video
Episode
Eastern Traditions: What is Our Ultimate Future?
How do Buddhism, Chinese traditions, and Hinduism address Final Things—eschatology—life after death and the ultimate transformation of the world? What are reincarnation and non-dual pure consciousness in Hinduism? What are rebirth and Nirvana in Buddhism?
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- Our ultimate future as individuals and as a world has long intrigued me. I track eschatologies – doctrines and explorations of final things, including life after death and the far future of the universe. Although I remain skeptical of claims beyond science, I cannot rid myself of the notion that the physical world is not all there is. I should declare a personal interest. While my age is advancing – I’m approaching 80 – you’d think this is why I’m brooding fretting about death, and what may or may not come after. But that is not so. Truth to tell, my personal passion in ultimate futures has been life-long – literally, since I was 12. I’ve followed, over the decades, eschatological visions and philosophical arguments of the Abrahamic religions, especially Christianity. I thought I knew lots – analytically, historically, scripturally. But I knew only some – I had under-appreciated religions of the east – especially Hinduism and Buddhism; also, Chinese Daoism and Confucianism. I’m not looking for a new belief, but perhaps for an enriched hope. In eastern traditions, what is our ultimate future? I’m Robert Lawrence Kuhn and Closer To Truth is my journey to find out. With Eastern traditions, I’m on new terrain with Abrahamic traditions – Judaism, Christianity, Islam – I’m on home turf. The ultimate future is, “a new heaven and a new earth” – and a defined, if debatable, afterlife with depictions of heaven, hell, and kinds of purgatory. What do eastern traditions have in store for us? What are eastern ultimate futures? I begin with the Vedas, the Sanskrit religious texts and philosophical meditations – the oldest scriptures of Hinduism, and the well-spring of several Eastern traditions. I speak with a Hindu monk – who reads the Vedas with the eye of a western-trained philosopher – Swami Medhananda. Swami, in Hinduism, what is the ultimate future?
- Swami Medhananda
- Different traditions within Hinduism answer that question in different ways. But I think Ramakrishna, a nineteenth-century mystic, provides a really useful metaphor for thinking of the two basic paradigms for conceiving the final state within Hinduism. He says that some souls can eat sugar and other souls prefer to become sugar. And so, one form of liberation is dwelling in an eternal heaven with the personal God. And there are many different eternal heavens, depending on the form of the personal God that the soul prefers to dwell with. And the soul will – in that higher heaven will serve God, worship God, along the lines of a kind of Abrahamic heaven, and it’s eternal. And then, becoming sugar is a very different paradigm where there’s no actual eternal heavens at all and the soul just rests in its nature as non-dual pure consciousness. So, these are the two options and Ramakrishna embraces both. So, he always adopts this kind of both-and approach to eschatology. So, he says the soul will just choose and both are equally valid.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- They seem radically different. You know, I would want to eat sugar, not be sugar, but maybe that’s just because of my orientation, but they’re both the same level of ontological existence.
- Swami Medhananda
- Absolutely. Yeah. According to the tradition that I – I follow.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- Say there were different manifestations of God. So, if you’re – if you, you know, be with Moses or Jesus or Mohammad, those are equally valid?
- Swami Medhananda
- Absolutely. Yeah.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- And in each of those heavens, there is a God. I mean, I – I – you’re – you’re communing with God in some –
- Swami Medhananda
- Even the form that you love. So, if you in this life – in the life in which you ultimately attain liberation, your final embodiment let’s say, you love to worship God as Christ, for instance, then you’ll go to a Christian heaven in which you can dwell with Christ for an eternity.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- And how many different varieties are there?
- Swami Medhananda
- That’s actually infinite in – in a sense because Hinduism, there’s an idea of God can incarnate in human form, not once, but many times, whenever God feels like it basically. And so, with a new incarnation, that incarnation can actually create a new eternal heaven for devotees of that particular incarnation.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- And it’s the same God, though.
