Maudgalyayana's descent into the PRETA purgatory.
Thus have I heard. Buddha at one time was residing in the country of Sravasti, in the garden of Jeta, the friend of the orphans. At this time Mugalan, having begun to acquire the six supernatural powers (irrdhi), desiring above all things, from a motive of piety, to deliver his father and mother, forthwith called into use his power of supernatural sight, and looking throughout the world he beheld his unhappy mother existing without food or drink in the world of Pretas (hungry ghosts), nothing but skin and bone. Mugalan, moved with filial pity, immediately presented to her his alms-bowl filled with rice. His mother then taking the bowl in her left hand, endeavoured with her right to convey the rice to her mouth, but before it came near to her lips, lo! the rice was converted into fiery ashes, so that she could not eat thereof. At the sight of this Mugalan uttered a piteous cry, and wept many tears as he bent his way to the place where Buddha was located. Arrived there, he explained what had happened, and awaited Buddha's instruction. On this the Master opened his mouth, and said, "The sin which binds your mother to this unhappy fate is a very grievous one; from it you can never by your own strength rescue her, no! nor yet all the powers of earth or heaven, men or divine beings: not all these are equal to the task of deliverance. But by assembling the priests of the ten quarters, through their spiritual energy, deliverance may be had. I will now recount to you the method of rescue from this and all similar calamities." Then Buddha continued: "On the 15th day of the seventh month, the priests of the ten quarters being gathered together ought to present an offering for the rescue of ancestors during seven generations past, as well as those of the present generation, every kind of choice food and drink, as well as sleeping materials and beds. These should be offered up by the assembled priesthood as though the ancestors themselves were present, by which they shall obtain deliverance from the pains, and be born at once in a condition of happiness in heaven." And, moreover, the "World-honoured One taught his followers certain words to be repeated at the offering of sacrifices, by which the virtue thereof would be certainly secured.
On this Mugalan with joy accepted the instruction, and by means of this institution rescued his mother from her sufferings.
And so for all future time this means of deliverance shall be effectual for the purpose designed as year by year the offerings are presented according to the form delivered by Buddha.
Having heard these words, Mugalan and the rest departed to their several places, with joyous hearts and glad thoughts.
THE CALCULUS OF HELL LEADS TO RELIANCE ON RITUALS & SACRIFICE
Gautama Buddha advised against reliance on "observances and rituals" as the basis for a spiritual life, on the grounds that they do not in fact produce the promised results, and called them “the basis for fruitless efforts."[108] He rejected the notion that "purification comes through a ritual,” and described this as a “perverse assumption” that he called “rules-and-vows clinging."[109]
One of the impulses to believe in the afterlife is to satisfy our sense of justice, since the allocation of consequences during a single lifetime is inconsistent with the human sense of fairness; however, giving space to the notion of the afterlife allows ecclesiastical theorists to posit the existence of hells that, in their immense cruelty, are an even greater affront to our sense of justice.
Tibetan Buddhists fail to provide any explanation for how the incredible pain being suffered by the beings in hell is proportional to the sins they have committed. For example, there is no adequate explanation in the Buddhist hell teachings for why the breakage of samaya leads to the longest imprisonment in the most painful hell of all. We can, however, make a reasonable inference, based on Shantideva's explanation in the Bodhicaryavatara for how positive karma is generated by compassionate intention.
Shantideva's calculus of virtue is simple -- good deeds lead to good consequences, better deeds lead to better consequences, and the best deeds lead to the best consequences. The best possible deed is to liberate all sentient beings from suffering. Therefore the best possible intention is the intention to liberate all sentient beings from suffering. As Shantideva says: "Immeasurable merit took hold of the well-intentioned person who thought 'Let me dispel the headaches of beings.' What then of the person who longs to remove the unequalled agony of every single being and make their virtue infinite?"[110]
Since the karmic effect of virtue is measured by the scope of its effects, the same must be true of non-virtue. Thus, since the worst hell is reserved for samaya breakers, the consequences of samaya breakage must be greater than the consequences of preventing every sentient being in the universe from achieving liberation. In other words, criticizing Sogyal or the Sakyong for womanizing and carousing is a greater crime than blocking the door to liberation for all beings. From this we deduce that the lamas must be the most important beings in the universe, because anyone who obstructs their activity is blocking the door to liberation for countless living beings.
The immense hubris of the lamas who elevate their own importance to such absurd levels would be evident if students took a moment to consider the logic of the hells in which they have allowed the lamas to imprison their minds. But students do not think logically. The risk of going to vajra hell hangs like a sword of Damocles above the head of every tantric practitioner; thus, rituals of purification and propitiation abound in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.
