Buddha's Second Insight Altered? - Part 1

In the Mahasaccaka Sutta the Buddha describes his enlightenment as obtaining the three knowledges. The second knowledge which specifically has to do with kamma the Buddha describes as thus (translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu):

When the mind was thus concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished, rid of defilement, pliant, malleable, steady, & attained to imperturbability, I directed it to the knowledge of the passing away & reappearance of beings. I saw -- by means of the divine eye, purified & surpassing the human -- beings passing away & re-appearing, and I discerned how they are inferior & superior, beautiful & ugly, fortunate & unfortunate in accordance with their kamma: 'These beings -- who were endowed with bad conduct of body, speech, & mind, who reviled the noble ones, held wrong views and undertook actions under the influence of wrong views -- with the break-up of the body, after death, have re-appeared in the plane of deprivation, the bad destination, the lower realms, in hell. But these beings -- who were endowed with good conduct of body, speech & mind, who did not revile the noble ones, who held right views and undertook actions under the influence of right views -- with the break-up of the body, after death, have re-appeared in the good destinations, in the heavenly world.' Thus -- by means of the divine eye, purified & surpassing the human -- I saw beings passing away & re-appearing, and I discerned how they are inferior & superior, beautiful & ugly, fortunate & unfortunate in accordance with their kamma.

This passage states clearly that the second insight the Buddha achieved by the means of the “divine eye” or psychic power was that good and bad actions or kamma can result in a person going to heaven or hell.
This appears to be straight forward and with no ambiguity. However, if we look at this passage with closer scrutiny there does appear to be incongruencies between different ideas expressed in the passage.

The first thing that seems somewhat contrived in this passage is the phrase, “by means of the divine eye, purified and surpassing the human” which follows right after, “I saw” which is actually "I see" (passāmi). Notice that the first sentence talked about the mind being, “purified” (pariyodāta) and now immediately after we have another perceiving faculty, the “divine eye” (dibbena cakkhunā), described as being “purified” (visuddhena) as well. So now there are two perceiving faculties described when one beginning the passage would have done. This duplication seems to interrupt the flow of the sutta which indicates to me that the “divine eye” was possibly a latter addition.

What also makes me suspicious of this passage is the fact that the “divine eye” is described as “surpassing the human.” This assigning of super human or almost god like powers to the Buddha can be seen in many suttas which scholars usually argue are later additions to the canon as such passages are indicative of the propensity in religious traditions to endow their founder with super human qualities as the tradition grows.

The next sentence after the divine eyes continues with the Buddha who is said to have seen, “beings passing away & re-appearing and I discerned how they are inferior & superior, beautiful & ugly, fortunate & unfortunate in accordance with their kamma.” This to me is the key part of the passage. Here the Buddha is describing the vision of beings arising and passing away and seeing that they differ in status, looks and fortune by virtue of their actions or kamma.

If the sutta was to end at this point then the question of the meaning of this key sentence could have multiple interpretations. The sutta continues, however, attempts to rescue us from this possibility by abruptly continuing with a stock passage in a commentarial like fashion, describing how good kamma leads to heaven while bad kamma leads to hell while at no time really clarifying or elaborating on the notion of kamma having to do with “beautiful & ugly” (suvaṇṇa & dubbaṇṇe), and “inferior & superior” (hīne & paṇīte). This in itself seems a little fishy, but when this impression is coupled with medley nature of the following sections that interrupts the flow of the passage, a decent argument can be made that the “heaven and hell” sentence was a later addition.

If these proposed interpolations are exercised out, the passage can be distilled down to the following: “I saw beings passing away & re-appearing, and I discerned how they are inferior & superior, beautiful & ugly, fortunate & unfortunate in accordance with their kamma.”

Having greatly shortened the passage, the question becomes whether it still makes sense and if it does, what is the meaning of it? And assuming a realistic meaning can be provided is it authentic and possibly the original meaning?

To begin with, the first part of the sentence states, “I saw beings passing away (cavamāne) & re-appearing (upapajjamāne).” This simply indicates a recollection of many different beings dying and being born. The passage continues, “and I discerned how they are inferior & superior, beautiful & ugly, fortunate & unfortunate in accordance (yathākammūpage) with their kamma.” Here the second part of the sentence is describing clearly that the differences among people are due to their actions.

Now I do believe the Buddha is relating that there are indeed differences among people due to birth, background and general fortune, this much the Buddha grants by recalling all the many beings coming and going which obviously differed in circumstances and physical characteristics. However, I do not believe, he grants that these difference by virtue of circumstances or birth to be ultimately important.

What differences I do believe the Buddha thinks are important are those differences created by acts or kamma which he expresses in the second part of the sentence. If the differences in beauty, wealth and fortune the Buddha is mentioning can be interpreted in a figurative sense rather than a literal sense, the Buddha is essentially saying, for example, that a beautiful person is one that performs beautiful acts (compassion, kindness) rather than one being born beautiful due to previous acts.

