Did the Buddha really posit two separate classes of "actions": (1) willed actions, and (2) actions that are not willed?
This question becomes even more sharply posed when we consider the fact that, as you point out, "our motivations for any action are complex and often largely unconscious".
If there turns out to be no such thing as actions that are not "willed", then the Buddha was not referring to certain kinds of actions, but rather a certain aspect of all action.
I think, per Gombrich, that the distinction is between accidental and intentional actions - did you step on the bug by accident or on purpose? For the Jains both actions were karmic and had equally negative consequences - the bug is dead and it's your fault. For the Buddhists the former was not an intentional act of killing - though it might be ascribed to a lack of mindfulness which would be less grievous negative cetanā.
There is no action without intention - though the consequences of any action are impossible to fully comprehend in advance - there is always the possibility of the unintended consequence. By changing the focus to the cetanā behind any action the Buddha moved the focus away from consequences and onto intentions. If you honestly thought you were doing a good thing, then the karmic consequences are not as severe as if you intended harm.
I'd be wary of translating cetanā as 'will' because as I have shown it has a very much wider reference. There is no single motivation driving any action - what Buddhism deals with in my opinion is patterns of action.
In any case ethics is not the sine qua non of Buddhism - it is not the means to liberation per se, but only preparatory - in this too the Buddha diverges from the Jains. The aim of sila is calming the mind in order to allow for insight into the nature of experience. It is only by reducing the amount of turbulence in experience through behaving ethical that one finds the calm and clarity to see through (vipassana) the play of the dharmas in the mind to the mechanism by which those dharmas arise and pass away.
It seems to me that the Buddha's "karma is intention" goes even deeper and spreads more broadly than willed actions vs. incidental actions. He is talking about developing a mindset in which we come at experience without any greed, ill-will, or delusion at all, acting without reference to any self-serving* behaviors. I believe the cetana that drives karma comes out of that self -- whether we realize it or not, so that it is not, in the end, a matter of consciously making better choices (though that's good in its way), but of seeing the world in such a different light that all one's actions come from a deep knowledge and experience of the way the world is and how we should act in it. This is what I like about Buddhism, that the morality comes from within, naturally, rather than being applied from the outside.
Yes. I pretty much agree with you. Funnily enough I have been very resistant to the use of the Latin word 'ego' in Buddhism, but I'm coming around to the opposite view - that what the Buddha had in mind when talking about anatta was precisely the simple ie and that ethics is all about being selfless, not self-serving. I have a post on this coming up.
Hi Jayarava, thanks for pointing out this post. By and large, I agree with your analysis (especially insofar as you see the Buddhist stress on intention as an answer to the hyper-realistic view of action of the Jains, see http://elisafreschi.blogspot.com/2010/05/karman-in-jainism.html). May I just ask a couple of minor, linguistic questions?
1. As I first read the sentence you quote at the outset, I interpreted it as meaning "action is intention", that is, "O monks, that karman you think you know a lot about, that is nothing external and material, it is in fact nothing but intention". Your translation seems to stress a different point of view, that is, "intention is not neutral, it is [also?] an action".
2. I guess you mean that Latin scio is related to scindo ("I divide"). Interesting. I thought it was related to Greek hiskō. The latter means "I judge X to be similar to y". It would point to a comparable pre-history of our "scientific" thought.
The thing about Jain karma comes from Prof Gombrich, so I thought it was probably right.
FYI The next part of the sutta translates as "Having willed one does an action, with body, speech, or mind". (Cetayitvā kammaṃ karoti – kāyena vācāya manasā). And kamma has a basis in contact (phassa), which is defined elsewhere as the coming together of sense faculty and sense object. This suggests the chain: contact -> volitions -> actions.
I assume that you are looking at this from the perspective of Vasubandhu? As I understand it Vasubandhu et al were more idealistic (in the philosophical sense - hence "mind only") than were the early Buddhists. A subjective/objective duality is a given in early Buddhism and, I think, uncontroversial. The reason for focus on the subjective at this stage of Buddhism is not ideological, but pragmatic. Early Buddhism does not deny the reality of the object, only its permanence (e.g. in the Alagaddūpama Sutta; M. 22). What it does is focus on the subject because that is what needs to be understood in order to interrupt the cycle of saṃsāra. The mind is where we have leverage to change things; and this is because cetanā determines the kammic consequences of action.
Clearly in the following centuries Buddhist philosophy developed and moved in various directions, some of which were more keen to deny any sort of ontology, even the vague ontology of the Pāli texts - I think they amplified disinterest into disbelief. (Which seems a step in the wrong direction). The Buddha never seems to argue about the nature and status of objects, he just takes them for granted and focuses on gaining knowledge of the mind.
I don't follow the point about scio/scindo. How does that relate?
