Demythologizing Nibbana

    So far these essays have ignored early Buddhist beliefs about the afterlife. But no contextual interpretation of early Buddhist teachings can ignore these beliefs. They obviously play a very important part in early Buddhist teachings, and so are an important part of the context in which other teachings should be understood.
    The central topic of this essay is the early Buddhist belief about what happens after death to the person who reaches Nibbana during her lifetime. What is this belief? Stated simply: Everyone else who dies comes back to life in some other form, depending on the merit (karma) they have stored up in this life by good deeds. The person who achieves Nibbana during her lifetime does not come back at all. (What happens to such a person is unclear. The Pali Canon explicitly denies that such a person ceases to exist. This is a topic needing a separate discussion at the end of this essay.)
    From a rational point of view the important question concerns what part this belief plays in the total system of early Buddhist beliefs. One might be tempted to say that freedom from reincarnation, "not coming back," is the goal of the ideal Buddhist. In this sense it would also be the basis for everything else in Buddhist teaching -- all other Buddhist teachings just describe means necessary to reach this goal. If this is true, then reasoning should focus on discovering whether reincarnation and escape really happens or not. If this is the goal of Buddhist teaching, and this goal turns out to be illusory -- if there is no reincarnation, so there is also no freedom from reincarnation -- then all the "means" Buddhism prescribes for reaching this goal are also useless.
In this essay I want to argue that this is a mistake. Belief in Nibbana as freedom from reincarnation should not be understood as a basis for Buddhist belief.
    I argue that it is implausible that this is the historical "basis" for Buddhist belief. That is, it is implausible that early Buddhists actually had some reliable way of knowing, through objective independent evidence, that reincarnation normally occurs, and that the person who reaches Nibbana escapes this fate. The Pali Canon takes these beliefs for granted and does not picture anyone engaged in the kind of inquiry that would be necessary to find out whether such things actually happen after death. It is therefore implausible that early Buddhists first discovered that afterlife Nibbana is the true goal of human life, and then developed Buddhist teachings and practices as practical means to reach this goal.
    It is also not a necessary logical basis for Buddhist beliefs about what finally matters. By this I mean that, logically speaking, the validity of Buddhist beliefs about what finally matters does not depend on truths about what happens to a person who dies after having reached Nibbana. If a person spends her life trying to reach Nibbana, but it turns out that there is no such thing as "freedom from reincarnation" after death, this person's efforts to reach Nibbana will still not have been foolishly wasted efforts.
    This argument is the result of applying certain elements of Plato's thought to Buddhist beliefs. That is, on this view, what finally matters in general is that a person try to embody and participate in some genuine goodness in her life. The previous essays on Buddhism have argued an interpretation of Nibbana in which it is a genuinely and superlatively admirable state to be achieved in this life. We ourselves can know that it is admirable by using Socratic/Platonic reasoning to devise a critical interpretation of Nibbana.
    Essentially, the view I want to argue is this: It is not that early Buddhists first discovered that freedom from reincarnation is the supreme good, what finally matters in life, and then tried to figure out how to free themselves from reincarnation. Neither is it true that one who wants to evaluate the validity of Buddhist beliefs should focus rational inquiry on the truth or falsity of claims about whether reincarnation, or freedom from reincarnation, actually happens to people after they die. The claim that reaching Nibbana merits being regarded as the supreme good in human life does not depend on the truth or falsity of any particular afterlife beliefs.
    Rather, the reverse: The belief in afterlife Nibbana as freedom from reincarnation is valid when and insofar as it expresses and supports the perception that Nibbana in this life is something superlatively good. The superlative goodness of this-life Nibbana is the basis for belief in afterlife Nibbana as freedom from reincarnation.
    I will argue that this is a more plausible historical basis for Buddhist beliefs, i.e. it is more plausible that early Buddhists first experienced and gained intuitive understanding of this-life Nibbana as something superlatively good, and then on this basis were attracted to the image of afterlife Nibbana as freedom from reincarnation.
