I listened to your interview on IPB and read some of your blog articles. My own theory of karma, based on Richard Gombrich's "What the Buddha Thought" are that karma is intentional action. It's not just any action, as the Jain's taught, nor is it just "intent", which is Gombrich's thesis. It's intentional action. You have to intend to to do harm or good, and you have to carry out that intention as an action. Some of this is based on my training as a lawyer: you can only be convicted of a crime if it can be proven that you intended to do the criminal act.
I have also been a student of social science for 30 years, now working on my Ph.D. in Sociology. Our intentional acts have consequences that continue to affect others (people and living environments) that are distant from us in space and time. I assume that is what you mean by the "Problem of Action at a Temporal Distance". Social science is replete with detailed and empirically verified studies of the consequences of individual and collective actions, historically and culturally, affecting large numbers of people, at great distances and long expanses of time. In fact, this is essentially what social science is about. As a social scientist, I have no problem with the notion that my intentional acts can have consequences that affect others besides those to whom it was directed, effects that exceed my own lifetime, that are felt long after I'm dead. Actions done on a larger social scale have reverberating effects generations after the historical event is over, consequences that affect whole social systems, locally and globally. Why is this not an adequate definition of "karma" and ethical responsibility? The problem is that it may not be Buddhist, i.e. based on Buddhist scripture.
“Rebirth” is far more problematic than karma. It is rebirth that doesn’t make sense in terms of the impermanent and temporal nature of the individual. Unless you pass your genes on to offspring, there is nothing that physically remains of you after you’re dead. “Energy is neither created nor destroyed; it merely changes form” is a way of explaining the continuity of material reality, but there is nothing in that formula that says “and karmic acts will adhere exactly to the path of transformation and forms that energy takes.” In fact, the effects of one’s intentional acts affect the actor only until he dies; after that, they may affect other people in other places, but not the individual who committed them.
So the choice to act in an ethical manner is ultimately a choice of free will. Your acts will not affect you after you’e dead, but you can know with some certainty that your acts will affect other people. Knowing that, you can choose not to do something that will harm many others besides yourself, others you will never know, others who are born long after you are dead. That is the whole ethic of justice regarding climate change. The effects of climate change will affect millions of people born long after I’m dead, 50, 100, 200 years from now. I can decide that I don’t care about them, that I don’t care what happens to life on the planet after I’m dead. Or I can choose to care and make an ethical decisions to do what I can not to harm future generations. That says nothing that supports the notion of rebirth, but it says volumes about karma and ethical responsibility.
The idea that early Buddhists understood karma as cetanā is more of a fact than a theory, and although Richard Gombrich has written about this, it's not a theory he invented or discovered. It's just standard Buddhism. It's entirely uncontroversial as it is based on a Pāḷi text found at AN 6.63 "cetanāhaṃ, bhikkhave, kammaṃ vadāmi. Cetayitvā kammaṃ karoti kāyena, vacāya, manasā. The position of this idea as standard Buddhism is confirmed by Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Chp 17) which cites a Sanskrit version of this passage as representing the Mainstream Buddhist idea of karma.
When you discuss action at a distance you seem to ignore pratītyasamutpāda. When I discuss ADT I do it precisely in this context. Indeed, in the interview I read out the passage in question in Pāḷi. Imasmiṃ sati idaṃ hoti, imass'uppadā idaṃ uppajjati, imasmiṃ asati idaṃ na hoti, imassa nirodhā idaṃ nirujjhati. It is the last part that I have said (again echoing Nāgārjuna) is important in this context and makes karma problematic. There is a conflict. This is the heart of my argument. The general waffle about the likelihood of karma is entirely irrelevant. Every existing theory of karma conflicts with the theory of Dependent Arising; or tries to address this conflict in some way, usually by introducing ad hoc entities. It's a simple argument, and if you want to discuss what I've said about karma you need to address this directly.
Similarly with rebirth. You seem to completely ignore what I write and just tell me what you think about rebirth in a very general way. This is neither interesting nor apposite. If you really have listened to the interview and read the relevant blog posts, and if you are doing a PhD (meaning that you know how to think), then why not comment on the ideas being presented? Otherwise you really are missing an opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to the discussion. If you just want to have a general discussion of Buddhism while ignoring my ideas about karma and rebirth then the comments section of my blog is not the place to do that.
Don't worry Shaun - I thought you made very valid and interesting points. This seems to be a territorial thing with Jayarava (a young man clearly obsessed by the infallibility of his own logic), you're on his patch. The chances of meaningful dialogue are limited.
And... this is why there aren't many comments on my blog. This sort of thing usually goes straight in the bin. But this kind of generic angry comment gives rise to some meta-reflections. It's a amazing how many different kinds of wrong Philip James can be in just 60 words.
The first thing I notice about people who accuse me of rudeness is that they are inevitably angry and rude themselves, just like our Cat-avatared interlocutor. And thus it seems to be a projection of their own emotional state onto what I write. Listen to the interview. I'm just not that angry about this stuff, I'm laughing half the time, and I have a great discussion with Matthew. It's all in the approach - Matthew was interested in what I have to say and approached me with respect. Shaun hasn't bothered to think about the material presented, he's telling me what he already thinks and that my presentation has not altered his views in the slightest. The puzzle is how anyone could imagine that I'd be interested in having that conversation. To me this is the height of rudeness.
The second thing I notice is that people make all kind of assumptions about me. In this case that I am a "young man". I'm 50 years old, hardly young. I'm very much a middle-aged man. So why does Philip James think I am "young". It's weird right? It's like he is shadow boxing with what he imagines me to be like, when in fact I'm nothing like that. It all seems to be in his own imagination. The internet seems to do this - projections and assumptions are not challenged and grow under their own momentum. Under confirmation bias, according to Mercier & Sperber, you'd expect at least a minimal effort to look for confirmation. But Philip James has not even done that. He just has a wild array of wrong views and a sense of frustrated entitlement. People talk about quantum weirdness, but strange men on the internet seem to be even weirder.
The third thing that people project onto me is unwillingness to change my mind or discuss issues. Which is perhaps the strangest thing of all. This whole blog is a record of me changing my mind. 445 essays and probably close to a million words of me changing my mind! It shows time and again how new information rocks my world and makes me reassess my views. Again this was a theme in the interview (which this essay accompanies) as I recounted how my first encounters with Professor Richard Gombrich completely changed my view of Buddhism (and this was after my ordination!). Have a look at the essays from late 2006, early 2007 and see how Richards ideas affected my own. I live to have my mind changed by a good argument. How can anyone not see that in relation to this material - this is me saying "Fucking hell, everything I thought I knew was wrong and here's how I see it now!". And to me this is exhilarating. I'm laughing at this point. This change is what I live for. So Philip James (like many others before him) on his high-horse has catastrophically misunderstood me and my goal in writing. And I suspect has put any possibility of connection or understanding beyond reach - but then this is what my own theory of religious beliefs predicts. Religious people almost can't help themselves because religiosity so grossly warps the ability to reason.
So Philip James has, in just 60 words, epitomised everything that is wrong with the intellectual climate of the internet in general and the religious and specifically the Buddhist intellectual clime. And this is why I seldom participate in it any more. The scholarly forums are heavily insulated against this kind of thing now and have become leaden as a result. The open forums have descended into a Lord of the Flies like chaos and confusion. Heresies like mine are not welcomed by Buddhists. They react like a swarm of bees protecting their queen. Mindlessly stinging. I'm not exactly immune to those stings after 20 years of playing in the internet, but I am somewhat inoculated.
My goal in responding to comments of this kind is to discourage the Shauns and the Philip Jame's of this world from commenting. To protect the intellectual integrity of the essays by not allowing extraneous irrelevant discussions to ensue - the comments ought to illuminate points in the essays, else they waste reader's time. This comment probably breaks my own rules, but the phenomenon of blog comments is a kind of subtopic of psychology that interests me.
I used to have a "comments policy" to try to make clear the minimum amount of effort required for participation, but the kind of people who don't read the essays, don't read the comments policy either. And the people who do read the essays properly don't seem to need guidance, they tend to make interesting comments anyway. If you read the essays and ponder them, you have nothing to fear. If you don't and make that clear in your comment, then expect either to be binned or some terse comments suggesting that you do the reading before showing up to class. It's just basic politeness really.
I fully understand that these essays are long for the internet. I'm asking a great deal of my readers. If anyone can't manage that, then that's fine. I'm not judging. What I don't tolerate is the non-readers who think it doesn't matter. Well, it does. On this blog it does matter. So please take your time and read. Or don't comment and use your time more wisely.
I am still struggling with how you're connecting paṭicca-samuppāda - which you've clearly stated all phenomena are explained by - and the "physical" nature of kamma and rebirth.
If paṭicca-samuppāda has nothing to do with the arising of the physical entity, and has everything to do with the arising of phenomena, then how does it negate any theory of karma and rebirth?
