'birth has ended': literal or metaphorical?

In the Suttas, one of the stock phrases whenever someone achieves awakening is: "Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world." The question often arises whether this refers to the literal end of birth (as in future lives) or the end of birth in a more metaphorical, psychological sense.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that, assuming the causes of a mindstream are solely afflictive*, it potentially means both, i.e., the end/cessation of rebirth (punabhava, literally 'again becoming') in both the cosmological and the psychological sense.

On one level, rebirth and kamma deal with the framework of morality and ethical conduct in general. In this sense, I understand rebirth to signify the Buddha's observation that there's a type of continuity that underlies experience in the form of our actions and their results — one that doesn't necessarily end at death — and kamma to represent the intentional element of our psyche that goes into experience. This corresponds to what the Buddha called "right view with effluents, siding with merit, resulting in the acquisitions [of becoming]" (MN 117).

Here, morality and ethical conduct are associated with intentional actions and their corresponding results — which aren't just limited to those within the present lifetime — and the continuous cycle of birth and death.

On another level, rebirth and kamma deal with the framework of what I'd call psychological processes, which corresponds to what the Buddha called "noble right view, without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path" (MN 117). Here, rebirth still signifies the Buddha's observation that there's a type of continuity that underlies experience in the form of our actions and their results, and kamma still represents the intentional element of our psyche that goes into experience, but they're placed within the context of the four noble truths and the noble eightfold path.

In this context, the emphasis is on things such as recognizing and understanding the mental processes by which we construct our sense of self, in what the Buddha called the process of 'I-making' and 'my-making' (ahankara-mamankara), as well as how to utilize those processes in more skillful ways. And if we can learn to be more aware of these mental processes, we can learn to master them through a combination of mindfulness training and other contemplative techniques.

The point where I think the cosmological and psychological models or processes primarily converge is becoming (bhava). In SN 12.2, for example, becoming is defined as "sensual becoming, form becoming, & formless becoming." In AN 3.76, however, becoming is treated slightly differently, and Thanissaro Bhikkhu notes at the bottom of his translation that:

Notice that the Buddha, instead of giving a definition of becoming (bhava) in response to this question, simply notes that becoming occurs on three levels. Nowhere in the suttas does he define the term becoming, but a survey of how he uses the term in different contexts suggests that it means a sense of identity in a particular world of experience: your sense of what you are, focused on a particular desire, in your personal sense of the world as related to that desire. In other words, it is both a psychological and a cosmological concept. For more on this topic, see The Paradox of Becoming, Introduction and Chapter One.

Becoming, then, is a mental process that has the potential to lead to "renewed becoming in the future," which can be understood in both a psychological and cosmological sense, i.e., acting as a condition for the birth, ageing, and death (or arising, changing, and disappearance as per AN 3.47) of the conceit 'I am,' which occurs innumerable times throughout one's life (think of the imagery of SN 12.61), as well as a condition for birth, ageing, and death in the broader sense.

According to the texts, a beginning point to samsara (literally 'wandering on') isn't evident (SN 15.3). The way I see it, this can be interpreted two ways — that a beginning point to the continual cycle of death and rebirth of beings isn't evident, or that a beginning point to the continual cycle of death and rebirth of the conceit 'I am,' the self-identification that designates a being (satta), isn't evident — and they're not mutually exclusive. In fact, they're entirely compatible, and I don't see how cosmological rebirth is possible without this underlying layer of moment-to-moment rebirth to facilitate it.

It's true that when it comes to dependent co-arising specifically, most of the descriptions appear to be more geared towards the cosmological or life-to-life model in the Suttas; but there are place like MN 140 where I think both are illustrated in tandem, with the psychological aspects of becoming (the arising and ceasing of self-identity view) being placed within the broader, cosmological framework:

"'He has been stilled where the currents of construing do not flow. And when the currents of construing do not flow, he is said to be a sage at peace.' Thus was it said. With reference to what was it said? 'I am' is a construing. 'I am this' is a construing. 'I shall be' is a construing. 'I shall not be'... 'I shall be possessed of form'... 'I shall not be possessed of form'... 'I shall be percipient'... 'I shall not be percipient'... 'I shall be neither percipient nor non-percipient' is a construing. Construing is a disease, construing is a cancer, construing is an arrow. By going beyond all construing, he is said to be a sage at peace.

