What is Western Philosophy, also compared to Buddhism

I've recently joined a couple of Facebook philosophy groups and it can be disappointing how far discussion falls from the range of philosophy, even aside from people switching to insulting each other and such.  I don't mind slightly off-topic questions like "do you believe in an afterlife" but lots of what gets posted is just nonsense, like arguing for or against vegetarianism, without really even doing much with arguments related to that.  So I've decided to explain what philosophy is, to the extent that anyone can really do that.

As background, I studied philosophy to get two degrees in it, also covering a good bit of Buddhism and some religion scope.  If it matters the undergrad study was at the University of Colorado, and Master's at the University of Hawaii (at Manoa), after prior industrial engineering study at Penn State, more related to work I do now.  I'm no expert, but I've put some time in studying a lot of scope.  So lets do this.

What is philosophy?  Starting with history.

It really covers a broad range of themes, and I won't do justice to explaining all of those.  As far as the vague impression it might delve into the meaning of life, it mostly doesn't, since that's way too vague to get a handle on.  Modern topics are more like philosophy related to language use, issues related to self and mind, along with classic topics like ethics (study of morality) and aesthetics (study of the nature of beauty, more or less).  Modern study still refers back to earlier scope, so courses and review of Plato, Kant, and Nietzsche are still relevant.  The main branch I studied under last, analytic philosophy, the one typically pursued in the US, narrows scope in a way that's not so easy to describe, with emphasis on a narrow range of approaches, and on logic, and certain subjects and thinkers.  It all cycles a bit, so what is interesting or how classic works are interpreted changes decade to decade.

The history of philosophy is relevant because study of prior thinkers keeps being renewed, and forms the basis for modern approaches and ideas, so I'll say a little more about that.  For the most part it's narrowed to include only Western philosophy, as studied in the West, although I was in an academic program in Hawaii where they branch out a bit to Eastern thought as well.  Oddly they retained a very narrow approach related to how they interpreted Chinese and Indian ideas, so things got a little strange, but at least they were reaching out, sort of.

Socrates

It starts with the Greeks.  Plato is the first main writer, sort of basing his early thought on his teacher, Socrates, with him as the main character in most dialogues.  It's hard to say how Socrates's own thinking and conclusions varied since he didn't write.  There are pre-Socratics, earlier thinking, but not much survives, just fragments like "no man ever steps in the same river twice" (Heraclitus).  Surely some developed thinking went along with those fragments, and people do work on trying to reconstruct it, but Greek philosophy in main forms is mostly Plato and Aristotle.


It doesn't summarize well what they covered since it went pretty far, and since later interpretation of their works expands what they really meant way beyond the scope of what they actually said.  My impression:  Plato's early works seem to focus more on what Socrates probably said, more a review of ordinary thinking, using questioning to investigate worldview assumptions and such, with later developed thought building more of a model of experience.  Aristotle went into natural sciences quite a bit, and along with that built up some of a model of the basis for mind and mental experience (metaphysics), which isn't exactly something we keep around as a modern model for mind today.

Oddly the Romans don't get as much attention, although of course they were still writing about philosophy.  It almost seems that's because Plato is so interesting, and medieval thought more linked to modern schools, so it drops out because it's not one of those (as Aristotle does too, to some extent, but his work seemed to link together with later Christian thought, so it tended to be set aside much later when Christianity study started to seem less interesting).  Descartes is where most people pick up the trail of Western philosophy again, and he didn't really have lots to say we still need to consider.  He questioned how we know that experience itself is real, how we know we don't live in the Matrix, more or less, so in a sense he did help do some background writing for a popular modern movie.  From there another half-dozen main philosophers bridge the gap on to Kant, who sort of brought together a few main ideas and themes and re-set how people put it all together.  Reading his work is a rough go, as much from the odd style of writing, lacking organized structure of main points and never really summing up what it all meant, although to him he probably was really covering both.  He influenced philosophy so much that his work is still around in how it influences people, although some key aspects weren't retained.

Kant!

I just wrote a blog post on Kant in relation to tea tasting, over on the main blog I write actively, about tea, here.  In a way writing about his aesthetics ideas misses the main points because his main work really deals with the structure of mind and mental reality, cognitive functions and judgments and such.  Ethics / morality really works better as a secondary theme.  A comment on that work in a tea discussion site (by Cwyn, a fellow tea blogger) really fills in the background that frames aesthetics within his system well (her own writing about tea is a bit out there, interesting in its own way, here):


Kant tried to separate the idea of pure judgement of taste, as an abstract notion, specifically free of the perception of pleasure, what he called “disinterested.” He wanted his criteria for a pure judgement to come from a priori principles that are abstract, applying to every aesthetic judgement. So, in other words this concept is more similar to the Buddhist ideal of non-attachment.

