Wisdom and Knowledge Series, post #26. Buddhism, post #13.5 (26.2.12.5):
by samsarictravelling » Wed Feb 13, 2019 8:50 am
The below post is at Dhamma Wheel message board, in the Discussion 'My view of anatta. By samsarictravelling/Ai (Dinh) Le.' ( https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=33509&start=135 ):
There is no soul which goes from one life to another. How do we exist without a soul (atman)? What continues from one life to another? I boldface some parts, of my copy & paste of some parts of Bhikkhu Bodhi's 'Rebirth' writing:
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BUDDHISM AND HINDUISM COMPARED
The word "Samsara" means literally "continuing on", "wandering on". It signifies the repetitive cycle of birth, ageing, death and rebirth.
Now though Buddhism and Hinduism share the concept of rebirth, the Buddhist concept differs in details from the Hindu doctrine. The doctrine of rebirth as understood in Hinduism involves a permanent soul, a conscious entity which transmigrates from one body to another. The soul inhabits a given body and at death, the soul casts that body off and goes on to assume another body. The famous Hindu classic, the Bhagavad Gita, compares this to a man who might take off one suit of clothing and put on another. The man remains the same but the suits of clothing are different. In the same way the soul remains the same but the psycho-physical organism it takes up differs from life to life.
The Buddhist term for rebirth in Pali is "punabbhava" which means "again existence". Buddhism sees rebirth not as the transmigration of a conscious entity but as the repeated occurrence of the process of existence. There is a continuity, a transmission of influence, a causal connection between one life and another. But there is no soul, no permanent entity which transmigrates from one life to another.
REBIRTH WITHOUT A TRANSMIGRATING SOUL
The concept of rebirth without a transmigrating soul commonly raises the question: How can we speak of ourselves as having lived past lives if there is no soul, no single life going through these many lives? To answer this we have to understand the nature of individual identity in a single lifetime. The Buddha explains that what we really are is a functionally unified combination of five aggregates. The five aggregates fall into two groups. First there is a material process, which is a current of material energy. Then there is a mental process, a current of mental happenings. Both these currents consist of factors that are subject to momentary arising and passing away. The mind is a series of mental acts made up of feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousnes. These mental acts are called in Pali "cittas". Each citta arises, breaks up and passes away. When it breaks up it does not leave any traces behind. It does not have any core or inner essence that remains. But as soon as the citta breaks up, immediately afterwards there arises another citta. Thus we find the mind as a succession of cittas, or series of momentary acts of consciousness.
Now when each citta falls away it transmits to its successor whatever impression has been recorded on itself, whatever experience it has undergone. Its perceptions, emotions and volitional force are passed on to the next citta, and thus all experiences we undergo leave their imprint on the onward flow of consciousness, on the "cittasantana", the continuum of mind. This transmission of influence, this causal continuity, gives us our continued identity. We remain the same person through the whole lifetime because of this continuity.
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PRESERVATION OF IDENTITY ILLUSTRATED
An illustration may help us understand how this preservation of, identity can take place without the transmigration of any "self-identifiable" entity. Suppose we have a candle burning at 8 o'clock. If we come back in an hour, at 9 o'clock, we see that the candle is still burning, and we say that it is the same candle. This statement is completely valid from the standpoint of conventional linguistic usage. But if we examine this matter close-up we'll see that at every moment the candle is burning different particles of wax, every moment it is burning a different section of wick, different molecules of oxygen. Thus the wax, wick and the oxygen being burnt are always different from moment to moment, and yet because the moments of flame link together in a continuum, one moment of flame giving rise to the next, we still say it is the same flame. But actually the flame is different from moment to moment. The flame itself is an entirely different phenomenon. It is conditioned by wax, the wick and air, and apart from them there is nothing.
SIMILE OF THE CANDLE
We can apply this simile to the case of rebirth. The body of the candle is like the physical body of the person. The wick might be compared to the sense faculties that function as the support for the process of consciousness. The particles of oxygen are like the sense objects and the flame is like consciousness. Consciousness always arises with the physical body as its support. It always arises through a particular sense faculty, eg. eye, ear, nose, etc. It always has an object, e.g. sight, sound, etc. The body, sense faculty and the object keep constantly changing and therefore consciousness and the mental factors are constantly changing. But because each act of mind follows in sequence and passes on the contents to the following, we speak of the body and mind compound as being the same person. When the body loses its vitality and death takes place, that is like the first candle coming to an end. The transmission of the flame to the next candle, that is like the passing on of the current of consciousness to the next life. When the mental continuum takes up the new body, that is like the flame of the old candle passing on to the new candle.
https://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebdha058.htm
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This is another 'candle' teaching that I read or got somewhere (from memory, so can have got it incorrect in a way, or not) I heard somewhere years ago, I think -- cannot remember who said it (maybe it's also Bhikkhu Bodhi's???), or if it was even from Theravada tradition (meaning, it could have been from some other type of Buddhism, or Buddhism in general), but it sounds like a simplified version of the candle simile above, but in regards to 'next rebirth' part only:
What passes from one life to the next? Like a candle flame lighting a new candle, it is like that: this life (first candle flame) has a connection with the next life (new candle's flame was created by the old candle's flame). The new candle flame is not the same flame as the old candle flame, but they are not totally different flames, either, because the old candle flame created the new candle flame.
samsarictravelling
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