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Does rebirth matter?
Karma and rebirth were part of the cultural baggage
of the ancient Indian Buddhist. For many contemporary Westerners
- and even some Easterners - these ideas will not sit comfortably
with their understanding of how the universe works, at least in their
traditional guises.
Early Buddhism tended to speak of Karma and rebirth in two voices.
First, it offered a fairly crude, simplistic model that was able both
to account for suffering and to spur people into living a good life
through fear of a nasty rebirth and the promise of a pleasant one.
It offered a rather neat, even symmetrical, vision of life in which
good was always rewarded, and evil was always punished. But like the
traditional Christian vocabulary of heaven and hell,
this was rather a blunt instrument. As we have seen, this model owes
a great deal to pre-existing ideas and its limitations betray these
origins.
Secondly, Buddhism talked about Karma in a subtler, more psychological
way. This understanding embodies a genuine spiritual advance on what
had gone before. With every choice we make, whether overtly
expressed or not, we modify our character. Through skilful choices
we develop creative habits, whereas through unskilful choices we not
only starve our positive impulses but also encourage destructive
ones. For better or worse, we are constantly renewing ourselves, even
with every passing thought.
But more than this, in modifying our character we also modify our
way of relating to the world, which means our experience of the
world changes. In an important sense, our world is a creation of
our mind. Part of this is the way we influence how others respond
to us. But we have seen that this second voice speaks less dogmatically
than the first; it allows for many variations, exceptions, and even
anomalies. This might be unsatisfactory for some people, but
perhaps this reflects the true complexity of experience.
It is fairly easy to accept the doctrine of Karma, at least as expressed
in the second voice. We can see how people change because of what
they do and the decisions they make. We can also see how this informs
their outlook on the world and how others respond to them. But the
same is not true of rebirth. We have to stretch our imagination a
lot further if we are to take this on. Not only is it not immediately
verifiable but it also raises a number of questions that traditional
Buddhism has not decisively answered.
Do We Need Rebirth?
Given the cultural origins of the Buddhist teaching of
rebirth, is it relevant to the modern world? Had it emerged from a
different cultural background, would Buddhism have taught rebirth
at all? Such questions invite us to re-examine the status of Buddhist
teachings. Do they aim to provide accurate descriptions of reality
or are they simply pragmatic? The Buddha's declared aim was to
lead people to spiritual liberation, freedom from all limiting beliefs
and habits, the transcendence of suffering. He aimed to help others
to reproduce in themselves the spiritual awakening that
he himself enjoyed, not to indoctrinate them with a system of ideas.
Possibly the Buddha talked in terms of rebirth because that is how
people then conceived of themselves and their future; he needed to
communicate his message in a way they could understand.
Because rebirth was taken to be self-evident, traditional Buddhism
did little to argue in its favour. But we live within a very different
cultural paradigm, one which does not generally accept rebirth. This
means that either the case for rebirth needs to be convincing or the
whole area should be left open. But is a belief in rebirth necessary
in order to practise Buddhism effectively? While some traditional
Buddhists would respond with an emphatic 'yes', it seems
to me that the answer is 'no'. Looking at the notion of
rebirth pragmatically will help to clarify this.
Buddhism is a practical religion; progress does not consist in a happy
consent to holy dogmas but in spiritual evolution, which
means transcending selfishness, hatred, and unawareness. Beliefs are
relevant in so far as they encourage this process; if they don't,
it is not that they are necessarily untrue, just beside the point.
So how does a belief in rebirth help us to evolve? Historically, fear
of rebirth has functioned not only as a spur to spiritual practice
but also as a means of social control; people really believed they
would be reborn, and that if they acted badly they would suffer. Buddhist
tradition describes in great detail the appalling conditions that
will be one's lot if one lives an immoral life. Thus rebirth
functioned as a kind of stick that goaded people to change their lives.
