גלות רוחנית : spiritual exile

The Abhidhamma is a systematic account of reality, mainly mental reality, that is traced back to sections of ancient Buddhist scriptures. In this chapter I will briefly describe its textual context.Scholars divide Buddhism today into three major divisions: Theravāda, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna (Gethin, 1998 p.2ff). Theravāda is found is South East Asia, mainly in Thailand, Burma, Sri-Lanka Cambodia and Laos. The language of Theravādin scriptures is Pāli, which is a type of Indian Language closely related to Sanskrit.The Buddhism of China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan is usually referred to as Mahāyāna. Its scriptures are mainly in Chinese, though some of them are definitely translations of Indian texts.

Vajrayāna is also part of the Mahāyāna, but includes Tantra (esoteric practice) which is practiced mainly in Tibet, Mongolia, Nepal and in the Indian Himalaya. The texts of this division are in Tibetan, but again, some are translations of Sanskrit Indian texts.

All three divisions look back to ancient India where Buddhism began. Mahāyāna can be traced back to around the first century BCE. Vajrayāna is a much later development. But even before the creation ofMahāyāna there were other divisions within the Buddhist community.

Historical developments within the early Buddhist community have lead to divisions on various topics. Historical fact about early Buddhism are hard to establish for all we have is based on later records from different traditions reporting on the early days. In many cases they are not in agreement with each other. However, it is generally acceptable that the first schism within the Buddhist community happened around a century after the death of the Buddha and involved a dispute regarding the implementation of the monastic code.

A schism within the community, in which a group is forced either to leave or conform, is more likely to have happened on the basis of rule violation than, say, a philosophical disagreement. Misguided views, according to Buddhist thought, are common obstacles to liberation. But it would make little sense to expel anyone who holds them, as they are present to some degree in all unliberated minds. Ignorance is the prime cause of misery, and knowledge is the cure. The community creates the conditions for gaining knowledge by learning and practicing and it does not assume that its members would accept a priori all doctrinal issues. But as much as the Buddhist community can accommodate different views, it cannot tolerate behavioural problems. The monastic code is designed to help the monks living together. Any infringement of the rules, threaten the ability to live and practice together. Hence, according to Gethin, practice is primer to doctrinal conformity in holding the community together: early Buddhism was more an orthopraxy than an orthodoxy (1998 p.51).

The first schism led to the creation of two groups: the Staviras or ”elders“ who insisted on the hard line of the monastic code and the Mahāsāṁghikas or ”the great community“ who were the majority. In the two centuries following this split many more schools have emerged. Most of them left us nothing but their names, but at least some have developed distinct philosophical agendas. Among them, suggests Ornan Rotem, some are likely to have been informal schools of thought like ”British Empiricists“ and ”Kantians“ for modern philosophy (in Gethin, 1998 p.52). The Theravādins or ”advocate of the doctrine of the elders“ trace their lineage back to a group called Vibhajyavādins or ”advocate of a doctrine of analysis“, which stemmed from the Stavira. In this case we know that Theravāda has both a unique philosophical position and a particular monastic code.

The Pāli canon is the scriptural corpus of the Theravādins, the only complete collection in an Indian language that survived to this day. According to the traditional account the collection arrived to Sri Lanka in the third century BCE, and was written down in the first century BCE. Most scholars would hesitate to claim that it existed in the third century BCE as we have it today. Nevertheless, the Pāli canon is the best account of early Buddhism available to us, and contains at least portions that go back to the third century BCE. It is also the only Buddhist canon to have been completely translated into a European language. With the right scholarly caution it provides an immense source for studying Buddhist thought, culture and history. One only has to bear in mind that this large group of texts — modern editions of the Pāli canon contain more than fifty volumes — contains ancient strata representing early Buddhism mixed with somewhat later strata unique to the Theravāda.

The Pāli canon and fragments that reached us from some of the schools indicate that early Buddhist texts have been organized from a very early stage into three sections, or ”baskets“ (piţaka): the discourses (sutta/sūtra piţaka), the monastic code (Vinaya piţaka) and the Abhidhamma (Sanskrit: Abhidharma) piţaka. (see diagram) The basket of discourses is comprised of four primary collections (Nikāya). They are extremely important to Buddhist thought, and probably most Buddhist thinkers were familiar with their content and regarded them as authoritative. Among these texts one find the first discourse given by the Buddha (see above p. 9), conversations with Brahmins and others on perception, views, intentions, ethics, self, suffering, meditation, and many more important themes. These discourses are sorted into four primary collections (Nikāya), mainly according to their length. The basket of discourses contains also a minor collection that includes various stories and poems. Both the Pāli and Chinese canons contain baskets of discourses. Although the Chinese version (called Āgama) is not directly translated from the Pāli both versions generally conforms in content (Gethin, 1998 p.44). Comparing the Pāli and the Chinese versions is a work in progress that occupies that minds of the few Buddhist scholars who have sufficient knowledge of both Pāli and Classical Chinese. The basket of monastic code contains the monastic rule, stories that explain why and how these rules were formed and sections that set the right way of performing various monastic procedures (like ordination). Both the Chinese and the Tibetan canons preserve various versions of monastic codes that have helped to organize Buddhist communities.

The Abhidhamma (Sanskrit: Abhidharma) basket contains an attempt to present Buddhist doctrine in a systematized way, without the narratives that accompany the accounts in the basket of discourses. The Abhidhamma is probably the earliest attempt to provide a systematized account of the Buddhist doctrine. Though it is traditionally thought of as the words of the Buddha (like the discourses and monastic code), scholars agree that it is probably a slightly later creation. Gethin suggests that the Abhidhamma might have been a very early commentarial attempt created by the first generation of Buddhist followers (1998 p.54). It is no surprise then that different schools have different versions of it. Of the various Abhidharmas that might have existed in India, only three have reached us: (1) The Sarvastivāda Abhidharma that has been central to the development of Mahāyāna and Tibetan philosophy. (2) A work called Śāriputra-abhidharma-śāstra that probably belong to the extinct Dharmaguptaka school, and (3) the Theravāda Abhidhamma (Nyanaponika, 1998 p.x).