He did not dismiss the idea of a judgement on taste with pleasure. These are based on “schemas,” what you refer to as constructs. The example Kant uses is the “savage” who has never seen a house. He cannot judge a house because he has no schema. But with repetition he learns about houses and then begins to forms schemas which he uses to judge their aesthetic merit. Judgement with pleasure or based on schemas are what he considers subjective, because the thinking is not pure or disinterested coming from an abstract principle.

A key point is the idea of the “demand for agreement” on one’s judgement. Kant seemed to feel that with pure judgement, everyone is coming from the same abstract a priori principle. But with schemas and judgements that include a pleasure response, the demand for agreement becomes arguable, and therefore end up subjective. People aren’t agreeing because their schemas differ. But under the pure judgement criteria, agreement is unified and stemming from the abstract principle.

Today, the accepted theory is that no objective pure principle exists, that it is all schema or construct and these are laden with political, cultural and personal ideas. That what we once called objective or pure was a notion of European white men etc. etc.


Clear enough?  My own post talks through more of the background, but basically Kant throws something like wine tasting out of the range of his main aesthetics theories, the parts relating to well-defined judgments relating to his main cognitive-aspect categories, for the reasons she just mentions.

Nietzsche sort of wasn't a philosopher, in the ordinary sense, but his work is interesting, so I'll mention him.  He didn't set up models for solving philosophical problems, and didn't frame his work as arguments.  Instead he said lots of cool or crazy things in oddly formatted works, sometimes in long story form (Thus Spake Zarathustra) but more often as short sayings, which can make for interesting quotes.  He didn't really set up a clear model of how people think or experience things, or even try to solve a problem like what morality is based on.  He said things like "that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger," and reading it all can be interesting, it's just not offered as any sort of explanation or guidance for how to approach reality, beyond how the diverse sayings and ideas come together, which is not so much.  He seemed to think people were developing toward some sort of higher ideal, which groups of people like the Nazis took in a really negative way, but what he did say wasn't clear enough to work as something to plan around, without adding most of the specific content to it.

As for modern philosophy, that gets to be diverse.  It's not as if it's a hot topic, in general, so there are lots of people working in lots of directions, tucked away within academic programs talking it all out in conferences or in academic publications.  Some are still plugging away at really old formulations of problems and others are "breaking new ground," keeping on with changes in subjects like philosophy of mind or language, which can draw some input from related but different fields.

What is philosophy?  More on how it works.

That's already the basics, but it's still probably not at all clear how this ties back to ordinary experience.  A lot of it really doesn't.  That can be odd, since it's based on themes of human experience, about mind, or morality, language use, logic, etc.  Maybe delving a little deeper into how that might work or might not work out would help.

Philosophy can't really set up a great, comprehensive model for mental reality.  Strange, isn't it, since they've been at it awhile?  To some extent some of that is psychology, so once things get to be more practical, about how patterns or trends in thinking or view of self go, or about things that can go wrong with that, then you are on a different subject.  Someone could try to work the grey area, covering how philosophy could support what psychology does, for example to examine use of logic.

Logic is a funny thing, a good place to discuss further, since it really means a set of different things.  One part is logic related to arguments, fallacies and such.  That could be taught as a philosophy class but in general it's not really considered within the scope of modern philosophy.  Another part is closer to Boolean algebra, laws that govern how your computer "thinks," binary logic, and that is philosophy.  There are different ways to describe something like arguments, more like math problems really, a bit like a software code, but at the same time quite different.  The problem with all that is that we don't really think in terms of a binary logic, crunching truth and falsity of assumptions and derivations of conclusions in ordinary thinking.  To some extent it might seem like we do, until you look a bit closer.  Patterns in thinking aren't that clear, and aren't necessarily binary (hardly anything is true or false, although of course some things are), and thoughts and arguments aren't laid out that way.  It's too bad because the math aspect is sort of cool.  Computers do think like that, much as a very different form of information processing could be called thinking, although it's more wrong than right to use that label, so a different version definitely works for them.

What about morality, surely there must be a way to map out how we are judging right and wrong, even if it wouldn't be completely consistent or complete?  Not exactly.  It works a lot better than some other subjects, and it does seem to boil down to two general approaches, neither of which is exactly what we are doing, but both may inform part of it.  One part is from Kant's thinking, basically saying that we use and follow reason to determine what is right from some objective form of judgment about such things.  As with the review of aesthetics the problem is that reasoning isn't actually based on objective, universal principles (these sort of don't exist), and the patterns and mental functions aren't as clear as Kant's system would make them out to be.

