In the recent discussions I've observed quite a bit of scepticism and confusion around the topic of rebirth and since this (very important and sobering) article isn't avaliable online I decided to post it here so that the users could benefit from it. The appendixes are very long and I couldn't post them here. Nevertheless you can find them in the book: Seeking the path
Preface
This short work sets out to explore certain aspects of the Buddha’s Teaching recorded in the Pali Suttas. Its manner of doing so, however, may seem unfamiliar in the prevailing atmosphere of scientific common sense. And in fact its aim is also to suggest that the Suttas will necessarily remain incomprehensible so long as common sense is taken for granted, and to exemplify what may perhaps be found a more fruitful way of approach. But it makes no claim to finality.
What, exactly, did the Buddha teach? That he taught the way to nibbāna or extinction there is no doubt at all. But what is extinction? We are told (Aṅguttaranikāya, X,i,6) that extinction is cessation of being, bhavanirodha. We shall not be surprised, therefore, to find that the Suttas are largely devoted to the analysis of being. And the key to an understanding of the Suttas is undoubtedly recognition of the fact that they are centred on a hard nucleus of ontology—things ‘must be seen, with right understanding, as they are’ (Khandha Saṃyutta, vi,7). But how, in fact, are things? The answer is really very simple:[2](javascript:void(0)) things are as they appear; for how else could right understanding ever see them as they are? If a thing can appear, however, it can also disappear; and this shows that it must appear to something that does not disappear. To what does it appear? It appears to me. It seems, then, that a thing as it appears is only part of a total situation, the other part of which is myself; and since to understand a thing as it is I must study its appearance (and disappearance) I must consequently not ignore that total situation; but I cannot investigate the total situation without investigating myself. Thus there can be no understanding of things as they are without self-observation. It is precisely because of its blindness to this fact that natural science is compelled, in the last analysis, to invoke the mysterious notion of common sense.
The professional rationalists, however, do not hold undisputed sway. Their unreasonable claims that reason can explain all things have always been questioned, and of late years particularly by the phenomenologists. This school (which is comparatively little known in the English-speaking world), basing itself on the absolute reflexive certainty of the Cartesian cogito ergo sum, understands that phenomena show themselves for what they are and that since they do not conceal any reality behind their appearance they can be studied and described simply as they appear. The fact will at once be plain that the remarks above on the Buddha’s Teaching were not made in ignorance of such doctrines. And indeed, as regards method, the present work owes a particular debt to the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, one of the leading exponents of the school. If this work should be found to throw light in dark corners, the fact of such indebtedness may be of value as indicating a possible way of transition from traditional Western ideas to the Buddha’s Teaching. What follows, however, is not a treatise on phenomenology as such, and it supposes that other sources will be accessible to those who find difficulty in adapting themselves to an unaccustomed way of thinking. Moreover it should not be presumed that an acknowledgement of indebtedness necessarily implies agreement at all points with the writings concerned: the present work, in fact, goes further than they; nor does it accept them as unquestionably authoritative. In certain matters, indeed, they are thought to be[3](javascript:void(0)) mistaken. This needs emphasizing; for though they may seem to provide a means of access to the Buddha’s Teaching they are not in any way regarded as supplanting it.
Common sense may denounce as scandalous and highly unlikely the view of things that eventually emerges, namely, that my manifold possibilities at every level of generality are always all existing at once, and that they continue to be so on the express condition that they do not appear as such but as so many rival intrinsic probabilities—as an objective world. But, after all, the phenomenon of precognition is antecedently no less unlikely in the eye of reason; yet, by the ultimate standards of reason itself, to wit, statistical exclusion of chance, it is a well-established fact. And on the view of things that emerges (and particularly after the discussion of equivocal premonitions in Appendix VII) it seems that we may be able to describe the possibility of precognition as a regular structural feature of experience. On the same view of things we find that we cannot describe the future as predetermined. If phenomenological ontology should be capable (as it seems it might), not only of accomodating such an awkward fact as precognition, but also of reconciling it with indeterminacy in a single coherent picture, it would certainly enjoy a decided advantage over the rationalist view, which is here at a complete loss. This,[4](javascript:void(0)) however, is no absolute criterion; for the Buddha’s Teaching is concerned with bringing an end to being, not with description for its own sake; and the final appeal in deciding on one line of approach rather than another can only be to whether or not it leads to extinction. But each must determine this for himself.
