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Is it possible to cultivate.... without the concept of an afterlife?
Hi,
A slightly different kind of question today:)
Is it possible to cultivate happines, peace and truth, and to understand the cause and cessation of suffering, without the concept of an afterlife?
Please answer mindful of Right Speech and Right Effort:)
Well wishes
Mat
A slightly different kind of question today:)
Is it possible to cultivate happines, peace and truth, and to understand the cause and cessation of suffering, without the concept of an afterlife?
Please answer mindful of Right Speech and Right Effort:)
Well wishes
Mat
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Comments
You should try, but I don't know, I've observed that people want to confort themselves with death and afterlife in religion. If your religion doesn't talk about afterlife fantasies, then you won't have too many followers.
Quite obviously the answer is "yes" for some people and "no" for others.
Perhaps you know this already. Why do you ask?
Yes they do, and in ideas that there is a "me" and in the idea that there can be something like permanence. Our egos love to be comfy, real and eternal!:)
I think you may have hit a nail on the head with that one. I am not sure if its "the nail" but certainly a nail:p
Much peace,
Mat
I am not sure the answer is obvious at all:)
Anyways, I wasn't asking you to comment on an assumption about what others think but what each and every person who wants to think about the question and then answer it:)
As you know I am very interested in buddhism, skepticism, reason, faith, the mystical etc. Its very hard to get a good discussion from all sides without it degrading into Fourum dukka.
This question may be able to do that because its not saying anything about if there is or is not rebirth:)
Lets keep it calm, free and open:)
Mat
Hi fivebells,
I agree with you on peace. Happiness, again I think I agree, though it does not mean it isn't real in whatever sense that is. Most of our behaviour and emotions have seeds down the evolutionary ladder, this is very dharma compatible.
I very much disagree with you on truth not being real, my entire world view has most fundamental the law of noncontradiction, either something is the case or it is not the case or it is meaningless to ask. (If you wish to discuss this great, I would likfe, but please read my "What is Dharma?" essay first. Might be best to do in PM!)
peace,
Mat
Anything is possible. Some people definitely don't need any discussion of life after death in order to cultivate peace and happiness, truth and the cause and cessation of suffering.
The question becomes one of what are the teachings on wisdom and skillful means when it comes to death and dying. That's where we hold differing views on how to practice in order to prepare for death.
My path has involved studying the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the transference of consciousness at the time of death, (P'howa) and working in hospice. For all those reasons, I have found it useful to consider what happens after death.
Death is unavoidable, its time is uncertain, and our only security is the strength of our practice.
I love the buddhist quote, "My death is certain, its time is uncertain, what should I do"
And the certainty of dharma:)
She further states one may discover the happiness that has always been present by practicing the five strengths: strong determination, familiarization, seed of virtue, reproach and aspiration.
Strong determination is to whole heartedly connect with joy, relaxing and trusting. She calls it a determination to use every challenge as an opportunity to open your heart and soften, determination not to withdraw.
Familiarization is to know yourself. Pema calls Dharma good instruction on how to stop cheating yourself, stop robbing yourself, find out who you really are. She calls it wakefulness as your habit and your way of perceiving everything. She also calls it the pleasantness of presentness.
Seed of virtue is not something new we pursue, it is something we all have within us that we nurture. It is a dormant part of ourselves and Pema states it is something that can be awakened or relaxed into.
Reproach can be extremely powerful. A great opportunity to teach self dharma. A powerful question useful for me she suggests is "Do you always want to be right or do you want to wake up?" Reproach is of course, done in a kind and loving way. A gentle nudge as opposed to shoving.
The final strength is aspiration. Pema calls it a prayer to no-one. Voicing our wishes for enlightenment. May I experience my fundamental wisdom. May my experience of wakefulness increase. May I be more tolerant. May I be more patient. The possibilities are endless.
Questions such as "is there an afterlife", have nothing to do with happiness, peace or truth whereas our practices on the path have everything to do with them.