Thanks for the explanation. Most of all, thanks for making me aware that the verse the chapter on karman of the AKBh begins with comes from a Pāli source. AKBh has indeed also "dve karmaṇī cetanā karma cetayitvā ca. […] te ete dve karmaṇī trīṇi bhavanti-- kāya-vāṅ-manaskarmāṇi". I tried to work on the Pāli background of later Buddhist philosophical theories and think this is a very fascinating field. Whenever I look for something, I DO find a Pāli antecedent, although, probably, the Early Buddhist understanding of it was quite different (as you said, disinterest instead of rebuttal of an ātman, for instance). By the way, the AKBh is still a sautrāntika/sarvāstivāda work, its author was either not yet a Yogācārin (so the traditional view, supported by most contemporary scholars) or was an altogether different author from the Yogācārin (so Frauwallner). Re scio/scindo: I was referring to your remark "Indeed the word 'science' comes from a root which means to separate things from one another."
Interesting. Probably you would not say that AKBh has a Pāli source, but that the two have a common source, since he was a sautrāntika/sarvāstivādin. The Pāli represents a parallel, and these parallels are interesting for the light they shed on an earlier phase of doctrine.
My Sanskrit is very rusty now. Are you going to do a blog post on ths with a translation? I'm intrigued. Maybe there's a publication in it!
I should add that there is plenty of ātman denying in the Pāli, it's just that I don't think this is an example. Though I might be wrong!
For etymology I often refer to the Online Etymology Dictionary. He's quite reliable for European languages (though I have suggested some improvements to his Sanskrit entries from time to time). I checked against the Indo-European Lexicon. This suggests PIE '√skē̆i-' (to cut, separate) > Greek 'σχίζω' (skhizō) > Latin 'scientia' > English 'science'. I can't find 'hiskō' in my Greek Dictionary, it might be a transliteration problem. I'd be interested to follow this up.
Yes, you are certainly right. The Pāli is a parallel and not the source, at least most probably.
As for the AKBh, I already wrote enough about it (in the Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Action), for the time being. If you want just the translation of these few words, it is: "There are two karmans, intention and what comes after having intended [that is, the undertaking of an actual action]. And these two karmans are three[fold]: bodily, voiced and mental karman." Else, I think that L.de la Vallée Poussin's translation of the whole AKBh is still very reliable and enjoyable.
I struggled a little bit with it (I still use my old Greek dictionary!), but here is the reference to hiskō:
Unluckly enough, I did not find it in the I.E. tool you mention. You can read something about scio and hiskō in F.E. Jackson Valpy's "An etymological dictionary of the Latin language" (old source, but perhaps still worth considerin? I shall ask some expert friend):
Thanks for linking to Bhikku Anālayo's course. Sounds quite interesting and I will consider participating. Let me know if you mke up your mind about it.
"In English we tend to separate out thinking and feeling, intellect and affect, partly because of a duality between mind and body which been influential in our intellectual history. Thought is the stuff of the mind, whereas feelings are the province of the body."
I think such an insight is critical. I think it can be realized with even a minimum amount of meditation.
When debating with other atheists, I find that one of the assumptions that separates us is that many "hyper-rational" atheists (my term) tend to believe that there can be thought without emotion.
In "Destructive Emotions", the Dalai Lama brings up that in Tibetan their word for "thought" should really be translated "thought-emotion" as they are not considered separate. (as you say)
You said, "The Buddha is saying, in effect, that what makes an action morally significant is thoughts and emotions which drive it. This was a new and radical idea at the time. It is still a radical idea."
But I think of two things. (1) Jesus is made to say that lust in the heart is the same as actual adultery. Seems he pointed to the same.
You said: "how the exercising of our will (whether consciously or unconsciously)"
Question: Are you using the term "will" to include unconscious events? I thought will implied conscious, versus "reflex" or "habit" which are unconscious. Now personally, unconscious vs conscious to me are very hard to separate and often feel artificial. But is there philosophical categories that describe unconscious will?
Yes. The DL was almost certainly thinking of the word citta.
The idea that only willed actions are morally significant predates Jesus by at least 400 years; and the English legal system by about 1500 years. Context is everything. It's not impossible that Jesus got his idea from Buddhists living in the Afghanistan or further west.
By willed actions I mean consciously willed. Reflexes wouldn't count because we mostly can't over-ride them consciously. Habit however is something which develops as a result of repeated conscious decisions.
Yes, the separation is difficult, but we aren't philosophers looking for philosophical categories ;-) We are looking for the fulcrum that can help us change our minds. What we do as Buddhists is deal with the stuff we are currently aware of, and this helps to increase our awareness, so we dig down changing as we go. We don't need to know all the answers before we start! We just need to start, and continue. I don't think there is any endpoint, just a horizon beyond which we cannot presently see.