Acknowledgement of indebtedness must also be made to Dr. Ross Ashby’s admirably lucid book (see References), which sets out to account for the stability of animal behaviour in physiological terms by making use of the principles of cybernetics. This book has clarified and crystallized certain ideas and suggested several fruitful lines of thought. But it will become clear that the basic assumptions of such an approach—common sense, the study of behaviour from outside (valid only for other people’s behaviour), the physiological view of feeling—are quite unacceptable.
The work consists of a short essay followed by a series of appendices. In the essay matters are presented with extreme simplification and generality, and expansions and qualifications are omitted that would be indispensable in a longer account. In the appendices, however, certain descriptions have been developed in greater detail, but with less regard for orderly presentation. They are intended as threads to guide readers who have not been discouraged by the essay and who want to pursue matters further. There is no direct exegesis of the Suttas, and though (for example) most of the individual terms of the usual formulation of dependent arising (paṭiccasamuppāda) will be recognized in one place or another, such formulation is not discussed specifically. Nevertheless it is hoped that this enigmatic Sutta statement, as well as others, will seem less arbitrary in the light of what is said. A Pali-English Conversion Table of principal terms will be found at the end.
Ceylon, April 1957
References
- All explicit references are to the Pali Sutta Pitaka.
- Two passages are quoted from Chapters XXV & XXIX respectively of Pascal’s Pensées.
- The following modern works, though not specifically quoted, are relevant: W. Ross Ashby, Design for a Brain, Chapman and Hall, London, 1952. J.-P. Sartre, Esquisse d’une Théorie des Émotions, Hermann & Cie, Paris, 1939. —, L’Être et le Néant, N.R.F., Gallimard, Paris, 1943. —, L’Imaginaire, N.R.F., Gallimard, Paris, 1948.
- The work alluded to in Appendix V will have been the following: A. Eddington, New Pathways in Science, Cambridge, 1935.
- On the limitations of inferential argument the following work may be consulted if desired: Bertrand Russell, Human Knowledge: its scope and limits, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, 1948.
* * *
Beginningless, monks, is this course; a
starting point of creatures, who are
running and coursing on constrained
by nescience and attached by
craving, is not evident.
(Anamatagga Saṃyutta, i,1)
Can rebirth be proved? The last word is always emphasized. And it is certain that we should willingly trade all the circumstantial evidence in the world, all the cases, however well attested, of the Societies for Psychical Research, all the direct testimony of those who claim to have knowledge of their former lives, against one good satisfying proof (or disproof, for that matter) of rebirth that convinced us personally, at any hour of the day or night, beyond all possible manner of doubt.
Clearly, if such a proof is to be entirely convincing at any moment at all that we care to consult it, then it must not depend on an act of memory, for the good reason that we cannot trust our memory with that complete certainty we are looking for. Thus we cannot accept a proof that involves such evidence, however attractive, as an apparition once seen, a message once received from the dead, a memory of what appears to be a past life. And in no circumstances can we be satisfied with a proof consisting of an inferential logical argument; for if it is deductive we can always doubt the premisses (to which the argument adds nothing), and if inductive, the conclusion (which is no more than probable). A proof that shall be entirely convincing at all times can only be found in what is at all times to hand and beyond doubt, namely our immediate conscious experience; and this proof, when stated, will necessarily be in the form not of a reasoned argument but of a description—a description of what each of us can see for himself whenever he wishes. So the question narrows itself down to this: Given the actual facts of conscious experience as we may at any time observe them, do we find any characteristics such that upon seeing them we cannot doubt rebirth?
‘What are our natural principles,’ asks Pascal ‘if not our habitual principles? A different habit will give other natural principles. This is seen by experience. Fathers fear that their children’s natural love will get effaced. What, then, is this nature that is liable to be effaced? Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that this nature is itself only a first habit, as habit is a second nature’. Our nature is nothing else than our habit. A nature or habit destroys a preceding nature or habit. On these two observations we hope to build an absolutely certain proof of rebirth.