Namaste
For the record, i really am not struggling with the concept of an afterlife at all. I have renounced it as the miorror of dharma instraucts:)
I want to extinguish all delusions and see things as they are. But if there is something I am not awake to I would want that deeply too:)
I disagree. I find it invigorate my spiritual life knowing it is my last. I really do:) it adds value knowing kit is my last, not detracts. for me, the very realisatio enlightens the darkness of agnosticism,
This is my only life, it is short and without inherent value or self, the only way I can live it is to strive to maximise peace truth and happiness, which judging by some of the cack that kicks off here, might not always seem so!:P
Much metta
Mat
There is only one way to avoid that trap, and it is detachment from either view. Find the peace within yourself to acknowledge that although you may be reasonably certain, you can not "know" whether or not such a thing can exist or occurs and remain living. If that were the case, there would be no debate. It is pointless, fruitless, and it continues on and on and on as if a broken record. Let it go my friend and free yourself; let others worry about their own beliefs. No one who believes in rebirth is "held back" from progressing down the path, and if an attainment of enlightenment disproves this, then they will finally know. There is no reason to make anyone give up their beliefs except to please our selves, which are Non-Self.
I was just as stubborn as you once, believe me. If I had not realized a part of the truth, I would still be at the place where no matter what anyone said I would not believe in a soul, a God, or that any religions had any idea what they were talking about. I see you stuck in the same and I put forth some effort to show you how you will remain stuck, that this issue will not lead to a tranquil place for you, unless you acknowledge its speculative nature and let it go.
I seek to be aware of what is right, how about you?
no exception.
What is Right?
Actually, I think we need to be very caul with those passages. As I just pointed out ot federica, there are some questions its wa waste of time to think about, and other that are key to dharma.
Either rebirth is true or it is no, there is no speculation here.
In dont know why you expect the answer to be like an equation.
There is no rebirth, I am sure of that. if you are not, I am happy to discuss. if you dont want to discuss, then dont:)
No, there is another way... Renounce rebirth as an extreme view:) look into the mirror of dharma...
No, I am as certain as I can be. In the same way as I cannot know if there is certainly not rebirth, I cannot know that I am not but an idle a day dream in the mind of the galactic super-play station.
No, it is ended in me. I am there:) I will now disucuss my views with those who want to:)
Sure, thats fine. But this is a discussion forum and I am here to discuss.
And please accepot my truth when I say i am utterly free from this afterlife idea:)
but what if the buddha did see this? What if I am right? What if he taught rebirthy was delusion? Isnt that relevant on this forum?
I am not stubborn, I am utterly constrained by reason and reality. I think it is those who still speak of bronze age theories as if they are buddhadharma who are stubborn....
I am at peace, I am happy, I dont feel stuck in anything. i would like more help meditating and Im still not sure I belive the 12 nids are dharma, other than that, Im fine, thanks:)
Mat
Perhaps if this question is important for you, you might want to investigate Ajahn Brahm technique and see for yourself if you did not do so already.
Well, in the trivial sense yes, i agree. Equally we cannot say that we not all dreams in the celestial microbes that infest the third layer of the great cosmic dung beetle... ow whatver other absurd idea you care to add.
There is no certainty special to this world, it is niave to expect it.
At best we have probability, and I belive that very probably, based on evidence and reason, this life is a weird cosmic and biological fluke rather than anything nicer, like samsara.
But what is crucial to me is that this life, this pointless fluke of chance, is bestowed with real value and meaning and direction and structure by dharma. I find that so wonderful about dharma, yet it seems to some that this view is considered the same as pissing on the roots of the sacred bhodi tree:(
I am not the enemy here. The enemy is the cold hard fact that this pointless life is nothing but emptiness and impermanence, yet it can be so full of love and peace and truth and compassion and kindness.
Seek the truth that is, not the truth that your gut reaction tells you to fight for because it goes against the bedrock of buddhism.