The different Abhidharmas vary quite dramatically both in structure and content. This thesis is concerned only with the Abhidhamma of the Theravāda and therefore no space is dedicated to the exploration of the other treatises. In addition to it, the basket of discourses (Sutta Piţaka) contains discussion of human psychology and I will use its Pāli version occasionally.

The Abhiadhamma is a long and rather technical text in seven books. It is an attempt to present Buddhist ideas in a systematic method that might be seen as a commentary on the Sutta Piţaka. Nevertheless, the Abhidhamma itself served as a root for a rich commentarial tradition. The two first books, the Dhammasńgaņī and the Vibhańga have their own commentaries: the Atthasālinī and the Sammoha-vinodanī respectively. The other five books have one commentary on them called Pāñcappakaraņa-aţţhakathā. These commentaries are attributed to the fifth century CE scholar-monk Buddhaghosa, who is also said to have composed and edited the commentaries on the basket of discourses.

Buddhaghosa is also the compiler of a very influential guide to Buddhist practice called the Visuddhimagga, or in English translation ”The Path of Purification“. This work has become very central to Theravāda thought and is sometimes considered as ”applied Abhidhamma“ (Nyanaponika, 1998 p.xii).

The commentaries on the Abhidhamma have led to yet another layer of sub-commentaries, which led to attempts to summarize them all in a more concise form of a manual. Composed around the 11th century CE the Abhidhammattha-sańgaha has become a standard manual or ”handbook“ for Abhidhamma studies throughout Theravāda religions. As its style is very condensed, it evoked the need for explanatory notes. Among the many commentaries on this text two are available to us in English. One is translation of the 12th century Abhidhammatthavibhāvinī-ţīkā (Anuruddha & Sumangala, 2002), and the other is the 20th century A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma (Anuruddha, 2000). [The two books contain translations of the original text, hence they are sorted under the same 11th century author Anuruddha. There is a third one: Paramatthadīpanī Sangaha Mahā-òīkā by Ledi Sayadaw which has been translated into English by U Nandamala from Myanmar, but the translation is still unpublished. (thanks to Erik Braun from Harvard for the information)]

The evolution of commentaries and sub-commentaries is described by the contemporary scholar and translator of the Pali Bhikkhu Boddhi as a ”rhythmic alteration of condensed and expansive modes of treatment, the systole and diastole phases in the evolution of Theravāda Buddhist doctrine.“ (Introduction to Nyanaponika, 1998 p.xiii). Indeed to some extent the history of Theravāda doctrine is the history of its textual evolution. However, the Abhidhamma is not only a classical text and its traditional exegesis. It is also a living tradition with relevance to Buddhist practice and education. The analytical method of the Abhidhamma influences the way Buddhists analyze the mental/phenomenal world and has crucial relevance to the study and practice meditation.

The prefix abhi means ”beyond“ or ”above“ and dhamma means ”teaching“, ”truth“ and ”phenomenon“. A translation of the compound abhi-dhamma can be therefore ”the high truth“. But the Atthasālinī commentary state that dhamma in this case means ”teachings“, and the compound means ”that which exceeds and is distinguished from the teachings“, i.e., that which exceeds the teachings of the sutta piţaka (in Anuruddha, 2000 p.5).

The presentation of teachings in the suttas and the ”high“ teaching of the Abhidhamma are different in scope and method. The former presents a situated truth in a personal context, with stories, similes and within conversations in particular circumstances. The latter aims at a comprehensive impersonalized presentation. Therefore, Abhidhamma is more than a set text that is being re-interpreted through the years. It is a particular way of analytical approach to reality, especially mental reality. It provides a method of breaking the phenomenal world apart, and re-constructing it according to the Buddhist understanding of reality. This project is a fascinating intellectual endeavor, but for Buddhists it also important to the practice of meditation, and the progress of insight that would eventually lead to liberation of the mind. In short, the Abhidhamma crystallizes the idea that knowing the mind is what leads to its liberation.

Books mentioned in this post:

Anuruddha. (2000). A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma: The Abhidhammattha Sangaha of Acariya Anuruddha (M. Narada & B. Bodhi, Trans.). Seattle: BPS Pariyatti Editions. Buy it with Amazon

Anuruddha, & Sumangala. (2002). Summery of the Topics of Abhidhamma and Exposition of the Topics of Abhidhamma (R. Gethin & R. P. Wijeratne, Trans.). Oxford: The Pali Text Society. Buy it with Amazon

Gethin, R. (1998). The Foundations of Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Buy it with Amazon

Nyanaponika, T. (1998). Abhidhamma Studies: Buddhist Exploration of Consciousness and Time (4th ed.). Kandy/Boston: Buddhist Publication Society & Wisdom Publication. Buy it with Amazon

The Four Truths Seen by the Buddha

Buddhist hagiography tells a story of a young man that at the age of twenty-nine left his wife and young child and became an ascetic nomad who sought the complete end of misery. After practicing various techniques for six years, he became disillusioned with the practice of self inflicted torment. He than sat down and agreed to receive some food. Having gained some strength, he realized that there should be another way, a middle way between self inflicted torment and sensual pleasure. On the same night through a serious of meditative states he faced his demons and learned about the ways suffering is create and extinguished. By that he became fully awakened, a Buddha.

