Ask A Buddhist

[rossum]

Do you believe that the number of souls still the same?

“Soul” is not the correct word, but the number is reducing as beings attain nirvana.

Any proof for Reincarnation and souls?

The instructions for remembering your previous lives are in chapter 13 of the Visuddhimagga. Souls are not a part of Buddhism:

“All the elements of reality are soulless.”
When one realises this by wisdom,
then one does not heed ill.
This is the Path of Purity.

Dhammapada 20:7

And what is your opinion on what Dalai Lama said:

“If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.”

He is correct. Science is an excellent way to deal with the purely material. Buddhism is not intended to be a way to deal with the material. Hence in questions of the material, science is more likely to be correct than Buddhism. For example, the Buddhist scriptures assume an ancient Indian geography and cosmology, just as the Bible assumes a Babylonian/Sumerian geography and cosmology. Both of these have been shown to be wrong by science. Both religions have dropped their geocentric cosmologies in favour of a heliocentric solar system and an acentric universe, as shown by science.

rossum

 

[patrick457]

You are probably right that 900 BCE was too early for such influences, but by 250BCE Buddhist monks were wandering around Afghanistan, China, Greece and Egypt. They most likely brought an oral tradition of the suttas with them. Oral tradition was still strong and a respected part of study.

It’s a shame it has little place in our culture today.

Indeed, but we’re talking about the Rigveda here, and a period before 250 BC. I highly doubt Buddhist monks would have propagated the Vedas.

 

[notself]

Indeed, but we’re talking about the Rigveda here, and a period before 250 BC. I highly doubt Buddhist monks would have propagated the Vedas.

I just meant that people walked long distances and in some cases very long distances and their wandering influences the people with whom they made contact. That’s all.

 

[stewstew03]

Then you are doomed. An unchanging soul can never change from unsaved to saved. That would be a change, and an unchanging soul cannot, by definition, change. By accepting an unchanging soul you have denied yourself the possibility of salvation.

I am Buddhist, so I do not have an unchanging soul, so I have the possibility of changing from unenlightened to enlightened. You do not allow yourself that possibility.

Anything that is unchanging is locked into stasis, and cannot ever alter, even by one iota. That completely negates the possibility of salvation, since nobody currently on Earth is saved here and now. You cannot be saved in the future, because that would mean a change, and the unchanging cannot change.

rossum

Though you may be trying to enlighten rinnie with your vast wisdom, you sound like a rather antipathetic and arrogant Buddhist.

To wit:

rinnie is doomed
rinnie’s soul can never be saved
rinnie has denied himself the possibility of salvation

Yikes!

 

[patrick457]

I just meant that people walked long distances and in some cases very long distances and their wandering influences the people with whom they made contact. That’s all.

They did, although we still have no evidence that Indo-Aryans migrated THAT far to be able to influence the Shang and Zhou peoples living in the Yellow River valley at so early a date. The Buddhist monks travelled with the purpose of spreading Dharma, but I highly doubt that the Vedic people (or any other ancient people in general) attempted to actively convert anyone to their belief system. If anything I would have expected that they influenced ancient Tibetans (who are much closer geographically) were it not for the Himalayas blocking their way.

 

[Shiranui117]

Though you may be trying to enlighten rinnie with your vast wisdom, you sound like a rather antipathetic and arrogant Buddhist.

To wit:

rinnie is doomed
rinnie’s soul can never be saved
rinnie has denied himself the possibility of salvation

Yikes!

Relax bro(or sis, gotta play it safe with the genders). All he was doing was taking rinnie’s logic to its natural conclusion. If our soul doesn’t change, how can its condition (i.e. saved or damned) change? And if our souls are in the “damned” condition by default, and if our souls don’t change, we are indeed kinda screwed.

 

[rossum]

Though you may be trying to enlighten rinnie with your vast wisdom, you sound like a rather antipathetic and arrogant Buddhist.

To wit:

rinnie is doomed
rinnie’s soul can never be saved
rinnie has denied himself the possibility of salvation

Yikes!

Rinnie is not doomed because she does not have a soul, and definitely not an unchanging one. It is because she does not have an unchanging soul that she can, and will, become enlightened.

Change is a requirement for enlightenment/salvation. Heaven has to change from heaven-without-rinnie to heaven-with-rinnie, just as nirvana has to change from nirvana-withour-rossum to nirvana-with-rossum.