With peace,
Mat
I used to believe that there was no soul, no God, no purpose or meaning to anything, and that all religious people who would believe such things did so only out of fear, ignorance, or tradition. In fact I believed that these religions were all born out of superstitions based on fears and ignorance in the first place. Only in recent times have I started to think there might be some meaning, but that we were too insignificant to know it; there may be a God, but probably not one that ever would interact with tiny little insects like us.
When I was studying Buddhism, I took all of the "supernatural" seeming aspects with a grain of salt and concentrated on the primary teachings that were reasonable, having confidence at least that because others in the past had attained enlightenment that the aspect of the cessation of suffering was knowable in this life.
I understood the causal chain as explained in the texts, and how in some places or traditions it was held that consciousness persisted after death and was required along with the sperm and egg for a new human life to be conceived.
One night quite unexpectedly during meditation my mind penetrated firstly the truth of Impermanence, then Selflessness or Non-Self, and finally Dependent Arising (Origination), and I was able to see the stream of change flowing from then, into now, into what will be, and see that we were all trying to stand still where stillness does not exist. It was the most powerful experience I've ever had, and it induced a permanent change in my mentality. I could never go back to the way I was, to seeking a meaningless and selfish life, or "believe" in what other religions have to offer. I see the truth as if it were the sun in the sky now, and when I speak and try to evoke understanding I do it from a place of self-knowledge.
After I came to these realizations for myself after 30 years of searching (a very powerful experience), I soon re-evaluated the teachings that up until that point I had understood but not necessarily believed in.
Primary in this was rebirth. Seeing the truth now, I did not see how rebirth was necessary. Might the consciousness not arise as the brain develops, and cease upon or shortly after death? It was more reasonable for the chain of causality to be slightly modified than to make the consciousness the only permanent thing in an impermanent reality.
That... was my first thread, first post, on these forums. I had made progress, and wanted to make sense of this loose end. I believe you were even one of the participants in that discussion, Mat. What I ultimately concluded that was attachment to one view or the other was only supported by selfish desire. We either wanted to believe, or we wanted to disbelieve. Having abandoned a hefty portion of my "self", it took me a little time to find that there is no true peace of mind in these attachments.
Where there is no room for doubt, we reinforce the self. To first doubt rebirth is natural for those who doubt a soul or a God; yet, to turn that doubt into a certainty without proof (stating lack of proof as proof) is dangerous. It leads to this place where you are now. You claim happiness, but you seek nothing more than to convince others that they are wrong; even those who are *happy* with their beliefs.
If you never speak of rebirth, an afterlife, or anything related to those again on these forums, I will believe that you are honestly happy in your beliefs. That won't happen though, because you are in denial that a part of you is suffering intensely because of your "active" disbelief, a disbelief that requires others to agree or you will continue debating it. Where your posts are in truth your "self" seeking what is pleasurable to it, this post to you is for your benefit and not for mine. See that, or don't.
The Buddha, if he did not teach rebirth, would place this line of speculation in the same realm as any other unprovable beliefs. With that, I've stated the reasonable in the best way I can. I may not be the most well-spoken; I may not be the one to get through to you, but no good will come of your mind's grasping to nail the coffin on this subject. Only when you let it go will it let you go. I'm out.
All the factors of Dependent Origination are both conditioned and conditioning. They are all relative, interdependent and interconnected. Our existence is based on this principle of conditionality, relativity, and interdependence. Therefore, how can this life be a "pointless fluke of chance"?
I appreciate your honesty, equally, I am not in need of saving:)
Show me why the Buddha did not teach that rebirth was delusion, and I will let it go:)
I believe that now:) Except that dharma gives it real meaning and value.
My dad was a doctor of geology, I grew up with with a profound understanding of our ignsignigance in time. I carry this insignificance with me into my adult life, but it is added to, from every domain. Look at us in terms of the evolutionary tree, we are insignificant. In terms of our place in space, utterly insignifigant. To think otherwise ios delusion.
To think anyone or thing or force in the universe could give a damn about what we do or think or be is just pointless ego craving, it isn't real, it is hope not fact.
