With Birth Death Applies

an essay

by Ajahn Nyanamoli Thero

1. We are born. We come into this world through our birth. As we shall see in the following paragraphs, there are many ways that one can think of one’s birth. However, from a phenomenological point of view our birth is always here with us. The fact that one is constantly engaged with the world of one’s desires, decisions and miseries, means that one is born—his birth is present. Obviously, for someone not used to thinking phenomenologically, it might be fairly difficult to pull oneself out of the habitual way of regarding things as something which is clearly defined, something palpable in one’s experience. For such a person ‘birth’ is an event from the past, and we shall address this issue in the paragraphs to follow. However, there is also a simpler and easily overlooked reason for one failing to grasp the phenomenological description of ‘birth’. In our language the term ‘birth’, as a designation of experience, carries certain past connotations. These connotations are absolutely gratuitous, and we shall see that the reason for that lies in people’s views (diṭṭhi). The established usage of terminology draws its significance (i.e. the meaning of its words) from the most common views (on the level of humanity or a particular culture), about the nature of experience. Needless to say, the common views are rarely correct, especially when it comes to the experience of an individual. These views can never represent the real order of things. Thus, apart from the way we speak, and use the language, nothing requires us to think that birth can, and shall only be understood as a past event which has started and ended in time.

2. Naturally, it is possible for one to regard, and understand to a certain extent, birth as something which has happened to him a long time ago, even without having the actual memory of the event. However, this kind of limited understanding is only possible in the objective (scientific) view of the world, and oneself. We can even go a step further and say that it is precisely because of that view that one thinks of birth (and other things, including ageing-and-death) in these temporal categories. With this kind of view, the objective world in front of one, the world which is in time, takes precedence over one’s experience as such, which is of time (cf. Ñāṇavīra Thera, Notes on Dhamma, FUNDAMENTAL STRUCTURE, Dynamic Aspect, para. 5). One starts regarding the objects that appear through one’s experience, as something more fundamental than the experience itself—he puts second that which is to come first, and he puts first that which is to come second¹. As a result of this one starts regarding oneself objectively as also being in time. Thus, time develops into a category which has become external to everything, and all of the things appear as being “within” it². Therefore, one sees that others are born, their event of birth occurs in time, when he observes it externally. But because he views himself externally too, he naturally (i.e. in conformity with his view) comes to assume that his birth has also occurred some time ago in the past. One also assumes, since he can see it in his everyday experience, that death will happen to him in that same ‘external’ sense, “as it happens to others all the time”. By regarding things in this way, he, as an individual, does not feel threatened by any of it, until the actual death comes of course. So, we can see that one doesn’t adopt this objective view voluntarily – when avijjā is present, the view is developed naturally as the quickest way of offering one assurance from a threatening world. The world and one’s experience becomes explainable and measurable—one has regained control.

Let us get back to the phenomenon of ‘birth’, we were discussing. The Buddha referred to ‘birth’ as: “Whatever birth, taking birth, descent, coming-to-being, coming-forth, manifestation of aggregates, and acquisition of [sense] spheres of the various beings in this or that group of beings, that is called birth.” (Sammādiṭṭhi Sutta, M. 9/i 50)

Thus, although we can agree that birth is some sort of a “beginning”, so to speak, a “manifestation of the aggregates”, what obliges us to think that that beginning has ended there? The fact that one keeps accepting and using the five-aggregates, the fact that one is constantly involved with the world of one’s senses, doesn’t that mean that one’s manifestation of aggregates is present³? And would one be able to desire various things in the world, if those things were not manifested? If one were able to relinquish any attachment for his own body, would one be bothered when that body falls apart and dies? It is because one affirms that manifestation of the five-aggregates, through desire-and-lust for them, that the manifestation exists, it comes-into-being—with being, birth is (bhavapaccayā jāti). And when one regards it as ‘mine’, one ages, falls sick and dies (and also experiences any other misery possible in this life)—with birth, ageing-and-death (jātipaccayā jarāmaraṇaṃ…). If there is no being whatsoever, would manifestation be able to manifest itself? And if nothing manifested, would one be able to appropriate it? And if there is nothing which belongs to one, would one suffer on account of those things breaking up and disappearing? No, because one has escaped.

