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Theravadin Opinion of Madhyamakin Emptiness?
Joshua
Veteran
Hey,
The title says it all. Just curious as I find Nagarjuna's explorations of emptiness intriguing but also paramount to Mahayana Buddhism. Are his ideas implicit in the Tipitaka or orthodoxly melodramatic?
Thanks.
The title says it all. Just curious as I find Nagarjuna's explorations of emptiness intriguing but also paramount to Mahayana Buddhism. Are his ideas implicit in the Tipitaka or orthodoxly melodramatic?
Thanks.
0
Comments
Its an erroneous idea to think that Theravadins don't know about emptiness, lol!
.
Your response sounds a bit defensive.... There's nothing wrong with misinterpretation, when it may not be deliberate....
To start applying anatman to simple phenomena, such as asserting "craving is not inherently craving" or "air is not inherently air" or "water is not inherently water" is going too far. It goes too far and, further, it is unnecessary because such analysis is on the intellectual level (although such intellectualism is not necessary unbeneficial. It can certainly be beneficial to help lead the mind to concentration & then to direct insight).
For example, vipassana or direct non-verbal insight cannot directly see water is made from two parts oxygen & one part hydrogen (whatever).
Or when very primitive kinds of craving arise, where there is minimal perception (example, from tasting delicious food or when underlying craving arises in meditation without a sense object), it is very difficult to directly see the cause is ignorance. The meditator simply sees craving. When the meditator has an intimate experience of pure craving (that is, craving without thought), it is the very seeing of the disturbing & unpeaceful nature of craving that leads to wisdom & the reduction of ignorance.
Or, when the mind has vipassana and directly sees the three characteristics, this insight or wisdom extinguishes craving because the mind learns about the undesirability of phenomena.
So to say there is no such thing as craving because craving has an underlying cause, namely, ignorance, goes too far. It is merely intellectual because craving can be directly experienced in the mind when the underlying cause is not simultaneously experienced.
Easier to understand is feeling. Food is eaten and it tastes pleasant. The mind cannot see the underlying cause of the pleasantness, such as the nervous system.
From the level of practical Dhamma, the mind can only experience the fact that sense contact (food with tongue) is the cause of feeling. But the mind cannot go deeper, to observe every neuron involved in a pleasant feeling. Again, with a minimum of consideration, I must say on first impression the above is merely intellectual.
To say ignorance depends on craving to be a cause is merely intellectual. It is something unrelated to direct insight.
For example, I can say my mother's("my cause") personality depends on me ("the effect"). When my mother (the cause) gave birth to me (the effect), this caused a change in her personality.
But this kind of circular conditioning cannot be applied to all things.
For example, the mind can have ignorance but be void of craving (say when the mind is spacing out or abiding in deep concentration meditation). Ignorance can exist without craving. It is not correct to say the existence of ignorance (the cause) depends on craving (the effect).
In fact, the Buddha taught ignorance does not have a cause (hetu/paccaya/samudhaya). In MN 9, Sariputta says the cause of ignorance is the taints (asava) and the cause of the asava is ignorance. Also, one of the asava is ignorance. Similarly, in AN X.61, the Buddha said nothing can be found prior to ignorance. Here, the Buddha simply states ignorance has food (ahara), namely, the five hindrances. The existence of the five hindrance "maintains" ignorance because the five hindrances block concentration & insight. But the five hindrances do not "cause" ignorance. Ignorance has no cause. It exists within each born human being but it can eradicated. It is eradicated not by removing its cause. It is eradicated by seeing the way things really are.
For example, a dark room is a dark room. The darkness has no underlying cause. There is nothing that can be removed to remove the darkness. But if light is added to the room, the darkness is removed.
Insight is the same. Insight removes ignorance but insight is not related in any way to the cause of the ignorance.
This is unlike craving. When ignorance is removed craving will always end. Craving cannot ever exist without underlying ignorance. But there is nothing 'underlying' that can be removed to end ignorance.
Even if the five hindrances are removed, ignorance will not be immediately extinguished. Only the complete development of insight can extinguish ignorance completely. Insight must be continually developed well after the ending of the five hindrances.
So when Nāgārjuna states causes & effects are interdependent, this is not always true.
In Theravada, the word for interdependence is iddappaccayata.
Pratītyasamutpāda is a subset or example of iddappaccayata.
