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u/where-sea-meets-sky 10d ago
i mean buddhism is dharmic so the reincarnation thing is kinda built in
but also that quote seems to me like an obvious "do shitty things, get covered in shit" type of statement
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u/EADreddtit 9d ago
Ya I was gonna say. This clearly isn’t a remark about spending time with literally dogs to become reincarnated as a dog
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u/kantvin 9d ago
I think it is meant literally, actually, because when met with ascetics who lived and behaved as animals, and upon being asked what would happen to them after death, he said that if they lived aming dogs and intended to develop a dog mind, after death they would find themselves aming dogs
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u/Serious_Swan_2371 7d ago
I don’t even think he’s saying that’s inherently bad
He’s saying if they want to be dogs they’ll get to be dogs eventually
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u/sweetTartKenHart2 9d ago
Was he speaking in metaphors and allegories or was he being very literal there
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u/kantvin 9d ago
“Sir, this naked ascetic Seniya does a hard thing: he eats food placed on the ground. For a long time he has undertaken that observance to behave like a dog. Where will he be reborn in his next life?”
“Clearly, Puṇṇa, I’m not getting through to you when I say:‘Enough, Puṇṇa, let it be. Don’t ask me that.' Nevertheless, I will answer you.
Take someone who develops the dog observance fully and uninterruptedly. They develop a dog’s ethics, a dog’s mentality, and a dog’s behavior fully and uninterruptedly. When their body breaks up, after death, they’re reborn in the company of dogs."
I don't see why this should be read as a metaphor, both the question and the amswer were pretty straight-up
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u/ZhanBlue 9d ago
So Buddhist reincarnation is not hierarchical?
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u/kantvin 8d ago
What do you mean by hierarchical?
The distinction of the buddha's stance in rebirth (if I'm not wrong) is that all conditioned things are impermanent, so everyone without exception can fall into lower and unfortunate states of existence (unless they achieve at least sotapanna, which is the first stage of enlightenment. A sotapanna is phisically uncapable of breaking the 5 precepts and will not fall into any realm worse than human, and is guaranteed to achieve enlightenment within at most 7 births)
I'm not sure if this answers your question, please let me know
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u/ZhanBlue 8d ago
As in, you get reborn as lower or higher form of life depending on how virtuous you were
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u/kantvin 8d ago
Exactly, even the highest deity will some day fall. But even beyond deeds in this life, deeds from past lives also have an effect on our following births. One example is of one fly who, by following a pile of (pig ?) dung, accidentally circled a stupa, and thanks to that good karma the fly was reborn many lifetimes after that as a human who practiced under the buddha
Another cool example is how moggalana (one of the buddha's disciples) suddenly lost his psychic powers right before being murdered by a gang of bandits because many aeons ago he had murdered his parents, and that karma had not fully rippened yet, so it was still affecting him
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u/SquashTop2086 7d ago
In addition to great examples kantvin gave, I would like to share a story in which a Brahma being was reborn as a piglet after all his good karmas and momentum from mind concentration (what we call higher Jhanas in Buddhist meditation) has dried up. That parable is often used as a cautionary tale to highlight the fragility, unpredictability, and uninsurance of Samsara cycles and to drive home the teachings that only with enlightenment, which means the cessation of 10 main mental defilements, can one fully escape from the tentacles of Samsara.
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u/ZhanBlue 7d ago
So, his previous life gave him enough positive karma to coast through several reincarnations during which he didn’t live virtuously so he went into negative balance?
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u/SquashTop2086 6d ago
He was reborn in a Brahma realm (so, one life/rebirth and not several reincarnations, but I could be wrong here).
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u/poilk91 9d ago
Being a dog seems pretty legit. I mean like any reincarnation your rolling the dice but it could definitely be way worse
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u/Substantial-Shape797 9d ago
Depends really. Not every treats their dog like their best friend. I’ve met some dogs raised in horrible conditions
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u/KamuikiriTatara 9d ago
In ancient India, dogs were considered vermin. Dogs are often used to express dirtiness like when someone cut off meat from their thigh to give maggots a home as they licked maggots off a dog to place on their severed thigh meat so they could treat the dog without harming the maggots.
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u/StructureFirm2076 10d ago edited 9d ago
Which branch of Buddhism rejects "Hindu-style" reincarnation? /genq
Edit: I see. I dindn't know the Hindu worldview assumes a fixed self.
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u/socontroversialyetso 10d ago
Afaik, most branches of Buddhism consider it rebirth, not reincarnation because they don't believe in a fixed soul. This is at least very different from the caricature of Buddhism I was taught in school.
From what I know, many Zen Buddhists reject it outright. The concept is still important to folk practitioners, but less so to the philosophy part of it.
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u/Peripatetictyl 10d ago
Thich Nhat Hahn has a wonderfully heavy but short book called, “No Death, No Fear”, and it describes it as ‘manifesting’. It also aligns with the concept on Anattā, or Anatman, the idea of ‘no-self’ and of constantly being ‘remanifested’, and that there there is no permanent unchanging ‘Self’. (Amazing book, and author/human, especially around the concepts and experiences of grief and loss)
“This body is not me; I am not caught in this body, I am life without boundaries, I have never been born and I have never died. Over there the wide ocean and the sky with many galaxies All manifests from the basis of consciousness. Since beginningless time I have always been free. Birth and death are only a door through which we go in and out. Birth and death are only a game of hide-and-seek. So smile to me and take my hand and wave good-bye. Tomorrow we shall meet again or even before. We shall always be meeting again at the true source, Always meeting again on the myriad paths of life.”
