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What if I dont believe in Rebirth?
There seems to be a potentially divisive debate in Western Buddhism on whether or not being a Buddhism neccesitates a belief in Rebirth. Some say the idea of karma makes no sense in its absence. Thoughts?
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Here's the problem I have with your approach.
First, you are mistaking, in my view, the right place to have faith. You have faith in a man whom you never met, and never will. His existence is not even definitively proven (although I personally believe he existed). You don't really know exactly what he taught, since his words were not recorded for about 100 years after his passing. This man lived in a time 2,000 years ago you cannot really imagine, just as he could not imagine today's world.
On the other hand, you could have faith in the teachings. Which can be tested. Some of which can be verified to be true and accurate. You can see them as principles, rather than facts.
As far as your Dr. Stevenson, find the right "scientist" and he will "prove" almost anything you want. Besides which, you yourself condemned science to be based on faith.
There's a whole string of prophets who obtain followers to believe in them...that person. What's important is whether you believe in the words. If tomorrow it was proven that Siddhartha never existed, your faith evaporates. My degree of faith remains because I respect the words...whomever wrote them.
(edited to say whom I'm addressing.)
Secondly, I like what Namdrol says here, "Listen -- you will have to forgive us. These endless discussions about rebirth are tiresome. We don't care. Either you accept it or you don't. If you don't fine. But there is no doubt that rebirth was the Buddha's teaching. People who cannot accept that, cannot accept must of the other teachings of the Buddha.
And please spare us the "buddhas teachings were not written down until..."First of all, this is false. Worst case scenario, Buddha's teachings were written down 150 years after his parinirvana (dates of Asokha pillars), which best scholarship places 407-400 BCE. But it is very likely that the earliest sutras were being written down within 50 years."
My faith nonetheless is more on the teachings than on one person. But there logically has to be an originator, and that person is Buddha (a Buddha is simply the first awakened person who is the first person to start this whole teaching). Nonetheless, wisdom is more important than authorship to me.
Lastly, to me, there is nothing wrong with scientific worldview being linked to faith, since I have no problem with faith. Plus, I distinguished "good, rational faith" with "irrational faith", and obviously it is 'reasonable', sensible, to choose a good, rational faith over an irrational one.
So rather than mental gymnastics, trying to make yourself believe that 2+2 equals 5, why not simply concentrate on the basics? Learn to meditate, to be in the moment and to understand your mind.
In time you may come to believe in rebirth, or understand it some other way. Or you may not. But the important thing is to practice.
So the terms didn't exist at the time and have just developed over time. And so there is nothing that really distinguishes a Buddhist from a non-Buddhist. Unlike other ways of life, we are not born into or baptised into Buddhism. Therefore questions like "Should a Buddhist .....?" or "is .... nessecary for Buddhism?" are misformed, whatever you want to place on place of the dots.
So in this case a better question would be "Should someone on the 8-fold path belief in rebirth?". But then we can see inmediately that this question is strange, because we are all at different stages of the path and right view (which includes rebirth) is a development of the path, not a requirement.
So it is fine not to belief in rebirth and still be able to practice just as well (or better, or worse) as someone who does.
With metta,
Sabre
do you think you may have some of your mom or dad genetic diseases?
then karma work
do you feel guilty if you did something bad? then karma work.
Buddhists have bigger fish to fry than belief and disbelief.
perfect quote!
I understand what you are saying about faith in science, but the faith is not the same as the faith of religion. A physics/maths teacher may tell us about a certain feature of reality, and when our understanding is incomplete we simply trust the teacher is correct; a kind of faith. The difference is that when our understanding of maths/physics grows enough we can do the calculations/experiments for ourselves - faith no more, for it is not required. But the 'faith' the student initially had was not the same faithful zeal, seen as good, in the Abrahamic faiths. It could well be neutral - maybe this sum actually works, maybe not, i'll see later. I see 'faith' in rebirth as the same.
The Buddha seemed to get many things right, and so though i am far from awakening i believe this path will work. I will not, however, take everything on faith just because the Buddha said it was true. For a matter like rebirth, i can simply take a neutral stance. If i come across a realisation it is true later, then so be it. If not so be it. I'll just try to practice meditation and compassion.
Also disagree about science being a belief system. It can become a belief system, but itself science is simply a method of knowing the objective world, the best method we have by far. The subjects of science are irrelevant, the method is what makes it. And where what the Buddha taught contradicts science, i will probably agree with science, but i'd have to see the evidence first. Hard to critique Dr. Ian Stevensons work without seeing it - any links/references? Being published in any journal, no matter how prestigious, doesn't make it true.
Namdrol:
"Listen -- you will have to forgive us. These endless discussions about rebirth are tiresome. We don't care. Either you accept it or you don't. If you don't fine. But there is no doubt that rebirth was the Buddha's teaching. People who cannot accept that, cannot accept must of the other teachings of the Buddha.