- Swami Medhananda
- The same formless, personal God can incarnate in different human forms and manifest in different sort of superphysical forms.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- So, roughly, the order of magnitude, if I want to eat sugar in one of these rooms, how many choices –
- Swami Medhananda
- I don’t even think it’s a finite number because, as I said, because God will choose to incarnate in the future as well, that new incarnation is – is going to create a new…
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- Can you switch rooms?
- Swami Medhananda
- Sure. Yeah. I mean, if you – if you so choose, but usually what happens is —
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- Moses could get boring after a while.
- Swami Medhananda
- There’s one thing we have to be careful about, which is projecting our own human limitations into the final state, but – yeah, but that’s – yeah. [overlapping voices]
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- Yeah, ok, I am being silly… Okay. So, now, if I want to become sugar and I lose my personal identity, can I ever get it back?
- Swami Medhananda
- Again, I think different traditions will answer this question in different ways. I think that the very traditional school of non-dualism espoused by Shankara will say no and the reason being that that’s just a – that’s a more ultimate and greater state so why would you want to restore a more illusory state? [overlapping voices]
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- But it seems like even if you want – you can’t want to anymore because you will have lost that. [overlapping voices] So – so, what – what is the agent that is wanting to go back because it has disappeared?
- Swami Medhananda
- But that’s why there are other Hindu traditions which accept the reality of the personal God as well, so then that would be the agent. The personal God can choose to restore even, can – can pull out a kind of individual back from the non-dual state.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- So, if I make a deal and say, look, I’m going to try to be sugar for a while and I’m going to lose my identity, but please remember me so after whatever timeframes are defined – [overlapping voices] – pull me back. That’s a deal I can make.
- Swami Medhananda
- Yeah, I think so, I think if you go back to the original Hindu scriptures you find this kind of expansiveness. And what happens is centuries after these scriptures were composed, the philosophical schools get a little bit narrower and more exclusivistic and they say – they adopt a more of an either-or approach rather than the both-and approach. God can only be personal and in a particular personal form. And I think that there is a kind of broader approach that is actually truer to the spirit of the original scriptures.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- I love the “eat sugar” vs. “be sugar” disjunction in Hinduism’s rapturous afterlife – be your distinct self, “eat sugar” or dissolve into the infinite ocean of consciousness, “be sugar.” It exemplifies the radical distinction in ultimate futures, between Western and Eastern traditions. But now I learn, to my surprise, even within Hinduism itself, there is a kind of afterlife “choice” — between radically opposing forms of ultimate existence. It’s, well, creative, certainly ecumenical, perhaps appealing – but I’d be really surprised, to say the least, if this be our ultimate future. Perhaps I need a higher kind of consciousness to see the light? I meet a leading thinker in Hinduism’s Advaita Vedanta’s dominant sub-school of non-dualism – Swami Sarvapriyanana.
- Swami Sarvapriyananda
- The whole purpose of this universe, embodied existence is liberation, is a realization of our infinite nature, and freedom from Samsara. Now, at death, physical body dies. And the Atman, the soul with the subtle body goes on to other bodies, newer and newer births, and we go through multiple lifetimes, learning. Until one realizes one’s identity with Brahman, and one is released. Advaita Vedanta would say at that point you realize none of this actually happened. I mean, it was – it happened at the level of the lower truth, at the level of the movie. Yes, it did happen. But there was a background truth where you were always free. You were this infinite Brahman ever.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- A couple of quick questions.
- Swami Sarvapriyananda
- Yes.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- When you die and the Atman goes to another body, does it happen immediately, or can there be a time-lapse?
- Swami Sarvapriyananda
- Oh, there’s a time-lapse. According to Advaita Vedanta, the Atman doesn’t travel anywhere, it’s the subtle body which travels.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- Okay.
- Swami Sarvapriyananda
- I mean, the movie screen doesn’t go anywhere but the character on the movie screen can travel all over the world, in the movie.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- Okay.
- Swami Sarvapriyananda
- And it takes time. So, in between, there are multiple realms in which, depending on the karma of the person, the self with the subtle body, it can travel. So, it’s supposed to inhabit different realms, some heavenly nice ones, some hellish, not-so-nice ones. And ultimately, get a human body and come back to work out its further karma. All of which is, by the way, Advaita Vedanta would sign off on all of this. But say, it’s just a movie.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- [Laughing]
- Swami Sarvapriyananda
- It’s the lower truth.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- Okay, okay. And what is the impact on the totality of reality?