The night of awakening is definitely a central reference point in the life story of the Buddha. After his awakening, when he decides to teach what he has understood, he went to find his old companions, a group of five ascetics who left him earlier in his journey. To them, it is said, he spoke about the dharma for the first time.

The first discourse contains some of the most important features of Buddhist doctrine that are also common to all Buddhist traditions and sects. They are generally referred to as the four Noble Truth. In this discourse, called in Pali dhammacakkappavattana-sutta (the Discourse Setting in Motion of the Wheel of Dharma) the Buddha explains four basic truths he realized: suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the way.

There can be some confusion about the word Truth in this context and certainly about Noble Truths, the standard but probably erroneous translation of the Pāli compound ariyasaccāni into English. Ariya means ”noble“. Sacca or Sanskrit satya is derived from the sat, ”being“, and means ”truth“ or ”real“. Something is true (sacca) because it accords with what is (sat). One sees truth when one sees things ”as they really are“ (yathābhūtadassana), the famous Buddhist phrase that describes the kind of knowledge that liberates.

K.R. Norman has pointed out that the compound ariyasacca can indicate different relations between its parts: ”a truth for nobles“, ”the nobles‘ truths“, ”the nobilising truths“ and ”the truth of, possessed by, the nobles“ (1990-6 vol. 1993 p.174). As a matter of fact, he points out that the common translation ”the noble truths“ (i.e.,“the truths which are noble“) is the least important in the eyes of the traditional commentators; he suggests that the best translation would be simply ”the truths of the noble one“ that is, the truth as seen by the Buddha (1997 p.16).

Suffering

What are the truths seen by the Buddha? First, he saw the nature of suffering. The Pāli discourse states:

birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, illness is dukkha, death is dukkha, union with the unpleasant is dukkha, seperation from the pleasant is dukkha, not getting what one wants — this is also dukkha; in brief: clinging to the five aggregates is dukkha.

Dukkha is sometimes translated as suffering but this paragraph and many others suggests that it is much more comprehensive than mere discomfort. The text provide a three layered explanation: (1) suffering is the very process of life - from birth to death, (2) it is an unwise relationship with the pleasant and the unpleasant, relationship that involves craving and frustration (3) it is the misguided clinging to anything that is changing within us.

This is not, as one might think, a pessimistic view that everything we experience is misery. Buddhists do not deny the existence of happy states and joyful times. The truth about dukkha points to the undeniable limits that life imposes unto us, and to the fact that the constant craving for pleasant and permanent states is never fulfilled. It is never fulfilled not because we are not trying enough. It is never fulfilled because this is the nature of the world. This is how things are. There is no (ultimate) satisfaction in pleasant feelings, and there is no ultimate satisfaction in just being alive and going through the process of ageing and dying. This unsatisfactoriness, which is closely connected to the fact that objects, including ourselves, are impermanent, is dukkha.

Aggregates

The last item in the paragraph, ”Clinging to the five aggregates“ (pañc‘upādāna‘kkhandhā) refers to the Buddhist understanding of what is it to be human, or in other words, how the individual experience himself from within, from a phenomenological perspective. Khandha (Sanskrit: skhandha), means ”aggregate“ or ”heap“. A person is said to be compounded of five different aggregates: physical form, sensation, apperception, formation (e.g., volitions, intentions and drives) and consciousness.

We see that we have physical bodies. This is rūpa, a form. We see that the contact with the world through our senses evokes various emotional reactions. These are called vedanā, sensations, which are classified as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Vedanā refers to the operation of the six senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and sensing through the mind. In Buddhism, as much as in other Indian systems, the mind is considered a sense ”organ“, or more precisely a sense ”base“, because it has the ability to collect (or sense) memories, thoughts, dreams, visions etc.

Vedanā is the process of simple perception, and saññā is apperception: the faculty that distinguishes between objects and recognizes them through cognitive process that uses pre-existing knowledge. When we slice reality and analyze our experience we use saññā. We use it to recognize.

We also see that we have certain tendencies, wishes and desires of many kinds and strengths. They are saṃkhāra, volitional formations that stands behind our actions. Finally consciousness, viññāna is what enables us to be aware of phenomenal reality, in and out. We are conscious of ourselves as thinking, feeling, and wanting subjects and we call this awareness consciousness.

This is in a nutshell how Buddhists organize the experience of being human. The concluding sentence of the first Truth states that clinging to these five aggregates is dukkha, suffering, because when we cling we fail to see the true impermanent nature of them, and mistake them for our permanent selves.

Impermanence (anicca) is a central feature in Buddhist phenomenology. In a nutshell it mean that things are actually not ”things“ - they are processes. Everything we know through our minds and senses — including extraordinary meditative states and the teaching of the Buddha — are subject to change. They are constantly in the process of arising and passing. Failing to see that, human beings, we, cling to all kinds of objects and states and as a result we suffer when they change or disappear.

Origin

The second Truth is concerned with the origin of suffering. The Pali text states:

This is the noble one’s truth of the origin of dukkha: it is craving (taņhā) that leads to renewed existence, craving endowed with passionate delight, craving that finds delight [once] here [once] there; that is: craving for senses, craving for being, craving for not-being.

First, we should note that the truth of origin is not about the historical origin of suffering; it is about the psychological condition that leads to it. Buddhist theory does not try to trace the origin of suffering in a mythological past of humanity or the world. In the same manner it does not encounter the problem of suffering in the face of an allmighty benevolent god.
Craving, Taņhā, is not, as one might think, mere wanting. The passage makes it clear that it is not about wanting to go somewhere, cook lunch, or talk to a friend. The cause of suffering is a deeply rooted craving that underlies our basic tendencies. It is an unfocused craving for sensual delights that can never be fulfilled, it is the metaphysical craving for living forever, or being reborn again and again, the craving for continuous being (i.e., being eternal) and its counterpart: the craving for being annihilated.

