Quote from sutta: But when someone who is attached has laid down this body and has not been reborn in one of the realms, what does Master Gotama say is their fuel then?”
“When someone who is attached has laid down this body, Vaccha, and has not been reborn in one of the realms, I say they’re fueled by craving. For craving is their fuel then.”
the sutta SN44.9 seems very clear that it’s not in any realms.
Quote from Ven. Sujato.
Rather than a “re-linking consciousness” the EBTs speak of the “stream of consciousness” or the “onflowing consciousness” that flows from one life to the next. Rebirth is a process, like leaving a house, walking down the street, and entering another house.
my comments:
As this in-between state is also impermanent, suffering, how can it be regarded as self?
it’s only if someone thinks after parinibbana something is leftover, then that something could be called a self. As parinibbana is permanent, not sufferring, if there’s anything leftover, that would be worth calling a self.
Before that, the 5 aggregates, rebirth etc, however we choose to label things, it can work in anyway and still also is not considered self.
This could go both ways, the sarvastivada people might say the same thing about Theravada and it just happens that Theravada survives.
There’s also a point in sarvastivada abhidhamma (I think, haven’t actually read it), that mindfulness is neutral, which matches well with miccha sati in sutta, as well as the fact that mindfulness can be used to train better killers (assasins, soldiers, snipers). In contrast with Theravada abhidhamma which says mindfulness is always wholesome.
Yes it is not in any realm because the moment of death leads immediately to the rebirth.
So upon death next moment is rebirth.
Except in the case of the arahat.
PTS Peter Masefield
Udana
commentary (Ud-a),1:10, Bahiya.
…
“When you, Bahiya, are not therein (tato tvam Baahiyna tattha), then
you, Bahiya, will be neither here nor there nor, additionally, in
both - this alone
is the end of dukkha.”
Commentary:
"It is, moreover, wrong on the part of those who seek reference to an
intermediate becoming (antaraabhavam) by seizing upon the phrase
ubhayamantarena [in both]. For the existence of an intermediate becoming
is altogether rejected in the Abhidhamma. …Furthermore, those who still
say that there is an intermediate becoming by seizing unmethodically upon
the meaning of such sutta-passages as “An antaraaparinibbaayin” (eg
Aiv 70ff) and ‘Those who are become or those seeking becoming’ (Khp8) are
to be rebuffed with ‘there is no (such thing)’ since the meaning of the
former sutta passage is that he is an antaraaparinibbaayin since he
attains parinibbaana (parinibbaayati) by way of remainderles
defilement-parinibbana through attaining the topmost path midway
(antaraa )[in lifespan]…, whilst the meaning of the latter
(sutta-passage) is that those who, in the former word, are spoken of as
‘those who are become’ (bhuutaa), are those in whom the asavas have been
destroyed, being those who are merely become, (but) who will not become
(again, (whereas the latter,) being the antithesis thereof, (and spoken of
as) ‘those seeking becoming’ (sambhavesino) since it is becoming
(sambhava.m) that they seek (esenti), are sekhas and puthujjanas on
account of the fetters giving rise to becoming not having been
abandoned…[…]For when there is a straightforward meaning that follows the > (canonical) Pali, what business is there in postulating an intermediate > becoming of unspecified capacity?
Just to go back to the OP question. this leads one to just see where does one has faith on.
The discussion above clearly show that there’s a difference between directly reading the suttas (if the Buddha knew that there’s no intermediate state, why didn’t he just say so? What’s the use of saying craving sustains that if there’s no time frame for it to sustain?)
And knowledge from abhidhamma, commentaries and so on which has the notion of rebirth relinking consciousness must immediately follow the death consciousness and doesn’t allow any existence (which is still samsara) beyond the standard realms of rebirth.
Many monks in EBT sees this kind of differences and choose to place their faith in the suttas or early suttas rather than the abhidhamma, commentaries etc, as guided by AN4.180.
AN4.180 says anything anyone claims to be the word of the buddha should be checked against the sutta and vinaya (note, not abhidhamma) and if they do not agree with/are not found in the sutta and vinaya, it’s to be concluded that they are not the words of the Buddha.
But you don’t mention that Abhidhamma is classified at times as Tipitaka and at times as sutta.
Atthasalini (expositor) p. 32:
“Which is the Khuddaka Nikaya? The whole of the Vinaya-pitaka, Abhidhamma pitaka and the fifteen divisions excluding the four nikayas” p35 “thus as rehearsed at the [first]council the Abhidhamma is a Pitaka by Pitaka classification, khuddaka -nikaya by Nikaya clasification, veyyakarana by part-classification and constitues two or three thousand units of text by classification of textual units”
Thus Abhidhamma is also sutta.
