From: cup.portal.com!Tagi%portal@uunet.UU.NET
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: a question for buddhists...
Date: 11 Oct 92 16:23:38 GMT
Organization: ----

9210.11 e.v.  HAPPY CROWLEYMAS! (perhaps a wee early)

Some interesting ideas surround the nature of the ego. Bill Carter posts here
regarding it and quotes another while doing so, I respond to both.


WALSHA writes:
>
>I was reading Conze's commentary on the heart sutra last night and
>when i got to the part where he says: "there is no ego,
>there is no lasting person other than that generated by the 
>interplay of the 5 skandhas," I wondered how buddhists reconcile 
>this with the idea of reincarnation.
>
>I recently read a post where the writer affirmed his commitment to
>enlightenment even if it took many lifetimes. But if you have no
>survivable ego or personhood, what exactly will be working towards 
>enlightenment over that course of time?


Response (Thyagi):

My understanding, after asking a Buddhist monk or two, is that what is
reincarnated is not other than the buddha-nature. In this way we might
reconcile the theories of atman/brahman with those of anatman/buddha
by perhaps simplistically assigning one to a dual unification (in
which the atman and brahman are considered ultimately identical yet
have the appearance of being separate) and unified duality (in which
the anatman is affirmed as illusory while the buddha-nature is taken
as its ultimate component).  Rotate Hinduism 180 degrees and it begins
to resemble Buddhism in some areas.

Ultimately there is no clear answer regarding what it is that works toward
enlightenment. It is the same question as 'who am I?' and is the
deepest mystery which we may contemplate during our supposed existence.


Bill:

Good question. I don't know how the Buddhists reading this newgroup
will answer it, and I'm not a Buddhist per se or anything else.
But it does seem to me to be some wishful and egotistic thinking
when people expect to have their personality preserved through
a series of life-death cycles.


Response:

In my opinion the thinking is not so much wishful and egotistical (though
I agree that there are some elements of this) as logically impaired.
One may not truly realize the truth of the impermanence of the ego
and claim to be the same person for more than a MOMENT, let alone 'over
successive lifetimes'. 

Seen from the perspective of one who does not fully realize one's
emptiness, anatman (the principle of no permanent identity) must
be interpreted as a gradual lessening of the being of ego.  The
reason I imagine is that, given the evidence of the persistence of
the ego in subjective experience we find ourselves hard-pressed to
posit 1) that it may be changing and 2) that it is dependent upon
the non-ego for its arising and continuation.

The cycles of life and death are quite tricky.  When does death
'happen', exactly?  Can we not be said to die in each moment, never
to 'be the same person again'?  Can we not be said to contain some
element which survives these deaths?  Where is it?  Again, we face
the question of 'who' or 'what am I?'  Mystery upon mystery.


Bill:

Your ego might like to think itself is precious and important enough
to live forever until it finally gets especially nifty.  I don't
think it works that way.  As for re-incarnation, I figure that there
is just incarnation without the "re".


Response:

This is the less conservative criticism. The ego cannot 'think itself
precious and important enough to live forever' if it does not do the
thinking. If the self experiences thoughts and emotions yet does not
really create these, then no amount of such thinking can be taken as
evidence (or lack thereof) of either ego or continuation.

Incarnation implies (in the root of the word) the formation (OR
inhabitation) of the flesh (meat).  What inhabits this?  Certainly
the formation of flesh is a wonderous thing. Is there conservation
of energy?  Does this flesh deteriorate and then contribute to new
forms?  To me it sounds more like we are spoonfuls of broth which
arise (by our own and/or some transcendant entity's volition) and
consider themselves and then are plunged back into the whole,
integrated and conserved. Were we a spoonful?  What is a spoonful?

To the mote, is not the spoonful the entirety?  Less is more.  More
is less.


Thyagi (the spoonful)
==============================================================.
"So we'll go to the top of the toppest blue space,
The Official Katroo Birthday Sounding-Off Place!
Come on!  Open your mouth and sound off at the sky!
Shout loud at the top of your voice, 'I AM I!
ME!
I am I!
And I may not know why
But I know that I like it.
_Three cheers_!  I AM I!'"


Theodor Geisel   (Dr. Seuss)