Does Rebirth Make Sense? - Bhikkhu Bodhi (Part 1)

[쥴리]

Newcomers to Buddhism are usually impressed by the clarity, directness, and earthy practicality of the Dhamma as embodied in such basic teachings

as the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, and the threefold training.

These teachings, as clear as day-light, are accessible to any serious seeker looking for a way beyond suffering.

When, however, these seekers encounter the doctrine of rebirth, they often balk, convinced it just doesn't make sense.

At this point, they suspect that the teaching has swerved off course, tumbling from the grand highway of reason into wistfulness and speculation.

Even modernist interpreters of Buddhism seem to have trouble taking the rebirth teaching seriously.

Some dismiss it as just a piece of cultural baggage, "ancient Indian metaphysics," that the Buddha retained in deference to the world view of his age.

Others interpret it as a metaphor for the change of mental states, with the realms of rebirth seen as symbols for psychological archetypes.

A few critics even question the authenticity of the texts on rebirth, arguing that they must be interpolations.

A quick glance at the Pali suttas would show that none of these claims has much substance.

The teaching of rebirth crops up almost everywhere in the Canon, and

is so closely bound to a host of other doctrines that to remove it would virtually reduce the Dhamma to tatters.

Moreover, when the suttas speak about rebirth into the five realms — the hells, the animal world, the spirit realm, the human world, and the heavens —

they never hint that these terms are meant symbolically.

To the contrary, they even say that rebirth occurs "with the breakup of the body, after death,"

which clearly implies they intend the idea of rebirth to be taken quite literally.

In this essay I won't be arguing the case for the scientific validity of rebirth.

Instead, I wish to show that the idea of rebirth makes sense.

I will be contending that it "makes sense" in two ways:

first, in that it is intelligible, having meaning both intrinsically and in relation to the Dhamma as a whole; and

second, in that it helps us to make sense, to understand our own place in the world.

I will try to establish this in relation to three domains of discourse, the ethical, the ontological, and the soteriological.

Don't be frightened by the big words: the meaning will become clear as we go along.

[쥴리]

문외한님, 글 밑에 덧글로 달아도 되요? 읽기 좋게 나누어서 옮길려고 라는데....블편하면 let me know.
예전에도 읽었는데 다시 읽고 싶어서...언젠가 정리가 되면 글 쓸 때도 있겠지요. 몇년 후에...ㅎ

[바이칼]

인과로 볼 때 윤회는 반드시 있어야 할 개념이며 깔끔하게 납득시킬 수 있는 개념입니다.
다만..인과가 뻥이라면 윤회도 뻥을 면하기 어렵습니다.

[쥴리]

본글로 올려주세요.