Do we think there’s life after death in Soto Zen? I discuss the Soto Zen perspective on consciousness and whether some kind of consciousness continues after our physical death, and where we find meaning if the self is empty of any inherent essence.
Quicklinks to Article Content:
Life After Death? Not the Most Important Question
Buddhist Rebirth as a View of Life After Death
The Zen View of Life After Death and Consciousness
Meaning If Self and All Dharmas Are Empty
Life After Death? Not the Most Important Question
Here’s the question I received:
“I would like some clarity on what the Soto Zen perspective on consciousness is. I have studied Tibetan Buddhism and Rinzai Zen, and I have always thought of there being a consciousness that continues from lifetime to lifetime, from one reincarnation to the next. Is this true in the Soto Zen tradition? And if not, how do they perceive consciousness?”
I should begin my answer by stating up front that I don’t think there’s an official Soto Zen view about what happens after death, although I will present some core teachings on the subject. I suspect you could get a fairly large proportion of Soto Zen folks to agree on the basic view I will discuss, but there will be considerable variation – all the way from a belief in the Christian God and heaven, to a literal belief in reincarnation, to a strong conviction that nothing carries on after our physical death.
The fascinating thing is that the question of what happens to us after death is generally not considered a very important question in Zen, or in many kinds of Buddhism. Isn’t that radical? Here’s why:
In the Sabbasava Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya Number 2), a scripture from the Pali canon, the Buddha lists the kinds of concerns that preoccupy unenlightened human beings:
“This is how he attends inappropriately: ‘Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? …Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future?’ …Or else he is inwardly perplexed about the immediate present: ‘Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?’
“As he attends inappropriately in this way, one of six kinds of view arises in him: The view I have a self arises in him as true & established, or the view I have no self… or the view It is precisely by means of self that I perceive self… or the view It is precisely by means of self that I perceive not-self… or the view It is precisely by means of not-self that I perceive self… or else he has a view like this: This very self of mine — the knower that is sensitive here & there to the ripening of good & bad actions — is the self of mine that is constant, everlasting, eternal, not subject to change, and will stay just as it is for eternity. This is called a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views. Bound by a fetter of views, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person is not freed from birth, aging, & death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair. He is not freed, I tell you, from suffering & stress.”[1]
“The well-instructed disciple of the noble ones,” on the other hand, the Buddha says, does not attend to these inappropriate topics, but instead attends to practice – clarifying the Four Noble Truths and the ways we can skillfully use our minds and bodies to end suffering and to awaken. In other words, contemplating the nature of our self-consciousness or what happens to us after death is a fruitless endeavor that only leads us further down the path of suffering.
A similar message is conveyed in the Pali Canon Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta, which I think of as the “questions that do not tend to edification sutta.” In this text, a monk named Ven. Malunkyaputta ponders some of the “positions that are undisclosed, set aside, discarded by the Blessed One [the Buddha].” These include:
“‘The cosmos is eternal,’ ‘The cosmos is not eternal,’ ‘The cosmos is finite,’ ‘The cosmos is infinite,’ ‘The soul & the body are the same,’ ‘The soul is one thing and the body another,’ ‘After death a Tathāgata [completely liberated being] exists,’ ‘After death a Tathāgata does not exist,’ ‘After death a Tathāgata both exists & does not exist,’ ‘After death a Tathāgata neither exists nor does not exist.’”[ii]
Ven. Malunkyaputta decides he’s going to renounce Buddhist training unless the Buddha gives him some answers about these matters. The responds with an analogy about a man wounded with an arrow “thickly smeared with poison.” Rather than allowing a surgeon to remove the arrow and attend to his wound, the man insists on first learning the caste, name, and home village of the man who shot him, along with whether the shooter was tall, medium, or short; what kind of bow was used and what the bowstring was made of; whether the shaft of the arrow was made of wild or cultivated wood… and so on. The Buddha says, “The man would die and those things would still remain unknown to him. In other words, life is too short to waste on searching for answers that are not actually going to liberate us from suffering and help us lead a life of greater wisdom and compassion.
Buddhist Rebirth as a View of Life After Death
Despite the fact that the old Buddhist teachings I just mentioned are very clear about the futility of pondering questions about life after death, throughout history Buddhists have still done a lot of it. Frankly, I think it’s just human nature.
One confusing thing is that Buddhism inherited a cosmology of rebirth from the Indian spiritual traditions that surrounded and predated its beginning 2500+ years ago. The rebirth teachings say that after death you are reborn by inhabiting a newly forming embryo somewhere. Your actions and status in this life affect the kind of rebirth you have – whether, for example, you’re born beautiful and wealthy, or ugly and poor, or even as an animal. The Buddhist amended this view of rebirth a little, by emphasizing that your rebirth was affected by your moral deeds and spiritual practice in this life (as opposed to your caste, or the rituals you paid priests to perform for you).