Concerning intent in Jesus and the Law: I, of course, agree on the dates. I was only mentioning those in response to your comment that "It is still a radical idea." I was just trying to illustrate that the idea permeates Western culture to a degree and is not "still" radical in that sense. (It seems I misunderstood what you were emphasizing in that phrase - apologies).
Well yes, the idea is that we are responsible for our actions as adults. But we don't act that way except in larger matters - we don't think we are responsible for our emotions most of the time for instance. And the idea that we are even responsible for our thoughts is rarely is ever found in practice - though granted the Bible does reflect something like it if only in it's attitude to adultery. Is there any sense in which this is applied across the board however? I.e. what principle is being enunciated in the Bible?
To me the idea can still be radical if it is lived out. That is, it can be the basis for a radical life.
Aiming for a life where we culture our thoughts as much as our actions, is radical.
But because you asked:
I think one possible [mystical] view of Jesus' teaching could be similar. Jesus pointed at Love cleansing the heart and radically purifying it. He felt that merely changing actions (as the Pharisees demanded) was not suffice -- instead he demanded deep inner changes and submission to love.
Paul, however, changed the message a bit (IMHO) and modern Christianity is largely Paulism.
But I think many Christians may be sympathetic to some variant of my interpretation -- if not as the whole story certainly as part of the story. Their method is through yielding over to the will and guidance of God/Jesus == more of a Shin Buddhist methodology (although I don't know much of that either).
All to say, I think this radical insight can be lived out in various traditions. I, like you, prefer the Buddhist methodology -- I am not Christian. But I think very similar inner radical work can be done with very different theologies and mental images.
I will invite a progressive Christian to visit and read these comments and see if he agrees.
You've not said anything to make me believe that there is anything but the most superficial resemblance between Buddhism and Christianity. I think you're stretching things in a very pluralist way. You seem to start from a pluralistic view which means you want to see similarity and overlook differences. It's a top down, ideologically driven approach, not a bottom up observation driven approach.
For instance: Why purify your heart? What is the purpose in each context? And to what end? Once you start to dig a little deeper the gulf opens up.
These are rhetorical questions btw. There's no mileage in this kind of dialogue for me. I'm just not interested in squeezing Buddhism into a pluralistic ideology; nor vice versa. Pluralism works from assumptions I see as fundamentally flawed.
There are many things wrong with pluralism but let's say that the main one is that you never understand Buddhism on it's own terms; you're always reinterpreting it to make it similar to other ways of going about things. So you never properly engage with Buddhism, never commit yourself sufficiently, never go deeper. So you never experience Buddhism. And you never discover the superficiality of pluralism. You keep finding superficial similarities, which seems to confirm your views and prevent you from going deeper.
The pluralist is a dilettante.
A radical life is one that fully plays out one's values in terms of virtues; in which one aims to be radically and irreversibly transformed so that one becomes an embodiment of those values; to become perfect in virtue.
The pluralist doesn't know what they value, or at least they sublimate the value of order and harmony, and see it everywhere, without ever realising it in themselves. The human mind is a sophisticated pattern recognition filter: we do see order everywhere - we see animals in clouds, and mythic beasts in the stars, and Jesus on burnt toast. But it does not mean that clouds are animals. One has to learn to know a false positive when it occurs, else one sees order where there is only chaos.
The pluralist sees an elephant shape in the cloud and concludes that the cloud IS an elephant; or at least so like an elephant that it makes no difference. Look at any random collection of dots and more likely than not the first thing that will occur to us is a face, because we are so highly attuned to faces that we are prepared to see them anywhere and everywhere.
My Raison d'être is to go deeper through the methods of Buddhism.
Very interesting points. Personally, I agree that a deep religious experience cannot but be (subjectively) exclusive. And I dislike superficial comparativism (not to speak about pluralism –if it is as you describe it). But: 1. Don't you think that in order to understand X one needs to take it seriously (without running away in order to find something resembling it), but also to understand in what way it is different from other things? Something like the Sanskrit use of positive *and* negative concomitance (anvaya-vyatireka). 2. I tend to think that we all, naturally, compare things. And this is all the more true in case of people who come from a certain background (e.g., the so-called 'Western' one) and approach a different one. In other words, we risk to compare anyway, so isn't it better to be aware of it, and choose to do it in a better, more conscious way? For instance, if I am aware of my background I might be able to detect an, e.g., Humean influence in my understanding of Pramāṇavāda and ponder about it, instead of letting it falsify my reading of Sanskrit texts without me being aware of it.
Sure. I guess we all do comparisons. I'm more interested in some than others these days - after 40 odd years of working through various comparisons.
I think living in a foreign country - as I do - helps to highlight unconscious views and attitudes, but then so does Buddhist practice generally. Nothing like a week of silence and meditation to get to know yourself. I also enjoy studying texts with a group of people and comparing notes on what we think (hoping to do more of this in the next few months).