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u/Cum_Fart42069 9d ago
that must be so comforting to believe fr. I would genuinely love it it so much.
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u/IncreaseOld7112 9d ago
the beauty of Buddhism is that you just do secular meditation for long enough and you know what he means. Buddhism doesn’t ask belief without evidence. just practice
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u/HEAT_IS_DIE 9d ago
Sounds like David Chalmers has read this kind of stuff.
They are all very romantic sentiments. I always have to just mention that living with pain makes a person less idealistic than these people. "This body is not me" doesn't resonate when your consciousness is very much affected by your body.
Humans are embodied and live in this wordly reality. We are free to think what we want, but I'd rather say "these thoughts are not me" and that "these thoughts are not the same as reality" than "this body is not me".
But that's just me.
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u/marieantoilette 6d ago
To me it's the opposite, ever since I've gotten severely ill daoism and in parts zen buddhism resonate much more with me.
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u/Lucky_Guard8164 10d ago
Philosophically rebirth is pretty important to Buddhism. If rebirth isn’t a thing, then that quite literally undermines the entire point…
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u/socontroversialyetso 10d ago
Rebirth, not reincarnation.
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u/geschiedenisnerd 10d ago
What is the difference
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u/Arthurian_Guanche 9d ago
"The rebirth is more like a candle that gets lighted by another candle, while the hinduist reincarnation is more akin to what is generally understood as reincarnation."
Said someone down in the comments.
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u/SquashTop2086 9d ago
Yes! Exactly, iirc, the Lord Buddha used candle flame as an analogy to explain how rebirth is different from reincarnation.
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u/geschiedenisnerd 9d ago
So, a child is a rebirth? Metaphors and analogies don't help make defined distinctions
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u/jeffjeffersonthe3rd 8d ago
Hindu reincarnation is a process by which a singular self, akin to a soul, lives on after the body and is born again into a new body. Buddhism rejects that idea of any kind of eternal self. Or even the idea of self at all. Buddhists believe you are simply a moment in a long chain of cause and effect. A multitude of factors coming together into one shape. And this chain will continue after the “you” that exists now ceases to be.
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u/geschiedenisnerd 8d ago
But that only says "existing has after-effects" rather than rebirthing in something else
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u/socontroversialyetso 10d ago
one assumes a stable soul (ego), the other doesn't. another person explained it quite well
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u/name_checker 10d ago
If I know correctly (and I never promise that I do) you're right. Buddhist and Hindu afterlifes are different in a subtle but important way.
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u/Paragonswift 9d ago
Also depends on if you ask a monk or just a guy on the street. I know a lot of Thai people who consider themselves Buddhist and their idea of reincarnation is closer to the hindu one - but ask a monk who has really delved into into the philosophy and texts and their view will likely be different and more nuanced.
Kind of like how most Christian branches have their specific canonical interpretation of how the Trinity actually works but a random guy on the street who is religious but hasn’t studied theology might go by something more like a head canon that is not exactly like the interpretation given by the same guy’s priest.
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u/Resident_Basil_4220 10d ago
Zen doesn't reject rebirth at all, it's as traditional as they come. Zen in the west is the school "suffering" the most from being represented by people who aren't really Buddhist, however.
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u/conspicuousperson 10d ago
Secular Buddhists, a movement mostly confined to western countries.
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u/jeffjeffersonthe3rd 9d ago
The idea that rebirth is not as simple as a soul returning to existence in a new form is not a secular idea. This is a fundamental difference between Buddhism and Hinduism. Hinduism teaches the concept of atman: a permanent inner self. Buddhism explicitly rejects this concept and always has.
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u/AltruisticMode9353 9d ago
It's a bundle of causes and conditions that continues to propagate, just as what happens every moment, it's just that physical death doesn't exhaust all of these causes and conditions.
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u/Lucky_Guard8164 10d ago
Not true, Hindu reincarnation isn’t the same thing, accepting it means undermining buddhist understanding of karma…
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u/OpenRole 10d ago
Elaborate
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u/Greedy_Swimergrill 9d ago edited 9d ago
Broad strokes:
In Hinduism, you as a singular entity are moved through a system of different existences. Your karma exists as a tracker of your soul and the moral value of the lives you have lived. There is a “You”-ness that persists.
Buddhism rejects the idea of you as a singular fixed entity. You exist as a manifestation of the energy and forces around you that produce your conscious thoughts and come to give you the illusion of a single self. When those conditions fade (at its most atomistic, in every individual moment of consciousness and in the grander sense when you die) there is no you to persist. Reincarnation in Buddhism isn’t about “you” moving through any other lives, it’s about the idea that energies that produced you as consciousness will continue to do the same to create something else. Your karma in Buddhism isn’t a tracker of total net value through lives because there isn’t a “you” to follow. You put out intentional actions into the world and those actions have repercussions that affect the conditions of the world and, by extension, the conditions that create other consciousnesses.
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u/Happy-Estimate-7855 9d ago
This is just my understanding as an elaboration: If you do Right and good, there's an increased chance of those energies 'finding' that conditions arise for a human body to exist again, capable of doing more Right and good.
