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Does Rebirth Make
Sense? by Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi
Newcomers to
Buddhism are usually impressed by the clarity, directness, and earthy
practicality of the Dhamma as embodied in such basic teachings as the Four
Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, and the threefold training. These
teachings, as clear as day-light, are accessible to any serious seeker looking
for a way beyond suffering. When, however, these seekers encounter the doctrine
of rebirth, they often balk, convinced it just doesn’t make sense. At this
point, they suspect that the teaching has swerved off course, tumbling from the
grand highway of reason into wistfulness and speculation. Even modernist
interpreters of Buddhism seem to have trouble taking the rebirth teaching
seriously. Some dismiss it as just a piece of cultural baggage, “ancient Indian
metaphysics,” that the Buddha retained in deference to the world view of his
age. Others interpret it as a metaphor for the change of mental states, with
the realms of rebirth seen as symbols for psychological archetypes. A few
critics even question the authenticity of the texts on rebirth, arguing that
they must be interpolations. A quick glance
at the Pali suttas would show that none of these claims has much substance. The
teaching of rebirth crops up almost everywhere in the Canon, and is so closely
bound to a host of other doctrines that to remove it would virtually reduce the
Dhamma to tatters. Moreover, when the suttas speak about rebirth into the five
realms — the hells, the animal world, the spirit realm, the human world, and
the heavens — they never hint that these terms are meant symbolically. To the
contrary, they even say that rebirth occurs “with the breakup of the body,
after death,” which clearly implies they intend the idea of rebirth to be taken
quite literally. In this essay
I won’t be arguing the case for the scientific validity of rebirth. Instead, I
wish to show that the idea of rebirth makes sense. I will be contending that it
“makes sense” in two ways: first, in that it is intelligible, having meaning
both intrinsically and in relation to the Dhamma as a whole; and second, in
that it helps us “to make sense,” to understand our own place in the world. I
will try to establish this in relation to three domains of discourse, the ethical,
the ontological, and the soteriological. Don’t be frightened by the big words:
the meaning will become clear as we go along.
I
First, the
teaching of rebirth makes sense in
relation to ethics. For early Buddhism, the conception of rebirth is an
essential plank of its ethical theory, providing an incentive for avoiding evil
and doing good. In this context, the doctrine of rebirth is correlated with the
principle of kamma, which asserts that all our morally determinate actions, our
wholesome and unwholesome deeds, have an inherent power to bring forth fruits
that correspond to the moral quality of those deeds. Taken together, the twin
teachings of rebirth and kamma show that a principle of moral equilibrium
obtains between our actions and the felt quality of our lives, such that
morally good deeds produce agreeable results, bad deeds disagreeable results. It is only too
obvious that such moral equilibrium cannot be found within the limits of a
single life. We can observe, often poignantly, that morally unscrupulous people
might enjoy happiness, esteem, and success, while people who lead lives of the
highest integrity are bowed down beneath pain and misery. For the principle of
moral equilibrium to work, some type of survival beyond the present life is required,
for kamma can bring its due retribution only if our individual “streams of
consciousness” do not terminate with death. Two different forms of survival are
possible: on the one hand, an eternal afterlife in heaven or hell, on the other
a sequence of rebirths. Of these alternatives, the hypothesis of rebirth seems
far more compatible with moral justice than an eternal afterlife; for any
finite good action, it seems, must eventually exhaust its potency, and no
finite bad action, no matter how bad, should warrant eternal damnation. It may be the
case that this insistence on some kind of moral equity is an illusion, an
unrealistic demand we superimpose on a universe cold and indifferent to our
hopes. There is no logical way to prove
the validity of rebirth and kamma. The naturalist might just be right in
holding that personal existence comes to an end at death, and with it all
prospects for moral justice. Nevertheless, I believe such a thesis flies in the
face of one of our deepest moral intuitions, a sense that some kind of moral
justice must ultimately prevail. To show that this is so, let us consider two
limiting cases of ethically decisive action. As the limiting case of immoral
action, let us take Hitler, who was directly responsible for the dehumanizing
deaths of perhaps ten million people. As the limiting case of moral action, let
us consider a man who sacrifices his own life to save the lives of total
strangers. Now if there is no survival beyond death, both men reap the same
ultimate destiny. Before dying, perhaps, Hitler experiences some pangs of
despair; the self-sacrificing hero enjoys a few seconds of satisfaction knowing
he’s performing a noble deed. Then beyond that — there is nothing, except in
others’ memories. Both are obliterated, reduced to lifeless flesh and bones. Now the
naturalist might be correct in drawing this conclusion, and in holding that
those who believe in survival and retribution are just projecting their own
wishes out upon the world. But I think something within us resists consigning
both Hitler and our compassionate hero to the same fate. The reason we resist
is because we have a deep intuitive sense that a principle of moral justice is
at work in the world, regulating the course of events in such a way that our
good and bad actions rebound upon ourselves to bring the appropriate fruit.