The other main school works out well, but also has limitations:  consequentialism or utilitarianism (see more definition of schools and branches here).  The idea is that doing what's right is what leads to the best outcomes, so that what seems like relatively abstract rules, maybe based on religion or something else, are actually helping people to do the right thing in a broader sense.  Oddly I think we are actually doing this, to some extent.  We don't kill each other because society needs us not to do that to remain stable.  But what about lying?  Here it gets odd.  Society as a larger system benefits from order and structure, from people acting on the greater good rather than their own immediate goals, but there are limits to how much an individual is going to go with all that, and how practical it could be.  There has to be some balance.  Lying is functional, almost necessary in some cases, but murder isn't.  Of course there are always exceptions; we define war, capital punishment, suicide or abortion as not being murder, as being ok, and then people tend to disagree over the definitions and allowances.  Laws fill in where the balance settles out, like restrictions on drug possession and use, but then even those can change over time.

Western philosophy covers lots more scope, way more than I could ever get into.  Problems about self and mind and language can be interesting, although the format those tend to be framed and discussed in wouldn't be interesting to most, maybe a bit dry, or abstract.  It takes a lot of work running through the prior thinking and some related schools of ideas so although we have minds and use language we couldn't really embrace the discussion and join right in, without putting in lots of research and effort.  In the end philosophy doesn't tend to really solve those anyway, because people are so complicated, and vary so much, so it's as much about people just having the interest, or basing their careers on the academic path, getting the next teaching job or tenure or paper published.  Undergrad philosophy classes can become a bit of an afterthought, although that does serve as one basis for all the rest.

All of this, compared to Buddhism

taking Buddhism as religion a bit far, with a cool cat

Is Buddhism philosophy?  Not really.  Maybe that's too simple, since lots of people take philosophy in lots of directions, and the same is true for Buddhism.  I studied two different sets of ideas as analytic Western philosophy (a very narrowly defined type in terms of approach, but covering a broad range):  Indian philosophy, in particularly Nagarjuna's Madhyamika Buddhism works, and Tibetan philosophy, sort of along the same lines, academic stuff, kind of abstract, pretty far removed from the eightfold path and dependent origination and the other Buddhism basics.


It's hard to do justice to what those ideas are about, or how the approach works.  Really it was part of an ongoing discussion (two, one for each country, school, and time period), what they were considering philosophy at one point, which in modern times philosophical study can see as close enough to be interesting (although to very few people).  If you wanted to look into all that Jay Garfield is probably the name that comes up the most related to modern study.

Back to placing conventional Buddhism, the rest of it.  A lot of how Buddhism is taken is religion, plain and simple, Zen and such.  It's definitely not philosophy in the modern Western sense but of course there can be undergrad philosophy classes on the subject anyway, and people writing papers, etc.  Zen is a good example of moving to the other side of the spectrum related to explanations of basic subjects, like how people experience reality, since it's more about indirect guidance for practice of changing that experience, about meditation and such.

One interesting part of Zen relates to use of koans, sort of an unconventional puzzle, for example "what is the sound of one hand clapping?"  There is no answer, of course, the idea is that if can somehow internalize the question you can break free of the constraints of normal perspective, to some extent.  How that works isn't supposed to be clear.  Someone could express their take on it, their experience of the meditation, a status of their own "internalization" process, to an instructor for their review, so to some extent coming up with answers makes sense, but not in an ordinary sense.  One hand can't clap, as they intend the question, so they don't mean that you can strike your palm with your fingers instead.


It might seem like basic teachings like the dependent origination model of human experience is much closer to philosophy (here is one reference on that, and the Wikipedia article, but really reading a few sources would make more sense to really get the sense of it).  The basic idea is that the Buddha talked about concepts like self (really in rejecting their was a permanent self, mostly, but what he meant isn't necessarily simple) and about experience, related to attachment (in a special sense), and this sort of maps out how ordinary mental experience works.

It's pretty far from logic, or modern philosophy of mind, or even modern psychology models.  Maybe if the subject of philosophy is interpreted broadly enough it is philosophy, but that's sort of cheating, since so is psychology and much of religion, if one stretches the concepts to mean things they normally don't, and they you still have the problem of one thing being in two categories.  So Buddhism is like philosophy, on a vaguely related but different scope, just based on completely different approach with completely different models, and different goals.