- Swami Sarvapriyananda
- The idea is that God – there’s a God who creates this manifested universe for our benefit.
It helps us in our spiritual evolution. So, it’s quite possible that the universe will be shaped and changed as we need it for our further spiritual evolution. - Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- But is there some point, in the future, where all Atmans will have gone through the process, and therefore, there’s no need for a physical universe anymore? [overlapping voices]
- Swami Sarvapriyananda
- Well, that’s a theoretical question. There’re two answers to that. One is that everything will end, at one point. The universe comes to an end, and those who have become enlightened, they’re free forever. Those who are not enlightened, they remain in the seed state, in the unmanifest Maya of God, the power of God. Only to wait for the new universe to start again, when they’re projected out to work out their remaining karma.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- Okay.
- Swami Sarvapriyananda
- There’s no escape.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- Okay. There’s no escape, but also, there’s no end of hope?
- Swami Sarvapriyananda
- There’s no end of hope. And Advaita, again, would add a footnote there. Don’t worry, none of this actually happened. [Laughing] You are Brahman anyway.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- Well, if you’re Brahman anyway, you know, I don’t mean to be impolite, but what’s the point of the whole process? And at the end, if you’re good, you get back to where you were at the beginning?
- Swami Sarvapriyananda
- Right, it sounds like that. But an Advaita doesn’t have the problem because Advaitans immediately say, I’ll give a logical answer to that, and a more psychological answer later. The logical answer is it’s not a problem because it didn’t happen. So, if it appears to you, and you are the background reality which you always were, it’s not a problem. If you ask why this thing happened in my dream, it might be of interest to your psychotherapist, but it’s not something that you have to report to the police station. But the other way around, the realistic schools, the dualistic schools, they take it seriously, and they say, we are moving, we are actually in bondage. We’re moving from a limited state to a state of freedom and you know, bliss, and fulfillment. So, there’s a real price to be gained.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- Advaita Vedanta’s nondualism yields an inevitable ultimate future: Consciousness is the only reality. Our atman/soul experiences innumerable lifetimes. We were always the infinite Brahman. This beatific vision, to my Western eyes, looks bizarre. I admit it. But then… as I think about it… it becomes profound, and then… it becomes coherent — I respect that. I’m also taken by the analogy between our dreams to our reality, and on the other side, our reality to ultimate reality — that’s also coherent. Such visions of the afterlife – uncountable cycles of reincarnations, seeking liberation – does this suggest Hinduism’s rival tradition in ancient India – Buddhism? What happens to my “self” In Buddhism’s afterlife? I explore the Buddhist ultimate future with a leading Buddhist nun – a practitioner and believer. She also happens to have a doctorate in religion from Yale Venerable Yifa.
- Dr. Yifa
- In Buddhism words say, okay, the reason we have death is because we have birth. But without birth, then you don’t have death. But we are still always in this samsara, means the reincarnation, like an endless cycle of birth and death, unless you really cultivate it, so then you can kind of cut off this cycle and then jump out from this cycle and become nirvana – attain the nirvana and attain the liberation.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- And what is that state? What is that nirvana state for the – the individual consciousness?
- Dr. Yifa
- So, there was no birth and death.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- No birth and death, but is there awareness?
- Dr. Yifa
- Yes, like the Buddha attain the enlightenment at the age of 31, but that also means – after 80 years old, he died without this body. He is not coming back as a human being and no – no more become a human being, then you don’t have a sickness, you don’t become aging, and then you don’t die. But the truth he attained or, he gave the teaching is – is there. So, that is what we call Dhamma kaya, the body of a dhamma. So, that means his – his teaching, his spirit, the truth, you know, he – he taught is here.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- And in this reincarnation cycle, it can go on endlessly until you reach nirvana or maybe you do something irrevocably terrible and go to the hell or whatever it’s called and – and stay there.