"Furthermore, a sage at peace is not born, does not age, does not die, is unagitated, and is free from longing. He has nothing whereby he would be born. Not being born, will he age? Not aging, will he die? Not dying, will he be agitated? Not being agitated, for what will he long? It was in reference to this that it was said, 'He has been stilled where the currents of construing do not flow. And when the currents of construing do not flow, he is said to be a sage at peace.' Now, monk, you should remember this, my brief analysis of the six properties."

Or an alternate translation from the appendix to P. A. Payutto's Dependent Origination: The Buddhist Law of Conditionality:

"The deep-grained attachment to the feeling of self does not arise for one who is endowed with these four conditions (pañña, wisdom; sacca, integrity; caga, generosity; and upasama, calm.). With no perception of self clouding one's consciousness one is said to be a muni, a peaceful one." On what account did I say this? Perceptions such as 'I am,' 'I am not,' 'I will be,' 'I will not be,' 'I will have form,' 'I will not have form,' 'I will have no form,' 'I will have perception,' 'I will not have perception,' 'I will neither have nor not have perception,' monks, are an affliction, an ulcer, a dart. By transcending these perceptions one is a muni, a peaceful one.

"Monks, the muni is not born, does not age, does not die; he is not confused, nor does he yearn. There are no longer any causes for birth in him. Not being born, how can he age? Not aging, how can he die? Not dying, how can he be confused? Not being confused, how can he be desirous? "The deep-grained attachment to the feeling of self does not arise for one who is endowed with these four conditions. With no perception of self clouding one's consciousness, one is a muni, a peaceful one" -- It was on this account that this statement was made.

The reason I think the psychological aspects are so important, and why I tend to stress them rather than the cosmological, is because that's where the work of the meditator is done, where we can observe these processes taking place in the present. As Thanissaro Bhikkhu puts it in "A Verb for Nirvana," "Samsara is a process of creating places, even whole worlds, (this is called becoming) and then wandering through them (this is called birth). Nirvana is the end of this process." And this process (along with the that of the continuous arising and ceasing of suffering) is primarily a mental one.

So, in the end, I think that the attainment of nibbana, of awakening, entails both the end of future births on the cosmological level and the end of the psycho-physiological clinging to the aggregates that act as a cause for future births on the psychological level.

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* It should be noted that, from the Mahayanin perspective, there's nothing stopping a Buddha from 'popping back' into samsara, especially considering that, for them, the distinction between samsara and nibbana/nirvana is little more than an illusion when viewed from the ultimate standpoint of the Dharmakaya. Moreover, their conception of causality allows for the continuation of the mindstream after the breakup of the body. As Namdrol, from the now defunct E-Sangha, once explained it to me:

If the causes of a mindstream were solely afflictive, then with the exhaustion of the karmic share that sustains the life force of the body, and thus the life of a Buddha or an arhat, I might be inclined to agree that the mind stream of a Buddha or an arhat would cease at death, since all causes for its continuance would be exhausted too. However there is a slight problem with this: if the mindstream's causes were solely afflictive, why does the mind not cease with nirvana in toto? Why does the mind continue after the eradication of all afflictions in a Buddha and an arhat? And if the mind continues after the eradication of the afflictions of a Buddha, etc., why could it not continue after the breakup of the body of a Buddha, etc., albeit in a non-afflicted state? In fact, Peter Harvey's interesting book, The Selfless Mind, makes this very suggestion on page 250 where he summerizes all of his arguments and findings.

In other words, not only does bodhicitta act as a cause to help keep a bodhisattva on the path to buddhahood throughout their innumerable lives, it acts as a positive, non-afflictive cause for the continuation of the enlightened being/mindstream as well. And this is perfectly logical and consistent within Mahayana's own understanding of itself, which includes certain terms that Theravada understands differently.

For example, the Theravada standpoint is that the cause of said mindstream (as well as the body) is kamma, both skillful and unskillful, although I'm not entirely sure if this corresponds to afflictive and non-afflictive in Mahayana. Nevertheless, in the Pali Canon, the noble eightfold path is said to be the kamma that leads to the ending of kamma (AN 4.235).

When it comes to the standard explanation of why the mind and body don't [always] cease with that attainment of nibbana, it's said that as long as the lifespan of the aggregates isn't completely exhausted — which itself depends upon the amount of input remaining from past kamma — the mind and body of an arahant will continue. When this input from past kamma is exhausted, there's said to be complete cessation of both mind and body.

A Mahayanist would probably disagree with this in an ultimate sense, however, saying that this is only how it appears from the point of view of samsara (think relativity here), but not from the point of view of high-level bodhisattvas and fully enlightened buddhas.