This is a subject that's been coming up way too much this year, with my grandmother and a few friend's family members dying, in addition to a number of our pets (later note; I wrote this in 2015, but never posted it that year). What does Buddhism say about death?
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keeping it light, even in the shadow of the coming end |
One might think there would be a way to go back to the original words of the Buddha and settle the matter but it turns out it doesn't work that way. In some passages the Buddha explicitly said he wasn't teaching anything about the afterlife, that his teachings only referred to what is helpful for this life, to end suffering (not necessarily the best interpretation of that concept, but good enough for a working version). In other statements he implied reincarnation / rebirth is the accurate model for life after death (rebirth, as people conventionally use the terms, but what's in a name, especially when these terms aren't so clearly defined). Why would that be, an apparent internal contradiction?
A better Buddhism scholar than me might have a more complete answer, but there are some main groups of possibilities that come to mind. There's a decent chance that anything potentially useful in what might actually turn up could be lost in the consideration of the different factors, but lets go there anyway. One possibility:
-some of the teachings are wrong, not the original versions, or added later
Buddhism was an oral tradition for a long time, and we have clear evidence of the written Christian tradition changing over time, a very short span of time (the first half-century AD), so we could expect all the more of the same from one with a much longer history. There are more related reference "documents" / teachings, communicated over decades instead of a few years per the origin story. A reliance on chanting for transmission may have led to inaccuracies, and there is no way to go back and cross-check oral "records." Even a limited review of early Buddhism mentions a lot of branching of practitioners into different groups, relatively early on (sort of relates to another point, depending on how this is interpreted).
-the contradiction was intentional
The Buddha was pretty open about teaching different things to different people related to how different people could relate to helpful ideas differently. The idea was that they were essentially the same teachings and practices, just in different forms, not unheard of in the Hindu tradition (which was really a general group of related ideas and traditions, not just one cohesive set with the exact same underlying assumptions).
To oversimplify, one person might do best with an intellectual approach, and they could benefit from a complicated framework like the dependent origination model to explain reality. For someone else a more devotional practice-oriented inclination might require something quite different as a starting point and methodology. On the surface the ideas could seem to be saying different things but really the final end-point could be essentially the same. Or at least that's the general idea.
If this is right the Buddha might have really said a number of different things that seem to conflict, with related assumptions that really do, because those things were all useful and informative within the range of the one particular discussion or teaching.
-multiple branches of Buddhism teach different things
In reading up a bit for this post I read that Buddhism had already split into a number of different groups prior to establishing the Pali Canon (not the best reference for good information, but the Wikipedia version is one starting point). Another reference mentioned the sutras from the different groups of that time period were relatively similar, so it seems likely that core teachings wouldn't differ so much from them (although maybe that's not true), with more significant differences in the different later schools.
This reference on the different sets of Buddhist texts identifies some of these main branches and groups.
Whenever you see someone in a blog post or article citing different sources, going back to reputed words of the Buddha, then ahead to historical teachers, and up to the present day, maybe even sampling across diverse contexts like philosophy and religion, it seems like they are referring to solid evidence of consistent teachings. But really they could just be starting from one conclusion and then selecting whatever happens to match what they want to conclude, even by picking and choosing from completely different types of sources (different branches / schools / interpretations / types of sources). It sounds as if I'm accusing some people of interpretive bias for doing this, and I guess that is the general point, that you don't really start "from scratch" to read up on one point in Buddhism, it doesn't work that way.
Really specific groups tend to follow internally consistent sets of ideas, derived from a related framework, but that doesn't need to be the case for individuals, and even larger, old traditions could potentially shift interpretations over time. I visited a temple for a monastic group related to Thai Buddhism (of which there are already sub-branches), the Dhammakaya sect, that broke quite far to postulating heavens and essentially a semi-permanent self (really permanent, in the way they framed it).
Of course different people could interpret their teachings and goals differently, but one reviewer summarizes the standard criticisms of this Dhammakaya sect as:
Its critics say it is little more than a commercial venture, preying on the vulnerable who are fooled into believing they can literally buy a better place in their next life
My take is that the teachings seem really unconventional, not in keeping with anything else I encountered, and the meditation practices and other supernatural claims were just as unusual (lots about magic, heavenly realms, angels and such).