Rupert Gethin explains that sensual craving, the most common and probably the easiest to understand, is only one manifestation of the basic tendency. To that he adds:

I may crave to be some particular kind of person, or I may crave fame and even immortality. On the other hand, I may bitterly and resentfully turn my back to ambition, craving to be nobody; I may become depressed and long not to exist, wishing that I had never been born;“ (Gethin, 1998 p.70).

The causal process that fuels dukkha is elaborated in the Buddhist formula of dependent origination. This is the Buddhist traditional way to portray the way in which various conditions contribute to the arising of suffering. As a general formula, it mainly indicates the fact that specific conditionality governs our world and that with the eradication of the conditions, the result ceases to be: ”This existing, that exists, this arising, that arises; this not existing, that does not exist, this ceasing that ceases“ (translated by Gethin, 1998 p.141).

The revelation that the entire unfolding process of life is a self-less web of causal connexion is probably the most significant feature the Buddha’s teaching. It locates ignorance as the prime condition on which our very existence is structured, including the way we sense, interpret, and construct ourselves and the our worlds. Among the various formulae found in the ancient texts — some differ quite dramatically form each other — the tradition has picked up a twelve-link chain that has become the ”classic“ and most common formula.

With ignorance as condition volitional formation [comes to be]; with volitional formation as a condition, consciousness; with consciousness as a condition, name-and-form, with name and form as a condition, the six sense base; with the six sense base as a condition, contact; with contact as a condition; feeling; with feeling as a condition, craving; with craving as a condition, attachment; with attachment as a condition, becoming; with becoming as a condition, birth; with birth as a condition, aging-and-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair come to be. Such is the origin of this whole mass of suffering. (SN ii,1)

Within the Buddhist tradition there has been different approaches to the formula. At least some involve discussion of links between past and future lives — almost a taboo subject for Western scientific thinking. Nevertheless, the importance dependent origination is in its uncompromised treatment of phenomenal world as arising in dependent of specific conditions, regardless of the Buddhist views about rebirth.

The description of the process of dependent origination is as follows: Ignorance conditions (1) volitional formations (2) that determines the arising of consciousness (3). Without consciousness there is no development of the body-mind compound (4). Body-mind is the condition for becoming a sensual being (5). Having senses makes sense contact possible (6). Contact makes feeling (7) possible. With no feeling there is no craving (8), and with no craving no attachment (9). Becoming (10) is the operation of karma, determined by the persons attachments that leads after death to new birth (11). Birth leads to death (12) with the entire misery associated with it. Some parts of the formula like the link between attachment and becoming are far from being self-explanatory. Almost every Buddhist scholar had to address this formula in the course of understanding Buddhist doctrine, and there seems not to be great clarity on what the original meaning of the formula was. I tend to agree with Paul Williams who writes that ”it may be impossible at the present stage of our scholarship to work out very satisfactorily what the original logic of the full twelvefold formula was intended to be, if there ever was one intention at all.“ (2000 p.72)

From a psychological point of view, the sensation-feeling-craving-attachment cycle is the most interesting. (We need not concentrate on the metaphysical aspects of rebirth and past lives.) Within the formula craving is dependent on feelings, for without emotional reaction to sensual stimuli no craving is formed. Craving conditions attachment or clinging (upādāna), for as we crave something we try to get hold of it and make it ours. Buddhist texts generally talk about four kinds of attachments: attachment to the objects of sense desire, attachment to views, attachment to precepts and vows, attachment to the doctrine of self.

It may be said that attachment is the cause of suffering, for when we are attached to something we fail to see its impermanent nature and grasp it as if it will exist for us forever. If we cling to sensual pleasure, we suffer when we are separated from it; if we cling to views, we suffer when they are contradicted or attacked; if we cling to precepts and vows, we suffer when they no longer agree with our life situation; if we cling to a doctrine of self, we suffer when our image of our self meets reality. Attachment stands in opposition to impermanence (anicca). Phenomenal reality is impermanent, therefore attachment can only bring about suffering.

Despite of what is said in the previous paragraph, in the four Truths attachment is not the origin of suffering. Craving is the origin because it conditions attachment and thus conditions the arising of dissatisfaction. But craving itself depends on feelings. Why are feelings not the origin of suffering? In a way they are, as much as any of the factors in the formula of dependent origination preconditions suffering. However, feelings are unavoidable for humans. The mere sensations, pleasant and unpleasant are a matter of fact, and Buddhist tradition insists that even Buddhas do not loose their ability to feel pain and joy. If sensations were a necessary and sufficient cause for craving, there would not have been any escape from suffering. But the second and the third Truth indicate differently: craving is the cause and craving can be removed. With the removal or craving, the vicious cycle breaks and liberation is known. This means that sensations are necessary cause for craving, but not sufficient. It needs to be fuelled by ignorance.

Cessation

With the discovery of craving as the prime origin of dukkha, the solution automatically followed. The end of suffering comes about with the end of craving, for without craving no attachment is formed and without attachment one enjoys freedom from dissatisfaction. Cessation is spoken of in terms of releasing, letting go and giving up:

This, bhikkhus, is the noble one’s truth of the cessation of dukkha — this is the complete absence and termination of craving, the renouncing and giving up of craving, its release and elimination.

