(Post-) Buddhism without Rebirth

Traditional Buddhists tend to believe that rebirth and karma are essential parts of the Buddhist worldview and that one, therefore, cannot be a Buddhist without accepting those. For example, the 14th Dalai Lama has written that “as long as you are a Buddhist, it is necessary to accept past and future rebirth”,¹ which means that you can’t be a Buddhist without believing in rebirth.² Many Buddhist modernists, on the other hand, consider the doctrine of rebirth and karma unimportant,³ or radically reinterpret it in an attempt to bring it in line with a more or less Western, “materialist” worldview, or reject the doctrine completely. This is most clearly the case for secular Buddhists, of course, but almost all Buddhist modernists de-emphasize and/or reinterpret/​reject karma and rebirth. Furthermore, there are prominent academic Buddhist philosophers who support this modernist trend as well. For example, Mark Siderits has suggested that

while [the doctrine of karma and rebirth] has played an important role in many Buddhist cultures, it is not crucial to the central project of Buddhism. Indeed, if I take myself to live only one life instead of the indefinitely many lives promised by rebirth, then the fact of my own mortality takes on even greater significance, for I cannot then defer seeking a solution to the problem of suffering to some future life.⁴

Among modern Buddhist thinkers who rejected karma and rebirth, Buddhadāsa is probably the most prominent, although it could be argued that he did not so much reject rebirth as radically reinterpret it. In Another Kind of Birth, he defined birth as “the arising of the idea ‘I am’”,⁵ and therefore, whenever the illusion of the self arises in the mind, one is “reborn”. Nevertheless, in the same book (even on the same page), Buddhadāsa also wrote:

Take the question of whether or not there is rebirth after death. What is reborn? How is it reborn? What is its “karmic inheritance”? These questions don’t aim at the extinction of dukkha. That being so, they are not the Buddha’s teaching nor are they connected with it. They don’t lie within the range of Buddhism.⁶

Moreover, Buddhadāsa argued that karma and rebirth are inconsistent with what he takes to be a fundamental principle: no-self. If one would develop understanding “to the extent of being able to extinguish dukkha” then:

one sees without doubt that there is no self or anything belonging to a self. There is just the feeling of “I” and “mine” arising due to our being deluded by the beguiling nature of sense experience. With ultimate understanding, one knows that, because there is no one born, there is no one who dies and is reborn. Therefore, the whole question of rebirth is quite foolish and has nothing to do with Buddhism at all.⁷

The various positions in the “debate” about rebirth and karma could be ordered on a spectrum. Then, on one end we have the traditionalists, who argue that accepting the doctrine of karma and rebirth is necessary for a Buddhist, and consequently, that some “Buddhism” (in scare quotes) that rejects that doctrine is not really Buddhist at all. On the other end we find people who identify themselves as Buddhist, but who reject karma and rebirth because they consider those unnecessary and untrue (or even un-Buddhist, as Buddhadāsa seems to suggest). In between these two ends of the spectrum, there are (apparent) intermediate positions that de-emphasize and/or reinterpret the doctrine in a variety of ways.

Alternatively, if the issue is framed in terms of the necessity of the doctrine, there really are only two possibilities. One is the traditional position that accepting the doctrine of karma and rebirth is necessary. The other is the position that this doctrine is not necessary or “not crucial to the central project of Buddhism”. Although partisans of either of those positions are likely to disagree, neither of these positions is obviously (in-) correct. It is not self-evident that Buddhism must involve karma and rebirth, even though it is undeniable that these notions and their implications pervade Buddhist thought and practice. And largely because of the latter, it is not easy to isolate and remove karma and rebirth from Buddhist thought and practice either, which would be required for a Buddhism without rebirth that is genuinely Buddhist.

To be clear, I’m not all that interested in answering the question whether karma and rebirth are necessary or essential to Buddhism. I’m much more interested in the puzzle involved in the “isolation and removal” mentioned two sentences back. Or in other words, I’m curious what a “Buddhism” without karma and rebirth would or could be like, if simplistic answers (that do not take Buddhist thought and the pervasiveness of karma and rebirth sufficiently seriously) are avoided. It must be acknowledged, however, that the traditionalists may be right, meaning that such a “Buddhism” without rebirth would not be Buddhist at all. Hence the scare quotes. In that case the term “post-Buddhism” might be more appropriate, bearing in mind that “post-” as a prefix does not just mean that post-X comes after X, but does so by passing through X first. Post-Buddhism, then, is only post-Buddhist if it takes Buddhist thought (and practice) as its starting point.⁸

Anyway, my aim is not to create or invent something called “post-Buddhism”. I’m merely using this term here in recognition of the possibility that a Buddhism without rebirth may not be possible. If the traditionalist view is right, then this article is about post-Buddhism without rebirth. If they are wrong, it is about Buddhism without rebirth. That said, there may be an additional reason why the term “post-Buddhism” might be more appropriate. The main reason to explore the notion of a (post-) Buddhism without rebirth is that the doctrine of karma and rebirth conflicts with everything else we know (including relevant scientific and philosophical findings). However, it seems kind of pointless and inconsistent to try to make Buddhist thought more externally coherent in one respect, while allowing it to remain externally incoherent in other respects.⁹ Or in other words, a (post-) Buddhism that abandons rebirth largely for science-related reasons, should not refrain from making other “adjustments” if those same reasons apply. (To what extent that actually is necessary is an open question, of course.)

It is important to keep in mind that Buddhism developed within a pre-scientific and pre-modern worldview and conceptual framework, and that it, because of that, conflicts with a science-based worldview in various ways and lacks important modern/scientific concepts and categories. One important kind of concept that is missing in the Buddhist conceptual framework has to do with the social sphere of reality. Concepts like the “state” and “society” developed in Europe around the 18th century (or a bit earlier, in case of “state”) and spread to South and East Asia near the end of the 19th century, but have only been adopted by Buddhist thinkers at a very superficial level.¹⁰ An important consequence hereof is that Buddhist thought is (and always has been) largely blind for the social nature of some problems and their (possible, partial) solutions. Of course, it is not self-evident that such social aspects matter, but they might, and a conceptual framework that makes it impossible to recognize those social aspects would be unable to see that, and would be unable to incorporate (or adjust for) relevant findings of the social sciences (undermining its external coherence).

It should be noted that “updating” Buddhism to conform with aspects of a more science-based worldview is not necessarily problematic (even if it is often controversial). Nowadays, very few Buddhists still insist that the world is flat with mount Meru in its center, for example. The vast majority of Buddhists (including the 14th Dalai Lama, for example) accept that we are living on a globe and do not consider this a problematic view, even though the Buddha had very different beliefs about this. And no one would argue that a Buddhist who accepts this basic fact about the shape of Earth is really not a Buddhist at all. However, the more adjustments are made, and the more doctrinally central (or the less peripheral) those adjustments are, the harder it becomes to defend that the end result is still (a variety of) the same thing. I don’t think there is an objective way to decide the boundary between what is still Buddhism and what no longer isn’t, however. So, even if my goal is not to envision or construct some kind of “post-Buddhism”, it may very well be the case that that is a more appropriate label for a consistent Buddhism-based worldview without karma and rebirth. (Notice, however, that constructing such a “consistent Buddhism-based worldview without karma and rebirth” – if it can be done – is a much larger project than what can be achieved in one article, or even by one person.)

Before proceeding, I want to emphasize that I’m not claiming that “post-Buddhism” or some other kind of “update” attempting to bring Buddhist thought (more) in line with a science-based worldview is somehow “better” than more traditional varieties of Buddhism.¹¹ I make no such normative claim.¹² It could be argued that a post-Buddhism in this sense is likely to be more veracious than a Buddhism that maintains beliefs that are problematic from a scientific point of view, but veracity is by no means the only standard that can be used to judge a view. (It is probably also worth reminding that Buddhism is not a single view, but a family of historically related religions and philosophies that includes widely divergent views on a variety of topics. Because of this, it is not all that hard to find support for, or arguments against almost any idea somewhere in the Buddhist tradition. As much as possible, I’ll try to stick with fairly conventional interpretations of Buddhist doctrine – or my understanding thereof, at least – and avoid sectarianism, but again, different interpretations are possible, and there are undoubtedly multiple ways of excising karma and rebirth from Buddhist thought.)

To help set the scene and provide some context, there are a few issues that require attention before discussing what a (post-) Buddhism without rebirth could entail. These include a particular kind of charge against those who reject the doctrine of rebirth, as well as the “argument from suicide” and reasons why someone (Buddhist or not) might reject (variants of) this doctrine in the first place. These and some related issues will be the topics of the next six sections. After that, we’ll turn to the Four Noble Truths, and what a rejection of rebirth and karma would (or could) mean for those.

Ucchedavāda, sassatavāda, the self, and rebirth

One of the most common responses in Buddhist circles to a rejection of rebirth and karma is the accusation of ucchedavāda (annihilationism). It seems to me that this accusation is often (but not always) inaccurate. In fact, it is probably more often the case that those who make this accusation are themselves “guilty” of sassatavāda (eternalism). Ucchedavāda and sassatavāda (I’ll omit italics and English translations hereafter) are two views related to the self and rebirth that the Buddha rejected in a number of sūtras, and a brief discussion of these views and why the Buddha rejected them will be helpful (I hope) in clarifying some of the metaphysical issues involved in the Buddhist doctrine (or doctrines!) of rebirth.

The main primary sources on ucchedavāda and sassatavāda are treatise II of the Paṭisambhidāmagga (KN 12), the Brahmajāla Sutta (DN 1), the Aggivacchagotta Sutta (MN 72), the Pañcattaya Sutta (MN 102), and the sections “Pārileyya” and “Yamaka” of the Khandhasaṃyutta chapter of the Connected Discourses (SN 22.81 and 85, respectively).¹³ Invariably, the two doctrines (vāda means “doctrine”) are discussed in the context of wrong views. The most succinct summary of what is wrong with these views is A.K. Warder’s in his introduction to the English translation of the Paṭisambhidāmagga by Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli:

[T]he numerous wrong views or opinions [..] are all based on the original error of imagining a “soul” or continuing entity in one’s experience. They are all said to reduce to the two fundamental mistakes of imagining such a soul as “eternal” or imagining it as being “annihilated” on the death of the body.¹⁴

According to sassatavāda, the self or soul is eternal; according to ucchedavāda, the self or soul is annihilated at death. The Buddha rejected both views, which sometimes seems to be interpreted as implying some kind of middle path between these two extremes, but such an interpretation would be wrong (or at least, twist the notion of a “middle path” beyond recognition). Let’s try to be as clear and systematic as possible about what these two wrong views claim exactly and why the Buddha rejected them.

Sassatavāda holds that
[XS] there is a self or soul (or something relevantly similar),
and
[ES] this self or soul (etc.) is “eternal” (i.e., it exists forever).

Ucchedavāda holds that
[XS] there is a self or soul (or something relevantly similar),
and
[AS] this self or soul (etc.) is annihilated at (the) death (of the body).

