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Thanatos and Buddhism
If a Freudian were to come across a concept like nirvana, which literally means extinction, wouldn't he conclude that Buddhism is based upon the death instinct? While most religions favor eternal life or something along those lines (thus validating Eros or life instinct), Buddhism alone seems to have an affinity for death. Or so an analyst would claim.
How would you counter this?
How would you counter this?
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Comments
The Buddha taught of suffering and the cessation of suffering, specifically offering up a Path that would lessen and eliminate craving altogether. That's all. Now individuals can have different goals or purposes to which they apply Buddhism... but the Buddha's intent was only to deal with the stress factor of life and how to overcome it.
Non-existence? Nothingness? The Void? These seem to be misinterpretations or failed attempts to understand Emptiness. The number of people who misunderstand what emptiness means is staggering, but I wouldn't have thought a psychiatrist/psychologist would've made such a mistake. The "goal of all life in Buddhist philosophy" is not non-existence, it's the non-existence of suffering.
Freud seems to have gone from eternalism directly to nihilism. So much for Freud.
(If indeed, that passage is alluding to his personal interpretation of it.... it could be the Authors' own.....)
I once heard a lecture that might be a vast overgeneralization, but it was pointed out that this might be a result of Buddhism and Eastern religions tending to mature in homogenous populations where everyone is related, looks and acts alike. Virtue and accepted good means fitting in. You are told fulfilling your purpose means meeting expectations and being at peace with your role in the vast social structure is the ultimate goal. "It's the nail that sticks out that gets hammered down" is a truism in Korea, at least. There's a reason some version of Confusionism never took root in the West, with their mobile populations.
So individualism, or the "self" is not valued. Happiness is going with the flow, being the Tao, losing the selfish desires and being one with society. The religions echo and reinforce that, with their stress on stripping away the self and achieving a common Buddha Nature.
Here in the West, constant immigration and mobile populations meant individualism became prized. We want to stand out, make our mark, be admired, and do our own thing. The popular religions echo this with their individual, eternal, unchanging soul. You're unique. You didn't inherit some hand-me-down soul from some dead person along with their karma. And this unique individual is the ultimate prize, and here for eternity.
But this might be an overgeneralization, as pointed out. Just something to ponder.
Life goes on with or without you; all that ceases is a particular causal chain that has caused suffering to re-arise again and again and again for a very long time. If there isn't awakening/enlightenment, then the karmic seeds of this life are passed on, meaning the new life that arises will have to deal with the consequences of your actions and go through all of the same suffering/B.S. and hopefully be able to awaken and cut the chain. So it's a good thing to cut the chain in this life to prevent that suffering from happening... more though, enlightenment is the ending of suffering in this very life, and leads to peace. It's really "here and now" that we're suffering after all.
"And this, monks is the noble truth of the origination of dukkha: the craving that makes for further becoming — accompanied by passion & delight, relishing now here & now there — i.e., craving for sensual pleasure, craving for becoming, craving for non-becoming."
In fact, another translation of Nirvana is "The Deathless", which is used a lot by Ajahn Sumedho and other monks in the Ajahn Chah tradition.
But now it's time for me to sleep, night night.
What I'm saying is that rebirth is not of a "personal consciousness" (which could be called "I" or "self") to begin with. The life that will come after this one will be caused by this one, and be linked to the karmic seeds still present, but will not be the same person or the exact same consciousness. Just like using one candle to light another, the flame has not passed... it has not transmigrated or hopped from one candle to another.
And so enlightenment can not be said to be the end of a "personal" consciousness, though no further (new) consciousness will be caused upon pari-nirvana as you say. It's not annihilation of a self; there was no persistent self to begin with. Rather it's stopping the process of causing new consciousness and new suffering. Rebirth is like having a will that states your descendent will inherit all of your debts and have to pay them off. They're your debts, but someone else will have to take care of them. We're currently paying off the debts of those who came before us, but we aren't "them".
At least this is the Theravada understanding, where it's all a selfless process.
The problem with the Hindu view of self or "atman" is that it makes Nirvana either annihilation of self... or an eternity of experiential bliss (a heaven), both of which the Buddha denied. However without positing a self, using Dependent Origination to see that all phenomena are dependently arisen and empty of self, there is no problem.
If you were to ask the Buddha whether the Tathagata [a synonym for 'arahant' and an epithet for the Buddha] exists after death, doesn't exist after death, both exists and doesn't exist after death, or neither exists nor doesn't exist after death, the Buddha would answer, "That has not been declared by me."
When pressed further, the Buddha would counter by asking you whether form, feeling, perception, mental fabrications, and consciousness are constant or inconstant. If you were to answer constant to any of these, he'd probably proceed to give you a discourse on the aggregates and dependent co-arising. If you were to answer inconstant, then he'd ask you whether it's proper to regard what's inconstant, stressful, and subject to change as: "This is mine. This is my self. This is what I am."
If you were to answer yes, he'd probably proceed to give you a discourse on the not-self characteristic. If you were to answer no, then he would ask whether you regard form, feeling, perception, mental fabrications, or consciousness as the Tathagata.