In summary, it can be argued that this stripped down sentence can be interpreted as expressing the idea that the important differences in people are not by virtue of their birth, but by virtue of their actions.

Is this idea a crazy one? Can we find other similar passages in the Pali canon that express a similar idea thus lending some credence to it?

Crassness of the Cula-Kammavibhanga Sutta

In the Cula-kammavibhanga Sutta, a young Brahmin student goes to the Buddha and asks him why there are differences between people (translation by Thanissaro Bhikkhu):

Master Gotama, what is the reason, what is the cause, why baseness & excellence are seen among human beings, among the human race? For short-lived & long-lived people are to be seen, sickly & healthy, ugly & beautiful, uninfluential & influential, poor & rich, low-born & high-born, stupid & discerning people are to be seen. So what is the reason, what is the cause, why baseness & excellence are seen among human beings, among the human race?

The Buddha cryptically replies, "Students, beings are owners of kamma, heir to kamma, born of kamma, related through kamma, and have kamma as their arbitrator. Kamma is what creates distinctions among beings in terms of coarseness & refinement."

The student perplexed by the Buddha’s statement asks the Buddha to elaborate. The Buddha explains in further detail by elaborating that the physical, socio-economic and intellectual differences in people are due to their kamma. He emphasizes the retributive nature of kamma by stating that if someone kills another person, that individual will in a next life experience a short life. He also relates that if a person is ill-tempered, he or she will be reborn ugly. If a person does not give, he or she will end up poor in the next life. If a person is not intelligent enough to ask wise men important questions, he or she will be born dumb in the next life and so on. He summarizes that it is our actions that will determine our length of life, health, beauty, influence, wealth, social status and intelligence:

So, student, the way leading to short life makes people short-lived, the way leading to long life makes people long-lived; the way leading to sickliness makes people sickly, the way leading to health makes people healthy; the way leading to ugliness makes people ugly, the way leading to beauty makes people beautiful; the way leading to lack of influence makes people uninfluential, the way leading to influence makes people influential; the way leading to poverty makes people poor, the way leading to wealth makes people wealthy; the way leading to low birth makes people low-born, the way leading to high birth makes people highborn; the way leading to stupidity makes people stupid, the way leading to discernment makes people discerning.

The underlining motif in the sutta is that one’s actions always have consequences. The form of the actions you take, you will experience in a future life (thus, for example, if you kill a person thus shortening their life you will experience a short life in the next one).

Seeds of this idea can be seen in the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, possibly suggesting a Brahmanism influence, where in the discussion of desire it is stated (translation by Patrick Olivelle): "A man resolves in accordance with his desire, acts in accordance with his resolve, and turns out to be in accordance with his action” (4.4.5).

While the main motif in this sutta may be borrowed from the religious milieu during or after the Buddha’s time, the motif, nevertheless, can be found in various scriptures. The Cula-kammavibhanga sutta is a worthy example to examine, what I believe, to be an immoral and tasteless teaching.

The main issue I have with this sutta, besides its naïve, unsophisticated and retributive undertone, is it promotes a “blame the victim” attitude towards everyone’s misfortune or suffering while explaining away any injustices a person experiences as their fault and no one else’s.

To begin with, modern science of today can explain the reason for many of the physical differences and sicknesses that people are subject to. Modern science can not only explain the terrible deformities and afflictions people are born with but in some cases eradicate them.

It is beyond dispute that many deformities can be explained by genetics or the exposure of dangerous pathogens during pregnancy. As a simple example, there is ample evidence that parents who have exposure to high-levels of radiation are more likely to sire a deformed child. Let me emphasize the point: this has nothing to do with kamma but with dangerous gamma rays.

Intelligence is also another category that under closer statistical examination has nothing to do with kamma. Modern statistics show that an intelligent mother and father are more likely to produce intelligent children rather than dumb ones. Genetic explanations hold far more weight than a speculative belief that a person is dumb because in a previous life that person did not honor a religious person, failed to listen to the truth or some other thing they did stupidly from a religious stance.

As for the issue of a person who has a shortened life, the same argument applies. If we take for example, a child with incurable cancer who will clearly have a shortened life. Does that mean it was caused by bad kamma in a previous life? Modern science has shown that many different types of cancers have a genetic basis, and can be caused by dangerous pathogens, radiation and so on.

What is terrible about the view that a child’s shortened life is the cause of bad actions in a previous life is that the child is in some sense responsible for their short life; the child’s cancer is their fault.

To me this is not only morally repulsive but borderline inhumane. If one takes this sutta seriously and has a dying child that asks, “Daddy, why am I going to die and not live a full life?” That “loving and compassionate” Buddhist parent will respond, “Child, you are going to die a horrible and painful death well before your prime, because in a previous life you did horrible, bad things.”