Sorry, but my knowledge of Indian philosophical terms outside of early Buddhism is pretty limited. I kind of got your drift though :-)
Thanks for bearing with my provocations, Jayarava, and for your deep answers. Your idea ("I also enjoy studying texts with a group of people and comparing notes on what we think (hoping to do more of this in the next few months") sounds great. I have long been plannign a workshop with IE experts reading a Vedic text as a linguistic document of a certain IE layer along with someone reading it according to later Indian comments. What about doing it with some passages of the Pāli Canon? It might be interesting to have philologists focusing on IE, Theravāda Buddhists coming from a Western background, Theravāda interpreters using later (e.g. sinhalese) commentaries, indologists thinking at later philosophical developments etc. They should prepare their thoughts about the text, send them to the others and then meet and debate.
I find your contributions very stimulating. Yes. I think mixing people up can be interesting. I find reading the Upaniṣads and the Pāli texts at the same time can be illuminating.
Jayarava
Monday, November 15, 2010
[Image]Over the years I have cited one Pāli phrase perhaps more than any other and it dawned on me that I should give it a fuller treatment. As far as I know it occurs only once in the Pāli suttas [1], but the idea that it expresses is really vital to understanding the Buddha's use of the word kamma (karma).
It goes like this: cetanāhaṃ, bhikkhave, kammaṃ vadāmi I say, monks, that intention is action [2] I first heard this in 2006 at Professor Richard Gombrich's Numata lectures (now published as What the Buddha Thought[Image]) and no doubt my thinking about it owes a great deal, if not everything, to him. He translates the phrase as "by kamma I mean intention".
There are two key terms to consider: kamma and cetanā.
Karma (Pāli: kamma [3]) is a word which has strong religious associations pre-dating Buddhism by a thousand years at least. The word derives from a very common verbal root √kṛ 'to do, to make' and literally means 'action'. Specifically karma was, in the earliest Indian religious texts, the ritual action of the Vedic priest. This idea existed in a world view which saw knowledge as related to similarity; which is in contrast to our world view which sees knowledge as emerging out of difference. (Indeed the word 'science' comes from a root which means to separate things from one another.) Central to the Vedic religion were correspondences between things, but particularly between the macrocosm of the universe and the microcosm of the individual person. The ritual manipulation of a thing, or later a symbol, on this level affected its counterpart in the world of the gods. By changing something on earth a change was effected in the god realm, and this meant better fortunes on earth - primarily they were concerned to control and regulate the forces of nature especially the sun and monsoon rains. Rituals served to keep the balance of the natural order of the cosmos (called ṛta, brahman, or later dharma). These ritual actions or karma were a very important feature of life in the Vedic culture.
The Jains also had a use for the word karma. To them karma was not only ritual actions, but all actions what-so-ever. In Jainism the soul (jīva) is weighed down by the 'dust' created by actions. The response is to minimise not only harmful actions (they seem to have been the first to adopt the policy of ahiṃsa or non-harm) but all actions. The epitome of Jain practice is inactivity for long periods of time, while the acme is allowing oneself to starve to death.
It seems as though the Buddha's use of the word karma was a modification of this Jain idea with a hint of the Vedic use - though a reaction away from both. The modification is that only a certain class of actions, willed actions, had moral consequences. The Buddha may well have been drawing on the Vedic idea that certain actions had greater significance than others. By removing the blanket association he allowed some freedom to act. Still we don't have complete moral freedom - our actions do have consequences but before we can address this question we need to know about cetanā.
Cetanā derives from the root √cit which also gives us the words citta 'mind' and cetas 'thought'. [4] Citta is sometimes translated as 'mind' sometimes as 'heart' - from the point of view of English then the reference is somewhat confused. Some Buddhists invoke a combination of feelings and thoughts to convey the meaning. The root √cit is defined in the dictionary as "knowing; thought , intellect , spirit , soul", but also "to perceive , fix the mind upon , attend to , be attentive , observe , take notice of"; and "to aim at , intend , design; to be anxious about , care for; to resolve". So √cit concerns what catches our attention on the one hand, and what we move towards on the other; or, what is on our minds, and what motivates us (emotions are what 'set us in motion'). Cetas is the faculty which carries out these functions. In English we tend to separate out thinking and feeling, intellect and affect, partly because of a duality between mind and body which been influential in our intellectual history. Thought is the stuff of the mind, whereas feelings are the province of the body. Ancient Indians did not make such a distinction. The mind-body duality is now discredited in intellectual circles largely due to advances in philosophy, and discoveries in neuroscience. There is no activity of mind which is not embodied in some fashion, and no activity of the body which does not involve the mind. Cetanā is a more abstract way of referring to the function of cetas - i.e. thinking and emoting.
