Thinking About Rebirth

When we think about the night of the Buddha’s awakening, we tend to think about the third knowledge: when he focused on the present moment, saw things in terms of the four noble truths, completed the duties for those truths, and gained full awakening. But the Buddha didn’t get to the present moment without having gone through his knowledges about rebirth and the role of karma in rebirth. The way he went from knowledge of his own rebirths to the role of karma, then to the present moment, teaches us a lot on how to use the teachings on rebirth, the teachings on karma, in the most skillful way.

A lot of people don’t like the teachings on karma and rebirth because they don’t know how to use them skillfully. Sometimes they think of karma as being very deterministic. “People suffer because they deserve to suffer, so there’s nothing you can do about it”—which is not the Buddha’s approach at all. Or we think that rebirth is selfing writ large, that the Buddha picked up the idea of rebirth from his culture and didn’t really think it through, that it wasn’t in line with his teachings on not self. All of these are wrong ways of using the teachings.

The fact that the Buddha went from his first knowledge about his own rebirths to the second knowledge, trying to see the underlying pattern in terms of the universe as a whole, shows us how we should think about the narrative of our own possible rebirths. We look at the things we’ve suffered from in this life and remind ourselves, “Okay, we probably were pretty difficult people in previous lifetimes. We probably did a lot of wrong things.” But that’s not to get us down. There are good things that have happened to us in this lifetime as well. After all, we’re born as human beings. That means we’ve got some good karma.

When you think about your karma in terms of the second knowledge, it takes a lot of the personal sting out of things. You’ve been stupid, but so has everybody else.

When I was up in Victoria last November, we were talking about the wandering on in samsara. One of the people there misheard me. She thought I was saying “bumbling on.” Yet samsara is just that, though: bumbling on. We’re all ad-libbing our lives. We learn lessons and then we forget them, and then we learn them again and forget them again. This is what everybody’s been doing.

If you want to settle the issue of who’s right in a situation, who’s the wrong person in a situation, who’s guilty, how justice should be done, then seeing the issue in the larger frame of rebirth makes you realize: How are you going to tally up the score? Where did the story begin? It’s like a soccer game that doesn’t have a beginning. It’s been in play forever, so how are you going to say who’s the winner? Who did more right actions? Who did more wrong actions? And what’s the appropriate punishment? For all those wrong actions, what’s the appropriate reward for all the good actions? There’s no way you can do the math. Which is why the Buddha didn’t focus on achieving justice. He focused on developing wisdom. He said, learn how to live in the world in a wise way. Live going forward.

If you’re trying to get justice done, try to do it in a way that will incline people to stop their unskillful behavior. That requires that you get them to see things in the right light and understand the principle of karma, so that they abandon unskillful actions of their own free will. That requires a lot of skill, more skill than most people are willing to put into a situation. Look at how the Buddha handled Angulimala. Angulimala had killed all those people. According to the Canon, it was hundreds: according to the commentaries, it was one short of a thousand.

If we look at karma as a deterministic teaching, then the appropriate thing to do with Angulimala would have been to punish him. But that’s not what the Buddha did. He saw that Angulimala had the opportunity, he had the potential for awakening, so he taught him the way. Angulimala voluntarily dropped all of his old ways and became an arahant. There was still some karmic residue. When he went on his alms round, people would throw things at him, to the point where his robes were torn, his bowl was broken, his head was split open. But as the Buddha pointed out to him, that’s a lot less than would have happened to him if he had not gained that attainment.

It’s a sign of the Buddha’s kindness. He was not out looking for justice. He was out looking for how to bring people to the point where they don’t have to suffer. Because karma doesn’t teach you that you deserve to suffer. It simply points out that there are these actions in the past. When the Buddha was asked, “Are you the same person now as the person who did those actions?” He didn’t answer the question. Are you a different person? Well, you’re not a different person. You’ve been all kinds of beings, and you’ve had all kinds of traits, and you’ve had plenty of time to do it in.