One main difference is that philosophy is supposed to be descriptive, about how all those subjects really work out once you analyze them more closely, and the basic theme of Buddhism is prescriptive, about not just describing how things are but filling in how to do better, how to experience things in a fundamentally different way.  It's not like Christianity, where some basic rules and teaching work together with some beliefs, ideas one is supposed to accept, since it's more complicated, and not tied to an afterlife or deity scheme.  Or at least in most forms it's really not, but it can be a bit diverse.

As with Western Philosophy even though the subject is human experience, which we are all already "doing," it's not necessarily easy to just jump right into discussion.  One would need to learn some basics first, and then learn further related to specific ideas one wants to follow up with more consideration of practice (meditation, changes to everyday life approach, etc.).  So this is a second main difference from Western philosophy, a lot more emphasis on doing specific things, and not just leading a more enlightened life in some general and abstract sense, typically.

To circle back to where all this started, it might sound like I'm saying that people with very little exposure to both Western philosophy and Buddhism might not have any luck with meaningful discussion in a Facebook group.  To step that back a little, I think with a more informed starting point they might be able to, without going out and getting a college degree, or cracking a half-dozen difficult texts.  But I think it would tend to run to nonsense if based on common sense takes instead, starting point questions like "the Buddha said that no self exists; what do you think?"  He meant something specific by that, and you don't get to the interesting considerations until you move a couple steps past ordinary understanding of such concepts.

Maybe most people don't even have an ordinary working understanding concept of "self," but whatever that would be it's not really what the Buddha was talking about.  One has to dig into the ideas a bit to see where it is all coming from and going, and only then can the process of applying the ideas to one's own experience can begin.  You don't have to memorize 30 or 40 Pali terms and read a few dozen core texts and interpretations but an ordinary worldview and common-sense level of understanding of Western psychology is not adequate preparation to make something of the ideas.

Put that way it sounds so judgmental, doesn't it?  Not to worry; that's just my take.  People can feel free to go on about misconceptions about quantum physics and vibrations and tuning in, and remain convinced that it really does somehow relate, or make sense.  Of course it's all complete nonsense, so they might as well be watching baseball instead, but as long as they don't screw up the rest of their worldview too much it wouldn't matter.  The internet being what it is they could even find other people that talk in similar ways, using similar words that make no real sense, that also imagine connections between the forms of nonsense and everyday life practices, like actual morality, or vegetarian diet, aligning chakras, wherever they take it.

Conclusion

In my own experience real Buddhism can be interesting, perhaps even helpful related to reviewing and slightly shifting an ordinary worldview.  It functions as a form of informed introspection, when both the ideas and then application to related practices and then to everyday life come together.  It's quite difficult to get some basics down, and finding a teacher to simplify or guide the process would be much more likely to be problematic than to be helpful, so a lot of good judgment would be required.


To some extent all of the same could be true of Western philosophy, or at least it could just be interesting.  Grabbing a random text and reading it might not be so meaningful but it couldn't hurt, and you never know.  Random, uninformed online discussion doesn't need to be completely irrelevant and slightly annoying but so far that's what I'm seeing.  To some extent it wouldn't take much of a starting point or much background for common sense to kick back in as being relevant.  For example related to the issue of whether morality as prescribed by society or religion is really just the best interests of society being expressed as a code to enforce best interest on a societal scale.  Someone could think about that without reading utilitarianism and might come up with some interesting ideas.  It wouldn't hurt to catch what others have said as well, the prior thinking, and the consideration and discussion would likely be much more developed and useful, if one had did that.

If anyone reading this has suggestions about the one exception out there where the discussion is just great let me know (maybe tell me on Facebook, here).  I meant no offense to anyone about their own views or discussion, and apologize if I've caused that.  There is room for a lot of different takes in every subject and this is all just my own related to philosophy, and of course it's only a rough sketch.

On being a temporary monk in Thailand

I was once ordained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand for over two months.  That was eight years ago now, back in the end of 2007, from November to January.  Since I've been mentioning a bit about that related to an expat forum discussion I'll pass on some of the same ideas here.  Of course this will be far from complete, just talking around where it happens to lead.

Why do Thais ordain as temporary monks?

at the kuti, residence area

This is actually a common part of their culture, with origins in the original, older Buddhist tradition.  Of course Thai Buddhism is part of the Theravada tradition, the older main branch of Buddhism, versus Mahayana and Vajrayana.  This isn't going to be an intro to Buddhism post though, just about my experiences, so people interested in such a thing can check the main Wikipedia Buddhism article, then go on to read another hundred sources to see what that left out or got wrong.