    We should also treat this as the logical basis, i.e. belief in afterlife Nibbana as freedom from reincarnation is a good belief when and insofar as it expresses the perception that this-life Nibbana is something superlatively good, and supports a life devoted to achieving it. Since the superlative goodness of this-life Nibbana is the logical basis for beliefs about afterlife Nibbana, the superlative goodness of this-life Nibbana should be the focus for rational inquiry into the validity of beliefs about afterlife Nibbana.
    Earlier chapters have already argued the general thesis that goodness should be regarded as the basis for the validity of views about what finally matters, have provided a rational method for deciding what is truly good, and have provided arguments showing that Nibbana, properly understood and interpreted, is an image of something superlatively, transcendently good. What remains to be discussed is:
    1-How it is that freedom from reincarnation came to be regarded as an appropriate expression and representation of Nibbana's transcendent Goodness?
    2-Psychologically, why it is that Buddhist believers generally feel that belief in afterlife Nibbana as freedom from reincarnation is essential to the Buddhist faith?
    3-Why it is that Buddhist teachings encourage laypeople to store up "good karma" in hopes of being reincarnated in a better life next time around, while it sets before monks and nuns the goal of storing up no karma, in hopes of not being reincarnated at all.
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1-How it is that freedom from reincarnation came to be regarded as an appropriate expression and representation of Nibbana's transcendent Goodness?
    The place to start here is a feature of Buddhist thought discussed at length by Peter Harvey: The parallelism between Buddhist conceptions of the forces that bring about reincarnation on the one hand, and Buddhist account of perceptual psychology.
    We saw earlier how Buddhist perceptual psychology envisions several stages in the activation of consciousness, viññana. First there is a state of Viññana at rest in itself, unactivated. Such a consciousness is said to have not yet "sprung up into existence." Next there is contact between some perceptual object and one of the six senses. This activates viññana, in a response to the perceptual object motivated by Craving and Clinging, "seeking support" in the perceptual object, and accompanied by an expectation of permanence. This is described by saying that viññana now "springs up into existence." Passages discussed earlier make it clear that "springing up into existence" should be understood metaphorically, since the unarisen viññana "exists" in absolute, literal sense before it is activated.
    But this metaphorical language easily allows descriptions of the perceptual process to flow over into descriptions of reincarnation, the forces that early Buddhism pictures as those that literally bring a person back "into existence," in another world after death. This is exactly what happens in many passages Peter Harvey draws attention to. The common factor is Craving and Clinging. It is Craving and Clinging which causes Viññana to metaphorically "spring up into existence" in acts of perception. It is also Craving and Clinging which is said to cause a person who dies to literally "come back into existence" in another body after death. A person in whom Craving has ceased is able to remain inactive and exist in this life as a non-abiding viññana, not allowing herself to be drawn out in a Craving response to any perceptual object. When this same person dies, there will likewise be no Craving that will bring her back into another existence in another body or in another world.
    There is a deeper reason for what might at first appear a mere linguistic confusion of metaphorical and literal meanings of "come into existence." That is, picturing things in this way allows Buddhist endeavors to get free of Craving to be visualized as part of an immense cosmic drama, an overarching context beyond the petty concerns about success and failure in ordinary life. One who evaluates her life truly does not evaluate it in the immediate, relatively tangible context of ordinary social standards, but in a much "larger" context of this cosmic drama in which all beings are trapped by fetters and chains, bound to the wheel of karma to continued dukkha-filled existences until they are able to free themselves from their own Craving which is the ultimate internal force causing this fettering. Because Craving is such an immensely strong force, deeply ingrained and entrenched in normal human nature, and because getting free of Craving is the Supreme Good in human life, getting free of Craving is aptly represented as an immensely heroic achievement and glorious event in this cosmic drama.
All this explains why the image of "getting free of rebirth" can serve as an apt expression and representation of Nibbana's transcendence.
