Had this post removed from r/Buddhism

I don't think I have the right to post whatever I want. Any reddit can be moderated however the moderators want them to be moderated. I don't have to go on Reddit, and one need not confuse the terms of use, with any freedom of speech (like certain Republican politicians think). I am free to post my views on my blog, though Google could take down a post. I think they took down a post once, but then put it back up. I can't even remember what it was about or how they almost thought it was controversial. Nobody is owed social media. The internet people want content on the internet so they can monetize and exploit your attention for advertisements. Eyeballs equal dollars. 

Anyway, here's my controversial thoughts of the day:

[Title] I'm reading about reincarnation and as a practitioner of 20 years, I have the following thoughts.

So if we are enlightened and don't cling to existence, we, with a state of our mind, stop rebirth.

In many ways, the monk acts like a Buddha, even if they haven't attained or transcended. A kind of fake it till you make it. Why can't we do that with reincarnation if that is not part of our present culture?

Reincarnation could be a cultural artifact of the times the Buddha was in, it was part of the ideology, world view and outlook. If the Buddha had been an American now he might talk about Cowboys football games, and the dynamics between Rachel and Ross. The culture he was embedded in took reincarnation as a fact, and he wasn't going to be that revolutionary, to reject everything. What he did was revolutionary enough. And he was not reincarnated. The Dalai Lama is talking about not reincarnating so the Chinese can't exploit his role. There is controversy about the Panchen Lama.

It is possible that reincarnation is a metaphor for understanding conditioned experience, the ability to imagine ourselves into various ways of being, a profoundly empathetic act. I am not wishing to do away with the empathy and ideas of imagining one's way into other lives.

You can be a gatekeeper and say people are not Buddhist if they don't believe in reincarnation, say they don't know the teachings, don't grasp the profound truths. What if you witness someone whom you respect, and find ethical and is a good friend, and seems to be genuinely progressing on the path. Then you find out they don't have any experience in reincarnation, and see it as a conditional aspect of the Buddha's teaching, would you then just reject them? Pity them for their confusion?

I get it that reincarnation is even more embedded in Tibetan culture, the Tulku system are an integral part of the way they work. They choose people to concentrate resources of teaching into. In a way it seems quite sweet. Nobody is trying to take that away from them over there. Can we exist over here without that?

[end]

So I'm reading The Truth of Rebirth by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu. That is what provoked my thoughts. He points out that there was no uniform belief of reincarnation and karma, and that there were annihilationists, a grim fellow who tortured thieves to see if he could see their soul or if bodies weighed less after being killed. I mean who wants to be an annihilationist if that is what you do?

OK, so what if the Buddha had a kind of moral retribution idea for karma and rebirth, some divine metaphysical punishment, to hopefully scare people into acting kindly. My feeling is that I'm not feeling it, and it's important to me to develop my thoughts. I know experts probably know better, and I do have respect for experts, that's why I'm reading this book. I'm still not feeling based on disabusing me of a common belief in reincarnation of the times.

Link: Story about how Dalai Lama said if science proved reincarnation wasn't true, then it would be disproved. Not that the Dalai Lama is my guru. 

I continue to write posts about reincarnation, here is another one:

I don't have any experience of rebirth either. I was told to keep an open mind out of respect for the tradition, which I have more than done, but after 20 years, I've done my due diligence, read books, talked to people. Sorry, I'm not going to believe in the 33 Hindu gods the Buddha supposedly wooshed a discipline to, to help him keep his chastity. I'm going to interpret that as metaphorical, or whatever kinds of way, that make it not literal. The 33 Hindu gods may exist in the minds of Hindus, and I love and respect other cultures.

If the energy has to go somewhere from the molecules is orthodox enough, I can get that, but I don't think that's orthodox.

Science isn't that great. Look up the science of Phrenology, read some history of science. I wouldn't say it inspires confidence.

My problems is that I'm skeptical. Show me. That's a personality type that has pluses and minuses. I have felt profound devotion, and caught the bug of Buddhism despite myself.

All religions are assumptions. Blind faith, you assume a paradigm of spirituality is true, and if it works for you then good. Buddhism assumes the Buddha attained enlightenment and that that is something worthy.

Honestly, outside of this possibly anonymous medium, I don't talk about reincarnation. I talk about what works for me, and essential Buddhism works for me. Some people can call me not a Buddhist, but I suspect those people have more issues than being the guardian of Buddhism. I hope not, though, because I wish everyone well. How the world works is not up to me, I can only try to comprehend it to the best of my ability. To the extent I fall short, that is my limitation. I hate anti-vaccination people because I wish to have the freedom from spreaders of Covid, but I have made many stupid decisions in my life that hurt others. I hope to forgive myself and move forward in a positive way. I don't think anyone is immune to mistakes. I'm going to work on myself to the best of my ability, for the benefit of others.

Thoughts on reincarnation

Maybe the lesson of rebirth is not rejecting something that doesn't make sense to our modern scientific secular humanism mindset.

The system of Tibet identifies people to throw resources at to be spiritual leaders. In a way it's nice, but there's a random element to it, and the idea of a meritocracy is more appealing to westerners. Let the cream rise.

I am reborn every morning. I have had a million rebirths. I have changed my way of being and thinking a million times. Every death every rebirth, phoenix like, creates something new.

Metaphorical interpretation is what people object to? Literalism is probably the biggest problem in Christianity, as far as I can tell as an outsider who lives in a Judeo-Christian society. Why can't it be a problem for Buddhism?