So some diversity is really out there--obviously. But does it mean the Buddha might have been accepting rebirth in one set of ideas, and not clearly expressing that in another? It seems if you go on volume alone and taking references to rebirth as confirmation then you have to accept the Buddha did teach it, but there is still room for drawing different conclusions aside from that. I'll explain further.
My take: it sort of doesn't matter
I get it that people really want to know, to take a guess and go with it, or be part of a system of faith that tells them what is coming next. The uncertainty can be a bit much, and every death of a loved one we take personally is another reminder, a very open question--what became of them? What becomes of us?
It always seems odd to me that some people are such "devout" atheists, but I guess that's more of the same. They want to know, even if their conclusion is a negative in the sense of accepting that nothing is coming next. Their take is that logic dictates this, that the arguments are so strong anyone would be compelled to think as they do, but it seems the real drive might well be the desire to know, to come to a certain conclusion, so not completely about logic. Logic really doesn't extend to past everything we currently know and experience, or could experience, unless you start buying into people talking to ghosts or remembering past lives as valid, factual evidence, but then you've already bought into the assumption and conclusion you want to end up with at the outset.
The fact of the matter is whatever it is, isn't it? A wrong guess on our part could have catastrophic results, eternity in a hell realm, if you believe some takes. Schemes with reincarnation / rebirth are a little more forgiving, just adding a few cycles, and that is really based more on other things than beliefs. This line of thinking leads towards a cost-benefit analysis approach to belief, but that really doesn't help much with the facts of the matter.
Conclusion; I don't conclude
So I'm agnostic. I don't know, and I sort of don't guess. I've studied a lot of Buddhism and have been influenced a lot by the ideas but my take is that one could come to different conclusions based on such study. It would be natural to believe in rebirth as a result, but not necessary. It's hard for me to see how such a belief would be claimed to be effective anyway, as it is in Christianity, where the belief itself does something.
Some practitioners could reasonably claim their beliefs relate to actions they take in this life, that karma and rebirth are real, and they take a straight path towards effective results for working out the best-guess truth, but that's hard to completely accept. Even if true that their guess is good, that we are reborn, morality in the different systems is pretty consistent, so being a devout Christian or Pagan would serve you pretty well even if the Hindu / Buddhist answer is right.
I was just at a Thai Buddhist memorial ceremony related to this last idea. Thai Buddhists emphasize the concept of merit quite a bit, so the things one does are effective, offering gifts to monks to produce merit (good karma, essentially). One interesting twist is that these are said to benefit other family members as well, even dead ones. They really might extend that to thinking that thoughts are effective as well, back to where Christianity lands, but per my extensive exposure to Buddhist teachings that doesn't have much basis in what the Buddha actually taught. Actions are effective, and intentions, and even more so states of mind are relevant, perspective and such. Beliefs come into play--right understanding is part of the core eightfold path--and of course these tie back to mental states and actions, but they still aren't effective in the way Christian faith can save you. For a Christian without that belief you're in trouble, regardless of how you choose to live your life.
People with different beliefs related to Buddhism would still want to know what's coming next, and would still seek to justify their beliefs are valid and accurate, as Christians and atheists do. They could turn to teachings for that, citations of different references, and within their own school there would be plenty of reassuring evidence. Oddly sometimes that points towards heaven as a destination, even though this seems a bit inconsistent, but there is a lot of Buddhism out there to draw upon.
Researching a bit; background on what Buddhism is saying about death
This is where things get messy; charting it all out a bit. Fair warning: this doesn't really go anywhere related to a clear conclusion. This section starts in about why Buddhism does say reincarnation / rebirth is how "afterlife" goes, then the next gives evidence against that conclusion, and I'm not sure either has a clear edge. So it's a you-pick-um; believe what you want, and if you want evidence then believe the set of ideas and background that points toward that conclusion.
I scanned a version of the Dhammapada (a set of Buddhist sayings and ideas) to refer to what it includes about death and reincarnation / rebirth (a reference I would have read many versions of a long time ago back when I was into such things). There isn't anything. Of course this is just a selection of some sayings, bits of different ideas, so maybe other sutras would be a better reference.