In my opinion, those poor souls who experience great physical, mental sufferings or injustices do not need to be blamed for their particular predicament or viewed from a perspective that they somehow deserve it. Such views, when taken seriously, can only mitigate compassion (if they are to blame, then why have sympathy and loving kindness for them) which these people so dearly need. Such a perverse belief system would regard those that really have unfortunate circumstances to have done really terrible things in the past, evening lessening more the natural compassion one feels for those in need.

As an example, it was not more than around 50 years ago when black people in the United States were routinely discriminated against, abused, burned and hanged for no apparent reason than the color of their skin. Even today, discrimination still exists for many minorities. For all those people past and present that experienced great injustices purely due to skin color, the notion of kamma would say that to be born a black man or woman was due to evil actions in a past life. In other words, to be born black is a punishment. Thus to be black is “bad.”

On the flip side, a slave owner who experiences wealth and well being due to the exploitation of human beings that are treated as animals would be regarded by the doctrine of kamma as experiencing such good fortune because in a previous life they did many noble and good acts. In a sense the slave owners are entitled to their slaves and fortune because they are being rewarded due to past life deeds. What more, the ownership and exploitation of slaves is nothing bad. The slave owner is simply carrying out the karmic sentence that has been given to slaves. If they were not bad in a past life they would not be born a slave. The poor exploited slaves they are there not because of an inhuman political and social system but they deserve to be there because of their bad past karma.

I hope it is clear from these examples that this retributive notion of kamma explains away any terrible atrocity a person who group of people experience as being their fault and the carrier of justice is just helping to carry out the kammic sentence.

A women who is brutally beaten and gang raped: her fault due to bad kamma. A child is sexually molested by a pedophile: the child’s fault due to bad kamma. A mother watching her child be murdered in front of her eyes: the mother’s fault due to bad kamma. The millions of Jewish people that were gassed, shot, experimented on and eradicated: it was their fault. The Nazi’s weren’t really to blame they were simply carrying out what the Jewish people “deserved.”

Conclusion

The retributive notion of kamma has been portrayed in many of suttas as a means to scare or entice those towards more moral actions in their lives. For whatever the reason, the earlier compilers of the suttas thought it necessary to treat many aspirers to Buddhism as animals needing to be prodded and led by infantile notions of reward and punishment so as to alter or preserve existing behavior.

In the process, many elements were borrowed from the religious milieu that developed into explaining all the differences between human beings. Contrary to many of the suttas where the Buddha saw moral action in the current life as the only thing worthy of differentiating people, kamma became an elevated principle explaining everything having to do with the differences in people, their circumstances and the universe itself through a cosmology based on planes of existence determined by kamma.

The Cula-kammavibhanga Sutta is an atrocious example of a notion of kamma in Buddhism that seeks to explain all the differences between human beings. It is a shockingly cruel idea which blames the victim and seems to provide justification to any atrocity committed by the most reprehensible in society.

Heaven, Hell and Karma -- Part 2

Notion of Rebirth Spanning Multiple Life Times

Another important aspect of the cosmological notion of karma and rebirth is the idea that our current life is simply the culmination of a long succession of past lives, and we (unless we reach enlightenment) will continue to go through a series of future lives.

This central idea has the effect of expanding an individual’s notion of personal time beyond their current life to potentially an infinite number of future lives. If such a tenet is believed, it can be inferred that the psychological effect on a person will be a general lack of alacrity and a greater inclination to be more accepting of one’s current circumstances and do little to change it.

This is because people who find themselves in impoverished social, economic or spiritual circumstances are more likely to accept their common lot and put their spiritual concerns aside in the hope that a future life will provide them with a better situation more conducive for liberating pursuits. Any spiritual actions they do perform will be more likely geared towards gaining a favorable rebirth into a rich or powerful family where only then may a spiritual quest be more realistic.

Even if a poor individual does get reborn into more favorable circumstances, what is that individual’s motivation to seek enlightenment in this current life? If the cosmological perspective is taken seriously, and they realize that enlightenment is difficult to achieve, why would a person not take an easier path towards an even more favorable rebirth instead, in a deva world, for example, rather than pursue the rather esoteric goal of nirvana?

What more, the notion of multiple successions of lives results in the devaluation or immediate importance of one’s current life. When one sees one life in relation to a whole series of future lives, the single current life that is directly being experienced now does not seem as important.

One possible outcome of this realization is that one is more inclined to place oneself in risky situations, engage in dangerous sexual behavior or other such life-threatening activities because if something goes wrong, the person will always have another life to recover from the mistake or try risking again.

And here we encounter the “do over” attitude; where no matter what one does in this life, they will always have a chance to repeat the situation again and hopefully this time around get it “right.” While such an attitude may be forgiving, it does not foster a concerned, careful, live-life-to-the-fullest approach which the Buddha advocated in many suttas.

For the Buddha, he emphasized that all that could become nuns and monks should strive diligently to achieve liberation now and not some future life.
The Buddha went so far in the Sabbasava Sutta as to suggest that even pondering such questions a future life, let alone desiring them, are hindrances on the path (translation by Bhikku Bodhi):

By attending to things unfit for attention and by not attending to things fit for attention, both unarisen taints arise in him [the meditator] and arisen taints increase.
This is how he attends unwisely: 'Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future?

