Namaste friends!
I find that even tho many people are able to see that there is no self, they still do not understand rebirth, which means they still are not likely to be liberated from rebirth (how can you liberate yourself from something you don't see? But perhaps "magically" that wisdom will come to you anyway?).
The inability to consider rebirth (c.f. the article on SecularBuddhism), is often conflated with scientific skepticism, when in fact it is merely relying on habitual assumptions. Please note, I am not speaking of rebirth of the mind but rather rebirth of some of the clinging habits of the mind due to reification, or in other words, the continuation of a "mind-stream" from one mind to another (like the continuation of the process of burning when you let one candle light another--it is not the same flame, tho there was never really any continuous thing called flame).
To me, Secular Buddhism should be about taking the core teachings of Buddha and investigating them. To say that rebirth is impossible to investigate is completely untrue, and it does not require memories of past lives to understand rebirth as a rational notion. Furthermore, the Secular Buddhist Assocation should not even call itself Buddhist if it does not promote the goal of Nibbana. The point of Nibbana is to end birth, and the suffering attendant with identifying as a body/mind. Buddha never taught the way to live a happy life on Earth. He rejected all kinds of earthly pleasures in order to not be (and as a result of not being) attached to this body/mind. By teaching anatta, Buddha was showing us the root ignorance that keeps us bound up in samsara. If ignorance somehow "magically" ends for "me" at the death of this mind ("my" mind), then there is no need to practice at all. We could simply kill ourselves. Indeed, there are some folks who seem to think this might work, though they are a bit shy of saying exactly that, over at SecularBuddhism.
One thing I can agree with regarding the SecularBuddhism position on rebirth is that it actually happens [not just after physical death, but] moment to moment the sense of self is re-established, re-imagined to be a continuously existing entity, as explained scientifically by Bro. Billy Tan, and philosophically/dharmically/experientally by Soh Wei Yu.
It *does* make sense to say that the human mind is a product of the physical brain (which is actually not a thing but a collection of processes that are not separate from nature/its environment). But there is no reason to assume that the brain leaves no trace after its death. Everything else in nature continues on in some form after decaying. TV signals go out into space forever, for example. Waves on the ocean form new waves after breaking. Brainwaves/mind patterns do also, even if they attenuate to be unmeasurable by our instruments at a certain distance. If you want a scientific hypothesis to explain rebirth, I suggest you check out neuroscientist Todd Murphy's book, Sacred Pathways.
Without a belief in the likelihood of rebirth, it is hard to take all of this spirituality stuff seriously, because this human life is good enough (or if it isn't, then we can try to improve it rather than focusing on overcoming the view of actual beings existing). Even if beings suffer enough to seek wisdom, and then understand No Self & automatic perfection, liberation doesn't make much sense, because liberation from what? If death is the end of this mind/body which thinks it is you, then that's all, that's it, so what? Everyone gets to the same no-self place at the end, right? Even the Catholic nun Bernadette Roberts who wrote the book "What is Self," does not understand liberation from birth & death, although in an unpublished paper she wrote, she did recently start to express doubt that all people end up in the same no-Self realization at death. But that is all she can do, doubt, because she does not understand rebirth--it doesn't fit into Catholic dogma (neither does No Self, but she has wedged that in somehow).
It *does* make sense to say that the human mind is a product of the physical brain (which is actually not a thing but a collection of processes that are not separate from nature/its environment). But there is no reason to assume that the brain leaves no trace after its death. Everything else in nature continues on in some form after decaying. TV signals go out into space forever, for example. Waves on the ocean form new waves after breaking. Brainwaves/mind patterns do also, even if they attenuate to be unmeasurable by our instruments at a certain distance. If you want a scientific hypothesis to explain rebirth, I suggest you check out neuroscientist Todd Murphy's book, Sacred Pathways.
But suffice it to say that there is no evidence in science that the human brain produces awareness. This is called the "hard problem of consciousness" in neuroscience. Most people simply assume that awareness (what some call consciousness) is produced in the brain, but they have no understanding of how that might happen--how could some molecules in a certain formation produce awareness? It makes more sense to assume that awareness is simply a fundamental aspect of nature, but the human brain is special in that it is capable of reflection, symbolic thought, and imagination. Thus we have self-awareness as a result of the mind/brain, but it is built upon nature's pre-existing awareness. Don't get confused and think that I'm saying there is a background awareness... I'm saying that all appearances are by nature aware, so awareness and appearances are not separate (i.e. everything is a process happening AS awareness, not IN awareness).
