This is an essential point all too often overlooked. On my reading of the Canon it's impossible not to see that dependent origination, impermanence, etc. are meant to apply to phenomena of experience, not to objective external reality, whatever that might be. They might apply to that too, but that's not important from the viewpoint of the Buddha's soteriological program. Also, the Buddha clearly emphasized that insight into reality was possible for anyone who trod the path.
I'd be interested though in reading more about your use of the the word mysticism. In my understanding, true mysticism is just this careful examination of one's immediate experience in order to see what the phenomena of one's world actually consist of.
I think you'll find my next couple of posts interesting as well. As for 'mysticism' I confess I use the term very loosely and with a vague sense of something indescribable, inaccessible, unobtainable. In the back of my mind is a worry that we Western Buddhists have an anti-intellectual bias that causes us to play up the mystery of consciousness, the ineffability of liberation in such a way as to place it outside of my grasp. With a heavy emphasis on mystical language I feel as though awakening is impossible for me. The way I'm starting to talk about it, makes it seem like an obtainable goal for *everyone*.
I will give some more thought to 'mysticism' and be more cautious in how I use it. :-)
Best Wishes Jayarava
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Anonymous said...
Sadhu! Reminds me of a nāma-rupa-pariccheda-ñāṇa and what goes through the mind of a practicioner during that time :-)
Monday, December 20, 2010
gruff said...
Like "spirituality", the word "mysticism" is indeed often used in quite varied ways. The refreshingly non-obscurantist tone of (most) of the Canon is one of the things I love about it.
It might be correct, though, to emphasis the *conceptual* ungraspability of liberation. The Buddha's pretty clear that it's not just a question of a new set of opinions. Western Buddhists may be overreacting to the Western tendency to want to measure, label, and systematise everything. Every culture has its own characteristic hindrances I suppose.
Yes. I think I part company with the new secular Buddhists in holding open the possibility of a radical transformation of consciousness. But I think that all experience is ineffable, and impossible to grasp on a purely intellectual level. Explaining red to a blind person is an often quoted example. One has to experience it for one's self. I hope one of the things I can achieve in my writing is to clarify where we are looking for this transformation.
I'm reading an excellent book on consciousness at the moment: Metzinger. The Ego Tunnel. He's a philosopher who works with neuroscientists but has strong experiences of spontaneous out of body experiences: so he's looking for an intellectually and emotionally satisfying way of understanding consciousness that includes experiences such as leaving one's body. The writing is a bit patchy (there are unexpected changes in level and terms which are not fully explained) but on the whole I find it fascinating. We may yet re-write the nidāna sequence based on neuroscience insights!
Thanks for your continued interest and sensitive questions and comments.
This seems like an extremely interesting direction; I am looking forward to your next posts in the series. I'm completely ignorant of the Pali Canon, coming from a different corner of the Buddhist world (Vajrayana). I try to find some common ground between the ancient texts of that corner and the scientific world view; it's encouraging seeing your progress on a perhaps analogous project.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
gruff said...
On the subject of a radical transformation and its place in Buddhism and Buddhist thought, I was just reading Sons of the Buddha by Tiyavanich, according to which the introduction of state Buddhism in Thailand in the last century led to moral chaos in a large part because nibbāna was left out. Without a "transcendental" goal to shoot for, all that's left was dry intellectualism. May that not happen here!
@David. I have an interest in Japanese Vajrayana (Shingon). Perhaps I'll try to write something on how I see the relationship. I've studied the Mahāvairocana Abhisaṃbodhi Tantra (though not systematically or thoroughly) and I see a direct link through the prajñāpāramitā schools and thence back to the Pāli texts. The Kaccānagotta Sutta SN 12.15 is a kind of missing link for this line of evolution. Interestingly Metzinger - the neuro-philosopher I'm reading mentions the tests that people have done on the brains of meditators. I think they may describe the results in quite different jargons however - part of the trick of making comparisons is thoroughly understanding the jargon of both sides! I love the way Ariel Glucklich does this in his book The End of Magic for instance - he's an anthropologist who worked with tantric magicians in Varanasi.
@Gruff. I agree that we need to aim high. This is the beauty of Buddhahood or the Bodhisattva Ideal as ideals, they lift our gaze out to the furtherest horizons. The trick then is to allow for the possibility for everyone so they don't become dispirited or set up lesser (attainable) goals like rebirth in heaven. Why would we need a Pure Land movement if people hadn't believed that bodhi was impossible for human beings? Similarly for Tathāgata-garbha. Kūkai's big problem in introducing Shingon into Japan was countering the idea that bodhi required an incalculable length of time (i.e. was effectively impossible) which he did with the slogan "Enlightenment in this very life!".
How interesting -- I just went and read the Kaccānagotta Sutta, which I did not know. Yes, this certainly reads like a precursor for Prajñāpāramitā. ["Precursor" if in fact it can definitively be dated earlier; I know almost zero about this period historically, but it doesn't seem impossible that some prajñāpāramitā ideas were quietly inserted back into the Pali Canon at a relatively late date?]
It's generally acknowledged that the Mahāvairocana Tantra is a natural outgrowth from Indian Mahayana circa 500 CE. The later Tantras are very different, and there's generally considered to be a break roughly around 700.
The following might or might not be of interest:
Tibetans classify Tantras into groups, which they refer to as yanas (beyond hina and maha). There is some variation in classification, but the Nyingma scheme (which I'll describe) is not very different from others.
That scheme classifies Tantras into six yanas: kriya, charya, yoga, mahayoga, anu, and ati. These are listed from "lower" to "higher". This ordering has several correlates. Each "higher" yana is supposed to have a more accurate philosophical view and more powerful meditation methods. Interestingly, each "higher" yana can also be dated as a later class of texts according to Western historical research.
The fundamental principle of the two lowest tantric yanas is purification, which makes them easily compatible with vinaya and Bodhisattva ideals. The Mahāvairocana Tantra is classified as a charya Tantra, so it is pretty natural to move from Mahayana into that system.
In the Tibetan tradition, the three lowest yanas are described as "outer" and the three higher yanas are "inner", so there is considered to be a break between yogatantra and mahayogatantra. (There's an interesting recent doctoral thesis that argues that the real break is from charya to yoga; the fundamental principle of yoga through anu is transformation rather than purification. I can find a reference if that's of interest. I think it is more accurate to say that yogatantra is clearly transitional when compared with both charya and mahayoga.)
Anyway, mahayoga Tantras are extremely different from charya Tantras. They rely on antinomian sex and death magic to accomplish transformation of the self into the deity. Historically, this seems to have involved the incorporation of a huge amount of theory and practice that at the time seemed non-Buddhist or anti-Buddhist, initially with minimal modification. Tibetan Buddhism has been working to digest that stuff ever since. (Finding an accommodation between mahayoga and vinaya is a challenge...)
The upshot is that Shingon and Tibetan Vajrayana are not particularly similar. They are both technically Tantra, but the root principles they are based on quite different.
Thanks. I am familiar with the broad outlines of Tibetan Buddhism and their ideas of yānas - I've read things like Snellgrove 'Indo-Tibetan Buddhism' and Samuel 'The Origins of Yoga and Tantra'. I find the scheme in Linrothe 'Ruthless Compassion' quite interesting. It's based on the artwork of Buddhists rather than internal struggles to come up with classification systems.
Nāgārjuna quotes a Sanskrit version of the Kaccānagotta Sutta in the MMK (15.7) which establishes the link. It is the only sūtra he quotes by name leading some people to wonder whether he was in fact a Mahāyānist.
According to Stephen Hodge, who translated the Tibetan version of the Mahāvairocana Tantra (MAT), the text dates to the mid 7th century (probably the 640's). This fits with other things I've read. MAT incorporates the Arapacana Alphabet in a way which suggests to me a relationship with the large Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras. If I ever publish my history of the Arapacana Alphabet I'll spell it out ;-)
Thursday, December 23, 2010
[Image]In translating and commenting on the Nibbedhika Sutta a few weeks back I neglected to tie my comments in with another idea I have been working on for some time. It's not an obvious proposition that intention is the ethically significant aspect of morality, and some people struggle with this. I think it is because we are mistaken about the range or domain (visaya) in which the teachings apply, and the equation of cetanā and kamma is actually a clue in the puzzle.
I've been researching the way the Buddha talks about paṭicca-samuppāda to try to discern where he thought it applied. We Buddhists are all familiar with the idea that "everything is impermanent"; we often say "all things arise in dependence on causes" but I keep asking the question "what is meant by 'everything' or 'all things'?" I'm working through this territory in a long essay, that has been evolving over a couple of years, and questions some of the basic assumptions in these slogans.
I've already written about the question what arises in dependence on causes? The short answer is 'dhammā'. Dhamma can be translated as 'thing', and it is sometimes that general in Pāli. But in terms of 'arising' it is not talking about things generally, but about mental processes. On the whole it is mental processes that arise in dependence on causes. This raises the question of why we talk of paṭicca-samuppāda as a general theory of conditionality?
I've also talked about 'the world', and how the world for the Buddha was the world of experience. The very word 'loka' implies the visible world, the sensual world, but a series of other texts make it clear that 'the world' in this context means "one's world". Our own world is neither objective nor subjective, but it arises out of the interaction of the two poles. See for instance M i.259: ‘The consciousness that arises with forms and the eye as condition is called eye-consciousness’ (cakkhuñca paṭicca rūpe ca uppajjati viññāṇaṃ cakkhuviññāṇant’eva sankhaṃ gacchati); or M i.111: ‘dependent on the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises: these three together constitute contact’ (cakkhuñcāvuso, paṭicca rūpe ca uppajjati cakkhuviññāṇaṃ, tiṇṇaṃ saṅgati phasso).
This world, this experiential world, is the stage upon which we play out our lives.And, friend, it is right here in this arm-span measure of body endowed with perception and cognition that I declare the world, the origin of the world, the cessation of the world, and the way leading to the cessation of the world. (S i.62)Not only this, but the texts make it clear that loka is synonymous with dukkha. Both are described in precisely the same terms as the product of paṭicca-samuppāda. I have not found any reference to a text saying that an external object arises in dependence on causes, and I would be very interested if any reader could turn one up.
I'm summarising 9,000 words of argument and textual citation here, but what starts to emerge is that the Buddha doesn't seem to think of paṭicca-samuppāda as applying to the world in general, only to the experiential world arising out of contact. To make the point I offer a thought experiment. Imagine a diamond in ancient India at the dawn of the second urbanisation, say around 1500 BCE. It is polished and sparkling. We can see it, and touch it, but don't have microscopes or lens; and our theory of elements doesn't give us the kinds of insights that modern chemistry and physics do. It is handed down from generation to generation and apart from gathering a little dust, it does not change for a thousand years. This is part of the value of a gemstone: time does not diminish or tarnish it. After a thousand years no one can remember any details of its provenance. It is as it is, and always has been - unchanging. The Buddha is born 1000 years later, and meets the present owner of the diamond. He sees it, and holds it. He questions the owner about it. For all intents and purposes he establishes that the diamond has never changed (in living memory) and there is no real prospect of it ever changing. It is not quite true to say that everything changes, or at least we can say it is not possible to know that this is true. If the Buddha was intellectually honest (and I'm assuming that he was) then there were many objects in his world that did not appear to change in the span of living memory, and to say that they did change would not be relying on experience.
What I conclude is that paṭicca-samuppāda was applied only to the experiential world; and was not intended to apply, and in fact does not apply, to the world of sense objects in the Buddha's teaching (there is no world of ideal objects inaccessible to the senses in Buddhist epistemology since we could have no knowledge of them). However it is very easy to show, and to understand, that even with reference to a hypothetical unchanging object, that the world of experience arising from contact between that object and our subject is one which is which constantly changing. Experience fully conforms to paṭicca-samuppāda under all circumstances, and this way I, incidentally, side-step the potential charge of eternalism.
No doubt there is cause and effect in the objective world, but physics is a much better description of this than Iron Age Buddhist theories. On the other hand though physics has produced many marvellous discoveries, it has liberated very few minds. In fact the European intellectual tradition has been aware of the changing nature of things as long as the Indian tradition - going back to Heraclitus at least. We all understand that things change, that everything changes.
The Buddha often says "I teach dukkha and the way to make dukkha cease". I think he was speaking quite literally; I think he was not offering an insight into The World, but only into our own world, into our relationship with experience, and how a dysfunction in that relationship causes us suffering. I believe that this is no less profound, but brings the Buddha's insight out of the realm of mystical experiences, inaccessible to the great majority of us, and into the realms of possibility. I believe that any one of us can, with some effort, have this life-changing, world changing insight. I don't discount that it might have a mystical dimension, but I don't see bodhi primarily in terms of mysticism these days.
