Thanissaro Bhikkhu's "The Truth of Rebirth": A Review, Part 2
This is the second in my three-part review of Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s 2011 e-book, The Truth of Rebirth and Why it Matters for Buddhist Practice, which you can read here.
You can read Review Part 1 here.
“. . . Many modern Buddhist teachers have argued that the teaching on rebirth should be treated [as an out-of-date world view]. In their eyes, rebirth was simply a cultural presupposition of the Buddha’s time and — because it no longer fits with our cultural presuppositions and scientific beliefs — the time has come to discard it so as to help the Buddhist tradition advance. . .
“The irony of this argument is that when we check it against the actual historical evidence, we find that it has everything backwards . . . The idea of rebirth was far from universally accepted in India during Buddha’s time. Some schools of thought actively rejected it; others affirmed it . . .Thus the Buddha, in teaching rebirth and its relation to karma, was actually addressing one of the hot topics of the time. Because he didn’t always take up controversial topics, he must have seen that the issue passed the criterion he had set for which topics he would address: that it would be conducive to putting an end to suffering.”
TB spends a fair amount of space making the case that belief in rebirth was not universal in ancient India in Gotama’s time. This is aimed at Richard Gombrich, Stephen Batchelor and others, who do point out that the notions of karma, rebirth and escape from the cycle of samsara were not unique to early Buddhist teaching, but were present in Vedic and other religious doctrines of India in the 4th century BCE.
To support his argument for the lack of unanimity regarding rebirth, TB goes on to quote the various wanderers and ascetics we meet in the Nikayas who expound nihilist or annihilationist views. This sounds convincing, until you recall that these discourses take place with ascetics and wanderers, spiritual drop-outs who left conventional social life in order to become religious specialists. These could never have made up more than a fraction of Indian society, and the fact that some such individuals rejected rebirth tells us little about the assumptions of the general cultural milieu.
To find out what that milieu might have been like, it would be better to look at Gotama’s conversations with the householders who made up the majority of the population. His advice to householders often consists of admonitions to live a moral life and give to the monks in order to obtain a favorable rebirth. He talks to them about rebirth, because that’s what they ask him about. For example, in the Saleyyaka Sutta (MN 41) the householders of Sala seek Gotama out to ask one question:
“Master Gotama, what is the cause and condition why some beings here, on the breakup of the body after death, are reborn in a state of misery, in a bad destination, in the lower world, in hell? And what is the cause and condition why some beings here, on the breakup of the body, after death, are reborn in a good destination, in a heavenly world?”
Gotama tells them that unrighteous physical and mental conduct sends one to hell, and righteous conduct sends one to heaven; and in fact, if you’re lucky you can pick which of a variety of heavens you can go to. One can also choose taintless liberation, but that option is not presented in more detail or as being superior to any of the heaven realms. The Sala householders go away happy, having got what they came for.
Or consider Udana 2:3 in which Gotama comes across a group of boys beating a snake with a stick. He gives them a warning:
Whoever hits with a stick
Beings desiring ease
When he himself is looking for ease
Will meet no ease after death.
That even children would be expected to be aware of rebirth suggests that the concept was not quite as cutting edge as TB is attempting to suggest. As far as historical evidence is concerned, we know that the Upanishadic Vedanism of the Brahmins, the religious leaders of Indian society, featured rebirth. So did the soteriology of the Jains, the other principal religious movement of the day. That the householders we meet in the Nikayas are familiar with the concept shows clearly that rebirth was the default assumption of Indian society. If some fringe sects rejected rebirth, this does not indicate that it wasn’t the world view of most of Gotama’s audience.
In any event, TB’s attempt to debunk the ubiquity of belief in rebirth is a straw man argument. Gombrich, Batchelor, and anyone else who picks up the Pali texts, especially the longer suttas in the Majjhima and Digha Nikayas, can read for themselves the accounts of disputes between Gotama and his followers and the wanderers of other sects who reject rebirth. Neither Gombrich nor Batchelor is suggesting that, because it was such a deeply ingrained cultural meme, Gotama had no choice but to teach rebirth. What they propose is that, as we attempt to determine which of the teachings in the Pali texts are unique and, therefore, more likely to have originated with an historical Gotama, we have to recognize that rebirth and karma were not among them. Since we know that the canon was not closed until hundreds of years after Gotama’s death, and not written down until centuries after that, the emphasis on rebirth we read in these texts could have had its origin in other religious movements, such as the culturally dominant Brahmanism of the time. Unlike TB, Gombrich and Batchelor express no certainty of the provenance of the Pali texts, and most scholars join them in their uncertainty.