The Buddha did not reject [ES] and [AS] because he believed that there is some kind of compromise or “middle path” between these. Rather, he rejected both sassatavāda and ucchedavāda because of what they have in common, namely, the first claim, [XS]. Sassatavāda and ucchedavāda are “self views” – that is, they are doctrines claiming (either explicitly or implicitly) that there is a self (or soul, etc.), and it is this what the Buddha denied. Both these views are wrong views because they maintain [XS], that there is a self or soul.

Notice that the eternalist and annihilationist claims [ES] and [AS] cannot coherently be made without first claiming [XS]. Hence, it is nonsensical to accuse a view of being either sassatavāda or ucchedavāda if that view does not include [XS]. This is doubly nonsensical, in fact, because it is because of [XS] that the Buddha rejected sassatavāda and ucchedavāda.

Taking this into account, it becomes immediately obvious that the charge of ucchedavāda addressed at those who reject rebirth is often inaccurate. Of course, if someone would hold that there is a self or soul, but that this self or soul is not reborn after death, that could be characterized as ucchedavāda. However, this is typically not what Buddhists who reject rebirth claim. Rather, they typically reject [XS] (i.e., the existence of a self or soul), and often state quite explicitly that if there is no self or soul, there is nothing to be annihilated.

The accusation of ucchedavāda reveals something else, however – it acts as a kind of mirror. To mistake a view that rejects rebirth for an annihilationist view one must take the existential claim [XS] for granted. Only when one (implicitly and unconsciously) assumes [XS], is ucchedavāda reducible to just [AS]. And only then does the rejection of rebirth mean ucchedavāda. However, if one accepts [XS] and rejects [AS] then it is a very small step towards sassatavāda.

Notice that [ES] means that the self or soul is never annihilated. Thus, [ES] is equivalent to the denial of the following generalization of [AS]:
[AS*] this self or soul (etc.) is annihilated (at some point in time).
Importantly, as far as I can see, the rejection of [AS] is often motivated by a rejection of [AS*] (or something very similar); and the equivalence of [ES] and not-[AS*] implies that if one accepts [XS] and rejects [AS*], then one (implicitly) holds [XS] and [ES], which define sassatavāda. In other words, those who interpret the rejection of rebirth as ucchedavāda are often themselves “guilty” of sassatavāda, which is just as much a wrong view. (Notice that this is not a tu quoque, as the accusation of ucchedavāda is inaccurate. It turns out that it is often the accuser who holds a “wrong view”, while the accused actually does not.)

Furthermore, even if the accusation of ucchedavāda would be accurate, this would only be a reasonable ground for expulsion from the Buddhist tradition if the equally wrong view of sassatavāda would face the same consequence, but that cannot be the case. The vast majority of practicing Buddhists accepts [XS]. For example, Richard Gombrich has found that “belief in personal survival after death is a fundamental feature of Sinhalese Buddhism in practice”,¹⁵ and East-Asian Pure Land Buddhists (i.e., most East-Asian Buddhists) invariably believe in personal rebirth in Amitābha’s Pure land after death. Such beliefs are typically combined with either an explicit or implicit acceptance of [ES],¹⁶ leading to the surprising conclusion that the vast majority of nominal Buddhists are sassatavādin. (And once more, from the sassatavādin perspective, which takes [XS] for granted, the rejection of rebirth equates to ucchedavāda indeed.) Since sassatavāda is apparently no ground for expulsion from the Buddhist tradition, neither should the equally wrong view of ucchedavāda be. (But again, this is mostly moot, as most educated Buddhists who reject rebirth are not actually “guilty” of ucchedavāda anyway.)

One may wonder at this point, if there is no self or soul (as the Buddha claimed, which was his reason for rejecting [XS] and, therefore, ucchedavāda and sassatavāda), then what is reborn? Does the notion of rebirth even make sense without something like a self or soul to be reborn?

The more or less orthodox answer to the question what is reborn, is “nothing”. In the context of Buddhism, the preferred term tends to be “rebirth” rather than “reincarnation” exactly for this reason. “Reincarnation” means something like “again-in-the-flesh-process”. The term implies that there is something that “reincarnates”, something that takes new flesh. But Buddhism, at least in theory, rejects this. (“At least in theory”, as Buddhist sassatavāda does indeed believe in reincarnation in the literal sense.) There is nothing that is reborn. There is no self or soul. There is nothing that transmigrates from one life to the next. Rather, the process of rebirth is a causal process. The death of one sentient being causes the birth of another, but nothing connects those two sentient beings aside from this causal connection. (In Buddhist texts, this is often illustrated with a flame passing from one lamp, candle, or fire to the next.)

But again, this is the “in theory” answer. Given Buddhist theories of causation, rebirth as a merely causal process would have to be immediate, and indeed, that is what Theravādins typically hold. In Tibetan and East-Asian Buddhism, however, up to 49 days pass between death and rebirth, which only makes sense if there is something (i.e., some thing) that transmigrates from one life, to that intermediate stage (bardo in Tibetan Buddhism), to the next life. That “something”, moreover, is typically believed not to be annihilated (ever). In other words, some of the most widespread Buddhist views on rebirth implicitly accept [XS] and reject [AS*], and are, therefore, sassatavāda.

One a side note, that sassatavāda is a mainstream view within Buddhism (and, thus, no longer a “wrong view” in practice) should really not be all that surprising. According to Terror Management Theory (TMT),¹⁷ the main psychological purpose of religion is to help us control the mostly unconscious fear (or “terror”) of death by providing “symbolic immortality” and promising “literal immortality”. The first is largely irrelevant here, but the second is not.¹⁸ The religious promise of “literal immortality” is the promise of some kind of afterlife or something like reincarnation or some other way of denying the finality of death. The orthodox, no-self view of rebirth fails in this respect, however, as whatever is reborn is not me, and thus, rebirth does not offer me literal immortality. As such, the no-self/no-soul view is of relatively little help in controlling the fear/terror of death, which is one of the main purposes of religion. Sassatavāda, on the other hand, denies death by promising eternal life (of the self/soul, at least). Hence, it satisfies a psychological need that the no-self view cannot satisfy, giving it a major advantage in the marketplace of religious ideas.

The argument from suicide

A common argument against the rejection of rebirth by secular Buddhists and some other Buddhist modernists is that, if there is no rebirth, then the solution for the problem of suffering is suicide. The argument appears to be something like the following:

If I am not reborn, then my death will cause the cessation of my suffering. And given the badness of suffering, the sooner I bring about this cessation of suffering, the better, which I can achieve by committing suicide.

The fatal flaw in this argument is that it assumes an exclusive concern with one’s own suffering, including one’s suffering in future lives (which seems to imply a sassatavādin understanding of rebirth). The idea that, without rebirth, suicide is an obvious way to end suffering makes sense only if you assume that only your own suffering matters, which is an oddly selfish point of view for a Buddhist. In contrast to this selfish view, in the Bodhicaryāvatāra, Śāntideva wrote that

[w]ithout exception, no sufferings belong to anyone. They must be warded off simply because they are suffering. Why is any limitation put on this?
If one asks why suffering should be prevented, no one disputes that! If it must be prevented, then all of it must be.¹⁹

Of course, the Bodhicaryāvatāra is a Mahāyāna text, but the basic idea expressed here is not exclusive to that school. All of Buddhism holds that suffering is bad and that suffering (therefore) needs to be prevented, alleviated, and/or remedied. This is what underlies the Four Noble Truths, for example. (More about this below.) Furthermore, all of Buddhism holds that all suffering is bad, and not just my own.

Furthermore, as Śāntideva also pointed out, an exclusive concern with my own suffering is incoherent. It is based on a false belief in a persistent self motivating an absolute separation between “self” and “others”. Śāntideva wrote:

When happiness is liked by me and others equally, what is so special about me that I strive after happiness only for myself?
When fear and suffering are disliked by me and others equally, what is so special about me that I protect myself and not the other?
If I give them no protection because their suffering does not afflict me, why do I protect my body against future suffering when it does not afflict me?
The notion “it is the same me even then” is a false construction, since it is one person who dies, quite another who is born.²⁰

The crux of the matter is in the last verse: “It is one person who dies, quite another who is born.” Or in other words, the person you are at the time of your death is not the same person you were at the time of your birth. Neither is you-now the same person as you-10-years-ago or you-10-years-from-now. There is no permanent, unchanging thing, such as a self or soul, that connects and identifies these various persons. What connects them is a causal process, but that is not a thing, and certainly not a self or soul as traditionally conceived. And because of that, these different temporal stages of the phenomenal (experienced) “you” or “me” are really not the same person, which implies that the notion “it is the same me even then” is a mistake (or a “false construction”). Me-then is not the same me as me-now, even if they are connected by a causal process. And consequently, Śāntideva argues implicitly, the relation between me and other(s) is not of a fundamentally different kind from the relation between me-then and me-now (i.e., both are relations between non-identical beings). This being the case, if I protect me-then from suffering even though me-then is not the same as me-now, then I should also protect others from suffering. To refrain from doing so would be inconsistent.

All suffering matters – not just my own – and regardless of whether suicide ends my suffering, it does little to alleviate or prevent the suffering of others. In fact, it is more likely to cause more suffering. (This is not the case for everyone, of course. There are some individuals – I will resist the urge to name a few of them – whose suicide would probably decrease overall suffering.) The argument from suffering, then, fails miserably. A rejection of rebirth only implies an endorsement of suicide if other key Buddhist beliefs – such as no-self and the basic premise that all suffering is bad – are rejected first. But at that point, we’re not dealing with a Buddhist at all.

A variant of the argument from suicide may be successful in undermining one specific modernist reinterpretation of karma and rebirth, however. On the basis of Abhidharma metaphysics, which holds that reality ultimately consists of a succession of dharmas without duration, it is sometimes suggested that the self is like this. That is, our phenomenal or experienced self is really a succession of momentary selves that come into existence and immediately go out of existence again, one such momentary self causing the arising of the next. In this interpretation, rebirth is nothing but that process. That is, we are “reborn” continuously – every arising of a new momentary self (that immediately disappears again) is a “rebirth”. And “karma” rules this process. Good “karma” leads to good “rebirths”, which effectively means that doing good in this life will be paid back in this life. (And the same for bad “karma” and “rebirths”, of course.)

