Knows" does not become happy or sad, for it does not follow changing conditions. To become glad, is to be born; to become dejected, is to die. Having died, we are born again; having been born, we die again. This birth and death from one moment to the next is the endless spinning wheel of samsara.


There is room for both literal and moment to moment rebirth in practice.

:anjali:
Liberation is the inevitable fruit of the path and is bound to blossom forth when there is steady and persistent practice. The only requirements for reaching the final goal are two: to start and to continue. If these requirements are met there is no doubt the goal will be attained. This is the Dhamma, the undeviating law.

- BB
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Re: I Believe in Literal Rebirth - Poll

Post by Sunrise »

EricJ wrote:I cannot help but that that you have misread the meaning of the sutta
Birth has several different meanings as I see it. So yes, suttas can be interpreted accordingly. I don't have time to go into details about this right now but even if I had, there would be little point in it :smile:
EricJ wrote: This right view only occurs in one who has gained liberation. Right view without effluents is a fruition of the path. Right view with effluents is a an aspect of the Eightfold Path to awakening.
Once again, as I see it, belief in rebirth is termed in the sutta as a "right view with effluents" and certainly is not an essential faith for Nibbana. I don''t understand how you came to the conclusion that noble right view only occures to enlightened beings and everyone else has right view with asava. :rolleye: But yeah, for an argument, you can interpret it that way too.

As I see it, belief in rebirth is "not a factor of the path to cessation" but it is right view for morality.
EricJ wrote:
The cessation of the six sense-bases does not mean that one does not see anything. What one sees then is voidness. It is an in-‘sight’. He gives expression to it with the words suñño loko, “void is the world.”
The term void in Buddhism means void of self or things belonging to self. It makes no sense to me to just say "void is the world".
EricJ wrote:
Samsara is not "there" for the nibbanized ("theie trail...can't be traced"). How can the nibbanized have "right view" of something 'they' aren't even 'viewing?' However, "right view with effluents" leads up to the liberating "right view without effluents." Soteriologically, "right view with effluents" is just as important as "right view without effluents" in that we cannot hope to achieve the latter without practicing the former.
Sounds like an entangled ball of wool to me. First you asked how the "nibbanized" have "right view" of something 'they' aren't even 'viewing' and then you say "right view with effluents" leads up to the liberating "right view without effluents."

Why do you need right view with effluents for Nibbana? You can practice morality whether there is kamma or not, whether there is rebirth or not. I would be a good person (a person abiding by the five precepts) even if I am born again or not, even if there is good bad kamma or not. I am practicing to abandon the "self view" arising in my mind and rebirth fantasies have very little significance in my practice if at all.
EricJ wrote:
such realizations are not relevant to Nibbana." I agree that anussati is not a necessity for nibbanizing. However, right view, including "this world and the other world" and "mother, father, and spontaneously reborn beings" is absolutely relevant to the fruition of the path.
No they are not. They are relevant for morality and the mundane cultivation. Dhana (charity) and sila (moral conduct) are just preparatory stages for Bhavana (meditation and Buddhist cultivation). They are meant to prepare the mind for "letting go". You can practice charity and moral conduct without any beliefs in life after death. As I said before, I will follow a moral conduct and practice giving even if there is rebirth or not; even if there is good and bad kamma or not. That's letting go.