Where the naturalist holds that this intuition amounts to nothing more than a
projection of our own ideals out upon the world, I would contend that the very
fact that we can conceive a demand for moral justice has a significance that is
more than merely psychological. However vaguely, our subjective sense of moral
justice reflects an objective reality, a principle of moral equilibrium that is
not mere projection but is built into the very bedrock of actuality. The above
considerations are not intended to make belief in rebirth a necessary basis for
ethics. The Buddha himself does not try to found ethics on the ideas of kamma
and rebirth, but uses a purely naturalistic type of moral reasoning that does
not presuppose personal survival or the working of kamma. The gist of his
reasoning is simply that we should not mistreat others — by injuring them,
stealing their belongings, exploiting them sexually, or deceiving them —
because we ourselves are averse to being treated in such ways. Nevertheless,
though the Buddha does not found ethics on the theory of rebirth, he does make
belief in kamma and rebirth a strong inducement to moral behavior. When we
recognize that our good and bad actions can rebound upon ourselves, determining
our future lives and bringing us happiness or suffering, this gives us a
decisive reason to avoid unwholesome conduct and to diligently pursue the good. The Buddha
includes belief in rebirth and kamma in his definition of right view, and their
explicit denial in wrong view. It is not that the desire for the fruits of good
karma should be one’s main motive for leading a moral life, but rather that
acceptance of these teachings inspires and reinforces our commitment to ethical
ideals. These twin principles open a window to a wider background against which
our pursuit of the moral life unfolds. They show us that our present living
conditions, our dispositions and aptitudes, our virtues and faults, result from
our actions in previous lives. When we realize that our present conditions
reflect our kammic past, we will also realize that our present actions are the
legacy that we will transmit to our kammic descendants, that is, to ourselves
in future lives. The teaching of rebirth thus enables us to face the future
with fortitude, dignity, and courage. If we recognize that no matter how
debilitating our present conditions might be, no matter how limiting and
degrading, we can still redeem ourselves, we will be spurred to exercise our will
for the achievement of our future good. By our present actions of body, speech,
and mind, we can transform ourselves, and by transforming ourselves, we can
surmount all inner and outer obstacles and advance toward the final goal. The teachings
of kamma and rebirth have a still deeper ethical significance than as simple
pointers to moral responsibility. They show us not only that our personal lives
are shaped by our own kammic past, but also that we live in an ethically
meaningful universe. Taken in conjunction, they make the universe a cosmos, an orderly, integrated whole,
with dimensions of significance that transcend the merely physical. The levels
of order that we have access to by direct inspection or scientific
investigation do not exhaust all the levels of cosmic order. There is system
and pattern, not only in the physical and biological domains, but also in the
ethical, and the teachings of kamma and rebirth reveal just what that pattern
is. Although this ethical order is invisible to our fleshly eyes and cannot be
detected by scientific apparatus, this does not mean it is not real, Beyond the
range of normal perception, a moral law holds sway over our deeds and, via our
deeds, over our destiny. It is just the principle of kamma, operating across the
sequence of rebirths, that locks our volitional actions into the dynamics of
the cosmos, thus making ethics an expression of the cosmos’s own intrinsic
orderliness.