(It should be noted that this aspect of afterlife Nibbana, the fact that it frees one from the round of rebirths, is very clearly and unambiguously spelled out, emphasized, and often repeated in the Pali Canon. This is in contrast to its characteristic evasiveness in replies whenever the question comes up about the actual state of the person who has thus escaped rebirth. Saying that such a person ceases to exist is declared to be a false view, but saying that such a person continues to exist is also declared to be a false view.)
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    But is it true that the person who reaches Nibbana escapes reincarnation, the normal fate of those who die? This sounds like a simple question, but this is one of most complicated questions for the present project, developing a method for critical reasoning about religious belief in general, not only about Buddhism.
In relation to early Buddhist beliefs, this question can be treated in two ways:
    First, "Is it true?" can be treated as a question about what reasoning can show to be true. Can critical reasoning support a literal belief in reincarnation and escape, showing that reincarnation actually happens to everyone except the person who reaches Nibbana? The answer to this is pretty clearly, No.
    But I want to that we should understand "truth" here in a different sense. The question for reasoning should not focus on whether reincarnation and escape actually happens, but whether seeing Nibbana in the light of this cosmic drama gives us a "true perspective" on Nibbana itself.
    This point can be made clearer if we consider what a "false perspective" on Nibbana would consist in. Suppose an individual is striving for the state of mind called Nibbana and managing to come quite close. How would this person appear when what she is doing is considered in the light of an ordinary social context, in the light of normal social standards of moral goodness and of what a "successful life" consists in. In this context, achieving Nibbana might contribute in a small way to achieving higher levels of normal moral goodness. Otherwise, it will appear pretty much useless considered in the light of conventional social standards. But if arguments in the previous chapters are correct, this apparent "uselessness" is due to Nibbana's transcendent goodness. It does not measure up to ordinary social standards because it is something that transcends them, representing a degree of goodness far beyond the ordinary, relatively mediocre standards of goodness people expect of each other in society. If it is indeed true that Nibbana, properly understood, is a kind of superlative, transcendent goodness, then to place Nibbana and evaluate it in the context of ordinary social standards is to see it in a "false" perspective.
    This is the sense in which the cosmic drama of reincarnation and escape puts Nibbana in a "more true" perspective. It does this imagistically by picturing a "larger," more comprehensive context in which to see social life itself. Social standards are not the "ultimate" context in which Nibbana's worth should be evaluated. Rather, social life itself should be seen in a more ultimate overarching context, in which all individuals living in the society have already had long histories of dying and being compelled to come back until they manage to free themselves. Events related to immediate concerns for success, status, and comfort in present day society are only tiny episodes in an aeons-long drama. For a person who appreciates the transcendent Goodness of Nibbana and regards it as the supreme good in human life, picturing things this way puts striving for Nibbana in a more true perspective, because it provides a picture of an overarching context in which achieving Nibbana is accorded the central and immensely important place in human life that it truly deserves.
    Following this chain of reasoning, what we should say is that the afterlife drama of reincarnation and escape is an indirect way of asserting the transcendent Goodness of this-life Nibbana. The transcendent Goodness of this-life Nibbana is what reason should try to demonstrate, and indeed can demonstrate (according to arguments in previous chapters.) If this chain of reasoning is right, then it does not matter whether reincarnation and escape actually and literally happens or not. Seeing Nibbana in the light of this cosmic drama gives us a true perspective on Nibbana whether it happens or does not happen. This argument does not try to prove that reincarnation and escape does not happen. It only asserts that it does not matter whether it literally happens or doesn't happen.
    This is admittedly a very counterintuitive assertion, both for Buddhist believers and for unbelievers. "It does not matter whether reincarnation happens or does not happens," will sound to many Buddhist believers as though it does not matter whether or not they believe in reincarnation and escape, or see human life in the context of this overarching cosmic drama or not. But many Buddhist believers will intuitively feel that not seeing Nibbana in this overarching context will inevitably cause them to see Nibbana in a "false" perspective, greatly diminishing its importance and reducing their desire and commitment to reaching Nibbana. If they feel this way, they will resist this assertion, and on the view presented here they will rightly resist it.
    This puts the present argument in a paradoxical position. From a strictly rational Platonist point of view, it does not matter whether reincarnation and escape actually happens -- only the transcendent Goodness of this-life Nibbana matters.
    But this same rational Platonism says that it would be a mistake to diminish the importance of Nibbana as a possible Supreme Good in human life, or to reduce one's desire and commitment to reaching it. If asserting that "It doesn't matter whether reincarnation and escape actually happens," would result in diminishing one's regard for something truly transcendent, then it is quite possible that a person who appreciates Nibbana's transcendent Goodness would have good reasons for rejecting this very assertion.
    Paradoxically, then, the present argument says both that:
    -from a strictly rational point of view, it does not matter whether reincarnation and escape literally happens or does not happen, but also that,
    -Buddhists believers might have good reasons for rejecting this very statement, asserting that it does matter that it actually happens, good reasons for strongly insisting that it does indeed actually happen.
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    This paradox is central to the present rational treatment of religious "faith," so it needs some more extended treatment here.
    First, this paradoxical position offers a more plausible and rational explanation of religious faith than the customary explanation. The customary explanation is that faith is completely blind. Believers believe what they believe for no reason whatsoever, so we should not expect to be able to give a rational account of faith. Believers are attracted to this explanation of faith because they claim that faith is an alternative way of knowing about facts for which there is no evidence. Buddhist believers think that they have some extra-rational way of knowing facts about the afterlife fate of those who do and do not reach Nibbana in this life. They think belief in these facts is more virtuous because there is no evidence, and that they should not be expected to give conclusive reasons supporting these beliefs. Unbelievers are attracted to this view because it confirms their idea that believers are just gullible and irrational people who will believe whatever they are told even when no supportive reasons can be given.
    Despite its attractiveness both to believers and to unbelievers, the "blind faith" explanation is implausible. It is implausible that large numbers of people actually do strongly believe certain things for no reason whatsoever. In the present case, Buddhist believers may find it difficult to explain what motivates their belief in reincarnation and escape, and may actively resist making their unconscious reasons more conscious. But it is not very plausible that they actually have no reasons for believing in this cosmic drama.
The present theory of faith offers a more plausible explanation both of the phenomenon of faith, and also of why many believers are attracted to the irrational "blind faith" explanation. In the case of Buddhist beliefs regarding afterlife reincarnation and escape, there are possible good reasons for these beliefs. The possible good reasons in question are (1) an intuitive perception that Nibbana merits being regarded as the supreme good in human life, and (2) a feeling that placing Nibbana in the context of the cosmic drama of reincarnation and escape is necessary in order to give us a true perspective on Nibbana. These two reasons are what might make belief in this cosmic afterlife drama truly virtuous belief, virtuous because this belief expresses and supports one's commitment to Nibbana as the supreme good in one's life. This explanation invokes factors that for many Buddhists are probably unconscious.
    On a conscious level, they are just aware that it feels necessary to them to assert the factual reality of reincarnation and escape. They have not consciously reflected on the factors that make it feel necessary, and may indeed be resistant to such conscious reflection. Why? Because such reflection would lead to the very paradox described above. They feel it morally very necessary to assert the factual reality of reincarnation and escape, but they also intuitively feel that rational reflection on the actual reasons for this feeling of necessity, would undermine this very feeling, making literal belief feel not necessary. Hence the attraction to believers of the idea of "faith" as something that is blind, without basis, but also at the same time morally virtuous.
    Why might believers feel it morally necessary to assert certain facts for which they have no evidence? This leads to a second key element in the present theory of faith. It has to do with human concrete-mindedness.