EricJ wrote: I have all ready given you a sutta which details how to develop anussati. It suggests cultivating the jhanas and directing your mind to the recollection of past lives. Or you could cultivate sila, samadhi and panna until sotapatti, whenever doubt ceases. Or you could cultivate the path factors until you are enlightened.
But as per Susima sutta, not all enlightened beings have these insights into past lives.
EricJ wrote: There is no "continuation." That would imply that there is a permanent, underlying factor which continues. Rather, conditions and causes (like ignorance, latent kamma, the union of a mother and father, the four nutriments, the "gandhabba") coalesce and an aggregated "being" (anicca, anatta, constantly subject to change, never the same from moment to moment) is the result. Rebirth is just another link in the samsaric matrix of shifting causes and conditions which ignorant beings create.
This statement is easy to make but harder to explain. As you can see, you have not even attempted to describe in understandable form how it happens. Basically you are claiming that "rebirth is just another link in the samsaric matrix" but no explanation what happens when I die. A "being" dies. Then there is another body and mind process formed based on kamma? Is that what you are saying?
EricJ wrote:Rather, kamma is everything we ignorantly take to be "us."
Ignorance is not realizing anicca, dukkha and anatta (not self). And you say kamma is everything we take to be "us". Taking the five aggregates as me and mine is ignorance. Are you implying kamma is ignorance? :)
EricJ wrote: There is thinking but no thinker, hearing but no hearer, intentional action but no active agent, ad infinitum.
Ok, so we all know this part
EricJ wrote: I tend to think of kamma as 'input' in to samsaric existence.. ("all that we are is the result of what we have thought"). 'We' [and samsara, 'the All'] are conascent with and the output of kamma (in the sense that we take a selfless process of action, causes and conditions to be self, performed by self, cognized/experienced by self, or independent of an assumed self). Samsara is the output of kamma and ignorance. Rebirth is a coalescence of kammic input [past action, present action (craving, ignorance..), actions of others (sexual reproduction)] which is based in beginningless ignorance.
Kamma is input to samsara? Could you leave all this explanations and simply explain to me this. Mr. X dies today. His body remains and decays. Several years after there is a Mr. Y in so and so country and you think he is the rebirth of Mr. X. Please explain the link between X and Y. (without using candles please)
EricJ wrote: The implication of rebirth rejection is that ignorance has a beginning, as well as an end independent of Nibbana. This is false.
First of all, I am not rejecting it. But I simply cannot explain it. Therefore I have decided to say "I don't know" rather than blindly believe it. It is not relevant to my practice after all.
EricJ wrote: fluxating causes and conditions which make up samsaric existence
All is fine, until you try to explain further how these "fluxating causes and conditions" flux after the death of Mr. X. When someone dies the rupa aggregate decays. The rest of the aggregates flux as per kamma?

I referred to the two links which you say explain "rebirth without notions of self" and they severely lack any considerable explanation apart from something to the effect that "it happens. The buddha said it happens but don't ask how it happens... it just happens".
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Re: I Believe in Literal Rebirth - Poll

Post by PeterB »

One of the wisest remarks I have read on the topic comes from the identical poll on ZFI, where Clyde said " discussions of this topic tend to increase suffering " or words to that effect.
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Re: I Believe in Literal Rebirth - Poll

Post by EricJ »

First of all, I apologize for giving you the moniker "Sunshine" instead of "Sunrise" when quoting you in my previous post. I have had some tendency to conflate the two words when quoting you for some reason unbeknownst to me. This is truly my last post on this topic.
Sunrise wrote:
Birth has several different meanings as I see it. So yes, suttas can be interpreted accordingly. I don't have time to go into details about this right now but even if I had, there would be little point in it :smile:
I don't disagree with this statement, but you clearly misread the meaning of that sutta merely because it used that translation used the word 'birth.' You offered that to me as an example of why the Buddha would lie to his disciples about rebirth, when, in fact, he was talking about a completely different topic.
Sunrise wrote: Once again, as I see it, belief in rebirth is termed in the sutta as a "right view with effluents" and certainly is not an essential faith for Nibbana. I don''t understand how you came to the conclusion that noble right view only occures to enlightened beings and everyone else has right view with asava. :rolleye: But yeah, for an argument, you can interpret it that way too.
By definition, the "nibbanized" are without effluents. They are the only 'beings' who are completely devoid of effluents. Otherwise, they would be bound to samsara. This right view without effluents is precisely what has allowed the enlightened to escape the flood. Therefore, they are the only people who are capable of having right view without effluents (unless other ariyans are experience this type of "right view" which is something I'm not completely sure of). Right view without effluents is described as "transcendent," which suggests that those of us who are still bound to samsara by effluents ["These mental effluents are: the outflows of sensuality, views, becoming, and ignorance itself. They are termed 'effluents' because they 'flow' out of the habitual, deluded mind, creating the metaphoric 'flood' of samsaric birth and death.] "Right view without effluents"
Mahacatarisaka Sutta wrote:And what is the right view that is without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path? The discernment, the faculty of discernment, the strength of discernment, analysis of qualities as a factor of Awakening, the path factor of right view in one developing the noble path whose mind is noble [e.g. an ariyan, a 'noble one'], whose mind is free from effluents ["the outflows of sensuality, views, becoming, and ignorance itself."], who is fully pos­sessed of the noble path. This is the right view that is without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path.
Dhammapada, verse 93 wrote:Effluents ended, independent of nutriment, their pasture — emptiness & freedom without sign: their trail, like that of birds through space, can't be traced.
Sunrise wrote: As I see it, belief in rebirth is "not a factor of the path to cessation" but it is right view for morality.
The suttas suggest otherwise. The Eightfold Path is the path to awakening and it includes Right View. As I have demonstrated through excerpts from numerous suttas, the Buddha includes "this world and the other world" and "mother, father, and spontaneously reborn beings" within the scope of Right View.

