[Buddha-l] Re: Where does authority for "true" Buddhism come from?

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Mike Austin schreef:

> In message <43DE1797.7070902 at xs4all.nl>, Erik Hoogcarspel 
> <jehms at xs4all.nl> writes
>
>> There has been some discussion in Buddhist circles as well (I'm sorry 
>> I cannot produce references at the moment), because the 
>> rebirth-consciousness looks very much like the aatman of non-buddhist 
>> schools. It's clear (to me anyway) that the only reason for assuming 
>> a rebirth-consciousness is to save the theory of rebirth and this is 
>> a very weak basis for existence.
>
>
> If it looks like dependent origination, smells like dependent 
> origination and tastes like dependent origination, then it is a 
> permanent entity?
>
First of all, Robert, I think your right: I mixed up the Upanishadic 
aatman with the Buddhist concept of anaatmavaada. The 
rebirth-consiousness however does have an essence of its own and is very 
similar to the Upanishadic aatman or a pudgala. How about dependent 
origination? Well I think the 12 nidaana's are just pseudo causal, 
because it's a one way street, a spiral at the best, which is nothing 
but a curved line. Ignorance causes consciousness etc. and not the other 
way around. The general theory of dependent origination is logical, not 
ontological: the existence of one thing implies the other, a day doesn't 
cause a night, but if we're talking about a day there must also be a 
night. They vanish if we stop making a difference. So if we want to stop 
rebirth we should stop making a diference between this life and former 
lifes or next ones. We're on the level of absolute truth here. However 
if we want to prevent rebirth taking place, like we want to prevent ghee 
forming itself oout of milk, we have to think causally, because we're 
looking at processes in space and time. We cannot prevent our former 
lifes in a causal sense, but we can rise above it if we obtain nirvaa.na.

-- 


Erik


www.xs4all.nl/~jehms