More subtly, rebirth vividly expresses how our actions have implications
beyond ourselves, even beyond our own deaths. Our conduct does
matter, it will influence the future whether we are there to
see it or not. Rebirth therefore enables us to recognize the importance
of our actions. We cannot contract out of life; whether for better
or for worse we are going to make a difference.
Despite the Buddha's radical insight that a karma is a volition
(cetana) and that one may reap the consequences
of one's actions within one's current lifetime, the tendency
of early Buddhist scriptures is to understand karmic consequences
in terms of what will happen after death. So if one lives a skilful
life one will be reborn in a happy realm, if one lives an unskilful
life one will be reborn in a realm of suffering. It is clear that
the early Buddhists believed that, without fear of retribution
after death, people would have no positive motives for acting skilfully,
because they would not see the danger in unwholesome motivations.(footnote 104)
The doctrine of nihilism (natthikavada),
as criticized in the Buddhist scriptures, not only denies rebirth
but also rejects Karma altogether. It would seem that acceptance of
an afterlife was integral to the early Buddhist conception of how
Karma worked. The two were seen as inseparable, but they need not
be.
If we don't believe in punishment or reward after death, can
we really have no motivation to live skilfully? The
main issue seems to be finding another means by which to spur us to
amend our lives. If we are able to develop a strong volition to live
skilfully and strive for spiritual insight, then rebirth may be irrelevant.
But in the absence of the 'fear factor' of punishment after
death we will need to find another emotional fuel to propel us forward.
We will need to see how spiritual practice will lead us to break free
from suffering within this life and lead us to a happier, more fulfilled
existence. We also need to understand how not taking care of our spiritual
life will lead to painful consequences. This requires a more subtle
and positive basis for spiritual practice than fear of punishment.
Such a foundation is embodied in the Pali term samvega,
a word that is quite difficult to translate but which indicates an
experience that includes, firstly, a realization that life as normally
lived is futile and meaningless, and secondly, that we have been foolish
and complacent in having let ourselves live so blindly. Finally, it
suggests a vivid sense of urgency to find a way out of the meaningless
cycle of mundane life.(footnote 105) This final dimension of the experience
of samvega is particularly crucial because it is the fuel
that propels us to search for a way forward. The fact that there is
a way out of our predicament, and that we can respond creatively to
it, is what leads us towards the experience of spiritual commitment
and saves us from existential despair.
It may be that it is only on the basis of a deep experience of savega
that spiritual life becomes a possibility. Until we recognize that
our lives are lacking, a spiritual path is unnecessary; until we realize
we are imprisoned, we are unlikely to want to escape. The philosopher
Ludwig Wittgenstein expressed this very
well:
"It would be as though someone were first to let me see the
hopelessness of my situation and then show me the means of rescue
until, of my own accord, or not at any rate led to it by my instructor,
I ran to it and grasped it." (footnote 106)
Some people have said to me that if rebirth wasn't
true, and it wasn't possible that we could be reborn in hell
or as an animal, they would have no motivation to act ethically and
spiritually develop themselves. I find this attitude difficult to
understand because, for my own part, the suffering I experience in
this very life, the sense of futility and emptiness that sometimes
washes through me, are quite enough to motivate me to take care of
my existence. At a time when institutions for social regulation were
much less developed than they are now, 'cosmic threats'
of hell may have been essential in order to keep human beings on the
straight and narrow (though they weren't universally successful).
But do we still need the fear of hell to spur us to amend our ways?
We can enter hell now, in this very lifetime. If we consider for a
moment what some human beings have had to endure - the Holocaust,
for example - could there be anything much worse? Heaven and
hell are accessible to us right now; we don't need to think of
them as places we might go to after death.
As long as we can motivate ourselves to develop skilful mental states
and eradicate unskilful ones, we can embark on the path of spiritual
transformation. Beliefs about rebirth may be beside
the point. And this is surely one of the most wonderful things about
Buddhism: there is no need to accept a whole range of unverifiable
dogmas before we can practise spiritually. This is a crucial point,
because there is a danger of evaluating how 'good' a Buddhist
one is in terms of how closely one's beliefs accord with traditional
doctrines. However, we don't become better Buddhists through
the uncritical acceptance of traditional Buddhist dogmas, but by developing
wisdom and compassion.