Conclusion

The Buddha was chiefly concerned with over-worldly concerns that led to liberation from the mundane world. He encouraged his disciples to strive diligently to find their salvation and not waste time to be free from suffering.

The belief in rebirth over multiple lives can encourage an attitude that is in direct contrast to what the Buddha emphasized. Instead of instilling a sense of immediacy for the supramudane, the belief in beings having multiple lives can promote worldly, selfish ends with no sense of emergency for the unborn.

Heaven, Hell and Karma -- Part 1

Performing an on-line serach on the Pali Canon for niraya or the name for Buddhist hell revealed the word appearing over five-hundred times. The Buddhist hell is often mentioned in tandem with heaven, and a prototypical passage can be found in the Cula-Kammavibhanga Sutta (Ñanamoli Thera’s translation):

Here, student, some woman or man is a killer of living beings, murderous, bloody-handed, given to blows and violence, merciless to living beings. Due to having performed and completed such kammas, on the dissolution of the body, after death, he reappears in a state of deprivation, in an unhappy destination, in perdition, in hell.

But here some woman or man, having abandoned the killing of living beings, abstains from killing living beings, lays aside the rod and lays aside the knife, is considerate and merciful and dwells compassionate for the welfare of all living beings. Due to having performed and completed such kammas, on the dissolution of the body, after death, he reappears in a happy destination, in the heavenly world.

This passage is a representative example of the retributive portrayal of karma that lies throughout the Pali canon. Here the passage clearly promulgates the fear of hell and the promise of heaven as a primitive means of controlling people’s behavior through reward or punishment.

The main objection I have of such a notion of karma, besides the rather demeaning undertone that seems to regard people as mere animals to be goaded the correct way, is that a person is either deterred or motivated to commit an action only because of their own selfish interest and not the concern or interest of others who may be hurt or benefitted from such actions.

What such a naïve morality does is devalue the act itself by emphasizing the result. Even the most wholesome actions of joyful giving and the practice of loving-kindness are not valued in ends-in-themselves but merely means to gain the reward of going to heaven (again taken from the Cula-Kammavibhanga Sutta with Ñanamoli Thera’s translation):

"But here some woman or man is a giver of food, drink, cloth, sandals, perfumes, unguents, bed, roof and lighting to monks and brahmins. Due to having performed and completed such kamma, on the dissolution of the body, after death, he reappears in a happy destination in the heavenly world.”

In direct contrast to the Buddha’s encouragement of compassion, which by its very definition is the feeling with others, such teachings of retributive karma result in a mitigation of a focus on others while increasing the focus on a greater sense of self – a sense of me and mine which the Buddha, again and again, preached against as obstacles on the path.

In my opinion the Buddha emphasized such beneficial acts of loving kindness and giving, not for the sake of achieving heaven or avoiding hell, but to allow one to experience glimpses of selflessness; an experience which helps to break down selfish tendencies and not conflate them. Giving and loving kindness is ultimately an experience where we begin to notice not just ourselves but others as well.

When the simplistic notion of karma and rebirth is understood from a cosmological stand point, it has the tendency to impoverish the more subtle, refined notion of karma which emphasizes the cause and effect of not just one’s self but the cause and effect such actions has on others.

The Ambalatthika-rahulovada Sutta explains this more refined notion of karma (translation by Thanissaro Bhikkhu) with a conversation of the Buddha and his young son who had just joined the Sangha:

"What do you think, Rahula: What is a mirror for?"

"For reflection, sir."

"In the same way, Rahula, bodily actions, verbal actions, & mental actions are to be done with repeated reflection."

"Whenever you want to do a bodily action, you should reflect on it: 'This bodily action I want to do — would it lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both? Would it be an unskillful bodily action, with painful consequences, painful results?'"

"Whenever you want to do a verbal action, you should reflect on it: 'This verbal action I want to do — would it lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both?'"

"Whenever you want to do a mental action, you should reflect on it: 'This mental action I want to do — would it lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both?'"

"Thus, Rahula, you should train yourself: 'I will purify my bodily actions through repeated reflection. I will purify my verbal actions through repeated reflection. I will purify my mental actions through repeated reflection.' That's how you should train yourself."

Here in this beautiful passage the Buddha does not chide his son with promises of heaven or hell, put points out how one should behave ethically by contemplating the effects of one’s actions to their self and others.

Such a view emphasizes the responsibility and power we have for our own destiny and the positive or negative influence we can have on the destinies of others. By seeing karma as a web of interactions is to realize that our existence is intrinsically tied up with the people around us; all of us are subtly impacting one another all the time. To me this is the essential foundation of the Buddhist view of ethics; an ethics based on intelligence and consideration and not one that espouses the fear of punishment or the promise of reward.