3. Let us go back to the question of when birth ends. Actually, we can even ask when does birth start? The common view is that first one is conceived, and than, after nine months or so, things culminate in one being born. But when does the conception take place or when exactly is one born? Is it with the formation of an embryo or with cutting of the umbilical cord? Generally, the accepted view is that birth is over when the baby comes out of the womb and into the world. And when it comes to ‘general views’, we all know that people often tend to blindly comply to them, taking them for granted for the most (or whole) of their lives, without even realizing they are doing so. In this case, ‘birth’ becomes that which accords to the majority of opinions on that subject. One chooses to conform with “what everyone else thinks”, since the majority is “always in the right”. One accepts Heidegger’s impersonal ‘They’ as a dictator of one’s own values, one finds safety in doing so. However, no matter how secure the majority’s view might seem, all it takes is for someone else to come along and say (perhaps supporting it with “the latest medical research”) that birth actually ends when the formation of an infant is completed in the womb, and that coming out of the mother is not relevant as such, to question of birth itself. (Though, for parents, even if they happen to be those scientists, this is probably the most relevant part⁴.) If his utterance manages to change the general opinion, if the majority of people come to accept it, we will have a new, “more accurate” view on the nature of birth. The majority might have been wrong earlier, but now it is in the right… until it changes. And one can again choose to conform to that majority and make a choice out of it, but no matter how far one goes that choice will always remain personal, and as such, be on the level of an individual. So, although one thinks what everybody else does, one nevertheless remains responsible for that very thinking. It becomes clear then that by choosing the majority’s opinion on a certain subject (in this case ‘birth), out of ’faith’ in modern science (or religion) perhaps, a person chooses his individual view on given subject. So, by deciding to accept the scientific explanation of birth, one decides that birth, for him, is something observable, an event in the world. Thus, whether one is aware of it or not, one is responsible for the meaning of things in one’s experience. Even if we go further and say that we could pinpoint the exact moment of birth⁵, when, for example, conception takes place, and even if the whole of humanity, without an exception, agreed upon it, nevertheless, this would not escape the nature of ‘view’, and that is to be ‘imposed’ onto things in one’s experience, while at the same time directly depending upon them. In our case that would most likely be the ‘objective view’, which is of course, based on personal preferences and inclinations⁶. Thus, for a puthujjana coming-out-of-womb is that which is birth. His birth exists.

The Buddha, on the other hand, talks about the nature of birth, as a phenomena (dhamma), in one’s experience. He does not refer to birth as an occurrence in time, upon which even puthujjanas cannot agree, and this can be seen from the usual paṭiccasamuppāda description. In this description, jāti refers to that ‘nature’ of birth and any temporal events are completely irrelevant to it. If there is no ‘birth’ whatsoever, if there is no manifestation (as such) of the aggregates, a puthujjana would not be able to regard any event (in this case ‘coming-out-of-womb’) as his⁷ birth⁸. Thus, one doesn’t suffer on account of birth as an event in the past, one suffers on account of the nature of birth in the present. In paṭiccasamuppāda context, ‘birth’ structurally precedes ‘ageing-and-death’. ‘Ageing-and-death’ is not ‘birth’, but they wouldn’t be without it—together they arise, together they cease. So, it is that with ‘birth’, ‘ageing-and-death’ (and ‘sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair’) apply. Consequently, if we were to discuss jāramaraṇaṃ, we could say that it is because ageing-and-death is present, that one will age and die (and suffer) in time. But, if one could manage, through an understanding of the Dhamma, to free oneself from ‘being’—to bring it to an end—’ birth’ and ‘ageing-and-death’ would cease to exist for him: all of the temporal occasions for suffering would cease to be his suffering, since by not-being born, one doesn’t have the desire to interfere with them any more—one is free.

5. Let me just say something more, for those who find it difficult to accept that the existential (phenomenological) method⁹ can validly be applied to Dhamma. We can put aside Sartre, Heidegger and those like them, and disregard what they have to say about birth. However, even in that case, still, we need look no further than the paṭiccasamuppāda description in order to see what the Buddha meant by ‘birth’. In Sammādiṭṭhi Sutta, M. 9/i 50, it is said, as we already referred to it earlier on:

When a noble disciple has thus understood birth, the origin of birth, the cessation of birth, and the way leading to the cessation of birth… he here and now makes an end of suffering. In that way too a noble disciple is one of right view… and has arrived at this true Dhamma.

Thus, a Noble disciple, an ariyasāvaka, can by understanding ‘birth’, in the same sense that he would have understood the Four Noble Truths—directly and timelessly—free oneself and become an arahat. So, one may rightly ask now: would this be possible, if ‘birth’ were not already somehow present¹⁰, as a phenomena, in our experience? How would one be able to understand birth directly and without involving time? If one’s birth was indeed a distant event, in some maternity ward perhaps, one’s fate would be sealed according to the Sammādiṭṭhi Sutta, since the event of birth has already passed and cannot possibly be understood directly. Fortunately, one’s birth is not in the past, so one can, if one chooses to follow the Buddha’s Teaching, cease to, in the present, regard ‘birth’ as his and by doing so remove himself from the domain of ageing-and-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair. One can escape.