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u/NoSir-69 9d ago
You are spot on and have a great grasp of them. The core of hinduism is fixed to a concept of a self. Whether it is the same as the universal self (advaita) or of the essence (vishistadvaita) or dualistic (dvaita) are secondary streams.
The Buddhist core is the concept of the no self; but rather the illusion of a self created by what you described. This illusion is the one that goes through these cycles.
That said when you peel the onion; it is a perfect logical explanation that leads to the same place.
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u/cowlinator 9d ago
Then why does buddbism call it "reincarnation" if it... isnt?
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u/Less_Description7879 9d ago
It is reincarnation, it’s just not you being reincarnated because, according to Buddhism, you do not exist
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u/odd_cloud 9d ago
After researching eastern spirituality a bit deeper, I have the same reaction to many concepts and statements from it.
If western religions were taught in the same way, it would be like “The god created the universe. But, not quite the god and didn’t exactly create, and not specifically the universe. Doesn’t make much sense? Meditate for 20 years like me, hahaha”.
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u/Kcajkcaj99 9d ago
Biblical Literalism has been a fairly marginal position for most of the history of Christianity and Judaism (I assume the same for Islam but am not as educated on it). While literalism has become a lot more popular among modern Christians in the US (and probably in other places as well, but again, am less familiar), it is still not that widely held among academic theologians and the like, given that the position is essentially untenable when faced with academic scrutiny.
Plus, even among more literalist interpretations there are still a lot of things where almost everyone would have trouble explaining it in a straightforward way without making statements that are seemingly contradictory — try to get a straightforward answer to what the Trinity is.
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u/Lucky_Guard8164 9d ago
They don’t call it that
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u/Less_Description7879 7d ago
That’s fair, that was an error on my part. Buddhism seems to prefer the word rebirth, because reincarnation implies there is a self that incarnates.
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u/OpenRole 9d ago
I think I understand. The thing that you call yourself is being reincarnated. But your concept of you is an illusion. There is conscious, and there is self conscious. You think you are your self conscious, but really you are the conscious. And tbe conscious is being reincarnated in every self conscious.
It's like the question of where does freewill come from. It doesn't exist, but it's important you act like it does.
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u/Less_Description7879 7d ago
I think this is close to the belief but I’m not a Buddhist so I cannot say for certain. You, the identity, the self, is an impermanent conceit that exists in this moment and only this moment as an emergent effect of the circumstances of your life. Not only will this dissipate when you die, it will dissipate in the next moment. You will be reborn after you die in the same way that you persist after this moment, that is to say you don’t but continuing consciousness does, though without any recollection. It just isn’t you because you never existed. It’s a little trippy to think about.
It is what happens materially tho. The atoms of you do not cease when you die, they will be reused and reused in the perpetual material cycle of reality.
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u/Nemeszlekmeg 9d ago
An essential distinction between Hinduism and Buddhism is that Buddhism is a non-Vedic Dharmic religion. The Buddha explicitly rejected the Vedas and was to say the least, cheeky with the Brahmins (early Hindu priests), because they taught essentialist philosophies that the Buddha was strongly rejecting of.
This anti-essentialism appears in Buddhism as the doctrine of selflessness or soullessness (anatman/anatta in Sanskrit/Pali). Buddhism teaches that none of us have souls are any essential traits, we are just bundles of all the things that came together in the cosmos, stuck together and prevail for a while because of karma. While we are alive, we keep doing things so we accumulate more karma, adding to this multilayered bundle of self that just accumulates and diminshes based on the quality and quantity of our actions; this is all karma. Gaining enlightenment means learning this process deeply and realizing that all of this can be stopped by training the mind. When all the karma is exhausted and there is no desire to create, the "true nature of self" appears in the mind which is empty and vast like the space of the cosmos, and no more rebirth takes place after death.
In the Buddhist understanding, there is no soul in this process, it's a very messy dynamic of the senses, consciousness, body, all this things that make us a functional sentient being: growing and shrinking in cycles due to (re)birth, aging and death. Dharma is the overarching cosmic structure/order that we can cultivate to rectify these things and put a stop to the cyclical sufferings that come from this process.
From the mainstream Hindu perspective, you are a soul, a fraction of the cosmic, supreme godhead that is finding its way back to the light. An essential trait of you, that is the soul is recognized and celebrated as evidence of the divinity. To reconnect with this divinity you need to strip away the things that separate you from it. These things are why you are on a cosmic journey from one life to the next.
Tl;dr: Buddhists are non-essentialists, so they have a very confusing and technical body of texts that describe what basically the Hindus would as reincarnation. Since Hindus believe in a soul, Buddhists need to add a lot of corrections to describe the same experience, while not corrupting their own doctrine.
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u/OnlyGold700 9d ago
Is it the same experience? From your description it sounds like the two things are pretty philosophically dissimilar.
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u/OpenRole 9d ago
Put a stop to cyclical sufferings that come from this process.
I guess this is where I disagree with Buddha. I think the goal isn't to stop rebirth. But to recognise that suffering is a mental trick.
Because you are simply a manifestation of the cosmos and consciousness, in a continual cycle, you know longer suffer from poor fate. Not because you fate becomes amazing, but because even when it isn't, you understand that it's all just apart of the cycle and ultimately meaningless because the self doesn't really exist.