So coming back to the little phrase above we can see that the Buddha is equating karma (morally significant action) with cetanā (thoughts and emotions). Although cetanā is usually translated as 'intention' I think it is important to keep in mind that this is intended to include our deepest strongest urges and motivations which may well be subconscious, as well as our immediate conscious goals; our fears and hatreds, our desires and wishes. It doesn't pay to be reductionist about this. Our motivations for any action are complex and often largely unconscious. The point is not to set up one to one relationships between motives and consequences, but to look for patterns in how the exercising of our will (whether consciously or unconsciously) affects our experience of life. If we do undertake this kind of reflection then patterns will begin to emerge and there is no need to spell out in advance what they will be - we need to see it for ourselves in any case.
The Buddha is saying, in effect, that what makes an action morally significant is thoughts and emotions which drive it. This was a new and radical idea at the time. It is still a radical idea. It may be the most significant idea in all human history. It cuts through theistic arguments which rely on 'divinely revealed' (or transcendental) notions of ideal behaviour; and through moral relativism which denies any fixed standard of behaviour. The standard is universal and human. It applies in all cultures and all cases, and it is open to everyone regardless of status, or any other human divide. 2500 years on it still sounds fresh and exciting to me!
Notes
It is relatively easy to search the Pāli canon these days thanks to the Pali Canon Online Database. AN vi.63In verbs of this class (V) the verb root forms a stem using the strong form of the vowel so kṛ > kar- and the 3rd person singular is karoti in both Pāli and Sanskrit. Karma is grammatically a neuter action noun: karman 'action'. There is a possible connection with our word 'create' via Latin creare "to make, produce". It is typical, though not universal, for Pāli to collapse a conjunct consonant such as rma down to a doubled consonant such as mma even though the r comes from the verbal root - and thus some important information is lost. (Interestingly √kṛ can function as verb classes I, II, V VIII > e.g. karanti, karṣi, kṛṇoti and karoti which gives rise to an enormous number of forms.)The etymology of citta/cetas is complex in that they are clearly linked concepts but traditional grammars say there are two roots: √cit 'to perceive, know'; and √cint 'to think'. However they are obviously originally one and the same. PED notes that cit is likely to be the older of the two forms since it is sometimes explained in terms of cint, but never the other way around. (sv Cinteti p.269a). Whitney (The Roots, Verb-forms and Primary Derivatives of the Sanskrit Language p.47) concurs suggesting that cint derives from cit.
23 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formDid the Buddha really posit two separate classes of "actions": (1) willed actions, and (2) actions that are not willed?
This question becomes even more sharply posed when we consider the fact that, as you point out, "our motivations for any action are complex and often largely unconscious".
If there turns out to be no such thing as actions that are not "willed", then the Buddha was not referring to certain kinds of actions, but rather a certain aspect of all action.
Friday, October 02, 2009
I think, per Gombrich, that the distinction is between accidental and intentional actions - did you step on the bug by accident or on purpose? For the Jains both actions were karmic and had equally negative consequences - the bug is dead and it's your fault. For the Buddhists the former was not an intentional act of killing - though it might be ascribed to a lack of mindfulness which would be less grievous negative cetanā.
There is no action without intention - though the consequences of any action are impossible to fully comprehend in advance - there is always the possibility of the unintended consequence. By changing the focus to the cetanā behind any action the Buddha moved the focus away from consequences and onto intentions. If you honestly thought you were doing a good thing, then the karmic consequences are not as severe as if you intended harm.
I'd be wary of translating cetanā as 'will' because as I have shown it has a very much wider reference. There is no single motivation driving any action - what Buddhism deals with in my opinion is patterns of action.
In any case ethics is not the sine qua non of Buddhism - it is not the means to liberation per se, but only preparatory - in this too the Buddha diverges from the Jains. The aim of sila is calming the mind in order to allow for insight into the nature of experience. It is only by reducing the amount of turbulence in experience through behaving ethical that one finds the calm and clarity to see through (vipassana) the play of the dharmas in the mind to the mechanism by which those dharmas arise and pass away.
Friday, October 02, 2009
Sadhu, Jayarava! A much appreciated post, especially the concluding enthusiasm.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Thanks. JR
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
It seems to me that the Buddha's "karma is intention" goes even deeper and spreads more broadly than willed actions vs. incidental actions. He is talking about developing a mindset in which we come at experience without any greed, ill-will, or delusion at all, acting without reference to any self-serving* behaviors. I believe the cetana that drives karma comes out of that self -- whether we realize it or not, so that it is not, in the end, a matter of consciously making better choices (though that's good in its way), but of seeing the world in such a different light that all one's actions come from a deep knowledge and experience of the way the world is and how we should act in it. This is what I like about Buddhism, that the morality comes from within, naturally, rather than being applied from the outside.