In the original form someone could ordain as a monk for the rainy season, then go back to lay-life.  The intention would seem to be a spiritual retreat period but it's conceivable this also enabled a more practical aspect of providing those people a place to stay and food, from alms round practice.  Given the context seems to imply it related to agricultural workers they would have already had a place to stay, and things should have went well enough with the farming that basic sustenance shouldn't have been an issue, but who knows really.  It was a different time and place, or given how it could have evolved over time maybe different times and places.

In the modern form in Thailand it's about accumulating merit for the family, more or less.  Some people--men only; females can be a type of nun but not a monk, with one exception in a splinter group in Australia, but that's a different story--even ordain immediately after the death of a family member related to this.  The point is that merit--good karma--doesn't just accumulate for that person, but also goes to family members, so even after death it's a way to support family that has passed, along with merit accumulated from memorial services, and giving gifts to monks.

  

How effective can these rituals be, in terms of generating merit?  There's no quantifying that, but there are ways to sort of add more "spiritual power" to effort, so a bit of a scale can emerge.  If "higher" monks take part these are more highly regarded, sort of "spiritually accomplished" individuals, so having a ceremony involving some such monks is thought to have more effect.  How would one know how senior, or highly regarded, or spiritually advanced a monk is?  They actually have ranks related to such a thing, and of course older monks in general have more personally accumulated merit from their own practice, one of many factors related.  All of this is drifting off the point a bit, though, that of covering some basics.

So the short version is that taking part benefits the monk (maybe not so much in this life, or maybe so, hard to be clear on that), and also their family.  The family receives a "merit / karma" benefit, which even extends to dead family members who are long since no longer around, or on to the generation not yet born.  Or at least that's one part of the story, a literal faith that relates to generated merit.

A special case, ordaining as a novice (samanane)

The idea that one might be a samanane or monk novice is an unusual special case.  Thais seem to only use this position for children, although I can't say for sure there is no convention related to an adult becoming a samanane, but I'm not familiar with any.  In the original form this is exactly what the role was about.  I won't go into details but apparently this came about originally (per the stories, and this is just my own take) related to the Buddha establishing a role for his own son.  Of course I'm not as clear that this was the direct cause, or just an existing role his own son came to take up, as a child.

It seems like special tourism programs in Thailand (at least one) use "ordaining" an adult male as a novice for the purpose of giving a foreigner a taste of the experience without drawing on full ordination, or altering existing practices to set up monastic experience as tourism.  Since I don't have a lot of background related to this I'm only mentioning it here as an interesting exception, and one that helps fill in a bit about this novice role.  Thais would likely not be so clear on this distinction since it's unheard of for adults to become novices, so I would expect that they would naturally assume these people were monks.

Foreign monks; special issues

Visas to stay in Thailand aren't really part of the potential benefit.  I know one long-term monk here (mostly online) that goes through the same visa issues others do, resolved mostly through use of educational visas.  As related background, I know one other layman expat using the same approach, here as a long term student.

Really all the same context of being a monk applies as to foreigners just as it does to native Thai monks; there is essentially no difference.  Some complications come up related to language, of course, especially related to learning the rules for a monk, since direct instruction on the rules becomes more complicated.  I'll cover all that in a later section.

The ordination ceremony requires a good bit of chanting in Pali, but since that's a language that Thais don't speak either it's not so different to learn by rote for a foreigner as for a Thai.  Thai is a tonal language but Pali is really not, so in that one sense learning random sounds in Pali should be a lot easier for a foreigner, compared to if one tried to do the same in Thai.


It's not directly related to this experience but I did study Sanskrit quite a bit, four four semesters, or for 12 credits at the University of Hawaii in grad school, and those two languages are very closely related (Pali and Sanskrit), with a lot of overlap.  Sanskrit is more or less a parent language that evolved to become Pali, which evolved to become Hindi, so unless I've got that completely wrong--which probably isn't so unlikely--Sanskrit is Hindi's grandmother.

While I'm at it lets do a short tangent about how Pali and Sanskrit sounds relate to those in English and Thai, even though it's hardly related (it is related to the chanting, I guess).  The tones are out, which I already said, with the main difference left relating to consonant sound differences.  One vowel sound wasn't completely familiar, as I recall, but in general those wouldn't be so hard to get close to saying right with a background in either other language.  At first in studying Sanskrit I really was trying to get the consonant sounds right, but later it became evident we could just botch that part and the professor didn't really care, so I never really did master them.  