Of course it was Buddhists themselves who developed the Buddha's initial observations and exposition in the direction of a generalised theory of conditionality. Why Buddhism developed in this metaphysical direction is an interesting question, but one that I haven't the space to pursue. If we understand conditionality in the way I've outlined, then the equation of kamma and cetanā becomes clearer. Cetanā is so vital to Buddhist ethics because Buddhist ethics applies in the realm of the dependently arisen mental processes, and it is in this realm that we have most influence. We might not be able to change the world, but we can certainly change our own minds.
10 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formThis is an essential point all too often overlooked. On my reading of the Canon it's impossible not to see that dependent origination, impermanence, etc. are meant to apply to phenomena of experience, not to objective external reality, whatever that might be. They might apply to that too, but that's not important from the viewpoint of the Buddha's soteriological program. Also, the Buddha clearly emphasized that insight into reality was possible for anyone who trod the path.
I'd be interested though in reading more about your use of the the word mysticism. In my understanding, true mysticism is just this careful examination of one's immediate experience in order to see what the phenomena of one's world actually consist of.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Hi Gruff,
I think you'll find my next couple of posts interesting as well. As for 'mysticism' I confess I use the term very loosely and with a vague sense of something indescribable, inaccessible, unobtainable. In the back of my mind is a worry that we Western Buddhists have an anti-intellectual bias that causes us to play up the mystery of consciousness, the ineffability of liberation in such a way as to place it outside of my grasp. With a heavy emphasis on mystical language I feel as though awakening is impossible for me. The way I'm starting to talk about it, makes it seem like an obtainable goal for *everyone*.
I will give some more thought to 'mysticism' and be more cautious in how I use it. :-)
Best Wishes
Jayarava
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Sadhu! Reminds me of a nāma-rupa-pariccheda-ñāṇa and what goes through the mind of a practicioner during that time :-)
Monday, December 20, 2010
Like "spirituality", the word "mysticism" is indeed often used in quite varied ways. The refreshingly non-obscurantist tone of (most) of the Canon is one of the things I love about it.
It might be correct, though, to emphasis the *conceptual* ungraspability of liberation. The Buddha's pretty clear that it's not just a question of a new set of opinions. Western Buddhists may be overreacting to the Western tendency to want to measure, label, and systematise everything. Every culture has its own characteristic hindrances I suppose.
Thanks for writing your essays.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Hi Gruff
Yes. I think I part company with the new secular Buddhists in holding open the possibility of a radical transformation of consciousness. But I think that all experience is ineffable, and impossible to grasp on a purely intellectual level. Explaining red to a blind person is an often quoted example. One has to experience it for one's self. I hope one of the things I can achieve in my writing is to clarify where we are looking for this transformation.
I'm reading an excellent book on consciousness at the moment: Metzinger. The Ego Tunnel. He's a philosopher who works with neuroscientists but has strong experiences of spontaneous out of body experiences: so he's looking for an intellectually and emotionally satisfying way of understanding consciousness that includes experiences such as leaving one's body. The writing is a bit patchy (there are unexpected changes in level and terms which are not fully explained) but on the whole I find it fascinating. We may yet re-write the nidāna sequence based on neuroscience insights!
Thanks for your continued interest and sensitive questions and comments.
Best Wishes
Jayarava
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
This seems like an extremely interesting direction; I am looking forward to your next posts in the series. I'm completely ignorant of the Pali Canon, coming from a different corner of the Buddhist world (Vajrayana). I try to find some common ground between the ancient texts of that corner and the scientific world view; it's encouraging seeing your progress on a perhaps analogous project.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
On the subject of a radical transformation and its place in Buddhism and Buddhist thought, I was just reading Sons of the Buddha by Tiyavanich, according to which the introduction of state Buddhism in Thailand in the last century led to moral chaos in a large part because nibbāna was left out. Without a "transcendental" goal to shoot for, all that's left was dry intellectualism. May that not happen here!
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
@David. I have an interest in Japanese Vajrayana (Shingon). Perhaps I'll try to write something on how I see the relationship. I've studied the Mahāvairocana Abhisaṃbodhi Tantra (though not systematically or thoroughly) and I see a direct link through the prajñāpāramitā schools and thence back to the Pāli texts. The Kaccānagotta Sutta SN 12.15 is a kind of missing link for this line of evolution. Interestingly Metzinger - the neuro-philosopher I'm reading mentions the tests that people have done on the brains of meditators. I think they may describe the results in quite different jargons however - part of the trick of making comparisons is thoroughly understanding the jargon of both sides! I love the way Ariel Glucklich does this in his book The End of Magic for instance - he's an anthropologist who worked with tantric magicians in Varanasi.