Tibetan Buddhism incorporated many elements of the ancient Bon religion in order to convert the Tibetan people. The Bon religion was saturated with the practices of propitiating demonic and celestial forces. To quote a Tibetan on the subject: "In order to live in harmony with nature and tame the destructive natural forces, our ancestors ... were intelligent and ingenious enough to come up with the idea of communicating with these forces to pacify or to control them. This communication took the form of rituals involving propitiation, offerings, expelling, incantation, fumigation etc."[111]
Historically, these rituals included the burial of kings with living beings, including human beings: "The rituals of the bon often involved sacrificing animals (mainly horses, yaks, and sheep), making offerings of food and drink, and burying the dead with precious jewels, the benefits of which were apparently transferred to them in the afterlife through shamanistic rituals. The most elaborate of these were the ceremonies for the kings, each of whom was buried in a specially-constructed tomb, and apparently joined in death by servants, ministers, and retainers."[112]
Anyone who has practiced Tibetan Buddhism intensively is familiar with the offerings of barley-butter cakes (tormas) simulating heaps of blood and fat that are given to the oath-bound protectors and wrathful deities to satisfy their bloodlust and incite them to protect the lineage from the damage that comes from samaya breakage. These rituals, that originated in the practice of propitiating local deities believed to inhabit mountains and other natural features of the land in Tibet, are practiced by credulous Americans in temples all over the United States, while chanting maledictions like "Kill those who break samaya! Burst their hearts! Spill their blood! Crush their heads!" Thus, practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism who "break samaya" are aware that they have already invited disaster upon themselves through their ritual practices. And there is only one remedy for samaya breakage: recitation of large numbers of mantras in special ceremonies.
As the Buddha pointed out, however, there is a big problem with trying to administer this type of karmic accounting system, in which we try to burn up past evil through actions in the present. For example, if we are trying to purify the evil engendered through samaya-breakage, a problem arises because no one knows how much non-virtue one has accumulated from doubting the lama, or how much non-virtue is purified by reciting a mantra, so no one can say when the purification will be accomplished. A friend of mine named Mack, whom I met on a houseboat on the Ganges in Varanasi in 1975, and who introduced me to the Dharma, told me this story:"Once the Buddha asked a Jain ascetic standing in a field, "What are you doing?"
The ascetic answered, "I am doing standing meditation."
The Buddha asked him, "How does that work?"
The ascetic replied, "I am not generating any karma, because I am not doing anything, but because I am living, I am burning off karma. Eventually, I will burn off all my karma, and I will be liberated."
The Buddha then asked, "Do you know how much karma you have burned off?"
"No," answered the ascetic.
"Do you know how much karma you have left to burn?"
"No," answered the ascetic.
"So, do you have any way of knowing when you will reach liberation?"
"No," answered the ascetic.
This story seems to be drawn from the Devadaha Sutra, but in truth requires no authoritative reference, because it is so obviously true. The Buddha put his finger on the problem with his usual unerring ability to identify the assumptions implicit in many widely-accepted spiritual strategies. But, attached as they are to their karma-powered spiritual technologies, Tibetan Buddhists spend no time on such contemplations. They will simply ask for a lama skilled in divination to use their divinatory skills, to answer the question: "What ritual practices, and how many of them, are necessary to purify the Sangha's samaya breakage?" Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche consulted a “clairvoyant lama” in the wake of the Sogyal scandal, and received a prescription of ritual practices that, if performed by his faithful students, could keep the renowned abuser active for years to come: "The clairvoyant lama clarified that Rinpoche will face certain obstacles in the next three Tibetan years, but if the practices he recommends are done, then there is every chance that Rinpoche will live until at least the age of eighty five."[113]
Divinatory practices are deeply rooted in Tibetan Buddhism,[114] but relying on such irrational methods for decision-making undermines the self-confidence that lies at the root of genuine Buddhist practice. By relying on the mystical powers of rituals, mantras and "making offerings," i.e., propitiating unseen powers, Tibetan Buddhists ally themselves evermore strongly with the forces of superstition. Thus, the belief in hell leads to reliance on what Gautama Buddha called "the basis for fruitless efforts."
-- Against Hell: A Refutation of the Buddhist Hell Realms, Based on Their Historic Origins, Political Purpose, Psychological Destructiveness, Irrationality, and Demonstrable Inconsistency With the Original Buddhist Teachings, Framed as A Searching Review of Sam Bercholz’s After-Death Memoir, "A Guided Tour of Hell", by Charles Carreon
Related apparently to this story is the Lamaist account of "The queen of the Pretas with the fiery mouth," whom the Lamas identify with the celebrated Yakshini fiendess Hariti, for whom and her five hundred sons they daily reserve some of their food relating in support of this practice the following story, evidently borrowed from the story of Hariti in the Ratnakuta Sutra:— "
Hariti, the child-eating yakshini, and "Queen of Pretas."
Hariti, queen of the hungry ghouls with the burning mouths, had five hundred children, whom she fed on living children. The great Buddha, "Mohugalaputra" coming to her dwelling, hid away Pingala the youngest and most beloved of her sons, in his begging-bowl, unknown to the gods or demons. The mother, on her return, was drowned in sorrow at the loss of her favourite son, and in her distress appealed to the omniscient Mohugalaputra for aid to recover him. The Buddha then showed her Pingala within his bowl, yet all the efforts of Hariti and her demons failed to release him. So she besought Buddha for aid who replied, "You, with five hundred children, mercilessly devour the children of men who have only two or three, yet you grieve at the loss of only one! The Preta-queen declared that this one was the most precious of all and she vowed that were he released she never again would devour human children. The Buddha, consenting, restored her child, and gave her the three Refuges and the five Precepts, and (say the Lamas) he promised that in future all Buddhist monks would give her a handful of their daily food.77
This practice is probably derived from the Hindu offering of food and drink to the manes of departed relatives, the Sraddha ceremonial.
Flying visits of mortals to Hades, having their parallels in Odysseus and Dante's visits to purgatory, are found in Lamaism, where they are known as De-lok, or "the ghostly returning,'' and are used for stirring the people to good behaviour.
Buddhist Metaphysics.
Buddha, being a Hindu, accepted the Hindu theory of the universe and its fantastic world-system, with the modifications above indicated, and he started also with the current notions of metempsychosis and Karma as part of his mental furniture.
According to the theory of metempsychosis, or more properly palingenesis, which was not unknown to the ancient Hellenic and even Jewish literature, and western fairy-tales,
"The soul that rises with us, our life's star
Hath had elsewhere its setting."
— Wordsworth.
Death merely alters the form, but does not break the continuity of the life, which proceeds from death to re-birth, and fresh deaths to fresh re-births in constant succession of changing states, dissolving and evolving until the breaking up of the universe after a kalpa, or almost an eternity of ages. How Buddha modified this doctrine will be referred to presently.
Karma,78 or the ethical doctrine of retribution, is accepted as regards its general principle, even by such modern men of science as Huxley79. It explains all the acts and events of one's life as the results of deeds done in previous existences, and it creates a system of rewards and punishments, sinking the wicked through the lower stages of human and animal existence, and even to hell, and lifting the good to the level of mighty kings, and even to the gods.
In this way Buddha explained all the acts and events of his life, his joys and sorrows, his success and failures, his virtues and weaknesses, as results of things done by him in previous states of life, which he recalled to mind as occasion arose for teaching purposes. And thus those anecdotes of the antecedent lives of the Buddha, — the so-called "Jataka tales" — with the moral lessons derived from them, came to be among the most cherished items of Buddhist belief.80
The various regions of re-birth or "ways" of life, the so-called Gati,81 are pictorially represented in the accompanying drawing called "The Wheel of Life." They are given as six (or five, as with the primitive Buddhists when the Titans were not separately represented), and are thus enumerated in the order of their superiority: —
1st. The Gods (Sura or Deva, Tibetan, Lha).
2nd. Titans (Asura, T., Lha-ma-yin).
3rd. Man (Nara, T., Mi).
4th. Beasts (Tiryak, T., Du-do82).
5th. Tantalized Ghosts (Preta, T., Yi-dvag).
6th. Hell (Naraka, T., Nal-k'am).
Key to Wheel of Life. (See p. 109.)
Bournouf83 writing from Chinese and Ceylonese sources, classes man above the Titans, but the order now given is that adopted by the Lamas.84 Existence in the first three worlds is considered superior or good, and in the last three inferior or bad. And these worlds are shown in this relation in the picture, the highest being heaven, and the lowest hell.
The six regions of re-birth are shown in the middle whorl. They are demarcated from each other by rainbow-coloured cordons representing the atmospheric zones that separate the different worlds. No place is allotted to the other phases of existence believed in by the Lamas, namely, the everlasting existence in the western paradise of Sukhavati and of the celestial Buddhas and demoniacal protectors of Lamaism, and the expressed absence of such expressions of the current modern beliefs favours the claim of this picture to considerable antiquity.
Of these six states all have already been described except the third and fourth, namely, the state of being a man or a beast, a reference to the Buddhist conception of which is necessary to understand the picture of The Wheel of Life.
The most pessimistic view is of course taken of human life. It is made to be almost unalloyed misery, its striving, it perennially unsatisfied desire, its sensations of heat and cold, thirst and hunger, depression even by surfeiting with food, anxiety of the poor for their daily bread, of the farmer for his crops and cattle, unfulfilled desires, separation from relatives, subjection to temporal laws, infirmities of old age and disease, and accidents are amongst the chief miseries referred to. The miseries of human existence are classed into eight sections, viz.: The miseries of (1) birth; (2) old age; (3) sickness; (4) death; (5) ungratified wishes and struggle for existence; (6) misfortunes and punishments for law-breaking; (7) separation from relatives and cherished objects; (8) offensive objects and sensations.
In the picture the following phases of life are depicted amongst others: —
1st. Birth in a cottage.
2nd. Children at play.
3rd. Manhood, village scenes, people drinking wine under shade of a tree, a man playing a flute, women spinning and weaving, a borrower, two traders, a drunken man.
4th. Labour by sweat of brow, men tilling a field, gathering fuel in a forest, carrying a heavy load.
5th. Accident, a man and horse falling into a river.
6th. Crime, two men fighting, one under trial before the judge, and one undergoing corporal punishment.
7th. Temporal government: the king and his ministers.
8th. Old age — decrepit old people.
9th. Disease, a physician feeling the pulse of a patient.
10th. Death, a corpse with a Lama feeling whether breath be extinct, and a Lama at the head doing worship, and a woman and other relatives weeping.
11th. Funeral ceremonies. A corpse being carried off to the funeral pyre on the top of a hill, preceded by a Lama blowing a thigh-bone trumpet and rattling a hand drum: he also has hold of the end of a white scarf which is affixed to the corpse. The object of this scarf is to guide the soul by the white path to the pyre so that it may be disposed of in the orthodox manner, and have the best chance of a good re-birth, and may not stray and get caught by outside demons. Behind the corpse-bearer is a porter with food and drink offerings, and last of all a mourning relative.
12th. Religion is represented by a temple placed above all other habitations with a Lama and monk performing worship; and a hermit in his cell with bell, vajra-sceptre, and thigh-bone trumpet; and a stupa or caitya (ch'orten) circumambulated by a devotee.
The state of the beasts is one of greater misery even than the human. In the picture are shown land and aquatic animals of various kinds devouring one another, the larger preying on the small; and also small ones combining to catch and kill the larger ones. Human hunters also are setting nets for, and others are shooting game. Domestic animals are shown laden with burdens, or ploughing and being goaded; some are being milked and shorn of their wool, others are being branded or castrated or having their nostrils bored, others killed for their flesh or skin, etc. All are suffering great misery through the anxiety and pains of preying or being preyed upon. In the water is shown a Naga or merman's house, with its inmates in grief at being preyed upon by the Garuda, a monster bird, like the fabled roc, which by the rush of air from its wings cleaves the sea to its depths in its search for Nagas.
We are now in a position to consider Buddha's conception of Human Life —
Buddha's Conception of the Cause of Life and of Misery.85
Apart from its importance as an illustration of the earlier intellectual life of humanity, the Buddhist ontology, the most wonderful, perhaps, the world has seen, possesses a paramount interest for all who would arrive at a right understanding of the religion and ethics with which it is associated.
Buddha formulated his view of life into a twelve-linked closed chain called "the Wheel of Life or of 'Becoming'" (Bhavacakra), or the Causal Nexus (Pratitya Samutpada); which he is represented, in the Vinaya scripture itself, to have thought out under the Tree of Wisdom.86 The way in which the narrative is couched, leads, indeed, to the impression that it was precisely the insight into this "Wheel of Life" which constituted his Buddhahood, and distinguished him from the other Arhats. However this may be, he gave it a very leading place in his philosophy, so that the stanza recounting its utterance, Ye dharma hetu,87 etc., termed by English writers "The Buddhist Creed," is the most frequent of all Buddhist inscriptions, and was certainly in olden days familiar to every lay Buddhist; and it is practically identical with "The four noble Truths," omitting only the initial expression of "suffering."88
Yet though this chain forms the chief corner-stone of Buddhism, it is remarkable that scarcely any two European scholars are agreed upon the exact nature and signification of some of its chief links, while the sequence of several links is deemed self-contradictory and impossible; and even the alleged continuity of the whole is doubted. The best western authorities who have attempted its interpretation, Childers89 and Prof. H. Oldenberg, have practically given up the problem in despair; the latter exclaiming, "it is utterly impossible for anyone who seeks to find out its meaning, to trace from beginning to end a connected meaning in this formula."90
Such conflict of opinion in regard to this "chain" is mainly due to the circumstance that no commentary on its subtle formula has ever been published; and that the only means hitherto available for its interpretation have been the ambiguous Pali and Sanskrit terminology for the links themselves. Thus, for one only of these links, namely, Sanskara, the following are some of the many renderings which have been attempted: —
"Constructing, preparing, perfecting, embellishing, aggregation; matter; Karma, the Skandhas. — ('As a technical term, Sankaro has several decided shades of meaning ... in fact, Sankharo includes everything of which impermanence may be predicated, or, what is the same thing, everything which springs from a cause ' — Childers.)91 Les Concepts. — (Burnouf )92; Composition notion (Csoma); Willen (Schmidt); Discrimination (Hardy); Les idees (Foucaux)93; Tendencies, potentialities, confections (Rhys Davids);94 Gestaltungen: shapes and forms (H. Oldenberg); Conformations (W. Hoey).
This bewildering obscurity of its terminology has somewhat displaced the chain from its due prominence in the European books on the system, notwithstanding the importance claimed for it by Buddhists.
Now I have lately discovered among the frescoes of the ancient Buddhist caves of Ajanta, in central India, a picture, over thirteen centuries old, which supplies a valuable commentary on this subject. It portrays in concrete form those metaphysical conceptions — the so-called Nidana — which, in their Pali and Sanskrit terminology, have proved so puzzling to European scholars. And, as this picture, supplemented by its Tibetan versions and its detailed explanation as given me by learned Lamas, who are thoroughly familiar with it, and possess its traditional interpretation,95 affords a clue to much that is imperfectly understood, and helps to settle disputed points of fundamental importance, these advantages seem to justify my bringing it to notice, and may also, I hope, justify my attempt, however crude, at exhibiting its continuity as a complete authentic account of human life from the absolute standpoint of the earliest Buddhist philosophy.
One important result of this new interpretation of the ancient formula will be to show that it seems to possess more in common with modern philosophic methods and speculations than is usually suspected. Indeed, it would scarcely be going too far to say that at a period before the epoch of Alexander the Great, in the valley of the Ganges, and at a time when writing was still unknown in India, an Indian anchorite evolved in the main by private study and meditation an ontological system which, while having much in common with the philosophy of Plato and of Kant,96 and the most profound and celebrated speculations of modern times (such as those of Bishop Berkeley, and Schopenhauer, and Hartmann), yet far surpassed these in elaborateness. And as this bold system formed the basis of Buddhist ethics, its formulas came to be represented for teaching purposes in concrete pictorial form in the vestibules of the Indian monasteries and temples, as they still are in Tibet and China; and although the impermanence of the materials of the painter's art has unfortunately deprived us of most of its traces in India, where Buddhism has been extinct for centuries, yet I have found it as a relic in the deserted cave-temples of Ajanta.97
Buddha himself may, as the Lamas relate, have originated the picture of "The Wheel of Life," by drawing it in diagrammatic fashion with grains of rice, from a stalk which he had plucked while teaching h is disciples in a rice-field. The introduction of the pictorial details is ascribed to the great Indian monk Nagarjuna, who lived in the second century A.D., under the patronage of the successors of the Scythian king Kanishka, who we know from Hiuen Tsiang employed artists in great numbers in the decoration of Buddhist buildings. These pictorial details, however, are alleged to be objective representations of the self-same similies used by Buddha himself, who, as is clear from his Sutras or sermons, constantly used homely similies and allegories to illustrate his doctrines. And a general account of the construction of the picture occurs in the Divyavadana.98
The particular Indian painting from Ajanta on which the present article is based, is attributed to the sixth century of our era,99 while the Tibetan picture which supplements it, is alleged, and with reason, to be a copy of one brought to Tibet by the Indian monk "Bande Yeshe," in the eighth century A.D.100
The Tibetan form of the picture101 here given should be studied with its Key (p. 102). It is a disc or wheel, symbolizing the endless cycle of Life (samsara), of which each re-birth is a revolution. The wheel is held in the clutches of a monster, who represents the hideousness of the Clinging to Life. The broad tire is occupied by the Causal Nexus, and the nave by the three vices or delusions, "The Daughters of Desire," the three vices — Raga, Dvesa, Moha. Lust, ill-will, stupidity, which lie at the core of re-birth, and are figured here, as in the other Indian picture on page 6, as a dove, serpent, and pig, appropriately coloured red, green, and black; while the body of the wheel, which is considered to be in continuous revolution, is filled with pictorial details of Life in its several forms, or "The Whirling on the Wheel" of Life. And outside the wheel is a figure of Buddha, showing that he has escaped from the cycle, to which he is represented as pointing the way of escape.
The ancient conception of Life under the figure of a wheel of which each re-birth is a revolution is not confined to Buddhism and Brahmanism. This fancy finds an echo more than once in Hellenic literature.102
In the pictorial diagram of human life, as conceived by Buddhist philosophy, the causal nexus begins at the left-hand side of the top partition. The twelve links round the rim follow in the usual order and in evolutionary fashion as follows: —
Causal Category. / Sanskrit / Evolutionary Stage.
I. Unconscious Will / Avidya / Stage of passing from Death to Re-birth.
II. Conformations / Sanskara / Shaping of formless physical and mental materials (in the Gata).
III. Consciousness / Vijnana / Rise of Conscious Experience.
IV. Self -consciousness / Nama-rupa / Rise of Individuality — distinction between self and not-self.
V. Sense - surfaces and Understanding / Chadayatana / Realizes possession of Sense-Surfaces and Understanding with reference to outside world.
VI. Contact / Sparsa / Exercise of Sense-organs on outer world.
VII. Feeling / Vedana / Mental and physical sensations.
VIII. Desire / Trishna / Desire, as experience of pain or delusive pleasure.
IX. Indulgence / Upadana / Grasping greed, as satisfying Desire, inducing clinging to Worldly Wealth and desire of heir to it.
X. Fuller Life / Bhava / Life in fuller form, as enriched by satisfying desire of married life and as means of obtaining heir.
XI. Birth (of heir) / Jati / Maturity by birth of heir (which affords re-birth to another spirit).
XII. Decay and Death. / Jaramarana / Maturity leads to Decay and to Death.
I. Unconscious Will. / Avidya / Passing from Death to Re-birth.
The key-note to Buddha's system is that Life in any form must necessarily, and not merely accidentally, be accompanied by suffering as others had taught. Anityam Duhkham Anatmakam!103 All is transitory, painful, and unreal!
Buddha, therefore, set himself the task of solving the mystery of Life in order to find the way of escape from continual Becomings, which was clearly involved in misery. Being a Hindu, he adopted the then, as now, current Hindu notion of metempsychosis or palingenesis, the doctrine, namely, that death merely alters the form, but does not break the continuity of life104 which proceeds from Death to Re-birth, and fresh Deaths to fresh Rebirths in constant succession of changing states dissolving and evolving until the breaking up of the universe after a Kalpa, or almost an eternity of countless ages; though it would appear probable that Buddha and the primitive Buddhists denied the real existence of the material and physical world as well as the vital.
In his ontological scheme, while adopting an agnostic attitude towards the Hindu gods and their creative functions, Buddha does not begin by attempting to account for the first life. He accepts the world as a working system on metempsychological lines, and he evades the necessity for a supernatural creator by interpreting the Universe, as Will and Idea, and by placing the Karma or ethical doctrine of retribution in the position of the Supernatural Controlling Intelligence or Creator. Perceiving the relativity of knowledge and that nature furnishes presumptive evidence that some evolution has taken place in her methods, he throws his theory of the vital process into a synthetical or developmental form, showing a gradual transition from the simple to the complex, and proceeding from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous by an ever-changing cosmic order in which everything is dominated by causality.
The starting point in Buddha's theory of Life is the connecting link between the old life and the new. Unfortunately, however, even on so elementary a point as this, there exists no consensus of opinion as to what Buddha's view of this link precisely was, for he concerned himself less with the metaphysical aspects of his philosophy than with the practical alleviation and removal of sorrow. He expressly avoided the use of the term "Soul" (Atman), as this word was already in use in Brahmanism with the implication of supernatural and theistic creation. Some say that he taught there is no continuity between the old life and the new, that the Karma attaches itself to any spirit which may chance to be re-born at the time of the person's death. But if this be so, where is the justice of the Karma doctrine? It is said by some that the sole-surviving thing is Karma, yet this term is used so elastically as to include products which belong rather to the category of the Will-to-live. Others say that Vijnana, or consciousness alone, survives; and so on.105
THE BUDDHA'S NON-POSITION ON ETERNAL LIFE
Interesting as it is to scholars and persons posing as Tibetan Buddhists in the 21st Century, the entire Tibetan vision of the afterlife would have been regarded as superstitious rubbish by the original founder of Buddhism. Gautama Buddha lived sometime between the 6th and 4th Centuries BCE. The original teachings of Gautama Buddha on eternal life are found in Sutta 63 of the Majjhima Nikaya, composed between the 3rd and 2nd Century BCE. In this Sutta, Gautama Buddha reminded Malunkyaputta, a monk who was threatening to quit the Order if he didn't get some answers to various questions about the afterlife, that he, the Buddha, had never promised to answer such questions as an inducement to enter the holy life:"Pray, Mâlunkyâputta, did I ever say to you, 'Come, Mâlunkyâputta, lead the religious life under me, and I will elucidate to you either that the world is eternal, or that the world is not eternal, . . . or that the saint neither exists nor does not exist after death'?"
