The problem of suffering when you don't believe in karmic rebirth

[goldisheavy]

I have been trying to face up to my own suffering and investigate the causes of it and I have come to the realisation that it would be so much smoother and easier if I had the firm belief in karmic rebirth, that I deserve to be in the state that I am in and where I am at in life due to past misdeeds, so there is a sort of cosmic justice. But from my own life experience and from seeing myself and my younger brother grow up my view is that young children come in as more or less blank slates and then get made to suffer almost randomly in the world when they are completely innocent and did nothing to bring it on themselves and the problem I am having is that it it just feels so unjust which inevitably leads to anger and bitterness towards the world.

 

It would be nice to believe in karmic rebirth but I have no memory of previous lives and so far have seen nothing to utterly convince me of it so I suspect it might be another comfort blanket belief to shield people from the harsh reality of the randomness of suffering. So I guess I am asking how do you not get bogged down in anger and bitterness about it because without the belief in karmic rebirth it just seems so senseless that random innocent people are made to suffer more than others?

 

Karma means intent, and it is not justice or fairness. Moment to moment fluctuations in intent are relatively harmless. The biggest problems, the knots, are the beliefs. Beliefs are intentional formations that are very stable. For example, you believe in gravity. Thus gravity manifests during the day and in dreams as well. That's how stable it is. That's just one example. Of course gravity doesn't cause a whole lot of suffering on its own, but because most beings perceive gravity so easily and readily, even in dreams, it's my go-to example of how powerful a belief can be in structuring living appearances.

 

So for example, say you believe in matter. This belief means that there is a fixed amount of stuff in the universe, and that to get some you have to spend some. Conservation of energy in physics. There is no free lunch. Resources are limited and hard to get at.

 

Now you add a belief that the joy of life is limited to only one life. What's the consequence? People become anxious and paranoid about losing their lives. People begin clinging to life because they think if they don't get the most out of this life, their chances for fun are over at death. So either we get our fun now or never. This results in being crazy about survival. That craziness then results in a feeling that unless you're at the top of the social heap, your position is not good enough, not safe enough. So it propels people to struggle for the socially dominant positions, status plays, etc...

 

So you have limited resources plus extreme anxiety, paranoia and neurosis. You worry about every little thing you do and say. Why? Because based on what you do and say your social position will rise or fall. Why is that important? Because if your social position falls you find it hard to get jobs, hard to find leads to work, hard to make business deals with others and so on. Why is that important? That's important because these are the ways to get a piece of the limited pie. Why do you need these things? To sustain life. Why struggle to sustain life? This life is all I have. And so on. This is a huge knot.

 

That's how karma works in reality. Karma is not justice! Karma is intent. There is nothing right or wrong about believing in physicality and in humans only having one life. And yet, even though these beliefs are not just or unjust, nor right or wrong, they cause huge suffering. In fact the whole idea of justice arose as a way to try to mitigate some of the suffering caused by excessive competition and paranoia. So justice is a reactionary measure in the final analysis.

 

So if you do lots of good deeds now, there is absolutely no reason to believe you'll be rewarded in the future. That's not how karma works at all. Instead, if you believe in limited resources and one human life, you'll struggle no matter how much good you do. Even if you're a king, people will plot to kill you. If you're a CEO, you'll find it hard to avoid abusing workers and will most likely try to squeeze the most out of them, thus resentment will grow, and your senior executives will be plotting and scheme to hasten your retirement so that they can occupy your spot, every ready to reveal any kind of damaging information about you, etc. So even if you perform a mountain of good deeds, your rewards will be short lives as long as you hold to the beliefs that generate the basis for suffering.

 

There is no justice ultimately. If any justice exists it is only because we demand it and we make it so intentionally, as a compassionate stop-gap measure.

 

In day to day life I fight for justice. Why? Because justice makes our hell of a world more tolerable right now, short term. But justice is not a long term solution. Justice is very important in the short and medium term to provide good conditions for life. But in the long term nothing short of enlightenment will be satisfactory. Once you deconstruct various knotted beliefs you will experience living in a realm very different from this physical realm. Imagine a realm where resources are infinite and struggling and competition make no sense at all? Sound good? Is justice even necessary in that kind of realm? Right.

 

So we have pragmatic day to day goals and long term goals.

Edited July 19, 2011 by goldisheavy

[orb]

[Birch]

Karma means intent, and it is not justice or fairness. Moment to moment fluctuations in intent are relatively harmless. The biggest problems, the knots, are the beliefs. Beliefs are intentional formations that are very stable. For example, you believe in gravity. Thus gravity manifests during the day and in dreams as well. That's how stable it is. That's just one example. Of course gravity doesn't cause a whole lot of suffering on its own, but because most beings perceive gravity so easily and readily, even in dreams, it's my go-to example of how powerful a belief can be in structuring living appearances.