@Gruff. I agree that we need to aim high. This is the beauty of Buddhahood or the Bodhisattva Ideal as ideals, they lift our gaze out to the furtherest horizons. The trick then is to allow for the possibility for everyone so they don't become dispirited or set up lesser (attainable) goals like rebirth in heaven. Why would we need a Pure Land movement if people hadn't believed that bodhi was impossible for human beings? Similarly for Tathāgata-garbha. Kūkai's big problem in introducing Shingon into Japan was countering the idea that bodhi required an incalculable length of time (i.e. was effectively impossible) which he did with the slogan "Enlightenment in this very life!".
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
How interesting -- I just went and read the Kaccānagotta Sutta, which I did not know. Yes, this certainly reads like a precursor for Prajñāpāramitā. ["Precursor" if in fact it can definitively be dated earlier; I know almost zero about this period historically, but it doesn't seem impossible that some prajñāpāramitā ideas were quietly inserted back into the Pali Canon at a relatively late date?]
It's generally acknowledged that the Mahāvairocana Tantra is a natural outgrowth from Indian Mahayana circa 500 CE. The later Tantras are very different, and there's generally considered to be a break roughly around 700.
The following might or might not be of interest:
Tibetans classify Tantras into groups, which they refer to as yanas (beyond hina and maha). There is some variation in classification, but the Nyingma scheme (which I'll describe) is not very different from others.
That scheme classifies Tantras into six yanas: kriya, charya, yoga, mahayoga, anu, and ati. These are listed from "lower" to "higher". This ordering has several correlates. Each "higher" yana is supposed to have a more accurate philosophical view and more powerful meditation methods. Interestingly, each "higher" yana can also be dated as a later class of texts according to Western historical research.
The fundamental principle of the two lowest tantric yanas is purification, which makes them easily compatible with vinaya and Bodhisattva ideals. The Mahāvairocana Tantra is classified as a charya Tantra, so it is pretty natural to move from Mahayana into that system.
In the Tibetan tradition, the three lowest yanas are described as "outer" and the three higher yanas are "inner", so there is considered to be a break between yogatantra and mahayogatantra. (There's an interesting recent doctoral thesis that argues that the real break is from charya to yoga; the fundamental principle of yoga through anu is transformation rather than purification. I can find a reference if that's of interest. I think it is more accurate to say that yogatantra is clearly transitional when compared with both charya and mahayoga.)
Anyway, mahayoga Tantras are extremely different from charya Tantras. They rely on antinomian sex and death magic to accomplish transformation of the self into the deity. Historically, this seems to have involved the incorporation of a huge amount of theory and practice that at the time seemed non-Buddhist or anti-Buddhist, initially with minimal modification. Tibetan Buddhism has been working to digest that stuff ever since. (Finding an accommodation between mahayoga and vinaya is a challenge...)
The upshot is that Shingon and Tibetan Vajrayana are not particularly similar. They are both technically Tantra, but the root principles they are based on quite different.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Hi David,
Thanks. I am familiar with the broad outlines of Tibetan Buddhism and their ideas of yānas - I've read things like Snellgrove 'Indo-Tibetan Buddhism' and Samuel 'The Origins of Yoga and Tantra'. I find the scheme in Linrothe 'Ruthless Compassion' quite interesting. It's based on the artwork of Buddhists rather than internal struggles to come up with classification systems.
Nāgārjuna quotes a Sanskrit version of the Kaccānagotta Sutta in the MMK (15.7) which establishes the link. It is the only sūtra he quotes by name leading some people to wonder whether he was in fact a Mahāyānist.
According to Stephen Hodge, who translated the Tibetan version of the Mahāvairocana Tantra (MAT), the text dates to the mid 7th century (probably the 640's). This fits with other things I've read. MAT incorporates the Arapacana Alphabet in a way which suggests to me a relationship with the large Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras. If I ever publish my history of the Arapacana Alphabet I'll spell it out ;-)
Thursday, December 23, 2010