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Karma and Rebirth in Theravada Buddhism by Brian Ruhe (Video)
DaltheJigsaw
Mountain View Veteran
I am learning more about Karma/Kamma and I thought I would share:
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The cosmological viewpoint is useful for ethical training, but not essential to the practice. That Ruhe ignores the essential aspects of the concepts makes me wonder what kind of meditation he does.
(But I did only watch the first 10 minutes. It is possible he addresses the moment-to-moment perspective later in the talk, despite completely neglecting it in the introduction.)
"Read not to contradict or confute ... but to weigh and consider" - Sir Francis Bacon
You can't do insight practice without the moment-to-moment interpretation, because accurate insight practice is almost entirely concerned with the causes and conditions of what is arising in experience at the present moment. If the moment-to-moment interpretations were a post-hoc embellishment, that would imply that the Buddha himself did not teach the key innovations and insights we attribute to him today.
As I said upthread, the post-mortem interpretation can be useful from an ethical perspective, so I'm not saying it has to be one or the other. But anyone who does not accept the moment-to-moment interpretation doesn't understand Buddhism, and for a professor to ignore it completely in a presentation on karma and rebirth (again, I'm assuming that's the case from his introduction) is a travesty, because it obscures the benefits from Buddhist practice which can be obtained in this very life.
In SN 12.61, for example, the Buddha makes the point that "what's called 'mind,' 'intellect,' or 'consciousness' by day and by night arises as one thing and ceases as another," suggesting a type of rebirth or renewed becoming. And even though the more explicit descriptions of moment-to-moment rebirth are mainly found in the Abhidhamma Pitaka, as well as in post-canonical material like the Vimuttimagga and the Abhidhammattha Sangaha, being closely associated with the theory of momentariness (khanavada), the general principle is extrapolated from sources like AN 3.47: Or, an alternate translation courtesy of Dhammanando Bhikkhu: Nm 2.4: And the aforementioned SN 12.61: To put it simply, one moment of consciousness conditions the arising of next (rebirth), just as one action conditions the quality of feeling a moment of consciousness cognizes (kamma); and in this process, moment-to-moment rebirth refers to the arising and ceasing of our sense of self, the ephemeral 'I,' which is ultimately the product of what the Buddha called a process of 'I-making' and 'my-making' (MN 109) and something that's readily observable in the here and now.
According to the texts, a beginning point to samsara (literally 'wandering on') isn't evident (SN 15.3). The way I see it, this can be interpreted two ways — that a beginning point to the continual cycle of death and rebirth of beings isn't evident, or that a beginning point to the continual cycle of death and rebirth of the conceit 'I am,' the self-identification that designates a being (satta), isn't evident — and they're not mutually exclusive. In fact, they're entirely compatible, and I don't see how cosmological rebirth is possible without this underlying layer of moment-to-moment rebirth to facilitate it.
Some argue that dependent origination was intended in a psychological rather than cosmological way, but this view isn't supported by the way the nidanas are defined in the suttas ( see for example MN9 and SN12.2 ).
To me, ethics are inseparable from the practice; maybe this is part of my misunderstanding. One can't separate the forces of ethical cause and effect from anything in particular one is doing in any particular life, can one? Don't past ethics/intentional action generate the causes and conditions for being able to practice insight meditation?
It just seems to me that if dependent arising is the salient point, then the principles of moment to moment dependent arising and moment to moment to moment to moment (all the way through one lifetime and in to the next) dependent arising are just more instances of that same principle. Though he didn't focus overly on any particular "now" moment to moment, I agree - it just doesn't strike me as a serious omission. But I think now I can understand some of why it strikes you as such. I guess I'd expect to hear him focus on moment to moment in a lecture on insight meditation, as much as in a lecture on rebirth, but maybe that's a mistake in my understanding of Theravada emphasis within this subject.
You can stick a slide under a microscope to show a student the insides of a cell and how it responds to various stimuli. In the same way, you can trigger a student's here-and-now karma to show them how it works. Obversely, there are a million theories on why societies have inequity and cruelty but no objective way to assess their validity from empirical data. In the same way, there are a million views about post-mortem experience and no convincing way to assess them.
