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Alan Watts and Rebirth
shanyin
Novice YoginSault Ontario Veteran
Granted Alan Watts, or anyone for that matter has to be considered an authority on anything, in this case in particular Buddhism. In this lecture he seems to say (if I am not mistaken) that Buddhism and Hinduism were meant to liberate one or even a culture from the belief in rebirth (in my case I mean literal body to body reincarnation). He goes on to say he finds it funny when 'Westerners' adopt the belief in it for that reason.
Now, I have met about 5 Buddhist monks and they all seem to believe in rebirth. The reason they do, I am assuming is because they believe Buddha taught it. The reasons Alan Watts gives that Buddhists believe in it seem to be different.
I think I 'am having a hard time understanding his line of reasoning but at best I am confused about his claim that the belief in reincarnation is meant to be liberated from.
He starts talking about it at around 9 minutes.
Anyone else ever heard this idea? Why would a Buddhist reject the notion of ultimately accepting or even considering rebirth? Don't the monks believe it because Buddha taught it. Maybe not?
Now, I have met about 5 Buddhist monks and they all seem to believe in rebirth. The reason they do, I am assuming is because they believe Buddha taught it. The reasons Alan Watts gives that Buddhists believe in it seem to be different.
I think I 'am having a hard time understanding his line of reasoning but at best I am confused about his claim that the belief in reincarnation is meant to be liberated from.
He starts talking about it at around 9 minutes.
Anyone else ever heard this idea? Why would a Buddhist reject the notion of ultimately accepting or even considering rebirth? Don't the monks believe it because Buddha taught it. Maybe not?
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Comments
In the same way if a Buddha realizes we’re living in something like the Matrix, he doesn’t explain the delusional nature of the whole thing. That would be too hard to believe. He shows a path, but he pictures that path in such a way it has a connection to the level of understanding of the audience. The full understanding is for later.
A Buddha works with what he finds. He would teach differently if he lived today.
I like such an idea, but I don’t know if it does justice to the historic reality.
However, he did go against virtually all other existing constructs surrounding it. Rebirth didn't occur in fixed classes, it wasn't fatalistic, it required no soul, and there was no ultimate God or Gods behind the wheel. He also didn't agree with all existing teachers at the time. So it's very unreasonable to assume that he wasn't able to challenge the idea of rebirth at all and look at it honestly. This is not beyond the capacity of any intelligent/reasonable human being and certainly not beyond the capacity of the Buddha who seemed willing to challenge everything.
So what Alan Watts says here simply is based on his own beliefs in what he says "sophisticated Buddhists".. At that point I stopped listening. Because of course that is very biased and no reasonable ground. If people disagree with your view you are not going to call them sophisticated, and those who agree you are going to call sophisticated.. In other words, simplified: he agrees with people because they agree with him. I respect his view, and he has all rights to it, but I think it is much more reasonable to look at the teachings of the Buddha himself. And there rebirth undeniably has a big role to play.
However he left on the table a skeletal idea of reincarnation because he would have had no audience otherwise.
Ajahn Buddhadasa the modern-era Thai teacher says " The Buddha leaves the idea of post-mortem rebirth as a framework for those not willing to see that linear time itself arises dependently and that the idea of successive births is predicated on variations on a theme of a non existent atta. In reality nothing occurs "...Later in the same essay he says "the fact that nothing of an objective nature occurs gives the possibility of Nibbana"
Imho if you don't see evidence for something it probably doesn't exist, believing something you have no evidence for or blind faith is moronic.
Also I'm not saying people have to belief in it because the Buddha said it. Not at all. All I'm saying it is undeniable that the Buddha himself thought it was real and that IF we were to go by authority (which can just be an analysis including no belief at all), then I think it's only reasonable to take the Buddha above Alan Watt's referred "sophisticated Buddhists".
I think it's a bit strange to suggest that apparently those "sophisticated Buddhists" can see beyond and openly challenge a social construct of rebirth while that would have been totally beyond the Buddha's capacity.
He may well have.
To equate that with dishonesty smacks of a degree of naivety.
Paradoxically, Buddhist rebirth actually can only occur in conjunction with anatta! The Buddha I think clearly understood this. As @Sabre points out, the Buddha didn't simply pass along the same old ideas of transmigration of a non-material immortal soul into a different mortal material body, etc., etc. If anything, the Buddha's doctrine of rebirth served as a critique of such supernatural beliefs precisely because such beliefs rest on dualistic assumptions.
In that context, I now see rebirth as an integral part of my practice. What has happened in the past affects everything and what we do today affects everything-- in other words, karma (action). Understanding rebirth in light of dependent co-arising represents an acceptance of responsibility toward all beings. Rebirth doesn't revolve around "me" -- it revolves around "us" (no creature excluded) and compassion for all beings, past, present, and future.
Which is fine to me if you want to belief that. But it is illustrative of my point that people who hold such views often quote modern day teachers and not the suttas. Alan Watts even does it when referring to "sophisticated Buddhists" instead of the Buddha.
Again fine by me, but I just want people to realize this.