There are many senses in which I think this ancient view of rebirth is directly contrary to Buddhist teachings, and I discussed the matter in Episode 28. For one thing, the Buddha clearly taught that consciousness is only one of the five skandhas, or aggregates, and also “not-self,” so what migrates from one body to the next? The Buddhists had to do some philosophical backflips to explain that one. The best explanation I’ve read was that it’s like one candle lighting the flame on a second candle; the first candle’s flame is the cause of the second, but no “thing” is passed from one to the other.
Certain Buddhist traditions focus a great deal on rebirth, or reincarnation (both mean more or less the same thing, but rebirth emphasizes that something migrates and inhabits a new form, but that thing might be only some kind of essence and not the whole package you think of as yourself, while reincarnation suggests the whole person manifests again, just in a different body). An example of a tradition that often emphasizes rebirth is Vajrayana, of which Tibetan Buddhism is the best-known example. The main teachers and authorities in Vajrayana Buddhism are often believed to be the reincarnation of past spiritual masters (such as the 14th Dalai Lama).
I have no explanation for focus on rebirth in some Buddhist traditions except to say that the Buddhist tradition as a whole is very diverse. There is arguably more variation in the views and practices of Buddhist sects than can be found in the whole of Christianity. I find traditions which focus on rebirth to be very, very different than Zen. I think also very, very different from what I think the Buddha originally taught. But different strokes for different folks.
The Zen View of Life After Death
This brings us around to the Zen view of life after death.
I suspect that, generally speaking, our concern about something we can call “consciousness” which might continue from lifetime to lifetime is more or less that same thing as a concern about something we can identify as “self” which will endure after our physical death. Think about it: If “consciousness” was some kind of impersonal energy which is released into the atmosphere when we die, and which may cohere in some manner as it floats around the in the world until it’s absorbed by another body, why would we care? What we really want to know is, “What is going to happen to me after I die?” Consciousness in some form may continue, but it’s not much of a consolation if consciousness is just invisible energy with no more enduring, unique, independent, inherent self-nature than the molecules in our body as they disintegrate and return to the earth to become something else.
We say there is no enduring, independent, inherent self-nature in anything. The teachings point us to this, but it is also something we experience for ourselves. But this isn’t a philosophical and metaphysical speculation we prove using the scientific method. Basically, we observe what it’s like to live assuming a self-nature, and then we observe what it’s like to live when we don’t. The assumption of self-nature is an awkward, arbitrary, limiting, and anxiety-producing thing we add to our experience of life. Life without that assumption is free, vital, intimate, responsive, and in tune with everything. It’s like swimming upstream versus letting ourselves be carried by the flow of a river. Through our direct experience we realize water flows downhill.
The beautiful thing is, when we are freed from the assumption of self, we are also freed from fear. Life is real, but there is no one who was born, so there is no one who is going to be annihilated when we die.
Zen Master Dogen offers a teaching on life after death in his well-known essay Genjokoan:
“Firewood becomes ash. Ash cannot become firewood again. However, we should not view ash as after and firewood as before.”[iii]
In other words: Dharmas (things) change and transform, but we should not view them as being changed and transformed, as if there is the “thing” before transformation and the same “thing” after transformation, meaning there is some kind of abiding self-nature which has experienced a change of form.
“We should know that firewood dwells in the dharma position of firewood and has its own before and after. Although before and after exist, past and future are cut off. Ash stays in the position of ash, with its own before and after.”
In other words: The dharma position, or manifest truth, of each being and each thing exists this very moment. Yes, there is causation and change, but the beauty of each manifestation is not dependent on its past or future. Before death there is a person, after death there is a dead person, nothing is lost.
“As firewood never becomes firewood again after it has burned to ash, there is no return to living after a person dies. However, in Buddha Dharma it is an unchanged tradition not to say that life becomes death. Therefore we call it no-arising. It is the established way of buddhas’ turning the Dharma wheel not to say that death becomes life. Therefore, we call it no-perishing.”
In other words: What we as human beings really care about is the no-perishing part of this. However, what we want is to think we have a special, enduring self-essence which doesn’t perish, but will exist as an identifiable self-essence after we die so it can be reborn somewhere, or at least consciously and joyously join in a universal one-ness but still retain individuality. If there is no such self-essence, if even with our birth and throughout our lives there is no such self-essence, there is no such essence to die. This may sound bleak, but I’ll discuss more about why it isn’t in a bit.
Finally Dogen says:
“Life is a position in time; death is also a position in time. This is like winter and spring. We don’t think that winter becomes spring, and we don’t say that spring becomes summer.”