Their hypothesis is one way to explain the dramatic discrepancy between the Gotama who goes about advising people how to achieve a good rebirth and the Gotama who presents a very different message. This Gotama refuses to speculate on metaphysical issues and chides, often with gentle humor, those who do. We see this Gotama in the sutta in which he playfully chastises the Brahmin student Vasettha:
“But Vasettha, is there then a single one of these Brahmins learned in the three Vedas who has seen Brahma face to face?” “No, Reverend Gotama.”
“Why then, Vasettha, when these Brahmins learned in the Three Vedas teach a path that they do not know or see, saying ‘This is the only straight bath . . .’ this cannot possibly be right. Just as a file of blind men go on, clinging to each other, and the first one sees nothing, the middle one sees nothing, and the last one sees nothing . . . The talk of these Brahmins turns out to be laughable, mere words, empty and vain.” [D 13]
Or the famous Malunkyaputta Sutta, in which Gotama explains why he does not dispense metaphysical opinions:
Therefore, Malunkyaputta, remember what I have left undeclared as undeclared, and remember what I have declared as declared. And what have I declared? This is suffering, I have declared. This is the cessation of suffering – I have declared. This is the path leading to the cessation of suffering — I have declared. Why have I declared that? Because it is beneficial, it belongs to the fundamentals of the spiritual life, it leads to disengagement, to dispassion, to cessation, to peace, to direct knowledge, to awakening, to nibbana. That is why I have declared it.” [M 63]
Or especially the texts that observe that the notion of a reborn self violates the principal of not-self.
“What do you think, friend Yamaka, do you regard form, feeling, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness as the Tathagata?” “No, friend.” . . . “But friend, when the Tathagata is not apprehended by you as real and actual here in this very life, is it fitting for you to declare [his status after death]? [SN 22.85]
If everything we can observe about ourselves is not-self, then where is the self that survives death to enter a new body? How can all the aggregates be impermanent while the self survives from beginningless time to eons in the future? In sections such as the ones I’ve quoted, Gotama seems to acknowledge that preoccupation with metaphysical notions like rebirth is, at minimum, not consistent with or conducive of the insights into the Three Marks of existence that lead us to drop our craving and clinging. The Yamaka Sutta is found in a section of the Samyutta Nikaya the bulk of which is dedicated to the teaching that it is the insight of anatta, and not some cosmic knowledge of the transmigration of souls, that leads to liberation.
How do we reconcile the metaphysical Gotama with the one advising us to forget metaphysics and concentrate on ending suffering here and now? TB’s answer is to suggest that the pragmatic phenomenalism of the dharma can’t exist without the metaphysics of rebirth.
In my practice of meditation, belief in or against rebirth plays no role. In my practice of compassion, belief or belief against rebirth plays no role. In my practice of being ethical and moral, kind to others, my belief for or against rebirth plays no role.
I just don’t see how a belief is going to be crucial to this practice, in any way.
When I see the many ways thoughts,emotions, reactions, etc build an illusory self, a mental image of self, which is fleeting and ever changing, I see nothing of permanence in my personhood. Therefore I see nothing that could persist beyond the death of the body where thoughts, feelings, and reactions are born.
I suspect Gotama spoke about rebirth after death to prevent children who had that belief from torturing a poor snake. I suspect at times he used it to try to get people to behave morally. Or it’s possible he himself had that belief, but it has nothing to do with the practice. I just don’t see beliefs being useful in practice in any way. It’s also possible people who wrote the suttas after Gotama’s death got it wrong, retold the story based on their own beliefs.
Just because there is mention of it doesn’t mean we have to follow it dogmatically.
Dana, I definitely can see arguments why it might be helpful to believe in reincarnation.
One example was given by yourself already. I think if we were certain that we get reborn, we would to a better job in checking our actions for future consequences. Of course there are counterexamples (like people getting materialistic about their reincarnation), but still it’s an argument. Maybe, we would even be more serious with our practice, if we knew that all attachment that’s left when we die will cause suffering in our next live.