It is a matter of observable fact however, that for a number of people as sincere and thoughtful as you are, who consider themselves Buddhist, the paradigm does not compute.
I know people who have an advanced degree of understanding of the Suttas, and who are fluent in Pali to a degree that I can only dream of..and who have practised various Buddhist meditative disciplines for decades, who see that paradigm as 'sprats for mackerels.'
For all I know, my understanding may change in who knows what way in the future (as it has changed in the past two years and I continue to learn)-- but that matters little to my practice at this moment.
Kind of sort of related... we have Chenrezig who vowed to not attain liberation until all beings have done so. Is he existing in an enlightened state but not liberated? I think that's how I understand it.
Though the teachings borrowed, if you will, some of the language, imagery, and ideas of the predominate beliefs of the prevailing culture of the time I see them used as expedient means in transmitting the essence of the teachings. If not they would be out of context and make no sense to those in that period. Even the mention of former lives isn’t the essence of what is actually being taught, and many of the stories of the lives of the Buddha in the Jataka tales are adaptations of pre-existing Indian folklore which are now considered part of the Pali canon.
I now tend to see rebirth psychologically as the perpetually occurring Samsara of one's mind that conditions how we experience ourselves in relation to the world around us. If liberation is obtained then that constantly occurring rebirth is ended and life is experienced quite differently, though the person wouldn't obviously disappear upon obtaining liberation and would still be subject to sickness, old age, and death. Existence isn't denied but is only temporary, and at death the person will cease to be at the desolation of all the aggregates, so it does not make sense to think when reading about the former lives of the Buddha to relate them all to one person who experienced them all.
“My foes will become nothing.
My friends will become nothing.
I too will become nothing.
Likewise all will become nothing.
Just like a dream experience,
Whatever things I enjoy
Will become a memory.
Whatever has passed will not be seen again.”
Shantideva -
And someschools, like Soto Zen ,have a large proportion of teachers who interpret rebirth as a metaphor. The well-known teacher Brad Warner is one such.
The difference between rebirth and reincarnation revolves around atta/anatta. The atta doctrine says that a soul ( atta ) passes post mortem to another form.
Anatta says that what passes is more in the nature of karmic momentum...the analogy that is used is that of a wave which creates the energy for the next wave and so on.
Some use the " three lives and " one life "models.
The 'three life' model says that the Buddha was talking literally about the last birth affecting this birth and in turn affecting the next birth.
The 'one life' model says that the Buddha was not describing post-mortem events, he was describing the rebirth of the self-sense from moment to moment.
Both views have their adherents. The best known advocate of the 'one life ' model in the Theravada was the famous. Ajahn Buddhadasa.
Also its not so much ' no individual ' . Its more 'no unchanging component.' Which a soul would be.
So, I see what you're saying. :thumbup:
However, this was before the internet became a thing. As I met other Buddhists online, I was also confused when I discovered many Buddhists taught and firmly believed in both past life karma as the cause of suffering in this life and literal reincarnation. On top of that, people who follow some of the the more conservative schools of Buddhism rooted in Eastern culture like Theravadan or Tibetan actually argued that Buddhists had to believe in both to be authentic.
One point Alan makes in the talk is very true, in that Western people don't and maybe can't embrace the Buddhism of someone raised in the Eastern cultures. One thing I've noticed before is that while karma and reincarnation is supposed to be something to escape from, according to the teachings, here in the West we're happy that "we" get another life to experience. Nobody in the West really wants to extinguish their "self" because we're trained from birth that being special and doing our own, separate thing in spite of society is the greatest virtue. That is opposite of the cultures I've lived in over there, where an old saying goes "the nail that stands out gets hammered down".
Yes, Watts was a good writer. But no Buddhist scholar like D.T. Suzuki.
And he did not think that the Mahanidana Sutta ( or any of the other Suttas ) was about post - mortem Rebirth at all.
He taught that it describes the process that happens in nano-seconds between sparsa/phassa and the reinforcement of the self sense.
In the Theravada tradition, rebirth is seen to operate at both the life-after-life stage and at the micro moment-to-moment stage, the latter being explained in the Abhidhama Pitaka of the Pali Canon. Thus in the Visuddhimagga (ancient Pali commentarial literature), it is said:
Now, here is how the moment-to-moment theory of rebirth connects to the post-mortem theory to form a single theory encompassing both, as explained by Ven. Sayadaw U Silananda, a trusted disciple of Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw:
In the following excerpt, Ven. Ashin Ottama explains how the main characteristics of moment-to-moment rebirth are the same as life-after-life rebirth:
He sees time as arising dependently with all other phenomena. Therefore all birth and all being is actually simultaneous..it is our conditioned response to that which gives the illusion of seperate lives unfolding successively.
The reality is that the Unborn and Unmade and Undying is always the case.
The purpose of Dharma/Dhamma is to recognise what is always the case. All gradualism or process is inviable because it posits time as field and ground.
I know it's fashionable now to point out Watt's shortcomings, especially since conservative cultural Buddhism from Tibet has taken over as the most popular practice, from the Zen of Watts and Suzuki. Yes, sometimes he let his enthusiasm get ahead of his understanding. The Zen he describes is also heavily idealized.