    By concrete-mindedness I mean the tendency to think of the concrete visible objects and events in the material world surrounding us as the paradigm case of "reality." Every belief that has a "basis in reality," must ultimately be based on hard facts concerning objects and events that are at least something like these material and visible objects and events. In the present case, this means: If belief in Nibbana's supreme goodness has a basis in reality, this basis must consist in some objective hard facts -- if not hard facts visible in this world, then some presently invisible but equally hard objective facts about events happening in some other world beyond this one. Hard facts are the only reason for taking some belief completely seriously. Briefly then: If a person shares this concrete-mindedness deeply ingrained in human thought generally, she will search for some way of concretizing Nibbana's transcendent goodness, giving belief in this goodness some "basis in reality," by envisioning some hard facts about a drama happening beyond this life which give it this required reality-basis. Given this kind of concrete-mindedness, it will naturally appear that denying the factual reality of this afterlife drama robs belief in Nibbana's transcendent Goodness of any basis in reality. This explains why a Buddhist believer might rightly insist on the necessity of affirming the factual reality of reincarnation and escape.
    Plato's writing explains why concrete-mindedness, as a strong psychological influence on human thought, is one of the main obstacles to rational thought about, and rational grasp of, pure transcendent goodness. He also presents vivid images of the pervasive influence of concrete-mindedness on human psychology and human thinking generally. This is what makes a rational Platonist life something so difficult to achieve, which Plato himself explicitly acknowledges and emphasizes.
    A person who develops the habit and capacity for Platonist abstract thought, overcoming the concrete-mindedness deeply ingrained in human thought, would be able to grasp and believe in Nibbana's transcendent goodness, which like all true goodness is something very real but whose reality is entirely separate from, and independent of, any concrete facts like those we see in the visible material world around us. Such a person would be able to believe in and fully commit herself to Nibbana as the supreme good in her life, without feeling any necessity to give this belief some "basis in reality" by seeing it in the context of some concrete facts about an afterlife drama of reincarnation and escape. But Plato himself emphasizes that overcoming normal human concrete-mindedness, and being able to see things this way requires a very difficult psychological transformation, developing a capacity for abstract thought and a confidence in the reality of abstract ideals that does not come naturally to most people.
    From a Platonist perspective, concrete-mindedness, though very deeply ingrained in normal human nature, rests nonetheless on a false assumption concerning goodness. The false assumption is that concretely visible entities and events are the paradigm case of reality, so that everything truly real must have a basis in some objective, concrete hard facts. The typical religious believer, Buddhist or otherwise, is not a good rational Platonist capable of this kind of confidence in abstract ideals. In the ideal case, meditation experiences have given my ideal Buddhist believer an intuitive, implicit grasp of Nibbana's transcendent Goodness. The real basis for her belief are her own subjective personal perceptions, which are the proper basis for all beliefs concerning goodness. Despite the fact that her beliefs concerning Nibbana are not really based on objective, concrete, hard facts, her concrete-mindedness will lead her to seek for some way of concretizing Nibbana's goodness, giving its goodness some concrete representation. This is my way of explaining her "faith" in the cosmic drama of reincarnation and escape, why she might feel it necessary to assert the objective literal reality of this afterlife drama.
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    This explanation handles well another difficult issue connected with the practical interpretation of Buddhist beliefs about Nibbana in the afterlife.     By "practical interpretation" I mean the actual impact of these beliefs on a person's life here and now. What specific attitudes do these beliefs express and support?
    Guy Welbon's study of early Western interpreters of Buddhist Nibbana shows how central this issue was to them, and how troubling it was to them. Early Buddhist writings are very evasive and unclear about the actual state of the person who dies after having reached Nibbana, denying that he either continues to exist or ceases to exist. But early Western interpreters of Buddhism this was an issue of immense importance. In spite of the obviously deliberate evasiveness of early Buddhist writing on this subject, they felt that they simply had to come to some clear conclusion as to whether Buddhism teaches that such a person continues to exist or ceases to exist.
The reason for this: They felt that if early Buddhists taught that this person ceases to exist, this could only mean that they had an extremely negative, life-denying, "nihilist" attitude toward life. No one would teach this, or be attracted to this teaching, unless they hated human existence so much that their highest goal would be to exit. This was the argument used by Western critics of Buddhism. Conversely, those who wanted to defend Buddhism usually felt that the only way to defend it would be to insist on an interpretation in which the person who reaches Nibbana can be said in some fashion definitely not to have ceased existing after life. This alone would make afterlife Nibbana a positive and admirable goal rather than a nihilist one.