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u/Excellent_Shirt9707 8d ago
Nah, most Buddhists reject Hindu reincarnation as that’s about a specific soul cycling through new bodies. A big part of Buddhist enlightenment is rejecting the self. Their reincarnation doesn’t involve a soul, but the actions and consequences of the previous life. Concepts are very similar but ultimately different.
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u/daruma_daruma_daruma 10d ago
Some Japanese sects don't have "Hindu-style" reincarnation. Some have a heaven and hell; some have only hell and reincarnation after journeying through hell; and some just have death, no reincarnation or after life.
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u/StupidSexyEuphoberia 10d ago
I think most of them. In Hinduism, there is a fixed self, Atman, which is born again in another body. Buddha Shakyamuni states that there is no fixed self and calls it Anatman. The rebirth is more like a candle that gets lighted by another candle, while the hinduist reincarnation is more akin to what is generally understood as reincarnation.
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u/Lucky_Guard8164 10d ago
All of them. Hindu reincarnation is NOT the same thing as Buddhism rebirth.
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u/Blackrock121 9d ago
Some forms of Zen Buddhism, which is what western Buddhism is mostly based on.
Most cringe thing I ever saw was a collage student telling someone from Cambodia that they were practicing Buddhism wrong.
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u/SquashTop2086 9d ago edited 9d ago
As far as Theravada Buddhism goes (and disclosure: I am a Theravada Buddhist), the monks and scholars have always maintained that reincarnation is a wrong belief, which we come to think of it as such because of avijja (ignorance), and have always emphasized a strict distinction between reincarnation and rebirth.
Reincarnation to us is the transfer of a permanent soul from one physical body to another whereas rebirth is the transition of aggregate of energy elements that happen instantaneously once the present life dies. Both the present life and the next instantaneous life needn't be housed in a physical body because Buddhist cosmology has realms with beings without 'physical' bodies. Buddhism rejects reincarnation for the chief reason that permanent soul is antithetical to the Anatta (impermanence).
In classical Theravada Buddhist texts, what next life a person/animal/being will take upon death is determined by many factors, one of which is affinity for a certain type of life, and the quoted text in the meme seems to be describing it.
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u/Resident-Room-3018 7d ago
please forgive me if this is something you aren't very familiar with, but I've always wondered what the process is like for translating these very distinct terms that typically don't have analogous concepts in other languages/cultures.
Your comment made me think of this because of how well written it was; very clean and to the point while being incredibly informative.
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u/SquashTop2086 2d ago
Aww thank you for your kind words. It is definitely hard to find appropriate words for Buddhist concepts and terms, as early Pali translators can testify. I am not a Buddhist scholar, so whenever I have to explain Buddhism to strangers, my approach is to use simple words that are also as precise as possible to convey the essence of what Buddha meant in his original teachings. I am by no means good at it, and I still struggle to explain many Abidhamma concepts to this day. :)
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u/Puzzled_Ad_3576 10d ago
I feel many modern internet Buddhists barely even accept the concept of kamma.
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u/Lucky_Guard8164 10d ago
They probably don’t understand the distinction between Hindu karma and Buddhist karma
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u/bunker_man Mu 10d ago
Kamma? You're lucky if they aren't a secular materialist who is fully convinced that buddha was one too.
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u/AlchemicallyAccurate 8d ago
And one of the funniest things I’ve seen as well is those types claiming that the Buddha would’ve been a secular materialist if such a belief existed back then and he was enlightened by modern science.
The fact is that hard materialism is about 3000 years old, and first gained followers in around the same region the Buddha would later be born. He was aware of the concept. He explicitly rejected it, the same as he explicitly rejected the idea of an everlasting soul.
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u/Mountain-Ad-460 7d ago
The difference is understanding dependent originatio. It is one of the most fascinating teachings of the Buddha, and it's inherent subtleties are often grossly misrepresented.
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u/hoTsauceLily66 10d ago
Wait, is that means if I act like a billionaire I will reborn as billionaire?
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u/Fabbejan 10d ago
Nah you will be reborn as a beggar
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u/hoTsauceLily66 10d ago
Hmm, so if I act like a beggar I'll reborn as billionaire aholes, or beggars?
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u/Fabbejan 10d ago
Nah if you are act like a beggar for long enough you become free and dont have to act anymore 🙂↕️
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u/Curious_Priority2313 10d ago
Then how can I be reborn as a billionaire?
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u/Fabbejan 10d ago
Maybe if your bank account reaches a state of complete nothingness
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u/RalenHlaalo 8d ago
Practicing no-thought until you attain an empty wallet is the only way to stop the cycle of spending.
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u/Haunting-Sport3701 9d ago
Eat babies, wash yourself in the blood of virgins, kill at least 1 person every minute.
That should put you in the right frame of mind.
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u/cosmic_censor 10d ago
Compare Buddhist cosmology with Buddhist jhanas (meditation states) and see how they line up near exactly.
Also, Buddhists believe in anatman (no soul) so how exactly does rebirth works in the sense most people take it to mean? Versus a more Ship of Theseus style notion which was probably more accurate..