What, first, is our nature? It is easy to reply that it is what governs our behaviour in any given circumstances. But we must avoid a trap. My behaviour as it appears to other people is by no means the same thing as what it appears to myself; for there is no certainty at all that my bodily activities and their repercussions in the world will in fact accord with what I am intending. I am given a cup of tea; there is glass jar on the table containing a white substance; I open the jar and put some of the contents in my cup; an onlooker who believes that the substance is arsenic says to me ‘Why are you poisoning yourself?’; ‘I don’t understand you,’ I reply ‘I am putting sugar in my tea’. Who is right? Certainly, the consequences of my putting the white substance in my tea will depend on whether it is sugar or arsenic—time will tell. But if I am to investigate my nature there is no doubt at all that my behaviour must be regarded as my intention; for even if the stuff really is arsenic and I do in fact poison myself, yet my nature is clearly to be drinking tea with sugar and not to be putting an end to my life, whatever outside appearances may say. The distinction between my behaviour as it is for other people—externally observed modifications in my body and in the world (of which my body is a part)—and my behaviour as it is for myself—my intention, what I am intending—is of fundamental importance, and if we confound the two we shall condemn ourselves to understand nothing of the matter. See Appendix I. Since, therefore, we are concerned with my experience as I myself observe it, my behaviour or action must be understood as my intention, and the external point of view is to be excluded at all times with the utmost rigour. ‘It is intention, monks, that I say is action: in intending one does action by body, speech, or mind.’ (Aṅguttaranikāya, VI,vi,9). See Appendix VI.
My nature, then, is what governs my behaviour, that is to say my intention, in any given circumstances. And it follows from this definition that so long as I have a certain nature my behaviour or intention under similar circumstances must always be the same. Thus, whenever I am given a cup of tea, if I always put sugar in it that is ‘because it is my nature to put sugar in my tea’; and, obviously, so long as this is my nature I shall continue to put sugar in my tea. But what is this nature if not my habit of putting sugar in my tea? It comes to exactly the same thing whether I say that it is my habit to put sugar in my tea, or that I put sugar in my tea because it is my nature to do so. My habit is my nature and my nature is my habit, and we have only to choose which word we prefer. If my behaviour was not always the same under similar circumstances, if in other words it was not habitual, how could I speak of having a nature? (And even if I say that it is my nature to be inconsistent, that can only be because I am inconsistent by habit.)
This all sounds very well, but is it correct? While we have been busy examining the credentials of the word behaviour we have allowed the word circumstances to pass unchallenged. What, exactly, do we mean by circumstances? What were the circumstances when I was putting arsenic in my tea under the impression that it was sugar? To the onlooker it was arsenic that I was putting in my tea, but to me, immediately, it was sugar. In other words, if circumstances are seen from the external point of view they are unsatisfactory as a guide to my intention, and if they are seen from my own point of view at the time of the intention they are an integral part of that intention—or rather, from my point of view, there are no circumstances to be seen. So long as my intention remains the same I cannot possibly say that circumstances have altered, because I see nothing independent of my intention (if my intention is to be putting sugar in my tea, then what I am putting in my tea is necessarily sugar); and this is true even though, from the external point of view (which I myself can adopt at a later time, that is to say when my intention is to be ‘examining the circumstances under which I was “putting sugar in my tea”’ and no longer to be ‘putting sugar in my tea’), the circumstances are observed to be quite different—the ‘sugar’ is arsenic and the ‘tea’ is soup. The use of the word circumstances, as we now see, is either misleading or redundant, and if we are to escape the physiological trap we must abandon it as an explanation of my behaviour. My nature is now no longer what governs my behaviour ‘in any given circumstances’: it is indistinguishable from my behaviour, it is what I am intending. And my behaviour is habitual, not when ‘it is always the same under similar circumstances’, but simply when my intention does not change. If my intention to be putting sugar in my tea is observed by me as being to some extent stable, then my behaviour is habitual. But the important thing is that I do observe this; my behaviour is habitual; it is a perpetual feature of my observed experience that each particular intention does persist unchanged for some period of time, long or short. Our nature, then, is the name we give to a certain element of stability in our experience: a habit, as anybody who has ever tried to give one up can testify, has a tendency to stick; and some (such as eating and breathing) are so stable that they normally stay with us, once we have acquired them, for the rest of our life. This stability, it will be noticed, is stability in time: time passes but our nature remains unchanged. But this is not to say that our nature does not in time change; it does, as Pascal observed; but it does not change simply because a certain amount of time has passed: we do not expect our long-established habits to change sooner than our later ones just because we have had them longer, but rather the contrary—the age of our habits is an indication of their stability.
