There's another possibility that you might find charming (although utterly implausible). It's due to Peter van Inwagen, an outstanding philosopher, who unfortunately is Catholic and therefore starts from axioms I find absurd. He's exceptionally clear-thinking, though, and follows the implications of his axioms wherever they go.
So this is a materialist afterlife theory. (Is that great, or what?!) The Church teaches General Resurrection in the body. Van Inwagen denies that there is a soul separate from the body. He holds that personal identity depends on token-identical composition. In other words, an atom-by-atom copy of you is not you.
Now, he says, we can't know for sure exactly how Resurrection works; but the following is a reasonable guess, if you hold those axioms.
At the moment you die, God steals your brain, physically, and he preserves it (cryonically, presumably) in some physical place. Personal identity, van Inwagen argues, depends only on the brain; the rest of the body is replaceable.
God instantly replaces your brain with a perfect atom-by-atom copy, so this maneuver is undetectable. The copy rots, but it's just a copy so that doesn't matter. The atoms in the copy can end up in someone else's brain later; this avoids the objection to bodily resurrection that we the living may share some atoms with dead people.
So then, after the end of time, God will make new bodies for everyone, defrost all the brains, and stick them in.
I just love this. So logical and scientific and yet so wrong.
It is an interesting thing about humans. Not only can we invent reasons for things, and elaborate explanations of unknowable processes, but we can convince ourselves that this and only this is a possible answer. Then we can become so convinced that we would rather die than believe anything thing else; and even be prepared to kill anyone who disagrees with us!
And none of us really knowing the answers...
Friday, June 17, 2011
gruff said...
An excellent post. Updating the Brahmajala Sutta for modern needs. This is the kind of Buddhist thought that's needed. Thanks very much for your work.
One small addendum: The Theravadin dogma of "no interval" seems to be based on a misunderstanding of dependent origination, because the "interval" (bardo) between lives is in fact mentioned in the Canon. At least one bhikkhu attains liberation "in the interval". I'm away from a copy at the moment so cannot provide the citation but will do so at the earliest opportunity.
I would like to comment on the Buddhist mechanism of afterlife.
Over the years I have wondered about how the mechanism of rebirth could actually work and have developed some tentative ideas which do not depend on the mind-body duality: the idea that something persists which is carried over. As you say there are fundamental problems with such ideas especially within the scientific paradigm.
From my understanding of the suttas and the accounts of rebirth and recollection of previous lives the central feature of the mechanism is of kamma. The mechanism of kamma is itself a complex system which doesnt really answer the problems in a satisfatcory scientific manner. One thing it does offer though is that it does away with the necessity of the mind-body duality as being part of that process.
As I understand kamma it can ripen both in the present and onto into the future. Kamma formations lead to the reappearance of beings. Recollection of past lives is possible when there is a tapping into kammic 'memory'. As to thoeries of how this memory could work I think lie in the processes of kammic formation itself. I am not trying to suggest that kamma exists as some kind of radio waves that can be tuned into though. More like conjuction and interplay kammic seeds which manifest under certain conditions.
In an effort to give a more coherent explanation I would look to the relatively more modern scientific theory of chaos. Even though kamma is a complex, chaotic system, it also exhibits patterns like chaos theory predicts. Its is neither totally determinstic nor totally chaotic. The is similar to what can be seen in dependent origination - a chaotic system which has patterns. It exhibits both infintely regenerative features and also the possibility of complete dissolution under very specific conditions (the Eightfold Path).
I realise that this doesnt really explain the mechanism of Buddhist afterlife and rebirth but shifts it way from a mind-body mechanism to more the natively Buddhist process of kamma formation. This is a more satisfactory 'theory' of rebirth to my mind.
Such ideas are probably not going to ever be integrated into the 'modern scietific project' as it points to a process which seems to be ultimately only personallly verifiable. Such personal verification is not a reason for objection though as the goal of the Buddhist project itself, nibbana, is also a matter of personal verification. On taking on the Buddha's path of pratice one is placing a certain degree of confidence that it possible to realise nibanna and give it go even though from the outset one doesnt have all the facts. Direct understanding of kamma, rebirth and nibanna is ultimately a matter personal realisation and probably not apprehendable by scientific theory.
I'm struggling a bit with the idea that someone would read that post and respond by trying to explain kamma and rebirth to me! Unfortunately you haven't solved the problem, you just disguised it with Buddhist jargon. Adding layers of metaphysics to a metaphysical problem just exacerbates the problem.
A belief that Buddhist dogma is on some level ultimately true, takes us out of the realm of physics, and into metaphysics.
I would argue that such dogmas are at best symbolically helpful. They simply are not true on any level, but they can have other kinds of value. Though I am increasingly doubtful about their utility, and reading your comment has me feeling like throwing my lot in with the secular Buddhists!
The main problem with holding such metaphysical views to be true is that in practice one is always seeking to prove them true, rather than paying attention to what is actually going on. It's an impossible task, but one which you've obviously spent considerable time on. See also my recent posts on karma.
Rebirth, kamma, and nibbāna are all just stories we tell - and no better than anyone else's story, as I would have thought was obvious from seeing them all laid out together! It doesn't help that there are so many different conflicting versions of our story (and people are continually making up new ones! Chaos theory indeed!)