It doesn't matter that you ate after noon, what is important is that you don't just give into your desire to eat sweet or salty crunchy things, that you don't eat animals and even better, anything from animals. The noon rule is pretty crude, just cut off the time, but as overweight monks in Theravadan countries show, you can eat more calories from sunrise to noon, than you need to sustain your body. The modern vinaya would be very different, and we need our critical abilities to update thinking on how to be.

Many westerners would probably like to be reborn, they have a survival instinct, they don't want to die. Thus they create heaven, to fantasy of living forever. Modern theologians talk about heaven on earth and grace. Live as though you are in the pure land of heaven.

The idea of delaying enlightenment to wait for everyone, to stay back to make sure everyone gets into the boats when the ship is sinking. Mahayana is reading the Buddha's actions, not his words, but in this aspect they don't follow the Buddha. The Buddha stepped outside causality, touched the transcendental. He could meditate all night and suffer little and get pleasure if he needed it--which he didn't. He would not go insane in traffic or the DMV or waiting in lines. He would be content, the world could not make him happy. Trump could not drive him mad.

His monks would tell him to go away, you don't understand. He wouldn't smite them like some angry god, for their hubris, he would just go away and meditate. Yea, maybe I need to let you figure it out.

People go to r/buddhism and ask for permission. It's kind of funny. Buddhism isn't about bossing other people around. It's about you taking responsibility for your life.

You look at "Buddhist" countries, as though a country can embrace the teachings as a whole, and what you see isn't Buddhism but genocide. Humans gathering will protect their tribe and persecute those outside the tribe. That is not Buddhism. Listen to your spiritual leaders? Only when it's convenient, and they say what you want them to say. And get them to say what you want them to say, find opportunists like yourself. The line of people waiting to take advantage of situations to get attention, power, influence, is endless. Unlimited supply.

There is no tradition that doesn't include rebirth and Stephen Batchelor isn't a sangha builder like Hannah. There are probably lots of ontological minimalists amongst the sangha, they just don't want to quibble in the sangha. There is a tradition of not quibbling in the true sangha because it doesn't move your towards enlightenment. Enlightenment comes out of meditation experience, not out of hair splitting statements of doctrine, as much as those branding exercises can make a name for one, maybe get a building built.

True spirituality isn't sexy, doesn't aggrandize you, makes you aware of hubris, narcissism and isn't a bypass or a short cut. If Pema Chodron chants the mantra start where you really are, then Joko Beck's mantra is that it's nothing special. You can take your internal experience as precious when you discover it, it can be fun for you to talk about it, but the point is self overcoming because there is no permanent self, and altruism is the best kind of hedonism.

So just don't go off the rails with reincarnation logic games, connect with sangha, sit in meditation, study the teachings with others, discuss face to face. Devotional activity is lovely. Mythology is lovely. Study the doctrine if it makes you sit more, connect with others. It's lovely to talk doctrine with other true believers. 

Reincarnation

Reincarnation was one of the ideas that seemed like a religious metaphysic that did not correlate with Buddhism's minimalist methodologies. The Dharma is a way to move towards enlightenment, that is all. If believing in something helps that, OK, but mostly understanding that everything is impermanent is more likely to help.

Conditionality has a funny psychological effect. If you think about causes and conditions long enough you can imagine yourself as everyone on the subway. You can see in their body language, how they are dressed, what they are doing--their whole being. I have been everyone and I will be everyone.

Every day we wake up is a new rebirth. But that is not what they thought in ancient India. And my above metaphor might not be what they meant--empathy into all existence.

The Wheel of Life is a specific take on conditionality. It leads you through how life is perpetuated. The gap between sensory input and what you conclude from it is where all the mistakes are made.

Was the Buddha's recollection of past lives an opening up of realizing conditionality? Did it give him confidence to think he'd been working on enlightenment for aeons? It's the whole of human evolution that has been working on enlightenment.

I can't help but think of Forever War and Forever Peace. They have created robots that fight for you, but being connected to your platoon leads to enlightenment, so they get you out quickly, you can only work in short shifts. Would we all be enlightened if we were connected deeply with our minds. That is the hope of empathy.

Analayo is pointing out that the Buddha realized past lives in his book. Realizing past lives is a step in the progression of the Buddha's enlightenment. Analayo wrote a book about Reincarnation, and in a talk I watched, he talked about little kids who recite the sutras, though they can't even read and don't speak the language they are reciting the scriptures in. His idea is that probably only reincarnation explains this phenomenon. I'm not convinced. I'm more convinced that as the Buddha neared enlightenment he remembered past lives. In my mind that was an insight about conditionality and my experiences on the subway that I could imagine all these lives. I can imagine being Caesar or even Trump's reactive arrested development.

The short upshot is that I feel like reincarnation is less unimaginable.

More of a problem in modern times is believing in moving towards enlightenment is possible and significant.

I met a Tibetan Nyingma Buddhist in my neighborhood. I was so excited.

Reincarnation was a big reason Stephen Batchelor turned from Tibetan Buddhism to Korean Buddhism, and later developed Buddhism Without Belief.

Conditionality is the thing.

Reincarnation

Thurman and Batchelor debate reincarnation.

I myself lean towards Batchelor's side. I think more along these lines:

"..if there were no rebirth, would I behave differently? And the answer is no. Rebirth was never actually a driving force. Is it for you?"