Maybe I could be clearer about what I'm even talking about though.  The main difference related to "aspiration," to the slight "h" sound or air release that corresponds to some consonant sounds.  I don't want to go too far with this, but notice that when one says a normal "t" sound in English (test, tone, take, to, any words) there is a slight hiss of air following the "t," but when pronouncing a "b" instead there isn't (bat, boy, bin--try it an you'll see).  Really it would be possible for someone to pronounce a non-aspirated "t" sound, to cut that part off, or an aspirated "b" sound, to add more slight hiss adjoined after to that.  This is what I mean; Sanskrit and Pali use more options with both, they break up the sounds into more of them.

Obviously if I could get that wrong for a Sanskrit class a monk wasn't going to stop an ordination ceremony and fix my pronunciation for that, though.  Compared to a Thai I would have a slight accent, perhaps, since the breakdown of consonants is a little different in Thai too, but since the chanting was in Pali a Thai would probably be pronouncing Pali with a Thai accent too, related to other sound differences.

Monks and money starting point:  they can't possess it

I'll go into monk's rules a lot more, and drift back to some more general background and a conclusion, but in short one of the main rules of being a monk is that a monk can't possess money.  Any guesses as to others?  Of course they have to wear robes, but there are so many rules about the robes it sort of seems assumed and prior to those.  


One interesting rule is that a monk can't physically touch a woman.  No problem; reasonable enough, right?  It's interesting how they would define what "touch" means.  What if a monk handed something to a woman, and accidentally touched her hand in the process?  They've got that covered.  A monk can't hand anything directly to a woman, or receive anything directly from one, so they are taking that rule fairly literally and seriously.  Monks don't eat dinner either; they can only eat a breakfast and lunch, sometimes more strictly interpreted as only one meal a day, but the formal form is they can't sit down to eat lunch after noon.  In theory they could sit down at 11:55 and there's no last word on when the meal needs to be wrapped up but stretching the rules is against the informal rules, the normal interpretation.

Back to the issue of owning money, and potential financial benefit, monks do receive money as contributions, in spite of a clear rule restricting them from possessing or spending it.  Strange, right?  One part of that is about contributing to a temple, sort of, but in Thailand monks have some degree of expenses to cover, so they're not quite as literal and strict about that rule as for the one about touching women.  Of course their expenses are very low, but they do have some very legitimate ones.  For example, some temples charge the monks for their use of electricity, with the understanding that with completely unrestricted access they might waste it (leave lights on, or who knows what).  Cell phones might seem a frivolous expense, although monks do seem to typically own those, but something like eyeglasses or medical treatment seems a valid use of money.  I've heard that medical treatments are covered by society, I guess by the government at certain hospitals, so there may or may not be some gray area remaining.  I didn't need money in the two months I was a monk, but then people did keep contributing things, so it wasn't like I would need to go to Tesco and buy a bar of soap.

There are examples that make the Thai news of monks exploiting their role for financial benefit, or spending money improperly, but my impression (guess?) is that these are exceptions.  Funneling some limited amount of money back to a family may not be so isolated, even if technically still not ok, but most monks probably wouldn't have access to enough money to waste a lot of it.  Given that what most do with what they do receive isn't much of an issue, if they really need a cell phone and such, although I could understand some people thinking they really shouldn't own modern electronics like that.  Others in the main temples, tourist centers, primary ceremonial centers, or probably those within the Dhammakaya sect in general probably do have access to more money (sort of the "Southern Baptist" version of Thai Buddhism, to go ahead and smear two religious sects at the same time), so it could become an issue if the access is there.

What other benefits would there be to being a monk?  That's really a separate issue, a bit of a tangent here.  I'd already mentioned that if one holds a literal form of religious Buddhist faith this ties to accumulating merit / positive karma.  Some form of spiritual development could be seen as the same thing or else as relatively separate from that.   I had a good bit of history studying Buddhism so it really related mostly to that, personally, a follow-up to other types of exposure, enabled by becoming a part of a Thai family.  Or maybe someone would just like the lifestyle.  I knew a long-term foreign monk at another temple that stayed on for that purpose, or so it seemed to me; he liked it.  I'll break all this out in another section.

Monastic life as a lifestyle choice

When I first became a monk my wife's aunt mentioned that people might become monks because they like the lifestyle, which seemed a little strange to me.  

Who would want a lifestyle defined most by over 227 rules one has to adhere to (more on that in a later section), covering significant restrictions like wearing normal clothing or physically touching a woman, or eating after noon.  There are also a lot of minor rules, for example a monk is not permitted to drink something while standing (or so I was told by other novices; maybe not).  Of course it wouldn't be a serious issue to break the minor rules (like drinking something while standing), and to some extent monks do possess money, going against one of the main rules, covered in this already.  