II
The teaching
of rebirth, taken in conjunction with the doctrine of kamma, implies that we
live in a morally ordered universe, one in which our morally determinate
actions bring forth fruits that in some way correspond to their own ethical
quality. Though the moral law that links our actions with their fruits cannot
be demonstrated experimentally in the same way that physical and chemical laws
can be, this does not mean it is not real. It means only that, like quarks and
quasars, it operates beyond the threshold of sensory perception. Far from being
a mere projection of our subjective ideals, the moral law locks our volitional
deeds into an all-embracing cosmic order that is perfectly objective in that it
functions independently of our personal desires, views, and beliefs. Thus when
we submit our behavior to the rule of ethics, we are not simply acting in ways
that merit moral approval. By conforming to the principles of ethics we are
doing nothing less than aligning ourselves with the Dhamma, the universal law
of righteousness and truth which stands at the bedrock of the cosmos. This brings us to the ontological aspect of the Buddhist teaching on rebirth, its implications for understanding the nature of being. Buddhism sees the process of rebirth as integral to the principle of conditionality that runs through all existence. The sentient universe is regulated by different orders of causation layered in such a way that higher orders of causation can exercise dominion over lower ones. The order of kamma, which governs the process of rebirth, is a higher order of causation, and at some level, not within the range of investigation by ordinary empirical means, it intersects with the lower orders of physical and biological causation, bending their energies toward the fulfillment of its own potential. The Buddha does not posit a divine judge who rules over the workings of kamma, rewarding and punishing us for our deeds. The kammic process functions autonomously, without a supervisor or director, entirely through the intrinsic power of volitional action. Interwoven with other orders in the vast, complex web of conditionality, our deeds produce their consequences just as naturally as seeds in a field bring forth their appropriate herbs and flowers. To understand
how kamma can produce its effects across the succession of rebirths we must
invert our normal, everyday conception of the relationship between
consciousness and matter. Under the influence of materialistic biases we assume
that material existence is determinative of consciousness. Because we witness
bodies being born into this world and observe how the mind matures in tandem
with the body, we tacitly take the body to be the foundation of our existence
and mind or consciousness an evolutionary offshoot of blind material processes.
Matter wins the honored status of “objective reality,” and mind becomes an
accidental intruder upon an inherently senseless universe. From the
Buddhist perspective, however, consciousness and the world coexist in a
relationship of mutual creation which equally requires both terms. Just as
there can be no consciousness without a body to serve as its physical support
and a world as its sphere of cognition, so there can be no physical organism
and no world without some type of consciousness to constitute them as an
organism and world. Though temporally neither mind nor matter can be regarded
as prior to the other, in terms of practical importance the Buddha says that
mind is the forerunner. Mind is the forerunner, not in the sense that it arises
before the body or can exist independently of a physical medium, but in the sense
that the body and the world in which we find ourselves reflect our mental
activity. It is mental
activity, in the form of volition, that constitutes kamma, and it is our stock
of kamma that steers the stream of consciousness from the past life into a new
body. Thus the Buddha says: “This body, O monks, is old kamma, to be seen as
generated and fashioned by volition, as something to be felt” (SN 11:37). It is
not only the body, as a composite whole, that is the product of past kamma, but
the sense faculties too (see SN 25:146). The eye, ear, nose, tongue,
body-sense, and mind-base are also fashioned by our past kamma, and thus kamma
to some degree shapes and influences all our sensory experience. Since kamma is
ultimately explained as volition (cetanaa),
this means that the particular body with which we are endowed, with all its
distinguishing features and faculties of sense, is rooted in our volitional
activities in earlier lives. Precisely how past volition can influence the
development of the zygote lies beyond the range of scientific explanation, but
if the Buddha’s words are to be trusted such an influence must be real. The channel
for the transmission of kammic influence from life to life across the sequence
of rebirths is the individual stream of consciousness. Consciousness embraces
both phases of our being — that in which we generate fresh kamma and that in
which we reap the fruits of old kamma — and thus in the process of rebirth,
consciousness bridges the old and new existences. Consciousness is not a single
transmigrating entity, a self or soul, but a stream of evanescent acts of
consciousness, each of which arises, briefly subsists, and then passes away.