One night quite unexpectedly during meditation my mind penetrated firstly the truth of Impermanence, then Selflessness or Non-Self, and finally Dependent Arising (Origination), and I was able to see the stream of change flowing from then, into now, into what will be, and see that we were all trying to stand still where stillness does not exist.
This makes sense to me. I haven't experienced it in meditation but I have in contemplation.
It might, but i dont belive so:)
Thats unfair.
I care not if others agree. i present my views and disucuss them. its a disussion forum. I am here to disucss.
One of the things I want to discuss is that buddhism is mistaken on rebirth.
Its up to each of us what we belive.
Isn't that so, Mat?
Because if it isn't, it's not discussion. it's argument.
Because its all just fluke and chance!:) From the big bang to this planet coalesing around the star we call our Sun.
This is no mystery:)
Very interesting....
Mat, the Kalamma sutta states
The Buddha did not teach that rebirth is a delusion. Whatever ones beliefs are with a pure mind one acquires assurance.
As said, I doubt even the authenticity an accuracy of the Kalama Suttra, nonetheless, the next line states the conditional for the counter (ie if there is no afterlife...)
That is no reason to say, with the certainty you claim, that the Buddha did not teach that rebirth was delusion.
If there were no suttras do you imagine the budha would have taught rebirth or not?
Think on that question before just reacting to it:) What do you think?
Mat
Yes, but you know that already
I want to be awake and aware first. When I put ego first, then being right is the path I choose.
Yes, because regardless of where one stands on the question of rebirth, the goal and the practice are still the same.
Nicely put
I don't see that the reduction of suffing in these short lives is the same goal as ending the eternal cycle of Samasara. Sorry, I really don't.
In fact, they are just about as different as goals get to me.
Reasons why rebirth is importantly different to me from nonrebirth:
As a Buddhist i am very much about living in the now. Therefore any efforts I make to some future afterlife are distractions from the now and, as with any such distrations, my pracitcie indicates I should be mindful of the problems and their solutions.
As a Buddhist I see, know and understand that there is no intrinsic distintion between myself and others. There are no others, there is only we. The idea that there is some sense of me that may exist for countless rebirths distorts thius view. I do not see, know and understand how it can be true. And if it is true I do not know how anataman and annica can be true.
As a Buddhist Philosoher I see how there is no real time, and yet rebirth implies something that is a constant temporal thread through time. I believe for Dhamric reasons and physical/philosophcial that such a thing cannot exist.
Asa spiritual buddhist I am aware that all of the rich and deep and profound experinces I can have are purely the result of the skandha mind. Everything is explained by them and fits with neuro science and psychology. rebirth changes this picture into something i no longer understand. So it is important to me to be clear on this.
As a Buddhist Practitioner I see Right View one of the eight cornerstones of the path.When I try to perfect Right view I inevitably come up with the fact that rebirth doesn't seem to be Right View. After nearly a decade and many methods and ways, I cannot make rebirth Right View but I can make it wrong view. So as a Buddhist who wants to perfect Right View, I must expel the notion from my practice. Not be comfortably ambivalent, declare outright that this is my last life.
As an informed human I am aware how for millennia humanity has been enslaved by its religions with their controlling dogma and indoctrination and I see Buddhism not very different from this (I have lived in Sri Lankan and visited much of Asia) In fact the only difference between the Buddhism and Other religions is thatcore dharma (that which we all agree on) cannot be doubted, where as gods, heaven etc can. So on the grounds of liberty I absolutly will not belive anything the Buddhist Orthodocy tells me unless I cannot doubt it afer rigerous attempts to.
Mainly though, my reason, is that I see rebirth as just another example of "The Great Later On Con" that we can clearly see in other religions, from prehistoric pagans up to moder new age stuff, the idea that by making changes to this life you can get greater benifit in some future life. Its a con used to control and I wont let it control how I think or behave. "Be the change you want to see in the world," as Ghandi said, I apply that to all parts of my life, including Buddhism.
It must have been clear in the Buddha's time that there was no real evidence to believe in rebirth, it was a belief around millennia before AND AFTER the Buddha.
(Incidentally, I belive that the most missued claim of Buddha, is that he said we shouldn't discuss such questions. I think this has been used, by the religious structure that has subsumed dharma, to prevent the kind of questions that have been troubling us over these last weeks here because the orthodoxy is scared of them. We can discuss this at length if you want:)
So to recap as to why it is important if there is or is not rebirth and thus answer your question,
Philosophcially rebirth doesn't seem to belong in Dharma.
Historically rebirth doesn't seem to belong in dharma.
Practicewise rebirth changes dharma in many ways.
Spiritually Rebirth reverses dharma completely (Out of this life into the afterlife)
Politically, believing in rebirth is being suckered by the great later on con.
Best wishes
Mat
Just keep your mind open to the possibility that you might be wrong, perhaps even maybe only because many of the enlighten beings on this planet do believe in it, and try not to obsess too much over it.
You are thinking too much, mental gymnastic will not help your progress very much.
I have a dying uncle and my parents seem to get years older by the month nowadays. Me too, at 38, my mortality is becoming ever more prominent.
Our bodies are nests for diseases, as The Buddha says, we are all dying.
We can either face the stark truth about our deaths or we can rely on an ancient delusion, a remnant from the time when we worshipped suns and elements.
This does not mean at all that we should be disrespectful of anything. I often to to churches to contemplate or write. I am always respectful. Yesterday my kids and I walked through a graveyard and we were all respectful of the dead beneath us, even though there was nothing there.
I have had an afterlife in my head for weeks because of this forum, and yesterday in the church yard I just stopped and in the raw asked myself, amongst the graves, if I was sure there was nothing after death.
You often make me out to be a harsh arrogant **** and now you try to make me feel guilty, as if I am callously upsetting those who may be reading this, just in case they may be close to death at the moment. That's a sorry thing to say Sky, in so many ways.
We are all close to death.
you see, this is not a hospice. Or a church, temple, graveyard, or even a multi-faith secular "peace space," it is an internet discussion forum about Buddhism. Frankly, I am way past being made to feel guilty or a troll by you or anyone else on this forum just because I speak my radically unorthodoc view of Skeptcial Buddhism.
If you are not interested in what I have to say ignore then please me using the ignore function. I dont want my words to be read by people they cause dukka in, I really dont. Equally, I think that the view of buddhism I think the Buddha was might appeal to others here, at least for a subject of discussion.
If you or anyone else has issues with me please keep them to PM. I just want to disucss Dharma and as soon as stuff is in the public both egos get enwtined and the only result can be more dukka.
Ignore me or talk with me, but let us allow each other to be our own lights:)
Thank you
Mat
Thank you
Mat
Sorry you find offense where none is intended.
Take care Mat
No, I don't want to do that. I'm curious about what you say, and open to it. But I'm not necessarily going to doubt it without further appraisal, just because you tell me to.....
I began replying to your post then realised it was just so much more of the same-old same old, I couldn't be asked.
Suffice to say you did not address my question to you at all.
My dear Mat,
There is so much that you say which touches me deeply and I could quote comment after comment but may I, at risk of going somewhat off-topic before coming back to it, highlight this?
It is no surprise that so much profound change occurred in the way we understand the world during the period we call the Enlightenment. There are all too many today who claim the key event in our modern understanding - as far as it goes - was with Darwin's work. They trend to ignore the importance of the earlier geologists who 'exploded' the notion of the 6000-year-old Earth. That this should come so soon after the astronomers had begun to appreciate the true scale of the universe precipitated us into a debate which is still raging.
From a small, almost recently-formed cosmos, we are pitched into Deep Space and Deep Time. We experience the insignificance, the transience and the fragility of humanity as a species and ourselves as its representative. The terror is nothing new, nor the sense of meaninglessness. The Jewish psalmist expresses it; Pascal, Christ on the cross, Siddhartha encountering old age, sickness and death, and who knows how many others have had to come to terms with the angst or be overwhelmed.