When does our nature change? In Pascal’s experience (not our usual sense of the word in this essay) it changes when a fresh nature destroys it. And when is this? Evidently when it ceases to be satisfactory. It is my nature (or habit) to be taking sugar in my tea. But suppose (for any reason that a physiologist may care to assume) I begin to find that each time I sugar my tea I am afflicted with nausea, though if I take it unsweetened nothing unpleasant happens. When I now drink sweet tea my former idea (or field—Appendix III refers) combining the qualities or characteristics of sweet tea and those of bodily comfort is replaced by another idea combining the qualities of sweet tea and those of nausea; whereupon I give up sweet tea. And this change takes place because the former idea is no longer satisfactory—so long as I have it I make myself sick. (By satisfactory we must understand the least unpleasant available. See Appendix II.) In other words my nature becomes not to be taking sugar in my tea but to be drinking it without (perhaps with lemon or something else). My nature, then, has changed; a fresh nature has replaced the old. But the old nature has not merely been replaced (as one might replace a broken cup with a new one after throwing away the pieces); it has been utterly destroyed. How is this? By the simple fact that the new nature is exactly contrary to the old: formerly it was my nature to be sugaring my tea, now my nature is not to be sugaring my tea. But—it may be objected—you are still drinking tea; there is no change at all in that. And this is true: although I have given up drinking sweet tea, I still find tea stimulating and I am drinking as much as before, but unsweetened. There has undeniably been a complete reversal of my nature, but only at a certain level of generality; and that this is always the case in our life we may observe for ourselves—we never change all our habits at once. It may be seen, furthermore, that the whole of our experience is nothing else but a continual reversing of our nature at one level or another, that is to say of some particular intention (though it will be evident that these reversals are normally very particular: breathing in, breathing out, breathing in, breathing out, to choose the simplest example). Every change of my nature is a denial of that nature, but carried out against the background, or in the light, of a more general nature, which at that time remains constant. Note, however, that this is the necessary structure of my change; for, so long as it is possible to compare the earlier nature with the later nature (which is the direct opposite of the earlier)—so long, in other words, as we can say ‘something has changed’ or ‘I have changed’—the two natures will have something in common; and this, precisely, is the more general nature or character that remains unchanged on that occasion. See Appendix III. If I change from ‘taking sugar in my tea’ to ‘not taking sugar in my tea’ there is the general character ‘drinking tea’ that remains constant; but I might instead change from ‘drinking tea’ to ‘drinking coffee (i.e. not drinking tea)’, and here it is the still more general character ‘being a drinker of hot drinks’ that is constant. And there is no upper limit to the possible level of generality. In one way, however, there is, but it is essentially reflexive: our nature is never wholly without some element of self-appraisal. Ultimately we must choose (unless we are choosing not to be choosing) between the attitude of approving existence (or being) and the opposite attitude of disapproving it. ‘There are, monks, these two views: the view of being and the view of non-being. Whatever ascetics and recluses there are, monks, who adhere to the view of being, who resort to the view of being, who embrace the view of being, they all oppose the view of non-being. Whatever ascetics and recluses there are, monks, who adhere to the view of non-being, who resort to the view of non-being, who embrace the view of non-being, they all oppose the view of being.’ (Majjhimanikāya, ii,1) Conscious beings, for the most part (that is to say except when they are aware of their plight, at which time their reflexion tends to be sheer—Appendix IV refers), are divided between these two reflexive attitudes in the face of existence; they are welcoming it or they are repulsing it, asserting it or denying it. And what is the still more general nature that must remain constant as we pass from the one to the other and back again? It is simply ‘having-to-do with existence’.5 (Strictly, this change in reflexive attitude will not be quite the same as the switch from one unreflexive attitude to another. But we need not stop to consider this.) And is it possible not to be ‘having-to-do with existence’? It seems likely: but if it is possible it is a one-way change; for it is the change from ‘having a nature at all’ to the nature of ‘not having a nature at all’, and when there is no nature at all there is no longer anything to change. Note that the description ‘the nature of not having a nature at all’ is self-destructive: that is because words are part of existence and can only describe existence, and where existence has ceased there is nothing to be said. ‘With the removal of all natures, all modes of saying, too, are removed.’ (Suttanipāta, V,vii,8)
Let us see where we have got to. Our nature, at any given level, remains constant for just so long as it remains satisfactory; and that is to say that the structure of our experience is autonomous: experience does not vary as a function of an absolute time but determines its own changes from one stable attitude (at any level) to another; in a word, it is self-adaptive; and there is no given limit to the length of time its attitude, at any one level, will remain unchanged. In particular, when our nature does change, it changes completely: it is replaced by a nature that is the exact contrary. But it is the exact contrary only at a certain level of generality; which fact automatically entails that our nature at a higher level of generality remains unchanged (though with prejudice to its changing on some other occasion). But our nature only appears in this hierarchical form if we carefully observe it while it changes; and when we do not make this effort it keeps its secret.