Furthermore, I would say that you are fundamentally incorrect that morality is not a factor of the path to cessation.
A.V.2 wrote:Ananda, skillful conduct gives freedom from remorse as its gain and advantage; freedom from remorse gives delight as its gain and advantage; delight gives joy; joy gives tranquillity; tranquillity gives well-being; well-being gives collectedness; collectedness gives knowledge and vision of things as they really are; knowledge and vision of things as they really are gives disenchantment and dispassion; disenchantment and dispassion gives knowledge and vision of freedom as its gain and advantage. So indeed, Ananda, skillful conduct gradually leads on to the highest
Sunrise wrote: The term void in Buddhism means void of self or things belonging to self. It makes no sense to me to just say "void is the world".
It certainly made sense to the Buddha whenever he exhorted Sariputta to "look upon the world and see its emptiness (voidness)." I suggest you pay a visit to this website for a lucid description of this concept and its application as presented in the suttas: http://emptyuniverse.110mb.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Sunrise wrote: Sounds like an entangled ball of wool to me. First you asked how the "nibbanized" have "right view" of something 'they' aren't even 'viewing' and then you say "right view with effluents" leads up to the liberating "right view without effluents."
That is because I am making a distinction between experiential, transcendental right view which is conascent with attainment and right view occuring within the confines of samsara. We develop the former to experientially realize the latter.
Sunrise wrote: Why do you need right view with effluents for Nibbana? You can practice morality whether there is kamma or not, whether there is rebirth or not. I would be a good person (a person abiding by the five precepts) even if I am born again or not, even if there is good bad kamma or not. I am practicing to abandon the "self view" arising in my mind and rebirth fantasies have very little significance in my practice if at all.
Because the Eightfold Path is integrated with right view.
Sunrise wrote: No they are not. They are relevant for morality and the mundane cultivation. Dhana (charity) and sila (moral conduct) are just preparatory stages for Bhavana (meditation and Buddhist cultivation). They are meant to prepare the mind for "letting go". You can practice charity and moral conduct without any beliefs in life after death. As I said before, I will follow a moral conduct and practice giving even if there is rebirth or not; even if there is good and bad kamma or not. That's letting go.
Sila, samadhi and panna is are integrated and mutually supportive. Samadhi and panna cannot occur without sila, and therefore, sila is absolutely relevant to realization and Unbinding.