This analogy of the seasons is great. We don’t impute inherent self-nature into the seasons! When spring arrives, winter is gone. We don’t think the winter is still here wearing different clothes. Maybe we suspect winter will be back for while and don’t believe spring has fully arrived, but the very definition of spring is different from winter. But while it’s easy not to impute inherent self-nature to the seasons, when it’s our own existence over time we’re contemplating, we feel much differently! FYI, elsewhere in his writings Dogen talks about how time is being… so there’s more to this whole issue. And yet it’s important to remember that Dogen’s writing isn’t metaphysical speculation for its own sake, it’s about us facing our deepest koans as sentient beings, and our fear of death and annihilation.
With respect to whether there’s any kind of life after death, it’s totally okay to remain agnostic about all of this. It fine to wonder if maybe some kind of consciousness lingers after death, and to speculate with friends in a moment of leisure – as long as you don’t get too distracted by this pondering, as long as you don’t base your practice and happiness on the existence and endurance of self-nature.
Meaning If Self and All Dharmas Are Empty
Here’s the second question for the day:
“If we and all dharmas are empty of any inherent self-nature, why isn’t life meaningless?”
Let’s explore the word “meaning:” The end, purpose, or significance of something. Synonyms include intention, aim, goal, design, object, and plan.
It may not be so, but I’m guessing human beings, out of all living things on this planet, may be unique in this need for meaning. Objectively, it’s a strange thing if you really think about it. We long to feel we are significant, important, and special as individuals. We long to feel like we are part of a plan, that our life serves a purpose – that after we have lived, we will have contributed toward that purpose and somehow pushed the needle a little further. We cherish the thought that someone or something witnesses our life and judges it to be good enough, or that someone or something with a larger view and a plan knows what’s going on, even if we don’t, and that everything will turn out okay in the end.
Where do Buddhists find meaning if we don’t take refuge in the belief in a soul, a deity, life after death, or a divine plan?
This is a very good question. We should answer this for ourselves. Any merely intellectual answer will not ultimately be satisfying.
That said, the basic Zen idea is that the problem of the meaning of life is one of our own creation. Usually, when we ask, “What is the meaning of this/my life?” We viewing life through a limited, self-centered frame, assuming that any meaning is dependent on something external – on a plan, a purpose, or a deity. We’re looking for meaning as determined by something other than what is right here, right now – some fulfillment of a plan from the past, or contribution to future outcomes, or the values or agendas of forces that stand somehow apart from the reality we inhabit.
We search for dependent meaning, but it usually eludes us, or slips from our grasp as conditions change. This seems to be a fatal flaw of the world, but really it’s that we’re ruining the party with our flawed and baseless assumptions. Demanding dependent meaning from life is like looking at your child and constantly asking them, “What you here for?” As if the preciousness of your child’s existence is dependent on them fulfilling some pre-ordained purpose.
When we are able to set aside our attachment to dependent meaning, we can experience life on its own terms. Nothing whatsoever is missing. It’s not a matter of meaning or no meaning. Significance is inherent in each thing, each moment, with no need for reference to the past, future, or some external plan. True self-nature is not voidness, it is boundless. All things are the self. As Dogen says, “To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be verified by all things.” And “Conveying oneself toward all things to carry out practice-enlightenment is delusion. All things coming and carrying out practice-enlightenment through the self is realization.”
The universe at this moment is one seamless reality, luminous and miraculous. Your manifestation is unique. Without it, the universe would not be what it is. You partake of, and participate in, this luminous reality. You don’t need to be special, as in better than anyone else or meeting some set of expectations. You don’t need to have an enduring self-essence, that’s just an idea.
It annoys me when Christians respond to some terrible occurrence by restating their conviction that God has a plan, but that His plan is beyond our comprehension. That sounds to me like saying God is like a human being, and he makes plans like human beings do. Linear plans about the future and how things should turn out. Like he’s scripted all of this and the torture of beings is in service to some kind of overall plot that will make the evil and suffering worth it in the end.
At a more mystical level, though, I suppose some Christians are saying the same thing Buddhists are. That it doesn’t make sense to apply human concepts to figure out the “why” of the universe. If we do so, we will miss the unconditional beauty and preciousness of existence.
Endnotes
[1] “Sabbasava Sutta: All the Fermentations” (MN 2), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 30 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.002.than.html.
[ii] “Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta: The Shorter Instructions to Malunkya” (MN 63), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 30 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.063.than.html .
[iii] Okumura, Shohaku. Realizing Genjokoan: The Key to Dogen’s Shobogenzo. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2010.
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Image by Michaela Wenzler from Pixabay