No Philip James, sending me abusive tirades by way of comments is not the way to advance the discussion. The most recent one went straight in the bin.
I don't enjoy the endless irrational waffle and repetition of platitudes that passes for informed discussion amongst most Buddhists. I see no reason to indulge it. It does no one any favours to tolerate and indulge uncritical thinking and irrational speculation. In fact it is obviously harmful. So I set boundaries to make curating this blog easier and more enjoyable for me, and hopefully an education for others. In general the comments are the least satisfying aspect of this project. On the other hand the personal emails I get from time to time expressing appreciation for my work are quite satisfying. But basically I just like writing and I'd do it anyway.
This blog is neither a platform for your general views on anything, nor an open forum, nor a chance for you to express your outrage or sense of entitlement. Or your value judgements of me, much less puerile name calling. Join Reddit or something if that is what you are looking for. "It ain't me, babe."
The rule is uncomplicated and straightforward. Read the whole essay from start to finish and if you wish to comment, then comment on the essay. Or don't comment.
Sometimes I have to reinforce the rule, like today. Most days I contemplate switching the comments off permanently so I don't have to deal with this shit. But a handful of people like Adam Cope, David Chapman, Elisa Freschi, or the user known as Swanditch seem to take the time to read and comment thoughtfully and I like them enough to the tolerate the rest... up to a point.
Goodbye, Philip James, whoever you are. I'll have forgotten you by the end of the day.
This is a very good question, thanks for asking it. I hadn't noticed the gap in my explanation and it is an important thing to be clear about. The idea that pratītyasamutpāda only applies to dharmas is my own idea - I believe pratītyasamutpāda only really works in this domain and thus infer that this was what it was intended for. There are some hints in the suttas as well (such as the Kaccānagotta Sutta, SN 12.15). Most Buddhists do not believe this, including most of my colleagues and teachers.
Even by the time the first surviving versions of the scriptures were produced pratītysamutpāda had been applied to karma and rebirth. In the standard doctrine the cetanā is the condition and the vipāka (as punarbhava or vedanā) is the conditioned. I don't think this can work. Pratītyasamutpada argues that when the cetanā ceases the vipāka must cease. We get around this via the doctrine of momentariness - each citta gives rise to another exactly like it until the karma plays itself out. But I've already showed by this cannot work (The Logic of Karma though in this essay I think I've misunderstood the Yogācāra which also accepts the doctrine of momentariness.)
Similarly in rebirth the last moment of mental activity in the dying person is the condition and the first moment of mental activity in the new person is the conditioned. Again I don't think this can work - when the dying person ceases to exist the reborn person ought to cease to exist also!
So although it is standard for Buddhists, ancient and modern, to connect pratītyasamutpāda to karma and punarbhava, i.e. to connect the mental to the physical, I think this is an error. We cannot explain karma and rebirth using pratītysamutpāda. Which is of course a major problem. Once we also invoke the restrictions placed on us by the nature of the universe then there doesn't seem to be any viable explanation of karma and rebirth. Which is disastrous.
The big question is "Now what?" and I confess I'm still not sure. I need to persuade more people and get them to think about what we do now. I like to think we can save Buddhism from oblivion, but some people believe that my ideas destroy Buddhism and that I am therefore not a Buddhist and people should not listen to me. Just as well Buddhists don't tend to martyr heretics.
Thanks again for asking a good question today. Jayarava
Thanks for the reply. You're not alone in the idea that dependent arising focuses primarily on the nature of phenomena and experience. This has been my (unscholarly) view for many years. It wasn't until I heard the Imperfect Buddha podcast that I found I wasn't completely alone.
And while I know you're not a fan of the idea of an allegorical (read: psychological) version of kamma and rebirth, I can't help but wonder if there isn't some further investigation warranted - especially if tying kamma/rebirth to a dependent arising focusing on phenomena/experience is ever to come to fruition.
That being said, again I do appreciate the reply. Have a great day.
I think it's totally valid to investigate the possibilities of karma and rebirth as allegorical. I'm not the one to do it, but someone ought to look into it. This is kind of what happened ca 200 BCE - 400 CE. People proposed different solutions and argued for them and against others, and there was a period of experimentation. Unfortunately for us I think the views that won the day on this score, basically Theravāda and Yogācāra, don't survive the transition to modernity. So we're back in the same position. We have to find new ways forward.
It's good to meet someone else who thinks dependent arising focuses on experience. I think this will certainly emerge as a major trend in Buddhist thought in our time. I sometimes call it the "hermeneutic of experience" (i.e. the way of reading texts as though they are referring to experience rather than reality).
"No, they seamlessly segue between non-continuity when talking about metaphysics, and continuity when talking about ethics without anyone ever noticing what they are doing."
I know you will not accept this, but: The two truths. Morality, karma, and rebirth are all conventional phenomena. They exist only relative to deluded cognition. In absolute truth, we cannot say they exist.
From the conventional perspective, we can talk about post-mortem continuity of identity if and only if we can talk about pre-mortem continuity of identity. Why to rebirth/karma skeptics find the latter unproblematic vis-a-vis Buddhist metaphysics but take issue with the former? It always seemed they hadn't really thought it through. Or perhaps they are not critically examining their own intuition that personal identity is predicated on the continuity of the body.
Madhyamaka recognizes that all our linguistic practices are embedded in deep cognitive habits, and that our statements may or may not agree with conventional appearances to various degrees. Thus talk of "morality" and "karma" is just one such linguistic practice, only valid within those conventional parameters. That may not sound to you like a satisfying basis for a moral theory. But for many it is satisfying enough, because our aforementioned deep cognitive habits are so firmly stuck in our minds that any talk of doing away with morality right now just because it does not absolutely exist, is so much empty sophistry. The traditional response to anyone who excuses their bad behavior with talk of emptiness is to say, if you yourself still get angry when someone steps on your foot, or get hooked by various stimuli into passion and aggression, then you still have to cultivate ethics. Padmasambhava said, "My view is as vast as the sky, and my conduct is as fine as a grain of sand." That's no fudge, it's very profound.
Jayarava, you say the karma is incompatible with pratitya-samutpada. I have no idea what you could possibly mean by this, because *the* canonical formulation of pratitya-samutpada as a distinctive theory and not just a generalized view of causality, is the twelve nidanas. As is well known, samskara/sankhara is identified with karmic conditioning. So without karma there is no pratitya-samutpada. And of course we know that without rebirth there is no pratitya-samutpada, because the last three nidanas are 10. becoming, 11. birth, and 12. aging and death. So if these two contradict pratitya-samutpada, please tell me what is left of this as a meaningful idea after you have thrown out the twelve nidanas.
Re rebirth, Shaun quoted, "Energy is neither created nor destroyed; it merely changes form" but asserted that karma is not like this. But I think this quote needs a closer look. To say that energy is not destroyed, but that it changes, is philosophically suspect. If it changes, it is not the same. If it is not the same, on what basis can we posit a continued identity over time such that we can say it is not destroyed? Better to say that energy is destroyed, but gives rise to a new moment of energy of (somehow) equal value. So you could say energy is constantly transfering its "value" to new instances of energy.
You probably picked up that this makes the idea consistent with Buddhist metaphysics of momentariness. It also makes it easier to relate it to the idea of karma and rebirth. A traditional non-Yogacara answer to the question, "What survives death?" is: Karma survives death. Karma conditions the consciousness, which, when it gives rise to a new moment of consciousness, transfers its load or total karmic value to that new consciousness. And it keeps going until the karma gives rise to its effect.
I know Jayarava has done his homework, so I don't post this for his benefit, but for anyone who reads this blog post and mistakes it for a devastating critique of karma and rebirth.
"The idea that pratītyasamutpāda only applies to dharmas is my own idea - I believe pratītyasamutpāda only really works in this domain and thus infer that this was what it was intended for."
Then there's a contradiction in your thinking, inasmuch as you want to advance your interpretation of pratitya-samutpada while expunging elements of Buddhism incompatible with modern science. You've already noted that you think non-physicalism wrt mind is impossible according to the laws of physics. So if the mental just resolves to the physical, how could pratitya-samutpada be restricted to phenomenology and still be true at all? Because then the mind and its experiential realm would just be epiphenomena.
The only way to rescue pratityasamutpada is to say that mental events and phenomena/dharmas are efficacious qua the mental. But then you are in contradiction with your assertion that physics describes a closed system and rules out dualism.
Thanks for your long comment. Sadly it is full of contradictions and confused statements.
First you say:
"Morality, karma, and rebirth are all conventional phenomena. They exist only relative to deluded cognition. In absolute truth, we cannot say they exist."
later you say:
"What survives death?" is: Karma survives death."
Something that does not exist is what survives death? Is "survive" a word that can be applied to something that doesn't exist? I think not.
