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"Soul" in Buddhism
NextElement
Explorer
I know it is generally accepted by Buddhists that there is not an eternal soul inside the body. But if this is true, how is it that we can be reborn? Is it even "us" being reborn, or is it just a portion of our life energy?
I read that when the Buddha became enlightened, he could see all the forms of life he had been in the past (humans, elephants, horses, etc.) accumulating wisdom through the eons. If that was so, wouldn't there have been an eternal Buddha always there, taking up the bodies of those living beings, and that energy staying as one so that he could remember it all when he became enlightened? That sounds kind of like a soul to me. I know there's probably a good explanation for this..... go easy on me, I'm new!
I read that when the Buddha became enlightened, he could see all the forms of life he had been in the past (humans, elephants, horses, etc.) accumulating wisdom through the eons. If that was so, wouldn't there have been an eternal Buddha always there, taking up the bodies of those living beings, and that energy staying as one so that he could remember it all when he became enlightened? That sounds kind of like a soul to me. I know there's probably a good explanation for this..... go easy on me, I'm new!
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Try wikipedia.
And as far as what transports across space and time?? I am not sure. Perhaps we are all bodhicitta, but distinct from one another and not just a smear of bodhicitta like butter.
A soul is more so all that we are. All that makes us, us. In Buddhism, all of that us-ness doesn't really exist. But a stream of consciousness does exist, and that is what is "reborn."
It seems as if the soul still contains our ego while the stream of consciousness or mind or mindenergy however you want to see it, does not.
My views on how rebirth and all that work are changing constantly, and what I think doesn't always mesh with what I learn from my teacher, so it's something that evolves quite a lot. It's not something I worry about terribly because just managing each day is enough for me, LOL.
What is reborn is "consciousness", or the "very subtle mind", which carries the karmic imprint of past lives into the next one. Whether or not that constitutes a "soul" is a matter of debate. But this is the way Buddhism gets around the seeming contradiction that you point out, OP.
And what if birth and death are like an illusion? Only significant due to clinging to the present situation, and fear of the unknown.
So, are we the nirmanakaya?
Is our "true nature" deathless?
If so, rebirth is meaningless. Just something to talk about.
Seems like ignorant conjecture to make up for the fact that the enlightened don't know everything, otherwise Wikipedia would be redundant and all helpful science questions solved.
Don't waste time on your, Buddhas or others ignorance.
If you become involved in a form of 'lifetimes evolution' Dharma then you might have to ignore centuries of ignorant fantasies, arguing over 'how many angels can dance on the head of a pin' and other experiences you have not had. Is it important to you? To me it is irrelevant and has been ever since I was a grasshopper.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_unanswerable_questions
:wave:
I did not use the word "like".
Without reference to rebirth, I see my own clinging, aversion and wrong view diminishing. That is why I think the concept of rebirth is not required for my own practice.
Because rebirth is a matter of endless debate and is ultimately not to be resolved by debate, I currently regard it as an imponderable and do not spend much time contemplating it. I have little choice in the matter, since I am unable to accept the concept as it is communicated, just as I have been unable to accept certain concepts communicated by other religions. Humans are endlessly capable of inventing fantasy and insisting that it is reality, and I wish not to spend any more time than I already have trying to fathom the truth or falsity of unsupported concepts.
Illusion in the sense that from the beginning nothing has arisen.
And the curious thing is that there is no contradiction between continual becoming and non-arisen appearances.
If you look at your life right now. You are here because of infinite causes and conditions. You are the very effect of the whole universe giving its best.
But what you are is only that momentum of energy. A process, an action. And this is the vision of the soul in Buddhism. Soul as a verb, not as a noun.
There is nothing apart from that momentum and nothing but that momentum. Nothing prior or after, hence nothing even during. Just the appearance.
Seeing how absence and presence are not two different things is what Buddhism offers. Not just a mere nothingness, but a dynamic interpenetration of the most creative appearances.
This taken as an intellectual answer is highly dissatisfying. See for yourself what is being intuited. Good luck! Remember this is it.
I do not think you can infer from my posts whether I have an in-depth knowledge of the suttas or not. What I do does not involve speculation. It does involve the clear realisation that humans have a long history of religious invention and by their own stance must admit that they consider the human race error-prone when it comes to determining religious truth. That is why I prefer to leave aside matters that are questionable. So I agree with your idea of putting it on the back burner, which is definitely what I have done.
How you handle the question depends on the school of Buddhism and even the particular Buddhist. The short answer is that the early Buddhist religion had no problem with you being reincarnated and leading multiple lives because the doctrine or philosophy of No-Self did not become fully developed until much later, culminating in schools such as Zen that teach the Emptiness of all things, including the Self. Reincarnation as a concept is defined more as a continuous rebirth. They explain the contradiction as being because there were different levels of teaching going on and the reincarnation stories were expedient means to teach various lessons but a deeper understanding is possible.
But other schools of Buddhism adhere to the more traditional teaching from the Tripitaka and point out that what Buddha says is that we don't have an eternal, unchanging soul as defined by other religions. That doesn't mean there isn't something being reborn.
Buddha is supposed to have recounted over 500 past lives. However, you do have to understand that these stories passed down to us as the Jataka Tales include him telling the story of when he was reborn as a sentient, thinking tree, and as various talking and intelligent animals. They are, in fact, moral fairy tales meant to instruct the uneducated public who couldn't even read and especially children but somehow ended up being taken literally because they made it into the suttas. For instance, here's how one story of a past life starts:
In this lifetime the man who would be Buddha was born as king of all Geese, Dhritarachtra, who ruled his vast flock wisely. He was always accompanied by his commander and chief, Sumukha. The two were the closest of friends...