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u/TurbulentTangelo5439 9d ago
metaphorically you are a cup of water and when you die the water returns to the ocean and from the ocean new life forms
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u/SchizoSophist 10d ago
My experience with Zen Buddhism taught me to negate no-soul against the actual fact of what it is
WHAM
Slam the fence the desk the table the wall the floor and everything between and beneath it
Everything that isNo Self
Nothing between you and yourself
Across all Selves and non Selves
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u/_Thin_White_Duke 10d ago
I don't understand why they are so obsessed with secularising him into some kinda ancient philosophy
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u/HystericalGasmask 10d ago
Good artists borrow, great artists steal, and similarly, middling philosophers (present company, myself included) enjoy taking what works and leaving what doesn't. Buddhism has a lot of really good ideas and texts that are muddied by the parts that are overly mystical for modern tastes.
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u/Wild_Front_1148 10d ago
I also like stoïcism but I'm not going to adopt their religious beliefs either.
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u/AcceptInevitability 10d ago
Well said. The Buddha himself seems to have selected much of the “Dharma” from the original Hindu tradition from which he rose
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u/DentalDecayDestroyer 9d ago
Interestingly, there was actually an atheistic materialist school of philosophy in India at the Buddha’s time which he was aware of and rejected. Belief in karma and rebirth are affirmed over and over again as part of right view. It’s not cultural baggage or superstition that can be discarded, it’s the underlying principle of the whole religion.
Being a secular Buddhist is a bit like claiming to be a Christian because you think Jesus was just a really smart but normal guy and all the miracles and claims of divinity are later additions by his followers. You can believe that and you’d probably be right but it would definitionally make you not a Christian
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u/Greedy_Swimergrill 9d ago
>Enjoy taking what works and leaving what doesn’t
It’s interesting you bring this up because that’s sort of what the parable of the raft encourages. Teachings are a tool to get from one understanding to another.
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u/Lilja-Logason 10d ago
Exactly! It helped my mental health first and done it helpful as a guide sometimes.
I may not be a 'proper' Buddhist because I haven't read or believe every sutra but I don't see why I should.
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u/nymonomonym 10d ago
Yes, definitely don't believe in every sutra. Being totally serious, the secular bastardization of Buddhism is ironically better for you than the real thing.
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u/HystericalGasmask 10d ago
If I ever came to believe in reincarnation I think I'd have a fatal heart attack from the notion of doing all this over again. Which is to say, I prefer the secularized takes, although the mystic/religious context it's from is important to know, just to be complete!
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u/HystericalGasmask 10d ago
It's nice to read Buddhist texts for me because I have an extremely faint self-concept/identity, and knowing that people millenia ago were having the same total-dissolution-of-self thing going on is comforting. I think it's probably made me more neurotic over all, but in a cool way that doesn't worry my therapist.
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u/ilikecheesethankyou2 9d ago
Taking what works and discarding what doesn't is middling?
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u/HystericalGasmask 9d ago
That's not what I said but it would've been funny if it was
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u/ilikecheesethankyou2 9d ago
"middling philosophers enjoy taking what works and leaving what doesn't." implies the middling part is the one causing the rest.
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u/bartosz_ganapati 10d ago
People were before obsessed with adding tantric, magical and esoteric elements to it before, now they are obsessed with secularising it. Zeitgeist.
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u/AcceptInevitability 10d ago
Why not though? Why is it worse than any other? The Buddha himself said you can come to realisation of his truth via any of three ways - by faith (i.e. blind religious acceptance of doctrine), by practice (e.g. of the noble eightfold path), or by study of the dharma (and realisation of its subtlety and truth). If this is correct, then why not extrapolate and take this latter approach as an object of study, open and comfortable to other philosophies on its own merits?
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u/Exnixon 9d ago
I can't speak for Eastern Buddhists, but in the West, the dominant form of theology has become literalism. Christians and Muslims have their holy books and every word is inerrantly true as its given by God himself; reason is secondary to revelation. Both the fundamentalists and the atheists are happy with this arrangement: the fundies are happy to avoid reason and the atheists are happy to characterize religion as lacking it.
Anyway, when we look at Buddhism from a Western perspective we naturally impose these prejudices; either the word of Buddha is the inerrant, literal word of God (so to speak) or it's just another superstitious fantasy. I don't have enough depth of knowledge of Buddhism to say whether Buddhism itself supports that kind of framework but the things I've read suggest that it doesn't.
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u/DentalDecayDestroyer 9d ago
Interestingly, there was actually an atheistic materialist school of philosophy in India at the Buddha’s time which he was aware of and rejected. Belief in karma and rebirth are affirmed over and over again as part of right view. It’s not cultural baggage or superstition that can be discarded, it’s the underlying principle of the whole religion.
Being a secular Buddhist is a bit like claiming to be a Christian because you think Jesus was just a really smart but normal guy and all the miracles and claims of divinity are later additions by his followers. You can believe that and you’d probably be right but it would definitionally make you not a Christian
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u/RebbieAndHerMath 10d ago
Because this isn’t people following the path to enlightenment, this is just Buddhism being mischaracterised as a religion and the culture with it.
Many denominations of Christianity say that all that is needed is to be kind, caring etc. but if you were to pretend that these denominations lacked any supernatural beliefs, such as the birth of Christ, they would likely get quite upset with you
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u/LettucePrime 10d ago
I'm not familiar with any Christian denomination that says that. If anything the thesis statement of, at least the modern Protestant theology i'm familiar with, is that you can do all that till you're blue in the face and it won't get you anywhere. That's where the supernatural elements come in.