Buddhist Rebirth Refuted -- Part 3

Intermediate Existence: The Gandhabba

Having illustrated the impossibility of the karmic energies without a body and the difficulties with the “instantaneous” transfer of karmic energies, is there a way to get around this?

Well, yes and it is called the gandhabba.

Translators from ancient times to today have been wrestling with what exactly this gandhabba is. Some scholars have put forth that the gandhabba is a celestial musician of the lower deva word, “re-linking consciousness,” “sperm," or even a “ghost” or “spirit.”

While it is not clear what exactly the gandhabba is from the suttas, conjectures from ancient and recent sources have postulated the gandhabba as an intermediate being that appears to not just have a consciousness but also a very subtle invisible body. The view of some type of intermediate being was first conceived by the early buddhst Sarvāstivāda school.

Peter Harvey in his book, The Selfess Mind, describes in more detail what the gandhabba is:

Despite the obscure nature of the gandhabba the basic point is that the gandbhabba is a being that contains the karmic energies of the entity that died. It does have a body, it is subject to impermanence like everything else, and requires food for its continued existence (Harvey 106).

The appeal of such an intermediate being is that it solves, at least in part, some of the objections I raised with the notions of instantaneous rebirth and of consciousness only being able to exist with the aid of a body. With the gandhabba the consciousness or karmic energies can in a way exist outside of the dying body and the new body-to-be because it has an intermediate body to sustain it. With this intermediate body, there is no need for instantaneous rebirth because with the support of a body the intermediate entity now has time to find a suitable new being-to-be. As such, it removes the possibility that the karmic conditioning energies of a dying being could be lost due to the lack of a suitable future being-to-be present at the time of death.

While the gandhabba seems to solve a lot of problem areas, it raises some new problems of its own. From the start where did the gandhabba get the subtle body from? I don’t think it got it from, for example, a dying human body as none of the suttas say that the human body has a separate subtle part to it that can exist on its own without the gross corporeal body of form. Now if this is not the case, then the gandhabba can only be some separate entity that is a container, as such, for the karmic energies of the dying entity. This then raises the question whether the independent gandhabba has to be in close proximity to the dying body or not. If so, then it appears that there is the possibility that the karmic energies could dissipate if the gandhabba is not within a certain distance of the dying body. What more, there is the issue of the gandhabba itself dying prior to finding the right being-to-be (nothing, according to Buddhism, is not subject to death).

The only explanation I can see is if a gandhabba dies it has its own gandhabba to carry on its existence.

But if we allow for this, we still run into the major problem of infinite regress because to guarantee that all beings will be able to achieve an intermediate existence (including the gandhabbas as well) each entity must have one gandhabba ready for it. And if a gandhabba needs to have an intermediate existence as well when it dies, then its intermediate gandhabba will need its own and so on and so on.

If we remove the possibility that the gandhabba has no possibility of dying and thus infinite regress, we have a non-dying being that wanders around for a new being-to-be. At this point the gandhabba has in effect turned into an indestructible self or atman (soul) that the Buddha denied (see “The Brahmajala Sutta” where a view of a self that is perceptive with a formless body is seen as a wrong view).

In order for the gandhabba idea to work at all, the reintroduction of many atman like properties needs to be introduced.

In fact, due to the similarity between atman and this interpretation of the gandhabba, many early schools of Buddhism rejected this view of the gandhabba.

Even if this impasse can be resolved the previous issues dealing with how an intermediate being is able to locate a suitable being-to-be that meets socio-economic, genetic and destiny requirements still needs to somehow be met.

Conclusion

So have I refuted rebirth? No, not really. I can refute rebirth no more than I can refute that fairies or pink elephants do not exist. Hopefully, I have raised some significant issues as to the logical problems and unanswered questions related to rebirth so as to make people think instead of giving such a belief more credence than I believe it justifies.

The bottom line is that literal rebirth as laid out in the Pali canon suttas can be only approached as a belief and not something that can be experienced or empirically verified. While I admit that there are some case studies that seem to suggest the possibility of rebirth, there is nothing in those case studies that indicate that rebirth is a universal phenomena that occurs for everyone. Also of significant note, is that in these such studies there is nothing to suggest that an individual’s kamma has anything to do with the newly being being (see Shroder’s Old Souls: The Scientific Search for Evidence of Past Lives 173).

The one thing that I can know and can experience is that of suffering or unsatisfactoriness. I can experience the movement of the mind, and the death and rebirth of every moment as to what I see as “me.” To me this is what is really important; not the unknown future of my rebirth, what my previous lives were. What is important to me is this very life and this moment which holds the possibility of release from everything, and that includes any notions or ideas of literal rebirth.

Ultimately, given the Buddha’s teaching of anatta or not self, there is no one that dies and there is no one that is reborn. What we call any permanent persisting entity is just a conventional way of talking about what amounts to a dynamic process that forms itself in a particular organized configuration.