This entire stream, however, though made up of evanescent units, is fused into
a unified whole by the causal relations obtaining between all the occasions of
consciousness in any individual continuum. At a deep level, each occasion of
consciousness inherits from its predecessor the entire kammic legacy of that
particular stream; in perishing, it in turn passes that content on to its
successor, increased by its own novel contribution. Thus our volitional deeds
do not exhaust their full potential in their immediately visible effects. Every
volitional deed that we perform, when it passes, leaves behind a subtle imprint
stamped upon the onward-flowing stream of consciousness. The deed deposits in
the stream of consciousness a seed capable of bearing fruit, of producing a
result that matches the ethical quality of the deed. When we
encounter suitable external conditions, the kammic seeds deposited in our
mental continuum rise up from their dormant condition and produce their fruits.
The most important function performed by kamma is to generate rebirth into an
appropriate realm, a realm that provides a field for it to unfold its stored
potentials. The bridge between the old existence and the new is, as we said
above, the evolving stream of consciousness. It is within this stream of
consciousness that the kamma has been created through the exercise of volition;
it is this same stream of consciousness, flowing on, that carries the kammic
energies into the new existence; and it is again this same stream of
consciousness that experiences the fruit. Conceivably, at the deepest level all
the individual streams of consciousness are integrated into a single
all-embracing matrix, so that, beneath the surface of events, the separate
kammic accumulations of all living beings crisscross, overlap, and merge. This
hypothesis — though speculative — would help account for the strange
coincidences we sometimes meet that prick holes in our assumptions of rational
order. The generative
function of kamma in the production of new existence is described by the Buddha
in a short but pithy sutta preserved in the A.nguttara Nikaaya (AN 3:76).
Venerable AAnanda approaches the Master and says, “’Existence, existence’ is
spoken of, venerable sir. In what way is there existence?” The Buddha replies:
“If there were no kamma ripening in the sensory realm, no sense-sphere
existence would be discerned. If there where no kamma ripening in the form
realm, no form-sphere existence would be discerned. If there were no kamma
ripening in the formless realm, no formless-sphere existence would be
discerned. Therefore, AAnanda, kamma is the field, consciousness the seed, and
craving the moisture for beings obstructed by ignorance and fettered by craving
to be established in a new realm of existence, either low (sense-sphere),
middling (form-sphere), or high (formless-sphere).” As long as
ignorance and craving, the twin roots of the round of rebirths, remain intact
in our mental continuum, at the time of death one especially powerful kamma
will become ascendant and propel the stream of consciousness to the realm of
existence that corresponds to its own “vibrational frequency.” When
consciousness, as the seed, becomes planted or “established” in that realm it
sprouts forth into the rest of the psycho-physical organism, summed up in the
expression “name and form” (naama-ruupa).
As the organism matures, it provides the site for other past kammas to gain the
opportunity to produce their results. Then, within this new existence, in
response to our various kammically induced experiences, we engage in actions
that engender fresh kamma with the capacity to generate still another rebirth.
Thereby the round of existence keeps turning from one life to the next, as the
stream of consciousness, swept along by craving and steered by kamma, assumes
successive modes of embodiment. The ultimate
implication of the Buddha’s teaching on kamma and rebirth is that human beings
are the final masters of their own destiny. Through our unwholesome deeds,
rooted in greed, hatred, and delusion, we create unwholesome kamma, the
generative cause of bad rebirths, of future misery and bondage. Through our
wholesome deeds, rooted in generosity, kindness, and wisdom, we beautify our
minds and thereby create kamma productive of a happy rebirth. By using wisdom
to dig more deeply below the superficial face of things, we can uncover the
subtle truths hidden by our preoccupation with appearances. Thereby we can
uproot the binding defilements and win the peace of deliverance, the freedom
beyond the cycle of kamma and its fruit. III
The third way
in which the teaching on rebirth makes sense is the soteriological, a word which means “in relation to final
liberation.” According to the Buddha’s teaching, a doctrine of rebirth is not
only possible but also necessary because the goal of the teaching is nothing
short of liberation from sa.msaara, the round of rebirths. It was dismay at the
prospect of endless rebirths, each terminating in old age, sickness, and death,
that drove the young prince Siddhattha out from the luxurious life of the
palace into the forest as an earnest, homeless mendicant seeking the path to
enlightenment: “Being myself subject to birth, old age, sickness, and death, I
went forth seeking the birthless, ageless, illness-free, deathless Nibbaana,
the supreme security from bondage” (MN 26.12). His attainment of enlightenment
marked not merely the realization of a state of wisdom and inward peace, but
the conviction that he had brought the beginningless round of rebirths to an
end: “This is my last birth. There is now for me no renewal of existence” (MN
26.18). When he went out to teach the Dhamma, his purpose was to guide others
to the same state of release that he himself had won. Again, this release was
not merely relief from psychological suffering, from pain and distress. It was
release from the round of becoming, which means from the round of rebirths.