Pratītyasamutpāda exclusively describes the sequence of mental conditioning that leads to suffering, namely, ignorance > obscurating emotions > obscured consciousness > emotional mind/body > crazy sense organs > ignorant coloured sense contact > feeling > craving > attachment/fixation/delight > becoming > birth as a 'self' that has taken possession or ownership of a sense object > sorrowing, lamentation, pain, grief, despair & suffering due to the aging & death of that sense object
for example, that trees depend on water or children depend on parents is not pratītyasamutpāda in Theravada. They are iddappaccayata.
Apart from that, pratītyasamutpāda certainly demonstrates anatta. When how the illusion of 'self' arises in the mind is known, both anatta & pratītyasamutpāda are seen [Parileyyaka Sutta].
However, anatta does not demonstrate pratītyasamutpāda. For example, Nibbana is anatta but Nibbana is not pratītyasamutpāda or iddappaccayata. Or mere sense contract is anatta but not pratītyasamutpā because mere sense contact does not condition suffering.
However, it appears from my limited reading that Nāgārjuna did not regard pratītyasamutpāda as being concerned with the origination of dukkha, namely, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief & despair.
If this is the case then Nāgārjuna does not accord with the Buddha. The Buddha was not primarly concerned with the nature of all phenomena. The Buddha was primarily concerned with the grasping mind. When the Buddha said sense objects are sunnata, this was to make the mind void.
For example, to assert a rock is void of 'self' is of no benefit if the mind still believes itself (the mind) to be a 'self'. Such a mind will continue to suffer.
Nāgārjuna's attempts to refute svabhāva is unimportant. My recollection is the term svabhāva is not found in the suttas.
But svabhāva does not imply 'self'. It merely implies a characteristic or basic nature.
For example, the nature of a feeling is always the same. It has the same (albiet vaccilating) sensation. 'Pleasantness' is a feeling. 'Pain' is a feeling. These feelings generally feel the same. A feeling is not a thought & a thought is not a feeling. A feeling is not an elephant. A feeling is a feeling.
In Satipatthana or meditation, the Buddha instructed to see the body as 'body' (rather than as 'self'), to see feeling as 'feeling' (rather than as 'self'), to see a mental state as a 'mental state' (rather than as 'self') & to see all phenomena as merely natural phenomena (rather than as 'self').
The word 'dhatu' means 'that which upholds itself'. Whilst not asserting a dhatu is independent (apart from the Nibbana dhatu, which is independent), the dhatu have a certain intrinsic & basic nature.
For example, of the element of earth, the Buddha said: ""And what is the earth property? Anything...that's hard & solid. Now both the internal earth property & the external earth property are simply earth property." (MN 62)
So the earth element has a svabhāva quality of "earthiness", of "hardness" and "material solidity". It is simply earth. As the Buddha said: "And that should be seen as it actually is present with right discernment: 'This is not mine, this is not me, this is not my self.'" (MN 62)
The Buddha was happy we see a building as a "building". He was not so concerned we break a building down into bricks, timber, soil, etc. The Buddha just wanted us to see a building as a "building" rather than seeing it as "mine".
The same with the five aggregates. To see the five aggregates as the five aggregates is sufficient. There is not need to break them down into atoms, sub-atoms, etc. It is late for me. It is time for sleep.
In Theravada, the Buddha taught two kinds of right view. One kind is supramundane, connected with not-self & liberation. The other kind is mundane, connected with self & morality (MN 117).
Regarding Nāgārjuna, at this time, I do not know what he meant by "two truths".
Kind regards,
Many thanks DD. Really good posts.
I have no reason to disagree with what TheJourney said, that "some people think there's no reason to think of the implications that deeply".
We can notice TheJourney has used the word "think" or "to think" twice in one sentence.
TheJourney has articulated the step of Nagarjuna very clearly.
However, in the sphere of direct insight, the views of Nagarjuna do not always occur.
For example, with our sense organs. Our tongue is the cause for being able to taste. But our knowing that we have a tongue (as a sense organ) is dependent on experiencing a taste sensation, such as food. So, in this case, our sense organs and their respective sense objects are mutually interdependent, as Nagarjuna asserted.
However, the Buddha recognised this when he used the term ayatana. The atayana are the sense spheres (rather than the mere sense organs). They include both the sense organ & the object.