Still, I don’t consider it to be an option to take upon believes, because I think it’s dangerous in general. If you take certain believes you might also start to believe some things that are wrong (e.g. your own misinterpretation).
Also, I don’t see how believing in rebirth leads to less attachment, really. A “believe” seems like attachment and “continuing to exist after death” means less impermanence. I really would like to have somebody to explain how the believe in rebirth contributes to the four noble truths. Usually it’s the other way round (reincarnation is a prerequisite for the practice “if you don’t get reborn, why would you want to achieve nirvana?”).
Anyhow, I’m glad that they start to engage in the discussion. Exchange of ideas is always helpful!
stoky, I don’t think it’s correct to assume that if one has a belief in reincarnation that we’ll do a better job in checking our actions for future consequences! Indeed, it could be the opposite will be true. Why do today what you can do in the next lifetime.
Also, I agree with you that beliefs in general can be dangerous. Fear, attachment, greed, a need for permanence can drive many beliefs, which of course will cause suffering. I do have scientific beliefs, things I can’t know because I didn’t make the measurements or do the studies myself. However I hold them loosely, without a fabricated self involved, so if scientists say, hey we were wrong and here is the evidence, I’ll let the previous belief go.
We must be mindful about the beliefs we develop, weed out the ones we can, and work on letting go of those we are attached to. Otherwise, the inevitable suffering moves in as those attachments are threatened, those fears are poked at, and delusions show their ugly heads!
“How do we reconcile the metaphysical Gotama with the one advising us to forget metaphysics and concentrate on ending suffering here and now?”
It seems to me you gave one very good answer to this in your post. The man talks about metaphysics when the questioner’s frame of reference is one of metaphysics: he does this with the Brahmins, he does it with the child, he does this time and again.
The whole of the Buddha’s teaching has one underlying insight, and we can approach that insight from any number of angles. We don’t really even need any of the Buddha’s ways of framing it to explain it. But that he made his primary paradigm for explaining it to the masses be one centered on rebirth is — as you point out so accurately — no surprise, since most of the people the Buddha encountered did believe in it. You’re right that it’s not that we’re saying that the Buddha couldn’t get past the idea of rebirth and that’s why he talks about it, but that we are saying it was in use in his time, and he used it.
Or, as you would have it, those who came after him used it. But as I would have it, that’s not it. The Buddha built a lesson (dependent arising) at the heart of his teaching that uses rebirth/the Vedic worldview as its underlying structure — to simultaneously show them what they thought was going on (atta’s rebirth) and deny that what they thought was going on was going on (anatta instead). By implication, he refers to that central lesson every time he talks about rebirth, so that if we understand dependent arising, we understand what he’s saying when he talks about rebirth. But if we don’t understand dependent origination (which, if you read all the explanations of it out there you can pretty much see we don’t) then we aren’t going to really understand why he talks about rebirth so much when there’s nothing to be reborn.
It’s not that meddlers came along afterward and revised every other sutta to be in line with later thinking about rebirth (or made them up out of whole cloth), it’s that he used it in very concrete ways as a teaching tool, and he used it a lot.
Aside from that, I am amused that you find that when “Gotama tells them that unrighteous physical and mental conduct sends one to hell, and righteous conduct sends one to heaven; and in fact, if you’re lucky you can pick which of a variety of heavens you can go to. One can also choose taintless liberation…” that you consider that the last option “is not presented … as being superior to any of the heaven realms.”
You didn’t mention what he says about the taintless liberation, that it happens “by realization himself with direct knowledge, he may here and now enter upon and abide in the deliverance of the heart and the deliverance by wisdom…” rather than “…it is possible that, on the dissolution of the body, after death, he may do so.” Just a *slight* difference between “you may get there in the next life…” and “…or you may have the good stuff *right now*.” I personally think the latter is far, far superior, and that would go without saying.
“it’s that he used it in very concrete ways as a teaching tool, and he used it a lot.”
Linda i believe rebirth for the buddha was quite a bit more than a teaching tool. I think rebirth and karma do indeed hold his whole philosophy together and make it tight. I am convinced he believed in it. When he rejects nihilism quite strongly in one of the suttas in the digha nikaya as wrong views, i am convinced. This doesn’t mean that i have to believe nihilism is a wrong view myself. I wouldn’t automatically assume that anyone had been meddling with this story either. I will leave which suttas have been meddled with up to the scholars.