A specious argument sometimes used to defend
rebirth is that to reject it would undermine the principle of dependent origination. We have a certain 'conscious
momentum'; surely that momentum can't just disappear?
How can nothing come from something? This is quite a feeble line of
reasoning because it assumes that our consciousness is independent
of our physical body and can survive without it. But this is the very
question at issue. The principle of dependent origination states
that all things arise in dependence upon conditions, and when those
conditions cease the thing itself ceases. If individualized consciousness
is dependent on the body for its survival, it will disintegrate
when the body dies. No one would insist that it contradicts conditionality
to say that a rainbow disappears when the rains stops. We do not need
to think that the rainbow 'carries on' in some way.
What if Rebirth is False?
Are there significant implications for Buddhism as a whole
if rebirth is no more than an ancient Indian superstition? What I
have said so far might suggest not, but I think there are. First,
if rebirth does not take place then the content and scope of the Buddhist
goal must be re-presented. For instance, one of the most common ways
of describing the Buddha's spiritual insight in the early scriptures
is known as the three knowledges (tevijja) (footnote 107).
According to this formula, three things were integral to the Buddha's
realization: the ability to recollect his manifold past lives, the
ability, with his Divine Eye, to see the passing
away and reappearance of beings and an understanding of how beings
pass on according to their actions, and, finally, the seeing with
direct knowledge (abhinna)
that he has destroyed all negative inner drives.
So it would seem that, at least for the early Buddhist tradition,
an understanding of rebirth was a critical dimension of the awakening
experience. What is puzzling about the formula of the three knowledges
is that the first two are not the sole preserve of spiritually awakened
beings but are, rather, said to be supernormal powers that can be
gained through meditative concentration. In other words,
it is only the third knowledge - destruction of negative inner
drives - that is uniquely characteristic of the Buddhist goal.
This makes me wonder why the other two are so emphasized. It is clear
that the formulation of a threefold knowledge is an ironic reference
to the Brahmanical ideal, which itself focused on three knowledges.
These were the Vedas, the orally-transmitted sacred texts. In emphasizing
a personal spiritual insight above textual authority, the Buddhist
tradition reconceived the meaning of knowledge: it was something the
individual realized, not something learned by heart from the elders.
This may explain why the first two of the Buddhist three knowledges
appear so prominently in early texts: the formula became shorthand
for a spiritual experience that to many may already have seemed rather
remote. Given that only the destruction of all negative inner drives
is a knowledge unique to spiritual awakening, it would seem likely
that this particular property discloses the fundamental nature of
that experience more than the other two.
Another possibility is that the three knowledges, though seemingly
presented as literal realizations, could be understood more metaphorically.
On such a reading, the first knowledge could indicate how the Buddha
achieved deep insight into his own character. He sees how his past
conduct has formed the person he is now, so his habit patterns have
become completely transparent to him. The second knowledge shows how
the Buddha understood the way in which others condition themselves
and their futures. It enables him to read the characters of others,
to understand not only where they come from but also where they are
heading. The third knowledge illustrates the Buddha's self mastery:
he is in control of himself because he is fully conscious, not driven
by unconscious desires or habits.
If we discard rebirth as conventionally understood, the traditional
Buddhist way of describing our human predicament and the nature of
the spiritual enterprise must be re-envisaged. No longer are we aiming
to break free from the wheel of birth and death but
rather to shake off our spiritual fetters in this very life. This
is not an alarming adjustment, but many traditional texts talk about
the Buddhist goal in cosmic terms, something to be worked towards
over many thousands of lifetimes. If we have just one life, we will
have to get a move on: we don't have much time. This could have
very positive consequences by generating a sense of urgency
and an appreciation of the preciousness of the present moment. If
we have thousands of lifetimes before us, we might be tempted into
complacency and so slacken our spiritual efforts. By withdrawing
attention from the possibility of future lives we can concentrate
our attention more keenly on the present. The Buddhist saint becomes
a human exemplar, not a cosmic superman: we really can emulate
him or her, rather than just stand back in awe.