Sunrise wrote:But as per Susima sutta, not all enlightened beings have these insights into past lives.
I would say that is because they did not develop this ability in meditation.
Sunrise wrote: This statement is easy to make but harder to explain. As you can see, you have not even attempted to describe in understandable form how it happens. Basically you are claiming that "rebirth is just another link in the samsaric matrix" but no explanation what happens when I die. A "being" dies. Then there is another body and mind process formed based on kamma? Is that what you are saying?
Essentially. An impersonal,fluxating process of causes and conditions based on ignorance which breeds kamma coalesces in the arising and passing away of beings.
Sunrise wrote:Ignorance is not realizing anicca, dukkha and anatta (not self). And you say kamma is everything we take to be "us". Taking the five aggregates as me and mine is ignorance. Are you implying kamma is ignorance? :)
That is precisely what I just said. From that essay of Ven. Bodhi's:
Sutta Nipata 11.37 wrote:"This body, O monks, is old kamma, to be seen as generated and fashioned by volition, as something to be felt..."
Bhikkhu Bodhi, Anguttara Nikaya 3.76 wrote:"'Existence, existence' is spoken of, venerable sir. In what way is there existence?" The Buddha replies: "If there were no kamma ripening in the sensory realm, no sense-sphere existence would be discerned. If there where no kamma ripening in the form realm, no form-sphere existence would be discerned. If there were no kamma ripening in the formless realm, no formless-sphere existence would be discerned. Therefore, Ananda, kamma is the field, consciousness the seed, and craving the moisture for beings obstructed by ignorance and fettered by craving to be established in a new realm of existence, either low (sense-sphere), middling (form-sphere), or high (formless-sphere)."
Everything that we ignorantly take to be us (the five aggregates) or the world in which "we" act (the eighteen dhatu) is our experience of kamma, which is fueled by ignorance.
Sunrise wrote:Kamma is input to samsara? Could you leave all this explanations and simply explain to me this. Mr. X dies today. His body remains and decays. Several years after there is a Mr. Y in so and so country and you think he is the rebirth of Mr. X. Please explain the link between X and Y. (without using candles please)
Well, no, because I would not try to figure out if "Y" is connected to "X" in the first place. Ignorance, craving, and kamma are the fuel, "the link" as you put it.
Sunrise wrote:First of all, I am not rejecting it. But I simply cannot explain it. Therefore I have decided to say "I don't know" rather than blindly believe it. It is not relevant to my practice after all.
Statements like "trust me, if you can explain to me how rebirth happens without indirectly implying the notion of a self in the process I would gladly accept it" certainly seem to imply rejection.
Sunrise wrote: All is fine, until you try to explain further how these "fluxating causes and conditions" flux after the death of Mr. X. When someone dies the rupa aggregate decays. The rest of the aggregates flux as per kamma?
If the rupa aggregate ceases, the other aggregates dependent on rupa will also cease at death. We should not take the five aggregates as fundamentally isolated phenomena (isolated as individual phenomena or isolated from samsaric environment), nor should we assume that the five aggregates are static. Rebirth is merely another change in an impersonal, interdependent process of arising and falling away, the same process which occurs here and now. Kamma, being the totality of experience (see those two suttas I quoted earlier), gives rise to selfless phenomena based in experiential ignorance. What we take to be isolated phenomena (selves, substances, etc.) are really just the coarisen totalities of causes and conditions, which are themselves the coarisen totalities of causes and conditions ad infinitum. Remove one, and this "isolated phenomena" ceases.

Whenever I say "fluxating causes and conditions" I am not merely referring to the causes and conditions within the five psychophysical aggregates. I am not proposing some sort of "person" or "psychophysical" being who exists within his environment (samsara) and acts independently of this environment. Rather, there is a fundamental interdependence between the two. The problem with materialistic views (like rebirth rejection) is that this idea is absent, in that mind and samsaric existence are taken as merely physical processes. This gives rise to other problematic views, such as a "beginning" to ignorance/samsara as well as the proposition of a Manyness (see Lokayatika Sutta), which are wrong views. It also involves a rejection of kamma, such as the idea I quoted in the Sutta Nipata that "this body is old kamma." It is also a thesis of permanence, in that death is taken as a permanent 'state.' What is permanent about death? The cessation of consciousness associated with a specific experience of the aggregates and eighteen dhatu? Does this mean that the cessation of consciousness of contact between a sense organ and sense object in daily life is death? The only 'thing' which I can think of that is described as "lasting" or "permanent" is Nibbana.
Sunrise wrote: I referred to the two links which you say explain "rebirth without notions of self" and they severely lack any considerable explanation apart from something to the effect that "it happens. The buddha said it happens but don't ask how it happens... it just happens".
I really think that this is you reading what you want to in to the articles, merely because you cannot accept that samsaric existence is dependent on factors outside of the material.