    Note, first, that this argument, as in so many cases involving religious belief, is conducted on a pragmatist basis. The argument among Western interpreters did not center on evidence or arguments about what actually does happen to people in the afterlife, or whether Buddhist beliefs about this correspond to facts we can know about. It is assumed that Buddhist afterlife beliefs are "good beliefs" if they express and support good attitudes, and bad beliefs if they express and support bad (i.e. nihilist, life-denying) attitudes. The present approach, focusing on connected attitudes rather than on factual truth, is in complete accord with this very common, implicitly pragmatist basis for arguments concerning religious beliefs, and only makes it more explicit and draws it to its logical conclusions.
    But secondly, I want to point out more precisely where I think it is that these early Western interpreters went wrong. I argued above that the image of Nibbana as escape from reincarnation had a special and particular meaning for early Buddhists because they saw this image in the context of certain very specific and unique meditation practices, and ideas about perceptual psychology connected with those practices which were also specific and unique. Escape from reincarnation had a very particular meaning in this context, because it was associated with a concept and experience of Viññana metaphorically not "coming into existence" through Craving reactions to stimuli, and a feeling that this kind of Viññana at rest in itself was the supreme good in human life. When the image of escape from reincarnation is seen in this context, it has only positive connotations, having none of the "nihilist" meanings that some early Western interpreters attributed to it.
Why did some Western interpreters attribute nihilist meanings to this image? Because they tended to see it in a totally different context, determined by more characteristically Western concerns. Roughly speaking, in the Western tradition prior to very modern times, preoccupation with death and what happens after death tended to be driven by the threat that death would symbolize existential defeat. Suppose a person struggles in the cause of what is right in this life, but is unsuccessful in this endeavor, then faces pure annihilation at death, it can easily feel that this annihilating death also means that his entire life struggle was meaningless.
    When Paul in the New Testament cries out "O death where is thy victory?" he assumes that people are in a struggle to defend life's meaning against death, and that death would win in this struggle were it not for Christian salvation.
A favorite quote of the French existentialist philosopher Albert Camus illustrates this same basic perspective on death: "We shall all die, that may be. But let us die resisting. Let us not so live that it may seem justice." This sentiment assumes that death is inevitably a kind of defeat, but it will not actually be a threat to the meaningfulness of life, if we live in such a way that this defeat is not a actually a just defeat.
Or consider Dylan Thomas's famous poem speaking of death as a kind of "night": "Do not go gently into that good night/ Rage, rage, against the dying of the light."
Finally, we can bring in Plato again here. In the Phaedo he pictures Socrates facing imminent execution, and asserting his faith in an immortal soul surviving his death, declaring that his life devoted to philosophy will have been meaningless and wasted if his soul does not survive death.
These kinds of concerns and associations constitute a particular context in which death, and the question of survival after death, take on very specific meanings. This is the context which made early Western interpreters of Buddhism preoccupied with figuring out what the Pali Canon teaches about the actual afterlife state of the person who reaches Nibbana and escapes reincarnation. I would say that the relatively unconscious Western assumptions regarding death and the afterlife prevented them from understanding the meaning that Buddhist beliefs on this score had in the very different context of early Buddhist thought, which placed death and survival after death in a completely different light. Primarily, whereas Westerners tended to see continued existence after life as a victory over death as an existential threat, Buddhists saw desire for such "continued existence" as a manifestation of Craving, bringing on continued Dukkha in whatever different world one continued to survive in.