The fundamental problem with your approach is that you indulge in a form ontological speculation (an assertion about existence and/or non-existence that can have no basis in experience). It is a more sophisticated kind of speculation than that imagined and discouraged in the Early Buddhist texts, but still speculative. Where we ought understand that neither existence (astitā) nor non-existence (nāstitā) can possibly apply to dharmas, the Mādhyamika argues that *both* apply and take dharmas to be something more than simply the objects of manas. And this is just nonsense. And the statements that follow from this erroneous metaphysical speculation are also nonsense.
Why wasn't this nonsense weeded out of Buddhism centuries ago? After all, even Nāgārjuna was aware of the injunction against talking in terms of astitā and nāstitā (since he cites the very words in his master-work - MMK 15.7). The most important thing about the Madhyamaka critique is that it is easy to win arguments using this rhetoric and the accompanying strategies. The strategy of relativizing all statements is one that closes down any discourse. Mādhyamikas believe in an absolute reality that is beyond words, which allows them to both believe and to refuse any discussion on the subject. Thus the belief is forever beyond the reach of argument. It is perhaps the ultimate expression of the psychology of religious belief. The absolute belief that can never be argued with. Hence the smugness of so many of its proponents I suppose.
On the other hand while Mādhyamikas factionalised and embarked on epic, centuries-long internal arguments over how to interpret Nāgārjuna, Yogācārins simply redefined most of the key ideas of Nāgārjuna to suit their own purposes and went their own way. I need to look more closely at Yogācāra, but I don't think it offers much hope - it's clear that they too indulged in speculative metaphysics of the unhelpful kind. And they certainly accepted momentariness, which we know fails to solve the central problem I highlight.
It's important not to engage with religious believers like Vimarepa on their own terms because those terms are designed specifically to defeat and suppress counterfactual arguments. We must state our own terms. In this case we reject the ontological speculations and avoid being drawn into the tautological defences of the Mādhyamika rhetoric.
The simple fact is that if we do this then dependent-arising itself refutes karma because asya nirodhād idaṃ nirudhyate.
Nāgārjuna identified this problem (MMK 17.1-6) and did try to deal with it. His solution involves kicking the whole problem into the long grass of the Two Truths: it's all just an illusion. However, as above, the Two Truths are in fact two falsehoods, so this is not a workable solution either.
Of the other historical solutions to this problem (momentariness, sarva-asti-vāda, pudgala-vāda, etc), all of which involve tinkering with dependent-arising to save karma, only one survives into modern times: momentariness. BTW I have only recently realised that Yogācārins also accepted momentariness and thus I may have made some wrong assertions in that area for which I apologise. However, since I have a well developed critique of momentariness and how it fails to reconcile dependent-arising with karma, correcting my error in fact makes my task much simpler.
So that's where we are. Dependent-arising itself refutes karma.
Vimarepa's second comment demonstrates two things.
The first is that he is very definitely engaged in ontological speculation - Vimarepa is obsessed with existence and non-existence and thinks that our argument is being held in these terms. He does not see that his own epistemology itself denies him access to the kind of knowledge of existence and non-existence that his argument is predicated on. And this is, I have to say, extremely funny. The fact that he is trying to argue with me on the basis of ontology, when I am making points about epistemology is a measure of how much he misunderstands what I'm saying and also misunderstands what is under discussion.
My fundamental thesis is that epistemology places limits on knowledge. In Buddhist terms there is no access to reality, we only know that which we experience arising and passing away. This is not a disaster for Buddhism because of where it initially focusses. Before Buddhists become obsessed with ontology, they were mainly interested in why experience is unsatisfactory. In modern terms we *can* reliably infer things about reality through careful observation and comparing notes. Pratītyasamutpāda as I apply it, to dharmas arising and passing away, tends to accept as a starting point the limits understood by Buddhists for the same reasons - other concerns are secondary to the Buddhist project.
That said, I can carefully extend this argument because I have identified a flaw in how Buddhist philosophers understand epistemology - a flaw that the Europeans shared until very recently. For which I credit Sean Carroll and his Twitter bio. Philosophers are all so self-absorbed that they understand each individual to be isolated from other individuals (some go as far as to deny the existence of other individuals, but this is simply silly). When we compare notes with other people (like a scientist does) we can use similarities and patterns to infer knowledge of reality (a little like inferring the air by examining how leaves move in the wind - something the ancient Indians got disastrously wrong BTW). By comparing notes and arguing about the results, we refine our ability to accurately navigate the world using inferred knowledge. This method of empiricism and argumentation has been an incredibly, wildly successful strategy for knowledge seeking - creating modern technological culture as we find it today. However, we have no independent way of verifying our inferences. We still do not *know*, though we can he fairly confident of some of our inferences since they allow us to reliably navigate through our experience of the world. There are still epistemological limits. And Vimarepa is blind to these epistemological limits. They think they can say with certainty what reality is like. Which is not something that I believe at all.
The second thing their comment demonstrates is a kind of natural progression in the pattern of arguing with religieux. We move from denial on the basis of articles of faith, to attack in formalist ways, i.e. "you are a materialist" (Materialist/physicalist being a term of abuse here). I noted more than a year ago before the failure to understand these terms and the widespread misuse of them. I am certainly not a materialist - what someone with my point of view is called is a "Transcendental Idealist" (a term coined by Immanuel Kant). I don't believe we can directly know reality. But we can know our own experience and even to some extent gain some meta-knowledge about how experience works. Which is enough. However I'm not purely a Kantian Transcendental Idealist because of the comparing notes aspects of my view, though I do maintain a distinction between knowledge gained from experience and inferred knowledge. I know that copper-sulphate is blue; I infer that this is because of the physical properties of copper atoms and the crystal structure.
In the progression of these kinds of discussions we go from denial to anger. What comes next is usually some kind of ad hominem as the frustration of failing to win the argument begins to tell. Having given the game away I may have changed the course of the argument, but let's see if Vimarepa can resist?
Something that does not exist is what survives death? Is "survive" a word that can be applied to something that doesn't exist? I think not.
You are confusing absolute and relative levels of analysis.
Where we ought understand that neither existence (astitā) nor non-existence (nāstitā) can possibly apply to dharmas, the Mādhyamika argues that *both* apply and take dharmas to be something more than simply the objects of manas.
No, Madhyamaka argues that, ultimately, existence, nonexistence, both, and neither cannot be predicated of dharmas. Surely you've heard of the catuskoti? Madhyamikas are, in fact, quite explicit that "both existent and non-existent" do not apply to dharmas, because it refutes existence and non-existence individually, and hence jointly as well. What is left over after Madhyamaka analysis is "dependently arisen mere appearances."
Let's consider this phrase more closely, because "mere appearances" means the opposite of what you are saying, that Madhyamikas "take dharmas to be something more than simply the objects of manas." One of the targets of Madhyamaka critique is the idea that dharmas are mind-independent.
Your statement "we ought understand that neither existence (astitā) nor non-existence (nāstitā) can possibly apply to dharmas" is straight-up Madhyamaka, so it's ironic that you're using it against Madhyamaka.
I suspect your confusion comes from reading Western scholarship heavily influenced by Geluk interpretations of Madhyamaka, and reading those interpretations into the Indian Madhyamaka texts. Try reading Gorampa's "Distinguishing the Views," which was translated by Jose Cabezon as "Freedom from Extremes." His critique of Tsongkhapa will put your understanding of Madhyamaka right.
Mādhyamikas believe in an absolute reality that is beyond words
No, that's what Vedantists believe. Madhyamikas would say this is eternalist.
It is perhaps the ultimate expression of the psychology of religious belief. The absolute belief that can never be argued with. Hence the smugness of so many of its proponents I suppose.
This is extremely unjust, give Madhyamaka a fair shake. There's no way to respond to such ad homs except to say, "No way dude, I'm not smug!"
It's important not to engage with religious believers like Vimarepa on their own terms because those terms are designed specifically to defeat and suppress counterfactual arguments.
Wow, thanks! You forgot to mention, "We don't negotiate with terrorists."
The simple fact is that if we do this then dependent-arising itself refutes karma because asya nirodhād idaṃ nirudhyate.
Jayarava, it is disingenuous of you to use this statement as the seminal expression of pratityasamutpada and to make it to the work of refuting karma. What it means is, "When this ceases, that ceases," but you have interpreted it as "the conditioned cannot persist after the condition has ceased" (http://visiblemantra.blogspot.com/2015/10/mulamadhyamaka-karika-176.html) When I saw it, I suspected that it was meant in the context of the twelve nidanas, so as to say that we can break the loop of samsara by eliminating ignorance. So I did a little digging and that is exactly what it means:
And again, when this does not exist, that does not exist; when this ceases, that ceases: When ignorance ceases, activities [samskara] cease; when activities cease, consciousness ceases, and so on ... and thus ceases this whole mass of suffering. (apparently translated by Lamotte)
I should be clear now that "when this ceases, that ceases" does not at all mean that an effect can only exist so long as its cause still exists! What an incredible idea! If Buddhism actually said that, it would mean that any causal sequence of events in time is impossible, because of pratitya-samutpada.