- Dr. Yifa
- And as a human being [unintelligible] – in our previous life, we could be a dog, we could be an insect, you know, and also could be in the heavenly, you know.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- You could be a non-physical being as well – [overlapping voices].
- Dr. Yifa
- Yes, yes, yes, exactly you have hell, you know, ghost, or animal, or heavenly being, all different stages jumping around.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- Oh, wow. Wow.
- Dr. Yifa
- Yeah, that’s reincarnation.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- But do you get a choice? Do you choose, I want to be an angel or an ant?
- Dr. Yifa
- It’s chosen by your karma. [overlapping voices] And the karma is more like an energy. It’s not like – many people think like, okay, next life I want to go to heaven. Yes, that’s good you know it could be your vow, but if you think about it, I want to go to heaven, but I kill people. I’m sorry. It’s not by your thought, but by your actions. That’s called karma.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- Death in Buddhism is the handmaid of rebirth – if no death, no rebirth. The process of cycles of reincarnation is similar to that in Hinduism. The goal — liberation is also similar. What differs seems to be what liberation — the ultimate future — what’s it’s like. The nirvana of Buddhism vs. The infinite Brahman of Hinduism? Could this ultimate future distinction relate to the nature of the self? I ask an expert in Buddhist studies, a philosopher of mind and religion – Jay Garfield.
- Jay Garfield
- The question of the relationship between death and no self really is a hard one in Buddhism. So, Buddhism is, in a real sense, first and foremost, an Indian religious and philosophical tradition. So, when Buddhism arose, the idea of rebirth or reincarnation, were just accepted in India as part of the background. So, Buddha really assumed a doctrine of rebirth. But let’s begin by distinguishing reincarnation from rebirth. If we were to be reading a non-Buddhist text like the Bhagavad-Gita for instance, there’s a wonderful metaphor early in the Bhagavad-Gita where Krishna is trying to tell Arjuna that it’s okay to go kill his family members. Because nobody really dies. Our soul, our atman, the self, because this is a self-tradition, continues. And he says, the next life, it’s just like when you wake up in the morning, and you took off your clothes the previous night, and put on new clothes. Similarly, you put on a body in this life, you’ll go to sleep, and you’ll put a new body on the next life. Death is completely unreal, the soul continues forever. Buddhists would have thought that was crazy. But that is what reincarnation is: That we have a soul or an atman that gets new carny around it, right? New meat around it, and just acquires new bodies. But Buddhism doesn’t have such a thing. So, it’s got to refigure rebirth. So, when we think about no self in Buddhism, we’re always thinking about the reality of a person. And a person is a continuum of psychophysical aggregates. At physical death, that continuum of aggregates falls apart, but Buddhists think, who believe in rebirth – long footnote here – by the way. Rebirth is a big deal in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist traditions. But when Buddhism moved into China, rebirth was a really bad idea. The Chinese did not want to see their ancestors still alive, especially not as dogs. And so, rebirth kind of drops out of Buddhism in China, Japan, Korea. And a lot of Buddhism in the West explicitly jettisons the idea of rebirth. But still, the idea and what rebirth is talking about make sense even we don’t think there’s literal rebirth. But Indians and Tibetans really do believe in literal rebirth. So, what they believe is that the continuum of consciousness, one of the kind of clusters of psychophysical processes, the one that’s kind of got our perceptual and conceptual capacities continues even when the body dies. And that is the thing that is reborn and associated with a new set of aggregates. The nice thing about this, whether you believe it or not, is it gives us a wonderful metaphor for thinking about our lives as they are now. Because if this is right, rebirth isn’t simply something that happens when your body dies. Rebirth is happening every moment. At every moment, you are a new being, and so then it’s got very good pedagogical value. When you look at the Buddhist representations of the cosmology of rebirth, from India and Tibet, there are these six realms in which you can be reborn that are represented by the wheel of life image, the Bhavachakra. And so, there’s an animal realm, there’s the realm of Pretas or hungry ghosts. These are the spirits with tiny little mouths and giant bellies who can never get enough. There’s the hell realm where all kinds of torture happens. There’s the realm of kind of superheroes who are constantly kind of fighting for glory. There’s the divine realm, the realm of God, where everything is ambrosia, gorgeous music, and nice pillows, and lasts for a very, very long time, and then you go to hell. And then, there’s the human realm, right? And so, we’re told that our actions and our emotions propel us into the next life, into one of these realms. And you can take that very literally cosmologically, but remember they’re already represented in a picture. There’s already a metaphor there, and that wheel is sitting there in the jaws of death. The idea is that what propels us from existence to existence is vice that’s conditioned by the fear of death.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- But then the bottom-line question is, from a Buddhist point of view, is there any kind of sentient afterlife, after this body dies?