Even if rebirth was true and I could remember my previous state of existence, what spiritual use would it be? Sure I could remember that in a previous life, I did this and that, and experienced this and that. It may be interesting, but it would just be like another memory in this life. I am sure many of the memories would be rather banal and nothing special. Just because a person had a previous life does not mean all them were Caesars or Cleopatras. Most likely they would remember some kind of life as an average person doing average things not a whole lot different than we do today.

The important point is that all memories of rebirth are all in the past and do nothing to advance a person’s spiritual progress. They are simply another source for clinging and attachment that should be abandoned.

In the Sabbasava Sutta the Buddha explicitly relates that such speculations of what a person was in the past or what they shall be in the future are inappropriate musings that simply leads to “fermentations” which ultimately lead to suffering (translation by Bhikkhu Thanissaro):

This is how he attends inappropriately: 'Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what was I in the past? Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future? Having been what, what shall I be in the future?' Or else he is inwardly perplexed about the immediate present: 'Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?'

It can be argued from this passage, that the views of rebirth can really detract one from the ultimate goal of nirvana. For the Buddha, any source of attachment, especially to speculative views, was to be abandoned.

Buddhist Rebirth Refuted -- Part 2

Instantaneous Rebirth

Many Theravada books or articles that explain rebirth quote the Questions of King Milanda as a succinct way of demonstrating how rebirth works. Here is an important part of the text that explains the mechanism of rebirth (taken from Edward Conze’s The Questions of King Milinda):

"If a man were to light a lamp, could it give light throughout the whole night?"

"Yes, it could."

"Is now the flame which burns in the first watch of the night the same as the one which burns in the second?"

"It is not the same."

"Or is the flame which burns in the second watch the same as the one which burns in the last one?"

"It is not the same."

"Do we then take it that there is one lamp in the first watch of the night, another in the second, and another again in the third?"

"No, it is just because of the light of the lamp shines throughout the night."

"Even so must we understand the collection of a series of successive dharmas. At rebirth one dharma arises, while another stops; but the two processes take place almost simultaneously (i.e. they are continuous). Therefore, the first act of consciousness in the new existence is neither the same as the last act of consciousness in the previous existence, nor it is another."

The basic idea of the passage is to indicate to the king that what we perceive as our identity is actually changing all the time where the previous instance conditions the next one. Because of this, what we identify as “me” as the flame from the “first watch” of the night is different from the “second watch” of the night, yet while the two different instances of the same flame are different, they are not two different, independent flames as would be the case with two different lamps. Due to this, like the flame, we can say we that we are neither the same person nor a different one.

The passage so far, is logical and consistent. Where the analogy breaks down is when it is extended to illustrate how rebirth works between two different entities. As the passage conveys, “At rebirth one dharma arises, while another stops; but the two processes take place almost simultaneously (i.e. they are continuous).” What is being said here is that the continuity between the successive flames in one entity is the same as the continuity of the flame between the dying entity and the entity being born, except that the flame is transferred from one entity to another instead of persisting in the same entity.

The important thing to note here is that it must take place “almost simultaneously.” To be able to transfer something almost simultaneously seems to necessitate extremely fast movement (which would indicate an independent entity) or no movement or transmigration (literally to migrate to another place) at all. If there is no transmigration then how does the transfer of karmic energy take place?

The text poses and answers this question (this time using Bikkhu Pesala’s Debate of King Milinda in Chapter 2.5):

“Can there be any rebirth where there is no transmigration?”

“Yes there can, just as a man can light one oil-lamp
from another but nothing moves from one lamp to the
other; or as a pupil can learn a verse by heart from a teacher
but the verse does not transmigrate from teacher to pupil.”

Here this passage points out that rebirth is not transmigration by the fact there is no movement of the flame from one oil-lamp to another. As such, extrapolating from the former passage and latter one, rebirth is like the flame of a lamp going out, but just at the point prior to going out, it makes “contact” and lights the other oil-lamp that has no flame. Thus, as one flame goes out another arises “almost simultaneously” as a result of first flame lighting another.

Things at this point start to fall apart. The first problem is how the transfer and thus the contact between the dying entity and the entity to be born occurs. From the above analogy, it appears that there must be proximity between the dying and potentially new entity (the flame of one lamp coming in contact with the other lamp). What happens if I die thousands of miles from another living entity? Will my consciousness or karmic energies be able to find another entity? If distance was a factor in eliminating rebirth, the Buddha would have taught enlightenment as finding an isolated place free from all living beings.

As the Buddha did not, I can only say that no matter how implausible it may be, these karmic energies must be able to extend infinitely (in order to make contact with a body) or somehow be able to teleport (thus not strictly moving from one entity to another) into the new body. But even if we accept this, how does the consciousness or karmic-energies find a body to go to? Well, according to the Pali scriptures, the karmic-energies will influence the type of entity that it will be born into. According to the Apannaka Sutta, (again translation by Bikkhu Bodi) the Buddha relates that a person’s rebirth is contingent upon their karma:

He sees — by means of the divine eye, purified and surpassing the human — beings passing away and re-appearing, and he discerns how they are inferior and superior, beautiful and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate in accordance with their kamma.