 

So for example, say you believe in matter. This belief means that there is a fixed amount of stuff in the universe, and that to get some you have to spend some. Conservation of energy in physics. There is no free lunch. Resources are limited and hard to get at.

 

Now you add a belief that the joy of life is limited to only one life. What's the consequence? People become anxious and paranoid about losing their lives. People begin clinging to life because they think if they don't get the most out of this life, their chances for fun are over at death. So either we get our fun now or never. This results in being crazy about survival. That craziness then results in a feeling that unless you're at the top of the social heap, your position is not good enough, not safe enough. So it propels people to struggle for the socially dominant positions, status plays, etc...

 

So you have limited resources plus extreme anxiety, paranoia and neurosis. You worry about every little thing you do and say. Why? Because based on what you do and say your social position will rise or fall. Why is that important? Because if your social position falls you find it hard to get jobs, hard to find leads to work, hard to make business deals with others and so on. Why is that important? That's important because these are the ways to get a piece of the limited pie. Why do you need these things? To sustain life. Why struggle to sustain life? This life is all I have. And so on. This is a huge knot.

 

That's how karma works in reality. Karma is not justice! Karma is intent. There is nothing right or wrong about believing in physicality and in humans only having one life. And yet, even though these beliefs are not just or unjust, nor right or wrong, they cause huge suffering. In fact the whole idea of justice arose as a way to try to mitigate some of the suffering caused by excessive competition and paranoia. So justice is a reactionary measure in the final analysis.

 

So if you do lots of good deeds now, there is absolutely no reason to believe you'll be rewarded in the future. That's not how karma works at all. Instead, if you believe in limited resources and one human life, you'll struggle no matter how much good you do. Even if you're a king, people will plot to kill you. If you're a CEO, you'll find it hard to avoid abusing workers and will most likely try to squeeze the most out of them, thus resentment will grow, and your senior executives will be plotting and scheme to hasten your retirement so that they can occupy your spot, every ready to reveal any kind of damaging information about you, etc. So even if you perform a mountain of good deeds, your rewards will be short lives as long as you hold to the beliefs that generate the basis for suffering.

 

There is no justice ultimately. If any justice exists it is only because we demand it and we make it so intentionally, as a compassionate stop-gap measure.

 

In day to day life I fight for justice. Why? Because justice makes our hell of a world more tolerable right now, short term. But justice is not a long term solution. Justice is very important in the short and medium term to provide good conditions for life. But in the long term nothing short of enlightenment will be satisfactory. Once you deconstruct various knotted beliefs you will experience living in a realm very different from this physical realm. Imagine a realm where resources are infinite and struggling and competition make no sense at all? Sound good? Is justice even necessary in that kind of realm? Right.

 

So we have pragmatic day to day goals and long term goals.

 

That was pretty good GIH

 

But who is 'we'? I hope it's not just the humans (again).

Not an anti-human statement BTW.

[goldisheavy]

Alan Watts 6 min video - Determinism and Karma

 

i found it relevant and insightful to Jetsun's reflections here.

 

I love this video. Even though I've already seen it, I love seeing it again. Thanks CowTao!

[goldisheavy]

That was pretty good GIH

 

But who is 'we'? I hope it's not just the humans (again).

Not an anti-human statement BTW.

 

Well, I tend to be loose with terms like "I," "you" and "we." In this specific case by "we" I mean myself and whoever wants to agree with me. Also, whoever wants to agree with me is not obliged to agree wholesale. It's a creative process. So if you somewhat agree, you can say, "why not change this or that, and then we have a deal?" I am open to this kind of haggling. Of course we don't have to haggle overtly, we can just assume this sort of mutually accommodating and adjusting process is happening in the background of our being. We can assume this if it's our intent to be somewhat accommodating. Also, it's possible I am missing something. So if someone finds something that I agree is missing, I will be obliged to adjust my beliefs.

Edited July 20, 2011 by goldisheavy

[C T]

I love this video. Even though I've already seen it, I love seeing it again. Thanks CowTao!

I'm glad it rekindled some joy in you, GiH.

 

Be nice if more folks listened to it.

[Jetsun]

[goldisheavy]

I agree with you here, It sounds like you have knowledge of the fourth way perspective where they say the average man will just die like a dog and the vibrations caused by their death just serves as manure for the harmonisation of the planet. In the grand scheme of things nature doesn't care about your life, which is kind of depressing, it would be soothing to think that a god was looking over me but in reality as far as I can see the process of nature is completely brutal and impersonal.

 

I think even the Dalai Lama admits that the rebirth aspect is more complicated than many people assume, I have heard him say that he doesn't think he has anything to do with the previous Dalai Lama as they are not alike at all, yet he says he feels some sort of "connection" with the fith Dalai Lama, but as far as I know he doesn't say he is a reincarnation, but someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Reincarnating on the same planet is like going to bed and having the same dream you had the previous night, on purpose. It's possible, but it hardly ever happens, and when it does happen, you can't be quite sure if it's really the same or just very similar.

 

For most intents and purpose I assume when beings are dead, they reincarnate, but never here in this realm. I suppose there could be some exceptions. Out of all the dreams I've had, I believe I've had an experience of returning to the previous dream only a few times. Most of the dreams are completely unique. So I think reincarnation is like that too.

 

As for whether the nature feels impersonal and brutal or not, that depends hugely on your beliefs about nature. If you believe nature is one giant machine, yes, you'll get caught in its gears and it will grind you up just as you believe.

[xabir2005]

Rebirth and karma is one of those things in Buddhism that should be taken by faith if one is a Buddhist, until one has direct experience of them. It is part of "right view".

 

Other than Buddha's and countless meditators account of them, scientists like dr ian stevensons have done research and proven hundreds of rebirth cases in children who could still remember their past lives (they generally forget them as they enter adulthood). These case studies are published in well known medical and scientific journal.

[C T]

One would think mindstates of despair have no option but to put out the same seeds. This is common sense.

 

Contemplative work on the Paramitas can lead to freedom from such afflictive tendencies. By doing this work, It at first creates a little indent in the vicious loop that binds one (to the cycle of unsatisfactoriness), and this miniscule break is more than sufficient to release contractive emotions, just enough to allow a person to feel what it means to experience transcendence. Thereafter, its a matter of grounding the work thru habitual mindful, meditative attention not to allow the newly-found gap to be re-plugged. If at first you do not succeed, try and try again, until you get used to not struggling with loss (of comforting self-destructive habits).

[C T]

Rebirth and karma is one of those things in Buddhism that should be taken by faith if one is a Buddhist, until one has direct experience of them. It is part of "right view".

 

Its not difficult at all to gain direct experience in this regard. If one pays enough attention, each thought, each action and each resulting emotional reaction demonstrates rebirth and karma.

 

It only seems more complex and mysterious when people are caught up in superimposing this truth to what happens after death. Each in-breath is a mini birth, and each out-breath is a mini death. We can look at it from this point of view. Then its not that difficult to encapsulate the idea and transforming it into everyday awareness.

Edited July 20, 2011 by CowTao

[xabir2005]

Its not difficult at all to gain direct experience in this regard. If one pays enough attention, each thought, each action and each resulting emotional reaction demonstrates rebirth and karma.

 

It only seems more complex and mysterious when people are caught up in superimposing this truth to what happens after death. Each in-breath is a mini birth, and each out-breath is a mini death. We can look at it from this point of view. Then its not that difficult to encapsulate the idea and transforming it into everyday awareness.

Hmm actually what I meant is that holding the view of an afterlife is part of right view according to Buddha.

[Jetsun]

Hmm actually what I meant is that holding the view of an afterlife is part of right view according to Buddha.

 

But didn't the Buddha also say don't blindly believe in what I say but find out if what I say is true yourself, so if you have no memories of past lives yourself where is the justification for the belief? From what I can see it's not common to have past life memories in living masters today, i have never met anyone who can say for sure that they have past life memories, the Dalai Lama doesnt remember past lives and one high Lama I asked said he sometimes had trouble remembering what he did last week let alone in previous lives.

 

Personally I once did a shamanic journey and experienced something which I felt was from another time but it could have been anything from a though tape, some sort of pre verbal impression or just imagination, I can't say for sure it is a past life.

[goldisheavy]

But didn't the Buddha also say don't blindly believe in what I say but find out if what I say is true yourself, so if you have no memories of past lives yourself where is the justification for the belief?

 

It's a logical inference. Basically the mind could not have arisen from nothing at birth and it cannot disintegrate at death either. I'm not making the argument for you, because you can look up the argument yourself if you really care, or just think about it on your own.

 

But you're right, you shouldn't accept anything on blind faith. That's a bad habit. Conventional physicalist view that the mind is merely the brain activity is wrong.

[xabir2005]

It's a logical inference. Basically the mind could not have arisen from nothing at birth and it cannot disintegrate at death either. I'm not making the argument for you, because you can look up the argument yourself if you really care, or just think about it on your own.

 

But you're right, you shouldn't accept anything on blind faith. That's a bad habit. Conventional physicalist view that the mind is merely the brain activity is wrong.