This King of all Geese talks to a human King and in the end, the story teaches a lesson about the power of friendship and ends with the human King putting a goose on a throne next to him. I love these stories. Do geese actually have a king? Of course not. Can geese think and talk like humans? Only in fairy tales. You might as well say there was really a little girl in a red hood who encountered a wolf in the woods while taking a basket of goodies to her old Grannie.
Now, can you say "We are reincarnated because the sutras claim Buddha remembered past lives?" Of course not. But that doesn't mean something isn't reborn. The question is, is it you? That's where Zen comes in. Zen is simple. "What are you?" Are you a few scattered memories of someone who lived and died in the past? Are you the body that molds your actions today? What, indeed, are you? Answer that, and this reincarnation question is already answered.
Hope this helps.
There is not true separation between self and other and so in that sense self and other cease to be. Not that they don't exist but the labels that we use to distinguish one process to the next just do not and can not apply in such a state of mind.
I am me and you are you but at the same time, we are both just different manifestations of the exact same thing and not only that but we are both changing all the time. When we see from that perspective, I doesn't work and neither does you.
What is reborn is but another distinct variance of the same thing that was your mother.
Sometimes I think reincarnation is just guided rebirth.
If we aim, maybe we're afforded some instinctual awareness or residual taste of past lives.
Not that it matters or anything. Living in a memory isn't quite the same as being here now and knowing it.
Sometimes my monkey mind likes to chatter, sorry about that.
For people who don't use the "ālaya-vijñāna" concept, they sometimes rely on "original face", "tathagatagarbha", "ground consciousness" which are individual souls, but renamed. One deals with contradiction with no-self by ignoring it or vociferously proclaiming that they are somehow compatible. If that doesn't resolve the contradiction, be more vociferous.
For people who take monism to the extreme (the idea that everything is somehow one substance) then you end up with one shared soul (brahma). A lot of Buddhists have pretty much merged advaita vedanta and Buddhism, (sometimes accidentally, sometimes explicitly). So you get a soul again, but it is a shared communal one.
For what its worth, I believe in a naturalized collective consciousness. My causes and effects live on after me via the *mundane* effects I have on other people. I believe the realms (6 heavens and hells) are metaphors-- as you act unskillfully, you put yourself in this life in hell, as act skillfully you put yourself in the higher realms of humans and gods. I believe that no-self actually makes sense and precludes the possibility of a soul, literal re-incarnation and (except the effect I have on other people who survive me) implies permanent extinction upon death. The point of Buddhism is to develop the skill to face this with peace and equanimity, not to create yet another delusion to make me feel better about it.
Maybe I should have, as a Mod.... meh... if there's anything inadvisable or unskilful, I'm sure someone will alert us.....
Anyway, as to the question (1st post) of how we can be reborn if there is no 'soul', I heard it articulated as 'a transmigration of Consciousness'.... a form of highly subtle, ethereal energy.....
A good explanation is that of the two candles:
Take one candle.
Light it.
bring in a second candle.
Taking a taper, light the taper from the first candle.
Blow the first candle out.
Light the second candle form the taper.
This flame, on the second candle:
is it the same as the first - or different?
Point to ponder.
But that, to me is a fine, simple account of how we get from 'A' to 'B', to 'C', to 'D'.....
For me, I've got no trouble believing in rebirth, because it makes sense scientifically in my mind (at least more sense than a heaven/hell). Life is a unique kind of energy, and the Law of Conservation states that energy is neither created or destroyed, just ever-changing in form. So when we die, our life energy may be transferred to another potential life form who needs it. Either way, I think it's too deep of a subject for an unenlightened human to try to answer.
@ SpinyNorman
Of course it does not, because I am withholding judgement on a matter about which I cannot have knowledge.
OK?
For them, a soul is all that we are on the inside, and they hold onto that because all that we are that makes us identifiable and separate on earth, is what they want to find when they die. When they want their loved ones to greet them in heaven, they need to know that all those dear things about those people are withheld in some sort of container, the soul, in order for them to identify their loved ones. If all that we consider to be "self" is not real, the soul/whatever cannot contain it and because that is what I believe, clearly it conflicts with what they believe and thus using the same term just doesn't work.
Most people who think 'soul' think of an almost imperceptible image/replica of themselves, a transparent duplicate in ephemeral form.
Transmigrating consciousness doesn't evoke the same idea, quite simply.
And if you get that, you're mistaken.
As always, there is not one Christian viewpoint, or Buddhist viewpoint. But don't you think her description is a general consensus of the Christian view?
@Silouan In what ways does your understanding of it differ? I'd be interested to know what you think of it. I live in a pretty small and rural area (population less than 4000) so I am always interested in what others think about such topics since most people here tend to all hold the same views.
No, I think it's actually quite spot-on... as an ex R Catholic 'devout' Christian, I personally think he pretty much nails it...
Our life is impermanent and we might be reborn based on desire.
Also, a claim of being devout does not affirm a Christian consensus. Not even the saints make such a claim about themselves, but they certainly best represent the consensus.
Or maybe they're just candles....
Eventually winter comes again and it is a snowflake again. But the snowflake has a new distinct shape on the second year of snow. The shape of the previous snowflake is gone. And a new shape is the rebirth.
Or think of it like this:
Behind my Buddha in the garden, a fox laid down and died. Gradually the carcass decayed, was gnawed at, feeding other foxes, birds, rodents, insects, microbes and worms. The fox has fed and given life to other creatures.
If you are what you eat, then some worms are reincarnated foxes.
It is not as romantic as the snowflake and I would not call it rebirth but form changes. You are empty, form arises and emptiness returns in another form.
You think your essence is special, soul like and eternal? Pah! Fox bones and fur scraps to you . . .
Too much to chew on? Hug my little dharma pony and your empty soul then, until time for a rebranded rebirth . . .
:wave: