I want to point out that I never used the word "reincarnation," which is getting thrown around a lot in these comments -- I used the word "rebirth" (which, by the way, Batchelor also predominantly uses). To my mind, they are philosophically distinct notions. Reincarnation, as I understand the term, has come to signify -- in many people's minds, anyway -- what Julian characterizes as the transmigration of a truly existing soul from one body to another -- a very un-Buddhist idea, indeed.

Rebirth, on the other hand (as I see it) encompasses a process of becoming and rebecoming that is far more subtle and difficult to understand or express in a conceptual way. It is interdependent with the essential Buddhist view of anatta or no-self (which is also subtle and difficult to understand) and teachings on the nature of mind (which, guess what, is also subtle and difficult to understand -- in fact, "it" can't be "understood" at all conceptually -- it can only be experienced).

If there is not a truly existing, separate, independent self to begin with, then how could it jump from one body to another? Yet the non-existence of a little homunculus who travels from body to body does not imply that no aspect of mind continues. For those who want to seriously study Buddhist views on rebirth, this is an important distinction to make, and it opens into a much deeper level of inquiry.

Another thing I find odd about Batchelor's objections to rebirth is that he characterizes it as "offering consoling assurances of a better afterlife" (Buddhism without Beliefs, page 114). To the contrary, it seems to me that if you truly grasp the meaning of interdependence, karma, and no-self, then the prospect of rebirth (as I have characterized it above) offers very little in the way of ego-consolation indeed. The aspect of mind that continues might be very subtle and impersonal, and have little or nothing to do with what we ordinarily think of, in our deluded ways, as the "self." So, whoever might be reborn, it wouldn't be "me" -- it would, in every practical sense, be someone else. Frankly, I don't see much consolation for my ego in that.

@Brad: Thanks very much for the honest and searching response. I really enjoyed it, and laughed at your comment about the other things you discovered about yourself....

@Brandon: I see where you're coming from, and agree for the most part. And I never said that I thought Brad was "trying" to be offensive -- quite the opposite. I recognized that his intentions were good, but the word choice was unfortunate (which Brad also acknowledges above in his response). But I will share that one (straight) man wrote to me off-site, after I posted these comments, and said that he learned from this discussion. What he learned, he said, was about the importance of using language that doesn't alienate and perpetuate misunderstandings.

As a practitioner of Buddhist meditation, I'm able to recognize the role of thoughts and emotional reactions, and keep some distance from that. But just as importantly, the deeper I go into my practice the more I begin to understand the importance of "engaged Buddhism" -- a kind of practice in the world that involves meeting problems and injustice not just with quiescence and seeing my own reactions, but also seeing where I can contribute to making things better. Sometimes that means giving, or just being there in some way; other times it means speaking out or taking action to correct a situation that needs correction. And yes, that means making a judgment about what is right in a given situation -- but that's what we do all the time. Hopefully as practitioners we do it with a little more mindfulness and compassion.

Today I read about another gay teenager in my own home town in Oklahoma who killed himself a couple of days ago after attending a city council meeting that was filled with anti-gay hate speech. Also just a couple of days ago, nine men beat, tortured, and sodomized a man and two teenage boys in the Bronx in a vicious anti-gay rampage. And the New York Times today features a story about Carl Paladino, the GOP candidate for NY Governor, who made a speech yesterday in which he said this:

"I just think my children and your children would be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family, and I don’t want them brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option — it isn’t."

According to Newsday, Paladino's prepared text also included this gem, which he chose not to say out loud: "There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual."

What does this have to do with Brad's article? Well, nothing. And yet...people like Paladino are able to get away with saying the things they do, and contributing to the atmosphere of violence and hatred towards gays, by perpetuating the myth that being gay is a choice, a "preference," a "lifestyle." As long as we are silent and allow that myth to be perpetuated, we are complicit in our own oppression. That being said, Brad obviously had NO intention of perpetuating such a myth, and he clearly understands that it *is* a myth -- and how much unhealthy bullshit happens because people believe in it. After reading his response, Brad is actually my hero now. :-)

I hate how incredibly PC all of this starts to sound, but the main point was about the importance of using language that honors and recognizes who people are and doesn't reinforce misunderstandings, even in subtle ways -- because misunderstandings are the root of violence and hatred. But I do see now that Brad was playing with the word "preference" in a different way that was further clarified by Rod's addition of the second paragraph.