The main problem with this view becomes clear when we ask what this implies with regards to saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. Saṃsāra is the cycle of death and rebirth, which in this view is identical to this life. Nirvāṇa is liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth, which in this view occurs when I die, as my biological death terminates the succession of monentary selves, which is saṃsāra. Since nirvāṇa is the ultimate goal, this seems to lead to the conclusion that I should commit suicide to achieve that goal. (But notice, again, that this is a problem for this particular modernist reinterpretation of rebirth, and not (necessarily) for a rejection of rebirth.²¹)

A brief interlude on Buddhist epistemology

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that is concerned with the nature and sources of knowledge. The most important Buddhist epistemologist was Dharmakīrti, and the most important Buddhist epistemological concept is pramāṇa, which is usually translated as “means of true knowledge” (or something similar).²² By far the most influential definition of pramāṇa is that given by Dharmakīrti in his Pramāṇavārttika:

A source/means of knowledge (pramāṇa) is uncontradicted (avisaṃvādin) acquaintance/cognition (jñāna). Uncontradictedness [of the acquaintance of a thing] is [that] thing’s constant action (i.e., constant effect).²³

The key term in this definition is the adjective avisaṃvādin, which contrasts with visaṃvādin (the a- prefix means “not”). Visaṃvādin means “contradictory”, “disagreeing”, “inconsistent”, “incoherent,” and so forth, and consequently, the most literal translations of avisaṃvādin are “uncontradicted”, “non-contradictory”, or “coherent”. (It should be noted, however, that the term is translated in a number of different ways by others, most commonly either as “trustworthy”,²⁴ or as “non-deceptive”.²⁵)

Dharmakīrti defines pramāṇa as avisaṃvāda, and the latter in turn as constancy of effect. What exactly this means he did not explain, however. He did not write an autocommentary on this part of the Pramāṇavārttika, possibly because Devendrabuddhi wrote his commentary in close collaboration with Dharmakīrti, making an autocommentary unnecessary.²⁶ In that commentary, the Pramāṇavārttikapañjikā, Devendrabuddhi explains that sometimes:

one may not be certain of the difference between a [genuine] perception and a spurious perception when they occur; in such cases the actual perceptual awareness is known to be trustworthy [avisaṃvādin] through the engagement of a subsequent instrumental cognition.²⁷

In other words, we can trust that a perception of a thing is genuine if it coheres with subsequent perceptions or other cognitions, such as inference. (Devendrabuddhi also suggested that the same criterion does not apply to inferential knowledge, which makes sense considering that valid inference is already coherent by definition.) A cognition (jñāna), then, cannot be taken at face value, but must be examined and tested before accepting it (as true).

While this may not sound like a particularly exotic idea, it contrasts sharply with the traditional conception of the aims and scope of epistemology in the West. Devendrabuddhi’s interpretation of Dharmakīrti reminds more of scientific practice – examining and testing – than of Western epistemology. The aim in the latter has typically been to identify an infallible foundation for knowledge, but in Dharmakīrti’s view there appears to be no such infallible foundation. Perception (which is a main source of knowledge, together with inference) can always be wrong, and the only way to find out whether a perception is genuine or spurious in some particular case is to test whether it coheres with other cognitions, that is, with what else we already know or can find out (by means of inference and perception).

The comparison with scientific practice may appear anachronistic, but my claim is merely that Dharmakīrti’s and Devendrabuddhi’s ideas about the practical, scholarly project of gaining knowledge is interestingly similar to the most general principles of scientific methodology. Theodor Stcherbatsky (Фёдор Щербатской), the father of Western academic study of Buddhist logic and epistemology, reached a similar conclusion.

The Buddhists insist that if an idea has arisen it is not at all enough for maintaining that it is true and that it agrees with reality. There is as yet no necessary connection between them and a discrepancy is possible. At this stage cognition is absolutely unreliable. But later on, when its origin has been examined, when it has been found to agree with experience, when its efficacy has been ascertained, only then can we maintain that it represents truth and we can repudiate all objections to its being correct.²⁸

Hence, a belief is not justified until “its origin has been examined”, until it has been tested and “found to agree with experience”, and until we know its effects and causes. In very general terms, these are what we now consider to be standard scientific procedures and criteria.

As mentioned (in parentheses) two paragraphs back, the two main sources of knowledge in Buddhist epistemology are perception and inference. Only in exceptional circumstances are we justified to accept something from testimony. In epistemology, “testimony” refers to what we learn from texts or from others, but in Buddhist epistemology, testimony as a source of knowledge is usually scripture (i.e., sūtras etc.). Jonathan Stoltz summarizes Dharmakīrti’s ideas about the circumstances that allow us to accept something on the basis of testimony or “scripturally based inference” as follows:

If a statement can be established empirically (through perception) or through ordinary (nonscriptural) inferential reasoning, then such a statement is not one that should be established through scripturally based inference. Expressed differently, the only kinds of truths that can be established through scriptural testimony are those that pertain to religious matters that transcend the empirical and rational realms.
Dharmakīrti goes on to state that a threefold analysis is to be applied to the scripture, s, from which one wishes to draw a scripturally based inference:
(a) s cannot be contradicted by ordinary perception.
(b) s cannot be contradicted by ordinary inferential reasoning.
(c) s cannot contain any internal contradictions with respect to its pronouncements on radically inaccessible²⁹ matters.³⁰

Two things should be noted about this complex criterion for the acceptability of scriptural testimony. First, sub-criteria (a) to (c) are all coherence criteria, which accord well with the general coherentist approach to knowledge and epistemic justification that is revealed by Dharmakīrti’s definition of pramāṇa as avisaṃvādin (coherent). (a) states that s must be coherent with perception; (b) states that it must be coherent with inference; and (c) states that is must be internally coherent, meaning that the different statements that make up s must cohere with each other (i.e., not contradict each other).

Second, scripture is an acceptable source of knowledge only if (in addition to these three sub-criteria) it concerns what Stoltz calls “radically inaccessible matters”, that is, matters that cannot be decided on the basis of perception and inference (or a combination thereof). What must be realized, however, is that with the growth of scientific knowledge, the domain of such “radically inaccessible matters” has shrunk considerably, and has possibly disappeared entirely. Even more importantly, perhaps, scientific knowledge is entirely based on perception and inference, and therefore, Dharmakīrti’s complex criterion implies that scriptural testimony (i.e., using scripture as a source of knowledge) cannot contradict scientific knowledge. We are only allowed to infer something from scripture if that something does not conflict with scientific knowledge (in as far as that scientific knowledge is “knowledge” by Dharmakīrti’s coherentist criterion, of course).

Inferential and empirical defenses of rebirth

Apparently, the doctrine of rebirth did not belong to the category of radically inaccessible matters in Dharmakīrti’s opinion, as he does not rely on scriptural testimony in his defense of the Buddhist doctrine of rebirth against Cārvāka materialism. He did not appeal to empirical evidence either. Rather, his argument is based on inference from premises he held to be self-evident or sufficiently supported by other evidence. According to Cārvāka, sentient life arises due to purely material/physical circumstances, or in other words, the mental has material causes. According to Dharmakīrti this is impossible, however, because it would imply that other material things like rocks and trees would be sentient too, and – more importantly – because he held a view of causation that assumes that there must be some relevant similarity between causes and effects. What follows from this view is that the mental cannot be caused by the material, but must have another mental cause. And that other mental cause can only be a pre-existing mind, which means that the birth of a mind must be caused by (the death of) an earlier mind.³¹ The main problem for this defense of rebirth is that the view of causation it is based on is mistaken. Science has found many example of causes and effects that have little, if anything in common. It just isn’t true that there must be some relevant similarity between causes and effects, and with that, Dharmakīrti’s argument falls apart.

So, why didn’t Dharmakīrti appeal to empirical “evidence” for rebirth? The genre of previous-lives-stories and other kinds of anecdotes that are supposed to support rebirth or reincarnation is as old as the belief in the latter, but Dharmakīrti did not use this kind of argument. A possible, but entirely speculative (!) explanation is that he realized that this kind of argument is not nearly as strong as it might appear to be. In fact, this kind of argument rarely impresses anyone who doesn’t believe in rebirth already. Perhaps, the best way to explain why this kind of argument really does little, if anything to support rebirth is by means of an analogy to David Hume’s famous argument against miracles.

(1) Suppose that some text(s) or some people report the occurrence of some miraculous event m.
(2) Then, either:
  (a) m happened, and those reports are true, or
  (b) m did not happen, and those reports are false.
(3) The likelihoods of (a) and (b) depend on the probabilities of m and the falsehood of reports, such that:
  (i) the probability of (a) is the probability of m, and
  (ii) the probability of (b) is the probability of the reports of m being false.
(4) Experience tells us that:
  (iii) the probability of m is very small (which is true by definition – otherwise m would not be a miracle);
  and that:
  (iv) reports (of any kind) are quite often false or mistaken (especially if they report improbable things and/or if the report somehow serves the interests of the reporter),
(5) Therefore, the probability of the falsehood of the reports of m is much larger than the probability of m. And therefore, reports of miracles cannot serve as evidence for anything.

Now, anecdotes about supposed “memories” of previous lives or things that some child supposedly could not have learned in this life are not exactly reports of miracles, but they are largely analogous. A report of a miracle is a report describing something that is extremely improbable or even impossible given everything else we know. If everything after “describing” in the previous sentence defines “report of a miracle”, then a reported rebirth anecdote is a report of a miracle. Previous-live-memories and other kinds of anecdotes that are supposed to support rebirth are extremely improbable or even impossible given everything else we know. The probability that such anecdotes are true and, therefore, a rather large part of science is wrong is several orders of magnitude smaller than the probability that those anecdotes are false, mistaken, misinterpreted, or misunderstood.

Anecdotes don’t prove anything, especially considering that every time people took the effort to objectively scrutinize some anecdote that was supposed to support rebirth, it turned out to be better explained otherwise. Anecdotal evidence for rebirth has a tendency to evaporate upon closer inspection. But even if that wasn’t the case, anecdotes wouldn’t prove anything as long as more coherent alternative explanations are available. At the very least, such anecdotes need to be accompanied by a theory explaining how rebirth is even possible given everything we know about brains, minds, physics, and whatever else is relevant.

Moral arguments for and against belief in rebirth and karma

In addition to empirical and scriptural arguments for rebirth and karma, another common type of argument is moral.³² The typical moral argument for belief in rebirth (or other afterlife theories) is that the threat of punishment for bad actions in our current life makes us better people. This doesn’t really work, however, for the same reason that severe punishments don’t work as deterrents of crime: people aren’t very good at taking distant future consequences into account, especially if those consequences are relatively uncertain, and especially in cases where rationality is somewhat forced into the background by emotions or desires. Hence, this moral argument for belief in rebirth and karma fails.

There is, however, also a moral argument against belief in rebirth and karma, and that argument might be more successful, although this success is rather limited if moral arguments aren’t accepted, of course. Theories of rebirth and karma are common tools to justify caste systems and the suffering of others in this life. “They brought it upon themselves by doing bad things in their previous lives.” Consequently, nothing needs to be done about the suffering of others, which is in direct contradiction with Buddhist teachings about compassion and lovingkindness.

Substance dualism and the naturalistic “alternative”

Rebirth theories can be classified in a number of ways, but the most fundamental distinction is probably that between supernaturalistic theories that depend on substance dualism (which includes sassatavāda) and naturalistic theories that don’t. Substance dualism is the idea that the mental and the material are two different kinds of things. There are minds and there are bodies (as well as other kinds of material/physical things, of course), and the former aren’t supervenient on, or reducible to the latter.