Given the mystification these days, I don't think our stories do anything but hinder practice any more. Perhaps it's time that historical Buddhist terminology was left to historians to argue over, and we just started paying attention and describing what we see in our own words!
First let me just say that I was not trying to explain kamma and rebirth to you! I have read many of your other articles I happily defer to your expert knowledge. I was simply trying to explain a tentative personal understanding of the Buddhist rebrith 'narrative'. Such narratives while not palatable to scientific and secularist agendas are essential to Buddhist practice. One takes on those narratives because in practice one sees directly their value in the path of practice: they give good results.
I am quite perplexed by the rest of your reply as while I wholeheartedly support the idea that "we just started paying attention and describing what we see in our own words" it seems you class the teachings on kamma and nibbana as purely of symbolical value, when in fact they are the overarching context of that practice. You are right that they are narratives which are unlikely to be scientifically proven as true.
What I find most perplexing is the idea that its possible to have a Buddhist path of practice without taking on the the narratives of kamma and nibbana. Secular Buddhism? In treating “kamma and rebirth, as mere 'consolatory elements' that have crept in to the Dhamma and blunted its critical edge”1 , I fear that the central project of the Buddha's teachings are made pretty redundant. The teaching on kamma and other “such principles were repeatedly taught by the Buddha himself, and not always for the sake of consolation, as a glance through the Paali Nikaayas would show.” 2 The teaching on Right View is an example of the central dependenence of the path of practice on the kamma narrative.
I wonder how much metaphysical baggage a secular Buddhism would cut away to arrive at a Buddhism fit for modern needs. The Five Precepts, the Triple Gem, Going for Refuge?
“I would also maintain that when the secular presuppositions of modernity clash with the basic principles of Right Understanding stressed by the Buddha, there is no question which of the two must be abandoned. Samsaara as the beginningless round of rebirths, kamma as its regulative law, Nibbaana as a transcendent goal—surely these ideas will not get a rousing welcome from sceptical minds. A sense of refuge, renunciation, compassion based on the perception of universal suffering, a striving to break all mental bonds and fetters—surely these values are difficult in an age of easy pleasure. But these are all so fundamental to the true Dhamma, so closely woven into its fabric, that to delete them is to risk nullifying its liberative power.” 3
Saying that rebirth, kamma, and nibbāna are “all just stories we tell” isnt grounds for relegating them to unnecessary historical symbolism. They are stories which when wholeheartedly engaged are of critical importance to the Buddha's path of practice. Shouldnt one judge them by the results they give rather than scientific and secular standards?
1,2,3 Source: Buddhism without Beliefs: Review by Bhikkhu Bodhi http://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebdha106.htm
Sunday, June 19, 2011
gruff said...
Alex,
Am I more likely to attain liberation if I believe in kamma and nibbana? If so how much more?
Let me answer your question by asking you a question in return.
Do you have confidence in the efficacy of your actions to give good or bad results depending on their quality?
If you sincerely want to put an end to suffering the Buddha asks that you should take certain things on faith, as working hypotheses, and then test them through following his path of practice. One those things is kamma.
“...instead of an empirical proof for his teaching on karma, the Buddha offered a pragmatic proof: If you believe in his teachings on causality, karma, rebirth, and the four noble truths, how will you act? What kind of life will you lead? Won't you tend to be more responsible and compassionate? If, on the other hand, you were to believe in any of the alternatives — such as a doctrine of an impersonal fate or a deity who determined the course of your pleasure and pain, or a doctrine that all things were coincidental and without cause — what would those beliefs lead you to do? Would they allow you to put an end to suffering through your own efforts? Would they allow any purpose for knowledge at all? If, on the other hand, you refused to commit to a coherent idea of what human action can do, would you be likely to see a demanding path of practice all the way through to the end?
...As Sariputta stated in another discourse, his proof was experiential but so inward that it touched a dimension where not only the external senses but even the sense of the functioning of the mind can't reach. If you want to confirm his knowledge you have to touch that dimension in the only place you can access it, inside yourself. This is one of two ways in which the Buddha's method differs from that of modern empiricism. The other has to do with the integrity of the person attempting the proof. As in science, faith in the Buddha's Awakening acts like a working hypothesis, but the test of that hypothesis requires an honesty deeper and more radical than anything science requires. You have to commit yourself — every variation on who you feel you are — totally to the test. Only when you take apart all clinging to your inner and outer senses can you prove whether the activity of clinging is what hides the deathless. The Buddha never forced anyone to commit to this test, both because you can't coerce people to be honest with themselves, and because he saw that the pit of burning embers was coercion enough.”1
1. Excerpts from: Faith In Awakening by Thanissaro Bhikkhu http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/faithinawakening.html
Can you lay off the long quotes from other people? They're tedious. If you haven't got anything to say, then the best bet is to say nothing. We'll either read the author in question ourselves in due course, or we don't care what they say in the first place.
The subject is as stated in the blog post, and comments should be your original contribution.
