[Buddha-l] rebirth

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Fri, 2006-01-27 at 09:34 -0800, Bob Zeuschner wrote:

> I recall a Zen reference to rebirth which basically indicated that when 
> you were overcome with remorse for something you'd done, you were being 
> reborn in hell.

The Indian Buddhist Kamalasila makes a similar point. When one goes to
prison, one is reborn in hell. When one has greed for what is
unavailable, one is a ghost. When one acts without regard for others,
one is ipso facto entering rebirth as an animal. When one finally gets
everything one wants and then worries about it being stolen (or taxed
away by Democrats) or worries about dying before one has enough time to
enjoy all one's toys, then one has temporarily entered the deva realm. 

> Thus, we all have undergone innumerable rebirths _in this very life_.
> That interpretation works just fine for me.

And the beautiful part of it is that that interpretation is, and has
been, part of Buddhist tradition for a very long time. The beauty of
Buddhism (and any other living tradition) is that very little is
discarded. There is a great tolerance of laying new layers of meaning
and understanding upon old texts, without taking the older meanings
away. In this way, the potential audience keeps growing, in principle at
least. It makes me happy to see that this has been going on in the West
for the past hundred years or so. Rather than presenting Dharma in a way
that people think they have to choose between Dharma and science, or
Dharma and historiography, or Dharma and Marxism, most Buddhists have
presented Dharma so that people can devote themselves completely to
practising it without abandoning the other ways of looking at the world
that they find viable. Why anyone would object to this is a mystery to
me, but not one that I lose much sleep over.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico