[Muhabsssa]

I noticed discussion of the "demerit" that the mistaken bhikku acquired as a result of his misrepresentation of the teachings about consciousness. What exactly does that refer to, if not the sort of "what goes around comes around because merit and demerit sticks to you and follows you" karma that it would seem Buddha is mocking here?

I mean, if he's mocking the idea of rebirth, why mention demerit? I'm a little confused as to what else that can mean. I'd love to hear from someone a little savvier with this sutta than I am, if somebody has an explanation.

You may know of what's termed the Buddha's "Skill in Means". He spoke to people at their level of understanding and nudged them forwards a bit, as any good teacher does. Most of the Buddha's associates were coming from a background in Hinduism, as he did. For them, reincarnation was literally one's soul leaving the body at death and reinserting itself in another newborn life form. Rebirth is a kind of hijacking of that concept with the key being that there is no soul or even an enduring self in the first place. What, then, is reborn? Well, if you consider that selfhood is an illusion brought about by the collocation of the 6 senses, then nothing new comes into being at birth nor ends at death. Existence is an unbroken continuum of phenomena. The actions of what appears, fallaciously, to be an individual continue to produce results long after the dissolution of the elements that make up the body, sensations, consciousness, etc. One is nothing more than the phenomena, and phenomena condition future phenomena. In that sense, there is rebirth of phenomena, but it has nothing to do with one's soul/self being somehow magically teleported to the womb of an expecting being.

That is, the Buddha talked to people who believed in transmigration of the soul in their own terms. If you demand an exacting, literal interpretation of every sutta, regardless of context (most of which is lost), you'll run into innumerable contradictions. I haven't seen much evidence to support the common assumption that the Buddha ever intended to construct a complete and internally-consistent philosophical edifice, as Western philosophers have tried to do. Instead, he tried to point each person he dealt with in the right direction, based on where they were at the moment.

Seems to me that a discussion of rebirth in terms of a literal transmigration of a soul/self/essence or whatever would be tailored towards someone with only a rudimentary understanding of the Buddha's messages (dukkha, anicca, anatta). Other suttas directed towards those with more advanced understanding do not support the literal interpretation.


www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn48/sn48.041.than.html

and

seen and heard are the persons whose particular name is mentioned, but only the name
remains undecayed of the person that has passed away[1]. (808) //www.sacred-texts.com/bud/sbe10/sbe1036.htm


//www.sacred-texts.com/bud/sbe10/sbe1036.htm