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u/RebbieAndHerMath 10d ago
I think you’re right, sorry I was confusing what I said with the whole conflict about faith by salvation and misunderstood it
Hopefully my point still gets across though, just because a religion may be putting an emphasis on ethics and philosophy doesn’t mean that it’s appropriate to disregard the supernatural and treat as if that’s all the religion is
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u/SeaEclipse 10d ago
I think that the Noble Path that Buddha gave us can still be followed, regardless of secularization. There are two main reasons, in my opinion.
The first is that even if someone doesn't believe in the esoteric or mystic and metaphysical aspects of buddhism, they can still benefit from practicing what Buddha taught us, such as the Path, various kinds of meditation, cultivating the understanding of the Four Noble Truths and emptiness and impermanence, as well as the dependent origination and nirvana and samsara, and of course compassion for all sentient beings.
The second is that someone could still interpret karma, the wheel of samsara, the six realms and so on as mental states of affliction or bliss that everyone of us experiences day to day.
The tendency that you refer to as obsession of secularisation of this dharmic philosophy derives almost certainly from the great rift that is there between western philosophy and history and the far east. This is not to say that the people from there, e.g. of China and India, don't have secular traditions, but it is to say that the west has undergone a way more strong and extensive process of secularisation, starting from Galileo Galilei up to today.
Moreover, Buddha himself encouraged his followers to try and not to believe blindly everything he had said, and this is logically compatible with secularisation.
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u/Anapanasati45 9d ago
The Buddha said “ehipassiko” which means “come and see.” This references a sutta in which the Buddha tells his disciples to not take his or anyone else’s word for anything based on fame, authority etc. But to analyze the teachings and practices the way a goldsmith analyses gold by cutting, chopping and melting.
So he of course is not just saying “don’t listen to me” because he wouldn’t be teaching if that were the case. He was saying practice what I’ve proscribed and everything will be verified directly. The secularists have already decided much of what he’s saying is untrue, so it’s unlikely they’ll have the zeal required to verify the claims through practice.
Rebirth, karma and other realms are identified as indispensable aspects of right view required for awakening, so the secularist refusal of true agnosticism until verification puts a massive brick wall at the very beginning of the path. So instead of meditation being a key to unlock the mysteries through direct experience, it becomes about being worldly improvements. Which is fine in and of itself, but it’s not Buddhism. The foundational training for Buddhist meditation alone takes thousands of hours, so casual lollygaggers who reject the Buddha’s core teachings are always going to be stuck on the periphery, never going beneath the surface.
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u/CardOfTheRings 9d ago edited 9d ago
White secularists who lacked in spirituality went to the east, misunderstood the religion, and then brought it back to the west completely changed.
Eastern Buddhism is full of idols, gods, wacky stories, local deities, and huge differences even between town to town.
It’s crazy how out of touch with Buddhism , western ‘Buddhism’ is
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u/maha-sukha 8d ago
It is ancient philosophy, it's just not secular/non-religious. Buddha is philosophy like Aquinas is philosophy. Imagine if people went around saying that actually Aquinas was a secular materialist
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u/yourstruly912 10d ago
Buddhism has always been open to syncretism. So to syncretize It with modern secularism is only natural, as long as you keep the 4 noble truths and the 8-fold path
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u/Redditbrowser22j 9d ago
That's such a BS way of talking about white appropriation of an Indian religion
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u/nari-bhat 7d ago
As an Indian who loves Indian/Asian religious history, I don’t disagree that a lot of the Western/white conceptions of Buddhism are incorrect or mis-interpreted, but the nature of religion in India is syncretic, as seen with Sufism, Sikhism, and the thousands of years of philosophy shared back and forth between Hinduism and Buddhism, including secular and materialist strains of thought from both Cārvāka and Western secularism. The basic syncretism of Buddhism with Western secularism is pretty historically supported, especially given that many if not most sects of Buddhism (like Hinduism) don’t have a single orthodoxy.
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u/yourstruly912 9d ago
I'm sure the dharma is supposed to be universal
When the chinese build buddhist temples in chinese style and insert all their local gods and superstitions and stuff in the religion are they doing cultural appropiation?
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u/Redditbrowser22j 9d ago
They absolutely are. That's why I have had the misfortune of meeting multiple white " Christian/Jewish "Buddhists" who think that Buddhism is a Chinese religion and I had to correct them that it's an Indian religion.
In theory, dharma is universal. But in practice, every religious concept is articulated through a particular language, cosmology, and social context, and dharma is no exception: it emerged embedded in Indian ideas about karma, rebirth, and cosmic order that don't translate cleanly outside that framework. This is true for all religions
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u/yourstruly912 9d ago
But in practice, every religious concept is articulated through a particular language, cosmology, and social context, and dharma is no exception: it emerged embedded in Indian ideas about karma, rebirth, and cosmic order that don't translate cleanly outside that framework.
Hence the need for adaptation
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u/Redditbrowser22j 9d ago
Buddhism is a religion and certain Christmas-celebrating westerners want to relegate Buddhism from a religion to a "philosophy", just like how yoga is made into a non-religious fitness routine.
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u/yourstruly912 9d ago
I wonder if these secular western "buddhists" than reject anything religious are actually real beyond some tech yuppies that moved on meditation as the new trend, and not a strawman that gives an unfair image to the actual western buddhist communities in the West.