So the karmic energy must somehow locate a suitable entity-to-be that meets the karmic energy’s requirements. Somehow the karmic energy must not only sense the being-to-be’s genetic makeup (beautiful or ugly) but sense its socio-economic environment (inferior or superior) and overall fortune (fortunate and unfortunate). What more, this karmic energy has no time to (remember it is instantaneous) find the suitable being, it must do it immediately.

Let’s just assume we get past these difficulties: we have a potential being-to-be that meets the karmic requirements of the dying entity. But what other conditions are necessary for a being to be born? In the Mahatanhasankhaya sutta, the Buddha elucidates what is necessary for the birth of an individual:

Bhikkhus, the descent of the embryo takes place through the union of three things. Here there is the union of the mother and father, but the mother is not in season, and the gandhabba is not present – in this case no descent of an embryo takes place.

Here there are three things that are necessary for a being to arise: coitus, mother in season and the gandhabba. If we can leave the gandhabba out for the moment, it is clear that there are three things that are necessary for an embryo to materialize.

Now, as we have seen, the karmic energies are transferred simultaneously when a new being dies to one that is being born. Yet, the new being to be born can only be born when certain conditions arise within a relatively small window of time. As such, how can the karmic energies condition a new birth, if at that exact moment of death, the necessary conditions are not present for a birth to take place?

And let’s be clear: it is not just any birth but birth in a being that reflects that being's past being’s karmic heritage. That is to say, just because an insect is ready to be born, for example, and at that moment a human dies that does not mean the karmic energies of the human being will transfer to the new insect. If the being has a good karmic heritage and is destined for at least a human rebirth, then the conditioning of the insect’s embryo will not occur.

To deny otherwise is to deny how kamma works, for it is the individual’s kamma that dictates and thus constrains the type of being that one can be reborn into; a human who does good cannot be born as an animal, nor can a human who does bad can be born into a deva.

May main point is that it appears from a purely statistical stand point that there is the guaranteed possibility that at the exact moment of death there will be no suitable coming-to-be-beings for a dying entity's karmic heritage. So then what happens? Well, from all the preceding arguments it appears the karmic energies must by necessity go out. It is like the lamp in the above analogy going out, but without another lamp to take the dying flame. But this is not possible for the vast majority of beings, because according to Buddhism only those who achieve nirvana and die have this possibility.

The only other possibility, and still this does not seem guaranteed and thus we still run in to the same problem before, is that the karmic energy when it finds no suitable coming-to-be-beings takes a not so suitable one for a temporary period. For example, a good man dies and is destined to be born in a very high socio-economic state, let’s say a king, and unfortunately there is no king-coming-to-be. However, at that exact moment there is a mother flea that is ready for the embryo to form, so the karmic energies condition the new flea-to-be. The baby flea is born and sadly in 90 days it passes on. The new karmic energies again are primed for a king-to-be, but none are unfortunately found. However, at that exact moment a mother chicken has the right conditions, and the karmic energies condition the new chicken-to-be. The new baby chick is born and unfortunately at two days-old it gets eaten by a wily fox. The karmic energies still look for a king-coming-to-be, but does not find one . . .

Hopefully, you are beginning to get the gist of my argument. The point is that with a temporary being acting as a stepping stone to the really intended being, a factor of luck is added in to the equation which may therefore result in an entity being born in a realm its karmic energies are not suitable for. Instead of being in a diva world, a dying man’s karmic energy could end up being in an ass (the animal that is). This randomness and unfairness associated with it does not at all appear to be like the impersonal law-like nature of kamma that governs where beings are born.

But just for the sake of argument, let’s say that at the exact moment one being dies another suitable being is ready to be born into in every single case. Also to make this argument at least somewhat realistic let’s say in any universe (made up of the different planes of existence) you have x amount of total beings. Even granting this one reasonable condition, rebirth still falls apart.

This is because in a finite universe of beings where there is always a suitable being ready to be born in to, the total amount of beings at any point in time can never change! This is because when a being dies a new one, in a sense, takes its place.

Now if you take into account enlightened beings that get off the wheel of samsara, the number of being in the universe can change but only decrease and never increase.

To have a set amount of beings to begin with seems quite problematic in itself. The first problem is who or what sets this boundary of beings? And who or what first created this set of original beings? You could invoke a creator god, but at least in early Buddhism all the gods were subject to impermanence and the idea of an ultimate creator god was ridiculed by the Buddha, for example, in Brahmajala Sutta where the great Brahma makes a mistake that he creates beings not understanding that beings appear from other realms due to their kamma and not because of him.

A question immediately arises, is if there is a finite amount of beings how can population explosions be explained or the fact that the overall number of beings have increased on earth? The only explanation to population explosions is that beings are being transferred, as it were, from and to different realms (heaven, hungry ghosts, hell realms and so on).