And please spare us the "buddhas teachings were not written down until..."First of all, this is false. Worst case scenario, Buddha's teachings were written down 150 years after his parinirvana (dates of Asokha pillars), which best scholarship places 407-400 BCE. But it is very likely that the earliest sutras were being written down within 50 years.
Mahayana sutras were almost certainly later compositions.
Tantras later than that.
But the one thing all these teachings share is a common thread of rebirth, karma, and dependent origination which are the cause of samsara, and the breaking of rebirth and karma through understanding dependent origination, which gauranteed freedom from rebirth in this or at most seven rebirths.
All those people who think they will attain awakening withotu understanding Buddha's actual teachings on this subject are deluded."
Not sure about links. But there are some youtube videos, e.g.
Anyway on an unrelated note, there is a good article here concerning faith - http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/bps-essay_09.html
"Thus the discourse to the Kalamas offers an acid test for gaining confidence in the Dhamma as a viable doctrine of deliverance. We begin with an immediately verifiable teaching whose validity can be attested by anyone with the moral integrity to follow it through to its conclusions, namely, that the defilements cause harm and suffering both personal and social, that their removal brings peace and happiness, and that the practices taught by the Buddha are effective means for achieving their removal. By putting this teaching to a personal test, with only a provisional trust in the Buddha as one's collateral, one eventually arrives at a firmer, experientially grounded confidence in the liberating and purifying power of the Dhamma. This increased confidence in the teaching brings along a deepened faith in the Buddha as teacher, and thus disposes one to accept on trust those principles he enunciates that are relevant to the quest for awakening, even when they lie beyond one's own capacity for verification. This, in fact, marks the acquisition of right view, in its preliminary role as the forerunner of the entire Noble Eightfold Path."
Pali Suttas can be dated far back, as Loppon Namdrol pointed out:
"...And please spare us the "buddhas teachings were not written down until..."First of all, this is false. Worst case scenario, Buddha's teachings were written down 150 years after his parinirvana (dates of Asokha pillars), which best scholarship places 407-400 BCE. But it is very likely that the earliest sutras were being written down within 50 years..."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/bps-essay_09.html It looks like maybe it's time to have another thread on the Kalama Sutra.
1. The knowledge that the Buddha recollects His past lives,
2. the knowledge capable of seeing the decease and rebirth of beings, and
3. the knowledge capable of eradicating defilements.
Why? Because having faith is one of the strengths required for development (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Strengths ), plus having the view of an afterlife constitutes Right View (the foremost factor of the Eightfold Path which leads to awakening), while the view that there is no afterlife constitutes Wrong View.
Ñāṇa:
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=11852&start=300 (interesting discussion over there)
"The wrong view in question is as follows:
There is no next world,... no spontaneously reborn beings; no brahmans or contemplatives who, faring rightly and practicing rightly, proclaim this world and the next after having directly known and realized it for themselves. A person is a composite of four primary elements. At death, the earth (in the body) returns to and merges with the (external) earth-substance. The fire returns to and merges with the external fire-substance. The liquid returns to and merges with the external liquid-substance. The wind returns to and merges with the external wind-substance. The sense-faculties scatter into space. Four men, with the bier as the fifth, carry the corpse. Its eulogies are sounded only as far as the charnel ground. The bones turn pigeon-colored. The offerings end in ashes. Generosity is taught by idiots. The words of those who speak of existence after death are false, empty chatter. With the break-up of the body, the wise and the foolish alike are annihilated, destroyed. They do not exist after death.
MN 60 Apaṇṇaka Sutta:
Because there actually is the next world, the view of one who thinks, 'There is no next world' is his wrong view. Because there actually is the next world, when he is resolved that 'There is no next world,' that is his wrong resolve. Because there actually is the next world, when he speaks the statement, 'There is no next world,' that is his wrong speech. Because there actually is the next world, when he is says that 'There is no next world,' he makes himself an opponent to those arahants who know the next world. Because there actually is the next world, when he persuades another that 'There is no next world,' that is persuasion in what is not true Dhamma.
Again, one cannot attain the noble path of stream-entry while maintaining a wrong view which contradicts the arahants who know the next world."
And with the direct realization of the right view (e.g. anatta, dependent origination, emptiness), actualization of the right view and right practice (the eightfold path) in daily life follows naturally, like a vehicle having set its course right proceeding in 'Right Path' which can only result in liberation.
As Zen writer and speaker Ted Biringer says, "Accurate understanding is not authentic realization. At the same time, authentic realization can hardly be expected to occur without accurate understanding. And while an absence of "right understanding" almost excludes the possibility of authentic realization, the presence of "wrong understanding" excludes even the slimmest hope of success. If we aspire to realize what Zen practice-enlightenment truly is, then, as Dogen says, "We should inquire into it, and we should experience it." To follow his guidance here we will need to understand his view of what "it" is that needs to be inquired into, and who the "we" is that is to do the inquiring."
That's what gets me about the kind of statements made by Xabir. He tells you what you MUST do, and he knows no more than any of the rest of us. He never thinks of saying, "In my view," or "My opinion is". He simply states it all as fact.