The Buddha described many mutually interdependent things, such as consciousness & the mind/body (nama-rupa). Without a body, there cannot be consciousness. With consciousness, the body cannot be known.
But when it comes to other dhammas in the Dependent Origination sequence, these are are not mutually interdependent.
I already discussed ignorance, how the Buddha taught ignorance has no cause.
Easy examples are feeling & craving and craving & attachment.
The mind cannot experience craving without feeling and cannot experience attachment without craving. Feeling is the cause of craving and craving is the cause of attachment.
But the mind can experience feeling without craving and can experience craving without attachment.
The sun is the cause of plants to grow. But the sun still shines in a desert despite there being no plants in that desert. The sun is the cause of plants but plants are not the cause of the sun (unless we assert plants sustain the human body, which allows human consciousness to know the sun. But this is easily refuted. If we eat a plant (a banana) and at the same time close our eyes, the sun will disappear.)
So in essence, Nagarjuna was inaccurate in many respects.
Even TheJourney believes he can experience feelings & cravings without attachment. TheJourney himself has refuted Nagarjuna.
The above is mere logical reasoning or descriptive attribution. It is KNOWLEDGE. But it is not what is happening in the actual cause & effect PROCESS.
It is important to differentiate between KNOWLEDGE and PROCESS.
For example, calming our mind causes our breathing to calm. This is PROCESS. The effect is a tangible physical result of the cause.
Then the mind realises: 'Letting go causes the breathing to calm. The state of the mind influences (causes) the quality & quantity of breathing'.
As Nagarjuna has correctly asserted, the experience of the effect has resulted in the RECOGNITION of the cause.
But this RECOGNITION or KNOWLEDGE has no relationship whatsoever with the actual process of conditioning that is occurring.
Giving water to a plant causes it to grow. The actual growth is caused by the water. The actual growth is not caused by THE KNOWLEDGE 'water causes plants to grow'.
Similarly, by letting go, by making the mind calm, the effect is the breathing becomes calm and the next effect is the body becomes calm.
But the KNOWLEDGE of the causes & effects has no influence whatsover on the actual cause & effect PROCESS, which is essentially LINEAR (although it can feedback in a circular manner. For example, mind calms, breath calms, body calms, causing mind to calm more, breathing to calm more, body to calm more, etc).
When the Buddha taught the Eightfold Path, he said right view causes right intention, right intention causes right speech...etc...etc...etc...etc...right concentration causes right insight knowledge & right insight knowledge causes right liberation (MN 117).
(Please note the insight knowledge here is not intellectual. It is wisdom or a transformation of the mind's understanding that alters its behaviourial tendencies.)
The Buddha was pointing to the actual MANIFESTION of the path rather than its mere description.
Nagarjuna seems stuck in mere description. The finger is not the moon. Nagarjuna is trying to describe the finger. Nagarjuna is describing 'old news' or 'second hand knowledge'. Nagarjuna is not describing PROCESS or FRUITION.
Kind regards
Personally, like Nagarjuna, I have my own disagreements with what is defined as 'Classical Buddhism'.
According to this link: http://www.iep.utm.edu/nagarjun/, Nagarjuna was immersed in a world of religious debate.
The impression I obtain from my reading is Nagarjuna appeared to be trying awefully hard to debunk meta-physical views, which includes meta-physical or post-mortem rebirth.
If so, he is coming from a contradictory position because his definition of samsara appears to that of the temporal world.
His arguements appears to use the following definitions & logic:
1. Samsara is this temporal world;
2. Nirvana is the end of [rebirth in] the temporal world;
3. Nirvana cannot be experienced apart from this temporal world;
4. Therefore, Nirvana is Samsara or Nirvana is found in Samsara.
Nagarjuna appears to be arguing against meta-physics but retains the use of meta-physical definitions. This is thus illogical & contradictory.
The Buddha defined samsara as the [mental] spinning fettered by craving & hindered by ignorance.
The Buddha defined Nirvana as the cessation of greed, hatred & delusion.
The Buddha's definitions were not meta-physical, in the sense of material worlds. The Buddha's definitions were mental.
A Theravadin cannot accept Nirvana is Samsara because Nirvana is the state free from greed, hatred & delusion where as Samsara is the state not free from greed, hatred & delusion.
Ultimately, the Buddha taught both Nirvana & Samsara are empty (sunnata). But this does not imply they are the same.
For the Buddha, empty only meant 'empty of self'.
For example, a fire is hot, but is empty of 'self'. Water is 'cold', but is empty of 'self'. But fire is not water just because they both share the characteristic of emptiness.
Nagarjuna's logic seems as follows:
1. A carpet is wooly
2. A sheep is wooly
3. Therefore, a carpet is a sheep
Or:
1. A table has four legs;
2. A sheep has four legs:
3. Therefore, a table is a sheep.
Or:
1. Samsara is empty;
2. Nirvana is empty;
3. Therefore, samsara is nirvana
Such reasoning is an ad hominem.
The Buddha's logic is:
1. Samsara is conditioned;
2. Nirvana is the unconditioned;
3. Samsara is not nirvana
The Buddha's logic is:
1. Samsara is empty;
2. Nirvana is empty;
3. Therefore, all things are empty.
Nagarjuna's arguements against sabhava are tenuous.
For example, the Buddha said feeling is called 'feeling' because it feels. Preception is called 'perception' because it perceives. Fabricting mind is called the 'fabricator' because it fabricates fabrications. Consciousness is called 'consciousness' because it 'cognises'.
Whilst all things are fleeting & ultimately lacking in substance, they have their sabhava or unique quality when they (temporarily) exist and function.
Feeling does not 'percieve' and consciousnes does not 'feel'.
A cup is impermanent & conditioned. Soap is impermanent & conditioned. But I use a cup for drinking and soap for washing.
Nagarjuna is said to have based his views on the Kaccayanagotta Sutta. But the Kaccayanagotta Sutta states to assert non-existence is equally false as to assert existence. Here, the Buddha said things both exist & non-exist because they are subject to arising & passing (impermanence).
My simple answer to your question is Nagarjuna's explorations of emptiness, from a Theravadin viewpoint, probably go a little too far.
When a child touches, say, another child's bicyle, its mother yells: "Do not touch that bicycle, it is not yours!"
In the Theravada suttas, the Buddha was generally concerned with realising things, such as bicycles, are "not yours", they are "empty of self & anything pertaining/belonging to self".
Where as, my impression is, Nagarjuna was greatly concerned with asserting the "non-bicycle" nature of the bicycle.
At least from my perspective, this goes too far & is not necessary for liberation.
Suffering is created by the human mind and not by bicycles.
Kind regards
Besides a general curiosity that above logic has everything to do with why I've posted this thread.
Person=Madhyamika
edit
Nope, it's majjhimā paṭipadā.
I can blame that one on The Quantum and the Lotus.
...wait...
Now I'm confused? :-/
http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Madhyamika
http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Madhyamaka
Thank you.
1. Samsara is conditioned;
2. Nirvana is the unconditioned;
3. Samsara is not nirvana"
Thats like saying when a lightswitch is on it is not off. It doesn't really say anything. Anyhow my teacher responded to a students question about whether nirvana is samsara. I don't recollect it exactly but I believe there was more to it than just 'samsara is nirvana'. Perhaps samsara understood is nirvana.
If the conditioned cannot be established how can the unconditioned?
_ Nagajaruna (roughly)
If there is everything is empty of self then there is no emptiness. For there is no self there for there to be empty of self.
- Nagajaruna (roughly)
Not contradicting you DD you are very knowledgeable, I only wish I had the attention span to read your entire post! I am just sharing as I can
Again I don't want to interfere with anyone else's teaching, just sharing.
A student asks:
"Aren't the two truths inseparable in the same way that form and emptiness are inseparable as in the Heart Sutra? Couldn't that be understood as saying the same thing as saying samsara and nirvana are inseparable?"
Shenpen replies:
In Mahamudra (meditative transmission that emphasizes perceiving the mind directly) texts and in the songs of the siddhas (accomplished practitioners) there is a tendency to talk about the two truths as if they referred to appearance and emptiness. There seems to be some kind of play of words going on.
On the one hand, in both Sutra and Tantra sources, the two truths sometimes refer to the truth that all conditioned phenomena are impermanent (not truly existent) and the truth that the non-conditioned is true reality, the bliss of nirvana beyond birth and death (which we would identify as being Buddha Nature or Openness Clarity and Sensitivity, etc.).
