[Buddha-l] Re: Where does authority for "true" Buddhism come from?

[Robert Morrison]

Erik:

>
Sure this rebirth-consciousness has to exist independent of a body, 
independent of anything for that matter, being the carrier of karma 
between someone who doesn't yet exist and someone who doesn't exist 
anymore. Besides it has to be strictly individual, because it is 
conditioned by a persons karma. In other words it is an aatman.
<

I think this is completely mistaken.  The reason that things are anaatman is
because they are dependently arisen. In Buddhism, whilst there is karmic
continuity (karma and karma-phala are a 'form' of conditioned-arising),
there is no 'thing' that continues. Take a look at the Kaccaana Sutta [S ii.
17f.], which makes it clear that conditioned-arising is the Middle Way.  One
could even say that the doctrine of conditioned arising, being itself a
dependently arisen notion, was formed to undermine the very view you are
expressing: it maintains continuity (including karmic continuity) whilst
undermining the very notion of any 'thing' that continues such as an aatman.

As far as I'm aware, this 'rebirth-consciousness' is a later abhidhamma
term, when some thought that they had to give some account of things like
how karmic impression pass from one life to another.  Personally I think
they say too much and can mislead.  It's more 'straightforward' in the
suttas.  At D i. 201, we have:

'from a cow we get milk, from milk cream, from cream butter, from butter
ghee, and from ghee cream of ghee.  And when there is milk, we do not speak
of cream, of butter, of ghee, or of cream of ghee, we speak of milk; when
there is cream, we do not speak of butter, of ghee, or of cream of ghee, we
speak of cream [etc. through to], when there is cream of ghee . we speak of
cream of ghee.'

In other words, when we have milk, stick with the fact that in terms of what
we perceive here and now there is only milk.  If we start to speculate and
ask questions such as where the cream of ghee is when there is only milk, or
where the milk goes when we have cream of ghee, one will tend to fall from
the Middle-Way.  If we think that the cream of ghee actually exists hidden
in the milk, this would correspond to view of aatmavaada. Or to think that
cream of ghee actually exists as some trans-empirical, unchanging essence
'behind' or 'hidden within' the appearance of milk is to fall into the
extreme view of 'eternalism'.  The Buddhist view, the Middle-Way expressed
in the doctrine of conditioned arising, is to see that without milk there
can be no cream, without cream there can be no butter, etc.  There is a
continuity of conditionally arisen perceptible and discernible events, each
of which is given a name, such as 'milk', 'ghee', etc, or 'karma' and
'karmaphala'. But within this conditionally arisen process there is no thing
or essence that remains unchanged, hidden behind or within, obscured by the
milk, cream, etc.

As the sutta goes on to say:

'But, Citta, these [i.e. 'milk, cream', etc.] are merely names, expressions,
turns of speech, designations in common use in the world, which the
Tathaagata uses without being misled by them.' [202]

The problem is we are misled by them!

Cheers,

Robert