When the Buddha meditated in the night of his awakening, he gave up craving and attained nirvana. The word nirvana has been accepted into English and may loosely indicate a state of happiness or perfect joy. But its original derivation (Sanskrit: nirvāņa, Pali: or nibbana) is actually grammatically negative — it means ”extinguishing“ or ”blowing out“ (of a flame). When someone attains nirvana, his deepest craving tendencies are extinguished.

These tendencies are also described as the three ”roots“ of dukkha: desire, aversion, and delusion. Desire and aversion are basically forms of cravings, two basic tendencies to crave the pleasant and to hate the unpleasant. Adding delusion points to the fact that at a final account ignorance, the first factor in the formula of dependent origination, is the origin of suffering. It is being ignorant of the true nature of reality that leads to desire and aversion. When wisdom and knowledge counteracts ignorance, craving is abandoned.

Knowledge was also important for pre-Buddhist religious thinking in India. It is described by scholars as ”magical“ knowledge that allows the knower to control something (Collins, 1982 p.59). This notion is based on the principle identification mentioned above (ch. 2). Control is possible because somehow the things that can be manipulated directly are identical, or correspond, to the bigger picture which is out of direct reach. Thus the Vedic sacrifice has power over the universe. In the Vedas and the Brāhmaņas the holder of magical knowledge seeks mundane goals like prosperity and long life or, sometimes, good rebirth in god’s realm or the realm of ”the fathers“ after death. He does that by correctly performing a sacrifice, and forcing the desired outcome. Gradually the instrumental use of knowledge was generalized until in the Upanişads knowing one thing is said to control everything. However, the principle stays the same: seek for identity relations between something within your power and something out of reach.

There are good reasons for wanting to find something within one’s power that corresponds to the underling principle of the universe — this would allow one to control anything one wishes in order to avoid anything that is considered unwanted. The Upanişads proclaim that such correspondence exists between the essential self (ātman) and the power behind the universe (brahman). By knowing one’s self, one gains control over everything, because in essence ātman is identical to brahman. Those who know that, not only create whatever they desire, but are also released from the effects of good and bad acts (karma), and so are not reborn again within the cycle of life and death (Collins, 1982 p.62).

The framework is very similar to that of Buddhism. Not knowing preconditions a vicious cycle. Only one who knows and sees the true nature of things is liberated from the cycle. The importance of knowledge to Buddhism explains why it is appealing to modern science. But there should be a degree of caution. While the content of knowledge may seem at times rather similar — a rejection of self/soul philosophies, preoccupation with processes and causality, and immense interest in human psychology — the objectives are different. In science knowledge is the purpose, though in some cases it may indirectly bring happiness to the human race. For Buddhists knowledge is a way to transform the individual who knows. This means, I suggest, that Buddhists and scientists are talking about slightly different things when they talk about ”knowledge“.

Desipte the the similar framework, Buddhism actually propagates a very different kind of knowledge to that of the Upanişads. It claims that knowledge of not-self (anātman Pali: anattā) is what liberates. Although some scholars have previously claimed that early Buddhism teaches self, and even brahmanical Ultimate Self, it is widely agreed today both in Buddhist traditions and in Scholarship that this claim is wrong.

The teaching of the Buddha may not have argued directly against brahmanical texts, but it is very clear they reject the doctrine of Self that these brahmanical texts imply. The Buddha’s message clearly denies that there can be found an eternal self and that there can be found a self in full control of one’s destiny and the world.

If the self is a constant and fixed entity that somehow keeps us together and ensures our continuity, it follows that it has to be permanent and unchanging. But the Buddhist understanding of reality stresses that everything we ordinarily know is impermanent. Self cannot be traced within any of the five aggregates that constitute the human being (see above), because the five aggregates constantly change. Not only the content of the five aggregates changes (e.g., different feelings at different times), but also the way they are experienced changes: in one moment I think the body is myself, in another I think I am what I feel, and so on.

Buddhism does not claim that nothing transcend the impermanent existence in time and that no one has any influence over his or her future. The idea of not-self only means that holding onto a theory of self does not lead to liberation, because it only fuels craving for more erroneous sense of control over desired future destinies (becoming) or desired escape and annihilation (non-becoming).

Things, or better said, phenomena, are connected in a causal web: ”This existing, that exists, this arising, that arises; this not existing, that does not exist, this ceasing that ceases“. Nothing in the structure of the human being escapes this observation. This is why the Dhammapada states: ”all conditioned phenomena are impermanent“ (Dhp 20 v5). In this whole web of arising phenomena, almost nothing can be found that is unconditioned and permanent. Almost, but not all. In the Pali texts the unconditioned (asankhata) is a synonym for liberation or nirvana.

There is, monks, a domain where there is no earth, no water, no fire, no wind… I do not call this coming or going, nor standing nor dying, nor being reborn; it is without support, without occurrence, without object. Just this is the end of suffering“ (Ud. 80 in Gethin, 1998 p.76-77)

Could it be that after denying permanent existence and Ultimate Self, the mystical idea of Ultimate Reality creeps into Buddhist thinking in the form of nirvana? This is definitely true in the cases of some popular Buddhist beliefs. However in the context of early Buddhist thought it seems not to be the case.

Paul Williams (2000 p.50-51) presents a persuasive argument which I wish to briefly summarize. He argues that describing two things in similar negatives does not mean that they are identical. For example: both a banana and an orange are ”not apple“, but they definitely not the same. There is no reason to think, therefore, that nirvana and Ultimate Reality are the same because both are described as ”nor dying“ and ”nor being reborn“. Williams continues and notes that the only positive term in the above-cited passage is ”domain“. But the Buddhist use of āyatana and dhātu (domain and realm respectively) is not limited to spatial descriptions. These words often refer to ”realms“ of perception and cognition. Therefore, when the text talks about domain, it does not talk about nirvana but about the perception of it.