After being a monk I could see what she meant.  It was hard adjusting to the schedule and the restrictions but after a month it all became a bit more normal, and along with some of those choices and options some responsibilities drop away.  A monk doesn't need to worry about most expenses, like food or housing, or much about their jobs (although many had harder jobs than a lot of lay-people, work that would be somewhat demanding and perhaps even stressful, requiring long hours).  Financial concerns would mostly drop away.  Again I'm not sure how that works for medical care, which may or may not get complicated.  One demand I didn't foresee, although I should have after studying for a month to repeat the ordination vows in Pali language, was that it takes a lot of work to learn and retain those endless chants they do in ceremonies.

There are other pros and cons, and lots of related factors, but I could see how in the end some people might like it as a lifestyle choice.  The rules are a bit much, though.  Lets go into that in the next part separately.

Vinaya, 227 rules

Here's a good summary reference for those 227 rules:  http://en.dhammadana.../vinaya/227.htm

Since I don't want to write a lot really explaining what those are--too much for me to take on in a summary opinion based piece--I'll limit this to my own experience of them, or really only part of it, since they were the main background for all of my experience.  This part gets a little strange; I never learned them when I was a monk (which again was eight years ago now).  They covered the main ones with me, or seemed to; it would be hard to narrow down what "main ones" really means, even though they broken into sets.

The reason for that gap in my training was simple enough.  They sent the new monks, or temporary monks, to informal classes on what not to do, but as a foreigner I wasn't going to catch that training in Thai language, and they weren't going to translate it for me.  It's hard to say to what extent the average Thai has already picked up the background of those rules.  Of course they know that they're not supposed to touch women and can't eat after noon but I'm not sure how many of the other rules would be familiar to most.

Some of the rules they don't really follow.  We've covered the background on #17 and #18 of the nissagiyas (I'm referring to that reference list in the external link), not to accept or use money, and they sort of do that, to a limited extent.  #1 on that list, not to keep an extra robe for more than 10 days at a time, they would also routinely ignore.  In practice they really don't store a lot of extra robes, although I don't know the actual convention for limiting it.  Maybe most would never keep more than one spare or something such.  

One might wonder the point of having a spare, or more than one spare, so I'll drift just a little into that.  The main answer seems obvious enough; eventually one is going to need to wash the robe, maybe even frequently, and it would be strange to wear it wet after that, so a spare would be really handy while that dried.  Another concern may not be so obvious:  they come in different colors.  Crazy, right?  In general the Thai city monks wear a bright orange robe and the Thai country monks wear a dark orange, sort of rust-colored robe.  Someone would not keep different robes to look the part, to dress in fashion, depending on where they are, of course, although monks do tend to travel more than one might expect, at least some of them.  Somehow it's also normal enough for Bangkok monks to wear a darker color for formal occassions, to switch from the neon orange to a more beautiful closer-to-rust color.  Of course that does get a little odd; monk formal fashion.

One more detail to this tangent, then back to the main ideas:  someone gave me such a robe once, a beautiful, formal ceremonial version.  I did like the color, but was at a loss for what to do with it.  I went to only one really, really formal ceremony, the kind of thing a brand new or temporary monk absolutely doesn't attend, but I went in my normal robe for that.  I stood out, but then I already stood out for being a foreigner, and for not knowing those long chants, and for being generally clueless.  I already had two robes, so technically I was already one over what I was allowed to own, with no real use for that robe, so I ended up just giving it away to another monk.

Essentially all the rest of those rules the monks really do practice, but some of those get a little vague.  One says to only shower twice a month, unless dirty, but that's open to judgement, and monks tend to keep clean now.  It's as well since it's hot here in Thailand.

One of the other new monks, the temporary, two-week duration kind, told me it was against those rules to smell a flower, and I asked a senior monk and he said it wasn't.  I just read the list and nothing about that is on there.  I didn't see a rule about not drinking while standing either, which the other monks said you can't do; funny how those minor rules inconsistencies might work out.  They explained to me that violating a minor rule isn't really a big deal, or one that somehow seems out of date, no longer as applicable, although of course that leads back to a need for learning which are most minor.  Most of it they really did apply very literally, with a lot of observed conventions that restricted monks to coming across as a bit reserved, sort of the intention of many of the rules.