But this explanation is in itself dubious. If we use human beings as an example, where the human species has exploded to a current population of around 8 billion, it necessarily follows that this population increase is only possible due to a great influx of karmically good beings from the other worlds (remember the human realm is a fairly decent realm to be born in to). What this means is that a major factor in the human population explosion has nothing to do with technology, more and varied resources, more people around and therefore more sex and babies, but the factor of karmically good beings dying en mass so as for to births to occur in the exploding population.

If we do not accept beings (Gods, devas, hell beings and so on) from other realms, and also accept the theory of evolution which posits one primordial living organism that gave rise to all life as we know it on earth, then rebirth is impossible. Rebirth cannot work as in order for there to be two beings living at the same time from the original one, the extra being must have had karmic energies from another entity. But this is impossible because there are no other entities to die to provide it the karmic energies.

Is rebirth at this point refuted? Not quite yet.

Buddhist Rebirth Refuted -- Part 1

Buddhist Rebirth Refuted

In this following essay, I will show that the Buddhist notion of rebirth in the Pali Canon is logically incoherent and under close scrutiny it fails rationally to make any sense.

The primary purpose of this essay is not to denigrate or ridicule the teachings of the Dhamma. I do believe in kamma and rebirth, but in a psychological sense of an individual in this very life.

The main problem of the Buddhist notion of rebirth is that, in my opinion, can result in people becoming attached to such ideas at the expense of the core teachings of the Buddha.

In many Buddhist countries, the laity get so immersed in the notion of rebirth that it leads to actions of making merit just to ensure a favorable rebirth. The laity ends up clinging to such notions as it a comforting thought that the individual will not meet its demise, but continue in the future. As such, instead of decreasing the notion of “I” or “me,” such beliefs can actually increase it.

These typical reactions prompted by rebirth are in direct contrast to what the Buddha was actually interested in. The Buddha was interested in reducing the notion of “I” and getting off of the wheel of samsara and not keeping on it and continually being reborn.

To summarize, I am attacking the notion of literal rebirth for it can be a great source of clinging and attachment that can lead one to be preoccupied with some distance future instead of motivating oneself to be free from suffering right now in this present life.

My main argument will consist of demonstrating the dubious explanations behind the mechanism of rebirth as described in the earliest Buddhist schools. By placing doubt in the connecting mechanism between the old life and the new, I place in doubt the whole notion of rebirth itself.

Dependent Origination and Rebirth

To understand why literal rebirth does not work, one must start with dependent origination. In the Maha-nidana Sutta (using Bikkhu Bodhi’s translation from www.accesstoinsight.org) we have the Buddha explaining the link of name and form (nama-rupa) and consciousness (vinnana):

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."

"If, after descending into the womb, consciousness were to depart, would name-and-form be produced for this world?"

"No, lord."

"If the consciousness of the young boy or girl were to be cut off, would name-and-form ripen, grow, and reach maturity?"

"No, lord."

"Thus this is a cause, this is a reason, this is an origination, this is a requisite condition for name-and-form, i.e., consciousness."

Consciousness

"'From name-and-form as a requisite condition comes consciousness.' Thus it has been said. And this is the way to understand how from name-and-form as a requisite condition comes consciousness. If consciousness were not to gain a foothold in name-and-form, would a coming-into-play of the origination of birth, aging, death, and stress in the future be discerned?

"No, lord."

"Thus this is a cause, this is a reason, this is an origination, this is a requisite condition for consciousness, i.e., name-and-form.

In this passage the Buddha explicitly explains that, “name-and-form as a requisite condition comes consciousness,” and that, “from consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-and-form.” In other words, consciousness cannot exist without name-and-form (name-and-form representing the five khandhas that make up an individual), and name-and-form cannot exist without consciousness; they both mutually condition each other, and one cannot exist without the other.

The first problem in the maha-nidana sutta occurs in the sentence stating that “consciousness . . . descend[s] into the mother’s womb.” The notion of descending or entering posits a subject, in this case consciousness, moving from one place to another. But according to what the Buddha just said in the prior paragraph, this is not possible because consciousness must have a body to exist; there can be no time when consciousness is “apart” from the body. If consciousness could exist apart from the body, it would be attributed with an independent, permanent existence which is directly contrary to the notion of anatta (no Soul or no permanent entity that exists independently).

As Sue Hamilton states in Identity and Experience, “[this] might be considered to indicate that vinnana is some sort of enduring transmigrating entity” (84). To remedy this impasse, Hamilton goes on to point out, that key Pali word okkamissatha which can literally be translated as “enters” or “descends” should be translated figuratively to instead mean “arise” or “manifest” (85).

This new translation may then make the sutta more intelligible, but the important point to notice here is that by the very nature of dependent-co-origination there cannot be any entity that can exist independenantly of the other supporting conditions. Thus no body, no consciousness; no consciousness, no body.

If we agree that consciousness cannot have independent existence outside the body, then how does the changing consciousness in an individual link or condition the consciousness in the next entity? The answer, at least in the Theravada tradition, is that it happens instantaneously.