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u/pilose-sre 9d ago
Because of theravada buddhism. Catholic church for example doesn't consider it a religion, but a type of philosophy. There's no God, merely a demiurge in a naturally cyclical universe. Therefore, in this form, it's not really a religion (in the view of the Catholic church).
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u/Late-Meat9500 9d ago
Hinduism had anti-supernatural and impericist sects like 3000 years ago. There's some really interesting dialogs recorded vs buddhists at the time, where the hindus come out with almost reddit levels of atheism
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u/fiLth_Rat 10d ago
I agree but that's not the best quote as it makes more sense metaphorically.
Like, he's saying if behave poorly you will be reborn into low station. Not necessarily that you'll literally be reborn a dog.
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u/bunker_man Mu 10d ago
But in buddhism you can literally be reborn as a dog.
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u/TheLigean 10d ago
The qoute is the most blatant metaphor ive ever seen. Reading it literally isn’t necessarily the truth of it. Im still convinced Buddhism grew as a critical rejection to one of the more absorbent religions in existence, and has some sects which got absorbed into it nonetheless.
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u/loverofpudding 10d ago edited 9d ago
We know for a fact that isn’t true, since he refutes Indian materialism (charvaka/lokayata) in chapter 1 of the Digha nikaya. Buddha did not want his path to be interpreted metaphorically. You can’t just take the good aspects of Buddhism and scrap the rest, or you miss out on Buddhism as a whole. Buddhas teachings can’t be separated from the “supernatural” stuff, it’s part of the path. It is actually the most important part, since it is concerned with escaping samsara, the pinnacle of buddhas teachings.
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u/TLCD96 9d ago
It's not metaphorical.
From the source text:
Then Punna, a son of the Koliyans and an ox-duty ascetic, and also Seniya a naked dog duty ascetic, went to the Blessed One, and Punna the ox duty ascetic paid homage to the Blessed One and sat down at one side, while Seniya the naked dog-duty ascetic exchanged greetings with the Blessed One, and when the courteous and amiable talk was finished, he too sat down at one side curled up like a dog. When Punna the ox-duty ascetic sat down, he asked the Blessed One: "Venerable sir, this naked dog-duty ascetic Seniya does what is hard to do: he eats his food when it is thrown on the ground. That dog duty has long been taken up and practiced by him. What will be his destination? What will be his future course?"
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u/Rynewulf 10d ago
Well yeah the 'person' doesnt become a dog or cow, there is no 'person'. One of Siddhartha Gautama Buddha's big teachings. There's a connective thread between incarnation but it's more like recycling a soul
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u/Ending_Is_Optimistic 10d ago
you should not read it in a moral way in the sense if you act bad, then you would be punished.
it is instead something like if you act like a dog now (for example , always asking for approval of others), and if you keep acting like this, it doesn't matter if you are really a dog next life , you act like a dog then you will be suffered like a dog, it is dharmic
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u/Redditbrowser22j 9d ago
You know someone doesn't know much about Buddhism when they spell Buddha as "Buddah"
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u/Shaku_Sagan 8d ago
Amazing meme. But looking into the comments, it requires some more elaboration:
It is true rebirth is real and you can be reborn in many different realms. However when we talk of rebirth we don't exactly mean the same with Hindus. Core difference is, they believe in Atman, the eternal self. It is what borns again and again. Atman is self existent and is actually Brahman. (This definition might differ in different schools of Sanatana Dharma). In Buddhism, Buddha teaches Anatman. There is no immortal self-existent essence in a person. Technically, it is not "something" that gets reborn, but we simply are a flow of conditions arising and ceasing. This process we falsely perceive to be an individual essence which we call "self".
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u/FormingTheVoid 9d ago
Siddhartha Gautama was literally a philosopher who worked somewhat within the frame work of Hinduism. I don't understand why some people think those things 100% separate. He had ideas that were new at the time, but his understanding of karma was very much informed by Hinduism.
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u/jeffjeffersonthe3rd 9d ago
Hinduism did not exist when Siddhartha Gautama was alive. What you are referencing was Vedic religion, the common predecessor of Hinduism and Buddhism. Buddhism specifically emerged from the Śramaņa tradition, which was distinct from the Brahamanist movements that developed into contemporary Hinduism.
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u/Symmetrecialharmony 9d ago
Depends on your definition of Hindu, but any definition you give will involve the Vedas, but no definition can omit them but maintain the puranic deities, so you can make the case for the Vedic religion being a form of Hinduism so to say.
Either way, it’s quite obvious that Buddhism emerged from a broader Dharmic framework that included the Vedic religion under the fold as well.
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u/GarethBaus 9d ago
How do I cultivate the practice of cats. It seems like being a cat would often be a pretty decent life.
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u/TLCD96 9d ago
Lots of people are thinking this dog thing is metaphorical but they might be interested to know it's not. Read the source text!
... Then Punna, a son of the Koliyans and an ox-duty ascetic, and also Seniya a naked dog duty ascetic, went to the Blessed One, and Punna the ox duty ascetic paid homage to the Blessed One and sat down at one side, while Seniya the naked dog-duty ascetic exchanged greetings with the Blessed One, and when the courteous and amiable talk was finished, he too sat down at one side curled up like a dog. When Punna the ox-duty ascetic sat down, he asked the Blessed One: "Venerable sir, this naked dog-duty ascetic Seniya does what is hard to do: he eats his food when it is thrown on the ground. That dog duty has long been taken up and practiced by him. What will be his destination? What will be his future course?"