Monastic culture; informal practices

A lot of those rules do cover things that might seem like cultural elements, about manner, or even thoughts one should have, like not to covet things, or talk with your mouth full, some relatively minor details.  What a monk can or can't do and how they behave really goes beyond that.  A main example:  a monk can't wai to someone first.  The Thai "wai" is a hand gesture, pressing hands together in front of yourself, that looks like a Christian prayer gesture, used as a greeting here.  But that's the short version; it can also mean "I'm sorry," and surely there's lots more to say about it.  The Indian version is pretty close to that, maybe with the hands just held a little lower, with arms at less of an angle, and I'd assume they use it differently.  And they say "namaste," a nice touch, which I've been told means "I show respect to the god in you."

To get back to the point, younger people wai to older people first in Thai culture.  If you do that wrong it's a bit of a faux pas.  It's not quite that simple; someone clearly higher in status shouldn't wai to someone lower in status first, or maybe at all in lots of situations, so for example you don't wai to the taxi drivers, at all.  As a foreigner in Thailand people don't expect you to get it right so a "farang" can just wai when they think it's a good idea, or only wai back.  Or foreigners can really apply it as they like, nodding instead, it's not a big deal how it goes in their case.  For a monk it's really simple; you don't wai to anyone, unless they wai to you.

As for the rest it's mostly about coming across as dispassionate, not showing anger or excitement, being polite, etc.  The rules point to this and other informal conventions carry on with that.  Who knows if I did all that perfectly.  I was lucky to stay in a residence area (or "kuti") with a number of monks that spoke pretty good English, as younger Thais in general do, so I was probably doing ok based on their guidance.

In conclusion

This was one of the most interesting experiences of my life.  I had studied Buddhism for 15 years prior to being a monk and there wasn't that much overlap between that knowledge and related personal development and that time and experience as a monk.  That I didn't expect, that monks really weren't talking about core Buddhism all that much, and if one was a monk and tried to that it might not get far.  Rules, rituals, and stories about the Buddha's life were the opposite, those did come up.  But then I was a "city monk."  If I'd stayed instead at a forest temple dedicated to Buddhist meditation training and learning things might have been different.


I did go on a meditation retreat in that time, out of the city.  I'd been practicing meditation daily at a temple beside the one I lived in, at a meditation center at Wat Mahadat, so the point was more to get exposure to some of those ideas.  This isn't completely unconventional, by the way, for a monk to travel or take up different purposes, but for a temporary monk probably it would be.  One foreign monk in Bangkok runs a meditation and learning group, just because that's what he does.  That stay out of the city, the meditation retreat, was very unusual because I stayed at a Dhammakaya sect temple, which is quite a bit different than the mainstream sect I was in, but given the length of this passage it seems as well to not go into those differences.

I'll pass on one more story about an experience and just leave this at that.  I remember one morning, early out on alms round, walking barefoot through the alleys near the temple.  This was normal for me, one of my favorite parts of the day, although it was odd waking up at six for that.  Alms round had an unusual feel to it, sort of quiet and almost somber, but peaceful.  


I was walking down a dark wet alley, of course wearing a robe, carrying only the covered bowl that monks use, and I saw a very small  lighted Christmas tree in the window of a closed shop.  I don't think it was actually Christmas day but it was close to that, and it might as well have been; monks don't celebrate Thai holidays, never mind foreign ones.  It sort of hit me:  what am I doing?  It wasn't a terribly sad feeling, since I was over a month into acclimating at that point, but somehow I felt all the more out of place.


It was my time to be a monk though, foreign to my original culture but a normal part of leading a slightly unusual life.  By the end of that alley I walked past someone familiar, an older woman that had been offering food to feed me somewhat regularly for those few weeks.  We didn't talk, there was really no personal bond, but to the limited extent that type of exchange was personal--which was really the opposite of the point, more about a religious role and ritual--I was grateful.  I said the short prayer of blessing Thai monks say and walked on, back to my morning routine at the temple.

Buddhism and death; what comes next

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?

keeping it light, even in the shadow of the coming end

Of course it doesn't just say one thing.  Buddhism is interpreted different ways, within a range of different branches and schools, so a range of answers would apply.


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

Rouse yourself, be diligent, in Dhamma faring well.
Who dwells in Dhamma’s happy in this birth and the next.

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.


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

There is still the question, though, of why the Buddha felt compelled to discuss the issue of karma and rebirth. We know that he refused to take a position on other issues that were hotly contested at the time — such as whether the cosmos was eternal or not (MN 63) — so what led him to take a position here?

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):

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?

one possibility (attribution)

Christianity makes it nice, in comparison, right, so clear.  Some Zen teachings at least give you that moment of death perspective is important, so that's a bit more to go on, but not much.  With people saying different things about what comes next, and so little guidance on the why of it, how it works, it's hard to do much with it.


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.