Right now I am being reborn into a cramp from that coffee... and am seeking to be reborn cramp-free in a few minutes..
There is however a difference between blind faith, and rational faith. To me, putting faith in someone who is awakened and experienced, is rational faith. It is partly due to my experience which was authenticated by such an awakened being as Buddha, but also even before I had much experience... it was simply rational that after studying the Buddha's teachings, I find that his teachings are based on true experience rather than blind conjecture, are wise, beneficial, conducive to end of suffering, that faith arises for him and his teaching.
true faith is confidence in seeing how the teachings themselves live in our lives.
thus the whole path is subjective.
no one is forcing anything down anyones throat.
What make them wrong and you right?
Faith is necessary because there is no certainty in knowledge. Even in exact science, no certainty is to be found. Of course certainty versus probable knowledge is a topic relating to Epistemology (the theory on Knowledge) but still, it is pivotal towards understanding why the need for faith at all. How science has led to the common misunderstanding that faith is not necessary is amazing but it is mostly due to the predictive nature of these scientific theories derived from thorough experimentation. This is, however, mainly due to the fact that the pool of data made available for the derivation of these theories does not go beyond our man-size world. As we know, Newtonian physics or classical science works well for a man-size world but not quite well in the macro and micro universe. Our ordinary experiences do not permit us to experience something having the mass of a star or traveling at half-speed of light, we presume that the entire universe must obey the laws of the man-size world. But when we are exposed to things not so ordinary, like traveling at a speed much faster then our ordinary experience of speed, we are lost because phenomena just dont behave the way we expected it to be. The idea that time travel slower when they are approaching the speed of light and halt at speed of light is mind boggling. Similarly when scientists begin to deal with the universe of the outer space the macro universe, they are dealing with much more massive objects than the man-size world, a billion times more. The idea that space curves and time halt at the speed of light came as a shocked to the classical scientists. This applies true when we deal with the micro universe of the quantum world. The world of the electrons does not comply with Newtonian nor Einstein theory. This includes the spooky non-local behavior of particles that AEN brought up in another thread. When Heisenberg introduced the uncertainty principle, it is so weird that even Einstein rejected it and thus, Einstein famous remark -- God does not play dice. But God does not play dice is a belief system! I cant remember where I read it but I could clearly recalled that even Stephen Hawking used phrases like official dogma, deep emotional attachment to determinism to describe scientists like Einstein. Stephen Hawking even went further to say that Einstein was doubly wrong when he said God does not play dice.
I will not dwell too deeply into it but the purpose is simply to illustrate that our knowledge is nothing certain nor absolute. Science is itself a belief system for us to better understand the phenomenon existence. It is its certainty in predictability within a prescribed environment that convinces us that faith is not necessary. It creates the impression of certainty and made a probable knowledge appears absolute but in actual case, science itself is a belief system and a great deal of faith (maybe good and rational faith in this case) is vested in science unknowingly.
My 2 cents.
If the creator of the world entire
They call God, of every being be the Lord
Why does he order such misfortune
And not create concord?
If the creator of the world entire
They call God, of every being be the Lord
Why prevail deceit, lies and ignorance
And he such inequity and injustice create?
If the creator of the world entire
They call God, of every being be the Lord
Then an evil master is he, (O Aritta)
Knowing what's right did let wrong prevail!
And, as I have said before, faith is fine. No problem with me and faith...provided that the person knows the difference between faith and fact. And, in my opinion, faith and right view are not congruent.
@B5C 's last post still stands and I support that argument:"Christians, Jews, and Muslims say the same thing about having faith or learning the teachings of their prophets.
What make them wrong and you right?"
So far you have only confirmed your belief that science is based on faith.... and? .....?
Buddha, along with countless others who did as he instructed, was able to get awakened, liberated, recall past lives, etc. I personally know of people close to me, trustworthy (I know that is subjective to you), too many a number who can recall past lives with great clarity and even tell me how those karmic repurcussions affect this life in great details. A great many were also awakened to the truths the Buddha awakened to, was able to experience the meditative states the Buddha experienced, and so on.
And to those who think memories of past lives could be deluded hallucinations etc, there is the research done by Dr. Ian Stevensons on rebirth and past lives, that the very large number of the memories of children's past lives were proven to be accurate. Such research were published in scientific and medical journals.
Lastly, my meditative experience and realization, which has authenticated some core teachings of of Buddha's teachings, some of which were documented in my e-book: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-e-booke-journal.html
if you look carefully you will places where the Buddha tells Buddhists to not even beleive ME the Buddha if I tell you things that you know are wrong,which happens to ananda who is surounded by fake shakymuni's Buddha's trying to get him to do evil
peace and love
this is (Tathagatagarbha Buddhism which is the sutras starting at the Lotus sutra and ending at the Mahaparinirvana sutra)chan,zen,pureland,nichiren,and all of Mahayana falls under this class.