In the absence of change, neither salvation nor enlightenment is possible. An unchanging entity is forever locked in stasis, unable to act and unable to do anything different.

rossum

 

[tomarin]

This back and forth about an unchanging soul versus a changing not-soul makes me wonder the degree to which Buddhism promotes or inevitably shades into nihilism.

 

[rossum]

This back and forth about an unchanging soul versus a changing not-soul makes me wonder the degree to which Buddhism promotes or inevitably shades into nihilism.

It does not. Nihilism is a major error. We are warned against it:

If their view of emptiness is wrong,
those of little intelligence will be hurt.
Like handling a snake in the wrong way,
or casting a spell in the wrong way.

• Nagarjuna Mulamadhyamakakarika 24:11

rossum

 

[stewstew03]

Rinnie is not doomed because she does not have a soul

Is this an ultimate truth?

 

[tomarin]

It does not. Nihilism is a major error. We are warned against it:

If their view of emptiness is wrong,
those of little intelligence will be hurt.
Like handling a snake in the wrong way,
or casting a spell in the wrong way.

• Nagarjuna Mulamadhyamakakarika 24:11

rossum

Can you tell me, roughly, what the differences are?

 

[notself]

Buddhism is neither eternalistic nor nihilistic in the sense one believes or disbelieves in an eternal soul. We are not selves or souls but processes.

Here is are snips from a book called Fundamentals of Buddhism Four Lecturesby Nyanatiloka Mahathera:accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nyanatiloka/wheel394.html#ch2

The term bhavanga-sota, is identical with what the modern psychologists, such as Jung, etc., call the soul, or the unconscious, thereby not meaning, of course, the eternal soul-entity of Christian teaching but an ever-changing subconscious process. This subconscious life-stream is the necessary condition of all life. In it, all impressions and experiences are stored up, or better said, appear as a multiple process of past images, or memory pictures, which however, as such, are hidden to full consciousness, but which, especially in dreams, cross the threshold of consciousness and make themselves fully conscious.

Everywhere, in all the realms of existence, the noble disciple sees only mental and corporeal phenomena kept going through the concatenation of causes and effects. No producer of the volitional act or kamma does he see apart from the kamma, no recipient of the kamma-result apart from the result. And he is well aware that wise men are using merely conventional language, when, with regard to a kammical act, they speak of a doer, or with regard to a kamma-result, they speak of the recipient of the result.

*No doer of the deeds is found,
No one who ever reaps their fruits;
Empty phenomena roll on:
This only is the correct view.

And while the deeds and their results
Roll on and on, conditioned all,
There is no first beginning found,
Just as it is with seed and tree…

No god, no Brahma, can be called
The maker of this wheel of life:
Empty phenomena roll on,
Dependent on conditions all.

A mere phenomenon it is, a thing conditioned,
That rises in the following existence.
But not from a previous life does it transmigrate there,
And yet it cannot rise without a previous cause.*

When this conditionally arisen bodily-mental phenomenon (the fetus) arises, one says that it has entered into (the next) existence. However, no being (satta), or life-principle (jiva), has transmigrated from the previous existence into this existence, and yet this embryo could not have come into existence without a previous cause.

This fact may be compared with the reflection of one’s face in the mirror, or with the calling forth of an echo by one’s voice. Now, just as the image in the mirror or the echo are produced by one’s face or voice without any passing over of face or voice, just so it is with the arising of rebirth-consciousness.

To sum up the foregoing, we may say: There are in the ultimate sense no real beings or things, neither creators nor created; there is but this process of corporeal and mental phenomena. This whole process of existence has an active side and a passive side. The active or causal side of existence consists of the kamma-process (kamma-bhava), i.e. of wholesome and unwholesome kamma-activity, while the passive or caused side consists of kamma-results, or vipaka, the so-called rebirth-process (upapatti-bhava), i.e. the arising, growing, decaying and passing away of all these kammically neutral phenomena of existence.

