I recently tuned into the ongoing Buddhist discussion: Is there a self that reincarnates? Or is the existence of an individual self a delusion or misunderstanding? This is one of the perennial debates among Buddhists. See an example here.
For my part, I think this question is a huge timewaster. As someone who aspires to uphold the Lotus Sutra, I notice that the sutra is full of examples of reincarnated beings. In the LS, Shakyamuni tells stories about some of the beings gathered at the Treasure Tower ceremony. He tells of past lives, and what ultimately becomes of the beings involved in the stories. He offers prophecies based on karma formed in current and previous lives.
I wouldn't call myself a literalist, but isn't this pretty much all I need to know about whether there is some aspect of one's individual life and experience that endures from lifetime to lifetime? And, if such an understanding is mistaken according to Buddhism, why does the LS talk about these things at such length?
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I respect that there are many detailed, scholarly arguments on this topic. And yet...I wonder how useful are they to the average Buddhist practitioner?The LS and even Nichiren seem to -- colloquially if not formally -- suggest that some aspect of one's "individual" life continues and sometimes reincarnates. I recall passages in the gosho where Nichiren wonders about his past-life relationships with people who helped him while he was in exile.Whether this understanding of self, non-self, karma and reincarnation is "correct" or not seems beside the point.The point, I believe, is that both the LS and Nichiren are giving us a context in which to understand the breadth/vastness of our lives. The lesson, to me, is treat people as if you will be seeing them again and again, in lifetime after lifetime. Behave as if you have bonds with your fellows that reach into the distant past and will continue far into the future. This is something that we perhaps sense intuitively, and therefore think there must be something that "continues" -- a soul, something. Some argue that belief in a soul is nothing more than the manifestation and extension of ego. I see it more as an extension of heart, love enduring across life and death.When a loved one dies, this intuitive feeling of enduring love can become quite vivid. All the brilliant scholarly arguments seem foolish then, because it becomes clear that there is something going on that defies theoretical analysis.
Fool that I am, I have been looking at this subject for my book, but more from the more stereological angle (i.e. can/does it relieve suffering) in dealing with the human ego...i.e. if the self is "permanent"... ergo ...so must the ego (5 Aggregates) when manifested...FWIW and IMO...my conclusion, affirmed by my study of T'ien-T'ai Buddhism is that the self is a conventional truth/ke, not-self the truth of Emptiness/ku, and the Middle Way/chu is a synthesis that integrates both views. As Auntie and Brooke perhaps allude to; all the rest of this is the "navel-gazing" results of "a professional Buddhist class".....As much as the Lotus Sutra is an accretion...it's theme and intent is right on...we all are The Original Buddha...a function and manifestation of "The Original Awakened Mind".....we just have to wake up to that factThe book T'ien-T'ai Buddhism and Early Madhyamika by NG Yu-Kwan, sets up an interesting dynamic between Nagarjuna and T'ien-T'ai about this subject...the fact that T'ien-T'ai has the "balls" to say Nagarjuna is wrong...is worth IMO, "the price of admission" as Nagarjuna is the founder of almost, if not all, Mahayana schools and his word is pretty well "gospel"....Four Alternatives or Tetralema, as you may know, is a form of rigorous Buddhist logic used to test the truth value of any statement. In brief A, not A, both and neither... Hegelian logic used in the west is synthesis/A, antithesis/not A and Synthesis/both A and not A....Buddhist logic goes one and then 2 steps further....long story...(smile)
This goes on for pages and pages....T'ien-T'ai makes his argument, and IMO, a great one, for the Middle Way...which is what Nichiren taught, that is, if you can strip all the polemics and decontextualize Nichiren's message.Thanks for the links I got from the SGI site...I will try to read them...I remain,Franko the FoolMaybe it was written as sci-fi. Or maybe its not talking about what you think its talking about.If self is eternal and we have had eternity to work this out and still don't know the answer then either it does not matter or we are really really stupid.If its not eternal why is that so bad?Personally, just trying to do the best with what I have and the only sure thing is now.
The idea and hope of something surviving death is common to humanity and religion. Some believe when you're dead you're dead and it is nothing more then blackness with no perception or sensation. Based on intuition, wisdom, and the words of the eternal Buddha "there is no ebb of flow of birth and death," but there is an eternal wheel of passages from one realm and form to another. With that principle in mind, the final extinction thought to be nirvana, is an illusion of consciousness as you are the wheel; your life is the same as all life, everywhere for all time. You are a node Indra's net, arising in relation to other mutually arising phenomena, without beginning or end, only changfing form.As the title say's "there is no "I" in me." The "I" of the ego, or that sense of self is a temporary assimilation comprised of the five components of form, perception, conception, volition, and consciousness that bring to a fine focus a personality, which, upon death melts back into the field of energy to be replace with a new form and identity. Is it the same "self?" Something transcendental is observing, but then the Buddha asserts that there is no observer. The what is it that experiences?The riddle is explained in negatives because "Thous art That!" You are "it!" What in the world does that mean? Perhaps if we move beyond locality and envision our being as vast as the multiverse and without beginning or end, we can see that you (we) are the subject, the object, and the nothingness from wwhence it comes. More riddles? No, you are it!
I don't know if there is reincarnation or not, but what I suppose is that tales of reincarnation are just like stories of heaven and hell, they are meant to goad you into certain actions. If I have future lives ahead of me I expect I will be just as ignorant of my current life as I am now about my past ones. For all intents and purposes they have nothing to do with me so why should I concern myself about them?As far as the claim that there are examples of reincarnation in the Lotus Sutra, well theres a lot of mythology in the Lotus Sutra and it seems much more likely to me that this is another example of Indian Cosmology repeated by Buddhism having nothing to do with actual historical facts.To me there's no debate to be had, you can believe it or not as you like because you can not conclusively prove anything about it.The idea of rebirth seems more palatable to me as it is an example of the conservation of energy, it can't be proven either but it seems likely that that which I conceive of as myself will not at any point cease to exist but will change and evolve into something else.
I have to agree with clown on what he has said. And the whole notion of Karma is a hypothesis because it is subjective. It has always struck me as futile to measure the merits of life in terms of karmic causality. If your life is eternal, then so is your karma. Infinitely so. It would thus be virtually impossible to render a judgement about ones current life's condition by making a assumption about past causes that have infinite variables. Oy!So here we are conscious of being alive, having an awareness of our existence, but locked into a cocoon of self. And since we know we are going to cease one day, it's comforting to create an extension of our self. Now that's an attachment!
Hey, I just came across the following quote in the Dhammapada. It sorta applies to this conversation. I'm not trying to "prove" anything related to reincarnation with this quote. Actually, I find it puzzling:
It's the analogy that puzzles me. Not that I doubt the aptness of the analogy. I'm just having a hard time picturing it. The fruits of right action being like rejoicing loved ones...interesting.These two words indicate the same thing, although rebirth is a better term. The self does not transfer between lives so the term reincarnation is not accurate, although there may be remnants that arise in the form of multiple personalities, etc. The University of Virginia has been doing a study for the past more than twenty years on rebirth where it seems that some children under the age of five have memories from past lives. These memories disappear at about age five, but they have some astounding examples. Problem is I have never been able to find anything written about it, other than the occasional article that pops up.
If the self does not transfer how can anyone remember past lives?
If the self does not transfer how can anyone remember past lives? By tapping into the collective unconscious, maybe.
I once read that the reason people think they have a past life expeience is that indeed, as Mr Hidden suggests, they have merely tapped into the alaya or collective unconscious...makes sense to me.