So, of the two truths, one is reality and one is a truth about what seemed real but wasn't.
On the other hand, Mahamudra and Siddha sources also talk about the base as being the two truths. This is to say there is some basic reality that we have to recognise and make the base of the path.
That basic reality is the same from beginning to end, but to start with we merely glimpse that reality through the clouds of confusion. By following the path or as the path unfolds, that reality emerges ever more clearly. The fruition is its complete emergence free of all confusion, which is complete Awakening or Enlightenment, fully functioning for the benefit of all beings.
So what is meant by calling that base the two truths? It might be explained as above - one is the truth about confused reality and the other is the truth about ultimate reality. The basis of the practice is to realise these two things.
We have to realise that what we grasp as real is actually not real and that what is truly real lies beyond grasping or the grasping mind.
I think it has become more customary to explain it as appearance and emptiness though.
Is this the same as saying that the two truths are inseparable? In a funny kind of way you could say the first sense of the two truths were inseparable, couldn't you? It's like saying the truth of switching on a light is inseparable from the truth of removing the dark. It is true but not really very interesting or important to say.
If you took the second sense of the two truths being appearance and emptiness you could say they were inseparable. That would be like in the Heart Sutra where it talks about form, etc. and emptiness.
You have to remember though that to say appearance is one truth and emptiness is another truth is not a standard Buddhist formulation. Certain Buddhist teachers within the Madhyamaka (Sanskrit: 'Middle Way') tradition (namely Madhyamaka Svatantrikas) talk like this, but there are tremendous problems with it.
Whereas I am happy to talk about appearance and emptiness inseparable, I do not use the phrase the two truths inseparable, because it sounds too much as if you are just saying that opposite concepts imply each other. A concept of light creates a concept of dark. I don't find this very interesting really.
But if you try to experience light and dark directly, they are clearly distinct phenomena and it is quite mysterious what either of them is in itself. I find this endlessly interesting.
When you look directly at the experience itself, it is some kind of experience or appearance that when analysed cannot be taken as an object of awareness. This is what is called appearance-emptiness.
It is appearing, but when you try to understand what it is in itself, it somehow isn't there, it's empty! But yet it is there, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it. But even as we look at it, it's still empty and that emptiness is manifesting as an appearance - which is astonishing.
This is what the Heart Sutra is talking about when it says form, feeling, perception, formations and consciousness are empty, and yet that emptiness is form etc. - so whatever form etc. are they are no other than emptiness and whatever emptiness is, it is no other than form etc - which is pretty amazing if you ask me!
Well, I have to admit that it seems to have become the custom in Mahamudra and Tantric texts generally, to call appearance-emptiness the two truths inseparable. What this is saying is that everything is primordially pure and unconfused.
What you experience through your senses is ultimately nothing other than this appearance and emptiness inseparable. Here inseparable means experientially inseparable.
Of course you can use concepts to distinguish appearance from emptiness, but experientially they are just what reality is - mysterious and beyond conceptual grasping and all the rest of it.
I would say that this is not the same as saying samsara and nirvana are inseparable, because you can separate samsara and nirvana both conceptually and experientially. If you really experience samsara directly it is nirvana.
There is no samsara and there never was. To say they were inseparable would be like saying, in the example above, that not seeing appearance as empty (samsara) was inseparable from seeing appearance-emptiness directly (nirvana). It's just not saying anything really, is it?
Nonetheless, this kind of thing gets said a lot and it is polluting the clarity of the Buddha's teaching. Students often cry out 'Oh, I am confused. I don't understand'. But when I listen carefully I realise they are not confused at all. They understand perfectly what is being said and what is being said is confused!
P
Basically, there is no ultimate truth, except that there is no ultimate truth.
All truths are relative, and everything is malleable, without abiding self, this includes mind and awareness.
This may possibly be true because the Buddha was exclusively concerned with the origin & cessation of suffering. The Buddha was not concerned with the origin & cessation of whales, elephants, the earth, the moon, etc.
However, iddappaccayata is defined as the basic notion of: "With this as a condition, this comes to be; etc"
So iddappaccayata can be applied to all things where as pratityasamutpda is exclusively about the twelve links relating to the origination of dukkha (suffering) and its cessation.
Kind regards
Kind regards