I think for all buddhists, its enough to let each practice according to their own personal belief position since these sort or arguments rarely persuade anyone to change their mind. I”m totally over it myself. I just wish secular buddhists would get on with the matter of how to teach, learn and practice it the dharma. I think its great now that there is a growing secular buddhist network of writers teachers and communities so that those were may once have been put off might take a second look.
Stoky for me the threat of a bad future life does not have as much affect on my actions as bad effects in this life. What is more immediate should have a greater brake on our behaviour than an uncertain future . If we could all look back and see our past lives, then it might have more effect but in general we have to take those risks on faith since so very few people admit to have any memory of past lives.
I’ve been reading Alain de Botton’s book lately and in it he deals with the question that karma and rebirth is used to answer – why do some people have such terribly luck in their lives and for no apparent reason. I think the jews really did have it right and its what i tend to say myself. We just cannot know why tragedy happens and any sort speculation as to why is a waste of time. I believe there is no rhyme or reason myself. I believe in chance bad luck just as there can be chance good luck.
@ Linda, my point here was not to argue that rebirth is a late addition to the canon, but to point out that we can’t justify the faith TB seems to have that everything in the Pali texts is an accurate representation of what an historical Gotama taught. Your interpretation is certainly a defensible one, although it amounts to the “milk before meat” attitude of the Mormons, or that Mahayana parable of using pretty toys to lure children from a burning building. One has to tolerate what is basically a deception; and if we think Gotama was a great teacher, then great teaching necessarily involves pandering to people’s delusions. It’s essentially what TB is saying in this book — you have to fear the afterlife, because if you don’t you won’t work hard enough to get to the point where you can have taintless right view. Regardless of whether that was true in northern India 2400 years ago (and who knows if it was?) it’s certainly not true now. As I’ll discuss in the final part of this, the notion that we should cultivate an attachment to rebirth in order to overcome it, because overcoming the dukkha of this life is not sufficiently motivating, is a strange and unhelpful idea.
The argument that karma/rebirth is valid because we need it to be good falls short for me. By my way of thinking, things that are true in this world are true because they are true, not because they make sense or are logical or are useful for us. People who believe in a world created by a designer with some plan in mind see it differently. For them, it all was put together for a purpose. For me, it seems to be a huge, interesting accident. Karma/rebirth might be true, but I have never heard of any compelling evidence for it.
As for Candol’s statement — “I just wish secular buddhists would get on with the matter of how to teach, learn and practice it the dharma” — I have two things to add. First, quite a few traditionally minded Buddhists aren’t as tolerant as Chandol (take, for example, B. Alan Walace’s “Distorted Visions of Buddhism” — his vitriolic attack on Stephen Batchelor). The second thing is: I admit that I like talking about this stuff. It can be interesting, and a helpful aid in my quest to sort out the cosmos.
So, I’ll just keep walking my version of the path, being good in the hope that it lessens suffering in this lifetime.
Hi Bruce, i guess i’ve spent enough time talking about this stuff myself and i’m now ready and in fact really want to hear more about the practice itself.
I think its so easy to get distracted from the practice and i’d say the buddha ultimately would call it idle chatter. Maybe not but when you are comfortable with what you believe and you are only talking to amuse yourself, then what else can it be but idle chatter. If you are genuinely trying to achieve something, as stephen batchelor was, then its not idle chatter.
In saying that i know how important it is to work these things out for yourself. I had to do it when i first became a buddhist because i was in the zen and tibetan mix. But i remember when i was in the tibetan group they could spend ages frittering away the time talking gossiping about this rinpoche and that tulku and all sorts of stuff that wasn’t going to make my life any easier or better or happier.
I think secular buddhist, if they are not careful can spend a lot of time not practicing buddhism, but just arguing the finer points of metaphysics. By all means talk about it if you need to be at least be aware that its a trap. Over on the uk secular buddhist website there’s a philosopher who’s trying to put forward a central proposition for secular buddhism. He’s going to try to run a retreat and it seems to me that there will be a lot of time spent talking about these matters and not much time spent on observing the self at all. of course it might be helpful for some people but is it really what secular buddhism wants to be about.