What's even more astonishing than your ripping this phrase out of context and twisting its meaning, is that you are quoting from a Mahayana sutra (Paramartha-sunyata-sutra) and passing it off as if it speaks for the early Buddhist idea of pratitya-samutpada, and thus somehow shows that karma and pratiyasamutpada are incompatible. You've shown nothing of the sort.
As for MMK 17.6, it says, and I'm sorry I have to rely on the Tibetan as I don't know Sanskrit:
"If it abode until the time it ripened, That karma would be permanent. If it ceased, how will the ceased [karma] Produce an effect?"
It is obvious that what Nagarjuna is up to here is not any special critique of karma, but his usual reductio of every single major category of Buddhist thought, in order to prove that the predicating existence and non-existence of them leads to absurdity. But in particular, here he is taking on Sarvastivada.
He follows up:
"A sprout, etc.--any continuation-- Arises directly from a seed. The effect thereof, if there was No seed, would also not arise.
Because from the seed the continuation, And from the continuation the effect come to arise, The seed goes before the effect, Therefore, it is neither annihilated nor permanent."
This is the "middle way" between his previous reductio. In one sense, the seed has not "ceased" because there is a causal chain that arises from the seed. But in another sense, it has ceased and is not permanent because it precedes the effect and does not exist simultaneously with it.
The fact that he is trying to argue with me on the basis of ontology, when I am making points about epistemology is a measure of how much he misunderstands what I'm saying and also misunderstands what is under discussion.
I'm not sure who you're addressing here. You could actually just address me, your interlocutor, because we are two human beings having a discussion. But it is again disingenous of you to say you are making an epistemological argument when you have made an ontological one:
What we need to understand about this equation is that at the mass, energy, and length scales relevant human experience, we can describe the behaviour of matter and energy very, very accurately. No extra force needs to be added to explain any observed behaviour of matter and energy on these scales. If there were other forces, of any kind, that could affect matter on this scale (and thus be part of our experience of the world), then we'd have seen some evidence of them in the millions of experiments carried out to date. If they cannot affect matter then they are of no interest as they cannot make a difference to us.
Then:
"you are a materialist"
This phrase you have placed in quotes, as if I said it. But I did not say it. I did respond, however, to your argument that the afterlife is impossible because it would require dualism, and dualism is refuted because physics is a closed system. You used the term "dualism," I phrased it "non-physicalism wrt to mind"--six of one, half a dozen of the other--but nowhere did I say you are a physicalist. What I did do was give an argument in which I pointed out a contradiction in your thinking. I note you have not actually addressed the contradiction, but have instead sidestepped it with an irrelevant declaration of your Kantian affinities, as well some condescending remarks about how I am about to deliver an ad hominem because of "failing to win the argument" (even as you avoid any actual argumentation)--right after your own ad hominem exposing the "psychology" of the "religieux."
I will conclude with the observation that every vice of the "religieux" which you have mentioned--smugness, dogmatism, ad hominem fallacies, etc.--are on display here, but not by me.
I don't know what I did to get on your nerves besides disagree with you. I don't really care. I had already started writing my response before your later comments, and I decided to finish what I started. But now I'm finished, as I don't much enjoy the abuse.
"You are confusing absolute and relative levels of analysis."
No I am rejecting the terms on which one erroneously analyses experience as absolute or relative. It's a metaphysical analysis with no basis in experience. What you claim to be a valid speculation about the nature of dharmas I argue there is no epistemological basis for.
You clearly do believe in an absolute, but are well enough schooled in the word games you play to never admit it openly. But it's obvious in the way you write. This is what I mean about the rhetorical strategies and why I don't accept the frame of reference you are arguing from.
Another big difference between our approaches is that you cite translations of translations, whereas I cite the Pāḷi and Sanskrit versions of the words. I understand how to read a locative absolute construction using present participles or an ablative of cause and thus I can be confident of simply reading the text. I don't read it through the interpretive intermediary of a translator. I don't need to refer to some secondary authority, or if I did it might be a grammar book. Certainly not a secondary translation. The words are not ambiguous or difficult to read. They certainly don't say what you would like them to say. And Nāgārjuna clearly agrees with me despite your attempt to interpret his intent - the words themselves give the lie to the interpretation. Here is what Nāgārjuna wrote in Sanskrit:
tiṣṭhaty ā pākakālāc cet karma tan nityatām iyāt / niruddhaṃ cen niruddhaṃ sat kiṃ phalaṃ janayiṣyati // MMK 17.6 //
What could be clearer? If an action has ceased, then being ceased what fruit can it produce? Nāgārjuna obviously understands the Sanskrit phrase asya nirodhād idam nirudhyate in exactly the same way that I do. If the action remains beyond the time of maturation - tan nityatām iyāt, i.e. THAT (tan) WOULD BE (iyāt) ETERNALISM (nityatām). We are saying exactly the same thing at this point.
You want the words to confirm your articles of faith. They simply do not. Nāgārjuna's critique of early Buddhist karma and mine are perfectly aligned. If you understood your own source texts better you would be in a better position to think about this.
I think perhaps your English translation of the Tibetan translation of MMK has confused the follow up verses to 17.6. Nāgārjuna doesn't talk about the Sarvāstivāda at all in this chapter (who in any case did not have a seed theory, but instead had a always existent dharma theory). What is being described here is the Sautrāntika bīja metaphor for karma. It seeks to describe the working of karma, which cannot be observed, by analogy to a process which can be observed, the growth of a seed. But the analogy doesn't work because an action isn't a seed; or even like a seed. It's just a false analogy. Th seed analogy just one of those really common Indian analogies that one finds everywhere in Indian literature. It's what they said when they didn't understand how a process worked, but had some sense of the inputs and outputs to the process.
It is funny the nonsensical things that Buddhists are willing to believe in order to preserve karma. Funny to see ignorance masquerading as knowledge. The mere repetition of a formulaic spiel is no substitute for thinking for oneself.
The trouble is that if we admit to a flaw, or to a false analogy, then we have to admit that we do not understand karma. The claim to understand it, despite all the evidence to the contrary, is yet another manifestation of the dynamics of the belief system. Belief that they know the ultimate truth makes religious people are more or less impervious to counterfactual arguments.
And we end with the predicted personal comments. So far so good. My model of the psychology of religious belief accurately predicts the tone of your response to my raising doubts about your articles of faith. Thanks for the demonstration. Though of course when n=1 the test is rather trivial and inconclusive.
Well, dear readers, this is what we are up against. Is it worth it?
That's a very nice game you played. First, when someone comments, you quickly suss out if they are "religious" or not. If so, you tell yourself, "Aha! they are going to follow the predictable stages of argumentation, according to the religious psychology that I have identified!" Then you provoke them with insults and condescension. You are allowed to do this, but they are not, because this is your show. If they deviate from the ostensible subject matter and respond to your personal provocations at all--even with such a mild observation as that you are doing the very thing you accuse them of doing--you triumphantly exclaim that the expected ad hominem has materialized. Checkmate! See, dear readers, how right Jayarava was all along? Did you enjoy the show? Now you see what we're up against. Is it worth it to engage such a perverse psychology?
Buddhists who agree with me about karma and rebirth ought to take evolution as a cautionary tale. We can easily screw this up, by failing to express enough kindness towards the people whose views we disagree with.
You don't factor your own approach and attitudes into the discussion. I'm sure I've mentioned this kind of thing before, but it will be worth using this example to highlight the self-blindness (the lack of self-awareness) that seems to come with religious faith. There might even be a blog in it.
If you think this exchange was a game it might be because of your opening gambit. I mean, take a close look at your first comment and it's clear that you sought to play me from the outset. Your comment is dripping with condescension. No wonder you find this word apposite as you seem to constantly express the emotion. Now you are complaining because I out-played you? Look at the other comments on the thread. Those who approach me on the level get a level answer. Those who point out real flaws in my argument are duly acknowledged for their contribution (a few will even be cited in my book on the subject). My response to you is a reflection of your approach to me.
And yes, it has been a game. A game you lost, this time. But better a game or a dance than a war, eh? A game doesn't mean anything, though it has helped to highlight methods for dealing with your kind of passive-aggression. So for me it was quite useful.
And yes it is difficult to express kindness when someone is being an arsehole and being so very persistent about it. And yes, when someone opens a dialogue with a derisive put-down I do find it difficult to warm to them. On the other hand I did think you were inadvertently very funny, so I was experiencing pleasant emotions most of the time. I laughed out loud a few times. And in your accusing me of lacking kindness I get another laugh, because you set out to belittle me and now complain that I was not kind enough to you. It's funny, no?