And that if the embryo ( which actually at that point is simply a collection of cells ) is stopped from developing the consciousness goes elsewhere.
Its not a viable concept in view of our present knowledge.
Consciousness is a function of our biology.
In the kandhas/skandhas model vijnana, rupa and citta arise in co-dependence.
I find the various discourses of the Buddha on this particular subject to be viable, in particular, that it is consciousness (vijnana) that is the transmigrant.
Turning to the west, scientific materialism, that matter is the only reality, has essentially ignored consciousness. Daniel Dennett, in his book Consciousness Explained went so far as to agrue that subjective, first person, experience is illusory. Such materialism denies the reality of our very own minds, not to mention our personal experiences. Others, like Paul Churchland believe there is no more to our mind that what occurs in the brain. Such materialism has only one word for consciousness, it's an illusion.
I actually tried to read "Irreducable Mind" some years ago soon after it came out and there was a bit of buzz about it in the paranormal sites. I had to give it up after a few chapters because I kept wanting to throw the book at the wall. I kept reading the completely untrue statements repeated as if nobody could possibly disagree, that something couldn't be coincidence because the odds were against it. Also I get itchy when I'm told by any author or speaker that "someone with an open mind would not question (whatever) because "there was a wealth of evidence".
So in the 5 or 6 years since the publication of a book that was supposed to prove the mind and brain are separate, independent things, all the research continues to point to the mind and brain being completely inseperable and dependent. But, I don't expect you to be convinced by my more skeptical attitude. I have friends who happily recount their out of body experiences and I'm glad they have something that excites them. I find the experiences fascinating. Do I believe they floated free of their body? I believe they believe.
The Buddha himself made clear in the Digha-Nikaya that when he uses the concept of past, present and future with respect to existence that is merely as conventional usage and not as an expression of truth in the ultimate sense: In his seminal work, Siddhartha, I think Hermann Hesse provides a good illustrative simile to expressing time as non-linear and dependently co-arisen as well as how the process of life-after-life rebirth can be expressed in the sense of ultimate truth: The Dalai Lama who teaches life-after-life rebirth as a conventional truth, does understand that in the ultimate sense, there is no such thing as past or future consciousness, only present consciousness: Therefore, the fact that in ultimate reality time is non-linear, has no independent existence and is co-dependently arisen does not mean we can't speak about life-after-life rebirth as a succession of lives within the context of linear time as an expression within the realm of conventional truth.
Now to go back to the quote of Ven. Sayadaw U Silananda from my previous comment, he in fact tries to illustrate the fact that when one speaks about a succession of lives, this is only an expression of conventional reality: Basically, if you carefully read the entire quote of Ven. Sayadaw U Silananda in my previous comment, you will see that what he is trying to say is basically the same as what the Dalai Lama says, that is, ultimately "[consciousness] has neither past nor future and knows only present moments; it is the continuum of a present moment being transformed into another present moment."
Now to go back to the quote of Ven. Sayadaw U Silananda from my previous comment, he in fact tries to illustrate the fact that when one speaks about a succession of lives, this is only an expression of conventional reality: Basically, if you carefully read the entire quote of Ven. Sayadaw U Silananda in my previous comment, you will see that what he is trying to say is basically the same as what the Dalai Lama says, that is, ultimately "[consciousness] has neither past nor future and knows only present moments; it is the continuum of a present moment being transformed into another present moment."
There are not two realities.
Conventional reality is posited on illusion. And is therefore not reality.
The object of Dharma/Dhamma is to remove that illusion. This does not happen as a process, because a process is by definition posited on the same illusion.
The removal of the illusion happens by an absence of doing.
It happens by not perpetuating it.
The illusion ( that time is linear and that we can make progress ) arises with avidya and is reinforced by D.O. This takes no 'time'. Time is concomitant with it in its arising
The house of self is dismantled not by an act of will or by mental exercises, but by seeing clearly that we are creating it over and over.
The conventions of a series of lives, or even of one life, are posited on projections.
There is only the Unmade, Unborn, Unmanufactured.
-Ajahn Brahm.
My main point was simply this. When teachers such as Ven. Sayadaw U Silananda or the Dalai Lama speak of life-after-life rebirth, it does not mean that these people believe that time is linear and exists independently. The quotes I highlighted in my previous comment shows that. So although rebirth can be spoken of at the level of conventional language as happening as a succession of lives, if we examine it from the aspect of ultimate truth then we would have to say that what happens is simply, in the Dalai Lama's words, the continuum of a present moment being transformed into another present moment and in this sense of the ultimate truth, we cannot speak of a past consciousness or past life nor a future consciousness or future rebirth.
From "The Reality of Reincarnation" which Alan Watts wrote in the final years of his life:
From highexistence.com, a contributor transcribes a talk by Alan Watts as follows:
From "Zen Effects: The Life of Alan Watts", by Monica Furlong who was encouraged by Joan Watts (Alan Watts' daughter) to write the full length biography and was provided information by his family and close friends: