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.