[Buddha-l] Have more fun: deny nirvana, not rebirth [was Batchelor]

[Jamie Hubbard]

(a bit behind the curve of the discussion due to some addressing problems).

Richard Hayes wrote:
> Bodhi has a very sharp mind and approaches Buddhist texts with a kind 
> of rabbinical thoroughness. I can easily see why a textual scholar of 
> his calibre would find it odd that a person claiming to be a Buddhist 
> does not find the doctrine of rebirth helpful, especially since it is 
> so indisputably part of Buddhist tradition. While I can easily 
> understand Bodhi's position, I simply don't agree with it. As far as I 
> could see, Bodhi was able to see how someone could hold my position, 
> but he does not agree with it. Not a single hint of anyone calling 
> skepticism about rebirth heretical ever emerged in these discussions. 
> (Jamie Hubbard may have different memories than mine on this matter. I 
> think he was hoping Bhikkhu Bodhi and I would break chairs over one 
> another's heads in the style of an old-fashioned barroom brawl.)
Actually, the discussion/symposium you are referring to was not about 
rebirth per se but about rebirth and nirvana (or Buddha, or Buddhahood, 
or awakening, or whatever you want to call it). And it is true that I 
was expecting a bit more Buddha-l style Richard (when you compared 
Dharma to a fart you got close, at least in the humorously provocative 
department), but I have since learned that your impeccably tolerant nice 
guy approach is but one more way to piss 'em off, at least if (as with 
me that time) somebody is hoping for heated arguments. I mean, you and 
Jay Garfield in the same room don't even mix it up, and that is sheer 
impossibility! Alas-- but I tried, and a good time was had by all, in 
spite of your niceness.

As for heresy, it depends on how you want to define it-- if, for 
example, it is an act of "choosing" a heterodox view (that is, "wrong 
view") that in turn can get you called a "non-Buddhist" or kicked out of 
the sangha or even killed, then, in fact Buddhism has lots of historical 
examples of heresies.
> As I see it (if I may paraphrase Henry Kissinger), debates among 
> Buddhists often become quite animated because there is so little at 
> stake. What practical difference could it possibly make whether or not 
> one believes in rebirth?   
The issue for Bhikkhu Bodhi is not, I believe, the question of morality 
or karmic consequences across lifetimes and whether one would be more or 
less virtuous without inevitable future consequences. Rather the issue 
is nirvana. In his view (and I think that he is correct), without a 
belief in literal rebirth in which you must come back and die over and 
over again until you achieve the complete awakening of Buddhahood, there 
is but this one lifetime, and the imperative of striving for perfection 
loses its traction. Heck-- a more simple form of happiness ought to 
suffice. Hence Buddhism becomes but "a sophisticated ancient system of 
humanistic psychotherapy" 
(http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhilbps-essay _ 06.html), 
or, as it is often called, "Buddhism light." I think that this is also 
one of the reasons that HHDL is so adamant about the truth of rebirth 
("not finding something [disembodied consciousness floating about 
"in-between" until a next birth] is not the same as finding its 
non-existence"). Nirvana is at stake, not moral behavior.
> Well, now that I raise that question, I do recall someone on this list 
> back in 1993 or so claiming that people who deny rebirth are doing 
> Mara's work and will surely spend some aeons in hell. But what's the 
> harm in that? Some of the best bodhisattvas go to hell. That's where 
> the work is.
>   
Isn't denying nirvana another one of the big no-no's that'll get ya to 
hell?

Of course, I do declare that I am a nirvana denier. But for me the 
reason isn't a dismissal of rebirth (tho I cannot accept that either), 
it is simply that although the final goal of the Buddhist path comes in 
many flavors, most if not all of them have some sort of ultimacy 
("maximal greatness," in Griffiths' terms) about their taste that simply 
renders them unbelievable in today's world, other than as an upaya 
(kamra = stick and nirvana = carrot). Without denying the power and 
magic and poetry of the idea, there came a time when I simply had to ask 
myself what I actually thought might be possible-- and I have yet to 
come up with anything that smells remotely like nirvana that also seems 
a possibility for humans.

And there are, in fact, "practical differences" that will follow if the 
complete cessation of all afflictive mental states *and* the necessity 
of rebirth until that is achieved is denied. Simply put, humanistic 
psychotherapy makes more sense. And besides, leaving the various 
philosophical and psychological problems of Buddhahood aside-- isn't the 
notion that you are going to become free of all negative emotions and 
become perfectly omniscient and save all beings both ego-maniacal as 
well as a kind of an unhealthy obsession? I mean-- isn't a realistic 
appreciation of the actual situation and possible outcomes a good thing, 
a kind of critical realism that a Buddhist should strive for?

As an eminent Japanese scholar once put it to me after a long conference 
and an even longer evening, "At the end of the day, we are all Pure 
Landers."

It is too easy to be a Buddhist atheist. Be a Buddhist heretic: deny 
nirvana.

Jamie