* literally
Sunday, September 05, 2010
Hi Star
Yes. I pretty much agree with you. Funnily enough I have been very resistant to the use of the Latin word 'ego' in Buddhism, but I'm coming around to the opposite view - that what the Buddha had in mind when talking about anatta was precisely the simple ie and that ethics is all about being selfless, not self-serving. I have a post on this coming up.
Best Wishes
Jayarava
Monday, September 06, 2010
Hi Jayarava,
thanks for pointing out this post. By and large, I agree with your analysis (especially insofar as you see the Buddhist stress on intention as an answer to the hyper-realistic view of action of the Jains, see http://elisafreschi.blogspot.com/2010/05/karman-in-jainism.html). May I just ask a couple of minor, linguistic questions?
1. As I first read the sentence you quote at the outset, I interpreted it as meaning "action is intention", that is, "O monks, that karman you think you know a lot about, that is nothing external and material, it is in fact nothing but intention". Your translation seems to stress a different point of view, that is, "intention is not neutral, it is [also?] an action".
2. I guess you mean that Latin scio is related to scindo ("I divide"). Interesting. I thought it was related to Greek hiskō. The latter means "I judge X to be similar to y". It would point to a comparable pre-history of our "scientific" thought.
Monday, November 01, 2010
Hi Elisa
The thing about Jain karma comes from Prof Gombrich, so I thought it was probably right.
FYI The next part of the sutta translates as "Having willed one does an action, with body, speech, or mind". (Cetayitvā kammaṃ karoti – kāyena vācāya manasā). And kamma has a basis in contact (phassa), which is defined elsewhere as the coming together of sense faculty and sense object. This suggests the chain: contact -> volitions -> actions.
I assume that you are looking at this from the perspective of Vasubandhu? As I understand it Vasubandhu et al were more idealistic (in the philosophical sense - hence "mind only") than were the early Buddhists. A subjective/objective duality is a given in early Buddhism and, I think, uncontroversial. The reason for focus on the subjective at this stage of Buddhism is not ideological, but pragmatic. Early Buddhism does not deny the reality of the object, only its permanence (e.g. in the Alagaddūpama Sutta; M. 22). What it does is focus on the subject because that is what needs to be understood in order to interrupt the cycle of saṃsāra. The mind is where we have leverage to change things; and this is because cetanā determines the kammic consequences of action.
Clearly in the following centuries Buddhist philosophy developed and moved in various directions, some of which were more keen to deny any sort of ontology, even the vague ontology of the Pāli texts - I think they amplified disinterest into disbelief. (Which seems a step in the wrong direction). The Buddha never seems to argue about the nature and status of objects, he just takes them for granted and focuses on gaining knowledge of the mind.
I don't follow the point about scio/scindo. How does that relate?
Monday, November 01, 2010
Thanks for the explanation. Most of all, thanks for making me aware that the verse the chapter on karman of the AKBh begins with comes from a Pāli source. AKBh has indeed also "dve karmaṇī cetanā karma cetayitvā ca. […] te ete dve karmaṇī trīṇi bhavanti-- kāya-vāṅ-manaskarmāṇi". I tried to work on the Pāli background of later Buddhist philosophical theories and think this is a very fascinating field. Whenever I look for something, I DO find a Pāli antecedent, although, probably, the Early Buddhist understanding of it was quite different (as you said, disinterest instead of rebuttal of an ātman, for instance).
By the way, the AKBh is still a sautrāntika/sarvāstivāda work, its author was either not yet a Yogācārin (so the traditional view, supported by most contemporary scholars) or was an altogether different author from the Yogācārin (so Frauwallner).
Re scio/scindo: I was referring to your remark "Indeed the word 'science' comes from a root which means to separate things from one another."
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Hi Elisa
Interesting. Probably you would not say that AKBh has a Pāli source, but that the two have a common source, since he was a sautrāntika/sarvāstivādin. The Pāli represents a parallel, and these parallels are interesting for the light they shed on an earlier phase of doctrine.
My Sanskrit is very rusty now. Are you going to do a blog post on ths with a translation? I'm intrigued. Maybe there's a publication in it!
I should add that there is plenty of ātman denying in the Pāli, it's just that I don't think this is an example. Though I might be wrong!
For etymology I often refer to the Online Etymology Dictionary. He's quite reliable for European languages (though I have suggested some improvements to his Sanskrit entries from time to time). I checked against the Indo-European Lexicon. This suggests PIE '√skē̆i-' (to cut, separate) > Greek 'σχίζω' (skhizō) > Latin 'scientia' > English 'science'. I can't find 'hiskō' in my Greek Dictionary, it might be a transliteration problem. I'd be interested to follow this up.
BTW Have you see this http://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamburg.de/index.php?id=121&L=0. I'm thinking of participating as a "passive" participant.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Yes, you are certainly right. The Pāli is a parallel and not the source, at least most probably.