Thus, in the absolute sense, there exists no real being that wanders through this round of rebirths, but merely this ever-changing twofold process of kamma-activities and kamma-results takes place. The present life is, as it were, the reflection of the past one, and the future life the reflection of the present one. The present life is the result of the past kammic activity, and the future life the result of the present kammic activity. Therefore, nowhere is there to be found an ego-entity that could be the performer of the kammic activity or the recipient of the kamma-result. Hence Buddhism does not teach any real transmigration, as in the highest sense there is no such thing as a being, or ego-entity, much less the transmigration of such a one.

 

[tomarin]

Buddhism is neither eternalistic nor nihilistic in the sense one believes or disbelieves in an eternal soul. We are not selves or souls but processes.

Here is are snips from a book called Fundamentals of Buddhism Four Lecturesby Nyanatiloka Mahathera:accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nyanatiloka/wheel394.html#ch2

Is Buddhism monistic then?

 

[notself]

Is Buddhism monistic then?

Did you miss this part of the quote in my post? I realize it was rather long.

I wanted to make clear there is no eternal unchanging soul but was a process so therefore it was neither nihilism nor eternalism in regards to what moves on. This poem was in the middle of the post.

No god, no Brahma, can be called
The maker of this wheel of life:
Empty phenomena roll on,
Dependent on conditions all.

 

[tomarin]

Did you miss this part of the quote in my post? I realize it was rather long.

I wanted to make clear there is no eternal unchanging soul but was a process so therefore it was neither nihilism nor eternalism in regards to what moves on. This poem was in the middle of the post.

I read it but am trying to digest what it means. I’m not familiar with the term “eternalism” but the excerpted passage seemed to be describing monism. Everything is one so it makes no sense to talk about discrete beings.

 

[rossum]

Is this an ultimate truth?

No, there is no ultimate truth. Didn’t you read my sig?

We don’t need ultimate truth. We need truth that works here and now. I have no use for a truth that works in 1,000,000 years time because I won’t be around then.

Buddhism has spent 2,500 years developing truths that work here and now. What will work in a million years time? How would I know? Ask me in a million years.

rossum

 

[Shiranui117]

I read it but am trying to digest what it means. I’m not familiar with the term “eternalism” but the excerpted passage seemed to be describing monism. Everything is one so it makes no sense to talk about discrete beings.

Out of curiosity, what in that passage provided by rossum gives you the idea that all things are one?

 

[rossum]

Can you tell me, roughly, what the differences are?

I usually use the simile of a mirage. A mirage looks like water, but it is not what it looks like. It is empty of water.

A mirage is empty of water, but it is not nothing. A mirage appears to be water; nothing would not appear to be water.

To think of a mirage as water is to make an error. To think of a mirage as nothing is also to make an error.

To think of reality as substantial, fixed, permanent is to make an error. To think of reality as nothing is to make an error. Reality is deceptive. Like a mirage, it is not what it appears to be.

The emptiness of emptiness is the fact that not even emptiness exists ultimately, that it is also dependent, conventional, nominal, and in the end it is just the everydayness of the everyday. Penetrating to the depths of being, we find ourselves back on the surface of things and so discover that there is nothing, after all, beneath those deceptive surfaces. Moreover, what is deceptive about them is simply the fact that we assume ontological depth lurking just beneath.

– Jay Garfield, “Empty words, Buddhist philosophy and cross-cultural interpretation.” OUP 2002.

alternatively:

As stars, a fault of vision, as a lamp,
A mock show, dew drops, or a bubble,
A dream, a lightning flash, or a cloud,
So should one view what is conditioned.

– Diamond sutra 32

rossum

 

[stewstew03]

No, there is no ultimate truth. Didn’t you read my sig?

We don’t need ultimate truth. We need truth that works here and now. I have no use for a truth that works in 1,000,000 years time because I won’t be around then.

Buddhism has spent 2,500 years developing truths that work here and now. What will work in a million years time? How would I know? Ask me in a million years.

rossum

Does that mean that at some point rinnie may have a soul?

 

[rossum]

Does that mean that at some point rinnie may have a soul?

No. rinnie is evanescent. The rinnie that was yesterday is gone. The rinnie that will be tomorrow is not yet here. You can never step in the same river twice, because it isn’t the same river and it isn’t the same you.

Buddhism emphasises change over stasis, and change permeates all of Buddhist thinking. As I pointed out with a permanent soul, without change salvation/enlightenment is not possible. Since salvation/enlightenment is possible, then we have to drop our mistaken ideas of permanence.

rossum