It seems somehow fitting to be having this discussion on National Coming Out Day. Have a good one!

Thanks for the added paragraph and the explanation, Rod. I'm glad to know there are other parts of the book that go deeper into these issues.

From a Buddhist practice point of view, I agree with Brad's comment that one's definition of one's sexual identity is "not who you truly are" and that it's only "provisionally true." However, the same thing could be said of one's eye color -- but no one calls that a preference. Ultimately everything that we ordinarily think of as our "self" in this life is not who we truly are and is only provisionally true. However, we have the karma that put us here, and it sets the rules to some degree, and we're not always free to just choose different rules even if we would "prefer" to.

This comes back to the ever-important distinction between ultimate and relative truth -- it's when we mix up the two views that we most often get confused. Brad's comment that defining one's sexual orientation any which way is just a matter of ego delination is perhaps valid from an ultimate-truth perspective; but on the relative-truth level, sexual orientation can be an example of something that is just part of the given causes and conditions, like eye color. One can't necessarily just flip into ultimate truth and transcend one's relative causes and conditions. I didn't choose to define myself a certain way, I just chose to be honest about how I found myself defined. That doesn't mean the label is ultimately true, but it's also not accurate to imply that relative truth is something that just comes and goes, or that it's just a matter of choosing labels. One's particular karma might come and stay for a whole lifetime, and that's just what you are for that life. Take it or leave it.

That being said, I suspect that, given what you've shared about the other parts of Brad's book, he understands this already. I thank you for your willingness to engage in this conversation, and hope that with these comments I have not derailed what is an otherwise good article. It includes some points that deserve contemplation. Too many Buddhists and Buddhist teachers are stuck in puritanical attitudes towards sex (like many others in American society, I suppose), and Brad's boldness and frankness in confronting these issues is like a breath of fresh air.

I appreciate the broad discussion of "preferences" and the frankness of Brad's approach to sexual matters. I think we could use more of that frankness in Buddhist discussions of sex.

However, insofar as he appears to be using the words "preference" and "sexual preference" to refer to gay men or lesbians, it is a regrettable misuse of language. Brad states this bluntly with his comment about "which gender you prefer to shag."

Let me be equally blunt: My sexual orientation is not a "preference" -- it is not something I chose, and I spent the better part of my early life wishing, quite painfully, that I could choose differently. Instead of committing suicide, as we see so many gay teens doing these days, I eventually came to terms with my sexual orientation and made peace with that aspect of reality. But the only "preference" involved, really, was the preference for honesty and truth.

The term "sexual preference" belittles the agony that gays and lesbians often must go through in order to become honest with themselves and others about who they are. Many don't make it that far, and they lose their lives. Others lose their lives through murder, at the hands of psychopaths who cannot tolerate their honesty. If sexual orientation were a simple matter of preference, and if people could just choose to "be without preference," as Brad suggests, then we wouldn't see a suicide rate among gay teens that's up to four times higher than that among heterosexual teens. Most of those kids, I assure you, aren't at peace with their "preferences" -- and they would probably choose differently, at that stage, if they had the power. They have "preferences" about the kinds of clothes they wear and the music they listen to and the movies they see and the places they hang out, but sexual identity is on another order of magnitude in terms of complexity. Its causes and conditions, as far as we understand (which, frankly, isn't very far), encompass both biology and psychology, nature and nurture.

I realize that I'm making much of a minor point in Brad's discussion of sexuality -- which, in general, I found interesting and provocative, as I've come to expect from Brad -- but for me as a gay man, it's not a minor point at all. It's another example of how language can convey and perpetuate misunderstandings -- and those misunderstandings can have deadly consequences. Because people believe that gays and lesbians are making a bad choice -- having the wrong "preference" -- they can therefore believe, quite mistakenly, that gays and lesbians could choose otherwise if they wanted to. That belief is at the very root of homophobia in our society.

In that particular study, I believe the East Asian cohort consisted entirely of Chinese international students. You can download the paper from the link in the article above if you want more specifics. But yes, you are right: there will most likely be significant differences from one country/culture to another. That's why these umbrella labels "Asian" and "Western" are so inadequate. Yet, Richard Nisbett and others in his field have also done similar studies working with a variety of subjects from different countries, and it seems he is at least confident that the data point to certain observable cognitive traits shared across subjects from a number of different East Asian countries. To get more specific than that, you would need to delve deeper into Nisbett's research and the other studies he references.