Do take a look at the other threads here, Vimarepa. Or any number of threads anywhere on the blog. There is a pervasive pattern. I respond in kind (and I am an expert at textual analysis). You set out to take me down a peg. Indulging your behaviour would not have been a kindness.
I admit to being a little bit provocative, though I was not so outrageous about it as you were. A few small barbs that very easily got under your skin and which you have now inflated out of all proportion. If you have the affront to attack me in my own house... well, (to change metaphors mid-stream) I'd be unkind to myself to just let you take a dump on me. Wouldn't I? And that's what you were trying to do.
But, you did not lose because I was a tiny bit mean. You lost the argument because I know the source material better than you do, and that became painfully obvious. You were floundering and grasping at straws. Also I refused to argue within the framework you take to be absolute and that means you really have nothing to say - typical of religious thinking is the inability to get outside the little box that you take to be the absolute truth. Lastly, you underestimated my willingness to take your challenge and run with it (a lot of Mādhyamikas seem to think they are invincible in argument).
You know what else is funny? A little Google search showed up that we have met online before. I disagreed with one of your comments on an article in the Guardian titled "Take me to the cosmic vagina: inside Tibet's secret tantric temple". A week later you show up here...
So thanks for the game, sport.
Love Jayarava
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
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This post is to accompany an interview with me by Matthew O'Connell of the Imperfect Buddha Podcast. Most of what I said was first written in the web pages of this blog, so it shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with my writing, but it might interest readers, especially those who don't know me, to hear me in conversation. We covered a good deal of ground as one might imagine with such a large topic. My book on the subject currently stands at about 170,000 words over 500 pages. I'm editing it now, but can't say when it will be finished.
We talked a lot about my discovery that karma and rebirth can't work based on any of the traditional models. Matthew focussed particularly on my essay, There is No Life After Death, Sorry, which recapitulates Sean Carroll's arguments against any afterlife based on the equation he is now calling The Core Theory:
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"It’s a good equation, representing the Feynman path-integral formulation of an amplitude for going from one field configuration to another one, in the effective field theory consisting of Einstein’s general theory of relativity plus the Standard Model of particle physics." (Now available as a tee-shirt in the USA).
What we need to understand about this equation is that at the mass, energy, and length scales relevant human experience, we can describe the behaviour of matter and energy very, very accurately. No extra force needs to be added to explain any observed behaviour of matter and energy on these scales. If there were other forces, of any kind, that could affect matter on this scale (and thus be part of our experience of the world), then we'd have seen some evidence of them in the millions of experiments carried out to date. If they cannot affect matter then they are of no interest as they cannot make a difference to us.
I also talked a little bit about how karma contradicts dependent arising, i.e. what I have called the problem of Action at a Temporal Distance, and how the several solutions to this problem do not stand up to scrutiny. These have been the subject of a number of recent essays that can be found under the heading Karma and Rebirth. In fact I've put a lot more more effort into this kind of argument than I have the science-based argument.
Karma and Rebirth Have Never Worked
Matthew, in an attempt to move the discussion along, begins to ask me, "So, if we get rid of karma and rebirth...". As you can hear, I interrupt at this point because something occurred to me that I had not thought of before. It's not that we "get rid" of anything. I don't advocate getting rid of karma and rebirth. At no stage in Buddhist history have we ever had a workable theory of either karma or rebirth. We cannot get rid of what we never had it to begin with.
We never had a workable theory of karma. Our theories of karma always contradicted dependent arising. Even when Buddhist intellectuals tweaked dependent arising to come up with the Theravāda doctrine of momentariness or the bīja/ālayavijñāna theory of the Yogacārins (which currently dominate the Buddhist intellectual landscape), what I've shown is that even these more sophisticated versions of the karma doctrine do not work as explanations (See The Logic of Karma). Other explanations such as the sarva-asti-vāda or the pudgala-vāda,which were popular in North India for a time, did not work either though they were ingenious alternatives to the explanations that by accident of history are familiar to us today. The ingenuity doesn't become apparent until one realises what they were grappling with, i.e. action at a temporal distance. It is such a huge problem, and yet the Buddhist world suffered a collective case of amnesia about it. Once it was the driving force in the development of the most influential schools of Buddhist thought, with at least two schools taking their name from their solution to the problem. Without understanding the problem many of the major developments in Buddhist thought don't make any sense.
We never had a workable theory of rebirth either. Rebirth either destroyed the connection between action and consequence, thereby destroying the possibility of morality; or it proposed a definite and substantial continuity which allows for morality, but is eternalistic. If the person who experiences the consequences is not me, then I won't care (as much) about the consequences. If it is me, then I seem to be altogether too substantial in an impermanent universe. Early commentators and systematisers tried to get around this by arguing that it is neither me or not me (e.g. Milindapañha), but this simply fails to meet any reasonable criteria for a workable morality (See Unresolvable Plurality in Buddhist Metaphysics?). As far as morality is concerned, it has to be me. But according to Buddhist metaphysics, it certainly cannot be me. The result is an intellectual stalemate. Not that Buddhists ever admit this. No, they seamlessly segue between non-continuity when talking about metaphysics, and continuity when talking about ethics without anyone ever noticing what they are doing. I listened to and read Buddhists doing this for about 20 years before I realised that they were doing it. We can charitably chalk this up to pragmatism, but it does mean that dependent arising cannot explain rebirth or morality.
Dependent arising, the explanation for how mental states arise, cannot explain karma, rebirth, or ethics. This is already clear from Buddhist śāstras composed in the period ca 200-400 CE. Nāgārjuna says as much in his second-century work the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Chapter 17.1-6). Unfortunately for Nāgārjuna, his radical alternative of treating the whole shebang as like an illusion never caught on in the mainstream. I think his solution, while metaphysically more tenable, pragmatically could not be used as the basis of a system of morality. It required that awful Buddhist fudge: the Two Truths. The Two truths formalises the me/not-me hedge and makes it a feature rather than a bug. But any Buddhist theory couched in terms of existence or non-existence, let alone any absolutes, is faulty.
Modern science also shows us that dependent arising is not a good explanation of how matter and energy work either. I play down the role of science in critiquing karma and rebirth because in my experience Buddhists simply dismiss any inconvenient science as "Materialism" and stop paying attention. Such critiques are often seen as attacks on Buddhism itself, which Buddhists take rather personally. But the critique is there, it's quite comprehensive and compelling. The main problem for Buddhists who wish to deny it, is that they end up having to re-write the laws of physics. And I have yet to see any Buddhist even try to do this.
Sometimes, even within the same anti-science context, science can be seen as the saviour of Buddhism. Buddhists do this in two main ways. The first is through drawing false analogies, usually between Buddhism and quantum mechanics. I've dealt with this problem at some length before in two essays that try to debunk the kinds of claims that Buddhists make (see under Quantum Mechanics).
The second way is looking for confirmation of our beliefs in the empirical results of studies of the brain and behaviour under the influence of Buddhist practices. As far as I can tell this research is certainly worth pursuing. But the field is rife with confirmation bias and needs to find some rigour. We need to pay attention to study design (especially sample size), start doing pre-registration of studies, and publication of negative results before we can get too excited. The buzz word in this kind of work is reproducibility. We are not there yet. And even if we were the evidence is for a fairly mundane form of efficacy. Meditation causes measurable changes in the brain that probably affect how we perceive ourselves, other people, and the world in general. It has nothing to say about karma, or rebirth.
Modernists Responses to the Crisis in Buddhist Doctrine
One of the ways that Buddhist Modernists negate some of the criticism of traditional Buddhism is to read inconvenient aspects of Buddhism as allegorical. They argue that we have to understand rebirth as an allegory, a symbol of some psychological process that plays out in our lives. A fine example of this is an essay by Alan Peto I stumbled on recently. In Is Buddhism Bewitched With Superstition? Peto puts forward exactly this kind of argument about superstition. However, in reading his argument I realised that while his central values were modernist, he none-the-less was endeavouring to justify his Modernist readings in traditional Buddhist terms.
There was the inevitable reference to the Pāḷi Canon, for example, in which the character of the Buddha is portrayed as reprimanding his followers for being superstitious (the word used is actually maṅgalika, but superstitious is not too bad a translation). This is read literally, rather than allegorically, as The Buddha telling his followers to abandon superstition. "Basically, the Buddha is saying that we should not fall into the trap of superstition, but instead pursue and gain wisdom." So if it fits our preconceptions, read it literally; if it does not, then take it as allegory.
Because there is a canonical injunction against it, the argument goes, there is no superstition in Buddhism, or at least in true Buddhism. In fact an injunction against something is evidence for the opposite, i.e. that it was widely practised. This leads us to the realisation that, in practice, Buddhists are really a very superstitious bunch. But how did pristine, rational Buddhism become infected with irrational elements? According to Peto, it is the creeping influence of "beliefs and traditions of society". Unfortunately there is simply no evidence for an originally rational Buddhism. That entity is a fiction of the modern imagination. As far as we know, Buddhism was never rational, did not decline over time. Indeed the opposite is evidence, major efforts went into making Buddhism more rational over time. Repeated attempts were made to solve the problems apparent in early formulations of Buddhism.