In this connection I would propose as a a general interpretive principle: We ought to assume that writers will be most clear about those things that they are most concerned about. If they do not give clear answers to our questions, our first assumption should be that we should not interpret their writing in the light of these questions. They are our questions rather than the questions of the writers. Properly understanding their statements means understanding these statements as answers to their questions, not to our questions. In the present case, the Pali Canon strongly and clearly emphasizes Nibbana as a victory in the heroic struggle against Craving that continually and involuntarily brings consciousness into existence, in this life and in future worlds. This point is strongly, clearly, and repeatedly emphasized, because this was the central issue for them.
When we observe that the Pali Canon does not make any clear statements about the actual state of the person who dies after reaching Nibbana, we should not take this as an indication of unclear thinking or writing on a subject that we know to be vital. Our first assumption should be that it was not as vital to them as it seems to be to us. Trying to understand their thought does not mean trying to understand what answers they might give to our questions. It requires rather careful attempts to understand what they considered to be vital questions, which might be different from our views on this issue.
To proceed a little further in understanding Buddhist thought on this issue, I would argue that the Pali Canon does not clearly declare itself on the afterlife state of the person who has reached Nibbana, partly because this issue was not of central importance in the context of early Buddhist thought. But partly also it is due to the pragmatic orientation of early Buddhist teaching, and the fact that any clear statement on this issue would naturally send the wrong pragmatic message. "Pragmatic orientation" means that a belief is said to be a "good belief" if it is conducive to achieving a specific inner transformation of a person. This contrasts with a more theoretical orientation, regarding something as "good belief" if it corresponds to objective facts.
Consider the pragmatic effect of asserting that the person who reaches Nibbana continues to exist and describing her continued existence. The state of such a person could only be imagined by imagining her as continuing to exist in some particular relation to some particular "world," a heaven-like world or some other particular world.
The fact that what one reaches out for is some connection to a heavenly world superior to the present world would not essentially change this. How would we describe a person without describing her position in some particular world? But the very essence of a person who has reached Nibbana is that she is a person whose identity cannot be described in terms of its connection to any particular circumstances in any particular world.
The pragmatic effect of this would be to regard getting into this other world as the ultimate goal of human life, which would support the common human instinct to reach out some source of meaning and satisfaction outside themselves, a source of meaning consisting in some particular relation to some particular world. Such reaching out is of course the main obstacle to the specific internal transformation which is the central goal of Buddhist teaching.
So the pragmatic effect of describing continued existence in some positive way would be directly detrimental to the fundamental attitude and state of mind central to the early Buddhist ideal. This is why "Craving for continued existence," is listed among those kinds of Cravings that must be eliminated.
The fact that what one reaches out for is some connection to a heavenly world superior to the present world would not essentially change this. The very essence of a person who has reached Nibbana is that she is a person whose identity cannot be described in terms of its connection to some particular circumstances in some particular world. How would we describe a person without describing her position in some particular world?
On the other hand, what would be the pragmatic effect of asserting that the person who reaches Nibbana ceases to exist after death? This would naturally be understood to encourage a desire just to cease to exist, and to regard ceasing to exist as the ultimate goal and supreme good in human life. But this too would be an attitude not conducive to reaching the difficult to achieve psychological state of Nibbana in this life, a deeply satisfying state of a non-abiding Viññana resting blissfully in itself. This is why the same passage that lists "Craving for existence" as a Craving to be eliminated, also lists "Craving for non-existence" as a Craving to be eliminated. Only Craving for Nibbana is a "noble Craving," and Craving for Nibbana cannot be a Craving for non-existence.

Seen in this light, Pali Canon statements about Nibbana in the afterlife do not appear evasive, but as carrying out consistently the pragmatic principle clearly announced in the Pali Canon itself. The pragmatic principle is just the idea that what makes a belief a good belief is not that it corresponds to objective facts, but that it encourages good attitudes. In the Buddhist context, good attitudes are attitudes conducive to striving for the psychological state of Nibbana in this life. We can know these are good attitudes if we can know that they are conducive to some version of this-life Nibbana which we can also know to be superlatively good.
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All of this consists, I believe, in carrying out in a consistent way the "demythologizing" project of theologian and scripture scholar Rudolf Bultmann, and applying this to Buddhist teachings.