Interestingly, in the Aggivacchagotta Sutta (MN 72), the Buddha appears to reject both substance dualism and monism, which holds that the mental and material are (aspects of) the same substance. (Varieties of monism differ in what they take that one substance or kind of thing to be: materialists believe that it is material, idealists believe that it is mental, and neutral monists believe that it is something else.) To be more precise, in this sūtra, the Buddha denies that he holds either view. However, there really is no third option in this case. There are very many fundamentally different varieties of substance dualism and even more of monism, but at this most basic level the choice is just between believing that there ultimately is only one kind of substance or that there are more. Hence, the Buddha’s denial that he holds either view appears to be a kind of quietism, that is, a refusal to decide or say what he believed to be the case. This quietism was not adopted by the Buddhist tradition, however. (And it is quite debatable that the Buddha was consistent in this regard as well.) The predominant (and nearly universal) view within Buddhism is substance dualism.

This isn’t particularly surprising, by the way, as substance dualism is more or less the default view among humans everywhere. The only exception to this general “rule” that I am aware of is ancient Judaism, which appears to have accepted some kind of materialist monism. Under the influence of Greek philosophy – Plato, specifically – substance dualism became part of the Jewish and Christian worldviews around the beginning of the second century CE.³³

Despite its predominance, substance dualism is almost certainly wrong. The doctrine’s most prominent defender in Western philosophy was Descartes, and early critics of his view revealed problems that are now generally considered to be fatal. One of Descartes’s earliest critics was princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, who objected to Descartes idea that my mind is what I am, while my body is merely something I have. Elisabeth pointed out that the mind is not merely present in the body (in the way a driver can be present in a car, for example), but is very closely connected to it. We now have good reason to believe that Elisabeth was entirely right in this respect: mind and body are inseparable and I am both.³⁴ Elisabeth was also one of the first who raised what is the most fundamental – and arguably fatal – objection to Cartesian dualism: if the mental and the material are fundamentally different substances, then they cannot possibly causally interact – and certainly not without breaking the laws of physics. If they are fundamentally different substances, then a physical event (such as stepping on a sharp stone) cannot possibly cause a mental event (such as pain), and a mental event (such as my desire to relieve that pain) cannot possibly cause a physical event (such as moving my foot off the sharp stone). It is largely for this reason that the vast majority of philosophers and scientists (in relevant fields) nowadays consider substance dualism to be incoherent.

Substance dualism is an example of the unfortunate human habit of trying to “explain” what we don’t understand by positing something supernatural outside the sphere of physical reality, implying that we cannot observe it, measure it, or subject it to experiment, and therefore, that we cannot learn or know anything about it.³⁵ One reason why people believe in substance dualism is that they assume that cognitive science cannot explain important aspects of the mental, such as consciousness. Cognitive science has made some huge leaps in the past decades, but even if it had not, there is another serious problem for this idea: it depends on the assumption that positing an immaterial or non-physical mental substance better explains consciousness and other difficult aspects of the mind than the naturalistic or “materialist” explanations offered by science. However, that assumption is absurd. We do not know anything about such supposed mental substances or even how we could get to know anything about them (which seems fundamentally impossible, in fact), and consequently, those cannot explain anything. Rather than explaining consciousness, substance dualism turns it into an unexplainable mystery.

The most important, but not unrelated, reason why substance dualism is so popular is that it appears to leave open the possibility of an immortal soul, which is a central dogma in many religions, including sassatavādin currents within Buddhism. If the mind is just a brain process, or otherwise existentially dependent on the brain, then when our brains and bodies die, we die. But if our mind is something else, namely, some kind of immaterial, mental substance, then we might survive our bodily death. We are “programmed” to crave immortality (as very briefly explained above), which explains why substance dualism is so common, but it takes only a moment of reflection to realize that dualism cannot deliver the goods either. Again, we do not know anything about mental substances, if they exist, so we do not know whether they are immortal either. For all we know, our immaterial minds (if we would have those) die every time we fall asleep and a new mind is generated when we wake up.

So, in sum, substance dualism makes the mind an unexplainable mystery, would break the laws of physics, and can’t even provide what we’re asking from it (i.e., immortality). It is one of the worst dead ends in the history of human thought, partially because people keep stumbling into this same dead end again and again and again.

Let’s turn, then, to the naturalistic alternative: rebirth in a materialist or physicalist universe. It should be noted immediately that this alternative is prima facie much more in line with Buddhist thought than the substance dualist variety as it denies the existence of a soul. To avoid ucchedavāda it should deny the existence of a self as well, of course, but there is no reason why it couldn’t do so, while there are plenty of reasons why it should.³⁶ A naturalistic, non-dualist theory of rebirth would just claim that the death of one sentient being causes the birth of another. If we add the doctrine of karma: the morally better the life of that first sentient being, the better the type of the second sentient being. (For example, the death of an evil person may cause the birth of a shrimp.) Not much more needs to be said about this naturalistic “alternative”, except that there is not a shred of evidence in its favor and that everything we do know about biology and so forth tells us that this theory is completely and utterly wrong.

Perhaps, it is useful here to quickly jump back to Dharmakīrti’s epistemology. Recall that Buddhist epistemology basically accepts two sources of knowledge: observation and inference/reason. There is a third source of knowledge – namely scripture – but only when observation and inference cannot tell us anything, because what we want to know is fundamentally out of their reach. Rebirth, in Dharmakīrti’s view, does not belong to that domain, however, so we need to rely on observation and inference. What that means in practice follows from Dharmakīrti’s defition of pramāṇa as avisaṃvāda: coherence is our guide. We accept what is coherent with available evidence and with we accepted on the same grounds before. In other words, we adopt a more or less “scientific” (or “naturalistic”?) approach to gaining knowledge. If we do that in this case, and take into account what we have learned in the many centuries since Dharmakīrti, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the doctrine of rebirth and karma is false. There is no rebirth. And I’m quite convinced, in fact, that Dharmakīrti would have come to this conclusion as well. (And probably the Buddha too.)

The Four Noble Truths

So, after this 8500-word introduction, we can finally get to the point. What could Buddhism without rebirth be like? There are many different possible approaches that could be taken in answering this question, but it seems to me that any plausible approach would have to start with the foundations. Those foundations are to be found in the sūtra that is traditionally believed to contain the Buddha’s very first and most fundamental teachings, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (SN 56.11; the title of this sūtra can be translated as “setting the Dharma wheel in motion”). The most important teaching presented therein, often interpreted as some kind of synopsis of everything Buddhism is about, is the “Four Noble Truths” (4NT). The following is a translation of these “truths” by Bhikkhu Boddhi:

[NT1] Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering.
[NT2] Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the origin of suffering: it is this craving which leads to renewed existence, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there; that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, craving for extermination.
[NT3] Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering: it is the remainderless fading away and cessation of that same craving, the giving up and relinquishing of it, freedom from it, nonreliance on it.
[NT4] Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of of the way leading to the cessation of suffering: it is this Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.³⁷

The sūtra continues with some further explanation of 4NT. Specifically, it uses different verbs to explain what must be “done” with regards to the four different items on the list.

• [NT1] or suffering must be “fully understood”. The verb used is parijārāti, meaning something like “comprehend”, “recognize”, or “know for certain”.
• [NT2] or the origin of suffering – that is craving – must be “abandoned”. The verb used here is pajahati, “give up”, “renounce”, “let go of”.
• [NT3] or the cessation of suffering must be experienced or “realized” by oneself. Sacchikaroti means “see with one’s (own) eyes” or “experience (by oneself)”.
• [NT4] or the path towards the cessation of suffering (i.e., the Noble Eightfold Path) must be “developed”. Bhavati means (among others) “be”, “exist”, “become”, “happen”, “occur”, and so forth. Most often it means something like “become” or “get”.

The Zeroth Noble Truth (NT0): the badness of suffering

Before discussing the individual Noble Truths it is worth making explicit what is assumed by 4NT, namely, that suffering is bad. That there is such an underlying assumption should be especially obvious when considering NT3 and NT4. Why would there need to be a path towards its cessation otherwise? This assumption could be considered the Zeroth Noble Truth (NT0). Something like NT0 can also be found in the first block quote by Śāntideva above: “If one asks why suffering should be prevented, no one disputes that!”³⁸ Paraphrasing: Suffering is bad; no one disputes that!

Śāntideva’s exclamation is also interesting because of the claim that everyone agrees that suffering is bad, implying that NT0 is universal rather than specifically Buddhist. The latter has also been proclaimed in Western philosophy by Derek Parfit, who wrote that “the double badness of suffering” is universally accepted. Suffering is “doubly bad” because it is both bad for the sufferer and unqualified bad. At the very least, undeserved suffering is bad, but according Parfit no one ever deserves to suffer, and consequently, “all suffering is in itself both bad for the sufferer and impersonally bad”.³⁹ However, Parfit’s defense of his claim of the universality of the double badness of suffering does not amount to much more than that he knows “of no one who has both understood the claim that suffering is doubly bad […] and in an undistorted and unbiased way rejected this claim” and that he believes that “the double badness of suffering is already […] very close to being a universally recognized truth”.⁴⁰

Lack of explicit evidence doesn’t mean that Parfit – or Śāntideva! – is wrong, of course. Furthermore, in chapter 13, “The Badness of Death and Suffering”, of A Buddha Land in This World,⁴¹ I ask what would count as evidence for this claim, because affirmative universal claims are notoriously hard to prove (as are negative existential claims). All that could be established is that apparent counter-evidence is not really counter-evidence at all, and that is exactly what Parfit did. The only case he could think of of someone who appeared not to hold that suffering is bad was Nietzsche, but in a careful analysis, he showed that this appearance was mistaken. Taken that into account, Parfit proved his claim as well as he could.

However, there may be other cases. For example, Wayne Hudson mentioned that “some American Indian societies […] took great pleasure in torturing captives to death and regarded such practices as central to their honour code”.⁴² Examples like this are easy to come by, and many people seem to approve of, or even rejoice in the suffering of some others, such as outsiders and criminals. Apparently suffering is not always bad; it can even be good if it happens to the other. It can be shown quite easily that this is incoherent, however, as I did in “The Badness of Death and Suffering”.⁴³ My argument there hinges on the epistemological (and meta-ethical) idea that intersubjectivity (which is a kind of coherence) generates epistemic justification. If different people agree about the badness of suffering but disagree about exceptions, then the belief in the badness of suffering is a justified belief, but the beliefs in exceptions are not. And therefore, paraphrasing Śāntideva, if suffering is bad, then all of it is.