When the Buddha talks about the cycles of the universe—one universe after another—the fact that we go through universes like this means that you’re older than the stars. So which “you” in there is the one who’s responsible for the karmic results you’re seeing now? Would you even recognize that person as you, or that animal as you, or that deva as you? Think in these larger terms, as I said, and it takes a lot of the personal sting out of misfortunes. And it makes you realize that this system is designed for suffering. But there’s also a way out. When you see all the suffering that goes on, it makes you want to get out.

We have that reflection, “I’m the owner of my actions, the heir to my actions. I’m subject to aging, illness, and death. I haven’t gone beyond these things.” That’s part of a sutta that has you reflect in larger terms as well. The section that we chant is meant to have you give rise to a sense of heedfulness, that if you’ve been acting in unskillful ways, you’d better change your ways.

But then the Buddha goes on to have you reflect that it’s not just you who’s subject to these things. All beings everywhere are subject to these things. Beings down in hell, animals, hungry ghosts, devas, Brahmas, the great Brahma: They’re all subject to these things. No matter where you would go in the universe, you’d still be subject to aging, illness, death, and separation. And Buddha says, when you think in those terms, the mind hungers for the path, the path out.

When the Buddha talks about the ills of samsara, often he’s talking to kings or in reference to kings, because they seem to be having the best time on the human plane, but even their “good time” is still subject to all kinds of limitations. Even the best-case scenario is not all that good. In the story of King Pasenadi, his favorite queen died while he was talking to the Buddha. One of his courtiers comes up and whispers in his ear that Queen Mallika has died. The king just slumps over, speechless, in grief. As the Buddha told him, “Is there any way you can get something that was born not to age, not to ill, not to die?” Even kings can’t do that.

Or think of King Koravya. Ven. Ratthapala talks to him about aging, illness, and death. Then he asks him, “Here you are, eighty years old. If someone were to come from the east and say, ‘There’s a kingdom to the east with lots of wealth that you could conquer.’ You’re already ruling over a prosperous country, but you could also have the wealth of that other country. Would you go for it?” And the king says, “Yes, of course.” This is after he’s been made to reflect on the fact that he can’t take anything with him when he dies. And even as king, he’s defenseless when illness comes. He can’t get his courtiers to share out the pain of his illness so that his pain can be less. He’s so weak that sometimes he means to put his foot in one place and it goes someplace else. But still, he’d go for that other kingdom. The same if the kingdom were to the south, to the west, to the north. Even if it were on the other side of the ocean, he’d go for it.

Think about that. It gives rise to a sense of dismay. Look at human beings: They never have a sense of enough. There was that New Yorker cartoon a while back, some businessmen were sitting around and one of them is saying, “When I realized I had plenty, then I realized there was plenty more.” We’re insatiable. We’re slaves to craving. Do you want to continue in this slavery? Think about that, and the details of your life—the injustices you suffer, the pains you suffer—start seeming smaller and smaller and smaller. You think about the bad things you did, but then you realize, okay, everybody’s done bad things. The only solution is to get out.

That’s how you think about rebirth, think about samsara, in the right way, in the way the Buddha did on the night of his awakening. He had that insight into karma. You do things under the influence of wrong view, unskillful actions, but then your mind can change. You’ve got to start thinking in skillful ways and have right view at the moment of death, so that you won’t have to immediately go to a bad place because of your unskillful actions. But at the same time, you may do a lot of skillful things, and then your mind can change from that, too. As the Buddha said, there’s nothing so quick to reverse itself as the mind. So even though you did those skillful actions, you might go to a bad place because of a last-minute change in your mind.

This taught the Buddha-to-be two things: on the one hand, how scary karma is, how scary the human mind is. But it also taught him the power of actions in the present moment, that they can switch things around. Why do they have that power? He looked into it. That’s where he discovered the four noble truths. And that’s how he got out.

So that’s thinking about rebirth in the right way, taking the larger perspective. You’re realizing that the only proper attitude is to have a lot of goodwill for everybody, followed by a lot of equanimity for everybody, yourself included, but then focusing on the desire not to go back and settle old scores, but to wipe the slate clean. When you reach the deathless, none of your karma can follow you in there. Everybody’s mind is pure at that point. That’s closure. That’s the happy ending.

So learn how to think in these ways.