The Problem of Evidence

We ought not pass on from this topic without mentioning the scientific study of reincarnation so-called. The attempt to demonstrate the plausibility of rebirth “scientifically” can be summarized as scant anecdotal evidence amounting, in a very few instances, to a weak prima facie case that upon examination quickly collapses. In answer to the standard question, “How do you account for so-and-so’s vision, memory, ability, information?” I refer readers to the standard reply, that on a case-by-case basis it is in practice always possible to find a more plausible alternative hypothesis. Countless books and articles have been written about the inadequacy of the “proofs” of reincarnation. I will not recapitulate their contents here.

I will, however pause long enough to draw your attention to one interesting feature of the problem facing advocates of karma-theory whenever they try to explain an individual’s apparently impossible knowledge. The central nervous system of the human being is a powerful, convincing and occasionally deceptive generator of extraordinary and even impossible events. We have abundant evidence of compelling and yet utterly subjective “experiences.” The data are derived from the study of dreams, drug-induced states, advanced visualization techniques, schizophrenia, and sensory deprivation.

For most people, most of the time, it is possible to distinguish dreaming from waking life. It is even possible for the insane to sometimes discriminate hallucinated objects, voices and persons from those that are physically present, as the mathematician John Nash taught himself to do. It is unclear, to say the least, what criteria might be used to distinguish experiences of the astral plane from, let us say, spontaneously arisen visions due to prolonged fasting and dancing, or excessive intense concentration, or the unwitting ingestion of hallucinogenic bread mold. How, for that matter, are we to judge whether an unconfirmed verbal report is based on recollection of a past life, demonic possession, or acts of imagination? If most of us vastly prefer the latter explanation, it is because it requires far less in the way of groundless speculation and dovetails better with what we know to be relatively certain about the world.

Personhood & Renewed Existence

Absolute individuality and immutable personhood are incompatible with the Buddhist worldview. Acceptance of the core concept of pratitya-samutpada would seem to force the Buddhist to repudiate the notion of a permanent identity. Anything that might constitute the Self can be ruled out on account of its transience and contingency. The thesis of interdependence subverts both subjective and objective knowledge of the Self by positing the dependent arising of sensory phenomena in the former case, and suggesting an ontology of co-emergence in the latter.

What, then, of the ordinary sense of self or personhood?

It is argued that, by virtue of the right sort of causal connections, a person, Jones, at the age of ten is not the same (in the strict sense) as Jones at the age of 50, nor is he different. The relation of neither-sameness-nor-difference (or both-the-same-and-different) is also said to obtain between Smith at the time of his death and his causally related, afterlife successor, Bialistok. A third person, Allweather, has never had the same sort of relation with Jones or Bialistok that the various ephemeral versions of Jones have with each other or that Jones is alleged to have with his identity-successor, Bialistok. Jones and Allweather are different persons. Moreover, all the temporally successive versions of Smith are different from all the successive versions of Allweather, all the causally dependent predecessors of Smith (i. e., his “past lives”) are different from the causally dependent predecessors of Allweather, and the same relation of difference will be true for future versions of Smith and Allweather.[1]

Leaving aside for the moment the matter of how to account for causal relations across lifespans, let us ask what is it about Jones and Allweather that makes them different persons The most obvious difference between them is the two particular bodies associated with the names Bevan Jones and Thaddeus Allweather. Identical twins, no matter how much alike, are regarded as separate persons. A living clone of Bevan Jones would doubtless be considered another person for both quotidian and legal purposes. And although bodily form by itself cannot comprise personhood—a brain-dead body on mechanical life support has ceased, I think, to be a person except perhaps in a restricted legal sense—there is strong reason to suppose bodily form to be a sine qua non of conventional identity. Try joining a health club without one.

I hasten to add that we are speaking here of socially acknowledged bodies, bodies with names, “personalities.” Animate, particular, recognized bodies are all we need for a perfectly serviceable concept of personhood, the long tradition of dualism notwithstanding. In any case, so long as there is a body or bodies present there is no problem in grasping both “complete difference” between persons and the relation of neither-same-nor-different between different stages or versions of the same person. The trouble starts when the conversation turns to causal continuity (of any sort) in the absence of bodies.