When nirvana is described as an intentional object of a cognitive ”realm“, it is described using almost entirely negatives, because in the Buddhist account it simply cannot be grasped by cognition (I use ”intentional“ here in its philosophical technical sense, as used by Brentano). Mind, with its arsenal of relative concepts, falls short of grasping complete absence. And this is exactly why nirvana, the complete extinction of craving and suffering, evades positive definition. What could be the cognitive content of a lack of something? The description is bound to be negative. Otherwise it would become another object of craving, another physical or mental realm to be born into, and another conditioned phenomenon that, by nature, has to be impermanent. Such a thing could not possibly be unconditioned, it would not be free of suffering, and it would not be nirvana.

The way

The fourth Truth presented in the Discourse Setting in Motion of the Wheel of Dharma is the truth about the way leading to the cessation of suffering. In this text, and in many others, it is described as an eightfold path holding eight different aspects of the Buddhist way to liberation. The aspects are: (1) view, (2) intention, (3) speech, (4) action, (5) livelihood, (6) effort, (7) mindfulness and (8) concentration; all preceded by the term sammā (Sanskrit: samyak) meaning, ”perfect“, ”right“ or ”appropriate“.

In this discourse, right view (sammā-diţţhi) is defined as seeing the four noble truths. Seeing, in this case, is crucial because in Buddhism view (diţţhi) is in many cases a pejorative term, which is associated with attachment to a theory (like a theory of self as we have seen earlier). But scholars dispute on whether diţţhi means ”pro-attitude“ towards Buddhist doctrine, that is, accepting certain Buddhist ideas, or it means directly seeing something as true on a non-theoretical level. Traditional interpretations seems to favour the latter and think that right view pertains to knowledge that liberates, not just theoretical knowledge (Gethin, 1997). This debate demonstrates a more general complex issue regarding the eightfold path.

The path is a course of practice, but sometimes is described also as the result of attaining liberation (hence the noble eight fold path, ariyo aţţhańgiko maggo). What was the original intention? As we saw in the case of dependent origination there might not have been a single original intention. In addition to this Richard Gombrich has pointed our that Indian thought, Buddhism included, often does not make a distinction between what is and what should be (2002 p.34). In other words, the ever so important positivistic distinction between facts and values did not exist. With regards to the eight fold path, it is both a description of the wholesome life and prescription for it. This observation I think is important for those who compare Buddhist philosophy to modern science. The former uses a blend of value laden principles to reveal the ”true nature“ of reality. The latter avoids values as much as possible in order to get hold of purer image of the cognitive processes that eventually determine human values.

Right intention is explained as intention free of selfishness, free of craving and driven by compassion. It pairs with right view under the heading of paññā, the wisdom division of the Buddhist path. The other divisions are sīla, morality, and samadhi, which in this case means mental training (as in meditation).

The morality division includes avoiding various types of harmful speech and action, and keeping to a non-harmful livelihood. Mental training includes right effort, which is practiced to prevent the arising of unwholesome states of mind and to abandon unwholesome states that have already arisen; it is effort to arouse wholesome states and to promote wholesome states that have already arisen.

Right mindfulness (sati) means keeping track of various objects (traditionally body, feeling, mind and dhammā) while being aware of their impermanent nature. Being mindful in this way one abandons any notion of attachment to these objects and any notion of them being one’s self.

Right concentration refers to developing one-pointedness of mind, focusing the awareness on a single object and thus attaining stages of absorption (jhāna Skt: dyāna). These are stages of gradual happiness and equanimity that help the meditator to transcend, as it were, the mundane realm of thoughts, views, cravings and suffering. They are not considered as nirvana for they are clearly states of mind, and are clearly conditioned by the practice. However, the gradual development of focus and calm is said to support insight and help the person to know and see the final end. Peter Harvey’s writes that the mind absorbed in the fourth jhāna is

”‘workable‘ and ’adaptable‘ like refined gold, which can be used to make all manner of precious and wonderful things. It is thus an ideal take-off point for various further developments. Indeed it seems to have been the state from which the Buddha went on to attain enlightenment.“ (cited in Williams & Tribe, 2000 p.55).

This is the eightfold path with its threefold division: wisdom, morality and meditation. It concludes the overview of the four truths realized by the Buddha at the time of his awakening: dukkha, its origin, its ending and the way leading to its ending. The whole Buddhist understanding can be seen as a variation on this medical-like formula — disease, its cause, its cure and the prescription. It contains allusions to all central Buddhist themes like not-self, the structure of the individual, the process of perception as dependently arising, causality, karma and ethics. I will return to some of them below when exploring the Buddhist understating of intention and action.

Books and articles mentioned in this post:

Collins, S. (1982). Selfless Persons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Buy it with Amazon

Gethin, R. (1997). Wrong View (micchā-diţţhi) and Right View (sammā-diţţhi) in the Theravada Abhidhamma. In K. Abhayawansa (Ed.), Recent Researches in Buddhist Studies: Essays in Honour of Professor Y. Karunadasa (Reprinted with corrections by Rupert Gethin ed., pp. 211-229). Colombo: Y. Karunadasa Felicitation Committee.

Gethin, R. (1998). The Foundations of Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Buy it with Amazon

Gombrich, R. (2002). How Buddhism Began; The Conditioned Genesis of the Early Teachings. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers. Buy it with Amazon

Williams, P., & Tribe, A. (2000). Buddhist Thought: a Complete Introduction to the Indian Tradition. London: Routledge. Buy it with Amazon

This short post is a continuation of my Introduction to Buddhism. It deals with the emergence of the Buddhist not-self doctrine in the Indian setting and prepares the ground for the next chapter, which is significantly longer and deals with Buddhist doctrine.

