[Buddha-l] Which Buddhists believe in rebirth?

[Eisel Mazard]

[I sent the message below to the list once, and I did not receive the
"bounce" message; I infer from this and other technical difficulties
that the message was not posted at that time.  I am here sending it a
second time.]

Hmm…

I'm unable to log in and view the history of the discussion at the
moment (for some unknown technical reason) so I hope I'm neither being
rude nor repetitive in contributing a comment, but…

In the 21st century, I've encountered a fourfold typology, in all
schools of Buddhism:

(1) Those who believe that the Buddha taught reincarnation, and who
believe in it.
(2) Those who believe that the Buddha taught reincarnation, but who do
not believe in it themselves (i.e., while remaining Buddhists by their
own definition).
(3) Those who refuse to believe that the Buddha taught reincarnation,
and who also do not believe in it.
(4) Those who do not believe that the Buddha taught reincarnation, but
who do believe in it.

I think that anyone who has done a few years of fieldwork (in a living
Buddhist culture) will have encountered at least three of the four.
The last category mentioned may raise some eyebrows, but consider
(e.g.) someone who is willing to presume that reincarnation is an
inheritance from Hinduism (and who may stridently insist that the
Buddha didn't teach it as his own doctrine) but who does nevertheless
accept and believe in reincarnation.

It is needless to say that the vast majority of people in all four
categories are not scholars who work on primary sources, and,
accordingly, there's plenty of uncertainty in every camp as to what
the Buddha taught or didn't teach (and which texts should be regarded
as definitive).

I was given a detailed (verbal) account of a lecture that A.K. Warder
delivered to a Sinhalese Buddhist Temple (in Toronto), at the end of
which the organizer asked him, simply enough, "After studying Buddhism
for so many years, and becoming an expert, why have you never accepted
it as your religion?"

Reportedly, Warder sat silently for a moment, and then shrugged and
said that he could never really believe in the stuff about
reincarnation.

The man who told me this (himself being the organizer who had asked
the question) had gotten it into his head that he should start
promoting a version of Buddhism that excluded reincarnation in order
to appeal more to western intellectuals (such as A.K. Warder,
apparently).  However, my impression was that he was actually a member
of camp #1 (believing in reincarnation), and yet he also thought it
was morally acceptable to masquerade as a member of the three other
camps, in order to convert westerners.  I tried to get him to consider
what the actual effect of this might be in the longer term: if you
actually entice someone to join a religion on the basis of a lie, or
by misrepresenting doctrines that they will eventually encounter in
primary sources, won't they subsequently resent the deception, or
regard your religion as discredited.  These considerations were, for
him, quite unthinkable, and he was vaguely offended that I would ask.

In Southeast Asia, the belief in reincarnation is very much in flux,
but I've never met a westerner capable of studying it, because most of
them were so uncomfortable with the reality of Buddhism themselves.
One anthropologist (working on Cambodia) interrupted me and forcibly
changed the subject when I pointed out the direct salience of local
beliefs in hell (i.e., reincarnation in hell) to her research; the
dialogue seemed to demonstrate her own extreme discomfort with the
existence of hell in Buddhism, and, perhaps, her discomfort in
discussing the Buddhist aspect of her own research with someone who
knew more about Buddhism than she did (she insisted to me that she had
no expertise in Buddhism at all, although her research was
inextricably bound up in Buddhism in every way).  In this manner,
questions don't get asked, and answers aren't discovered, in terms of
how the current generation is either adapting the cosmology to suit
itself, and/or is adapting its outlook to reflect that cosmology.

Certainly, it was scarcely a generation ago that Isan (N.E. Thailand)
had many famous examples of temples preaching that the poor should
donate their riches (to the temple) so that they could be reborn as
wealthy in the next incarnation.  Within half a generation, the style
and substance of that preaching has changed (and no, I can't say that
it has gotten more profound, but…).  There are doubtless very
meaningful research questions that could be answered in terms of the
(real) belief in reincarnation, and transitions within the last 50
years.  Many other things changed in Isan within the same
half-generation: the entire area was deforested, covered with a web of
intersecting highways and air-force bases, and those bases engaged in
the bombing of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.  The entire "custodian
class" of local manuscript literature disappeared, and the omnipresent
chain of 7-11 stores stretched across the countryside.  However the
current generation regards reincarnation will be radically different
from any generation before.

Of course, on the other side of those same borders, the people who
lived through the bombing, and then lived through Communism
thereafter, have their own reasons to re-evaluate Buddhist cosmology;
but, as is always the case with cultural change, the vast majority of
people engaged in the reinvention of tradition do not think of what
they are doing as a re-evaluation, nor as an intentional alteration.

E.M.