When his first five disciples, the “bhikkhus of the group of five,” learned the
Dhamma from him and brought their practice to fulfillment, they too were able
to confirm: “The is our last birth. There is now for us no renewal of
existence” (MN 26.30). And as the Buddha’s Teaching spread, many young men and
women went forth from the household life into homelessness in order to find a
way out from the sea of endless birth and death, which is the sea of suffering. Any religion
flourishes against the background of a particular culture and acquires meaning
from the concepts prevalent in that culture. Since different epochs and
cultures are governed by different conceptual frameworks, different
“paradigms,” one might say that a particular religion or spiritual teaching has
to be explained in terms of the conceptual framework prevailing in the culture
in which it has taken root. This would apply to Buddhism as much as to any
other religion, perhaps even more so because of its freedom from rigid dogma.
Thus, one might argue, the Buddha expounded the Dhamma against the background
of the Indian belief systems of his day, in which the idea of rebirth was
generally taken for granted. In our own time such concepts as rebirth and kamma
are either alien (as in the West) or outdated (for those in the East who adopt
modern Western modes of thought). So, it might be asked, can’t we preserve the
essence of the Buddha’s teaching as a practical, therapeutic path to liberation
from suffering without bringing along the extra cultural baggage passed down
from bygone centuries, namely, the idea that equates liberation from suffering
with liberation from rebirth? Surely such basic Buddhist teachings as the Four
Noble Truths, dependent origination, and the three characteristics are all
meaningful apart from the doctrine of rebirth. Surely one can practice the
Noble Eightfold Path without believing that one’s practice is going to release
one from the prospects of coming back to life in this world or any other world. The reply I
would give to this proposal is a twofold one: first, I would say that if one
doubts the teaching of rebirth but still recognizes the validity of such basic
Buddhist teachings as the Four Noble Truths, and if one personally benefits
from Buddhist practices, one should certainly adopt Buddhist teachings and
practices in whatever way one wishes. If one follows these teachings sincerely,
without misrepresenting them, they are bound to confer blessings on one’s own
life and on the lives of those within one’s sphere of influence. But, I would
continue, this is quite another matter from saying that we can revise the
Buddha’s Teaching without diluting it; that we can divest the Buddha’s Teaching
of the concept of rebirth without diminishing its depth and meaning. Even such
fundamental teachings as the Four Noble Truths and dependent origination, if
studied closely, will be seen to be intimately connected to the idea of
rebirth; for the very idea of suffering or ‘dukkha’
central to both these teachings gains a fuller meaning only when it is
recognized to be the suffering of repeated birth. This point has been
eloquently explained by Ven. Nyanatiloka Mahaathera in his classic The Word of the Buddha: Sa.msaara—the
wheel of existence, lit. the “perpetual wandering”—is the name given in the
Pali scriptures to the sea of life ever restlessly heaving up and down, the
symbol of this continuous process of ever again and again being born, growing
old, suffering, and dying…. Of this sa.msaara, a single lifetime constitutes
only a tiny fraction. Hence, to be able to comprehend the first noble truth,
one must let one’s gaze rest upon the sa.msaara, upon this frightful sequence
of rebirths, and not merely upon one single lifetime, which, of course, may
sometimes be not very painful. (Nyanatiloka
Mahaathera, The Word of the Buddha,
17th edition. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 2001), p. 18 The concept of
rebirth relates to the quest for liberation not only in setting the problem
with which the Buddha’s teaching deals but also in providing the condition
needed for the realization of its final goal. That is, rebirth is not only that
from which we must attain release; perhaps paradoxically, it is also that which
makes release possible. What I mean by this seeming paradox is that the final
goal of the Dhamma, liberation, is achieved by perfecting certain spiritual
qualities, above all the “five spiritual faculties” of faith, energy,
mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom, and other spiritual virtues like