"the Buddha asks that you should take certain things on faith"
The Buddha died 2500 years ago. So who is asking us to take things on faith, and on what basis? I mean we don't even know that there was a Buddha, and we certainly don't know what his name was. And besides, if we are talking about textual and traditional Buddhism, then the Buddha never asks anyone to take anything on faith, and he declares this a bad way to approach morality (Kālāma Sutta - see my blog posts on it, esp. Negative Criteria for Moral Decision Making in The Kālāma Sutta)
I have no confidence in my actions having good or bad outcomes depending on their "quality". (what does quality mean in this context anyway?) I don't think any of us can have any kind of confidence that we understand the consequences of our actions (else stock market crashes would never occur!). Lots of bad things I've done have gone unnoticed, and lots of good things. If I was going on strictly empirical lines then I would say that what I believe is completely uncorrelated with what happens to me; that the consequences of actions are more or less random. Good things happen to bad people every day, and bad things happen to good people. And this is why I could never believe in God - because there is no apparent logic to events and either there is no God or God is an idiot: anyway you look at it worshipping God is folly.
The reasoning of why it is better to be moral cannot stand on a dogma. Which raises the question on what does our imperative to me moral rest? Ask yourself that question!
And, as I have said, if you have a preconceived idea about what you will observe when you begin looking, then you will be more likely to only see what you expect to see, and to dismiss, discount, or merely overlook what you are not expecting to see. The technical term for this is Confirmation Bias.
Confirmation Bias is what is currently wrecking Buddhism from my point of view - a lot of people quoting from books, but with nothing to say in their own words, from their own experience. If you are not speaking from your own experience then why are you insisting that you know the answers? Quotations do not constitute answers.
You seem to be arguing that cultivating the right opinions is important. This is the near enemy of insight - it is the thing which seduces us into believing that to achieve insight all we need to do is read the right books, or listen to the right teacher. Once you know how to meditate you know everything you need to know. Beware mistaking the map for the territory.
Anyone can have an opinion. But so what? I have lot's of 'em. Doesn't even make me clever, let alone awake.
I more or less endorse what he says. I could quibble but I won't because we need to hear more of this kind of thing to combat the unquestioning adoption of Buddhist dogmas.
I shall abandon this discussion so as to avoid driving it further off topic. I will leave only this comment: Alex, you have not answered my question. Yes I know the Buddha sometimes answered a question with a question, but on the evidence of the suttas he did so by exposing his interlocutor's underlying assumptions in order to assist him onward to deeper understanding and awakening, and not by quoting texts to his interlocutor in order to browbeat him into adopting a predetermined ideological position.
Jayarava, good points as always. I will say that in my encounters with elements of American Zen, troubled though that sect may be, I have seen precisely this emphasis on direct personal experience that you refer to, an emphasis that I find all over the Canon, albeit clouded by the style of those texts. Faith I do have: faith in just this direct personal struggle and investigation, with truth as both its present and ultimate object.
For some reason, perhaps the above encounter with a form of weirdly proselytising Buddhianity, the similarity of the words "Gelug" and "gulag" has just occurred to me. I believe I shall give it to your cited blog author.
Finally, I am switching to my Google identity so that I can keep track of comments. I know I am behind on a couple of discussions; I shall attend to them soon.
I have a lot of things in mind after reading your article. I'm gonna to print it because I want to read the article one more time and have more thoughts. Thanks! All the best, Gerard
Well I aim to stimulate thinking :-) I also found this subject very thought provoking. I think this is a case of the medium is the message: the outlines of the belief systems generally tells us more about humans than the contents of any one of them.
as a non-believer in rebirth you may not be interested, but as a close and keen textual scholar this may be worth having a look at for you -
I was interested in the point, picked up by gruff above, on the belief in interval/no interval in rebirth and the relationship to canonical texts. Bhante Sujato, whose work of course you know, argues that the 'no interval' belief is not an early Buddhist belief, but a specifically Theravadin belief, and that the picture as depicted by the canon is of an interval.
The essay in which he discusses this (among other issues), including his usual detailed and fascinating textual references, is here:
It's interesting to see myself referred to as a non-believer in rebirth. I had two main responses to this. Firstly I recall myself as saying that while I did not absolutely discount the possibility, I thought it unlikely. Many philosophical problems emerge from metaphysic of rebirth, and Buddhism has not solved these (2500 years on). And in this recent post, I thought it equally unlikely alongside all the other beliefs - so if I disbelieve in anything it is the broader notion of post-mortem continuity. By contrast I have argued that it is better to believe than not, on the basis that it motivates one to be virtuous, but this opinion brought quite a lot of criticism from some quarters. The more I think about it, the less likely it seems that rebirth has any meaning beyond being a morality play. But I do believe in the value of morality.
My second response is to say that what I believe about such matters is neither here nor there, except in how what I believe makes me act. I'm hardly likely to act on an idea I find unconvincing, and yet we know that ideas do not determine behaviour so much as emotions do, and conditioning. I happen to be the kind of person in whom ideas stir emotions - but in my experience this makes me rare.
I don't know Sujato's work, at least there is nothing in particular I associate with him - I think I look a his blog from time to time. Thanks for the link. Not sure I'll find time to read it, but others might be interested.
The Sujato piece linked to by genrenaut contains most of the "interval" references in the Suttas that I had in mind.