Yes. If one held the view that mind disintegrates at death that would be the view of annihalation. Plus the view of afterlife and karma affects our action in life. Rebirth should first be accepted by logical inference and belief, then verified through experience.

[C T]

Hmm actually what I meant is that holding the view of an afterlife is part of right view according to Buddha.

Hmm... its not as straightforward as what has been implied here.

 

We can talk rings around this subject, but at the end of the day, we need to first put aside metaphysical implications, and determine how we can relate to the Buddha's teaching on rebirth in everyday living first.

 

How does right view of afterlife enhance awakening in this life, for example.

[xabir2005]

Even if masters remember their past lives they may not necessarily be willing to talk about them publicly.

 

However, hhdl did share his past life memories including being the 13th and 5th dalai lama, etc. (Note not all dalai lamas are the same incarnation)

[xabir2005]

Hmm... its not as straightforward as what has been implied here.

 

We can talk rings around this subject, but at the end of the day, we need to first put aside metaphysical implications, and determine how we can relate to the Buddha's teaching on rebirth in everyday living first.

 

How does right view of afterlife enhance awakening in this life, for example.

If mind annihilates at death, there would not be moral consequences for actions, and there would be no point to practice since we all cease at death anyway.

 

Also if you think mind annihilates, then one will fail to understand dependent origination and twelve links.

[Jetsun]

It's a logical inference. Basically the mind could not have arisen from nothing at birth and it cannot disintegrate at death either. I'm not making the argument for you, because you can look up the argument yourself if you really care, or just think about it on your own.

 

But you're right, you shouldn't accept anything on blind faith. That's a bad habit. Conventional physicalist view that the mind is merely the brain activity is wrong.

 

I think I am probably way out of my depth in this aspect of the conversation but I don't see why the causes and conditions which create mind can't form when the human body forms and then change form when the body dies. All I really know from my own practice is that many of the causes for troublesome emotional states and seeds of traumas etc reside in the tensions and cellular memory of the body so it stands to reason that when you leave the body all of that will become conscious or transformed during the death process as it relies on tensions within the body to exist.

[C T]

I think I am probably way out of my depth in this aspect of the conversation but I don't see why the causes and conditions which create mind can't form when the human body forms and then change form when the body dies. All I really know from my own practice is that many of the causes for troublesome emotional states and seeds of traumas etc reside in the tensions and cellular memory of the body so it stands to reason that when you leave the body all of that will become conscious or transformed during the death process as it relies on tensions within the body to exist.

There is some truth to your understanding, Jetsun.

 

Serious Vajrayana practitioners are known to practice the prelims called Ngondro each day - within this sadhana are practices where transformation of afflictive emotions into their positive virtue can be effected without having to wait till actual death, when its usually too late. The thing is, we dont really know when death will occur, so the more obscurations are removed now, the clearer the mind at death. Trust that you know the implications of a clear mind when death beckons.

 

Reference to the Dudjom Tersar and Longchen Nyingthig Ngondro practices here:

http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Dudjom_Tersar_Ng%C3%B6ndro

http://rywiki.tsadra.org/index.php/Longchen_Nyingthig_Ngondro

Edited July 20, 2011 by CowTao

[C T]

If mind annihilates at death, there would not be moral consequences for actions, and there would be no point to practice since we all cease at death anyway.

 

Also if you think mind annihilates, then one will fail to understand dependent origination and twelve links.

In what way would understanding dependent origination and the twelve links cement the truth of rebirth?

 

For a person who has removed all obscurations (Ignorance) would you say the samsaric twelve links still apply?

[Aaron]

Hello Jetsun,

 

I believe in reincarnation, but not Karma. In fact I don't believe that we carry over any experience from our previous life to our next. I do, however, believe that once we achieve a degree of awareness, that we pass on from this existence (Earthly plain so to speak) to the next. Now I can tell you this and you will most likely not believe me, and that's fine. As Cow Tao has said, and I agree, there is no need to believe in Karma or Dharma (or reincarnation) for that matter, what is important is the work that you do in the here and now.

 

Aaron

[xabir2005]

In what way would understanding dependent origination and the twelve links cement the truth of rebirth?

 

For a person who has removed all obscurations (Ignorance) would you say the samsaric twelve links still apply?

the chain begins with ignorance (and not matter) and ignorance is beginningless

 

A person who removed ignorance no longer creates causes for samsaric birth but still have to suffer the effects of old karma. His sense faculties are still functioning. He still experiences pleasant neutral and unpleasant sensations, sickness, death etc.

 

Therein lies the difference between nibbana with residue and nibbana without residue.

[Jetsun]

[C T]