As for the AKBh, I already wrote enough about it (in the Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Action), for the time being. If you want just the translation of these few words, it is: "There are two karmans, intention and what comes after having intended [that is, the undertaking of an actual action]. And these two karmans are three[fold]: bodily, voiced and mental karman."
Else, I think that L.de la Vallée Poussin's translation of the whole AKBh is still very reliable and enjoyable.
I struggled a little bit with it (I still use my old Greek dictionary!), but here is the reference to hiskō:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=iskw&la=greek#lexicon
Unluckly enough, I did not find it in the I.E. tool you mention. You can read something about scio and hiskō in F.E. Jackson Valpy's "An etymological dictionary of the Latin language" (old source, but perhaps still worth considerin? I shall ask some expert friend):
http://books.google.it/books?id=m2QSAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA421&lpg=PA421&dq=latin+etymology+scio&source=bl&ots=HYV1UVTmvt&sig=KLmCZ9eyNR_2NyyNOX3LdFx5Nmg&hl=it&ei=IuXPTOHNHcufOrGf9NwE&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false
Thanks for linking to Bhikku Anālayo's course. Sounds quite interesting and I will consider participating. Let me know if you mke up your mind about it.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
"In English we tend to separate out thinking and feeling, intellect and affect, partly because of a duality between mind and body which been influential in our intellectual history. Thought is the stuff of the mind, whereas feelings are the province of the body."
I think such an insight is critical. I think it can be realized with even a minimum amount of meditation.
When debating with other atheists, I find that one of the assumptions that separates us is that many "hyper-rational" atheists (my term) tend to believe that there can be thought without emotion.
In "Destructive Emotions", the Dalai Lama brings up that in Tibetan their word for "thought" should really be translated "thought-emotion" as they are not considered separate. (as you say)
Friday, November 12, 2010
You said, "The Buddha is saying, in effect, that what makes an action morally significant is thoughts and emotions which drive it. This was a new and radical idea at the time. It is still a radical idea."
But I think of two things.
(1) Jesus is made to say that lust in the heart is the same as actual adultery.
Seems he pointed to the same.
(2) Such a concept is part of our legal system (not so radical, I don't think)
"actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea
Friday, November 12, 2010
You said:
"how the exercising of our will (whether consciously or unconsciously)"
Question:
Are you using the term "will" to include unconscious events? I thought will implied conscious, versus "reflex" or "habit" which are unconscious.
Now personally, unconscious vs conscious to me are very hard to separate and often feel artificial. But is there philosophical categories that describe unconscious will?
Thanx
Friday, November 12, 2010
Hi Sabio
Yes. The DL was almost certainly thinking of the word citta.
The idea that only willed actions are morally significant predates Jesus by at least 400 years; and the English legal system by about 1500 years. Context is everything. It's not impossible that Jesus got his idea from Buddhists living in the Afghanistan or further west.
By willed actions I mean consciously willed. Reflexes wouldn't count because we mostly can't over-ride them consciously. Habit however is something which develops as a result of repeated conscious decisions.
Yes, the separation is difficult, but we aren't philosophers looking for philosophical categories ;-) We are looking for the fulcrum that can help us change our minds. What we do as Buddhists is deal with the stuff we are currently aware of, and this helps to increase our awareness, so we dig down changing as we go. We don't need to know all the answers before we start! We just need to start, and continue. I don't think there is any endpoint, just a horizon beyond which we cannot presently see.
Ciao
Jayarava
Friday, November 12, 2010
@ Jayarava
Indeed, all well said. I totally agree.
Concerning intent in Jesus and the Law: I, of course, agree on the dates. I was only mentioning those in response to your comment that "It is still a radical idea."
I was just trying to illustrate that the idea permeates Western culture to a degree and is not "still" radical in that sense. (It seems I misunderstood what you were emphasizing in that phrase - apologies).
Friday, November 12, 2010
Well yes, the idea is that we are responsible for our actions as adults. But we don't act that way except in larger matters - we don't think we are responsible for our emotions most of the time for instance. And the idea that we are even responsible for our thoughts is rarely is ever found in practice - though granted the Bible does reflect something like it if only in it's attitude to adultery. Is there any sense in which this is applied across the board however? I.e. what principle is being enunciated in the Bible?
To me the idea can still be radical if it is lived out. That is, it can be the basis for a radical life.
Friday, November 12, 2010
I totally agree:
Aiming for a life where we culture our thoughts as much as our actions, is radical.
But because you asked:
I think one possible [mystical] view of Jesus' teaching could be similar. Jesus pointed at Love cleansing the heart and radically purifying it. He felt that merely changing actions (as the Pharisees demanded) was not suffice -- instead he demanded deep inner changes and submission to love.
Paul, however, changed the message a bit (IMHO) and modern Christianity is largely Paulism.
