Jayarava on rebirth on twitter

Jayarava on twitter:

The thing about karma from a Buddhist pov is that *it's all bad*... because, good or evil, karma *leads to rebirth*. 

Ending rebirth (as a sentient being) is the main goal of traditional Buddhism.

This is why I readily admit that my denial of the "truth" of karma and rebirth is nontrivial. It *is* heresy but not quite apostasy.

In 2022 traditional, Iron Age, views have to be seen in a broader context. 450 years of science make a difference. Don't be fooled by the uncertainty at the extremes, we know to nano precision how the local universe works - and the internet itself is a monument to this.

I don't advocate Scientism. But I take science seriously, unlike most Buddhists who are science-illiterate and -innumerate. I also take history seriously. And I read scripture seriously, in canonical languages.

Buddhist don't possess a *Buddhist* description of the universe that is worth a damn. Our "cosmology" literally emerged from a satire of Brahmanism. Our eschatology is fully supernatural.

What we have (left) to offer is a set of techniques for exploring the nature of sensory experience, most notably forms of auto-hypnotic sensory deprivation that result in the cessation of experience without loss of consciousness.

But our techniques are mostly embedded in regressive sectarian religious dogma. And this is counterproductive, because most people immediately see through the ruse when we talk about "Ultimate Reality". (I was embarrassingly slow at this).

When you are cut off from reality, due to extended periods of sensory deprivation, then what reality is like becomes irrelevant. Unless we mistake absence of sensory experience for reality (which many do).