About Alan Wallace, i don’t know too much about this guy. I know he has a huge reputation, charges huge fees for retreats, the nun from my tibetan centre likes him. I wasn’t taken when i tried to listen to one of his podcasts but i admit to not listening to very much of it. Maybe i just couldnt’ understand him. Actually i think the nun put me off him by talking a lot about how he says westerners need to learn to relax – so in her group everyone lies down on their backs and a few promptly start snoring and unfortunately sometimes they are right beside me. He obviously is a good teacher but not my cup of tea. I just wish stephen and martine lived in Australia.
Candol, at the risk of being seen as an idle chatterer, I would like to address your reply. By being “comfortable with what you believe” do you mean to be so set in your beliefs that you don’t feel any need to consider any others? In that case, you’re probably right — what’s the point of talking about it? Personally, I am comfortable in not believing in rebirth (which, it’s important to add, isn’t the same as saying “I believe there is no rebirth”). But it’s an important issue in the context of the secular approach to Buddhism. There are undoubtedly many people who are interested in Buddhist ideas but who are put off by the idea of rebirth. They need to know that one can be a practicing Buddhist without holding to that particular tenet. That’s probably one of the reasons that it keeps coming up in discussions on sites like this. And since the question of rebirth will probably never be resolved empirically, all that’s left is either to talk it out or to stifle the discussion. Since this Comments thread is a direct offshoot of an attempt to persuade people that rebirth is a fact, it seems to me that talking about it here is not inappropriate. Just because I find the discussion fun doesn’t meant I am only talking to amuse myself. Also, I think I can find enough time for both arguing the finer points of metaphysics and practicing Buddhism.
I thought this was a good review, Mark. I had the same concern when reading the piece: finding a couple of wandering ascetic materialists in the canon hardly demonstrates that karma and rebirth were live issues in Buddha’s day.
Further, Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s “wager” at the opening of his piece falls flat when it comes to issues for which there is already copious empirical evidence. (Viz., that there is no plausible mechanism for, nor reason to believe in, reincarnation).
I have just got done rereading the Questions of King Milinda, and was struck there as I am with these sorts of debates: the implicit notion among some Buddhists, like many Christians, that the canon is infallible. If there is an apparent contradiction between two passages, some way must be found to reconcile them, even if that way involves textual sleight-of-hand. If some passage conflicts with our evidence-based understanding of how the world works, we must nonetheless wager that the canon is infallible, presumably because the Buddha was himself omniscient. (As the Milinda Panha claims).
At any rate this wager sounds uncomfortably like Pascal’s classic fallacy, with Buddha substituting for God. I don’t buy it, and think the whole approach is not consistent with any kind of empirically mature Buddhist practice.
I detect a certain amount of wiggling in your review, Mark, perhaps aimed at avoiding having to say you think the Buddha was wrong. This article by Johannes Bronkhorst makes a strong case that the Buddha’s teaching of rebirth is present in the earliest material:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/62716975/BIB-84209201AE31-Did-the-Buddha-Belive-in-Karma-and-Rebirth-Johannes-Bronkhorst
Personally, I think it is reasonable to accept that the Buddha did have some overwhelming insight into the nature of existence (I believe that), but that the concepts he developed and even the worldview he developed, were shaped in some ways by the culture he grew up in.
Another thought. Bronckhorst’s book ‘Greater Magadha’ offers a way of squaring Thanissaro’s view that rebirth was a matter of debate with the indications you rightly point out that rebirth seems to have been widely accepted. He suggests that brahmins didn’t teach rebirth (this involves a complete reinterpretation of Indian religious history, but he knows what he’s talking about), while in the Central Ganges Valley people mostly did. He thinks some of the materialists Thanissaro cites were in fact Brahmins.
Vish —
Thanks for your comments. I’m not sure what it would mean to say “The Buddha was wrong” about rebirth or anything else. We simply are too far away from being able to do anything but conjecture about which teachings in the canon originate with an historical Gotama and what kinds of changes occurred to the body of texts before the closure of the canon several centuries later. What seems clear to me is that the Pali texts were developed over a long period of time by multiple authors with varying and conflicting perspectives. Some of the suttas were quite obviously composed for the specific purpose of incorporating elements of Brahmanism (the Marks of a Great Man suttas, to cite one example). I don’t discount the likelihood that Gotama taught about rebirth. What he taught about it, and whether it gave it the radical repurposing that he did with other religious concepts such as karma, remain open questions. It would not matter to me in the end, because one metaphysical tradition is like every other in at least one important aspect — there is no knowlege possible to either demonstrate or disprove it. Since anyone trying to make sense of the Pali texts must of neccessity decide how to resolve the various contradictions they see there, my interpretation privileges the pragmatic phenomenalist over the miracle wonderman. I have seen the results of Gotama’s practical advice in my own life and the lives of others, and that’s sufficient motivation for me to keep practicing. That Gotama was definitely right.
