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"If there is no existent self, or a soul, how does it fit in with Buddhist doctrines like rebirth? Or even more simply (for those who don't believe in rebirth), how does feeling, sensing, perceiving happen, without an existent self?
The Buddha's answer to this is direct, simple, yet profound. He explains this through dependent origination:
"The question is not correct," said the Exalted One. "I do not say that 'he feels.' Had I said so, then the question 'Who feels?' would be appropriate. But since I did not speak thus, the correct way to ask the question will be 'What is the condition of feeling?' And to that the correct reply is: 'sense-impression is the condition of feeling; and feeling is the condition of craving.'"
The same would apply for rebirth, which actually is a term for the continuity of a causal/karmic process and not of a self-entity.
Who is reborn is asked falsely, as the Buddha did not say 'he reborns'. The correct way to ask would be, 'What is the condition for birth?' And to that the correct reply is: 'with ignorance as condition i.e. false view and clinging to a self, birth arises'. The next birth is neither the same nor different from a previous birth in the same way that the flame of a newly lighted candle is neither same nor different from the previous candle, being merely a process of causal continuity instead of the passing on of an unchanging soul-entity.
As we can see, Dependent Origination only truly makes sense when we are not obscured by self-view. Before the realization of Anatta, D.O. can be grasped intellectually, but not fully actualized due to dualistic view, and therefore cannot be fully appreciated. Hence to realize D.O. we have to realize Anatta, then when everything becomes seen as causal processes, the insight into Shunyata (as in the secondfold emptiness, the emptiness of phenomena) can arise with further contemplations and pointers."
Dependent origination is consistent with reincarnation.
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personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
Reincarnation and rebirth are just words but they do have a meaning. Reincarnation happens because of the existence of an independent permanently existing soul. Rebirth is the natural result of a karmic process. These are theoretical frameworks and the reality only works in one way. Either one is right and one wrong or both are wrong, both can't be right as a reality.
A finger pointing at the moon and a finger pointing at a star are both a finger. That doesn't mean the objects they are pointing at are the same too.
Dennett: I thought [we] were thinking that reincarnation was an important idea?
Thurman:I think it is an important idea in a certain context.
Dennett: Why? Why?
Thurman: There's a Buddhist ... principle that I like to take a moment to explain to you, and that is that all teachings or theories about relative reality are only relative.
Dennett: They got to be.
Thurman: Therefore, they're only valid or invalid in a certain context. All teachings about ultimate reality are actually completely useless *except* the absolute negation that there is no capturable ultimate reality, like a refutation of the idea of an absolute God that creates the world, or any absolute, actually, that's relevant to the world. In a way, it's a very simple thing: an absolute can't be relative, so therefore it's irrelevant to the relative. Only that theory has definitive status in Buddhist philosophy. This basically opens all theorizing about relativity to being relational and useful in this context or that. The theory of involuntary rebirth – which it is better called than reincarnation, at least for ordinary people – is considered very important in a general ethical level, not in a deep metaphysical level.
Dennett: Now, I confess I simply can't fathom most of what you just said.
Thurman: That's good!
Dennett: I expect that there's a great deal in what you say, but it's the last bit I want to ask you about. Why should a *moral* point of view hinge at all on this idea of rebirth? Why not the life that we lead right now? Aren't we lucky to be alive? I certainly feel very fortunate to be here.
Thurman: Well, we went through this earlier, if your theory of consciousness is correct, when the physical apparatus that you *know* about ... ceases, *you*, eternally and permanently, *cease*. That's what you believe.
Dennett: That's right. That doesn't scare me, it doesn't bother me.
Thurman: Of course not! You need not be scared, it's like a super escape! Are you kiddin? It's like "Get me outta here!" Come on: you're healthy, you're happy, you're a great philosopher, you have a farm, a grandchild. You're happy. So that doesn't bother you. If you're in agony all the time, you wouldn't know. That state of annihilation would be seductive. People seek it. Not only religious people lure us towards it, Jack Kevorkian lures them towards it when they're in a certain state. It's not something to fear. Who's afraid of nothing?
Dennett: Exactly.
Thurman: Exactly. The belief, however, in becoming nothing is considered by all spiritual people, as well as religious people throughout history, to be a very destructive belief. Because it gives a person an 'après moi la deluge' type of undergirding. It means, I get out of here no matter what I did with my life. There's no consequence. In other words, it is the lack of relationality to everything that is the danger in the belief. Furthermore, there's nothing that I can do that is really great, that will last. Materialists or humanists will say: Well, it's my children; it's the world after me: it's my legacy – and that's enough. But in our largely materialist dominated society, the industrial society of the modern times, does it seem to be enough? ...