generosity, moral discipline, patience, truthfulness, loving-kindness, and
equanimity, which for most people require many lives to reach maturity. There
may be a few people in whom these qualities are so prominent that they can be
confident of attaining the final goal within this life itself—perhaps there are
even a few who have already attained it—but for most, the requisite qualities
still need further maturation before realization of the final goal becomes a
realistic prospect. These faculties have to be “ripened” until they are strong
and sharp enough to make the breakthrough to world-transcending liberation, and
this requires time; in most cases, it requires long periods of time, much
longer than a single lifetime. When we
reflect upon the degree to which such qualities as mindfulness, concentration,
and wisdom had been developed by the noble ones of the past, and the degree to
which we ourselves have developed them, we will see that a great distance
separates us from their attainments. This should not be a cause for dejection
or despair; but it is a reminder of the immense amount of work we must do on
ourselves to reach the plane of the noble ones. Now as we strive to practice
the Dhamma within this life, we receive a certain amount of “immediate returns”
in the form of the greater peace and happiness to which the practice leads. But
we also understand that this is not itself the final goal. This is not the
great realization that the noble ones celebrate when they utter their lion’s
roar. What gives us the confidence that the practices we undertake now, in this
present life, are contributing to our ultimate attainment of liberation is our
trust in the principle of rebirth. It is the fact that life—or more precisely,
the “stream of consciousness”—does not end with our bodily death that assures
us that the wholesome qualities we cultivate in this present life are preserved
and consolidated within the ongoing sequence of lives that constitutes our
individual identity through sa.msaara. From life to life, the body dies, the
stream of consciousness constantly changes; it is not an immortal, changeless
self. Yet while our good and bad deeds bring their desired and undesired
fruits, our wholesome qualities, guided by the Dhamma, governed by the Dhamma,
also acquire momentum. Like a snowball rolling down the side of a mountain,
which accumulates more and more snow until it sets off an avalanche, our
wholesome qualities, our spiritual faculties, gain an energy of their own,
which builds up from one life to the next, as long as we continue to practice the
Dhamma, until they gain sufficient momentum to break the downward
“gravitational pull” of the defilements, of ignorance and craving, of greed,
hatred, and delusion. It is then that we can make the breakthrough to
liberation, stage by stage, and when we reach the final stage, we end the round
of rebirths. We can thus
see that, in relation to the quest for liberation, the state of bondage from
which liberation is sought and the ground that makes liberation possible are
the same. The state of bondage is the round of rebirths: a condition of
suffering marked by aging, sickness, and death which we undergo over and over
as long as we are in the grip of ignorance and craving. But while the deluded,
ordinary person without access to the Dhamma remains in bondage to this round
of rebirths, those who encounter the Dhamma find the path that leads to final
liberation, to the unconditioned peace and freedom of Nibbaana. Only the noble
ones—those who have reached stream-entry and the higher stages—are assured that
they will win the final goal. But those who place trust in the Dhamma and
earnestly endeavor to cultivate the path can gradually advance towards the
ultimate goal. Since only a few will consummate their endeavors in this
lifetime, for the others, the process of rebirth becomes a process that enables
them to sharpen and strengthen their spiritual faculties. Each successive life
guided by the Dhamma preserves the achievements of earlier lives, providing a
base from which we can continue our efforts to develop our virtues, purify our
minds, and deepen our wisdom. When our moral discipline, concentration, and
wisdom reach their culmination, we come to the end of the round of rebirths.
However, we could never have reached that goal if there were not a series of
rebirths through which our spiritual virtues could have been broadened and
deepened.
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