I've enjoyed our discussion. It's helped me to clarify some of my own views, so I thank you for being a part of that. That said, I feel that it would be unskillful for me to continue this discussion. I wish you the best in your practice.


Regards,
Eric
I do not want my house to be walled in on sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.- Gandhi

With persistence aroused for the highest goal's attainment, with mind unsmeared, not lazy in action, firm in effort, with steadfastness & strength arisen, wander alone like a rhinoceros.

Not neglecting seclusion, absorption, constantly living the Dhamma in line with the Dhamma, comprehending the danger in states of becoming, wander alone like a rhinoceros.
- Snp. 1.3
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Re: I Believe in Literal Rebirth - Poll

Post by Sunrise »

EricJ wrote:I really think that this is you reading what you want to in to the articles, merely because you cannot accept that samsaric existence is dependent on factors outside of the material.
Nope. It is because you have to accept unverifiable and mysterious notions like kamma binds you to "samsara" etc. or vague statements like "things are at a continuous flux" etc. in order to explain it. These are all just stories and they do not paint a good enough picture at all. In short, you have failed to explain to me what and how is fluxed and what are the "conditions and results" specifically are.

Someone told me once that when a person dies the rupa aggregate remains and the rest of the aggregates along with some of the dhathus (air, fire) continue to flux and develop the solid rupa aggregate depending on the realm. If they flux when we live what makes me think they stop when the rups aggregate dies. For the record, that is "some" explanation. Which is why I asked you if that is what you are saying.

Also, I am not rejecting rebirth. There is a bigger possibility for it to exist than the possibility that the death is the end. However, my point is that it is irrelevant to the practice and no matter how you look at it, it is still related to the self view. The mere question "is death the end or is there a life after" is related to self view in my opinion. It will be a barrier if you entertain it too much in your mind like "where will I be born next? I do good for a favorable future rebirth etc". This kind of resoning will ultimately, as the Buddha said, lead to effluents, clinging to self. This of course is just my opinion.

Nice talking with you too.

:namaste:
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Re: I Believe in Literal Rebirth - Poll

Post by Sunrise »

PeterB wrote:One of the wisest remarks I have read on the topic comes from the identical poll on ZFI, where Clyde said " discussions of this topic tend to increase suffering " or words to that effect.
Unskillful discussion on any topic will lead to suffering don't you think? :tongue:
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Re: I Believe in Literal Rebirth - Poll

Post by PeterB »

Sunrise wrote:
PeterB wrote:One of the wisest remarks I have read on the topic comes from the identical poll on ZFI, where Clyde said " discussions of this topic tend to increase suffering " or words to that effect.
Unskillful discussion on any topic will lead to suffering don't you think? :tongue:
No doubt. I think he was implying that this particular topic invariably leads to unskillful discussion.
It has becoming a rallying call both for the True Believer and for those who are less inclined to be literal.
It leads inevitably to emotional polarization and division. With those who accept literal rebirth aghast that anyone who calls themselves Buddhist should question what seems to them to be fundamental, and those who do not overreacting to the implication that they are lesser or heretics. Or worse yet the object of pity from those whose own belief stand clearly defined by their overall lack of grasp of Buddhadhamma.
The result is suffering .
There was a thread on the Grey Forum that eventually became a byword for futility, spleen, and circular discussion. Has it been reborn here ?
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Re: I Believe in Literal Rebirth - Poll

Post by Aloka »

The result is suffering .

Well no, not really if everyone is mindful and practices present moment awareness! :mrgreen:



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