In the essence of Buddhist thought lies the belief that personal transformation is possible. It is also believed that transformation comes about by practicing the dharma and realizing truth through experience. Only when one sees with one’s own eyes (metaphorically speaking) things as they really are, one gains the kind of knowledge that liberates from suffering (Skr: duḥkha; Pali: dukkha). For these reasons we can say that Buddhism is primarily about individual freedom, which is associated with personal experience. It is concerned with the mind because mind mediates experience and it requires active practice because it does not rely on external grace or godly intervention. The Buddhologist Paul Williams writes:

The primary orientation of Buddhism, therefore, is towards the transformative experience of the individual. Buddhism is thus also concerned first and foremost with the mind, or, to be more precise, with mental transformation, for there are no experiences that are in some sense reliant on the mind. This mental transformation is almost invariably held to depend upon, and to be brought about finally by oneself for there can also be no transformation of one’s own mind without, on some level, one’s own active involvement or participation. (Williams & Tribe, 2000 p.3-4)

Buddhism has been always fascinated by the mind for the mind has major role in dictating our happiness and misery. This interest is part of a metaphysical shift from cosmology to psychology in ancient India. The Brahmanical religious practice was based on the notion of cosmological order and the practical way to manipulate it as chiefly expressed in the Vedas, the ancient Indian hymns. This is a complex issue that cannot be addressed in detail in the current framework, but one thing should be noted. According to the Vedas the cosmic order is maintained by precise ritualistic performance of sacrifice. The sacrifice is designed so that it yields a specific result. The sacrifice is a way to control the world and the gods. When it is performed correctly, as described in the religious manual, the world must comply. This is the law of significant action and its result, or in Sanskrit: karman and phala.

The Brahmamic religion of the Vedas was a householder’s practice. In this system the social order reflected the cosmological order and as long as one maintained the exoteric practice of sacrifice, according to one’s position in the system, the order has been kept. The Upanişads, a later text to the Vedas, record a shift in attention from physical ritual to the search for a hidden principle that governs the relationship between action and the world. The influence of ritualistic performance on the world is explained by mean of identification. In the Paul Williams‘ words: ”The action which takes place here in the space of the sacrifice is seen as a microcosm which magically corresponds to — is magically identical with — actions, events, which the sacrificer desires to bring about in the macrocosm“ (2000 p.10). Eventually the most significant of all identifications emerges as the esoteric explanation regarding the identity of Self (ātman) and the Universal Essence (Brahman). It leads to the notion that knowing and controlling one’s Self, results in knowing and controlling the universe.

Directing the attention inside into the search of the Self marks the primacy of psychology in Indian thought. The doctrinal change in Brahamanical thought came together with the emergence of a new religious group and practice - the śramņas, or ”drop-outs“, who left society in the search of the ultimate way of manipulation that leads to final liberation from the bondage of the world, the bondage of life and death. Their practice leads to gaining the most important knowledge, that which results in complete transformation of experience, and leads to final liberation of the knower from suffering and continuous rebirth and re-death. This description is partly true for Buddhism as well.

The Buddha-to-be was a renunciate, a śramaņa (or samaņa in Pali). He left home in the search for liberation from suffering and, if we believe the Buddhist traditional account, he studied various esoteric practices before rejecting some of them and developing his own understanding of the way to liberation.

It has been stated already that Buddhism is a soteriology that is based on knowing and seeing reality. As such it clearly belongs to Indian śramaņa tradition, which also sees knowledge as central to liberation. But Buddhism promotes a different kind of knowledge than the knowledge of the Upanişads and posits an opposition to various philosophical doctrines and practices of the time. Most importantly, it rejects the identification theory of ātman and Brahman, and internalizes and ethicizes the notion of karma.

The search for the Self, ātman, has some common features with the Western traditional preoccupation with the Soul. In the past 50 years Cognitive Science has provided an arena to explore an alternative way for dealing with soul, mind and selfhood. Without overruling the differences between the Buddhist rejection of ātman and the scientific rejection of the soul, there are some important similarities that I plan to explore in the near future.

Books mentioned in this post:

Williams, P., & Tribe, A. (2000). Buddhist Thought: a Complete Introduction to the Indian Tradition. London: Routledge. Buy it with Amazon

This post was written originally as an introduction to Buddhism for psychologists. I thought it might interest the readers of this blog, and it is also a good opportunity to allow comments on a work in progress.

There is little new in this text in terms of scholarly research, but it is, I think, a good introduction to Buddhism for those who know little or nothing about it. Obviousely the first chapter is very basic, but I trust most of you would find the that the last one contains new information.

I divided the article into chapters, which appear in different posts. They are:

A Brief introduction to Buddhism (this post)
Liberation and the Self
What the Buddha taught: The Four Truths
Sects and Texts: The Context of the Abhidhamma
Reference lists are at the end of each chapter

General Introduction to Buddhism: The Three Gems

Though the word ”Buddhism“ is an English word traced back only to 1801, but it is derived from much older Sanskrit word ”buddha“ which means ”awake“. The Sanskrit word (and its Pāli equivalent) became an epithet of a person who has gone a radical transformation and has become fully awakened (buddha) to the true nature of reality. Such a person is believed to have lived in India around the 4th century BCE, and Buddhists consider themselves followers of his teaching. For them to be a Buddhist means to ”take refuge“ in three ”gems“: The fully awakened person (buddha), its teaching which accord with the true nature of reality (dharma, Pāli: dhamma), and the community of fellow followers (sańgha).