Have you read Sartre? Your father was a doctor of geology, mine a doctor of medicine. Both, I think, demanded rigourous thinking of us, I guess. Everything I learned, in Pa's lab at home or in my French, rationalist schooling pointed to the same attitude of dubito (doubt). Then, at age 17, I entered the final year of schooling in a class called Philosophie lettres (φ) and read Plato, Kant, Sartre, Spinoza, alongside my staple diet of sci-fi and classics. I had seen Sartre in Paris and knew something of the existentialist answer to the predicament of our lives but actually reading Les Chemins de la Liberté and seeing Huis Clos..... to say nothing of the 'straight' philosophical works, I felt that the modern mess was being addressed. My only real criticism was that it seemed such a gloomy outlook.
Kant promised me 'pure' and 'practical' reason but wrapped it in such obscurity that a page was better than any sleeping pill. Only Spinoza offered a bit more sunshine. I wondered - and still I wonder today - if there is a satisfactory answer to your original question. My own formulation goes a bit like this:
"Is a mythology (religion, nationalism, monetary theory and so on) necessary to happiness and the good life?"
On those broad terms, I think the answer is 'Yes, but choose your mythology with care.' One part of me cried out that all mythologies are lies and should be abandoned. Another part. however, began to recognise that we have our own, hidden mythologies, beliefs, tendencies and preferences which lead us to a more-or-less fixed notion of ourselves, other people and the world around us. Teasing these out, tempting them into the light of our awareness, recognising our personal lares penatesque (household gods) is part of the work, part of the journey. To paraphrase Jung, the first part of our live is a journey during which we weave the net of stories that enable us to make sense of the world and then comes the second journey - just as Odysseus thinks he has reached Ithaca, he must set out again and, this time, it is a progressive dismantling of the story structure.
Perhaps you will have seen the conversations between Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers in which Campbell asserts that we have no contemporary myth by which to live. I think, in all honesty, he is only partly right in that we may lack a communal myth but are living with the shattering and scattering of the world body of myths and archetypes.
In the Jewish scriptures, at the end of the book called Shof'Tim (Judges) which is a catalogue of stories of social collapse, there is a comment about there being "no king in Israel", no unifying centre of myth. Result? Lawlessness, insecurity, invasion, decline, near extinction.
Once you embrace doubt as a vital tool in your intellectual armoury and, by skillful use of Occam's Razor, have demolished the superstitions and shibboleths, the universe can appear pretty bleak, like a lover the next morning, bed-headed, dog-breathed and grumpy.
It is our good fortune that we improve as the day goes on! Perhaps we are of no significance to an uncaring universe (but you'll have to prove to me that we have no effect) but, in that case, I am still a thinking reed (cf. dear old Pascal). I can look back at the universe and untangle some of its laws and habits. I can impose patterns on noise and make music; I can imagine stories to tell by the fire on the long, dangerous nights. I can "believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast". I can believe that I can be happy, particularly as my life contains some pretty convincing episodes of being happy. That there are also counter-examples brings me back to the existentialist choice, not just in how I act but also in what I believe about the world (and, if I want to chance my arm that far into the unknown, a 'world to come'): I can choose to believe just as I can choose to act, it's just that changing beliefs means digging a bit deeper.
I fear that I shall never be able to answer your questions as to whether this or that is what the Buddha "actually taught". I am pretty tired of the "science of history" myth being applied to the faith stories. What matters, increasingly, to me is how this or that 'word' (scripture, poem, piece of music) issues the challenge of the Third Noble Truth: "there's a way out if only you'd choose it". In the Jesus stories, there is one that I like a lot. Jesus is at a miraculous pool in Jerusalem and he chats to a paralysed man who has lain there for ages. Direct sod that Jesus is, he asks, straight out: "Do you want to be well?" [I would say that, in my practice as a counsellor over the decades, I have found that a useful question on occasion.] Did Jesus 'actually' say that? Who knows? And, honestly, what difference does it make? The question remains, it hangs in the air: Do YOU want to be better?If searching out (not sure how) whether those words were actually spoken by an historical person leads to our getting 'better' (as we understand 'better') then fine, good on us. I doubt, somehow, that it would make any difference to how I act in the world.