But don't take my word for it; give it a read, with a clear enough version here. Or there is a bit more interpreted and poetic version here. Keep in mind the biases in the school / group of the person interpreting belongs to will show up as pointing translation of certain concepts towards what they expect the text to be saying. Some ideas and expressions from 2500 years ago wouldn't easily or clearly translate, so when one section says things about a monk or a holy man they were talking about the context of people in different roles back then, and we really can't know how that compares to now.
Here is a citation that describes about as much as there is in the text about afterlife:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.13.than.html
Get up! Don't be heedless. Live the Dhamma well. One who lives the Dhamma sleeps with ease in this world & the next. Live the Dhamma well. Don't live it badly. One who lives the Dhamma sleeps with ease in this world & the next.
Not much! One could read this as a rejection of atheism but even that would seem a stretch to me. Literally it did just say there is a next world, so there is that.
Here is that from the other source, interpreted, but it doesn't go so far in explaining it:
Verse 168. The Righteous Are Happy - Here And Hereafter
Explanation: Wake up to reality; do not be delude. Live in accordance with reality. The realistic person lives happily in this world and in the next.Rouse yourself, be diligent, in Dhamma faring well.
Who dwells in Dhamma’s happy in this birth and the next.
It's strange how different sources say completely different things about Buddhism and rebirth / reincarnation. I'll skip calling that by both names for now, and I do get around to citing the supposed difference, which gets back to the rejection of a permanent soul. It would take the kind of understanding these sources wouldn't provide to sort that out, but it's not so hard to cite a passage that starts in on it.
One typical Western short-answer cross referenced source says Buddhism doesn't say anything about rebirth, and of course a Wikipedia page on the subject completely assumes it does, and moves on directly to explaining and siting what that is. So what gives?
To back up and provide a little more context, these are just citations that appear high in a Google-search review of the subject for "Buddhism and reincarnation." It would be possible to find lots of sources that go in both directions, saying different things about why, different types of references that seem better or worse depending on what someone likes in researched or reliable sources, speaking from different types of authority.
Bear in mind there are lots of different schools of Buddhism from a few main branches, which refer back to different core texts, so these all really should be saying somewhat different things. Some say heaven or hell is the next step, seemingly a third alternative to coming back or nothing happening next.
This guy wrote a long blog post (Alen Peto; surely doesn't ring a bell) explaining the differences, and since he accepts rebirth is part of Buddhist teachings he cites references saying that's the case. Per his take reincarnation assumes a permanent soul (rejected in Buddhism), and rebirth doesn't, but then it's not so clear to me that convention is a given except based on a framework of ideas that already assumes it. Surely if you look up both in a dictionary it's not specific about that. He freely mixes references from different branches, so there are authorities (modern ones) and limited text citations supporting what he's saying, but then surely one could start from the opposite assumption and write the opposite blog entry, seemingly just as well supported.
It seemed like that's what I was going to do, right, cite around a lot and sketch out the fact of the matter per different takes? Not so much, but I would like to turn up the core teaching where the Buddha defers describing if the afterlife is one way or the other. I'll keep on that.
Here is one core teaching that one encounters frequently about setting aside certain scope of ideas:
...Then, as Ven. Malunkyaputta was alone in seclusion, this train of thought arose in his awareness: "These positions that are undeclared, set aside, discarded by the Blessed One — 'The cosmos is eternal,' 'The cosmos is not eternal,' 'The cosmos is finite,' 'The cosmos is infinite,' 'The soul & the body are the same,' 'The soul is one thing and the body another,' 'After death a Tathagata exists,' 'After death a Tathagata does not exist,'...
To make a long story short, the Buddha goes on to explain he's not going to answer those questions, or determine these issues. Why not? The idea is that other issues and concerns are more important, and these one needn't focus on, or at least not as taught from the Buddha.