Whenever there is identification as a habit of mind, there will be a "body" of some sort to support that identification with a "part" of reality. Recent neuroscience has proven that when people are shown images of arms attached to their body in some VR goggles, their brain quickly assumes that those arms are actually their own arms (the person can feel the pain from those arm images being smashed with hammer images). This proves that the mind/brain can imagine itself up a body. There is also research showing that just by imagining exercise, the mind can tone the body's muscle mass. So it is not a huge leap to say that the mind can also create the brain, even as the brain forms the mind.
When identification stops as a result of the culmination of insight, there is a phenomenon called "Mind/body drop" experienced by stream enterers (the first of four levels of awakening to No Self), in which now there is no longer a division between seen and seer, nor is there "seeing" of the seen. In the seen, only the seen. In the heard, only the heard. In the cognized, only the cognized (taken from the Bahiya sutta). Thus, even while others may still see a body/mind operating, from the perspective of this liberated one, there is not a mind/body at the center of experience. There is only reality itself which is prior to experience of it.
But with an understanding of rebirth, one realizes how important it is to break this cycle of identification (even while understanding that ultimately, there never was anyone here).
When you are dreaming, notice that you generally do not have any more dreams after becoming (fully) lucid, but until you become (fully) lucid, you continue having more dreams, one after another, and in all of them you seem to exist in a body. Now, if you get to the Advaita realization of "I AM" (awareness seeing itself), your mind may seem to encompass the entire universe. But that is not liberation from the mind, just a very high degree of luminosity of mind. It is like becoming lucid in a dream but identifying as the dream itself rather than realizing the dream has no identity to it. When the dream ends, "you" (as the dream itself) still die & may take another body/mind in the next dream, just as a wave forms into another wave after breaking.
In fact, there is no way to prove that we are not currently in a "meta-dream"... that is, there is no reason to believe that this so-called physical reality is not just another dream in which we go to sleep every night and have sub-dreams (a la the movie Inception). On the other hand, if we try to define what "physical reality" means and how it would be different from what "meta-dream" means, we may find that we can't exactly differentiate the two. But I just like the sound of "meta-dream" because it allows us to stop identifying with this body as much.
To sum up, there is no actual scientific reason to believe that rebirth is not possible, as long as we do not assume that the mind/brain is what is being reborn. Thus, it is a logical assumption to make, based on our experience in dreams and our knowledge of how the mind is able to conjure up bodies for itself in this so-called physical reality.
I found this excerpt from the Dharma Connection facebook group to be useful:
Kyle Dixon: Raan writes:
"From the standpoint of Anatta realization there is apparently nothing and no one to be reborn and on one and nothing to which karma might apply even if these were not a matter of belief. So I have not seen yet how any of the above discussion or definition has established these as more than beliefs anyway. Do we need to swallow the litany of dependent origination blindly after all? I understand the intent of it certainly however I do not agree entirely with the order and structure. The question remains as to how ignorance might occur in the first place. It is tantamount to the Theistic "problem of evil" I have yet to see a Theodicy, if you will, of ignorance. But really when it comes down to it, it does not matter since a realization of Anatta dispels it all anyway."
-----------------
Regarding the idea of no-self and rebirth: from the standpoint of anatta or otherwise there has never, ever once at any time been someone or something for karma to apply to. That is the entire point of this, and that is why realizing anatta, etc., is possible. If there truly were a 'self' endowed with valid existence then anatta would be an impossibility.
Buddhism is never dealing with 'selves', it is dealing with causes and conditions, afflictive processes and habitual patterns. The 'self' is merely a useful (ultimately unfounded) convention attributed to the sum total of those processes. There is no self enduring from moment to moment, there is patterns of conduct, behavior, grasping, which are simultaneous causes and effects for further proliferation of the same expressions.
For example, from Nāgārjuna's Pratītyadsamutpādakarika:
"Empty dharmas are entirely produced
from dharmas strictly empty;
dharmas without a self and [not] of a self.
Words, butter lamps, mirrors, seals,
fire crystals, seeds, sourness and echoes.