Saturday, July 09, 2011
[Image] I STARTED TO BE INTERESTED in this topic of the different responses to the certainty of death and found it hard to find information organised in the way that I wanted to think about it. I was looking for a taxonomy of afterlife beliefs, or eschatologies, but what one generally finds is the beliefs of various religions without analysis of the characteristics of the belief, and no consideration of the similarities between apparently disparate religions. So here is my own taxonomy of afterlife beliefs, setting them out according to common features rather than religious affiliation. I follow the scheme with some remarks about afterlife beliefs generally.
Immortality. In this belief one seeks not to die. It is characteristic of Daoism, but also of certain New Age sects. Daoists avoid death through magic. New Agers, influenced by Indian yogis, preach "physical immortality" through yoga and especially diet. At least one Buddhist teacher offers immortality as a fruit of practice, though rather implausibly, even if 'deathless' (amṛta) is a synonym for nirāvṇa it comes from not being born into another life, rather than not dying in this life.
Resurrection This is a special subset of immortality belief. In this belief it is possible for special individuals to come back from the dead - uniting the same mind and body. Jesus is the exemplar, and is considered by some to be physically immortal. Destination In destination beliefs the dead have a one-way ticket to a final post-mortem realm. Personal identity can be retained on arrival or relinquished. In the latter case one can merge with a god personified, or with a god in the abstract (e.g. the godhead, the universe, the essence).
When linked with morality it results in eternal heaven and hell. Both heaven and hell reflect the ideals of the cultures which propose them, often they are the ideal version of a man's life (women's ideals are usually ignored). Most mono-theist religions maintain some form of this after-life belief. However it seems to me that believers can reasonably expect to go to Heaven and that Hell is for other people, especially non-believers. The idea that Hell is for "sinners" is nonsensical in the face of the saving power of the Messiah.
The Catholic church introduced an temporary intermediate destination - purgatory - to enable necessary purging of any remaining sin before entering heaven. Sin here is seen as a kind of ritual pollution which adheres to the soul, but can be cleansed - very reminiscent of Hindu, and to some extent Jain, karma doctrines. Recycling The idea here is that after a sojourn one is reborn. This is widespread across the world, but shows a great deal of variation. For some rebirth is a good thing, for others it is not and an escape from rebirth becomes the goal of life. Following Obeyesekere I've identified these forms. [1] One is reborn immediately after death, amongst one's own people.One is reborn in another world amongst one's ancestors, and lives there for a long time. Then one dies in the other world and is reborn again in this world, usually amongst one's own people. This is the oldest Vedic belief. And seems to be behind the this world/other world terminology found in the Pāli Canon. The destination after death is connected with ritual actions - only the adept obtains rebirth amongst their ancestors in another world, or their family in this world. Others have less desirable destinations. Seen in orthodox Hinduism. Destination after death is connected with morality - minimally this requires a bifurcation into heavenly/hellish states, but these are not permanent and one still cycles around. Buddhism posits 5, 6, or 10 possible destinations each of which may be subdivided into many sub-levels. For early Buddhism the rebirth happens with no time lapse. Tibetan Buddhists add the idea of the bardo - a kind of intermediate state or clearing house which determines one's destination on the basis of the development of one's consciousness at the time of death. The bardo also provides an early opportunity for escape from repeated rebirth.Avatar. In this kind of belief the same individual, despite the possibility of escape, deliberately returns to the world again and again for the benefit of others - e.g. the Tibetan tulku; the advanced bodhisattva in Buddhism, and some Hindu gods.
Seeding There are some forms of afterlife belief which do not entail any actual life. I'm not sure if this is a genuine afterlife belief - it seems to be a consolation for not believing in life after death. But it's worth including for completeness sake.
Some would say that we live on as memories. For instance we may say that someone "lives on in the hearts and minds of their loved ones". Similarly when we leave children behind we have left something ourselves to continue on. We could call this genetic seeding - it's not our life that continues, but our genes. There is also intellectual or artistic seeding where we leave behind evidence of our creative work - books, art, music, and ideas. Hybrid forms Although the early Vedic model was simply cyclic, in Bṛhadāranyaka Upaniṣad one can see it becoming more sophisticated. We see, for instance, a version in which the post-mortem destination is linked to ritual funeral rites (śraddha). But we also see an escape to a single destination as well - usually in terms of companionship with brahman/Brahmā (the former being the abstract universal principle, the latter being the personified creator god). Here we see the two main types above - destination and recycling - combined into one complex system.
Buddhism also posits a more or less endless cycle of birth and death if one makes no effort, but with an escape route - amṛta "the deathless" - which removes one from cycle permanently. However one cannot say anything about the destination the tathāgata ("one in that state") after death. Later a further elaboration was added which was the Pure Land - an intermediate idealised destination which is perfect for gaining enlightenment, and reflected the cultural values first of medieval India and then China (compare this with the Catholic purgatory)
Personal vs Cosmic Eschatology Some belief systems overlay personal eschatology - i.e. the post-mortem fate of the individual - with a more universal eschatology - the fate of the universe. So for some Christians the world will end at some point - the end times or Apocalypse.
