13: Skillful Means

Re: A thought!

J. Hughes of Changesurfer Radio and IEET (one of the guests for the “Skillfull Means” episode, replied to your question as follows:

The question is pretty much on the mark, and has hurt lots of Buddhist
philosopher’s heads. One of the core doctrines of Buddhism, which
distinguishes it from Hinduism, is the denial of a continuous discrete
self/soul. The meditational path to self-liberation is not the erase the
self, but simply to realize it never existed. Consistent with
contemporary psychology, Buddhism says the self is a perceptual illusion
masking a constantly changing set of mental processes.

So what then reincarnates? Personally I, and many Western Buddhists,
don’t believe in reincarnation, but the question could also be what’s
the relationship between you today and you tomorrow. The traditional
answer is that reincarnation is like a flame passed from one candle to
another. There is a clear chain of causation linking the two flames, but
it doesn’t make sense to ask whether they are the same flame or
different.

Of course, karma complicates that image, because you tomorrow, or in
your next life, also suffer or benefit from your previous mental states.
So another metaphor is a river. If you pour toxins in at the headwaters
you’ll find them downstream, but the question of whether the headwaters
are part of the same river as the bayou is just a subjective matter of
convention. There is no clear “river” with a beginning and ending.

The next question is what happens to the bundle of mental states that
think they are you if you happen to be lucky enough to transcend the
self illusion. The Buddha refused to answer, and basically whacked the
questioner and told them to get back to their cushion. But the
traditional interpretation is that they continue to roll around together
in your head, albeit more happily and loosely, until the death of the
body. Then, according to Theravada, you blip out altogether, and
according to Mahayana, if you do it right, you decide to consciously
reincarnate and continue to maintain the illusion of selfhood in order
to help other people.

Many Western Buddhists agree with the writer Stephen Batchelor that
belief in reincarnation is irrelevant to the practice of Buddhism, and
that you should pay attention to the Buddha’s response that the
disposition of the enlightened mind after death is irrelevant to living
your life. Howeer I think its very interesting to think about this
reincarnating no-self problem in terms of lots of transhumanist
dilemmas: should the re-animated cryonaut be considered the same person
even if only 10% of their memories and personality were recovered? What
will the status be of copies of your uploaded personality; part of you,
your children, your slaves?

Anyway, fun questions.

J.