If we begin with the idea, or vision, of interdependent origination, we will come to see that the many stages, phases, moments of a life (the activity of being a person) are causally continuous, share a common context and bear a family resemblance to their spatial and temporal neighbors rather than a strict identity. We will notice also that we do not have the same kind of direct access to the experiences of others, or to “our own” putative past lives. In no ordinary sense can Mr. P of this life be said to be the same as Ms. Q of the next, whatever “next” may mean. If I have a speculative turn of mind it may occur to me that there will come a time when the future person(s) who are causally dependent upon my actions will bear so little resemblance to me that it would strain the concept of personhood to the breaking point were either of us to claim a shared identity even in the very loose, Buddhistic sense.

In making sense of how the person functions in the absence of a Self, the conceptual schema of the five skandhas is most helpful. I will have more to say about it in future posts.

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[1] Tibetan tradition admits the possibility that concurrent versions of Jones and Allweather could have a common karmic ancestor as, for instance, is claimed for certain great treasure-finders of the Nyingma tradition. Among the Dharma-heirs of Guru Rinpoche, for instance, some are believed to have inherited the person, as well as the mind-treasures, of their illustrious, neither-same-nor-different predecessor. To allow such an option, however, further darkens the already murky theoretical waters. I would contend that our concept of personhood simply can’t accommodate a splitting of self into more than one future causally continuous me, him or her.

Ancient Indian Cosmology & Other Baggage

Once a month we meet to talk about our readings of selected Pali texts. Last Thursday the topic was How to Get Ahead on the Wheel of Life. The discussion was wide-ranging, as befits the subject. The Buddha’s vision of a just universe opens up vast panoramas of space, time, and imagination. It is a springboard for Big Ideas and ample nourishment for loving kindness and compassion.

At the same time, samasāra in the fullness of the traditional description is bound to provoke a measure of skepticism. That all of us are not prepared to embrace a worldview that includes multiple levels of heaven and hell was evident in the way some members of the community spoke of “cultural stuff”—meaning Buddhist cosmology—as if nothing could be more obvious than that the belief in gods, heavens, hells, and rebirth in various unseen realms of existence was extraneous to the main thrust of the Awakened One’s teachings. Perhaps he’d offered them as a sop to popular superstition, or because he was afraid his words wouldn’t be heeded if he left them out. We can’t be sure.

But even if we can convince ourselves that samsāra is merely an ad-on to the authentic core of the Buddha’s teachings, a cluster of assertions about the world that the Awakened One employed with the aim of selling his product, although he didn’t really believe in them, we are still left with the problem what to do with them. It is claimed that distress over the prospect of samsāra is the moral lynchpin of Buddha-Dharma. In that case, are the various realms of existence to be understood as metaphor for psychological conditions or states of consciousness within the span of this life?

I am still looking for the line that clearly demarcates what is relevant or true in the Buddha’s Dharma from what is not. Indeed, I do not always know what to take seriously and what not amidst the colossal treasury of our own “cultural stuff.” Should I invest in scientific method, for instance, rationality, free enterprise, multiculturalism, democracy, the Bible, tolerance of lifestyle differences, nationalism, twelve-step programs, gun control?

Many of us well-educated, “middle class” Westerners have been marinated since childhood in a broth comprising equal parts of naturalism, social Darwinism, rugged individualism, and a strong dose of advertising intended to maintain covetousness at a fever pitch. We have ravaged the planet, we are drowning in possessions, and we show precious little interest in letting up. We are therefore predisposed to disregard moral blandishments that rub us the wrong way or cause us inconvenience. It is my guess that we do not find much to like in a crucial message of Buddha-Dharma, namely, that the world is a flood of dis-ease that must be crossed in order to attain a liberation that is, to put it charitably, not very sexy.

A Closer Look at the Traditional View of Karma

The argument presented in the last post is roughly analogous to the theist’s claim that without belief in an afterlife and a just God, there is no solid foundation for morality, and it suffers from the same weaknesses as that claim. For all its flaws, the argument, in one form or another, is called upon to justify the oft-heard assertion that karma is the bedrock of Buddhist and Hindu ethics, a proposition that is open to challenge on more than one front, and the even more dubious claim that without the doctrines of karma, rebirth and samsara to support it, the whole edifice of Buddhism would collapse. I do not subscribe to that point of view. On the contrary, I am inclined to suppose the body of the Buddha-Dharma could survive the excision of karma theory, together with much of the cosmology, and yet live to a ripe old age.