But I think many Christians may be sympathetic to some variant of my interpretation -- if not as the whole story certainly as part of the story. Their method is through yielding over to the will and guidance of God/Jesus == more of a Shin Buddhist methodology (although I don't know much of that either).
All to say, I think this radical insight can be lived out in various traditions. I, like you, prefer the Buddhist methodology -- I am not Christian. But I think very similar inner radical work can be done with very different theologies and mental images.
I will invite a progressive Christian to visit and read these comments and see if he agrees.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Hi Sabio
You've not said anything to make me believe that there is anything but the most superficial resemblance between Buddhism and Christianity. I think you're stretching things in a very pluralist way. You seem to start from a pluralistic view which means you want to see similarity and overlook differences. It's a top down, ideologically driven approach, not a bottom up observation driven approach.
For instance: Why purify your heart? What is the purpose in each context? And to what end? Once you start to dig a little deeper the gulf opens up.
These are rhetorical questions btw. There's no mileage in this kind of dialogue for me. I'm just not interested in squeezing Buddhism into a pluralistic ideology; nor vice versa. Pluralism works from assumptions I see as fundamentally flawed.
There are many things wrong with pluralism but let's say that the main one is that you never understand Buddhism on it's own terms; you're always reinterpreting it to make it similar to other ways of going about things. So you never properly engage with Buddhism, never commit yourself sufficiently, never go deeper. So you never experience Buddhism. And you never discover the superficiality of pluralism. You keep finding superficial similarities, which seems to confirm your views and prevent you from going deeper.
The pluralist is a dilettante.
A radical life is one that fully plays out one's values in terms of virtues; in which one aims to be radically and irreversibly transformed so that one becomes an embodiment of those values; to become perfect in virtue.
The pluralist doesn't know what they value, or at least they sublimate the value of order and harmony, and see it everywhere, without ever realising it in themselves. The human mind is a sophisticated pattern recognition filter: we do see order everywhere - we see animals in clouds, and mythic beasts in the stars, and Jesus on burnt toast. But it does not mean that clouds are animals. One has to learn to know a false positive when it occurs, else one sees order where there is only chaos.
The pluralist sees an elephant shape in the cloud and concludes that the cloud IS an elephant; or at least so like an elephant that it makes no difference. Look at any random collection of dots and more likely than not the first thing that will occur to us is a face, because we are so highly attuned to faces that we are prepared to see them anywhere and everywhere.
My Raison d'être is to go deeper through the methods of Buddhism.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Very interesting points. Personally, I agree that a deep religious experience cannot but be (subjectively) exclusive. And I dislike superficial comparativism (not to speak about pluralism –if it is as you describe it).
But:
1. Don't you think that in order to understand X one needs to take it seriously (without running away in order to find something resembling it), but also to understand in what way it is different from other things? Something like the Sanskrit use of positive *and* negative concomitance (anvaya-vyatireka).
2. I tend to think that we all, naturally, compare things. And this is all the more true in case of people who come from a certain background (e.g., the so-called 'Western' one) and approach a different one. In other words, we risk to compare anyway, so isn't it better to be aware of it, and choose to do it in a better, more conscious way? For instance, if I am aware of my background I might be able to detect an, e.g., Humean influence in my understanding of Pramāṇavāda and ponder about it, instead of letting it falsify my reading of Sanskrit texts without me being aware of it.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Hi Elisa
Sure. I guess we all do comparisons. I'm more interested in some than others these days - after 40 odd years of working through various comparisons.
I think living in a foreign country - as I do - helps to highlight unconscious views and attitudes, but then so does Buddhist practice generally. Nothing like a week of silence and meditation to get to know yourself. I also enjoy studying texts with a group of people and comparing notes on what we think (hoping to do more of this in the next few months).
Sorry, but my knowledge of Indian philosophical terms outside of early Buddhism is pretty limited. I kind of got your drift though :-)
Best Wishes
Jayarava
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Thanks for bearing with my provocations, Jayarava, and for your deep answers.
Your idea ("I also enjoy studying texts with a group of people and comparing notes on what we think (hoping to do more of this in the next few months") sounds great. I have long been plannign a workshop with IE experts reading a Vedic text as a linguistic document of a certain IE layer along with someone reading it according to later Indian comments. What about doing it with some passages of the Pāli Canon? It might be interesting to have philologists focusing on IE, Theravāda Buddhists coming from a Western background, Theravāda interpreters using later (e.g. sinhalese) commentaries, indologists thinking at later philosophical developments etc. They should prepare their thoughts about the text, send them to the others and then meet and debate.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Hi Elisa
I find your contributions very stimulating. Yes. I think mixing people up can be interesting. I find reading the Upaniṣads and the Pāli texts at the same time can be illuminating.
Jayarava
Monday, November 15, 2010