The important points here are (first) that there is a Zeroth Truth (NT0), namely, that all suffering is bad; and (second) that we have good reason to believe that this is a universal “truth”.⁴⁴

The First Noble Truth (NT1): the nature of suffering

The First Noble Truth (NT1) doesn’t just say that there is suffering, but also gives examples of what suffering is. NT1 must be “fully understood” and it makes little sense if all what must be fully understood is that there is suffering. It seems much more likely that what must be fully understood is what is illustrated by those examples, namely, what suffering is.

It is sometimes suggested that the Buddha claimed that life is suffering. This is incorrect. According to the sūtra, he said that “birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering”. In other words, life inherently involves suffering, but that’s not the same as saying that life is suffering.⁴⁵

“Suffering” here translates Pāli dukkha (Sanskrit: duḥkha), of course, and other translations of that term can be found in the literature. It is sometimes suggested that “unsatisfactoriness” is a better translation, for example, but translation as “pain” is also not uncommon. To understand the point of NT1, we need to understand what the Buddha meant with the word dukkha.

I wrote about the interpretation and translation of dukkha before in chapter 5 of A Buddha Land in This World and more recently in Universal Liberation, so I’ll just be short here. Traditionally, dukkha is classified in a number of kinds ranging from pain to something morel like existential dread. In broad interpretations of the term dukkha, that term refers to all of those, while in narrower interpretations it only refers to the latter. “Suffering” is a fairly accurate translation of dukkha in the broad sense – it means almost the same and has reasonably similar connotations. Dukkha in the narrow sense is harder to translate. The technical term for the latter is sankhara-dukkha, so it might be preferable to use that.

Notice that the examples of suffering given by the Buddha when he teaches NT1 suggest a broad interpretation. These are examples of mental and physical pain, of loss, of anxiety, of dread, and so forth. The point of NT1 seems to be very much that life inherently involves suffering of many kinds – that is, suffering in the broad sense. Moreover, in addition to examples, the Buddha also states that “separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering”, which sounds much like a rough definition of what he meant with dukkha. Notice that poverty, hunger, oppression, physical pain, economic unfairness or injustice, sickness, and much more are very much cases of suffering by the standard of this rough definition. Hence, NT1 is not just about sankhara-dukkha. In the contrary, the Buddha’s understanding of “suffering”/dukkha is very broad.

Much the same is true for most of the Buddhist tradition. Dukkha has typically been understood as meaning “suffering” in the broad sense. Only quite recently has it become somewhat fashionable within some tendencies of Western Buddhism to reject the broad view in favor of a narrow view. What seems to motivate this is secularization. A key aspect of secularization is the marginalization of religion from the public to the private sphere. That is, religion is denied a public, sociopolitical role. In case of Buddhism, to deny Buddhism its traditional public and sociopolitical role(s), dukkha had to be restricted in such a way that Buddhism would no longer be legitimately concerned with suffering in the broad sense. If you subtract the category of sankhara-dukkha from dukkha in the broad sense, what you are left with is pain and “worldly suffering” (including poverty, for example). By redefining dukkha as merely sankhara-dukkha, worldly suffering is no longer of concern to Buddhists, and Buddhism is just about the purely private existential dread (etc.) of sankhara-dukkha. Consequently, Buddhism has no public role and has no legitimate reason to engage with social, political, and economic affairs. That, again, is secularization. It makes Buddhism a useful tool in preserving the sociopolitical status quo by offering people a “fetish” that allows them “to accept the way things are – because they have their fetish to which they can cling in order to defuse the full impact of reality”⁴⁶ and simultaneously makes sure that Buddhism can never be a threat to the way things are, and thus to the people who profit from the sociopolitical and economic status quo.

(This is a bit off-topic, but it is important to understand that “secularization” and “secularity” are different things. Secularization of Buddhism in the sense explained above does not make Buddhism “secular”. To say of an approach to religion that it is “secular” means that it has been naturalized to some significant extent, and/or that it is no longer monastic (although it could be argued that this is “Protestant” more than secular), and/or that it is concerned with worldly affairs (which is the diametrical opposite of secularization!). “Secularization” refers primarily to societies – it is about the role of religion in society (specifically, the marginalization of religion into the private sphere, although there also are other aspects of secularization). When speaking about religions themselves, the adjective “secular” has somewhat different (and older) meanings, but this is not always well understood, leading to much unnecessary confusion. For a much more detailed discussion of “secular” and “secularization”, see: Is Secular Buddhism Possible?)

Again, the narrowing of dukkha is really quite a recent phenomenon, and seems mostly restricted to Western Buddhism, moreover. Throughout history, the Buddhist commitment to alleviate suffering has typically been understood as concerning dukkha in the broad sense. For example, In China, “Buddhist activities included road and bridge building, public work projects, social revolution, military defense, orphanages, travel hostels, medical education, hospital building, free medical care, the stockpiling of medicines, conflict intervention, moderation of penal codes, programs to assist the elderly and poor […], famine and epidemic relief, and bathing houses”.^{47, 48} Furthermore, it is easy to find examples in pre-modern Buddhist texts that quite explicitly assume a broad understanding of suffering. One of my favorite examples can be found in Establishing the Peace of the Country 立正安國論 by Nichiren 日蓮. In this text, his imaginary interlocutor asks Nichiren about the state of the world:

Famine and disease rage more fiercely than ever, beggars are everywhere in sight, and scenes of death fill our eyes. Cadavers pile up in mounds like observation platforms, dead bodies lie side by side likes planks on a bridge. […] [W]hy is it that the world had already fallen in decline […]? What is wrong? What error has been committed?⁴⁹

Nichiren’s answer was that after much research and contemplation he had come to the conclusion that the cause of all this worldly suffering was that the Buddhist sects, the government, and people in general had turned their backs on the Lotus Sūtra, and that, if only they would mend their ways and “embrace the one true vehicle, the single good doctrine of the Lotus Sutra […] then the threefold world⁵⁰ will all become the Buddha land”,⁵¹ or in other words a Buddhist utopia or worldly paradise. And “if you live in [such] a country that knows no decline or diminution, in a land that suffers no harm or disruption, then your body will find peace and security and your mind will be calm and untroubled”.⁵²

An apparent problem for the thesis that 4NT and Buddhism in general are concerned with suffering in the broad sense is that it might seem that much of 4NT is only concerned with suffering in the narrow sense (i.e., sankhara-dukkha). How could craving be the cause or origin of worldly suffering? And how could following the Noble Eightfold Path lead to the cessation of this kind of suffering? It may seem quite implausible that NT2 and NT4 are also about worldly suffering (like poverty, oppression, and so forth) or about pain. Nevertheless, while the impression that 4NT (and Buddhism in general) is really just concerned with suffering in the narrow sense is understandable, it is mistaken. The root of this mistake is a failure to appreciate how central the Buddha’s views on rebirth and karma are to 4NT and to his thought as a whole.

Buddhism, as well as Jainism and Ājīvikism, arose in a part of north-east India that Johannes Bronkhorst has called “Greater Maghada”.⁵³ While the primary concern of all mainstream religions in India was mokṣa or liberation from suffering, there are ideas that are specific to Greater-Maghada and the religions that developed there. Those religions shared the idea that life inherently involves suffering, and therefore, that rebirth was a cause of suffering. The “standard” view of karma, adopted by both Jainism and Ājīvikism, was that action causes rebirth, and consequently that mokṣa requires non-action, that is, asceticism (and ideally, even starving yourself to death). Buddhism, however, rejected the traditional Greater-Maghadan view of karma (as well as the asceticism it promoted) and claimed that intentions or volitions (cetanā) rather than (all) actions cause rebirth. This is what is meant with the famous saying in Chakkanipāta (AN 6.63) that “it is volition [cetanā], bhikkhus, that I call karma” (often translated as “it is volition that I call the deed” or something similar). This cannot be emphasized enough – it is a key innovation by the Buddha that intentions or volitions produce karma, which in turn determines rebirth. Now, importantly, intentions or volitions are rooted in desires – that is, craving – and consequently, without desire/craving there are no intentions and no rebirth (and that is the point of NT2).

With this in mind, let’s look again at 4NT. The point of NT1 is that life inevitably involves suffering (which is Greater-Maghadan orthodoxy), and this being the case, the remedy is obvious. If birth is (and causes) suffering, as the sūtra explicitly claims, then the solution is no longer being born, and that is exactly the purpose of the Buddha’s “Middle Way”. Rebirth is caused by karma, which according to the Buddha is accumulated by intentions or volitions (or intentional/volitional action), and intention or volition depends on something like desire or craving. Thus, the original doctrine that became known as the Four Noble Truths was probably something like the following: (NT1) Life inherently involves suffering (in the broad sense!). (NT2) New lives or rebirths are caused by intentional/volitional actions (karma) and thus by craving or desire. (NT3) There is a way to end suffering, namely, by eliminating karma and rebirth (i.e., new lives with new suffering). (NT4) That way is the “Middle Way”, which in the sūtra is identified with the Noble Eightfold Path.

There are two key takeaways from the foregoing. First, NT1 states that live involves suffering in the broad sense of that term. Second, 4NT (and Buddhism as a whole) are suffused with the idea of rebirth, which implies that removing the doctrine of rebirth and karma from Buddhism is much more difficult than it may seem at a glance.

The Second Noble Truth (NT2): the cause(s) of suffering

While NT0 and NT1 aren’t really affected in an attempt to excise rebirth, this will (obviously) be different for the other three Noble Truths. According to NT2, the origin of suffering is craving. “It is this craving which leads to renewed existence”, and consequently, this craving needs to be abandoned. As explained a few paragraphs back, what underlies this idea is the Buddha’s belief that volition or intention leads to rebirth. Since volition or intention is based on craving or desire, it is indeed “craving which leads to renewed existence” (i.e., rebirth).

The Buddha sought a final remedy or solution (i.e., complete “cessation”) for all suffering within the context of a specific theory of karma and rebirth. That remedy/solution is avoiding rebirth. The point of 4NT is that life involves suffering, and therefore, that to end that suffering one has to avoid “renewed existence” (i.e., rebirth), which is done by abandoning the craving/desire that leads to intention/volition, which leads to rebirth. Obviously, without the doctrine of karma and rebirth, none of this makes sense. So, then what are we to make of NT2 without rebirth and karma?

NT2 aims to reveal the cause(s) of suffering (in the broad sense). There are many kinds of suffering, however, ranging from poverty to dissatisfaction, from oppression to illness, from economic injustice to physical pain, and so forth. And it seems that all these many kinds of suffering have many different kinds of causes or origins. If that’s the case, there really is nothing like a Second Noble Truth without the Buddha’s doctrine of rebirth and karma.

But let’s not be too quick. It seems to me that most avoidable⁵⁴ suffering is caused by craving for wealth, power, status, certainty, immortality,⁵⁵ and so forth. (In the 20th century, similar interpretations of NT2 – at least in the context of worldly suffering – have been suggested by Lin Qiuwu 林秋梧, B.R. Ambedkar, Buddhadāsa, and many others.⁵⁶) I will do little here to support this hypothesis with anything resembling evidence or an argument. Instead, I just want to invite you to consider it. Poverty, failing healthcare, war, and many other kinds of avoidable suffering are – according to this hypothesis – caused by the cravings mentioned. I think that this is clear enough to not really need an explicit attempt to support it, and since trying to provide such support would lead us too far astray and would make this article even longer than it already is, I’ll leave it at this. (I may return to this topic in the future, however.)