Related to that teaching, the explanation given for it is colorful:
It's just as if a man were wounded with an arrow thickly smeared with poison. His friends & companions, kinsmen & relatives would provide him with a surgeon, and the man would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the man who wounded me was a noble warrior, a brahman, a merchant, or a worker.' He would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know the given name & clan name of the man who wounded me...
Really the Buddha's words describe what he means by the analogy clearly, why he's just not going into a lot of different ideas in his teachings (attributed; been awhile back, he probably said something close to this, but really who knows):
And why are they undeclared by me? Because they are not connected with the goal, are not fundamental to the holy life. They do not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, calming, direct knowledge, self-awakening, Unbinding. That's why they are undeclared by me.
And what is declared by me? 'This is stress,' is declared by me. 'This is the origination of stress,' is declared by me. 'This is the cessation of stress,' is declared by me. 'This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress,' is declared by me. And why are they declared by me? Because they are connected with the goal, are fundamental to the holy life. They lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, calming, direct knowledge, self-awakening, Unbinding. That's why they are declared by me.
Oddly enough it seems a given that different people are going to use that same passage to explain why the Buddha did or didn't teach about specific things, rebirth being one of them. It seemed he just set it aside, right? Or maybe not. It wasn't clearly part of the list. The part about rebirth of a Buddha he didn't go into (using expression of Tathagata), although the natural read in other teachings is that after enlightenment one isn't reborn (as a collection of causes; a permanent, independent soul is out in any interpretation, really, although some more radical schools still end up going back to that).
A school that is agnostic about reincarnation could easily use such passages as justification that the Buddha just didn't say what comes next, and in this particular teaching that seems to be true. In general, again not so easy to summarize.
One interesting reference is a long description of this general issue, and an extended explanation / argument for why rebirth is an integral part of the Buddha's teachings. Note this is coming from someone within a school accepting rebirth, so it's not really an unbiased take on what a broad selection of teachings clearly indicate, it's more a justification of an accepted position. A citation of this contains a quote of an original Buddhist teaching related to justifying this position:
3. Rebirth and Action
The first part of the answer is that knowledge of rebirth formed an integral part of his awakening experience, playing a role in all three knowledges that led to his attainment of total release. Knowledge about karma played a role in the second and third.
In the first knowledge, he recollected many eons of his own previous lives:
"When the mind was thus concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished, rid of defilement, pliant, malleable, steady, & attained to imperturbability, I directed it to the knowledge of recollecting my past lives. I recollected my manifold past lives, i.e., one birth, two... five, ten..
So this author's point is that the Buddha might have needed to include this idea (rebirth) when leaving other metaphysical concerns aside because it played a role in the process of obtaining a higher level of awareness. I guess this is the kind of point essentially none of us (almost none) would ever be able to relate to one way or the other, what role individual beliefs play in advanced states of Buddhist awareness (or higher states of consciousness; whatever that's about). At any rate this doesn't seem closely tied to ordinary perspective or experience.
Of course this is coming from someone defending a position in a certain school, related to early Buddhist teachings. This doesn't necessarily discredit the points made but the pattern does seem to follow accepting a set of ideas as correct to start and interpreting back to why, rather than the other way around, looking at the whole picture.
He actually wrote a really good summary of the same type of interpretive revisionist process being followed once before related to Christianity, in an earlier section (although I'm saying he's not really done this, or doesn't seem to have):
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Borobudur temple, Java (not really related) |
We in the West have done this sort of thing before. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, many European Romantics and American Transcendentalists found that they couldn't accept the worldview of the Bible because they were born in an era of new scientific discoveries — of geological deep time and astronomical deep space — that called the biblical worldview into question. Nevertheless, they valued many of the psychological teachings the Bible contained. So they developed an historical approach to the Bible, stating that its worldview may have fit in with the cultural presuppositions of the time when it was written, but that that worldview had to be discarded as science advanced.
Interesting, sounds worthwhile, but it doesn't seem to be his project. Maybe a bit on the opposing view.
The opposing view: Buddhism doesn't necessarily entail rebirth
Again this gets a bit tricky because if you look for people advocating Buddhism teachings much closer to agnosticism or even atheism they're out there, and they will cite different evidence for backing up those views. Here is one example. Of course that's just a blog post, short on citations of any kind, and the author simply says in his own experience (mostly related to Zen) there was no connection of what he learned related to afterlife schemes of any kind. So that's one person's take, but not really much of an argument.