In another essay on rebirth, Peto tells us:
"While karma is referred to in popular culture as some sort of supernatural force (almost godlike) that determines your “fate”, but it is nothing like that at all."
Which is simply not true. Karma is the supernatural force that links willed actions and their consequences over time. It is supernatural because it cannot be accounted for by natural forces. In this case however, pre-modern Buddhists did see karma as a natural force. But mind you so were the miracles associated with the birth of the Buddha. So were the various spirits (benign and demonic) which abound in the pages of the Canon. Peto actually doesn't tell us what karma is, if it is not a supernatural force, but he hints that it is like "cause and effect" (which is not the traditional Buddhist view, but one clearly influenced by modernism). This particular allegory works because cause and effect is something that everyone intuitively understands and non-reflectively believes. Our understanding of cause and effect grows out of our experience of gaining control of our limbs as infants and learning how to use them to manipulate objects in the world. But karma is in fact nothing like this. Karma not only defies our modern understanding of cause and effect by separating the two ends of the relationship in time and space, but defies the traditional understanding for the same reasons! The consequence of the action is stored up until the end of your life, and then it manifests as the arising of vijñāna in another, embryonic, being either in the moment after death or after some time in a kind of limbo.
How this is achieved is unclear. For example, according to most schools of thought, the skandhas are definitely not transferred. So it is not personality, intelligence or experience, that are transferred, nor strictly speaking could it include memories (which are covered by the skandhas). And yet somehow the results of our actions are visited upon that embryo as it lives and dies.
The approach falls well short of coherence. Modernism is applied unconsciously and inconsistently to patch the inconsistent tradition with inconsistent results. This is perhaps the biggest problem of Modernist Buddhism, i.e. the failure to fully embrace Modernism and apply it consistently.
Comments
Does the fact that so far no model of Karma and Rebirth works mean that there is no model that can possibly work? Probably. We've had 2000 years to think about it. The brightest minds of Buddhist history thought about it. And got nowhere. Now we are in a worse situation, because we must also consider science. Physics shows that there are strict limits on how matter and energy can behave and that these limits appear to be universal. At the mass, energy, and length scales relevant to human experience, this means that no afterlife is possible. So rebirth is ruled out, except as allegory and I side with those who find allegory distasteful. Of course it is always possible that someone will turn up with reliable evidence that the Core Theory is wrong. But anecdote is certainly not going to cut it as evidence in that argument. And any new evidence that would allow for an afterlife would require a whole new understanding of physics and chemistry. Again, this is possible, but nothing like this is on offer at present. What's on offer is philosophical (i.e. ontological) dualism, which states as an axiom that the mind is not to be understood through studying matter and energy. But dualism is also ruled out by the Core Theory. If the other stuff could affect our body and, in particular, our brain then it would be obvious to detectors other than the brain - there are only so many ways to influence matter;. Matter itself shows no signs of being nudged by forces other than the four so far identified (of which we can observe two unaided by machinery: gravity and electromagnetism).
Many people get to this point in the discussion and the same question arises as Matthew asked me: "Now what?". I didn't answer that question very well in the interview I thought, so this is my attempt to do better.
So, "Now what?"
Now we need to take stock. It is only fair that we allow time to consolidate our arguments and for people to catch up if they wish. When you undermine someone's worldview to the point of collapse, a good deal of what they value suddenly must be reassessed. This is not easy and must take time. Many people will be so strongly committed to the traditionalist view are not interested in a major reassessment of their life and work, especially not on my say so. I expect virtually all people who've made life-long vows of celibacy, or those who make their living from traditionalist Buddhism, will be in this camp.
I think we have to take the psychology of belief seriously and not expect everyone to drop everything just because we have better facts. My case study for this has been the problem of communicating evolution, which in many respects has been disastrous. According to some surveys, only about half of Britons believe in evolution. Less Americans. Buddhists who agree with me about karma and rebirth ought to take evolution as a cautionary tale. We can easily screw this up, by failing to express enough kindness towards the people whose views we disagree with. My role in this is to establish new facts. I'm not a diplomat or a politician.
The problems we face are not yet well enough understood. My work, for example, only scratches the surface and my ability to persuade people is quite limited. People who are smarter and/or better connected need to be exposed to my conclusions and to test the logic of my argument. My book on this material might help with that, but I ought also to write something more pithy for an academic journal and see if I can get it through the editorial and review processes. At the very least I'd like to write something about the Problem of Action at a Temporal Distance for a journal. Other's need to take my ideas and see if they stand up to scrutiny. Not just in the sense of accusing me of Materialism (believe me this happens all too often), but by looking again at my primary sources, at the Kathavatthu, the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya, and the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (which ideally involves being able to read Pāḷi, Chinese and Sanskrit; though all three are translated into English); and at my secondary sources (particularly David Bastow and Collett Cox). Someone needs to assess how well or how badly I've understood the sources, and either way to develop the ideas I'm proposing here. But the reality is that this is extremely unlikely to happen. That dynamic is almost entirely lacking in Buddhist scholarship even when the idea is put forward by a well know scholar with qualifications and a teaching post in a university. Most scholars are too busy pursuing their own avenues of research to spend time criticising the work of others. 80% of social science journal articles are never cited at all, so the problem goes beyond Buddhist Studies. Though I may say that David Drewes is a positive example of someone who does engage in this way.
Interviews like the one for Imperfect Buddha Podcastare valuable in the sense that a friendly discussion of challenging material is possible, and the discussion reaches a new audience. Most of the time I don't go around trying to upset people, so I tend to pull my punches when talking to them if I think they are unlikely to agree with me. I have only one or two friends with whom I can be completely unguarded about what I say on these subjects. Some people I know have quite strong views themselves, often developed over decades. I tend not to insist on my own conclusions at the expense of another's. Something about the dynamic of the interview allowed me to state my conclusions without hedging. To put it out there in a more public way. And that felt good. Maybe there will be some response from IBP's audience that I could never get from my blog. Matthew says his own beliefs might have shifted as a result of talking to me. That's more than I could have hoped for.
Once the ideas have been more rigorously tested and refined, and once a lot more people with a stake in the game are on board, then would be the time to start exploring what to do next. I'd prefer to see us coming up with something cooperatively, than for Buddhists to continue atomising. If we get dozens or hundreds of competing models then it will take a very long time to sort out which is best. In my mind what Buddhism lacks is something like Sean Carroll's Core Theory. With a modern Buddhist Core Theory we could explain how our practices work to bring about positive change. The way that mental states arise and pass away will most likely be at the heart of our Core Theory. This is also extremely unlikely.
The likelihood is that in 50 years time I'll be long dead and all this will be forgotten. And I will have changed nothing. Life is absurd, eh?
~~oOo~~
My thanks to Matthew and Stuart of the Imperfect Buddha Podcast for their interest and the opportunity to talk to them and their audience about my ideas.
posted by Jayarava Attwood at 09:31 on 06-Nov-2015
22 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formI listened to your interview on IPB and read some of your blog articles. My own theory of karma, based on Richard Gombrich's "What the Buddha Thought" are that karma is intentional action. It's not just any action, as the Jain's taught, nor is it just "intent", which is Gombrich's thesis. It's intentional action. You have to intend to to do harm or good, and you have to carry out that intention as an action. Some of this is based on my training as a lawyer: you can only be convicted of a crime if it can be proven that you intended to do the criminal act.
I have also been a student of social science for 30 years, now working on my Ph.D. in Sociology. Our intentional acts have consequences that continue to affect others (people and living environments) that are distant from us in space and time. I assume that is what you mean by the "Problem of Action at a Temporal Distance". Social science is replete with detailed and empirically verified studies of the consequences of individual and collective actions, historically and culturally, affecting large numbers of people, at great distances and long expanses of time. In fact, this is essentially what social science is about. As a social scientist, I have no problem with the notion that my intentional acts can have consequences that affect others besides those to whom it was directed, effects that exceed my own lifetime, that are felt long after I'm dead. Actions done on a larger social scale have reverberating effects generations after the historical event is over, consequences that affect whole social systems, locally and globally. Why is this not an adequate definition of "karma" and ethical responsibility? The problem is that it may not be Buddhist, i.e. based on Buddhist scripture.
“Rebirth” is far more problematic than karma. It is rebirth that doesn’t make sense in terms of the impermanent and temporal nature of the individual. Unless you pass your genes on to offspring, there is nothing that physically remains of you after you’re dead. “Energy is neither created nor destroyed; it merely changes form” is a way of explaining the continuity of material reality, but there is nothing in that formula that says “and karmic acts will adhere exactly to the path of transformation and forms that energy takes.” In fact, the effects of one’s intentional acts affect the actor only until he dies; after that, they may affect other people in other places, but not the individual who committed them.