Thus, a revised NT2 without rebirth – let’s call it “NT2^R” is the hypothesis or claim that most avoidable suffering is caused by craving for wealth, power, status, certainty, immortality, and so forth. This may seem relatively similar to the original NT2 – it still attributes suffering to craving after all – but there is a fundamental difference between NT2 and NT2^R that should not be overlooked. In case of NT2, the person who has the craving and the person who suffers due to this craving are the same person (phenomenally/​conventionally, at least), but in case of NT2^R, the cravings of some mainly cause suffering for others. (This is not to say that people never suffer due to their own cravings. It is quite probable that there is such self-caused suffering as well, but it is negligible in comparison to the much greater suffering caused by the cravings of others.) And this, of course, has important implications for the remaining two Noble Truths.

The Third Noble Truth (NT3): the cessation of suffering

The Third Noble Truth is that there is a cessation of suffering, which needs to be realized by oneself. Note that the “cessation” of NT3 is an absolute and complete cessation of suffering. This is the very point of NT3 – the goal is to no longer be reborn (by extinguishing craving) and thereby avoid the suffering of future lives (because by no longer being reborn, there are no more future lives and, thus, no more suffering). The absolute finality of the “cessation” of suffering of NT3, thus, depends on the Buddha’s theory of rebirth and karma. Without that theory, there is little reason to believe that there is a complete and absolute cessation of suffering. (Notice that suicide doesn’t lead to a complete and absolute cessation of suffering either. See the section on the “argument from suicide” above.)

Nevertheless, it may be possible – at least in principle – to end avoidable suffering. According to NT2^R, avoidable suffering is caused by the craving for wealth, power, and so forth (see above), and it may be possible (again, in principle) to bring about a cessation of such suffering. It is “avoidable” after all. So, if NT2^R is accepted as a substitute for (or re-interpretation of) NT2 in a Buddhism without rebirth, then NT3 may be relatively unproblematic. “Relatively”, because the verb used by the Buddha in regard to NT3 is sacchikaroti, which means “see with one’s (own) eyes” or “experience (by oneself)”. In other words, the cessation of suffering must be realized/experienced by oneself, but as mentioned above, in NT2^R suffering and craving are pulled apart in the sense that the sufferer is not the same as the craver. The craving(s) of one person (mostly) causes suffering for others. Consequently, a cessation of suffering cannot be realized (solely) by the sufferer themself.

Traditional Buddhism makes the individual solely responsible for their suffering as well as for overcoming that suffering. This “individualism” is partially due the Buddha’s theory of rebirth and karma, but is also the result of a certain kind of blindness caused by the lack of a concept of “society” and related concepts. These concepts developed in Europe around the turn of the 19th century and were exported to South and East Asia about a century later, but their uptake in Buddhist thought has been very slow.⁵⁷ Without concepts like these, one cannot talk about – or even recognize – social and systemic factors in suffering and its causes. But with the rejection of rebirth and with a modern understanding of the social and systemic causes of some kinds of suffering, the individualism of traditional Buddhism becomes groundless and implausible. Individuals aren’t solely to blame for their suffering, and in many cases, they are not to blame at all. And neither can individuals overcome much of their suffering by themselves. Much suffering is social, and requires social solutions. (See also: Universal Liberation.)

Based on these considerations, I propose a re-interpretation of the Third Truth, NT3^R: there can and should be a cessation of avoidable suffering, but we cannot achieve this cessation individually – it also requires some kind of collective action. NT3^R deviates from the original NT3 in (at least) two important ways. First, the cessation of suffering is neither absolute, nor complete (as this depends entirely on longer being reborn in the original NT3). And second, cessation cannot just be realized by oneself – social causes of suffering require social remedies.

The Fourth Noble Truth (NT4): the path

An obvious implication of the rejection of the individualism implied by the Buddha’s theory of rebirth as well as the lack of social concepts (see above) is that the Noble Eightfold Path, which is the path towards the cessation of suffering according to NT4, cannot be the whole answer. Despite that, it is probably a good idea to have a look at the Noble Eightfold Path (N8P) and other versions of the path first.

As Roderick Bucknell has pointed out in his book Reconstructing Early Buddhism, there is something very peculiar about N8P and how it maps to the lesser known Tenfold Path (10P), which is mentioned very often in the Numerical Discourses (AN 10:101–155, AN 5:211–49, AN 5:310), but also in a few other sūtras (e.g., DN 33, MN 117). The first eight items of 10P are identical to N8P. The 9th and 10th item of 10P are “right knowledge” and “right liberation”. As illustrated in the table below, 10P maps fairly well to the step-wise training that can be found in many sūtras in the Middle-length Discourses (e.g., MN 27, 51, 60, 76, 79, 101), but also (albeit slightly less straightforwardly) to the Bodhisattva perfections (pāramitās) in Mahāyāna Buddhism.

The step-wise training and 10P consist of a preparatory stage, a stage of moral discipline, a stage of mental discipline , and a stage of wisdom and liberation. In N8P, however, the stage of wisdom and liberation – and thus the very goal and purpose of practice (!) – is missing, which is especially odd in the context of 4NT, while the preparatory stage (consisting of the first two items of N8P) is present, which is strange given that the preparatory stage is only relevant for an audience of novices, while the audience of Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta consisted of people who had already advanced beyond the preparatory stage. Bucknell convincingly argues that N8P – given that it was not directed at novices – originally omitted the preparatory stage (i.e., items 1 and 2 of 10P or N8P), and included the wisdom/liberation stage (i.e., items 9 and 10 of 10P). Notice that it must have included those, as without those it cannot be a path towards the cessation of suffering! In the rote memorization and recitation of sūtras (before they were written down) the last two items of the original N8P were at some point moved to the front and reworded, so the list became identical to the first eight items of 10P. (Thus, to be clear, the original N8P coincided with the last eight items of 10P instead of the first, which means that they omitted the contextually irrelevant preparatory stage.) In other words, the “corruption” of N8P was due to standardization.⁵⁸

In any case, 10P is more complete than N8P, and it would probably be a good idea to kick N8P of its pedestal and put 10P in its place. The following table compares 10P with the step-wise training and the pāramitās (i.e., Bodhisattva perfections):⁵⁹

category	step-wise training	tenfold path (10P)	pāramitās
preparatory stage	1. hearing, faith, going forth	1. right view 2. right thought	(0. resolve on awakening) 1. generosity
moral discipline (sīla)	2. moral precepts (sīla)	3. right speech 4. right action 5. right livelihood	2. virtue
mental discipline (samādhi)	3. guarding sense-doors	6. right effort	3. forbearance 4. effort
	4. mindfulness and awareness	7. right mindfulness
	5. contentment 6. removing hindrances
	7–10. the four jhānas	8. right concentration	5. meditation/​concentration
wisdom (paññā)	11. recollection of former existences 12. knowledge of death and rebirth
	13. destruction of the taints, perceiving 4NT, liberation/​awakening (and knowledge thereof)	9. right knowledge 10. right liberation	6. wisdom

Steps 11 and 12 of the step-wise training are obviously problematic in a Buddhism without rebirth, but let’s focus on the path as a whole, rather than on individual steps thereon. Then, the most obvious problem is that the path is supposed to lead to liberation, which is defined as no longer being reborn. There are other interpretations of the goal and purpose of the path, however.

In the Bodhicaryāvatāra, Śāntideva writes that perfection, in this case meaning achieving the highest stage on the Bodhisattva path (i.e., the rightmost column in the table) is a mental attitude.⁶⁰ In his Buddhist Ethics, Jay Garfield makes a similar point.⁶¹ He argues that Buddhist ethics should be thought of as “moral phenomenology” – that is, Buddhist ethics isn’t about a set of rules, but aims at changing our perception of, and attitude to the world around us.

Buddhist ethicists aim to correct a “natural” way of experiencing ourselves as standing as independent agents at the center of a moral universe who take their own welfare as the most rational basis for action, and others as of secondary interest. This natural egocentricity induces a mode of comportment to the world that Buddhists take to be fundamentally irrational and to lead to suffering for oneself and others. The aim of ethical practice is – by following a path, or multiple paths – to replace this experience with a non- egocentric experience of oneself as part of an interdependent world. […] Ethical practice is about the transformation not in the first instance of what we do, but of how we see.⁶²

If this is the goal of practice, then there is no obvious conflict between the path and a rejection of rebirth and karma. However, this doesn’t mean that such a goal of practice can do what it is supposed to do in the context of 4NT. Remember that the Fourth Noble Truth (NT4) is the path towards the cessation of suffering. In a Buddhism without rebirth, this can really only mean that it is a path towards the cessation (or reduction and alleviation, at the very least) of the kind of avoidable suffering referred to in NT2^R and NT3^R.

Indañano Bhikkhu once said to me (in an online discussion) that “in later stages [on the path] it is simply no longer possible not to care about the suffering others encounter in their lives”, and this corresponds nicely to what Garfield (or Śāntideva) writes about the path. A serious practitioner, who actually makes some progress on the path (regardless of whether that is N8P, 10P, the Bodhisattva perfections, or some other version of the path) will start seeing the world and people around them differently, making it impossible not to care about the suffering of others. And if that care is genuine (which it would be if the progress on the path is genuine) this will translate into action to alleviate the suffering of others and prevent further suffering. Hence, it is plausible that the path is helpful in alleviating suffering, provided that sufficient people progress far enough on the path.

Whether this is enough to achieve anything like the cessation of avoidable suffering mentioned in NT3^R is quite debatable, however. At the very least, some tweaks and re-orientations of (steps on) the path might be necessary to allow it to play the role intended in NT4. For example, “right action” and other aspects of moral discipline (sīla) should be re-conceived to include political action and other kinds of collective action to effectively address the sociopolitical and economic causes of suffering. And depending among others on how entrenched the sociopolitical causes of suffering are, the category of political and collective action can be very broad, possibly even including revolutionary activities. (It should also be kept in mind that people differ in their progression on the path, and that it, therefore, cannot be expected that everyone will contribute to right collective action in the same way or to the same extent. Moreover, the people who are most responsible for causing suffering (due to their craving for wealth, power, etc.) are least likely to even set foot on the path and/or amend their ways voluntarily.)