The main thing he says is that a lot of sources don't tie Buddha's direct teachings to rebirth, but then again some do, not that he clearly states that. His conclusion even rejects agnosticism, which to me is a bit odd, since it is only a rejection of a position, or what he is stating:
So, in considering whether I should believe in rebirth, I have so far not encountered the necessary evidence for the belief. Just as important, I have not found a reason why such a belief would be necessary to motivate my practice. And even if I could think of such a reason, I would still need some evidence. For me to believe without proof goes against the lessons in integrity and careful discernment I have learned from Buddhism itself. In the meantime, I hope to remain unattached to any views that might be for, against, or agnostic about rebirth. I believe that peace is found in not clinging.
So there is that, but there isn't much to it; he sort of says the teachings sort of don't say, not that he could possibly be familiar with a good proportion of all of Buddhism.
Here is the Buddhist discourse he cites in the beginning of the blog that essentially says a similar thing, that Buddhism as a set of teachings doesn't really say, from the supposed words of the Buddha, from the Sabbasava Sutta:
18. "That person considers improperly thus: 'Did I exist in the past? Did I not exist in the past? Who was I in the past? How was I in the past?[15] In the past, who had been I and who was I [in the subsequent existence]? Will I exist in the future? Will I not exist in the future? Who will I be in the future? .... "Also as regards the present, uncertainty arises in him thus: 'Do I exist? Do I not exist? Who am I? How am I ? From where has this soul come? Where will this soul go?'
19. "In a person who thus considers improperly there arises one of the six [wrong] views. The view 'I have self'[16] arises in him really and firmly. Or, the view 'I have no self' ....
[18] That self of mine is permanent, stable, durable, incorruptible and will be eternal like all things permanent.' "Bhikkhus! This wrong view is called a false belief, .... who is bound up with the fetter of false beliefs cannot escape rebirth, ageing, death, grief, lamentation, pain, distress and despair. I declare that he cannot escape dukkha.[19]
Seems clear enough, right, best not to worry about that, the same general ideas in the earlier citation, just a bit more clearly stated. It seems here the Buddha really is an agnostic, one who sets aside such questions.
But then, if you wanted to believe the opposite, that either rebirth or even heaven are alternatives worthy of believing in, there are other teachings out there, even other people collecting citations and offering modern twists on all of it. The Buddha surely put the most focus on working on immediate experience but from there it's a bit more open. That could be because error crept in later, or diverse teachings are somehow appropriate, who is to say.
Final conclusion: is there even one?
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one possibility (attribution) |
You'd think a tradition like Thai Buddhism would be clear; surely they believe in reincarnation, that we are all just coming right back, but not so much. Somehow heaven enters the mix, or undetermined states, or ghosts, and people accept whatever they want to accept. In a very vague sense it's a given that how you live your life and your own perspective are somehow more important, and the effects of doing positive and negative things, but nothing so clear about all that either.
I guess in general that's it; you can be as certain as you want about any conclusion, but will need to accept an external reference if you want some background for that. It's nice that you can pick whichever outcome you want, and whichever set of evidence and support, but for some that's not so nice, too indeterminate. In some of the systems there really is a "you" that gets to find out (at the pearly gates, and such, or whatever that means metaphorically), but in Buddhism there's a decent chance most of that will pass away with this life-span, so what continues on isn't all that clear, maybe some inertia of will and karmic effect, collections of experiences and inclinations, or maybe not that much.
I wish I could be more comforting, to really say something. One guy I talked to online while he was dying really believed that he had experienced out of body travel, and that was his personal justification for belief there was more coming, and he seemed comfortable with that. My grandmother believed in heaven, so to her it was no big deal, she was just going on to that, to a reunion. I guess best to be at peace with any understanding, even if it is atheism, or agnosticism, to accept that what will be will be.
I guess the only people that need to worry are those that believe in a literal hell, and that they are going there, but surely those must be the minority, given the leeway faith systems that support that generally allow you.
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