Some modern day Zen masters teach that in Buddhism there is no further existence or rebirth after death. But if this is true why, for example, in some of the older discourses of the Buddha, the Buddha says that a “fool who has not lived the holy life for the complete destruction of suffering....with the breakup of the body, the fool fares on to another body” (S. ii. 24)?
Besides this, it is said that the Buddha could remember his former existences prior to becoming a Buddha. Therefore, how might this ability to recall one’s former existences be accomplished if death is just death without rebirth? Practically the whole point of Buddhism is to end the cycles of rebirth—again birth and again death.
As regards Zen, if there is no life after death then why did Bodhidharma say the following?
“The Buddha said people are deluded. This is why when they act they fall into the River of Endless Rebirth. And when they try to get out, they only sink deeper. And all because they don't see their nature.”
I haven’t a clue as to why some Zen masters peddle this inaccurate view of Buddhism that there is no re-existence after death. Is it just to attract Western followers who believe death is final? It almost goes without saying that the Western view of death is, bluntly, brutish.
The power which organizes the body and keeps its from disintegrating is greater than the sum of the body’s anatomical parts. This passage from the Buddha in the Maharatnakuta Sutra sheds some light on this.
“From consciousness the body arises, and consciousness covers all the body and limbs. When we look for consciousness in the body, we cannot find it anywhere; yet without consciousness, the body cannot live.”
In this Sutra, consciousness (citta/vijnana) is prior to the corporeal body in which the body is being, figuratively speaking, is submerged in the pure medium of consciousness. Given that consciousness is always prior, the body is ever posterior always being subject to death. Thus, when death comes to the body, it doesn’t reach as far as consciousness. Again, citing from the Maharatnakuta Sutra, the Buddha says:
"Just as a silkworm makes a cocoon in which to wrap itself and then leaves the cocoon behind, so consciousness produces a body to envelop itself and then leaves that body to undergo other karmic results in a new body."
According to the Buddha, we must keep in mind that our temporal body, which is made up of biological tissue, “is not yours, nor does it belong to others. It should be regarded as previous karma effected through what has has been willed and felt” (S. ii. 65). In his regard, it is implied that we are, as consciousness, fundamentally deathless. It is only when consciousness finds support in biological tissue “is the genesis of the whole mass of suffering” (S. ii. 65). Were consciousness not to glom into such embryonic tissue, for example, there would not be the mass of suffering. Nor would there follow old age and death.
Bah! Nonsense. When you can't see the shit on your nose, even flowers are wretched.
Posted by: Anzan | June 08, 2012 at 11:11 AM
If the past lives of the self were rememberable, then, over hundreds of generations, some Asian "self" reincarnated as a Native American would have "remembered" wheeled carts. Absence of such cultural diffusion via reincarnation is either strong evidence against reincarnation or it sets a severe limit on the meaning of remembered."
Posted by: Bob Morris | June 07, 2012 at 06:14 PM
Anzan: Rebirth is just continually being reborn into the body of the Five Aggregates because of one’s inability to distinguish between the aggregates, which are conditioned, and the unconditioned where lies our true self: the Buddha-nature. As for the beginner's mind, it is inverted (viparyâsa). In this state, it is incapable of understanding true Dharma. Only with the arising of the Mind that that is Bodhi (bodhicittotpada) is there any hope for this person.
Posted by: The Zennist | June 07, 2012 at 11:18 AM
David Ashton: No, you could not advance. Faith is an essential part of Buddhism. According to the Buddha by faith one "guards the truth; but there is as yet no discovery of truth."
Posted by: The Zennist | June 07, 2012 at 09:37 AM
In Zen, rebirth is referring to each moment. To suffer from delusion is to be reborn into delusion. To be enlightened is to experience each moment with a "beginners mind."
Furthermore, the Buddha himself didn't want others to blindly follow his teachings.
Posted by: Anzan | June 07, 2012 at 02:12 AM