3 : Rebirth & Action

There is still the question, though, of why the Buddha felt compelled to discuss the issue of karma and rebirth. We know that he refused to take a position on other issues that were hotly contested at the time—such as whether the cosmos was eternal or not (MN 63)—so what led him to take a position here?

The first part of the answer is that knowledge of rebirth formed an integral part of his awakening experience, playing a role in all three knowledges that led to his attainment of total release. Knowledge about karma played a role in the second and third.

In the first knowledge, he recollected many eons of his own previous lives:

In the second watch of the night, he gained his second knowledge, vision of how living beings at large are reborn after death:

In the third knowledge of the night, the Buddha took the insights gained from the second knowledge on the macro level of experience—concerning the role of actions (intentions) and views in shaping events throughout the cosmos over time—and applied them to the micro level: events immediately present in his own mind. He found that the same causal pattern operated on both levels—one of the most important insights leading to his awakening. He investigated the micro level even further to discover which intentions and views might lead to an end of intentions (AN 4:237) and an end of views (AN 10:93), and so to an end of rebirth. And he discovered his answer in views that were expressed in terms of the four noble truths about stress:

In this way, the ending of birth realized through the third knowledge affirmed the truth of the first two knowledges. By employing the right view that leads to actions that put an end to birth, the third knowledge showed that the act of intention is what fuels the process of repeated birth to begin with. This means that knowledge about rebirth, and its connection with action, was an integral part of the knowledge that precipitated and followed his full release.

Still, the fact that his awakening included knowledge about rebirth doesn’t fully explain why, when he began teaching, he addressed the topic. After all, on his own testimony, there were many other things he learned in the course of his awakening that he didn’t see fit to include in his teaching because they weren’t conducive in leading his listeners to their own release. He limited himself to teaching the four noble truths because “they are connected with the goal, relate to the rudiments of the holy life, and lead to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to Unbinding” (SN 56:31).

This suggests that he saw an intimate connection between the topic of rebirth and the four noble truths. And it turns out that, when we examine these truths, we find that rebirth does play a prominent role in the understanding of stress that forms the first noble truth; in the understanding of the causes of stress—craving and clinging—that form the second noble truth; and in the transcendent right view that guides the path of practice to the end of stress, the fourth noble truth. It also plays a prominent role in the mundane level of right view that provides the context for understanding the meaning and purpose of the four noble truths.

The relationship between the two levels of right view—mundane and transcendent—parallels the relationship between the first and second knowledges on the night of his awakening on the one hand, and the third knowledge on the other. Both serve a strategic purpose. Mundane right view, framed in terms of “beings” and “worlds,” asserts the efficacy of action: the principle that actions really do have results. This principle opens the possibility that transcendent right view, as a guide to action, can put an end to suffering. Transcendent right view then drops terms of “beings” and “worlds” to focus directly on the actions within the mind that cause suffering so that those actions can be abandoned. This brings suffering to an end—at which point all views are put aside as well.

To assert the efficacy of action, mundane right view makes the point (against Pakudha Kaccāyana) that there is such a thing as action, and (against Ajita Kesakambalin and Makkhali Gosāla) that it actually engenders results. Because the four noble truths teach that suffering and stress are the results of actions and can be brought to an end through actions, this understanding of action is necessary to explain why the four noble truths offer a realistic picture of what a human being can do to bring suffering to an end.

In a direct negation of the annihilationist view that Ajita Kesakambalin expounded, the standard definition of mundane right view states:

The phrase “next world” in this passage refers to life after death. The reference to what is given, etc., asserts that these actions actually are the results of conscious choices and do bear fruit as well-being and happiness. The reference to contemplatives and brahmans who know both worlds is a statement of conviction: One may not know the next world on one’s own, but one is convinced that there are those who have trained their minds to the point where they know it directly. Because “contemplatives and brahmans”—in the context of this passage—are those who have successfully followed the path to awakening, and because anyone is potentially capable of doing the same, this statement of conviction functions as a working hypothesis. You take these matters on faith until you can confirm them for yourself.

One reason the Buddha recommended conviction in rebirth as a useful working hypothesis is that, as we have noted, he had to teach that skillful human action was powerful and reliable enough to put an end to suffering; and his teaching on the consequences of skillful and unskillful action would be incomplete—and therefore indefensible—without reference to rebirth.

This is because the distinction he draws between skillful and unskillful is based on the consequences of the actions: The working-out of karma may be complex, but skillful actions always lead in the direction of happiness and well-being; unskillful actions always lead in the direction of suffering and harm. This distinction provides not only the definition of these concepts, but also the motivation for abandoning unskillful actions and developing skillful ones in their place.

This motivation is necessary, for while people are not innately bad, they are also not innately good. When heedless of the consequences of their actions, they behave unskillfully. This is why, as the Buddha noted, heedfulness lies at the root of all skillfulness (AN 10:15). To develop skillful qualities, people need to see the dangers of unskillful behavior and the advantages of skillful behavior. Because actions can sometimes take many lifetimes to yield their results, a complete and convincing case that unskillful actions should always be avoided, and skillful ones always developed, requires the perspective that comes only from seeing the results of actions over many lifetimes.