Similarly in India it is common to see the world as going through great cycles of evolution and devolution with a world destroying cataclysm leading to rebirth of the cosmos. Though presumably the liberated are no more caught up in these cycles than they are the cycles of personal existence. Discussion
Buddhist afterlife beliefs are variations on a hybrid model. Traditionally Buddhists believe that without making an effort they are reborn in a beginningless/endless cycle. The fact that the cycles are eternal may well be an extension of the unwillingness to see death as the end of consciousness. Ethics is what determines one's destination and there are 5,6, or 10 main destinations that are subdivided. These range from heavenly to hellish with the human world being middling, but still ultimately disappointing - although it is generally only from the human realm that one can escape the cycles. Buddhists include heaven within the impermanent cycling around. Liberation from the rounds of rebirth is possible with effort and results in an indeterminate state but not in rebirth in this world. Variations include an intermediate state - easy to attain - called the Pure Land from where liberation is guaranteed. The Tibetans add the bardo state which is a prolonged limbo in which decisions can be made - consciously or unconsciously - by the disembodied being about their destination.
Clearly Buddhists agree on the broad outline of this hybrid model, but details vary from culture to culture often exhibiting the direct influence of local culture.
We need to note that all afterlife beliefs (except perhaps the Seeding variety which I will leave out of this discussion) by definition require a mind-body duality. While the body dies something does not die but persists. This insubstantial aspect of the being may be called mind or soul or spirit or something else, but it is not part of the body, and not permanently bound to the body. All afterlife beliefs are therefore fundamentally dualistic. All recycling afterlife beliefs therefore also create another problem in that they require a mechanism by which the mind (or whatever) can detach from the body and reattach to another body - and as Buddhists we do need to acknowledge that our own forms of rebirth belief share these fundamental problems. Where the afterlife belief entails 'memories' of past lives this entails the further difficult problem of how memories are stored and accessed, and why they are not generally available. Such metaphysical problems seem insoluble to me.
Recent research on children's afterlife beliefs [2] suggest that even young children understand that when a person dies their physical functions cease. However children seem to believe that mental functioning may continue in the dead 'person'. So the deceased may not need to eat, but will still feel hungry. It may be that having developed a theory of mind, i.e. the ability to see other beings as self conscious in the way that we are self conscious, that we find it hard to imagine a dead person not having an inner life, even when they clearly have no outer life. We also have a tendency to see self-consciousness in places where it cannot logically exist. Animism is far from dead, and was given a boost by 19th Century Romantics.
I would say that some sort of afterlife belief is one of the fundamental characteristics of religion and that it is difficult to imagine a religion which did not address this question (I can't think of an example). It is true that nihilists have arisen within societies, and sometimes become quite prominent, but I also cannot think of a generally nihilistic society or culture.
Philosopher Thomas Metzinger has also put forward the idea that because the strongest urge, desire, drive (it is difficult to find terms which are not anthropomorphic) of life is to continue - aka the survival instinct - that faced with the certainty of death we simply cannot cope and chose to believe in continuity whatever the evidence. Hence though science has undermined religion since the European Enlightenment, it has not annihilated it, and indeed fundamentalist religion, with the greatest reliance on faith and superstition, appears to be on the rise. What 'feels right', can over-ride what 'makes sense', or to put it another way it feels wrong that life does not continue, so we prefer unlikely invention. Metzinger makes the interesting point that attacking such beliefs, especially from an empirical realist (aka 'scientific') point of view is not an ethically neutral venture. Attacking deeply held beliefs, even if they be factually erroneous, under these circumstances may in fact create more suffering than the ignorance itself. At the very least we must consider our motives for attacking other people's beliefs.
That said, when we line all these different kinds of belief up together I'm at a loss to decide between them - they all seem equally unlikely to me, especially in light of theory of mind research. We should not fall into the error of thinking of assertions as evidence. All of these forms of belief are supported by assertions and arguments, but by what possible criteria would we assess them, either individually or comparatively? We simply choose to believe without reference to rational criteria. But then this how human beings make decisions, so perhaps it's not great surprise.
Notes This section in particular relies on Gananath Obeyesekere. (2002) Imagining Karma: Ethical Transformation in Amerindian, Buddhist and Greek Rebirth. University of California Press. Obeyesekere discusses rebirth theories found in the Americas, Africa, Polynesia, Ancient Greece and India and provides a very useful taxonomy of the development of rebirth eschatologies that has influenced this post.See for instance: Oxford Centre for Anthropology & Mind.Bering et al. (2005) "The development of ‘afterlife’ beliefs in religiously and secularly schooled children." British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 23, 587–607. pdf
18 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formThere's another possibility that you might find charming (although utterly implausible). It's due to Peter van Inwagen, an outstanding philosopher, who unfortunately is Catholic and therefore starts from axioms I find absurd. He's exceptionally clear-thinking, though, and follows the implications of his axioms wherever they go.
So this is a materialist afterlife theory. (Is that great, or what?!) The Church teaches General Resurrection in the body. Van Inwagen denies that there is a soul separate from the body. He holds that personal identity depends on token-identical composition. In other words, an atom-by-atom copy of you is not you.
Now, he says, we can't know for sure exactly how Resurrection works; but the following is a reasonable guess, if you hold those axioms.
At the moment you die, God steals your brain, physically, and he preserves it (cryonically, presumably) in some physical place. Personal identity, van Inwagen argues, depends only on the brain; the rest of the body is replaceable.