To restate in brief the moral component of karma theory: underlying the various conceptual schemata associated with the doctrines of karma and rebirth is the assumption that the universe itself, or the totality of natural laws according to which it carries on, is fundamentally just. It is maintained that the fairness alleged to be built into the impersonal working of cosmic forces is necessary in order to arouse and sustain moral striving. Furthermore, it is claimed that, unless it were certain that every person received reward and punishment for every morally significant act, there would be no reason to be good or to strive for moral improvement. There are difficulties with this position, to put it mildly. Here are three to think about. (1) The fact of universal moral justice has yet to be demonstrated. On the contrary, a child can see that life is not fair. (2) The assertion, that moral sensitivity and ethical living cannot occur in the absence of faith in unproven religious teachings, is demonstrably false. We all know non-religious people who are good. (3) There is abundant evidence that carrot-and-stick morality often fails to get the desired result. That is just the beginning of the difficulties with these doctrines.

In the article for which I provide a link below, the author discusses some of the real-life consequences of holding to certain of the teachings about karma and result.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amarnath-amarasingam/the-problem-with-karma-no_b_831093.html

Karma As Moral Bedrock

The conceptual framework of karma, rebirth and samsara is best viewed as an empirical hypothesis and/or explanatory schema embedded in a moral argument. Crudely put, the argument goes something like this:

1.      Belief in the fair disposition of human affairs is a necessary component of the moral life. In the case that the world is unjust (or persons do not believe that the world is just, that is, if they think bad things happen to good people for no morally relevant reason), then people are less likely to be good.

2.      Apart from the actuality of universal retribution there is no compelling motivation for doing good rather than bad deeds.

3.      All the pleasant and unpleasant feelings that seem to result from apparently random and morally neutral causes and conditions, and from events initiated here and now, are in fact the consequences of past morally charged actions in this life or a previous life. Undeserved joys and sorrows, otherwise inexplicable, are really deferred rewards and punishments.

4.      The assignment of just deserts for past actions (a. k. a. punishment and reward) occurs through an impersonal causal process alluded to in various canonical and traditional sources.

5.      Moral indifference, despair, and outrage are based upon a misapprehension, for it is certain that (a) the fortunate and unfortunate circumstances and events of this life are the consequences of past deeds and (b) the good deeds of this life will cause a more auspicious rebirth in future lives, and the bad deeds will bring about renewed existence in one of the painful realms.

6.      Belief in the certainty of retribution is sufficient to coerce good moral behavior.

The factual claims about moral causation (4. and 5. above) serve as premises for the final moral claim regarding the inhibitory power of karmic retribution. The argument is intended as an antidote to the moral doubt and indecision that can follow hard upon the discovery that life is not fair. By insisting that human existence, and the whole universe along with it, is truly just despite appearances to the contrary, the Buddhist teacher hopes to support positive moral traits and pre-empt antinomian tendencies.

It should be noted that the whole of the argument depends for its force upon the further premises that (1) although the justice is delivered on a cosmic scale, justice in itself does not make life worth living because (2) in the end or, more accurately, “along the beginningless and endless way,” even the most pleasurable existence will be marred by impermanence and pain and therefore, (3) the clear choice is to put an end to life, now and forever.

Samsāra

In our progress through the Early Buddhism component of the Buddhist Studies curriculum we have come to the inevitable encounter with the complex of ideas that form a cluster around the central conception of action-result (P. kamma-vipaka). In the weeks to come we will be examining various concepts drawn from the suttas of the Pali canon, and discussing them in light of later developments in Buddhistic thinking, the Zen tradition in particular, and our personal experience. This is the first in a series of postings about karma, renewed existence, and samsāra.