- Jay Garfield
- Some Buddhists believe that there is, and some Buddhists do not believe that there is. Buddhism isn’t a kind of a uniform place where everybody agrees about all issues. It’s a world of multiple views that are together in a kind of cluster, but are internally, at odds with one another. That’s okay.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- Because no-self is so essential in Buddhism, the no-self must affect Buddhism’s afterlife and ultimate future. Sure, it’s a challenge to harmonize the two prime Buddhist doctrines of no-self and reincarnation. After all, what is the thing reincarnating? harmonizing no-self with liberation, emptiness, nirvana, seems easier. Personally, I’d prefer neither — no… no-self reincarnation. No… no-self nirvana. I wonder whether this problem of the self or no-self, plus the cycles of death and rebirth, arise in Chinese philosophy? I speak with the Director of Rutgers center for Chinese studies – philosopher of religion, Tao Jiang.
- Tao Jiang
- I don’t think that the Chinese philosophy, as a whole, has a particular kind of, you know, vision about the – the future in the way that, let’s say, Christianity paints it, you know, in the way Buddhism paints it. A flourishing world that every person is cared for. Then there’s no longer the kind of – the kind of suffering that we see in – in – in the world, but that’s – that’s a very social kinds of utopia. That’s not the kind of other-worldly kind of ideal – the ideal of – of a fulfilling life, of a life that is well-lived, is that you become an ancestor. And then you enjoy the – the worship of your offspring. And the – if you become a sage, then you even enjoy more of the – of the worship of the people who benefit from your benevolence, from – from…
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- As an individual, and that is, in a literal sense?
- Tao Jiang
- We have no way of knowing what the spirit knows or do not, or whether – whether there’s awareness or not. In that sense, the Chinese are probably more pragmatic about it, that it’s – it’s in the way that the worshipping of ancestors, you know, that the way that the rituals are – are instituted and regulated is for the offspring, is for the – the continuity of the lineage, the continuity of the family, the continuity of the society. The Daoist path, you become a shen, right, a – an immortal. That’s our transcendence, some people translate it. Or you become, you know, a – a Buddha, or a patriarch, a Zen patriarch. So then, these are alternative paths. But, of course, for a Chinese they can be all three, right? So it’s a very fluid kind of spirituality.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- Now, after almost 70 years of pondering human mind, existence of God, life after death, ultimate futures— here’s my scorecard: My belief has not strengthened. But my hope has not dimmed. All major religions revere, and fear, the ultimate future – and all seek the ultimate best. In Abrahamic traditions – the ultimate future is , again, “a new heaven and a new earth” – Judaism, Christianity, Islam – each with its own ultimate best – both for the afterlife of the individual , with or without God; and for the transformation of the world. Similarly, eastern traditions look to the ultimate future – and of course, also seek the ultimate best. But the Eastern ultimate best differs in kind. Hinduism’s reincarnations – the soul seeking bliss or absorption into non-dual pure consciousness. Buddhism’s rebirths – the non-self person seeking nirvana, a final state of liberation and peak oblivion. Chinese traditions are this-world focused – family, society, state – although ancestor worship may hint at an afterlife. Eastern-western… possibilities abound —. Mix and match? — I love exploring varied visions of ultimate futures. Do I want to believe in an after-life? Of course, I do. Do I believe? Of course, I do not. Not a belief… but a kind of hope… to be…. Closer to Truth.