God instantly replaces your brain with a perfect atom-by-atom copy, so this maneuver is undetectable. The copy rots, but it's just a copy so that doesn't matter. The atoms in the copy can end up in someone else's brain later; this avoids the objection to bodily resurrection that we the living may share some atoms with dead people.
So then, after the end of time, God will make new bodies for everyone, defrost all the brains, and stick them in.
I just love this. So logical and scientific and yet so wrong.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Hi David
Catholic science fiction!
It is an interesting thing about humans. Not only can we invent reasons for things, and elaborate explanations of unknowable processes, but we can convince ourselves that this and only this is a possible answer. Then we can become so convinced that we would rather die than believe anything thing else; and even be prepared to kill anyone who disagrees with us!
And none of us really knowing the answers...
Friday, June 17, 2011
An excellent post. Updating the Brahmajala Sutta for modern needs. This is the kind of Buddhist thought that's needed. Thanks very much for your work.
One small addendum: The Theravadin dogma of "no interval" seems to be based on a misunderstanding of dependent origination, because the "interval" (bardo) between lives is in fact mentioned in the Canon. At least one bhikkhu attains liberation "in the interval". I'm away from a copy at the moment so cannot provide the citation but will do so at the earliest opportunity.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Hi Gruff,
Thanks. My intention was more modest that updating the Brahmajala Sutta but I suppose in a way that is a worthwhile task.
I look forward to getting that reference to "the interval".
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Thanks for this interesting article.
I would like to comment on the Buddhist mechanism of afterlife.
Over the years I have wondered about how the mechanism of rebirth could actually work and have developed some tentative ideas which do not depend on the mind-body duality: the idea that something persists which is carried over. As you say there are fundamental problems with such ideas especially within the scientific paradigm.
From my understanding of the suttas and the accounts of rebirth and recollection of previous lives the central feature of the mechanism is of kamma. The mechanism of kamma is itself a complex system which doesnt really answer the problems in a satisfatcory scientific manner. One thing it does offer though is that it does away with the necessity of the mind-body duality as being part of that process.
As I understand kamma it can ripen both in the present and onto into the future. Kamma formations lead to the reappearance of beings. Recollection of past lives is possible when there is a tapping into kammic 'memory'. As to thoeries of how this memory could work I think lie in the processes of kammic formation itself. I am not trying to suggest that kamma exists as some kind of radio waves that can be tuned into though. More like conjuction and interplay kammic seeds which manifest under certain conditions.
In an effort to give a more coherent explanation I would look to the relatively more modern scientific theory of chaos. Even though kamma is a complex, chaotic system, it also exhibits patterns like chaos theory predicts. Its is neither totally determinstic nor totally chaotic. The is similar to what can be seen in dependent origination - a chaotic system which has patterns. It exhibits both infintely regenerative features and also the possibility of complete dissolution under very specific conditions (the Eightfold Path).
I realise that this doesnt really explain the mechanism of Buddhist afterlife and rebirth but shifts it way from a mind-body mechanism to more the natively Buddhist process of kamma formation. This is a more satisfactory 'theory' of rebirth to my mind.
Such ideas are probably not going to ever be integrated into the 'modern scietific project' as it points to a process which seems to be ultimately only personallly verifiable. Such personal verification is not a reason for objection though as the goal of the Buddhist project itself, nibbana, is also a matter of personal verification. On taking on the Buddha's path of pratice one is placing a certain degree of confidence that it possible to realise nibanna and give it go even though from the outset one doesnt have all the facts. Direct understanding of kamma, rebirth and nibanna is ultimately a matter personal realisation and probably not apprehendable by scientific theory.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Hi Alex
I'm struggling a bit with the idea that someone would read that post and respond by trying to explain kamma and rebirth to me! Unfortunately you haven't solved the problem, you just disguised it with Buddhist jargon. Adding layers of metaphysics to a metaphysical problem just exacerbates the problem.
I've described many of these problems in an earlier post: Rebirth and the Scientific Method.
A belief that Buddhist dogma is on some level ultimately true, takes us out of the realm of physics, and into metaphysics.
I would argue that such dogmas are at best symbolically helpful. They simply are not true on any level, but they can have other kinds of value. Though I am increasingly doubtful about their utility, and reading your comment has me feeling like throwing my lot in with the secular Buddhists!
The main problem with holding such metaphysical views to be true is that in practice one is always seeking to prove them true, rather than paying attention to what is actually going on. It's an impossible task, but one which you've obviously spent considerable time on. See also my recent posts on karma.
Rebirth, kamma, and nibbāna are all just stories we tell - and no better than anyone else's story, as I would have thought was obvious from seeing them all laid out together! It doesn't help that there are so many different conflicting versions of our story (and people are continually making up new ones! Chaos theory indeed!)
Given the mystification these days, I don't think our stories do anything but hinder practice any more. Perhaps it's time that historical Buddhist terminology was left to historians to argue over, and we just started paying attention and describing what we see in our own words!
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Hi Jayarava
First let me just say that I was not trying to explain kamma and rebirth to you! I have read many of your other articles I happily defer to your expert knowledge. I was simply trying to explain a tentative personal understanding of the Buddhist rebrith 'narrative'. Such narratives while not palatable to scientific and secularist agendas are essential to Buddhist practice. One takes on those narratives because in practice one sees directly their value in the path of practice: they give good results.
