Non-Self, Karma and Rebirth

[Note: this post will be edited over the next several days.]

In order to understand the Buddhist conception of karma and rebirth, you have to set aside the delusion of a self; that is, both a personal ‘self’ in the Western sense and a ‘soul’ in the Indian Sanskrit translation. I believe the Buddhists were trying to formulate a theory (if you will) of karma and rebirth that truly was a ‘middle way’ between the eternalism of the soul which transmigrates from body to body; and nihilism, in which there is no karma or rebirth.

We often interpret ‘karma and rebirth’ in a very individual way in which a person dies and that person’s ‘seed’ of consciousness enters another body, and somehow the ‘seed’ of consciousness in that new individual ‘ripens’ into the consequences of the prior person’s life actions, or karma. This theory of karma and rebirth is precisely what I think the early Buddhists were against and were trying to reformulate into a new theory of karma and rebirth that does not involve an individual ‘self’ or eternal cosmic ‘soul’.

There is another way to think of karma and rebirth: as determined by causes and conditions, and probabilities. If the same configuration of causes and conditions, mostly biological and social conditions, reappear in another life-in-being, there is a high probability that the new life-in-being will have similar experiences, and a similar potential for suffering (dukkha) as an outcome. But there is always a possibility for that next life-in-being to make different choices than others in similar circumstances.  

I choose the term ‘life-in-being’* to depersonalize what it is that is experiencing the configuration of causes and conditions. Because karma is not personal; there is no “I” who is suffering, who dies and is reborn. What is reborn (sic) is a life-in-being. The life-in-being has no direct personal connection to the prior life, either in consciousness or by DNA. It is simply ‘a life’ that experiences similar circumstances and thus has a high probability for experiencing similar suffering. This way of looking at karma emphasizes how similar we all are, rather than our uniqueness, how we are all subject to certain similar causes and conditions (e.g. life in a feeling body)and so we all suffer in similar ways. Instead of saying “causes and conditions” we can simply say “the human condition,” and the human condition causes suffering in individuals.

Yet “I”, as ‘this life-in-being’, am deeply connected to that future life-in-being or beings, whoever they may be, because all of life is deeply connected. In the same way, I am deeply connected to the lives of all those who went before me, my genetic ancestral heritage, and those who share my ethnic and national heritages (there are many). Thus, I am the inheritor of all the bio-social conditions that made up the conditions for my suffering or happiness in this life. And the acts that I commit, beneficial and harmful, will form the conditions for future lives that experience those conditions. Thus I am ethically responsible to create conditions that avoid creating harm and are conducive to the well-being of present and future lives.

This involves a general theory of the conditions of suffering, rather than specific ‘bad acts’ that result in specific outcomes in a future life. In the individual view, the specific acts that I commit get their “just retribution” in the next life, i.e. ‘the punishment fits the crime.’ But in a general theory of dukkha or suffering, the actions and conditions that cause human suffering in the present life are re-activated in future lives. What survives death and passes to the next life are (1) ignorance and (2) instinct or the impulse to act (sankhara). Thus what is ‘reborn’ is the tendency to act out of ignorance and the instinct for survival, which causes suffering. It is these universal conditions that all beings experience which lead to the universal experience of suffering. The suffering we cause others and ourselves, through our harmful acts, create the conditions that will probably cause others to suffer in the future. This general way of interpreting karma and rebirth is similar to that taught by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, who explained it as a “collective” karma and rebirth.

Thus karma and rebirth, and the desire to escape from suffering, is existential and universal, a fundamental and inescapable fact of all human-animal existence. Analyzed in terms of this very general point of view, karma and rebirth makes more sense. This, I believe, is the nuanced teaching on karma and rebirth proposed by the Buddhists. It’s not the physical death and rebirth of one individual person transformed into another individual; rather it is a universal experience of death and rebirth that takes place in each and every embodied and conscious life. It is what humanity experiences as old age, sickness and death, and is reborn to: the conditions that cause suffering. It’s only when you set aside the delusion of a personal ‘self’ and approach it from this universal perspective that karma and rebirth makes any sense.

*A ‘life-in-being’ is an enigmatic term that I encountered in law school, studying the law of inheritance. I remember that myself and my fellow law students were completely baffled by the term. It seemed to be some archaic English way to say “a human being” or “a typical human lifespan.” I’m using it here to depersonalize the notion of a unique individual human life and to refer to a generalized “human life”, a generalized individual. Because in Buddhism, there is no ‘self’ that has a life or whose unique personal consciousness, in seed form, goes on to another life.