So the choice to act in an ethical manner is ultimately a choice of free will. Your acts will not affect you after you’e dead, but you can know with some certainty that your acts will affect other people. Knowing that, you can choose not to do something that will harm many others besides yourself, others you will never know, others who are born long after you are dead. That is the whole ethic of justice regarding climate change. The effects of climate change will affect millions of people born long after I’m dead, 50, 100, 200 years from now. I can decide that I don’t care about them, that I don’t care what happens to life on the planet after I’m dead. Or I can choose to care and make an ethical decisions to do what I can not to harm future generations. That says nothing that supports the notion of rebirth, but it says volumes about karma and ethical responsibility.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Hi Shaun
The idea that early Buddhists understood karma as cetanā is more of a fact than a theory, and although Richard Gombrich has written about this, it's not a theory he invented or discovered. It's just standard Buddhism. It's entirely uncontroversial as it is based on a Pāḷi text found at AN 6.63 "cetanāhaṃ, bhikkhave, kammaṃ vadāmi. Cetayitvā kammaṃ karoti kāyena, vacāya, manasā. The position of this idea as standard Buddhism is confirmed by Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Chp 17) which cites a Sanskrit version of this passage as representing the Mainstream Buddhist idea of karma.
When you discuss action at a distance you seem to ignore pratītyasamutpāda. When I discuss ADT I do it precisely in this context. Indeed, in the interview I read out the passage in question in Pāḷi. Imasmiṃ sati idaṃ hoti, imass'uppadā idaṃ uppajjati, imasmiṃ asati idaṃ na hoti, imassa nirodhā idaṃ nirujjhati. It is the last part that I have said (again echoing Nāgārjuna) is important in this context and makes karma problematic. There is a conflict. This is the heart of my argument. The general waffle about the likelihood of karma is entirely irrelevant. Every existing theory of karma conflicts with the theory of Dependent Arising; or tries to address this conflict in some way, usually by introducing ad hoc entities. It's a simple argument, and if you want to discuss what I've said about karma you need to address this directly.
Similarly with rebirth. You seem to completely ignore what I write and just tell me what you think about rebirth in a very general way. This is neither interesting nor apposite. If you really have listened to the interview and read the relevant blog posts, and if you are doing a PhD (meaning that you know how to think), then why not comment on the ideas being presented? Otherwise you really are missing an opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to the discussion. If you just want to have a general discussion of Buddhism while ignoring my ideas about karma and rebirth then the comments section of my blog is not the place to do that.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
More rudeness from Jayarava.
Don't worry Shaun - I thought you made very valid and interesting points. This seems to be a territorial thing with Jayarava (a young man clearly obsessed by the infallibility of his own logic), you're on his patch. The chances of meaningful dialogue are limited.
Phil
Friday, November 13, 2015
And... this is why there aren't many comments on my blog. This sort of thing usually goes straight in the bin. But this kind of generic angry comment gives rise to some meta-reflections. It's a amazing how many different kinds of wrong Philip James can be in just 60 words.
The first thing I notice about people who accuse me of rudeness is that they are inevitably angry and rude themselves, just like our Cat-avatared interlocutor. And thus it seems to be a projection of their own emotional state onto what I write. Listen to the interview. I'm just not that angry about this stuff, I'm laughing half the time, and I have a great discussion with Matthew. It's all in the approach - Matthew was interested in what I have to say and approached me with respect. Shaun hasn't bothered to think about the material presented, he's telling me what he already thinks and that my presentation has not altered his views in the slightest. The puzzle is how anyone could imagine that I'd be interested in having that conversation. To me this is the height of rudeness.
The second thing I notice is that people make all kind of assumptions about me. In this case that I am a "young man". I'm 50 years old, hardly young. I'm very much a middle-aged man. So why does Philip James think I am "young". It's weird right? It's like he is shadow boxing with what he imagines me to be like, when in fact I'm nothing like that. It all seems to be in his own imagination. The internet seems to do this - projections and assumptions are not challenged and grow under their own momentum. Under confirmation bias, according to Mercier & Sperber, you'd expect at least a minimal effort to look for confirmation. But Philip James has not even done that. He just has a wild array of wrong views and a sense of frustrated entitlement. People talk about quantum weirdness, but strange men on the internet seem to be even weirder.
The third thing that people project onto me is unwillingness to change my mind or discuss issues. Which is perhaps the strangest thing of all. This whole blog is a record of me changing my mind. 445 essays and probably close to a million words of me changing my mind! It shows time and again how new information rocks my world and makes me reassess my views. Again this was a theme in the interview (which this essay accompanies) as I recounted how my first encounters with Professor Richard Gombrich completely changed my view of Buddhism (and this was after my ordination!). Have a look at the essays from late 2006, early 2007 and see how Richards ideas affected my own. I live to have my mind changed by a good argument. How can anyone not see that in relation to this material - this is me saying "Fucking hell, everything I thought I knew was wrong and here's how I see it now!". And to me this is exhilarating. I'm laughing at this point. This change is what I live for. So Philip James (like many others before him) on his high-horse has catastrophically misunderstood me and my goal in writing. And I suspect has put any possibility of connection or understanding beyond reach - but then this is what my own theory of religious beliefs predicts. Religious people almost can't help themselves because religiosity so grossly warps the ability to reason.
So Philip James has, in just 60 words, epitomised everything that is wrong with the intellectual climate of the internet in general and the religious and specifically the Buddhist intellectual clime. And this is why I seldom participate in it any more. The scholarly forums are heavily insulated against this kind of thing now and have become leaden as a result. The open forums have descended into a Lord of the Flies like chaos and confusion. Heresies like mine are not welcomed by Buddhists. They react like a swarm of bees protecting their queen. Mindlessly stinging. I'm not exactly immune to those stings after 20 years of playing in the internet, but I am somewhat inoculated.
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Friday, November 13, 2015
...
My goal in responding to comments of this kind is to discourage the Shauns and the Philip Jame's of this world from commenting. To protect the intellectual integrity of the essays by not allowing extraneous irrelevant discussions to ensue - the comments ought to illuminate points in the essays, else they waste reader's time. This comment probably breaks my own rules, but the phenomenon of blog comments is a kind of subtopic of psychology that interests me.
I used to have a "comments policy" to try to make clear the minimum amount of effort required for participation, but the kind of people who don't read the essays, don't read the comments policy either. And the people who do read the essays properly don't seem to need guidance, they tend to make interesting comments anyway. If you read the essays and ponder them, you have nothing to fear. If you don't and make that clear in your comment, then expect either to be binned or some terse comments suggesting that you do the reading before showing up to class. It's just basic politeness really.
I fully understand that these essays are long for the internet. I'm asking a great deal of my readers. If anyone can't manage that, then that's fine. I'm not judging. What I don't tolerate is the non-readers who think it doesn't matter. Well, it does. On this blog it does matter. So please take your time and read. Or don't comment and use your time more wisely.
Friday, November 13, 2015
I am still struggling with how you're connecting paṭicca-samuppāda - which you've clearly stated all phenomena are explained by - and the "physical" nature of kamma and rebirth.
If paṭicca-samuppāda has nothing to do with the arising of the physical entity, and has everything to do with the arising of phenomena, then how does it negate any theory of karma and rebirth?
Thanks.
Friday, November 13, 2015
No Philip James, sending me abusive tirades by way of comments is not the way to advance the discussion. The most recent one went straight in the bin.
I don't enjoy the endless irrational waffle and repetition of platitudes that passes for informed discussion amongst most Buddhists. I see no reason to indulge it. It does no one any favours to tolerate and indulge uncritical thinking and irrational speculation. In fact it is obviously harmful. So I set boundaries to make curating this blog easier and more enjoyable for me, and hopefully an education for others. In general the comments are the least satisfying aspect of this project. On the other hand the personal emails I get from time to time expressing appreciation for my work are quite satisfying. But basically I just like writing and I'd do it anyway.
This blog is neither a platform for your general views on anything, nor an open forum, nor a chance for you to express your outrage or sense of entitlement. Or your value judgements of me, much less puerile name calling. Join Reddit or something if that is what you are looking for. "It ain't me, babe."
The rule is uncomplicated and straightforward. Read the whole essay from start to finish and if you wish to comment, then comment on the essay. Or don't comment.
Sometimes I have to reinforce the rule, like today. Most days I contemplate switching the comments off permanently so I don't have to deal with this shit. But a handful of people like Adam Cope, David Chapman, Elisa Freschi, or the user known as Swanditch seem to take the time to read and comment thoughtfully and I like them enough to the tolerate the rest... up to a point.
Goodbye, Philip James, whoever you are. I'll have forgotten you by the end of the day.