I am not arguing for the *absolute* truth of the story of rebirth. I don't argue for that, which makes me a little heretical from the Dalai Lama's side and others. That's the absolute theory. But, I do argue against the idea that the absolute theory is that at death, Dennett or anybody will be nothing. And that therefore, right now, if it got too bad for either of us: Bang! we would become nothing.
[...]
Dennett: It seems to me that if I were reincarnated as I don't know what, it would be the luck of the draw whether anything that I had ever done in *this* incarnation mattered to whoever that was. I just don't see why this is an interesting idea
[...]
Thurman: All I am trying to do is suggest to you is one thing: if everything is interrelated and all is relativity, which is the ancient view, then if you have one element of yourself that has a way out, simply by dying, then you are giving yourself immunity from that interrelationship. That's all. If you do that, that has consequences and that affects your ground of being. It affects the way you are. Just like those religious people who have that God is telling them what to do – it affects the way they are.
But absolutism could be attached to the idea of an absolute God or an absolute nothing. In other words, we have seen equally that a fanatic materialist, like a communist can crash a plane into a building and kill a bunch of people. And they do not say "Allahu Akbar!" They're not expecting God to reward them. They're just expecting to be annihilated beyond pain and become nothing. And then the other kind expects to be taken beyond pain by some absolute force. Both are from a radical relative point of view equally irrational, and are therefore behaving equally destructive.
Reincarnation and rebirth are just words but they do have a meaning.
Well said. And to further the point, the same phenomena can have different meaning to different people. For example, the wedding ring on my hand is an object that anyone may observe. Everyone can agree to its features, however, what it means to me is quite different from what it means to others.
Reincarnation happens because of the existence of an independent permanently existing soul. Rebirth is the natural result of a karmic process. These are theoretical frameworks and the reality only works in one way. Either one is right and one wrong or both are wrong, both can't be right as a reality.
They are just different interpretations of the same thing.
A finger pointing at the moon and a finger pointing at a star are both a finger. That doesn't mean the objects they are pointing at are the same too.
The moon and stars have different names and different meanings for different peoples, but there is only one set of moon and stars.
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personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
edited February 2012
Well said. And to further the point, the same phenomena can have different meaning to different people. For example, the wedding ring on my hand is an object that anyone may observe. Everyone can agree to its features, however, what it means to me is quite different from what it means to others.
The meaning I'm talking about is the definition of a term. The meaning you're talking about is an emotional, subjective meaning. We're just talking in circles here.
They are just different interpretations of the same thing.
I think I've made several arguments as to why I think they aren't.
The moon and stars have different names and different meanings for different peoples, but there is only one set of moon and stars.
The moon and the stars can be classified as two seperate things. You try to undermine my argument by grouping them into the same group making them one thing, as well as defining meaning as the subjective, emotional one again. I like to debate concepts but not so much semantics.
Well said. And to further the point, the same phenomena can have different meaning to different people. For example, the wedding ring on my hand is an object that anyone may observe. Everyone can agree to its features, however, what it means to me is quite different from what it means to others.
The meaning I'm talking about is the definition of a term. The meaning you're talking about is an emotional, subjective meaning. We're just talking in circles here.
The circumstances are far worse than simple subjective sentimentality about an object. What we're talking about here cannot even be observed by us and we can't even explain how rebirth/reincarnation supposed to work in any real way, other than to say it's 'cause & effect'.
They are just different interpretations of the same thing.
I think I've made several arguments as to why I think they aren't.
Retelling what others say about something is not an argument against what I've specifically contributed to this discussion.
The moon and stars have different names and different meanings for different peoples, but there is only one set of moon and stars.
The moon and the stars can be classified as two separate things.
Indeed they can, just like rebirth and reincarnation.
You try to undermine my argument by grouping them into the same group making them one thing...
Are you suggesting that part of the universe works according to rebirth and another part works according to reincarnation? or are you suggesting overlapping parallel universes? How can one person be reincarnated and another person be reborn, in the same universe?
as well as defining meaning as the subjective, emotional one again. I like to debate concepts but not so much semantics.
All meaning has an emotional component, and religious meaning particularly so.
Anatman is simply an observation that phenomena are conditional and thus a self is a collection of causes and conditions.
It's like the sky is blue. It's just an observation.