"Nay, verily, Reverend Sir."
"Or did you ever say to me, 'Reverend Sir, I will lead the religious life under The Blessed One, on condition that The Blessed One elucidate to me either that the world is eternal, or that the world is not eternal, . . . or that the saint neither exists nor does not exist after death'?"
"Nay, verily, Reverend Sir."
"So you acknowledge, Mâlunkyâputta, that I have not said to you, 'Come, Mâlunkyâputta, lead the religious life under me and I will elucidate to you either that the world is eternal, or that the world is not eternal, . . . or that the saint neither exists nor does not exist after death...."
The Buddha's position on the afterlife was thus a non-position. He simply refused to talk about it. In the Simsapa Sutta, he explained that he would not answer questions about the afterlife because they do not lead to “direct knowledge, self-awakening, and Unbinding,” the true goals of practice:"Once the Blessed One was staying at Kosambi in the simsapa forest. Then, picking up a few simsapa leaves with his hand, he asked the monks:"
"What do you think, monks: Which are more numerous, the few simsapa leaves in my hand or those overhead in the simsapa forest?"
"The leaves in the hand of the Blessed One are few in number, lord. Those overhead in the simsapa forest are more numerous."
"In the same way, monks, those things that I have known with direct knowledge but have not taught are far more numerous [than what I have taught]. And why haven't I taught them? Because they are not connected with the goal, do not relate to the rudiments of the holy life, and do not lead to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to Unbinding. That is why I have not taught them."[40]
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REINCARNATION, KARMIC DNA, ATMAN AND TATHAGHATAGARBA: THE MERGER OF UPANISHADIC & BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY
As we have noted, Gautama Buddha taught that belief in an afterlife was unhelpful to reaching the goal of “direct knowledge, self-awakening, and Unbinding.” These goals, he implied, are to be attained in this life, in this body, with this mind. But purveyors of religion chafe against such restrictions. Their theories require an expanse of time where spiritual imaginations can take wing, and cosmic dramas can unfold.
By expanding the playing field of existence into an asserted afterlife, beyond birth and death, religious theorists can accommodate a doctrine of "soul development" spanning lifetimes. Like Hindus, Tibetan Buddhists believe in the endless cycle of reincarnation, which is futile and pervaded with suffering. Like Hindus, Tibetan Buddhists aspire to end compelled reincarnation by living ethically, performing ritual offerings, visualizing oneself as a luminous being in a divine environment, and receiving spiritual blessings from divine beings that generate transcendent insights into the nature of Reality. Additionally, Tibetan Buddhists and all Mahayanists aspire to be Bodhisattvas, and establish all sentient beings in the permanent happiness of liberation, because they have at some time or another, been our kind and compassionate mothers.
The Tibetan Buddhist story of life after death presumes we each possess a mind of original clarity that is locked in unawareness by the ignorant assumption of self-existence. Believing in self-benefit as the means to obtain happiness, we are pulled by attraction and pushed by aversion, compulsively reborn in physical, supra-physical, and non-physical realms, without any endpoint. Through philosophical sleight-of-hand, Tibetan Buddhism avoids the fact that reincarnation requires the existence of some vehicle to carry the dead person's "soul-impression," "personality record" or "karmic DNA" from life to life. Reginald Ray performs this conceptual trick in an essay on karma published on PBS.org:
"The Buddhist insistence that there is ultimately no 'I' or 'self' raises an interesting question: how can there be karmic continuity from life to life? [E]very intentional action leaves a karmic imprint on our minds [that] remains within us at an inaccessible level of our mind known as the alaya [and] exits the body at death and carries along with it our entire karmic history *** because, although ultimately there is no self, [every] moment of consciousness, acting as a principal cause, transfers its karmic burden to the next, during our life and at our death. It is our very belief in a 'self' that holds this karmic stream intact and enables us to have the illusion of being a separate, discrete person. It is this illusory idea, structured according to our karma, that continues from one lifetime to the next."[47] In other words, Tibetan Buddhists assert that although people have no self-identity, the “illusory self,” or "samsaric consciousness" reincarnates.