If you were to answer yes to any of these, he'd remind you that all these phenomena are inconstant and not fit to be called 'me' or 'mine.' If you were to answer no, then he'd ask whether you regard the Tathagata as being in form, feeling, perception, mental fabrications, and consciousness, or elsewhere than form, feeling, perception, mental fabrications, or consciousness.
If you were to answer yes to any of these, he'd remind you that all these phenomena are inconstant and not fit to be called 'me' or 'mine.' If you were to answer no, then he'd ask whether you regard the Tathagata as form-feeling-perception-fabrications-consciousness [i.e., taken together], or as that which is without form, without feeling, without perception, without fabrications, without consciousness [i.e., without any relation to the aggregates, and by consequence, the sense bases].
If you were to answer yes to the former, he'd remind you that these phenomena are inconstant and not fit to be called 'me' or 'mine.' If you were to answer yes to the latter, he'd probably ask you on what basis you'd make such an assertion since the description of such a self lies beyond the range of explanation. If you were to answer no, then he'd say, "So, my friend — when you can't pin down the Tathagata as a truth or reality even in the present life — is it proper for you to declare, 'The Tathagata exists after death', 'The Tathagata does not exist after death', 'The Tathagata both exists and does not exist after death' or 'The Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist after death'," and proceed to give a discourse such as this: And if you were to ask whether the Buddha has any position at all as to whether the Tathagata exists after death, doesn't exist after death, both exists and doesn't exist after death, or neither exists nor doesn't exist after death, he'd reply:
The Buddha is really each of us; his Dharma is sensory perception; and the Sangha is the natural world. When one dies, this is Nirvana.
This is not far from the materialist doctrine during the Buddha's era which believed "perception is the only authority; earth, water, fire and air are the only elements; enjoyment is the only end of human existence; mind is only a product of matter. There is no other world: death means liberation" (Indian Philosophy: A Critical Survey, 1960, 41).
I'd add that we shouldn't really be worrying about post-death until we come to understand how things are "right now". We have to try to understand such Buddhist concepts as Not-Self (Interdependence), to see that we never arose as independent beings in the first place. We are completely interdependent with the world; we are the world.
A lot of the post-death questions become irrelevant when we understand what we truly are.
Coming to see "emptiness" (what we really are) is what allows us to put down "self" (self-view) in all things, but we can only really see this through meditation and following the Noble Eightfold Path. I understand your frustration! It would be easy to make statements about post-death, but because they're not being understood from a perspective of "no independent entity" to begin with, they'd be misunderstood or lead to nihilism. It's really better to try and get a grasp of what we actually are, right now, instead of worrying about what happens at or after death. When we realize that we are the world, we go beyond birth and death (and self/other), and so it becomes clear that such questions about if we'll exist after death (and so on) are delusional questions to begin with.
I know, I know, that doesn't really answer anything...
It's not that we don't have an idea about what it's like after death. We have lots of ideas. What we don't have is proof of one idea over another, not the sort of proof needed to convince anyone beyond a reasonable doubt. What we have are a lot of conflicting beliefs.
So what proof would satisfy you, personally? If you had your own NDE and saw a vision of something, it would just be a vision probably caused by oxygen starvation and preconceived beliefs. If nothing survives, and your mind ends along with the brain's function, how do you prove it?
Since humanity spends so much time beating it's head against the wall of death, it seems more productive to consider the obsession itself. Some people claim, not that they know the answer, but that they have conquered and eliminated the obsession and fear of death. Perhaps that is enough, in the end.
His mother was impregnated while she slept, by a multi-tusked white elephant, who reached into her with his trunk and fertilized her somehow. That's some pretty hardcore stuff. I mean, it would be illegal to view pictures of that in most countries!
And she died shortly after giving birth, leaving little Gautama with an aunt to raise him. Abandonment issues?
And then when he grew up he was all booze and music and Sexy Sexy with dancing-girls in his father's palace, basically a hyper-rich playboy, Then he settled down with his wife for only a few years, before deciding to abandon both her and his kid, and go off to be celibate in the forest!
It would have blown Freud's mind!
In the Suttas, answers and refusals to answer this question usually revolve around anatta (e.g., SN 22.85), the simile of the fire (e.g., MN 72), or such questions not being connected with the goal and fundamental to the holy life (e.g., MN 63).
"What do you think: Do you regard the Tathagata as form-feeling-perception-fabrications-consciousness?"
"No, my friend."
"Do you regard the Tathagata as that which is without form, without feeling, without perception, without fabrications, without consciousness?"
"No, my friend."
"And so, my friend Yamaka — when you can't pin down the Tathagata as a truth or reality even in the present life — is it proper for you to declare, 'As I understand the Teaching explained by the Blessed One, a monk with no more effluents, on the break-up of the body, is annihilated, perishes, & does not exist after death'?"
Haha, cant agree more!
I think the OP has a relevance if we remove Freud from the equation.
It is possible to read in the posts of some Buddhists..not particularly on this forum. a longing for non- being.. which is very different from a longing for liberation.
One finds it particularly on certain sites where embodiment is equated with impurity.