It is not what we believe that really matters, particularly if we see the universe (and each other) as uncaring, unconcerned and unaffected, beliefs and unbeliefs are no more than chimerae in such a world. What matters is how we treat each other and the world around us, in my not-so-humble opinion.
The example I use is that of Newton's Theory of Gravity to which physicists clung, refusing, at first, to acknowledge Einstein's revolutionary new theory. Once, however, it was proved, I doubt you will find many reputable physicists today, only 100 years later, who are Newtonians - although engineers still find him useful.
I recall seeing HHDL interviewed by Jeremy Paxman (! for the Brits who'll understand the image). Pax asked what he would do if rebirth were conclusively disproved. Without missing a beat, HHDL replied that he would stop believing in it and then added, with is usual disarming twinkle: "and how do you intend to disprove it, Mr Paxman?"
It is becoming ever more the peacful policy here not to talk personal in public. so after this, lets please keep the talk to PM.
Oh yes:)
Of those you mention, and all we can think of, I think only The Buddha saw that angst as it was and showed the way to its extinguishing.
No I havent:) I studied western analytical philosophy. Sartre and Focout would be smirked at in the same breaths as the Buddha would be.
I think "No," I think the only ones who would think yes would be on the dominating hegemonies pray ticket, in some moral or spiritual sense.
No, again, I disagree. (I don't even lie to my kids about santa.)
Without pure truth you cannot have pure peace.
They didnt have the internet;)
of course it can! it does! it is! We should all be nihilists rather than mystics but no, there is another way.
There is emergence goodness and love and peace and kindness that come from nothingness but make the world many infinities more that its natural state. Is this not the very wonder
Do you not see, wise Simon, that the Buddha gazed into the abyss and saw the light that its emptiness gaze?
Is that not more wonderful to you than that here merely warmed up the ancient Hindu afterlife and fed us that?
I think the answer is to start from nothing,. like he did and work our way up. What agrees with the suttras we can then see and what does not we can know.
I disagree. Do you think it doenst matter if we belief in the ego illusion or the uillusion of eternity? The key thrust of how I see Dharma is the reduction of delusion in order to increase truth, peace and happiness.
That is absolutely what matters, that is a key part of the eightfold path. It is not the only part, there is the philosophiocal, meditative, contemplative and psycological parts too:) Eight conerstones:)
Most importantly though relative to your point, this is not the world around me, it is an internet forum for the disucssion of buddhism and Dharma.
Thanks again for your post. If we can move the personal to PM please!:)
Much metta
Mat
At a point in history some people begun questioning if the sacrifices, who were supposed to guarantee a prosperous and permanent afterlife, being finite, would guarantee an afterlife of infinite good fortune.
Some people started believing that they had to be made continuously, and ideas emerged in which this afterlife would not be permanent. My guess is that this lead to the idea of rebirth.
What would be the alternative to sacrifices? Instead of sacrificing to get temporary results, the sramanas believed that if they ceased 'craving' (in broad terms here, not just a buddhist type of craving) they could be liberated, whatever that meant for a particular group.
I am not an expert, but that is what I think happened, so it makes complete sense, historically, that rebirth is a part of the Dharma.
OK:) It doesn't to me.
I would love rebirth to be true.
Gravity is a theory in a complex world of scales. Its able to be pretty true in most human scale cases. It fails at the edges.
But the crux of the biscuit, and where your analogy fails, is that rebirth isn't about the workings of this universe but about completely anomalously connected realities beyond this universe.
That is a huge shift in countless ways.
Peace
Mat