However, if the only thing that reincarnates is samsaric consciousness, what is it that becomes Buddha? The Buddha-nature of every living being is variously called “the Essence of Mind” [48] or “Tathaghatagharba,” a change of nomenclature that preserves the essential Hindu doctrine of Atman.[49] According to the Vedic/Upanishadic tradition, when Atman, the God-essence of all living beings, becomes contaminated with “kleshas,” delusive thought impressions, it gives rise to individual living beings, who suffer compelled reincarnation until at last, through ascetic and meditative practices (tapas and jhana), they cleanse the delusion of individual self-existence, merge back into Atman, and remain one with God in Sat-Chit-Ananda, Existence-Consciousness-Bliss. Tibetan Buddhists adopted the Mahayana philosophy of the Self returning to its pure origins, as described in The Mahaparinirvana Sutra:“If a person is able truly to discern
That his/ her intrinsic being possesses the Buddha-Nature,
Then you should know that such a person
Will enter into the Secret Matrix [the Tathagatagarbha].
That person who knows the Self [atman] and what belongs to the Self [atmiya]
Has already transcended the mundane world.”[50]
The Mahayana doctrine of Tathagatagharbha mirrors the Upanishadic doctrine of Atman because “when Buddhism developed itself into Mahāyāna Buddhism, it could not but take the appearance of Monism as a result of Absolutization of the Buddha, and approach the Upanisadic thinking in its philosophy.”[51] Thus, like Hindu yogis, Tibetan Buddhists pursue yogic practices and seek the guru’s blessings to remove kleshas that obscure awareness of Tathagatagharba, the Essence of Mind. “What we call ‘essence of mind’ is the actual face of unconditioned pure awareness, which is recognized through receiving the guru's blessings and instructions. If you wonder what this is like, it is empty in essence, beyond conceptual reference; it is cognizant by nature, spontaneously present; and it is all-pervasive and unobstructed in its compassionate energy.”[52]
Once re-established in the pure awareness of the Essence of Mind or Tathagatagharba, one becomes the equal of the Buddha. “’The Self’ signifies the Buddha; ’the Eternal’ signifies the Dharmakaya; ’Bliss’ signifies Nirvana, and ’the Pure’ signifies Dharma.”[53] From that liberated sphere, the Bodhisattvas emanate benefit into all realms, as generosity becomes their vehicle to achieve the ultimate liberation of all beings. The Mahaparinirvana sutra states: “When the Bodhisattva gives, he so contrives things that beings do not ask and yet are given [what they need]. As a result of this, on the morning of Buddhahood, he attains the Sovereign Self [aisvarya-atman; i.e. the autonomous, free and unrestricted Self].”[54]
Thus, Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism espouse similar views of the cause of compelled reincarnation and the means of ending it. Compelled reincarnation is due to infatuation with appearances, arising from delusive belief in self-existence separate from Atman or Tathagatagharba. Compelled reincarnation is ended by cleansing the mind of kleshas that cause attraction to external objects. “All created things are sorrow; Nirvana is Bliss. It is most wonderful and destroys created things.”[55] The two flows of doctrine were symbolically merged when Avalokiteshvara, the Buddhist god of compassion, was merged with Shiva, the King of the Vedic Yogis. "Wangchuk Chenpo (Mahashevara, Shiva), the great god of Hinduism, is also described as a manifestation of Avalokiteshvara."[56]
While they support each other well on a theoretical basis, neither Hindu nor Tibetan Buddhist systems of reincarnation can point to any reliable evidence to support their theories of the afterlife. The technology of karmic DNA data storage hasn’t advanced beyond Shinje’s use of black and white stones, and no one has identified a network capable of moving karmic DNA from a dying body to a body that has yet to be born. Since the religious aren’t delivering scientific evidence that karmic DNA storage and transmission is viable, I went looking for some hopeful speculation on the subject in the scientific community. Perhaps someone would propose that consciousness is actually “dark matter,” writing on photons with bioenergy, as a possible karmic DNA storage medium! But no one did, and I repeatedly came back to this disappointing dispatch from the scientific cutting edge by Sean M. Carroll in Scientific American:“Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood, and there’s no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die. If you claim that some form of soul persists beyond death, what particles is that soul made of? What forces are holding it together? How does it interact with ordinary matter? Everything we know about quantum field theory (QFT) says that there aren’t any sensible answers to these questions. Of course, everything we know about quantum field theory could be wrong. Also, the Moon could be made of green cheese.”[57]
-- Against Hell: A Refutation of the Buddhist Hell Realms, Based on Their Historic Origins, Political Purpose, Psychological Destructiveness, Irrationality, and Demonstrable Inconsistency With the Original Buddhist Teachings, Framed as A Searching Review of Sam Bercholz’s After-Death Memoir, "A Guided Tour of Hell", by Charles Carreon