The vision of samsāra—the repeated renewal of personal existence as shaped by the results of past and present acts—has a simple underlying message, to wit, life does not end when you die. On the contrary, it goes on and on, endlessly, unless you abandon life altogether. Buddhist tradition has invested heavily in a literary tradition intended to convince us that for eons in the past we have been wandering among the realms of existence and will continue to do so for an unimaginable span of time to come, unless we adopt the Buddha’s eight-point program for putting an end to pain, not just in this body but in all possible future bodies. The overarching task is to get out of life and stay out, and the alternative is virtually endless dukkha.

It is at least arguable that, if you can manage to believe in a cosmology that offers the prospect of indefinitely long-term suffering, you have a powerful motive for striving to extricate yourself from the conditions that condemn you to an unpleasant eternity. If you can’t adopt that particular conceptual scheme, then the matter of whether or not you achieve awakening is likely to seem much less pressing, for we will all die sooner or later, and then our troubles will be over.

Most Western students of Buddhism and Zen are inclined to accept karma and samsāra as part of the package without giving them much thought. As it is typically presented—“what goes around comes around”—karma seems little more than an exotic variant of the idea of cause-and-effect. Thinking in causal terms is both commonplace and necessary. Kant believed that causal reasoning was part of human nature, and its evolutionary advantages are obvious. Upon reflection, however, the conceptual schema of karma, rebirth, and samsāra turns out to be very much more complex, and to require very much more in the way of support, than the physics of “every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”

As we shall see, belief in karma and renewed existence is rather more difficult than it might appear to be at first glance. Can the notions of morally-charged action and conditionally-renewed existence do the heavy lifting required to produce a plausible continuity of the non-self across many lifetimes? Do we, fascinated by and absorbed in the world as we are, really need or want to look beyond it?

The Great Being, Mahāsattva

Bodhisattva Mahāsattva, Great Awakening Beings, make their appearance around the beginning of the Common Era. In painting and sculpture they are depicted as clad not in the patchwork robes of the monk—Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva is the exception—but in princely raiment, adorned with coronets, bangles and necklaces. They are sometimes shown in the posture of royal ease. Such bodhisattvas are not merely beings who aspire to awaken, boon companions in the process of self-transformation, and background figures in the scenes of Lord Buddha’s discourses. They are adepts and teachers in their own right, capable of instructing and assisting ordinary people. The social matrix from which they emerge is different from that of the Buddha’s day. Their courtly appearance marks the transition from republican to feudal forms of political organization, which change itself is mirrored in the ascendancy of the role of the authoritarian guru as contrasted with the relatively egalitarian relations within the early monastic community. In Buddhist art and literature of the Mahayana, the Great Beings rise to a status nearly equal to that of the Buddha. In certain forms of popular worship they surpass it. Bodhisattvas also appear as the central figures in scriptures such as the Prajnāpāramitāhrdāya, the Vimalakirtinirdesa, and the Avatamsaka.

Unlike the Buddha, who escapes from the round of birth and death, and attains an indescribable mode of being, the Mahāsattva, although possessed of liberating knowledge and conduct, remains in the world to help all who suffer in the six realms. The wide-ranging activity and multiple roles of the Mahāsattvas bespeak a conception of liberation that is compatible with embodied human existence. Worldly enlightenment also harmonizes well with the doctrine of a fundamental, inherent Buddhahood that extends even to the inanimate, and the increasingly “ecological” interpretation of interdependent causal-conditionality (pratītya-samutpāda.)

“The Buddha said to Drdhamati, “It is a Samādhi called the Concentration of Heroic Progress (surangama samādhi). Bodhisattvas who have obtained this samādhi can, since you ask about it, manifest Parinirvāna, but without definitively ceasing to be.’”

--Śūrangama Samādhi Sutra

That hallowing of the world also accords with the tantric goal of banishing the very notion of impurity. To borrow the words attributed to the sage, Bodhidharma, “In heaven and earth, nothing holy,” which is just to say, “Everything is holy.” Thus, an inconceivably great multitude of Awakening Beings is said to permeate the universe (or multiverse). That vision of enlightenment’s plenitude is also an expression of the fundamental luminosity and self-transcendence of everything in nature. For followers of the Way, the Mahāsattvas are the focus of aspiration and the embodiment of the awakened life as it is seen to work in the world at all times and in all places.