I am quite perplexed by the rest of your reply as while I wholeheartedly support the idea that "we just started paying attention and describing what we see in our own words" it seems you class the teachings on kamma and nibbana as purely of symbolical value, when in fact they are the overarching context of that practice. You are right that they are narratives which are unlikely to be scientifically proven as true.
What I find most perplexing is the idea that its possible to have a Buddhist path of practice without taking on the the narratives of kamma and nibbana. Secular Buddhism? In treating “kamma and rebirth, as mere 'consolatory elements' that have crept in to the Dhamma and blunted its critical edge”1 , I fear that the central project of the Buddha's teachings are made pretty redundant. The teaching on kamma and other “such principles were repeatedly taught by the Buddha himself, and not always for the sake of consolation, as a glance through the Paali Nikaayas would show.” 2 The teaching on Right View is an example of the central dependenence of the path of practice on the kamma narrative.
I wonder how much metaphysical baggage a secular Buddhism would cut away to arrive at a Buddhism fit for modern needs. The Five Precepts, the Triple Gem, Going for Refuge?
“I would also maintain that when the secular presuppositions of modernity clash with the basic principles of Right Understanding stressed by the Buddha, there is no question which of the two must be abandoned. Samsaara as the beginningless round of rebirths, kamma as its regulative law, Nibbaana as a transcendent goal—surely these ideas will not get a rousing welcome from sceptical minds. A sense of refuge, renunciation, compassion based on the perception of universal suffering, a striving to break all mental bonds and fetters—surely these values are difficult in an age of easy pleasure. But these are all so fundamental to the true Dhamma, so closely woven into its fabric, that to delete them is to risk nullifying its liberative power.” 3
Saying that rebirth, kamma, and nibbāna are “all just stories we tell” isnt grounds for relegating them to unnecessary historical symbolism. They are stories which when wholeheartedly engaged are of critical importance to the Buddha's path of practice. Shouldnt one judge them by the results they give rather than scientific and secular standards?
1,2,3 Source: Buddhism without Beliefs: Review by Bhikkhu Bodhi
http://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebdha106.htm
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Alex,
Am I more likely to attain liberation if I believe in kamma and nibbana? If so how much more?
Friday, June 24, 2011
I Think Alex didn't like my responses and has retreated from the discussion. But good questions.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Hi gruff
Let me answer your question by asking you a question in return.
Do you have confidence in the efficacy of your actions to give good or bad results depending on their quality?
If you sincerely want to put an end to suffering the Buddha asks that you should take certain things on faith, as working hypotheses, and then test them through following his path of practice. One those things is kamma.
“...instead of an empirical proof for his teaching on karma, the Buddha offered a pragmatic proof: If you believe in his teachings on causality, karma, rebirth, and the four noble truths, how will you act? What kind of life will you lead? Won't you tend to be more responsible and compassionate? If, on the other hand, you were to believe in any of the alternatives — such as a doctrine of an impersonal fate or a deity who determined the course of your pleasure and pain, or a doctrine that all things were coincidental and without cause — what would those beliefs lead you to do? Would they allow you to put an end to suffering through your own efforts? Would they allow any purpose for knowledge at all? If, on the other hand, you refused to commit to a coherent idea of what human action can do, would you be likely to see a demanding path of practice all the way through to the end?
...As Sariputta stated in another discourse, his proof was experiential but so inward that it touched a dimension where not only the external senses but even the sense of the functioning of the mind can't reach. If you want to confirm his knowledge you have to touch that dimension in the only place you can access it, inside yourself. This is one of two ways in which the Buddha's method differs from that of modern empiricism.
The other has to do with the integrity of the person attempting the proof.
As in science, faith in the Buddha's Awakening acts like a working hypothesis, but the test of that hypothesis requires an honesty deeper and more radical than anything science requires. You have to commit yourself — every variation on who you feel you are — totally to the test. Only when you take apart all clinging to your inner and outer senses can you prove whether the activity of clinging is what hides the deathless. The Buddha never forced anyone to commit to this test, both because you can't coerce people to be honest with themselves, and because he saw that the pit of burning embers was coercion enough.”1
1. Excerpts from: Faith In Awakening by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/faithinawakening.html
Friday, June 24, 2011
Hi Alex
Can you lay off the long quotes from other people? They're tedious. If you haven't got anything to say, then the best bet is to say nothing. We'll either read the author in question ourselves in due course, or we don't care what they say in the first place.
The subject is as stated in the blog post, and comments should be your original contribution.
"the Buddha asks that you should take certain things on faith"
The Buddha died 2500 years ago. So who is asking us to take things on faith, and on what basis? I mean we don't even know that there was a Buddha, and we certainly don't know what his name was. And besides, if we are talking about textual and traditional Buddhism, then the Buddha never asks anyone to take anything on faith, and he declares this a bad way to approach morality (Kālāma Sutta - see my blog posts on it, esp. Negative Criteria for Moral Decision Making in The Kālāma Sutta)
I have no confidence in my actions having good or bad outcomes depending on their "quality". (what does quality mean in this context anyway?) I don't think any of us can have any kind of confidence that we understand the consequences of our actions (else stock market crashes would never occur!). Lots of bad things I've done have gone unnoticed, and lots of good things. If I was going on strictly empirical lines then I would say that what I believe is completely uncorrelated with what happens to me; that the consequences of actions are more or less random. Good things happen to bad people every day, and bad things happen to good people. And this is why I could never believe in God - because there is no apparent logic to events and either there is no God or God is an idiot: anyway you look at it worshipping God is folly.
