[TeNuaTe]

Many Buddhists, especially in western countries are Philosophical materialists. They do not believe in anything other than the body as the conventional self. Things like the mind, that used to be seen as being different from the body are now seen as part of the body, located in the brain. Therefore, many of the Neo-Buddhists do not believe in rebirth other than in a materialistic way.

Here are two examples of how rebirth is seen. The first is a more traditional Buddhist approach, the latter the Neo-Buddhist trend.

1.A man dies, his physical body stops working. A subtle body (spirit, but a non-self spirit) continues on to the next rebirth. This subtle body carries the mans karma to whatever his new birth will be. The new being is both him and not him. When he reaches nirvana, because his being is not totally destroyed on death, he can truly stay in nirvana eternally, he doesnt have to be reborn into the world of suffering anymore.

Now lets remove the function of anything beyond the body from Buddhism as many now attempt to do and see what happens.

2. A man dies, his physical body stops working. He has no subtle body because it does not exist. There is no other bundle of energies that can keep his actions together to lead to a new birth. The closest thing to reincarnation that can happen is if his body is allowed to be turned to ash or eaten by animals, is that his body will become part of the earth or of an animal, some small component of the matter that made his body may eventually be turned into a sperm or egg cell by some creature, and if its lucky, become some new creature. What is thought of as his karma will never bear fruit this way because there will be no way for it to further express itself in anyway he can experience. If this man attains nirvana in life, when he dies, his nirvana will not be eternal because everything that made up his being ceases with the cessation of his brain and goes back to ignorance, and new beings arising from his old material will be ignorant once again and nirvana loses permanence. Or, we can say, that every person attains nirvana when they die, as they cease to be a being, but then nirvana is also not permanent, and any subsequent beings that may be made of that material will be back in ignorance as well.

If we accept this second view, then there is almost no point for Buddhist practice, and in fact, it could lead to nihilism. One could still meditate and try to pacify ones mind for relaxation and feelings of well being, but other than that, nothing. In fact, depending on ones mind set, even if one knows he has no STABLE self, the total taking away of even the ever evolving self created by the aggregates, may prove too much and lead to nihilism and just giving up on practice. Without a sense of self (permanent self or impermanent self), that will have to reincarnate in the future to experience reward or punishment for its action, or a set of purified skhandas that dwell in/with nirvana, there is no point for the spiritual or moral life other than to feel high and better by altering brain chemistry.

How in any way does this sound Buddhist? If we take away rebirth and permanent nirvana from the Buddhism, then the whole thing falls on its head and becomes a materialistic pantheism with rebirth and nirvana being a pale shadow of what they are traditionally thought to be.

Note: I have avoided the term atheist and replaced it with materialist in this article as in the ultimate sense all Buddhists are quasi-atheist, depending on how you define that term.