Secondly, if the purpose of meditation or “right concentration” is achieving the aforementioned change in attitude rather than a liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth, it may be desirable to focus more on meditative practice that are aimed specifically at achieving that change in attitude and less on the jhānas (and probably to dump Western “mindfulness” altogether). Interestingly, in Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra this is already the case. While most descriptions of the Bodhisattva perfections focus on the jhānas in the context of meditation, Śāntideva emphasizes the “exchange of self and other”, which is aimed exactly at achieving the intended change in mental attitude. Moving from Mahāyāna to Theravāda, in the Visuddhimagga, Buddhaghosa writes that the most essential meditations focus on death and on lovingkindness (mettā/​maitrī).⁶³ According to Buddhaghosa, these meditations should be practiced by everyone, for reasons that are closely related to the intended change in attitude. (The brahmavihāras are another important meditative practice worth mentioning here.)

Obviously, much more can – and should – be said about this topic, but this article is already much too long. My point is that a Buddhism without rebirth would not involve a fundamentally different path. There is a difference in the ultimate goal of the path, of course, but the practical differences are relatively subtle. That said, it seems to be the case that a Buddhism without rebirth would have to be much more involved in political and economic matters than most Buddhist sects and organizations are. A Buddhism without rebirth would be an engaged or even radical Buddhism. I’m not sure how to capture the central idea(s) of this section in a sloganesque NT4^R, however. “The path is likely to help in getting closer to a cessation of avoidable suffering” or something like that isn’t particularly catchy and a lot more hedged or hesitant than the original NT4.

Section summary and Batchelor’s version

A reinterpretation of the Four Noble Truths (4NT) after rejecting rebirth, while trying to stay as close as possible to their original idea and intention results in something quite different. Little changes in regard to the Zeroth and First Truths, but the rest of 4NT is suffused with the idea of rebirth and karma to such an extent that it may be more appropriate to speak of “rethinking” than “reinterpretation”. Retaining the focus on craving, the Second Truth would become something like the claim that most avoidable suffering is caused by craving for wealth, power, status, certainty, immortality, and so forth, and that it is often the case that the craving(s) of one causes suffering for others. The Third Truth would be that there can and should be a cessation of this avoidable suffering, but would also clarify that we cannot achieve this cessation individually, and that it also requires some kind of collective action. The Fourth Truth, finally, would have to be phrased much less ambitiously. That is, the path (or the “Middle Way”) cannot lead to a complete cessation of suffering, but it is likely to help in getting closer to a cessation of avoidable suffering.

Is this still close enough to the original 4NT? Traditional Buddhists may very well answer “no” to that question. On the other hand, this reinterpretation/​rethinking isn’t all that different from typical interpretations of 4NT among engaged and radical Buddhists. Anyway, as I wrote in the introduction of this long (and still not nearly finished) article, I’m not overly concerned with labeling. If this version of 4NT is no longer “Buddhist”, let’s call it “Post-Buddhist” instead.

Before proceeding to other topics, let’s very briefly look at Stephen Batchelor’s reinterpretation of 4NT as the basis of his “Buddhism 2.0”.⁶⁴ Batchelor makes much of K.R. Norman’s argument that the original form of 4NT was: “this is suffering, this is the origin of suffering, this is the cessation of suffering, this is the path leading to the cessation of suffering”,⁶⁵ and thus lacked the designation of the four items on the list as “Noble Truths”. Batchelor shortens this further to “suffering, arising, ceasing, path”. Next, he argues (on rather dubious grounds) that what arises is not suffering but craving. That is, he rejects the standard interpretation of the Second Noble Truth as the claim that craving leads to the arising of suffering (if we use the term “arising”; more commonly: craving is the origin of suffering). This, then, eventually leads him to a reinterpretation of 4NT as “embrace, let go, stop, act”, which is heavily focused on “reactivity”.

In contrast to my approach in the foregoing, Batchelor completely ignores rebirth and karma. He makes no attempt to understand what role that doctrine (or those doctrines) play in 4NT, and because of that, he completely misses the point. One cannot understand the meaning and point of 4NT without recognizing its context, without recognizing that it is an answer to the problem of rebirth and consequent eternal suffering that was pervasive in the Buddha’s intellectual environment. 4NT is about rebirth, and the only way to excise rebirth from it, is by understanding what role rebirth plays in 4NT first. That Batchelor utterly fails in this regard is, perhaps, most obvious in his radical reinterpretation of the Second Noble Truth as being about the arising of craving. That craving/desire causes rebirth was one of the Buddha’s most important innovations and is central to his teachings about liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth. Hence, Batchelor just casually kicks away a cornerstone of the Buddha’s thought. What results from this exercise – that is, the slogan “embrace, let go, stop, act” and the focus on “reactivity” – isn’t even Post-Buddhism (as it doesn’t seriously engage with Buddhist thought); it is probably more appropriately described as a form of pop-Stoicism (which is all the more surprising considering Batchelor’s background).

In response to Batchelor’s “Buddhism 2.0”, Bhikkhu Anālayo writes that “due to intentionally making bias the main methodology for reading texts, ignoring published criticism of obvious misinterpretations, and advocating that correct translation does not matter, it seems that Stephen Batchelor should be taken at his word: he should not be considered a scholar. His writings could then perhaps be seen as a remarkable illustration of Western superiority conceit.”⁶⁶ When I first read this, I thought this was a bit harsh, but now I think that Anālayo is right. (I don’t think he would be much more supportive about my ideas and writings, however.)

Beyond the Four Noble Truths

There is more to Buddhism than the Four Noble Truths, of course, so let’s have a quick look at a few other problems for a hypothetical Buddhism without rebirth. Obviously, excising rebirth would be more problematic for some sects than others. For example, Pure Land Buddhism makes little sense without its central idea of rebirth in a pure land (or Buddha land). This isn’t a particularly interesting issue, however. What may be more interesting – because it is more complicated – is the traditional division of religious labor. Traditionally, monks and nuns focus on the path and thus actively work towards their liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth, while laymen make this possible by supporting the monastic community (i.e., the saṅgha) in return for merit (i.e., good karma) assuring a better rebirth. This division of labor depends entirely on the Buddhist theory of karma and rebirth, of course, and makes no sense without it. That doesn’t necessarily mean that there can be no similar division of labor in a Buddhism without rebirth, however. What it does mean is that the roles of laymen and monastics as well as the relation between those two groups need to be rethought, at least to some extent. Presumably, monastics tend to progress further on the path than (most) laymen, suggesting more or less natural roles as teachers and leaders (the latter in right collective action towards the cessation of avoidable suffering; see above). The more difficult question is what laymen get in return for their support to the saṅgha. If monks and nuns are more proactive as teachers and leaders, then that is what they give – and thus, what laymen get – in return, but lacking that, there would be little reason for laymen to support the saṅgha.

Regardless of the role of the monastic community, another problem concerns the primary religious “duties” of lay followers. Traditionally, the religious role of lay followers is mostly limited to gaining merit (i.e., good karma) for good rebirth, but there is no “merit” in this sense in a Buddhist without rebirth and karma. In the traditional division of religious labor, laymen effectively postpone their path-following to (better) future lives, but without rebirth, this is not an option. Hence, lay followers should follow the path as well. (And if desired, they could do this under the guidance of monastics as teachers.)

But why would anyone even choose to step onto the path? What would motivate someone to seriously embark on the Buddhist path if there is no promise of liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth or other obvious reward at the end? As soon as one makes some progress on the path, this is no issue anymore, because then the desire to alleviate and prevent any suffering becomes sufficient motivation; but for someone at the beginning of the path, the change in attitude required for this – that is, the switch from a more selfish to a more selfless attitude – is typically still in the (distant) future. At some point, path-following becomes self-sustaining, but it certainly isn’t at the beginning. Actually, this isn’t a problem just for a Buddhism without rebirth, but also for any traditional Buddhism that emphasizes no-self, as future suffering that is prevented by one’s progress on the path is not really one’s own suffering. For this reason, Buddhist thinkers have often suggested various direct benefits that are supposed to result from following the path. Perhaps, there are such benefits indeed, but it may also be helpful to not just assume that people are “naturally” selfish and appeal to their natural inclinations towards mutual aid and compassion.

Awakening, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Arhats

Let us finally turn to the (other?) elephant in the room. What is “awakening”, “enlightenment”, or “liberation” in a Buddhism without rebirth? Can there be Buddhas (which are fully awakened ones)? Can there be Bodhisattvas or Arhats?

I’ll admit immediately that I have no answers to these questions. All of these notions are heavily dependent on rebirth. “Liberation” is liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth, and “awakening” or “enlightenment” are just other terms for achieving the wisdom (etc.) associated with the final stage of the path, thereby achieving that liberation. I suppose that “awakening” could be interpreted as fully achieving the change in attitude mentioned above, but I’m not convinced that is really sufficient. Bodhisattvas postpone their own liberation until they have helped liberating all sentient beings, requiring many lives, and consequently, the concept of a “Bodhisattva” makes no sense without the doctrine of rebirth (although the term could also be applied to anyone who makes a serious commitment to embark on the Bodhisattva path, which is still possible without rebirth).

Perhaps, all that remains of “Buddhas”, “Bodhisattvas”, and “Arhats” are these terms as titles, given to real and imaginary/​mythical people, who function as moral exemplars and/or spiritual leaders in absentia. Whether that is enough is quite debatable, however.

Closing remarks

My aim in this article was trying to understand what a Buddhism (or post-Buddhism) without the doctrine(s) of karma and rebirth would (or could) be like. From the outset, I tried to make clear that excising rebirth from Buddhism is far from easy, and possibly even impossible (in the sense that the result would no longer be Buddhism). I think that the foregoing illustrates this difficulty quite well.

The most central and foundational doctrine of Buddhism is the Four Noble Truths (4NT), so any serious attempt to excise karma and rebirth should start there, but only after trying to understand what role karma and rebirth play in 4NT. In this article, I suggest that the Zeroth and First Truths, which hold that suffering is bad and that life inherently involves suffering in the broadest possible sense of that term, are largely unaffected by a rejection of rebirth. However, the rest of 4NT is suffused with the idea of rebirth and karma to such an extent that some changes are necessary. Retaining the focus on craving, the Second Truth would become something like the claim that most avoidable suffering is caused by craving for wealth, power, status, certainty, immortality, and so forth, and that it is often the case that the craving(s) of one causes suffering for others. The Third Truth would be that there can and should be a cessation of this avoidable suffering, but would also clarify that we cannot achieve this cessation individually, and that it also requires some kind of collective action (implying that a Buddhism without rebirth would be an engaged or radical Buddhism). The Fourth Truth, finally, would have to be phrased much less ambitiously. That is, the path (or the “Middle Way”) cannot lead to a complete cessation of suffering, but it is likely to help in getting closer to a cessation of avoidable suffering.

It is worth noting, by the way, that this interpretation or version of 4NT does not appear to be in conflict with a more traditional rebirth-based interpretation. That is, the two interpretations/​versions of 4NT could be complementary (if one holds on to the doctrine of rebirth). There is more to Buddhism besides the Four Noble Truths, but arguably, everything starts with 4NT and other issues are to lesser or greater extent derivative. (This is also illustrated in the foregoing, where a few other issues are discussed briefly.) Hence, a Buddhism without rebirth is built upon a version of 4NT without rebirth, which – unless I am mistaken, of course – would be very much like what I sketched very briefly in the previous paragraph. I don’t know whether what would result from this is (still) Buddhism, however. I’m inclined to say that nothing important is lost in a Buddhism without rebirth (and perhaps, even that something is gained), but I’m well aware that this judgment is entirely subjective. Others will have different opinions, and I don’t think there is an objective way to decide.

