Dear Suan,

> As you will notice in the above discussion, antaraabhava
> (intermediate life) is a natural belief or superstition of the
> uninformed masses in Myanmar and, presumably, elsewhere in Asia. So
> we can for sure know that the concept of antaraabhava is not part of
> the teachings of Gotama the Buddha and Arahants, namely, Theravada.

I echo Frank's comment about this: that a natural belief in antaraabhava is
not part of the teachings of the Buddha is a non sequitur, though it is not
disputed that it does not form a part of the orthodox Theravadin dogma.
However, I again echo Vasubandhu who states that nirantaraabhava-vaada is
contrary to reason and contrary to the suttas. You have already been
presented with a fairly lengthy list of suttas which assume the existence of
the antaraabhava, either implicitly or explicitly, which you have failed to
address. But as Vasubandhu also states, nirantaraabhava-vaadins either
distort or equivocate the meaning of the suttas -- indeed, he points out
that some (not Theravadin) nirantaraabhava-vaadins have even altered the
words of the suttas to fit their dogma. But I assume it is unlikely we
shall reach an agreement concerning textual interpretation.

Which leaves reason. I posted a hypothetical case to which,
disappointingly, I did not receive any rational replies. Just to spell out
the problem, I hypothesized a death ocurring on a space mission to Pluto.
Though not mentioned by the Buddha or the arhats, Pluto is 5,756,778,388 km
from Earth. This distance is so great that even an object travelling from
Pluto at the speed of light (300,000 km/sec) would take 5.3 hours to reach
Earth. Various figures are given for the minimal duration of a citta-kkhana
but let's say it is 0.013 sec (1/75th), so, even travelling at the speed of
light, the maximum distance that one citta-kkhana can cover is 3900 km.
Therefore, unless there is some mechanism by which death citta moment Z can
link up to birth citta moment A by travelling faster than the speed of
light, it is clear that nirantaraabhava-vaada is irrational. If you
disagree, could you please demonstrate where the Buddha explains the
nirantarabhava process.

I think the problem is quite simple. Both logically and scripturally
(suttas), one can assume the reality of the antaraabhava, but because around
the time Moggalitissaputta was active, there was a major controversy
involving the puggalavaadins. In order to completely cut the ground from
beneath their feet, Moggalitissaputta wanted to deny everything that could
possibly be construed as a puggala (or self) and hence, contrary to the
suttas, he attempted to disprove the reality of the antaraabhava because
some people might use that transitional state as grounds for arguing in
favour of a puggala / atta. However, apart perhaps from the Puggalavaadins,
this fear was quite ungrounded, since none of the Nikaya (or Mahayana)
schools accepting the antaraabhava *ever* thought that it implies a
permanent personal puggala or atta -- Vasubandhu is quite adamant that the
anataraabhava state itself is impermanent, often unpleasant, and in *no way*
to be construed as a self. So as I said before, poor old Moggalitissaputta
did everybody a disservice by throwing the baby out with the bath-water.

This is, to my mind, the most rational explanation of Moggalitissaputta's
position. The problem for people adopting your kind of viewpoint is that
they are unwilling to concede that Moggalitissaputta's position is wrong or
a kind of upaaya. If they were to accept that there is an antaraabhava,
then the implication for them would be that Moggalitissaputta was not an
arhat in the sense that they understand -- indeed, antaraabhava-vaadins
would say that Moggalitissaputta could not have been an arhat because if he
was, then he would have seen the reality of the antaraabhava with
dibba-cakkhu. Or perhaps he did see it with his dibba-cakkhu, but chose to
deny it for strategic upaaya reasons -- but this might lay him open to
charges of lying. I can see that this situation would lead to all sorts of
undesired conclusions for nirantaraabhava-vaadins as long as they maintain
their apparently uncritical view of orthodox Theravadin dogmas. Belief then
becomes more important than rationality -- perhaps the difference between
sraddhaa-anusaarins and dharma-anusaarins.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge