[Buddha-l] Pali Sutta

[Bradley Clough]

On Mar 12, 2009, at 5:44 PM, Robert Ellis wrote:

    ...To educated, Westernised populations it will not be useful at  
all. Who is actually motivated by belief in karma and rebirth, amongst  
the highly-educated readers of this list for example...

> ...My assumption is much more subtle than this: that a?belief which  
> cannot conceivably?be tested,?whether in terms of?individual or  
> shared experience, whether the test is one of verification or  
> falsification or even fruitful application, leads us away from  
> conditions and towards dogma and attachment.

Perhaps it is worth noting here that traditionally, many Buddhists  
have regarded karma and rebirth as experientially verifiable. Not that  
a majority of Buddhists have ever claimed to have reached these  
realizations, but many Buddhist traditions have maintained that one  
set of results stemming from attainment of the 4th jhāna is memory of  
one's own past lives and  seeing other beings faring well or ill  
according to their deeds. Perhaps most of us "well-educated Western"  
types (a distinction I'm not comfortable with, as it seems to imply,  
intentionally or not, that traditional Asian Buddhists of various  
stripes are less educated [this may be so with respect to many modern  
Western definitions of what education entails, but surely there are  
many different ways to be educated, besides standard contemporary  
Western academic routes?] and somehow less capable of making sound  
assessments and judgments) don't buy into the reality of such  
superhuman insights, but it doesn't mean we should ignore what many  
Asians of different Buddhist traditions have maintained is indeed  
verifiable.

Best Wishes,
Brad

Bradley Clough
The University of Montana
bradley.clough at mso.umt.edu