Buddha

Before becoming fully awakened, the Buddha-to-be was an ordinary person like you and me who strove to completely overcome suffering. Unlike most of us, he actually succeeded. Though Buddhists may believe in gods, in their view the god’s powers are limited, and their knowledge does not reach the depth and completeness of the knowledge gained by a Buddha. Only Buddhas have the kind of final knowledge that leads to complete liberation from suffering. Therefore, only Buddhas can teach the way to liberation. Buddhist may relate to gods for various reasons — for example it is quite common to see Buddhist giving money to Hindu temples with the wish to receive healing or financial prosperity — but they would not rely on or ”take refuge“ in a god for salvation.

The liberating knowledge Buddhists seek is shortly described as ”seeing things as they really are“ (Pāli: yathā-bhūta-dassana). The use of the verb dassana (or Sanskrit darśana), ”seeing“, indicates that reality has to be experienced personally by the individual; it cannot be obtained through grace or direct transmission from a Buddha, and cannot be achieved on the basis of mere intellectual speculation.

When Buddhists want to stress that Buddhism is scientific in nature, they usually refer to this point about the primacy of experience. Indeed there is an element of personal verification through the instruments of experience in science. Scientists who claim new knowledge are expected to do so on the basis their seeing the results with their own eyes. Buddhism and science, therefore, share criticism of blind beliefs and encourage exploration that is based on personal encounter with the elements of reality.

The crucial differences between Buddhism and science are in (a) the way each system thinks of evidence, (b) the status of theory in each system, and (c) they ways evidence are related to theories in each system. The differences originate from the different goals of science and Buddhism. While science is chiefly about new and true knowledge, Buddhism is chiefly about personal transformation of the individual.

The preoccupation with personal transformation means that Buddhism is a soteriology: a system of personal salvation or liberation. But, for example, unlike Christianity, it is totally humanistic and does not depend on godly grace. Buddhist texts stress that even the highest powers in the Indian divine system are not truly liberated and does not exceed the Buddha’s wisdom. Unlike Marxism, it is also not interested in the liberation of groups of people, or even the liberation of society as a whole — salvation for Buddhism is above all a transformation of the individual’s experience through his or her own endeavour. Taking refuge in buddha means to accept the possibility of such a final liberation and to be inspired by the human ability to become completely free and awake.

The Historical Buddha

It is generally accepted both by Buddhist traditions and in scholarship that the Buddha existed, i.e., there has been a historical Buddha. However, beside this general statement there are very little facts about his actual life. Indian culture of 2500 years ago left us no substantial archaeological evidence, definitely not anything related to the Buddha himself. In general this ancient culture seems disinterested with writing or history. The Buddhist scriptures that we have today were written down for the first time at least some hundreds of years after the Buddha’s death — a date that is by itself a subject to controversy.

Many Buddhist texts give accounts of the Buddha’s life. These accounts are at times similar, and at times quite significantly different. Having compared many sources, Michel Carrithers concludes that though one might doubt even the simplest life story, most scholars would accept at least a very condensed version as true: birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching and death (Carrithers, 1983 p.23).

The question regarding this problem of the historical Buddha is: does it really matter? Paul Williams (2000 p.22) notes that whether the Buddha existed or not, his historical existence is a question of little doctrinal significance. Unlike the crucial importance of the existence of Jesus to Christianity, the Buddha has no soteriological role in the Buddhist religion. What is important for Buddhists is what the Buddha taught and for that reason it does not matter whether the dharma has been found by this person or another. It might as well have been found by someone else, or even by a group of people. Liberation, the soteriological goal, is not prevented by the fact that the Buddha does not walk among us today. In fact if it were, there would be no sense in Buddhist practice. In short, the dharma is the dharma not because it was discovered by the Buddha; The Buddha is the Buddha because he discovered the dharma.

Therefore, the story of the Buddha is better seen as hagiography, a genre dedicated to writings on the lives of saints, rather than history. It serves a doctrinal purpose and does not limit itself to report historical events. Treating the story as hagiography takes the historical burden of our shoulders and lets us concentrate on the content of the teaching and the way it is presented. This seems to be not only convenient for contemporary academic research, but also in accordance with the spirit of the Buddhist tradition itself.

Dharma

Dharma, the second gem in which Buddhists take refuge, is a central concept in Indian culture in general and in Buddhism in particular. In the Buddhist contexts it points to the essence of a Buddha’s teaching. But Buddhas do not invent or create the dharma. They reveal it.

The tradition has it that the current Buddha, Śākyamuni (the sage of the Śākya clan) who lived approximately 2500 years ago, is only one in a series of Buddhas all of which have managed to find the same truth (dharma) through their own endeavour. Therefore the dharma has two faces. In the ultimate sense it is eternal and complete, as truth cannot be partial and relative. The dharma is there, waiting to be revealed by special human beings who are then ready to help others in their quest for liberation.

In the particular sense it is the teaching as proclaimed by the 5-4th century BCE Śākyamuni Buddha. The teaching of this specific master is of course in fully accordance with the truth.

Saṅgha

The third gem is Sańgha. It means ”gathering“ or ”community“ and refers to the community of followers, namely Buddhist monastic community that practices and not less important preserves the dharma. In a deeper sense the sańgha is a noble community (ariyasańgha) of those who actually attained one of the stages towards liberation and embody the fruits of the Buddhist path to liberation. When Buddhists take refuge in the Sańgha, they connect to and rely on those who preserve and embody the practice and truth proclaimed by a fully awakened human being who has found the way to overcome suffering.

To Chapter Two: Liberation and the Self >>
Books mentioned in this post:

Carrithers, M. (1983). The Buddha. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Buy it with Amazon

Williams, P., & Tribe, A. (2000). Buddhist Thought: a Complete Introduction to the Indian Tradition. London: Routledge. Buy it with Amazon