Snoopy posted on the Buddhist forum a very interesting text ... one to which, as a Catholic, I'd like to respond, but no so as to divert the discussion at hand. Thus I have copied it here.
The blue text treats of the Buddha's thinking on rebirth in which I can identify correspondences. The red text signifies that with which I have difficulty.
Central to the Buddha’s teaching is the profound and subtle insight that permanence is never to be grasped. In other words, if we settle the mind and look carefully, we do not find a self within human experience.
Then what, I must ask, is it that experiences?
Does not the aggregate of experience lead to the notion of self? If there is no self, no core, to what and about what does experience aggregate? If there is nothing there, what causes experience to coalesce as experience?
That is to say, simply seeing through the illusion of self is the release.
Here I would mark a correspondence in ideas. Christian doctrine, of course, affirms the existential and concrete reality of the person, the self, but in a very particular circumstance, in that the idea of 'self' is at once an illusion, at at the same time the greatest gift of God ... many regard 'mind' or 'being' as a divine gift, indicating our creation in the divine likeness and image, however, an even more profound gift is the gift of self-hood, of self-knowing, self-awareness ... of something that is rational and reflective; self-aware and self-observing.
The upshot of all this is that it seems quite unlikely that the Buddha endorsed the notion of reincarnation, since it goes so strongly against his most powerful, subtle, and profound insight—namely, anatman, the unlocatability of a self.
Now here we have a remarkable correspondence. Whilst, as I have said, Catholicism affirms the concreate reality of the self ... nevertheless this real self is not self-subsistent, but is dependent upon the divine for its being and its existence.
To take a great theological step, Catholicism locates the self as something that rises in and is sustained by the Logos ... so the Logos is the ultimate reality of the being and nature of 'self' but the self is not coequal nor co- or consubstantial with the Logos, the self is caused to be, whereas the eternal Logos is ...
... and going further, the Logos of God, which is God, is Itself unlocatable. The Christian Scriptures refer to this, in both St Paul "Now I know in part; but then I shall know even as I am known" (1 Corinthians 13:12) and St John "We know, that, when he shall appear, we shall be like to him: because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2)
Both these texts identify the known (the contingent self) with the knower (the eternal Logos). Furthermore both texts identify the knowledge of the knower being known, to the known ... we shall know ourselves as the Logos knows us because we shall know the Logos as the Logos knows Itself ... not because we are the Logos, but because we participate in Its interiority.
If we know one thing, we know one thing, if we know as the Logos knows, we know all things, beyond the limitations of their 'thing-ness' ...
... thus the self — the known thing — receeds in the face of the Knower, for that which knows is necessarily metaphysically prior to that which is known.
... what could he have meant by the term rebirth consciousness ... Simply that the immediate experience of this moment does not appear as this moment but, rather, as continuous change. In other words, this moment appears as very like, but different from, what appears to have immediately preceded it. The world appears as reborn, over and over, moment after moment.
I could cite many Catholic mystics who have made this point. However ...
In contrast, rebirth consciousness refers to nothing more than the awareness that this moment appears now, with its own unique before and after, without ever entailing any presumed entity that persists through time.
... we know that this moment, which appears now, appears as it does because of what went before, and will have its after ... so this moment is, surely, bound in time and space?
It cannot be outside of time, surely, for to suggest as much is to suggest that there is no connection at all between this moment and the next ... that between each moment is a momentary nothingness, if you will ... that each moment appears 'out of nothing' and yet shows remarkable consistency with the unrelated moment that went before ... that any commonality between the two is entirely arbitrary and accidental?
(Not even to mention the implication of creatio ex nihilo in the idea of unique and unrelated moments.)
And that the before that affects this moment is not at all unique, but belongs as much to the all as this moment exists within the all ... one cannot disassociate one moment from the rest of the cosmos, any more than one can suggest that something exists, absolutely unrelated in any way, to everything else that exists.
In other words, while reincarnation requires a self that persists through time—something that is not directly experienced, and that was thus rejected by the Buddha—rebirth consciousness makes no reference to anything that is not directly experienced or observed.
But directly experienced or observed by what ... that's the point.
And if everything has to be directly observed or experienced, then surely Buddhism reduces to an entirely empirical philosophy, which undermines it?
In short, it relies not on abstraction, speculation, or belief, but on immediate, direct experience."
I think this misses the point. The Buddha experienced the same thing as everyone else around him, but he was enlightened, and they were not.
Wherein lies the difference? Not in the experience, but what that which experiences draws from what it experiences ... what the Buddha brought to the moment ... now the breakthrough might happen in a moment, but the determination that the breakthrough is 'real' rests entirely on the aggregate of experience to date, otherwise we would dream and assume the content of our dreams are real.
Just some thoughts?
Thomas
The blue text treats of the Buddha's thinking on rebirth in which I can identify correspondences. The red text signifies that with which I have difficulty.
Central to the Buddha’s teaching is the profound and subtle insight that permanence is never to be grasped. In other words, if we settle the mind and look carefully, we do not find a self within human experience.
Then what, I must ask, is it that experiences?
Does not the aggregate of experience lead to the notion of self? If there is no self, no core, to what and about what does experience aggregate? If there is nothing there, what causes experience to coalesce as experience?
That is to say, simply seeing through the illusion of self is the release.
Here I would mark a correspondence in ideas. Christian doctrine, of course, affirms the existential and concrete reality of the person, the self, but in a very particular circumstance, in that the idea of 'self' is at once an illusion, at at the same time the greatest gift of God ... many regard 'mind' or 'being' as a divine gift, indicating our creation in the divine likeness and image, however, an even more profound gift is the gift of self-hood, of self-knowing, self-awareness ... of something that is rational and reflective; self-aware and self-observing.
The upshot of all this is that it seems quite unlikely that the Buddha endorsed the notion of reincarnation, since it goes so strongly against his most powerful, subtle, and profound insight—namely, anatman, the unlocatability of a self.
Now here we have a remarkable correspondence. Whilst, as I have said, Catholicism affirms the concreate reality of the self ... nevertheless this real self is not self-subsistent, but is dependent upon the divine for its being and its existence.
To take a great theological step, Catholicism locates the self as something that rises in and is sustained by the Logos ... so the Logos is the ultimate reality of the being and nature of 'self' but the self is not coequal nor co- or consubstantial with the Logos, the self is caused to be, whereas the eternal Logos is ...
... and going further, the Logos of God, which is God, is Itself unlocatable. The Christian Scriptures refer to this, in both St Paul "Now I know in part; but then I shall know even as I am known" (1 Corinthians 13:12) and St John "We know, that, when he shall appear, we shall be like to him: because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2)
Both these texts identify the known (the contingent self) with the knower (the eternal Logos). Furthermore both texts identify the knowledge of the knower being known, to the known ... we shall know ourselves as the Logos knows us because we shall know the Logos as the Logos knows Itself ... not because we are the Logos, but because we participate in Its interiority.
If we know one thing, we know one thing, if we know as the Logos knows, we know all things, beyond the limitations of their 'thing-ness' ...
... thus the self — the known thing — receeds in the face of the Knower, for that which knows is necessarily metaphysically prior to that which is known.
... what could he have meant by the term rebirth consciousness ... Simply that the immediate experience of this moment does not appear as this moment but, rather, as continuous change. In other words, this moment appears as very like, but different from, what appears to have immediately preceded it. The world appears as reborn, over and over, moment after moment.
I could cite many Catholic mystics who have made this point. However ...
In contrast, rebirth consciousness refers to nothing more than the awareness that this moment appears now, with its own unique before and after, without ever entailing any presumed entity that persists through time.
... we know that this moment, which appears now, appears as it does because of what went before, and will have its after ... so this moment is, surely, bound in time and space?
It cannot be outside of time, surely, for to suggest as much is to suggest that there is no connection at all between this moment and the next ... that between each moment is a momentary nothingness, if you will ... that each moment appears 'out of nothing' and yet shows remarkable consistency with the unrelated moment that went before ... that any commonality between the two is entirely arbitrary and accidental?
(Not even to mention the implication of creatio ex nihilo in the idea of unique and unrelated moments.)
And that the before that affects this moment is not at all unique, but belongs as much to the all as this moment exists within the all ... one cannot disassociate one moment from the rest of the cosmos, any more than one can suggest that something exists, absolutely unrelated in any way, to everything else that exists.
In other words, while reincarnation requires a self that persists through time—something that is not directly experienced, and that was thus rejected by the Buddha—rebirth consciousness makes no reference to anything that is not directly experienced or observed.
But directly experienced or observed by what ... that's the point.
And if everything has to be directly observed or experienced, then surely Buddhism reduces to an entirely empirical philosophy, which undermines it?
In short, it relies not on abstraction, speculation, or belief, but on immediate, direct experience."
I think this misses the point. The Buddha experienced the same thing as everyone else around him, but he was enlightened, and they were not.
Wherein lies the difference? Not in the experience, but what that which experiences draws from what it experiences ... what the Buddha brought to the moment ... now the breakthrough might happen in a moment, but the determination that the breakthrough is 'real' rests entirely on the aggregate of experience to date, otherwise we would dream and assume the content of our dreams are real.
Just some thoughts?
Thomas