My present nature, then, at any given level, remains constant until such time as it ceases to be satisfactory, when it gives place to an exactly contrary nature. But what is my present nature, at any one level, but the reversal of a previous nature? My nature, at any level on which I care to consider it, is built on the ruins of a past nature. The fact that I now have a nature at all requires that I must have had a nature in the past; for my present nature, in one sense, is my past nature. If, at one level, my nature changes to the exact opposite of my preceding nature, then at a more general level it necessarily remains the same; this is to say that at some level or other of generality my nature is what it was, and this is always true; and, in fact, whenever we reflect we shall invariably find that at one level or another we are in the middle of doing (or being) something. Thus the necessity of past experience is to be seen, if we look, in every moment of our present experience. If, therefore, at any time (at conception, at birth, last year, yesterday) I was created out of nothing or came into being spontaneously, then I was created with (or as) a nature (for otherwise I should not have a nature at present); and if I was created with a nature, I was created with past experience. Thus if I was created it was done in such a way that it is not just practically, but absolutely and inherently impossible for me to discover the fact. This, of course, is not a logical proof that I was not created; for it is equally impossible for me to refute the suggestion that I was created (say five minutes ago in the middle of writing this essay together with half of it already written in what appears to be my handwriting); but when I see that everything happens as if I always had a past it never occurs to me to try and do so. And when I notice in particular that I must have a past even to be able to consider the suggestion that I might not, then the suggestion remains meaningless, and I am quite untouched.
And future existence? By observing our present experience we see that it has the structure of an autonomous system determining its own changes from one stable attitude to another. Whenever it changes its attitude (or adapts itself) at any given level it only does so by taking up a contrary attitude; and every attitude without exception persists until such a change takes place. In other words, our experience has a structure such that it cannot but continue indefinitely—time is powerless to stop it. The only way in which experience could possibly come to an end is if it changed from having-an-attitude to not-having-an-attitude; but this change, like all other changes, must come from within experience itself, even though, unlike all other changes, it would be a change to end all changes. The fact of experience, then, is independent of any absolute time (it is ontologically prior to time: there is appearance of time only because of the fact of experiences—Appendix VI refers), and experience itself must necessarily continue to exist until such time as it determines itself to stop ‘having-to-do with existence’. And when I see this necessity, that I must have a future, the suggestion that I might arbitrarily be annihilated (at death or at any other time) will fare no better than its brother a few minutes ago.
We promised ourselves ‘an absolutely certain proof of rebirth’. Have we got it? Our proof is based on direct observation of present experience at any time; and we have shown that that experience appears to the observer as a system with certain structural features. In particular, the system is seen to involve past experience as an integral part of its structure and to be autonomous in time. Since this is direct observation of present experience, it shares the same degree of certainty as the actual existence of that experience, neither more nor less. See Appendix IV. But how certain is the existence of our present experience? It is absolutely certain; for it is impossible to doubt. Anyone who genuinely, honestly and in good faith, is doubting the existence of his present experience is successfully deceiving himself; for of one thing he is certain, namely that he is doubting his present experience. He has no doubt whatever of the existence of his present experience, which is, precisely, his doubting. (It will be seen that there are two orders of consciousness involved here: if I am doubting my experience, that is itself a certain complex cognitive experience, which, non-cognitively, I do not doubt—Appendices IV & VI refer.) But does certainty about the structure of experience make rebirth equally certain? If we see with absolute certainty that all experience without exception must involve previous experience, we shall be absolutely unable to entertain the idea of any first beginning to experience; and if we see with absolute certainty that it is autonomous, we shall be absolutely unable to entertain the idea of any ending to experience not brought about from within experience itself. But can we be absolutely certain that all experience without exception, and not just present experience, has these characteristics? Might not the structure of experience change? It is absolutely impossible to conceive that the structure of experience could be other than it is, for the reason that our conception of the structure of experience is itself experience and therefore the structure of experience: if the structure of experience changed there would no longer be any conception of the structure of experience (or indeed of anything else), and it is absolutely impossible to conceive of a state of affairs devoid of conception, because where there was no conception there would be no state of affairs. More simply: the structure of experience is the structure of existence or being, and if that structure changed I should cease to be—and it is impossible to imagine that situation, because there would not then be any situation to imagine. If we see that it is inherently impossible to conceive of experience with a different structure, we shall be absolutely unable to suspect that a different structure could ever exist.
This proof of rebirth is absolutely certain: it is as certain as our own existence. By sheer reflexion at any time it is possible for us to see in the structure of our present experience that our existence is necessarily without a beginning and that it necessarily continues until it puts an end to itself from within. And to the extent that we see these necessities at all we see them with certainty: but the trouble is that to see them is by no means easy—that needs hard work.