Although the aggregates are serially connected,
the wise are to comprehend nothing has transfered.
Someone, having conceived of annihilation,
even in extremely subtle existents,
he is not wise,
and will never see the meaning of ‘arisen from conditions’."
And in his Pratītyasamutpādakarikavhyakhyana, Nāgārjuna states in reply to a question:
"Question: Nevertheless, who is the lord of all, creating sentient beings, who is their creator?
Reply: All living beings are causes and results."
And in the same text:
"Therein, the aggregates are the aggregates of matter, sensation, ideation, formations and consciousness. Those, called ‘serially joined’, not having ceased, produce another produced from that cause; although not even the subtle atom of an existent has transmigrated from this world to the next."
And lastly from Lopon Kunga Namdrol:
The point is that the question is phrased wrong requiring at best an ambigious answer that will confuse more than edify.
Buddha in fact discussed this with Sharputra saying that if he answers the question "yes there is something that undergoes birth" people will become confused and assuem there is a permanent self that undergoes retribution of action and so on. Likewise, if he answers the question "no, there is nothing which undergoes rebirth" likewise there are those who will assume there are no consequences of action and so on and will therefore feel no compelling need observe the principles of karma and so on.
Therefore when asked the question "what takes rebirth" he points out that question itself is flawed.
The question should be "Why is there birth?" The answere to that question is easy. There is birth, i.e. suffering, because of affliction and action.
As long as the aggregates are afflicted, afflicted aggregates will continue to be appropriated.
In Madhyamaka it is explained there is birth because of the innate self-grasping "I am" appearing to the afflicted mind. It is asserted that what appropriates birth in a new series of aggregates is the mental habit "I am." That "I am" is baseless, has no correspondence in the aggregates or seperate from them or in any one of them, just as a car is not found in its parts, seperate from them, or in any one of the parts. Nevertheless, the imputation "car" allows us to use cars effectively. Likewise, the mental habit "I am" is proper as both the agent of action and the object upon which it ripens even though it is basically unreal and has no basis in the aggregates, outside the aggregates, or in any one of them, but allows us to treat the aggreates as a nominally designated "person".
3 hrs · Unlike · 3
Kyle Dixon So there is a conventional self, but that doesn't truly constitute a self. The self is an expression of karma, where there is karma there is conditioning, and the perception of a self appears as a result of those processes. There is no actual self (nor actual absence thereof) though, in any sense of the term.
If those karmic propensities are allowed to proliferate, then the conditions persist. The continuity of those afflictive propensities is reincarnation. What reincarnates is habitual patterns, however again, there is no actual self within that patterning. That is why when one's karma is exhausted then liberation occurs.
The entire occurrence is equivalent to an illusion, it is no different than going to bed at night and waking up the next morning with the impression that the same entity who went to sleep the night before is now waking up to begin a new day. Those processes of confusion beget further confused processes. When confusion is overturned, then those processes are seen for what they are, devoid of substantiality
3 hrs · Edited · Unlike · 3
Kyle Dixon: And if the issue arises from a Zen standpoint; here are a few excerpts from Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō:
5.386 "If people who study Buddha Dharma have no genuine faith or true mindfulness, they will certainly dispense with and ignore [the law of] causality."
6.437 "denying karma is wrong view, zazen with wrong view is useless"
7.504 "Tathagatas [Buddhas] never go beyond clarifying cause and effect"
7.510 "Students of the way cannot dismiss cause and effect. If you discard cause and effect, you will ultimately deviate from practice-realization."
3 hrs · Unlike · 4
"From the standpoint of Anatta realization there is apparently nothing and no one to be reborn and on one and nothing to which karma might apply even if these were not a matter of belief. So I have not seen yet how any of the above discussion or definition has established these as more than beliefs anyway. Do we need to swallow the litany of dependent origination blindly after all? I understand the intent of it certainly however I do not agree entirely with the order and structure. The question remains as to how ignorance might occur in the first place. It is tantamount to the Theistic "problem of evil" I have yet to see a Theodicy, if you will, of ignorance. But really when it comes down to it, it does not matter since a realization of Anatta dispels it all anyway."
-----------------
Regarding the idea of no-self and rebirth: from the standpoint of anatta or otherwise there has never, ever once at any time been someone or something for karma to apply to. That is the entire point of this, and that is why realizing anatta, etc., is possible. If there truly were a 'self' endowed with valid existence then anatta would be an impossibility.
Buddhism is never dealing with 'selves', it is dealing with causes and conditions, afflictive processes and habitual patterns. The 'self' is merely a useful (ultimately unfounded) convention attributed to the sum total of those processes. There is no self enduring from moment to moment, there is patterns of conduct, behavior, grasping, which are simultaneous causes and effects for further proliferation of the same expressions.
For example, from Nāgārjuna's Pratītyadsamutpādakarika:
"Empty dharmas are entirely produced
from dharmas strictly empty;
dharmas without a self and [not] of a self.
Words, butter lamps, mirrors, seals,
fire crystals, seeds, sourness and echoes.
Although the aggregates are serially connected,
the wise are to comprehend nothing has transfered.
Someone, having conceived of annihilation,
even in extremely subtle existents,
he is not wise,
and will never see the meaning of ‘arisen from conditions’."
And in his Pratītyasamutpādakarikavhyakhyana, Nāgārjuna states in reply to a question:
"Question: Nevertheless, who is the lord of all, creating sentient beings, who is their creator?
Reply: All living beings are causes and results."
And in the same text:
"Therein, the aggregates are the aggregates of matter, sensation, ideation, formations and consciousness. Those, called ‘serially joined’, not having ceased, produce another produced from that cause; although not even the subtle atom of an existent has transmigrated from this world to the next."
And lastly from Lopon Kunga Namdrol:
The point is that the question is phrased wrong requiring at best an ambigious answer that will confuse more than edify.
Buddha in fact discussed this with Sharputra saying that if he answers the question "yes there is something that undergoes birth" people will become confused and assuem there is a permanent self that undergoes retribution of action and so on. Likewise, if he answers the question "no, there is nothing which undergoes rebirth" likewise there are those who will assume there are no consequences of action and so on and will therefore feel no compelling need observe the principles of karma and so on.
Therefore when asked the question "what takes rebirth" he points out that question itself is flawed.
The question should be "Why is there birth?" The answere to that question is easy. There is birth, i.e. suffering, because of affliction and action.
As long as the aggregates are afflicted, afflicted aggregates will continue to be appropriated.
In Madhyamaka it is explained there is birth because of the innate self-grasping "I am" appearing to the afflicted mind. It is asserted that what appropriates birth in a new series of aggregates is the mental habit "I am." That "I am" is baseless, has no correspondence in the aggregates or seperate from them or in any one of them, just as a car is not found in its parts, seperate from them, or in any one of the parts. Nevertheless, the imputation "car" allows us to use cars effectively. Likewise, the mental habit "I am" is proper as both the agent of action and the object upon which it ripens even though it is basically unreal and has no basis in the aggregates, outside the aggregates, or in any one of them, but allows us to treat the aggreates as a nominally designated "person".
3 hrs · Unlike · 3
Kyle Dixon So there is a conventional self, but that doesn't truly constitute a self. The self is an expression of karma, where there is karma there is conditioning, and the perception of a self appears as a result of those processes. There is no actual self (nor actual absence thereof) though, in any sense of the term.
If those karmic propensities are allowed to proliferate, then the conditions persist. The continuity of those afflictive propensities is reincarnation. What reincarnates is habitual patterns, however again, there is no actual self within that patterning. That is why when one's karma is exhausted then liberation occurs.
The entire occurrence is equivalent to an illusion, it is no different than going to bed at night and waking up the next morning with the impression that the same entity who went to sleep the night before is now waking up to begin a new day. Those processes of confusion beget further confused processes. When confusion is overturned, then those processes are seen for what they are, devoid of substantiality
3 hrs · Edited · Unlike · 3
Kyle Dixon: And if the issue arises from a Zen standpoint; here are a few excerpts from Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō:
5.386 "If people who study Buddha Dharma have no genuine faith or true mindfulness, they will certainly dispense with and ignore [the law of] causality."
6.437 "denying karma is wrong view, zazen with wrong view is useless"
7.504 "Tathagatas [Buddhas] never go beyond clarifying cause and effect"
7.510 "Students of the way cannot dismiss cause and effect. If you discard cause and effect, you will ultimately deviate from practice-realization."
3 hrs · Unlike · 4
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