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1. Dalai Lama (2011), “Reincarnation”. Emphasis added.
2. That’s what “necessary” implies here, which is why I put that word in italics.
3. It is often claimed that this is the case for Zen as well, but I’m not sure whether that is correct. Surely, in modernist/​Western Zen, rebirth plays no significant role, but as far as I can see, this isn’t true for traditional Zen.
4. Mark Siderits (2001), “Buddhism and Techno-Physicalism: Is the Eightfold Path a Program?”, Philosophy East & West 51.3: 307–14, p. 312.
5. Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu (1969), Another Kind of Birth (Bangkok: Sivaphorn), p. 4.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. I used the term “post-Buddhist” in the same sense before in the conclusion of On Secular and Radical Buddhism (2019) and more recently in Universal Liberation. The term has been used occasionally by others before as well, but as far as I know, rarely (if ever) in exactly this sense.
9. “External coherence” means coherence with everything else we know, especially scientific knowledge.
10. See: Universal Liberation; Lajos Brons (2024), “Buddhism and the State: Rājadhamma after the Sattelzeit”, Journal of Buddhist Ethics 31: 501-521; and Lajos Brons (2022), A Buddha Land in This World: Philosophy, Utopia, and Radical Buddhism (Punctum), chapter 4.
11. This would be an example of what Bhikkhu Anālayo calls “superiority conceit”. See: Bhikkhu Anālayo (2021), Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions: A Historical Perspective (Somervile: Wisdom).
12. I do make a normative claim in the next sentence, of course, but it is not the claim that a Buddhism without rebirth is “better”.
13. The most thorough secondary source that I am aware of is: Joaquín Pérez-Remón (1980), Self and Non-Self in Early Buddhism (The Hague: Mouton), pp. 259–67.
14. A.K. Warder (2009), “Introduction”, in: The Path of Discrimination (Paṭisambhidāmagga), Translated from the Pāli by Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli (Oxford: Pali Text Society): v–lxiv, at pp. xvi–xvii.
15. Richard Gombrich (1971), Buddhist Precept and Practice: Traditional Buddhism in the Rural Highlands of Ceylon (Oxford: Clarendon), p. 243.
16. It is implicit in case of an explicit rejection of [AS*], which entails [ES].
17. Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, & Tom Pyszczynski (2015), The Worm at the Core: on the Role of Death in Life (New York: Random House)
18. Symbolic immortality has to do with worldview defense and self-esteem. People control (or “manage”) their (largely unconscious) fear/terror of death by strengthening their worldviews and/or their beliefs that they are valuable contributors to the world according to those worldviews (i.e., their self-esteem). See also: The Stories We Believe in.
19. Śāntideva (8th c.), The Bodhicaryāvatāra , trans. Kate Crosby and Andrew Skilton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), §8.102–3.
20. Ibid., §8.95–8.
21. Not in the least because such a rejection would also necessitate a redefinition of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, thereby (presumably) blocking the identification of nirvāṇa with death.
22. The part of this section about pramāṇa is partially copied (with changes) from section 6 of my paper “Concern for Truth”, and partially from chapter 9 of A Buddha Land in This World. — Lajos Brons (2024), “Concern for truth”, Symposion 11.2: 159–80. Lajos Brons (2022), A Buddha Land in This World: Philosophy, Utopia, and Radical Buddhism (Punctum).
23. “pramāṇam avisaṃvādi jñānam arthakriyāsthitiḥ avisaṃvādanaṃ”. My translation. Pramāṇavārttika: §2.1.
24. For example: Vittorio Van Bijlert (1989), Epistemology and Spiritual Authority: The Development of Epistemology and Logic in the Old Nyāya and the Buddhist School of Epistemology with an Annotated Translation of Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttika II (Pramāṇasiddhi) vv. 1-7 (Vienna: ATBS). John Dunne (2004), Foundations of Dharmakīrti’s Philosophy (Boston: Wisdom).
25. For example: Georges Dreyfus (1997), Recognizing Reality: Dharmakīrti’s Philosophy and Its Tibetan Interpretations (Albany: SUNY). Jonathan Stoltz (2021), Illuminating the Mind: An Introduction to Buddhist Epistemology (New York: Oxford University Press).
26. Alexander Yiannopoulos (2023), “Devendrabuddhi and Śākyabuddhi: Dharmakīrti’s First Commentators”, in: William Edelglass, Pierre-Julien Harter, & Sara McClintock (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Indian Buddhist Philosophy (London: Routledge.): 393–403.
27. Translation by John Dunne (Foundations of Dharmakīrti’s Philosophy, p. 377). Notice the translation “trustworthy” for avisaṃvādin.
28. Theodor Stcherbatsky (1993), Buddhist Logic, Vol. 1 (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass), p. 67. Originally published in Russian as Теория Познания и Логика по Учению Позднейших Буддистов in 1903. The first English edition, translated by himself, was published in 1930.
29. ”Radically inaccessible” means that they cannot “ be established empirically (through perception) or through ordinary (nonscriptural) inferential reasoning”.
30. Jonathan Stoltz (2021), Illuminating the Mind: An Introduction to Buddhist Epistemology (New York: OUP), p. 104.
31. For a thorough review of Dharmakīrti’s views on rebirth, see: Eli Franco (1997), Dharmakīrti on Compassion and Rebirth (Vienna: ATBS).
32. Dharmakīrti did not appeal to moral arguments, for reasons that should be obvious if you have read the section about epistemology above.
33. About the adoption of Platonic dualism and the consequent reinterpretation of Jesus Christ’s teachings, see for example: Bart Ehrman (2020), Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife (London: One World).
34. See, for example: Moheb Costandi (2022), Body Am I: The New Science of Self-Consciousness (Cambridge: MIT Press).
35. See also this comic by SMBC.
36. See, for example: Jay Garfield (2022), Losing Ourselves: Learning to Live without a Self (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
37. Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, SN 56.11. Translation: The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Samyutta Nikāya, translated by Bhikkhu Boddhi (Somerville: Wisdom, 2000), p. 1844.
38. Śāntideva, The Bodhicaryāvatāra, §8.103.
39. Derek Parfit (2011), On What Matters, Vol. 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 569.
40. Ibid., p. 568.
41. Lajos Brons (2022), A Buddha Land in This World: Philosophy, Utopia, and Radical Buddhism (Punctum).
42. Wayne Hudson (2012), “Historicizing Suffering”, in: Jeff Malpas & Norelle Lickiss (eds.), Perspectives on Human Suffering (Dordrecht: Springer): 171–9, at p. 172.
43. Brons, A Buddha Land in This World, pp. 356–7.
44. For the epistemological argument that this implies that we are (epistemically) justified to believe that suffering is bad (which means that we are justified to accept as true), see chapters 11 and 13 of my A Buddha Land in This World.
45. For example, the claim that “life is suffering” seems to deny that we sometimes also experience the opposite of suffering, while the claim that “life inherently involves suffering” has no such implication.
46. Slavoj Žižek, The Universal Exception (New York: Continuum, 2006), pp. 253–4.
47. Stephen Jenkins (2003), “Do Bodhisattvas Relieve Poverty?”, in: Christopher Queen, Charles Prebish, & Damien Keown (eds.), Action Dharma: New Studies in Engaged Buddhism (London: RoutledgeCurzon): 38­–49, at 39.
48. It’s hard to say to what extent this was also the case in India, but according to Chinese sources, the standard curriculum at Nālandā (the biggest monastic university in the history of Buddhism that functioned from the fifth to twelfth century) included medicine, which suggests at least some concern with health care.
49. Nichiren 日蓮 (1260), 『立正安國論』 [Establishing the Peace of the Country], T84n2688. Translation in: Philip Yampolsky (ed.) (1990), Selected Writings of Nichiren, Translated by Burton Watson and Others (New York: Columbia University Press), p. 14.
50. The “threefold world” 三界 is the world we live in, the world of unawakened beings, including not just humans, but also animals, pretas, asuras, gods, and so forth. It is called “threefold” because of a traditional classification of the realms of these various beings into three kinds.
51. Nichiren, 『立正安國論』. Translation: Yampolsky, p. 40.
52. Ibid. p. 41.
53. Johannes Bronkhorst (2007), Greater Maghada: Studies in the Culture of Early India (Leiden: Brill).
54. “Avoidable” here means that it can be (somehow) avoided; not necessarily that the suffering subject can do something themself to avoid it.
55. See the brief note about terror management theory (TMT) above.
56. Lin Qiuwu 林秋梧 (1929),〈階級鬥爭與佛教〉,《南瀛佛教》7.2: 52–8. Santikaro Bhikkhu (1996), “Buddhadasa Bhikkhu: Life and Society through the Natural Eyes of Voidness”, in: Christopher Queen & Sallie King (eds.), Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia (New York: SUNY Press): 147–93. B.R. Ambedkar (2011), The Buddha and His Dhamma (New Delhi: Oxford University Press).
57. See: Universal Liberation; Lajos Brons (2024), “Buddhism and the State: Rājadhamma after the Sattelzeit”, Journal of Buddhist Ethics 31: 501-521; and Lajos Brons (2022), A Buddha Land in This World: Philosophy, Utopia, and Radical Buddhism (Punctum), chapter 4.
58. About this standardization process and how it changed the Pāli Canon, see: Mark Allon (2021), The Composition and Transmission of Early Buddhist Texts with Specific Reference to Sutras (Bochum: Project Verlag).
59. This table is based on a similar table in Is Secular Buddhism Possible?
60. Śāntideva, Bodhicaryāvatāra, §5:10.
61. Jay Garfield (2021), Buddhist Ethics: A Philosophical Exploration (New York: OUP).
62. Ibid., pp. 22–3. Emphasis in original.
63. Buddhaghosa, The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga), translated by Bhikkhu Nyanamoli (Onalaska: bps Pariyatti, 1999).
64. Stephen Batchelor (2012), “A Secular Buddhism”, Journal of Global Buddhism 13: 87–107. Reprinted in: (2018), Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World (New Haven: Yale University Press).
65. K.R. Norman (1982), “The Four Noble Truths: A Problem of Pali Syntax”, in: L.A. Hercus (ed.), Indological and Buddhist Studies: Volume in Honour of Professor J.W. de Jong on his Sixtieth Birthday (Canberra: Australian National University Press): 377–91, at p. 388. Notice that I changed Norman’s translation of dukkha from “pain” to “suffering”.
66. Bhikkhu Anālayo (2021), Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions: A Historical Perspective (Somervile: Wisdom), pp. 136–7.