This accessibility has practical consequences. The germ theory of medicine has largely freed us from infection. In the same way, understanding of here-and-now karma can free us from the tyranny of here-and-now conditioning (and incidentally lay the foundation for the causes and conditions necessary to take insight practice all the way to the tathagatha ...theoretically... I am not speaking from experience, here...) Obversely, sociological theories can only give us crude and unreliable guidance on navigating the day to day complexities of the societies we live in. In the same way, theories about the post-mortem consequences of our actions don't give us much more than crude carrots and sticks to bribe us and frighten us into ethical behavior. Just to be clear, I am not a Theravadin. I am more like a Mahayanaist doing "hinayana" practice for foundational purposes. The guy I consider my teacher is Karma Kagyu (Tibetan.) It has become clear to me that the innovations of Mahayana primarily concern bringing the benefits of "hinayana" practice into daily life. There is not much point in doing that until I have mastered the "hinayana" practices, and the most complete contemporary perspective on those comes from Theravada. I respect both Mahayana and Theravada traditions, and I think the question we're discussing is the same from both perspectives.
buddha talked about his previous lives, that is what the word boddhisatta means.
if you dont accept that reincarnation is possible, so be it.
For example he says: "The Birth here does not refer to birth of the physical body; likewise, the death does not refer to expiration of the physical body. They refer to Birth and Death in the mind: the Birth and Death of the ego." Well, no, if you look at MN9 and SN12.2 these nidanas are clearly described as the birth and death of the physical body. And similarly for the other nidanas.
Also I found his distinction between everyday language and dhamma language quite muddled, and somewhat patronising.
Thanissaro believes in rebirth, by the way. The two views on rebirth are compatible.
The realms are invariably discussed in terms of beings re-appearing in various destinations according to their actions, ie kamma.
If the realms had been intended pyschologically as states of mind, then the obvious place to find them would have been in the 3rd frame of reference in the Satipatthana Sutta, ie mind states - but they are clearly not mentioned there.
Or to put it another way, the correct approach to developing awareness of mind states is described in detail in the Satipatthana Sutta, in the 3rd frame of reference. So reference to the realms as mind states is both incorrect and confusing, and seems to me like a fudge.
Interesting, but for the full picture one needs to read the whole sutta - it then becomes clear that this quote is pointing to pari-nibbana, ie the sage is literally not born again and is therefore free from ageing, death, agitation, longing etc. This is demonstrated by these earlier extracts from MN140:
"One neither fabricates nor mentally fashions for the sake of becoming or un-becoming. This being the case, one is not sustained by anything in the world (does not cling to anything in the world). Unsustained, one is not agitated. Unagitated, one is totally unbound right within. One discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'
"When sensing a feeling limited to life, one discerns that 'I am sensing a feeling limited to life.' One discerns that 'With the break-up of the body, after the termination of life, all that is sensed, not being relished, will grow cold right here.'
And of course this is line with the traditional view of dependent origination, not a psychological intepretation.
Whether or not you choose to accept the possibility that the Suttas support both levels of meaning is entirely up to you; I'm just trying to add to the discussion.
As much as it's being framed as an 'alternative view' that has absolutely no scriptural support, it's not. In fact, it's the basis for much of the Abhidhamma Pitiaka (itself a part of the Pali Canon), which takes all of these aspects and attempts to illustrate how they take place moment-to-moment in order to explain the causal process by which cosmological rebirth functions, among other things. It's all intertwined.
Whether or not one subscribes to this view or takes the Abhidhamma literature as a reliable source, the basis of it is derived from the Suttas and has been a part of Theravada since at least the authorship of the Vibhanga of the Abhidhamma Pitaka, which is a very long time indeed.
All models seem to have their problems, but I think Thanissaro Bhikkhu highlights the importance of observing dependent co-arising at different scales in The Shape of Suffering:
I would change what you wrote to "or is it merely a dislike of what a text has often assumed to say".
@PedanticPorpoise didn't see the relevance of my quote. The point is, the Buddha is saying this person will end up in hell simply because they believe they will end up in hell. Now, the question is what would that look like on a cosmological level? Do you spend time in hell for every instance where you believe something like that? The moment-to-moment interpretation makes much more sense in this case: The hell is a world-view built out of self-hostility.
Porpoise asks how the moment-to-moment interpretation is useful in a way which is not covered by the "the 3 marks, 6 sense bases, 5 aggregates, etc." Well, if "etc." includes the 12 links of dependent origination, it's not, because that's what I'm talking about.
I am interested to hear Porpoise's analysis of the Tip of the needle poem which Jason linked upthread. It is part of the Pali canon (though if you don't accept everything in the Pali canon, that is fine by me. I certainly don't.)