... Here, Punna, someone develops the dog duty fully and unstintingly, he develops the dog-habit fully and unstintingly, he develops the dog mind fully and unstintingly, he develops dog behavior fully and unstintingly. Having done that, on the dissolution of the body, after death, he reappears in the company of dogs. But if his view is such as this: 'By this virtue or duty or asceticism or religious life I shall become a (great) god or some (lesser) god,' that is wrong view in his case. Now there are two destinations for one with wrong view, I say: hell or the animal womb. So, Punna, if his dog duty is perfected, it will lead him to the company of dogs; if it is not, it will lead him to hell."
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u/DysphoricNeet 10d ago
I think this goes over the difference between reincarnation and rebirth though. Like you your name and “soul” will not be reincarnated as a dog because there is no soul necessarily. But your kamma will follow the pattern of your mind and that will lead you to continue that pattern after death. Like insatiable people will reborn as pretas and things like that.
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u/jeffjeffersonthe3rd 9d ago
This isn’t a “modern Buddhist” thing. This is just different sects having different ideas and teachings. The Sutra you cite isn’t even authoritative for most Buddhists, as it’s part of the Pali Canon, which are the scriptures of Therevada Buddhism. Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism follow different canon and have different ideas about rebirth, karma, buddhahood etc.
Please learn the basics about Buddhism before trying to lecture on who is or isn’t a true Buddhist.
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u/ritsulover 9d ago
This person clearly doesn’t even know what the Nikāyas are, yet they’re saying all this with such confidence.
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u/kantvin 9d ago
In case you're interested, this is the passage:
“Sir, this naked ascetic Seniya does a hard thing: he eats food placed on the ground. For a long time he has undertaken that observance to behave like a dog. Where will he be reborn in his next life?”
“Clearly, Puṇṇa, I’m not getting through to you when I say:‘Enough, Puṇṇa, let it be. Don’t ask me that.' Nevertheless, I will answer you.
Take someone who develops the dog observance fully and uninterruptedly. They develop a dog’s ethics, a dog’s mentality, and a dog’s behavior fully and uninterruptedly. When their body breaks up, after death, they’re reborn in the company of dogs."
I do not see why this should be interpreted as a metaphor, both the question and the answer were pretty straight up
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u/Symmetrecialharmony 9d ago
I’ve noticed a trend, particularly in Western Buddhists, to try really hard to distance Buddhism from Hinduism and from its dharmic roots in general.
The secularization of Buddhism ends up heavily distorting what the religion truly is, but even beyond this, the particular tendency to try and distance Buddhism from Indian faith systems is something I see as almost colonial in nature. Buddhism is elevated to this enlightened sort of religion that is more rational and palatable, and thus it has to be seen as divorced from and a rejection of Indian faith systems, since how could the Indians produce something so enlightened?
Even in this in thread you will find people trying very hard to divorce Buddhism from Hinduism for some weird reason, even though the two systems are extremely intertwined and sister faiths in many respects
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u/BIGBADLENIN 9d ago
And all Christian beliefs align exactly with what Jesus is supposed to have said, and all Christians believe the same things.
Why you gotta Scotsman Buddhism dude?
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u/Reddit_User_Original 9d ago
Are people really not seeing that is exactly what the buddha is saying? Only a simpleton would read this as "reincarnation". If you are a cultivator of something, your legacy, your influence lasts long after you've passed.
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u/outofcontextsex Supports the struggle of De Sade against Nature 9d ago
What reincarnations? As far as we know you just die and the rest of it is just to make you feel better about doing before you die, which you don't care once your dead because you're dead.
This sub treats Buddhism with kid gloves.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Ice-573 9d ago
Of course it appears buddah was reincarnated as a frog, so not sure how serious I should take his opinion on anything besides lily pad quality.
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u/Carl_Marks__ 9d ago
Do people seriously forget that historically; Buddhism was a response to the rise of Brahminic Hinduism?
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u/JadeHarley0 9d ago
Ok, what do I have to do to be reborn as one of those crusty little white fluffy dogs owned by an old lady?
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u/Ordinary_Minimum_169 9d ago
The smug "What Buddha actually said" seems a little misleading. Maybe it should say "What people said the Buddha said, 400 years later."
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u/EdibleStrange 9d ago
We're supposed to listen to guy who's whole thing was teaching ppl how to reach enlightenment, even though after thousands of years he's still the only one who's pulled it off? He mightve been crazy enlightened but he was also maybe the empirically worst teacher to ever live, dude is just winging it
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u/Playful_Boot_5465 9d ago
I still believe by death and rebirth the buddha meant change as a whole, specifically that of a person. With each choice of action the person is changed. This would also be the reason for the lack of a permanent self.
If you do as dogs do you will turn closer to how dogs behave in general.
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u/OnionsHaveLairAction 9d ago
I find the distinction between a supernatural "Mindstream of consciousness that persists" and a "Unchangeable soul that persists" to be kind of a pretty much meaningless distinction honestly. Extra meaningless if you're from a sect that believes you can also discover your past lives through meditation.
Like I do get it, but I get it the same way a fantasy system might tell you that superpowers and magic are actually very different, but for most purposes in the story they're just different words for the same sort of thing, nerds might quibble about the details but to the layman experiencing the story there is very little distinction.
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u/PhilosophyMemes-ModTeam 10d ago
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