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Karma discussion - split topic from 'Unity of Faiths'
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11-14-2011, 05:09 AM
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darieBarexish
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Where is the need of "re-birth"?
Kaarine,
I guess my approach to this question is "since the Buddha appears to have taught karma and rebirth, what was his reason for doing so?"
It's not that I'm a gung-ho advocate of these particular teachings, insisting that everyone must accept them or be kicked out of Buddhism. When I first started investigating the dharma, rebirth and karma were big obstacles for me. I would have been happy to find evidence in the Canon that the Buddha didn't teach in this way.
What I saw in the suttas, however, seemed to show clearly that he did. Which returns us to your question -- why? What is the need?
I think even fairly conservative/orthodox teachers -- at least in Theravada -- might agree that rebirth/karma are not the knowledge that leads to liberation. Basically it was what the Buddha saw "during the second watch of the night". The Four Noble Truths came on the third watch.
Doesn't seem to me, though, that karma and rebirth contradict dukkha or the 4NT. It's more that the former represent a partial glimpse and the latter represent the full view. In Mahayana, also, when sunyata is fully and directly realized, karma is no longer an issue.
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