Of course, some of the results of actions often do appear in this lifetime:

For people who have trouble assuming a life after death, the consequences of action that are visible in this lifetime might seem enough to engender heedfulness. However, the Buddha notes that misconduct often leads to rewards in the present life, and he heaps ridicule on those who insist that the results of good and bad actions always appear in the here-and-now.

To avoid wrong view—and the ridicule it deserves—the Buddha found it necessary to disclose his knowledge that there are lives after death. And he had to include the perspective not just of one lifetime after death, but of many. This is because there are cases where a person behaves unskillfully in this lifetime but gains a pleasant rebirth immediately after death, and others where a person behaves skillfully in this lifetime but, immediately after death, gains a painful rebirth (MN 136). A meditator capable of seeing only one lifetime after death, seeing cases like these, would misunderstand the consequences of action. Only when we take into account the overall picture of the complexity of karma—and the length of time sometimes needed for actions to bear fruit—can we accept that the Buddha’s categorical assertions about skillful and unskillful actions might possibly be accurate.

So, from the perspective of his awakening, the Buddha saw that the only true understanding of the consequences of actions had to include a full perspective of lives after death. This is why he used this perspective when trying to induce a sense of heedfulness in others, so that they would be motivated to adopt the skillful path. In some cases, this involved describing how skillful and unskillful actions bring comforts and discomforts in future human lives (MN 41; AN 8:40). In other cases, it involved describing the pleasures of heaven (which are discussed in only a cursory way) and the horrors of hell (which are discussed in grisly detail—see MN 129 and 130). Sometimes he would add the observation that rebirth in the lower realms is much more common than rebirth in the higher realms (SN 20:2). In all cases, he would state that his descriptions and observations came, not from hearsay, but his own direct experience.

He knew, however, that—until they had gained experience for themselves through the practice—his listeners could take his statements on the efficacy of action and the truth of rebirth only on faith. But faith, for him, was not an insistence that you knew what you couldn’t really know, or that you accepted unreasonable ideas. It was an admission of ignorance about issues for which you don’t have empirical proof, combined with a willingness to adopt the assumptions needed to follow a path to happiness that seems reasonably likely to offer results (MN 27).

This is why the Buddha never claimed to offer proof for either the efficacy of action or for rebirth, for he knew that the evidence for these teachings lay beyond the ken of most of his listeners. Concerning the efficacy of action, the best he could do was to point out that those who denied that present action had a role in shaping present experience—because they attributed all experience to past action, to the act of a creator god, or to total randomness (AN 3:62)—were undercutting any rationale they might claim for teaching others or for following a path of practice. In other words, if present experience is not at least partly due to present actions, there is no way that a path of practice could have any effect. Teaching a path of practice would be a futile activity. The Buddha’s argument here was no proof that skillful and unskillful actions actually have consequences both in the present and on into the future. It simply pointed out the contradiction in teaching otherwise.

On the other hand, when you assume both the efficacy of action and its effect on rebirth, you are more likely to behave skillfully. To assume otherwise makes it easy to find excuses for lying, killing, or stealing when faced with poverty or death. And from there it’s easy to extend the excuses to cover times when it’s simply more convenient to lie, etc., than to not. But if you assume that your actions have results, and those results will reverberate through many lifetimes, it’s easier to stick to your principles not to lie, kill, or steal even under severe duress. And even though you may not know whether these assumptions are true, you cannot plan an action without implicitly wagering on the issue.

This is why simply stating, “I don’t know,” is not an adequate response to the questions of rebirth and the efficacy of karma. The attitude behind it may be honest on one level, but it’s dishonest in thinking that this is all that needs to be said, for it ignores the fact that you have to make assumptions about the possible results of your actions every time you act.

It’s like having money: Regardless of what you do with it—spending it, investing it, or just stashing it away—you’re making an implicit wager on how to get the best use of it now and into the future. Your investment strategy can’t stop with, “I don’t know.” If you have any wisdom at all, you have to consider future possibilities and take your chances with what seems to be the safest and most productive use of the resources you’ve got.

So it is with all of our actions. Given that we have to wager one way or another all the time on how to find happiness, the Buddha stated that it’s a safer wager to assume that actions bear results that can affect not only this lifetime but also lifetimes after this than it is to assume the opposite.

In MN 60, for instance, he pointed out that anyone who adheres to the annihilationist view espoused by Ajita Kesakambalin would not be expected to avoid unskillful behavior, whereas those who hold to the opposite—mundane right view—would be expected to avoid unskillful behavior. Then he said of the first group:

As for the second group—those who hold to mundane right view and act on it—he said this:

These arguments don’t prove the efficacy of action or the truth of rebirth, but they do show that it is a safer, more reasonable, and more honorable policy to assume the truth of these teachings than it would be to assume otherwise. The Buddha didn’t press these arguments beyond that point. In other words, he left it to his listeners to decide whether they wanted to recognize that action is an investment that, like all investments, incurs risks. And he left it to them to decide how they wanted to calculate the risks and potentials that action might involve now and into the future. He didn’t ask that his listeners all commit themselves to an unquestioning belief in the possibility that their actions might lead to rebirth, but he wasn’t interested in teaching anyone who rejected that possibility outright. As we’ve already noted, he saw that heedfulness lay at the root of all skillful qualities. If a listener couldn’t be persuaded to develop an appropriate level of heedfulness around the risks of action, any further teaching would be a waste of time.