Commentary to the Mahāparinibbānasuttaṁ (DN 16)
Catutthabhāṇavāraṁ
But in the list [of four things] beginning with sutta, sutta means
the three baskets [Suttanta, Vinaya, Abhidhamma] which the three
Councils.
It is unfortunate that some can’t understand how profound Abhidhamma is and how it aligns exactly with what is real: what is here right now.
If they could they would see how Abhidhamma- pitaka , Sutta- pitaka and vinaya- pitaka are in agreement in every way, as they must be since they were spoken by the Sammasambuddha.
In ancient times some Bhikkhus also denigrated the Abhidhamma.
Expositor p.37
He who prohibits (the teaching of) Abhidhamma gives a blow to the Wheel of the Conqueror, denies omniscience, subverts the Teacher’s knowledge full of confidence, deceives the audience, obstructs the path of the Ariyas, manifests himself as advocating one’ of the eighteen causes of dissension in the Order, is capable of doing acts for which the doer is liable to be ex- communicated, or admonished,’ Or scorned (by the Order), and should be dismissed after the particular act of excommuni-cation, admonition, or scorn, and reduced to living on scraps of food.
The Sarvāstivāda had distorted understanding and that is to be expected of a schismatic sect.
It is not surprising that some of these ideas appeal to a few today and thus we can see how hard it is to even develop correct intellectual understanding, let alone more than that.
Here is from Wikipedia:
The Vaibhāṣika school saw itself as the orthodox Sarvāstivāda tradition, and they were united in their doctrinal defense of the theory of “all exists” (sarvām asti). This is the doctrine which held that dharmas, past present and future, all exist . This doctrine has been described as an eternalist theory of time.
It is laughable - one would think, right- but still, somehow it is taken seriously.
I started to reply… but it is just a trap.
EBT is just clickbait…with clickbait titles… and we live in a polarized world for clout articles rather than the proper pāḷi dhamma.
Hi Sam,
If tanha is absent then there is no condition for patisandhi citta to arise.
Tanha is the fuel of samsara. Thus the moment of death is distinct from the next moment.
Why do wrong viewers interpret this short phrase to mean that it shows there is some being flying around ( who is not in any realm) before rebirth?
That is the nature of wrong view - to try to find a self.
It becomes a vicious cycle. If one is fixated on imaginating an intermediate being then it shows there is no understanding, even at the intellectual level, of the rise and fall of dhammas. This leads to more imaginating, “maybe the Abhidhamma is wrong?” . And so on.
If it goes further one might believe the ancients of Theravada got it all wrong and deny their Ariya status.
How can this dangerous state be rescued?
If there is the beginning of distinguishing concept from reality one can see such ideas are mere thinking, conceiving .
Then there may be the turning towards the six doors and learning to study the seeing and color, the hearing and sound, the touching and hardness, heat and so on. And then the radical impermance and uncontrollabilty of each moment gets imprinted little by little. Doubts too are known as they are.
Then a virtuous cycle occurs and confidence grows as the teachings of the ancients are revealed to be exactly the same as what is occuring in life and nature.
If Theravada Abhidhamma denies the ultimate existence of external world (of chairs and trees, and other non-paramattha things) and merely calls them conceptual (which is a product of the concept producing deluded citta) then in a sense it is Idealism (or almost).
Personally, to me, idealism would really make Abhidhamma easier to accept. Less problems with how kamma & citta can produce all the results and all the incredible "worlds that one can be reborn into (to speak conventionally).
IMHO, a much bigger and fundamental difference between different Abhidhamma teachings is the nature of dhammas. Are they tri-temporal, with momentary manifestation? Or are they momentary only? In latter case it brings lots of potential logical problems and seems to violate the law of conservation of energy. IMHO.
I am not exactly sure what is the exact nature of antarabhava, maybe it’s mind made body? Like NDE people experience?
From the position of EBT, I think there’s no issue, just that classical Theravada doesn’t have this and thus think that it is too close to soul theory, but mind made body is already similar to that, no need to posit a soul.
Abhidhamma is too long and too difficult to understand. Not everyone can or wants to read for 5-7 hours at a time. Short stories with less terminology are easier for some people to read and grasp. “A confused mind says NO”.
Over reliance on western materialistic historical analysis.
Suttas can be re-interpreted much easier than Abhidhamma to fit the person’s idea of what the teaching is about.