The application of this idea is to grasping. Just seeing that we change does not completely help us. We also have to accept change including losing what we love and getting things which we don't want like death.
This is consistent with reincarnation.
Possibly we are talking at cross purposes. In your mind are rebirth and reincarnation the same thing, and if not, how exactly do you think they differ?
Comments
A finger pointing at the moon and a finger pointing at a star are both a finger. That doesn't mean the objects they are pointing at are the same too.
Thurman:I think it is an important idea in a certain context.
Dennett: Why? Why?
Thurman: There's a Buddhist ... principle that I like to take a moment to explain to you, and that is that all teachings or theories about relative reality are only relative.
Dennett: They got to be.
Thurman: Therefore, they're only valid or invalid in a certain context. All teachings about ultimate reality are actually completely useless *except* the absolute negation that there is no capturable ultimate reality, like a refutation of the idea of an absolute God that creates the world, or any absolute, actually, that's relevant to the world. In a way, it's a very simple thing: an absolute can't be relative, so therefore it's irrelevant to the relative. Only that theory has definitive status in Buddhist philosophy. This basically opens all theorizing about relativity to being relational and useful in this context or that. The theory of involuntary rebirth – which it is better called than reincarnation, at least for ordinary people – is considered very important in a general ethical level, not in a deep metaphysical level.
Dennett: Now, I confess I simply can't fathom most of what you just said.
Thurman: That's good!
Dennett: I expect that there's a great deal in what you say, but it's the last bit I want to ask you about. Why should a *moral* point of view hinge at all on this idea of rebirth? Why not the life that we lead right now? Aren't we lucky to be alive? I certainly feel very fortunate to be here.
Thurman: Well, we went through this earlier, if your theory of consciousness is correct, when the physical apparatus that you *know* about ... ceases, *you*, eternally and permanently, *cease*. That's what you believe.
Dennett: That's right. That doesn't scare me, it doesn't bother me.
Thurman: Of course not! You need not be scared, it's like a super escape! Are you kiddin? It's like "Get me outta here!" Come on: you're healthy, you're happy, you're a great philosopher, you have a farm, a grandchild. You're happy. So that doesn't bother you. If you're in agony all the time, you wouldn't know. That state of annihilation would be seductive. People seek it. Not only religious people lure us towards it, Jack Kevorkian lures them towards it when they're in a certain state. It's not something to fear. Who's afraid of nothing?
Dennett: Exactly.
Thurman: Exactly. The belief, however, in becoming nothing is considered by all spiritual people, as well as religious people throughout history, to be a very destructive belief. Because it gives a person an 'après moi la deluge' type of undergirding. It means, I get out of here no matter what I did with my life. There's no consequence. In other words, it is the lack of relationality to everything that is the danger in the belief. Furthermore, there's nothing that I can do that is really great, that will last. Materialists or humanists will say: Well, it's my children; it's the world after me: it's my legacy – and that's enough. But in our largely materialist dominated society, the industrial society of the modern times, does it seem to be enough? ...
I am not arguing for the *absolute* truth of the story of rebirth. I don't argue for that, which makes me a little heretical from the Dalai Lama's side and others. That's the absolute theory. But, I do argue against the idea that the absolute theory is that at death, Dennett or anybody will be nothing. And that therefore, right now, if it got too bad for either of us: Bang! we would become nothing.
[...]
Dennett: It seems to me that if I were reincarnated as I don't know what, it would be the luck of the draw whether anything that I had ever done in *this* incarnation mattered to whoever that was. I just don't see why this is an interesting idea
[...]
Thurman: All I am trying to do is suggest to you is one thing: if everything is interrelated and all is relativity, which is the ancient view, then if you have one element of yourself that has a way out, simply by dying, then you are giving yourself immunity from that interrelationship. That's all. If you do that, that has consequences and that affects your ground of being. It affects the way you are. Just like those religious people who have that God is telling them what to do – it affects the way they are.
But absolutism could be attached to the idea of an absolute God or an absolute nothing. In other words, we have seen equally that a fanatic materialist, like a communist can crash a plane into a building and kill a bunch of people. And they do not say "Allahu Akbar!" They're not expecting God to reward them. They're just expecting to be annihilated beyond pain and become nothing. And then the other kind expects to be taken beyond pain by some absolute force. Both are from a radical relative point of view equally irrational, and are therefore behaving equally destructive.
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http://underverse.blogspot.com/2009/08/robert-thurman-on-reincarnation.html
Spiny