I am also interested to hear what he thinks of these eminent monks and scholars, many of whom vociferously defend the idea of post-mortem rebirth (Thanissaro was the author of the "War or Karma" talk which was making the rounds here recently) but also see the moment-to-moment interpretation as important to actual practice.
If you can point to a description of moment-to-moment rebirth in the Abhidhamma, I'd be interested in looking at it.
As for your example above I'm still not seeing how you're getting a psychological meaning for hell. Did you see the Translator's note for this sutta?: "The Buddha shows that a simplistic, fatalistic view of the kammic process is logically inconsistent, and also leads to unfortunate results for any person who, with a background of bad kamma, believes in it. The actual complexity of kamma, however, allows for a way in which past evil deeds can be overcome: through refraining from evil now and into the future, and through developing expansive mind-states of good will, compassion, appreciation, & equanimity."
For example, on one level, rebirth and kamma deal with the framework of morality and ethical conduct in general. In this sense, I understand rebirth to signify the Buddha's observation that there's a type of continuity that underlies experience in the form of our actions and their results — one that doesn't necessarily end at death — and kamma to represent the intentional element of our psyche that goes into experience. This corresponds to what the Buddha called "right view with effluents, siding with merit, resulting in the acquisitions [of becoming]" (MN 117). Here, morality and ethical conduct are associated with intentional actions and their corresponding results — which aren't just limited to those within the present lifetime — and the continuous cycle of birth and death.
On another level, rebirth and kamma deal with the framework of what I'd call psychological processes, which corresponds to what the Buddha called "noble right view, without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path" (MN 117). Here, rebirth still signifies the Buddha's observation that there's a type of continuity that underlies experience in the form of our actions and their results, and kamma still represents the intentional element of our psyche that goes into experience, but they're placed within the context of the four noble truths and the noble eightfold path.
In this context, the emphasis is on things such as recognizing and understanding the mental processes by which we construct our sense of self, in what the Buddha called the process of 'I-making' and 'my-making' (ahankara-mamankara), as well as how to utilize those processes in more skillful ways. And if we can learn to be more aware of these mental processes, we can learn to master them through a combination of mindfulness training and other contemplative techniques.
The point where I think the cosmological and psychological models or processes primarily converge is becoming (bhava). In SN 12.2, for example, becoming is defined as "sensual becoming, form becoming, & formless becoming." In AN 3.76, however, becoming is treated slightly differently, and Thanissaro Bhikkhu notes at the bottom of his translation that: Becoming, then, is a mental process that has the potential to lead to "renewed becoming in the future," which can be understood in both a psychological and cosmological sense, i.e., acting as a condition for the birth, ageing, and death (or arising, changing, and disappearance as per AN 3.47) of the conceit 'I am,' which occurs innumerable times throughout one's life (think of the imagery of SN 12.61), as well as a condition for birth, ageing, and death in the broader sense.
When it comes to dependent co-arising specifically, it's true that most of the descriptions are more geared towards the cosmological or life-to-life model; but there are place like MN 140 where I think both are illustrated in tandem, with the psychological aspects of becoming (the arising and ceasing of self-identity view) being placed within the broader, cosmological framework.
The reason I think the psychological aspects are so important is because that's where the work of the meditator is done, where we can observe these processes taking place in the present. As Thanissaro Bhikkhu puts it in "A Verb for Nirvana," "Samsara is a process of creating places, even whole worlds, (this is called becoming) and then wandering through them (this is called birth). Nirvana is the end of this process." And this process is primarily a mental one.
Hence, in my opinion, rearising in an 'injurious world' can easily refer to the experience of painful feelings (an aspect of mind) like beings in hell (AN 4.235), and hell itself can refer to a world-view built out of self-aversion, as much as it can a literal place one rearises, especially considering the term loka (world/realm) is often used as a metaphor for the five aggregates, the six sense spheres, and/or the internal world of fabricated experience (e.g., SN 35.23, SN 35.116, SN 12.44, AN 4.45, etc.).
Please note that in this analysis, I am not trying to privilege one interpretation over another. I am saying they both make sense.
Also, this is all contingent on the correct translation of "sattānaṃ" and "sattanikāye", which I could easily be wrong about.
For what it's worth, that's my understanding, as well, and what I was referring to above when I said:
Furthermore "bhava", as a nidana, is clearly defined as the process of being in the 3 realms, not psychological becoming. And so on. The more one looks at the way the nidanas are actually defined in MN9 and SN12.2, the less convincing is the case for a psychological interpretation of dependent origination. It just looks like wishful thinking to me.