As applied to New Testament teachings, Bultmann's primary intention was to preserve the extremely challenging character of early Christian teachings by redirecting rational inquiry away from the question of the literal truth or falsity of early Christian beliefs about unseen supernatural worlds. He saw clearly that, if we suppose that the validity of early Christian beliefs stands or falls on the question of their literal truth, then reasoning about their validity on this basis in the modern context cannot help but undermine their validity.
Other Christian thinkers realized this, but fell back to saying that reason and faith are incompatible, and that faith is a special non-rational way of knowing the literal truth of facts concerning an unseen supernatural world. But Bultmann continued the tradition of 18th century German theology, of trying to reduce the conflict between faith and reason, uniting theology with sound philosophy, and so make theology a more thoroughly rational discipline. This meant trying to tackle these questions on a more direct and rational way.
But Bultmann also rejected the approach of other rational philosophers and theologians before him, which consisted in just dismissing the supernatural beliefs of early Christians, and extracting from New Testament writings a set of more general and abstract moral principles more easily accepted by human reason, such as Adolf Harnack's proposal that the "essence of Christianity" consists simply in believing in "the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man."
Bultmann recognized that reducing the Christian message to these kinds of more rational principles also eliminated the more unique and challenging aspects of the early Christian message. His solution was, first, to pay close attention to the supernatural elements in early Christian belief, and to recognize the central and indispensable place of these beliefs in the early Christian message. But, secondly, he wanted to focus interpretation and critical reasoning on what I have termed above the "pragmatic meaning" of these supernatural beliefs rather than their literal truth. This is what he meant by "demythologizing."
Language describing unseen supernatural entities and events is "mythological" language. Mythological language in the New Testament must not be ignored, but neither should it be taken literally. Rather, mythological language is indirect language. Its primary intent is not what it appears to directly assert about unseen supernatural entities and events, but on some intended pragmatic effect of such descriptions on basic human attitudes.
For example, Bultmann recognized that the idea of a cosmic catastrophe coming very soon, destroying the present order and issuing in a "Kingdom of God," was a "mythological" belief very central to early Christian belief. We know now that it was clearly a false belief on a literal level, but this should not lead us to eliminate it from our interpretation of early Christian belief. This would leave out something very crucial. But why was this belief crucial? It was crucial because of its pragmatic effect in expressing and encouraging certain attitudes that were central to early Christianity. The Kingdom of God served for early Christians as a transcendent, utopian image of a perfectly just world, the polar opposite of what early Christians felt to be a radically unjust world around them. Roughly speaking, the pragmatic effect of the belief in a Kingdom of God very soon to come was to embolden Christians to stand up unflinchingly for pure rightness in a radically un-right world. This belief was a "good belief" insofar as it expressed and supported this attitude of commitment to an image of transcendent Goodness. "De-mythologizing" in this case does not mean dismissing mythological language concerning a Kingdom of God soon to come. It requires rather interpreting this language in a particular way, by focusing on the basic attitudes that early Christians themselves associated with this language, the pragmatic effect that this language had on their fundamental attitudes.
What I want to do is make more explicit this pragmatic element in Bultmann's treatment of mythological language, and add to it an approach to critical reasoning about goodness borrowed from Plato. That is, all beliefs need to be subject to critical examination. But what needs to be critically examined in the case of mythological language is literal truth of the objective facts asserted, but rather the goodness of the attitudes that are the intended pragmatic effect of this language. Socratic/Platonic reasoning serves here as a method of critically evaluating the goodness of these attitudes, which is lacking in Bultmann's thought, and which prevented his demythologizing approach from being a thoroughgoingly rational approach.
Applying this modified "demythologizing" approach to early Buddhist teaching means treating all Buddhist statements about the afterlife as "mythological" language, trying to understand basic attitudes early Buddhists associated with these mythological statements, and focusing critical reasoning on the question about the goodness of these attitudes. This is what I have attempted in the critical interpretation of early Buddhist beliefs presented in the previous essays.