Question of the Day: Buddhism and Capitalism Again
Oct 20th, 2007 by Micah Tillman | 5 Comments |
As far as I understand, Buddhists seek two things: enlightenment and Nirvana. (I seek Nirvana as well, but I seek them on my CD rack.) Enlightenment may happen in this life. I believe Nirvana happens to the enlightened person after death. (Please correct me if I’m wrong).
There are some branches of Buddhism (no, Christianity is not the only religion with “denominations”) that believe in bodhisattvas, those who have attained enlightenment, but do not enter Nirvana. Instead, they help others improve their lives. (Think of Catholic/Orthodox Saints.) Something about giving others a share of your own good karma.
My wife explained to me that Tibetan Buddhists believe the Dalai Lama is a reincarnation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion. This Bodhisattva continues to re-enter the world through reincarnation so as to teach and help others achieve enlightenment. (Some bodhisattvas do not reincarnate, but work from their non-bodily state.)
I was sitting in Non-Western Philosophy class one day, and human population-growth struck me as a problem. I think “we” were headed for 6 billion back then. “How could their be more humans now than ever before if there are only a fixed number of souls (and some of them are lost to Nirvana now and again)? The number of humans should be going down, not up.”
Then I remembered that the other living species of the world are all supposedly dying off (due to capitalism and George Bush). I realized that I could save Buddhism from being contradicted by the phenomena if I explained the growth of the human population in terms of attrition from the animal and plant kingdoms.
Even if humanity is losing souls to Nirvana now and again, we could be gaining souls that had been incarnated (due to their bad karma) as plants and animals. But that would mean their populations would have dwindle as ours expanded, since there’s only a fixed number of souls. (I know of no Buddhist doctrine of the continual creation of souls. Christianity has such a doctrine, but I don’t think the reincarnation religions do).
But if this is the case, then Buddhists would have to be happy about what environmentalists (with whom they are usually lumped) see as an ongoing catastrophe. And that was very surprising to me.
So I wrote the story below, and hope that one day I’ll get someone who knows more than me to help me figure out the situation.
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Animals and humans are not, in most branches of Buddhism, the only planes of re-birth. Population-growth could, for example, be explained in terms of beings from the Heavenly-realms being reborn as humans (in a sense, going down the ladder), while the destruction of animal life and the increase of human life do not necessarily have to be seen as causally connected. That’s avoiding any thoroughly nuanced discussion of rebirth (and its cessation) in this life, and the lack of a ’soul’ to be reborn in the Buddhist cosmology.
<a href=”http://bhikkhublog.blogspot.com/2007/06/importance-of-rebirth.html”Here is a good discussion on a Buddhist monk’s blog about rebirth. I suggest anything by David J. Kalupahana. His “Principles of Buddhist Psychology” is especially interesting in that he is putting William James in conversation with the Buddha’s teachings. This might be interesting for you phenomenology-types.
The problem with the logic their is that of the fixed number of souls. It implies a separate state of existence between beings and the universe. Think of it like this. Souls come in and out of existence. Souls are of the infinite of the universe. So, the process of souls coming into “being” is one of breaking away (birth), and then re-joining (death).
What your describing is often the view held by those of Theravadan buddhism and some forms of Mahayana buddhism. Zen buddhist on the other hand usually have a different view. As one influenced by Zen, I think the view on Reincarnation is more complicated.
I’d love to help you understand better. :)
I suggest getting an introduction to buddhism. A philosopher name Alan Watts was my introduction.
alanwatts.com
Gabe–
Thanks! I must admit that the first paragraph of your comment is beyond me. But I had been wondering whether the solution might not be the “fixed number” hypothesis.
Zen does seem to be the most popular form of Buddhism here in America. Perhaps my framing of the question shows my bias in favor of the Mahayana school (it’s been a while since I’ve studied Buddhism in depth, so I can’t quite remember which I preferred).
Thanks for the URL!
pdx–
William James is one of my favorites, so I especially appreciate that link. :-)
Why, I am wondering, would heavenly creatures fall? Are they subject to the veil of illusion that keeps so many of us trapped?
I find such issues of philosophical cosmology fascinating, so I very much appreciate your information!
Yup, Buddha is pretty clear on this one. All existence is conditioned. While life in the heavenly realms may be longer, if not more pleasurable, it has an end, which is part of the same chain of causation as which gives rise to humans or animals. The root, if we can be led to think there is any definitive one, of dependent origination is ignorance. It’s not simply something we get tangled up with by accident, effectively after some fact of being, but it is the fundamental condition of our being, literally. There are reasons for why this human plane is the only one where enlightenment and nibbana are obtained, but at this hour of the morning with a GRE practice test to go take I can’t pull off the top of my head.