So, something I notice isn’t getting a lot of attention is how rebirth contradicts the teaching on not self. And, it doesn’t just contradict the teaching, it contradicts that we can confirm not self not only in our own experience of observing our personhoods, but neuroscience is now validating that the brain does not have a stationary, static self, but creates the illusion of self.
Do tell? What could possibly be reborn???? That is what I keep coming back to. Regardless of what people believed back then, regardless of whether Buddha taught rebirth or not, I have seen for myself that everything in my human experience is impermanet and not self. I have neuroscience to back me up on this.
Therefore, not matter what the suttas say, no matter what you believe, I see no reason to believe it. In fact, I see lots of reason not to, mainly EVERYTHING is impermanent that I can inspect, and there is nothing in my person hood that contains an unchaging, static self.
Until I discover something in me that is permanent and can persist, I feel no impulse to form a belief even if the Buddha did teach that. I see every reason to focus my practice on impermance, not self, and this lifetime.
Dana —
I spend a fair amount of space in Part 3 on this topic. TB’s take on rebirth is more than just contradictory with anatta and conditioned arising, We have to discard those concepts entirely, if we are to be motivated in our behavior by fear of rebirth. If rebirth was as central to Gotama’s core teachings as TB says it was, then we have to conclude that the famous “silence of the Buddha” on things like eternalism amounts to an unwillingness to face the unavoidable conclusion of his teaching. If rebirth is to motivate me, I have to believe that somehow something of me survives death to experience the effects of my karma. To simply shut up when you are asked whether it’s really “me” that’s going to be reborn is to invite metaphysial speculation, which Gotama decidedly advises against in many suttas. I prefer to go with the Gotama who said that mindfulness leads to liberation from craving in this life, and that experiencing the truths of anatta and conditioned arising are how that happens.
Dana —
I spend a fair amount of space in Part 3 on this topic. TB’s take on rebirth is more than just contradictory with anatta and conditioned arising, We have to discard those concepts entirely, if we are to be motivated in our behavior by fear of rebirth. If rebirth was as central to Gotama’s core teachings as TB says it was, then we have to conclude that the famous “silence of the Buddha” on things like eternalism amounts to an unwillingness to face the unavoidable conclusion of his teaching. If rebirth is to motivate me, I have to believe that somehow something of me survives death to experience the effects of my karma. To simply shut up when you are asked whether it’s really “me” that’s going to be reborn is to invite metaphysial speculation, which Gotama decidedly advises against in many suttas. I prefer to go with the Gotama who said that mindfulness leads to liberation from craving in this life, and that experiencing the truths of anatta and conditioned arising are how that happens.
@Candol, re your comment about Secular Buddhists spending so much time talking about it that maybe they don’t have time to practice. If you’re basing your suggestion on what you see here online, it might be simply that you don’t have enough information about the individuals to get a balanced view of their lives. What we are doing here is trying to make something visible that wouldn’t be if we just went our own way and practiced. Most of us, I think, do this because there was a time when we felt quite alone in our own practice, and we would have been grateful to hear voices saying what we’re saying now. When we did finally hear such a voice (for many that first voice was Mr. Batchelor’s — and thanks to him for it) we were relieved and grateful. Now we do unto others as we are glad they did for us.
Candol, now that I’m finished with this project I’ve got two in the works specifically on practice. And I’ve written on practice before, most recently on a metta-inspired reading of the First Watch of the Night. I wholeheartedly agree with you that practice is what it’s all about. (AND I did a half hour silent sit and a half hour of metta today, besides trying to stay mindful throughout the day whenever something trips my switches).
My review was not intended to carry on the rebirth debate, although I realize I get the kerosene awfully close to the flame. I tried to address TB’s contention that belief in rebirth is central to dharma practice by suggesting that his interpretation of the texts is provisional and contradictory, and therefore not inherently more justified than one stressing Gotama’s practical and pragmatic teachings. This goes to the heart of understanding what a secular dharma practice is and why it’s necessary.
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