But a rejection of rebirth also calls into question the range of the
Buddha's spiritual insight. While some scholars have argued that
the Buddha didn't really teach rebirth at all, this charge could
be made against all the teachings of early Buddhism: no one knows
for certain what the Buddha actually taught. It is at least reasonable
to assume that the Buddha not only taught rebirth but was convinced
that such a belief was useful in the process of spiritual transformation.
If the Buddha thought it was useful, who are we to argue?
I have already drawn attention to the provisional and instrumental
nature of beliefs within Buddhism. A 'wrong view' (micchaditthi),
according to Buddhism, is not a factually inaccurate one (such as
a belief that the moon is made of green cheese) but a perspective
that prevents us making spiritual progress. The form and style of
the cultural universe in which the Buddha taught inevitably influenced
how he communicated his insights. So, for instance, the Buddha made
use of traditional Indian cosmology, a
cosmology that appears quaintly primitive to today's scientist.
Few Buddhists would demand we adopt the ancient Indian view of the
universe in its entirety. Rather, we must seek to understand the spiritual
message it was used to express. Some of the ways that the Buddha thought
and communicated about the world might seem from a modern point of
view to be just plain wrong, but this would be to misunderstand their
status. We must remember that the Buddha's teachings were a raft,
and their measure, therefore, is in how successfully they fulfilled
their function. Crucially, the views that foster spiritual transformation
need re-evaluation in the light of changing cultural and personal
circumstances. This means that had he been around today the Buddha
would probably have used different - perhaps even radically different
- images and concepts to communicate his message.
Any practitioner of Buddhism must be wary of dogmatic acceptance
or rejection of rebirth, and an examination of the motives for
taking any particular view will be very instructive. We are often
attracted or repelled by certain teachings for psychological reasons.
For instance, we might want to live for ever, so we find rebirth comforting,
or we might hate ourselves and find the notion of oblivion after
death seductive. At the same time, we shouldn't feel obliged
to conform with a dogma simply because it has been a historical part
of the spiritual tradition we have adopted, neither should we pretend
to be convinced by a doctrine we think is culturally redundant. Following
a spiritual path is not about subscribing to rigid dogmas but about
overcoming selfishness and hatred and seeing our lives with complete
clarity.
A pragmatic approach to Karma and rebirth I have found quite reassuring
is the one found in the Kalama
Sutta (Anguttara Nikaya 3.65). In this text, the Buddha points out that a
man who lives a committed ethical life can be assured of four things:
(1) if Karma and rebirth are true, then, owing to his skilful life
he will be reborn after death in a good destination, even in a heaven
world, (2) if rebirth is not true he will have lived a joyful life
anyway, happy and free from ill will, (3) if evil conduct reaps suffering,
the ethical person has nothing to fear because he has not acted evilly,
(4) if evil conduct does not lead to painful consequences, then the
ethical person has nothing to fear anyway.
The most important thing, then, is to live a skilful, compassionate
life. If we do this, we need not worry about what may or may not happen
after death, since if there is rebirth we will have established a
wholesome foundation for our next existence, and if there is no rebirth
it won't concern us. We need not rely on the possibility of some
'reward' after death because there are great benefits to
be gained here and now through spiritual practice.
footnotes
104: See, for example, Apannaka Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya 60.5-9)
105: 'Affirming the Truths of the Heart: The Buddhist Teachings on Samvega and Pasada', Access to Insight website.
106: Anthony Kenny (ed.), The Wittgenstein Reader,
Blackwell, 1994, p.302
107: Maha-Assapura Suttafrom (Majjhima Nikaya 39.19-21)
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