Thanks, Bhikkhucintita. I have had a kind of gut-level intuitive sense of the sort of distinctions you mention between East Asian and Indian approaches to Buddhism -- but I did not go into that in this article because I have no research to back it up and I would be out of my element. It is interesting to hear about your experience and perspective on this -- especially since you have been closely involved with more or less modern descendants of both traditions, and have the insight of having taught both of them to Westerners.

From "Buddha and the Gospel of Buddhism" by Ananda Coomaraswamy, page 238:

"The Mahayana as a theistic faith is so only to the same extent as the Vedanta, that is to say it has an esoteric aspect which speaks in negative terms of a Suchness and a Void which cannot be known, while on the other hand it has an exoteric and more elaborate part in which the Absolute is seen through the glass of time and space, contracted and identified into variety. This development appears in the doctrine of the Trikaya, the Three Bodies of Buddha. These three are (1) the Dharmakaya, or Essence-Body; (2) its heavenly manifestation in the Sambhogakaya, or Body of Bliss; and (3) the emanation, transformation, or projection thereof, called Nirmanakaya, apparent as the visible individual Buddha on earth. This is a system which hardly differs from what is implied in the Christian doctrine of Incarnation, and it is not unlikely that both Christianity and the Mahayana are inheritors from common Gnostic sources.

Thus the Dharmakaya may be compared to the Father; the Sambhogakaya to the figure of Christ in glory; the Nirmanakaya to the visible Jesus who announces in human speech that 'I and my Father are One.'"

Well, Asa....I guess now I will have to tell Clark Strand that his years of training as a Buddhist monk and senior student of Eido Roshi, and the years he spent as senior editor of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, were all in vain -- he needs to go back to school, and stop all this nonsense about combining different traditions. Come to think of it, I should also write to Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh and explain to him how misguided he was for writing the book "Living Buddha, Living Christ" and for drawing parallels between the teachings of Buddha and Jesus. Same goes for the Dalai Lama, and Rev. John Lundin, and everyone engaging in Buddhist-Christian interfaith dialogue -- misguided! And Bernadette Roberts? I'll tell her that from now on, despite her realization, she can no longer write about the Christian mystical experience of "no-self," because Buddhists have an exclusive copyright on that idea. And Father Thomas Keating? A heretic! Burn all his books. ;-)

What I and others have described in these articles and the comments on them is not smug philosophizing or intellectualization, but a deeply informed and very personal spiritual inquiry that is unfolding right now in many individuals' lives and practice. You can agree with it or not, but the fact is that there is a growing number of people out there exploring some version of a combined Christian/Buddhist practice and faith. People are finding many ways of approaching that -- but, clearly, none of those ways involve staying in one's comfort zone. If people really wanted to stay comfortable and follow the status quo, I doubt that they would bother with such a deep and iconoclastic form of inquiry.

Asa, as I like to imagine my teacher might say (I've heard him say it in response to many other things): if you're feeling disturbed, "that's good!" It means your ego is being challenged. Look directly at that. Investigate it. Be curious about it. Find out what is beneath the surface. The greater the disturbance, the more there is for you to look at. Whether you will see what is there or not, and how you will respond to it if you do, is up to you. But -- although I don't claim to have any particular "realization" -- I can assure you that projecting your judgments onto other people's spiritual experience isn't going to lead you towards the realization you seek. That leads in the completely opposite direction.

"The movement of thinking mind cannot be locked in an iron box;
Is there an accomplished yogi here, or a yogini,
Who sees that discursive mind itself is empty in itself?"

-- Milarepa

Not that you have a strong opinion about it, or anything.... ;-)

"The correct position with regard to the question of Anatta is not to take hold of any opinion or views, but to try to see things objectively as they are without mental projections, to see that what we call 'I', or 'being', is only a combination of physical and mental aggregates, which are working together interdependently in a flux of momentary change within the law of cause and effect, and that there is nothing permanent, everlasting, unchanging and eternal in the whole of existence." (Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, 2nd ed., 1974, p. 66)