The reasoning of why it is better to be moral cannot stand on a dogma. Which raises the question on what does our imperative to me moral rest? Ask yourself that question!
And, as I have said, if you have a preconceived idea about what you will observe when you begin looking, then you will be more likely to only see what you expect to see, and to dismiss, discount, or merely overlook what you are not expecting to see. The technical term for this is Confirmation Bias.
Confirmation Bias is what is currently wrecking Buddhism from my point of view - a lot of people quoting from books, but with nothing to say in their own words, from their own experience. If you are not speaking from your own experience then why are you insisting that you know the answers? Quotations do not constitute answers.
You seem to be arguing that cultivating the right opinions is important. This is the near enemy of insight - it is the thing which seduces us into believing that to achieve insight all we need to do is read the right books, or listen to the right teacher. Once you know how to meditate you know everything you need to know. Beware mistaking the map for the territory.
Anyone can have an opinion. But so what? I have lot's of 'em. Doesn't even make me clever, let alone awake.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Here's someone else with a similar (but not identical) view to mine.
New Buddhist - With a Question. Buddhism Sucks
I more or less endorse what he says. I could quibble but I won't because we need to hear more of this kind of thing to combat the unquestioning adoption of Buddhist dogmas.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
I shall abandon this discussion so as to avoid driving it further off topic. I will leave only this comment: Alex, you have not answered my question. Yes I know the Buddha sometimes answered a question with a question, but on the evidence of the suttas he did so by exposing his interlocutor's underlying assumptions in order to assist him onward to deeper understanding and awakening, and not by quoting texts to his interlocutor in order to browbeat him into adopting a predetermined ideological position.
Jayarava, good points as always. I will say that in my encounters with elements of American Zen, troubled though that sect may be, I have seen precisely this emphasis on direct personal experience that you refer to, an emphasis that I find all over the Canon, albeit clouded by the style of those texts. Faith I do have: faith in just this direct personal struggle and investigation, with truth as both its present and ultimate object.
For some reason, perhaps the above encounter with a form of weirdly proselytising Buddhianity, the similarity of the words "Gelug" and "gulag" has just occurred to me. I believe I shall give it to your cited blog author.
Finally, I am switching to my Google identity so that I can keep track of comments. I know I am behind on a couple of discussions; I shall attend to them soon.
-the commenter formerly known as gruff
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
I have a lot of things in mind after reading your article. I'm gonna to print it because I want to read the article one more time and have more thoughts. Thanks!
All the best,
Gerard
Friday, July 01, 2011
Hi Gerard,
Well I aim to stimulate thinking :-) I also found this subject very thought provoking. I think this is a case of the medium is the message: the outlines of the belief systems generally tells us more about humans than the contents of any one of them.
I await your thoughts with interest.
Jayarava
Saturday, July 02, 2011
Hi Jayarava,
as a non-believer in rebirth you may not be interested, but as a close and keen textual scholar this may be worth having a look at for you -
I was interested in the point, picked up by gruff above, on the belief in interval/no interval in rebirth and the relationship to canonical texts. Bhante Sujato, whose work of course you know, argues that the 'no interval' belief is not an early Buddhist belief, but a specifically Theravadin belief, and that the picture as depicted by the canon is of an interval.
The essay in which he discusses this (among other issues), including his usual detailed and fascinating textual references, is here:
http://santifm.org/santipada/2010/rebirth-and-the-in-between-state-in-early-buddhism/
With metta,
Rowan.
Thursday, July 07, 2011
Hi Rowan,
It's interesting to see myself referred to as a non-believer in rebirth. I had two main responses to this. Firstly I recall myself as saying that while I did not absolutely discount the possibility, I thought it unlikely. Many philosophical problems emerge from metaphysic of rebirth, and Buddhism has not solved these (2500 years on). And in this recent post, I thought it equally unlikely alongside all the other beliefs - so if I disbelieve in anything it is the broader notion of post-mortem continuity. By contrast I have argued that it is better to believe than not, on the basis that it motivates one to be virtuous, but this opinion brought quite a lot of criticism from some quarters. The more I think about it, the less likely it seems that rebirth has any meaning beyond being a morality play. But I do believe in the value of morality.
My second response is to say that what I believe about such matters is neither here nor there, except in how what I believe makes me act. I'm hardly likely to act on an idea I find unconvincing, and yet we know that ideas do not determine behaviour so much as emotions do, and conditioning. I happen to be the kind of person in whom ideas stir emotions - but in my experience this makes me rare.
I don't know Sujato's work, at least there is nothing in particular I associate with him - I think I look a his blog from time to time. Thanks for the link. Not sure I'll find time to read it, but others might be interested.
Friday, July 08, 2011
The Sujato piece linked to by genrenaut contains most of the "interval" references in the Suttas that I had in mind.
Saturday, July 09, 2011