Sansara and rebirth

thumbnail
Wet Paint, modified 15 Years ago at 5/26/08 2:57 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 5/26/08 2:57 PM

Sansara and rebirth

Posts: 22924 Join Date: 8/6/09 Recent Posts
Author: nails88
Forum: The Big Issues

Hi, I was grew up as a Buddhist, but only started seriously practicing meditation a few months ago ( suddenly I became intently interested in meditation)
My question is, how does the notion of sansara and rebirth play a role in enlightment? does sansara exist at all? Or is it a trivial issue ( like the buddhist parable of a person injured by an arrow asking details about the arrow)
It's just that during my upbringing, there was a heavy intellectual/cultural bias towards sansara and rebirth. Dan/ Hokai/ anyone... what do you think about this?
thumbnail
Florian, modified 15 Years ago at 5/26/08 8:33 PM
Created 15 Years ago at 5/26/08 8:33 PM

RE: Sansara and rebirth

Posts: 1028 Join Date: 4/28/09 Recent Posts
Hi Nisal,

Are you asking, "Do I have to believe in literal rebirth in order to become enlightened?" That was one of the first questions I asked, and also one I occasionally play with, just to see if I can find a new angle to it.

So I don't have any answers to that one, just a few thoughts.

Rebirth is mentioned in the definition of (mundane) Right View, as in "there is this world and the next", and "there are spontaneouly born beings", whatever that may mean. If I remember correctly, the wording includes the phrase "no doubt". So what is "doubt", exactly? Currently, I think doubt is the kind of constant, unproductive questioning along the lines of "am I right? Am I wrong? Are the commentaries right? Is my teacher right? Is Stephen Batchelor right? Are the scholar monks right? Is Daniel Ingram right? Are the materialists right?..." Seeing it this way, I managed to shift the question of whether rebirth is literally true away from a question of orthodox belief and towards a question of identifying with views and opinions. Why do I want to identify with this particular view on rebirth? And this leads to practical inquiry, and thus to progress on the path - at least this is what I hope it does emoticon

Does samsara exist? Well, do you think of samsara as a place? Ven. Thanissaro points out that it is useful to think of it as an activity, something we *do*. Our actions shape our experience. And I find this is a very practical understanding of kamma and samsara, encouraging inquiry ("how do I act? How does this influence my experience").

Oh, and the arrow parable. I've found it to be a very apt, profound, expression of the sense of urgency, as well as an interesting meditation instruction: when sitting, and say, pain develops, how do I approach it?

Cheers,
Florian
Hokai Sobol, modified 15 Years ago at 5/29/08 5:39 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 5/29/08 5:39 AM

RE: Sansara and rebirth

Posts: 4 Join Date: 4/30/09 Recent Posts
Welcome, Nisal. It will play a role if it informs your horizon (in which case it isn't trivial at all, and the same goes for other grand notions that help configure your worldspace). Samsara (and rebirth) is a composite conceptual framework that serves a variety of purposes in the traditional Buddhist worldview. Basically, today it's more important to NOT have wrong ideas about it, since the new formulation of it - consonant with major modern and postmodern discoveries - is yet to be determined. So, in short: (1) samsara is not "somewhere" you get out from, but a state of confused unawareness and undiscernment closing on itself in various ways, the human way being the one we need to decode; (2) this very state, however, is dependent on us remaining ignorant of it, and is also by its very nature endowed with splendid qualities such as clarity, dignity, and love, and these tend to become liberated to a certain degree, once we awaken to our existential predicament; (3) in that sense, the state so defined and understood DOES play a role in meditation, being the basis (or "ground") from which we work our way (or "path") to realization (or "fruition"), and of course - not just in meditation.

Within the framework of meditation and liberation in this lifetime, in this human body, samsara and rebirth need to be unpacked in a skillful manner to support, and not distract (which is too often the case), a practice-oriented, yogic understanding of Dharma. "Rebirth" is the endless cycling through states - waking, dreaming, sleeping, plus altered and trained etc. - while "samsara" is the pervasive confusion and unawareness that make those into a sort of maze. Wanting to "get out" may contribute to the confusion, since those very states provide us with conditions for training our awareness and discovering the aforementioned splendid qualities. Hope this helps.
thumbnail
Wet Paint, modified 15 Years ago at 6/13/08 8:48 AM
Created 15 Years ago at 6/13/08 8:48 AM

RE: Sansara and rebirth

Posts: 22924 Join Date: 8/6/09 Recent Posts
Author: Abe_Dunkelheit

http://www.nanavira.org/

See: Collected Letters [L. 128]

The general mass of the Buddhists in Ceylon are not orthodox in their view of transmigration, as they believe that the same soul migrates into different bodies. But this is contrary to the teaching of Buddhu, and of this the learned priests are fully aware; but they do not attempt to correct the error, regarding the subject as too difficult to be understood by the unlearned. His doctrine is that of a series of existences, which he illustrates by the metaphors of a tree and a lamp. A tree produces fruit, from which fruit another tree is produced, and so the series continues. The last tree is not the identical tree with the first, but it is a result, so that if the first tree had not been, the last tree could not have existed. Man is the tree, his conduct is the fruit, the vivifying energy of the fruit is desire. While this continues, the series will proceed: the good or evil actions performed give the quality of the fruit, so that the existence springing from these actions will be happy or miserable as the quality of the fruit affects the tree produced from it. According to this doctrine the present body and soul of man never had a previous existence, but a previously existing being under the influence of desire performed virtuous or vicious actions, and in consequence of these upon the death of that individual a new body and soul is produced. The metaphor of the lamp is similar. One lamp is lighted from another; the two lamps are distinct, but the one could not have been lighted had not the other existed. The nature of Nirwana, or cessation of being, is obvious from this. It is not the destruction of an existent being, but the cessation of his existence. It is not an absorption into a superior being, as the Brahmans teach; it is not a retreat into a place of eternal repose, free from further transmigration; it is not a violent destruction of being, but a complete and final cessation of existence.
thumbnail
Wet Paint, modified 14 Years ago at 6/19/09 7:10 AM
Created 14 Years ago at 6/19/09 7:10 AM

RE: Sansara and rebirth

Posts: 22924 Join Date: 8/6/09 Recent Posts
Author: EnikhanJohorns

Samsara is Nirvana when you realize Nirvana. They are one, there is no one or the other. This is no trivial issue; it is one so complexly woven into the fabric of existence itself that it is apparently beyond the comprehension of most.