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CRITICS OF HIS DOCTRINES
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There were not wanting people who criticised the Lord for preaching what they regarded as two such contradictory doctrines.
How can there be rebirth if there is no Soul, they asked.
There is no contradiction. There can be rebirth even though there is no Soul.
There is a mango stone. The stone gives rise to a mango tree. The mango tree produces mangoes.
Here is rebirth of a mango.
But there is no Soul.
So there can be rebirth although there is no Soul.
§ 6. Charge of Being an Annihilationist
Once when the Lord was staying at Shravasti in Jeta’s grove it was reported to him that a certain bhikkhu by name Arittha had come to certain views about the doctrines taught by the Lord, as the views of the Lord although they were not the views of the Lord.
One of the doctrines about which Arittha was misrepresenting the Lord was whether he was an annihilationist.
The Blessed Lord sent for Arittha. Arittha came. On being questioned he sat silent and glum.
The Lord then said to him : “ Some recluses and Brahmins—wrongly, erroneously and falsely— charge me in defiance of facts, with being an annihilationist and with preaching disintegration, and extirpation of existing creatures.
It is just what I am not and what I do not affirm.
What I have consistently preached both in the past and today is the existence of ill and the ending of ill.
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