Friday, November 13, 2015
@Fa Jie Shakya
This is a very good question, thanks for asking it. I hadn't noticed the gap in my explanation and it is an important thing to be clear about. The idea that pratītyasamutpāda only applies to dharmas is my own idea - I believe pratītyasamutpāda only really works in this domain and thus infer that this was what it was intended for. There are some hints in the suttas as well (such as the Kaccānagotta Sutta, SN 12.15). Most Buddhists do not believe this, including most of my colleagues and teachers.
Even by the time the first surviving versions of the scriptures were produced pratītysamutpāda had been applied to karma and rebirth. In the standard doctrine the cetanā is the condition and the vipāka (as punarbhava or vedanā) is the conditioned. I don't think this can work. Pratītyasamutpada argues that when the cetanā ceases the vipāka must cease. We get around this via the doctrine of momentariness - each citta gives rise to another exactly like it until the karma plays itself out. But I've already showed by this cannot work (The Logic of Karma though in this essay I think I've misunderstood the Yogācāra which also accepts the doctrine of momentariness.)
Similarly in rebirth the last moment of mental activity in the dying person is the condition and the first moment of mental activity in the new person is the conditioned. Again I don't think this can work - when the dying person ceases to exist the reborn person ought to cease to exist also!
So although it is standard for Buddhists, ancient and modern, to connect pratītyasamutpāda to karma and punarbhava, i.e. to connect the mental to the physical, I think this is an error. We cannot explain karma and rebirth using pratītysamutpāda. Which is of course a major problem. Once we also invoke the restrictions placed on us by the nature of the universe then there doesn't seem to be any viable explanation of karma and rebirth. Which is disastrous.
The big question is "Now what?" and I confess I'm still not sure. I need to persuade more people and get them to think about what we do now. I like to think we can save Buddhism from oblivion, but some people believe that my ideas destroy Buddhism and that I am therefore not a Buddhist and people should not listen to me. Just as well Buddhists don't tend to martyr heretics.
Thanks again for asking a good question today.
Jayarava
Friday, November 13, 2015
Jayarava,
Thanks for the reply. You're not alone in the idea that dependent arising focuses primarily on the nature of phenomena and experience. This has been my (unscholarly) view for many years. It wasn't until I heard the Imperfect Buddha podcast that I found I wasn't completely alone.
And while I know you're not a fan of the idea of an allegorical (read: psychological) version of kamma and rebirth, I can't help but wonder if there isn't some further investigation warranted - especially if tying kamma/rebirth to a dependent arising focusing on phenomena/experience is ever to come to fruition.
That being said, again I do appreciate the reply. Have a great day.
Friday, November 13, 2015
I think it's totally valid to investigate the possibilities of karma and rebirth as allegorical. I'm not the one to do it, but someone ought to look into it. This is kind of what happened ca 200 BCE - 400 CE. People proposed different solutions and argued for them and against others, and there was a period of experimentation. Unfortunately for us I think the views that won the day on this score, basically Theravāda and Yogācāra, don't survive the transition to modernity. So we're back in the same position. We have to find new ways forward.
It's good to meet someone else who thinks dependent arising focuses on experience. I think this will certainly emerge as a major trend in Buddhist thought in our time. I sometimes call it the "hermeneutic of experience" (i.e. the way of reading texts as though they are referring to experience rather than reality).
All the best
Jayarava
Friday, November 13, 2015
"No, they seamlessly segue between non-continuity when talking about metaphysics, and continuity when talking about ethics without anyone ever noticing what they are doing."
I know you will not accept this, but: The two truths. Morality, karma, and rebirth are all conventional phenomena. They exist only relative to deluded cognition. In absolute truth, we cannot say they exist.
From the conventional perspective, we can talk about post-mortem continuity of identity if and only if we can talk about pre-mortem continuity of identity. Why to rebirth/karma skeptics find the latter unproblematic vis-a-vis Buddhist metaphysics but take issue with the former? It always seemed they hadn't really thought it through. Or perhaps they are not critically examining their own intuition that personal identity is predicated on the continuity of the body.
Madhyamaka recognizes that all our linguistic practices are embedded in deep cognitive habits, and that our statements may or may not agree with conventional appearances to various degrees. Thus talk of "morality" and "karma" is just one such linguistic practice, only valid within those conventional parameters. That may not sound to you like a satisfying basis for a moral theory. But for many it is satisfying enough, because our aforementioned deep cognitive habits are so firmly stuck in our minds that any talk of doing away with morality right now just because it does not absolutely exist, is so much empty sophistry. The traditional response to anyone who excuses their bad behavior with talk of emptiness is to say, if you yourself still get angry when someone steps on your foot, or get hooked by various stimuli into passion and aggression, then you still have to cultivate ethics. Padmasambhava said, "My view is as vast as the sky, and my conduct is as fine as a grain of sand." That's no fudge, it's very profound.
Jayarava, you say the karma is incompatible with pratitya-samutpada. I have no idea what you could possibly mean by this, because *the* canonical formulation of pratitya-samutpada as a distinctive theory and not just a generalized view of causality, is the twelve nidanas. As is well known, samskara/sankhara is identified with karmic conditioning. So without karma there is no pratitya-samutpada. And of course we know that without rebirth there is no pratitya-samutpada, because the last three nidanas are 10. becoming, 11. birth, and 12. aging and death. So if these two contradict pratitya-samutpada, please tell me what is left of this as a meaningful idea after you have thrown out the twelve nidanas.
Re rebirth, Shaun quoted, "Energy is neither created nor destroyed; it merely changes form" but asserted that karma is not like this. But I think this quote needs a closer look. To say that energy is not destroyed, but that it changes, is philosophically suspect. If it changes, it is not the same. If it is not the same, on what basis can we posit a continued identity over time such that we can say it is not destroyed? Better to say that energy is destroyed, but gives rise to a new moment of energy of (somehow) equal value. So you could say energy is constantly transfering its "value" to new instances of energy.
You probably picked up that this makes the idea consistent with Buddhist metaphysics of momentariness. It also makes it easier to relate it to the idea of karma and rebirth. A traditional non-Yogacara answer to the question, "What survives death?" is: Karma survives death. Karma conditions the consciousness, which, when it gives rise to a new moment of consciousness, transfers its load or total karmic value to that new consciousness. And it keeps going until the karma gives rise to its effect.
I know Jayarava has done his homework, so I don't post this for his benefit, but for anyone who reads this blog post and mistakes it for a devastating critique of karma and rebirth.
Monday, November 16, 2015
"The idea that pratītyasamutpāda only applies to dharmas is my own idea - I believe pratītyasamutpāda only really works in this domain and thus infer that this was what it was intended for."
Then there's a contradiction in your thinking, inasmuch as you want to advance your interpretation of pratitya-samutpada while expunging elements of Buddhism incompatible with modern science. You've already noted that you think non-physicalism wrt mind is impossible according to the laws of physics. So if the mental just resolves to the physical, how could pratitya-samutpada be restricted to phenomenology and still be true at all? Because then the mind and its experiential realm would just be epiphenomena.
The only way to rescue pratityasamutpada is to say that mental events and phenomena/dharmas are efficacious qua the mental. But then you are in contradiction with your assertion that physics describes a closed system and rules out dualism.
Monday, November 16, 2015
Hi Vimarepa
Thanks for your long comment. Sadly it is full of contradictions and confused statements.
First you say:
"Morality, karma, and rebirth are all conventional phenomena. They exist only relative to deluded cognition. In absolute truth, we cannot say they exist."
later you say:
"What survives death?" is: Karma survives death."
Something that does not exist is what survives death? Is "survive" a word that can be applied to something that doesn't exist? I think not.
The fundamental problem with your approach is that you indulge in a form ontological speculation (an assertion about existence and/or non-existence that can have no basis in experience). It is a more sophisticated kind of speculation than that imagined and discouraged in the Early Buddhist texts, but still speculative. Where we ought understand that neither existence (astitā) nor non-existence (nāstitā) can possibly apply to dharmas, the Mādhyamika argues that *both* apply and take dharmas to be something more than simply the objects of manas. And this is just nonsense. And the statements that follow from this erroneous metaphysical speculation are also nonsense.
Why wasn't this nonsense weeded out of Buddhism centuries ago? After all, even Nāgārjuna was aware of the injunction against talking in terms of astitā and nāstitā (since he cites the very words in his master-work - MMK 15.7). The most important thing about the Madhyamaka critique is that it is easy to win arguments using this rhetoric and the accompanying strategies. The strategy of relativizing all statements is one that closes down any discourse. Mādhyamikas believe in an absolute reality that is beyond words, which allows them to both believe and to refuse any discussion on the subject. Thus the belief is forever beyond the reach of argument. It is perhaps the ultimate expression of the psychology of religious belief. The absolute belief that can never be argued with. Hence the smugness of so many of its proponents I suppose.
On the other hand while Mādhyamikas factionalised and embarked on epic, centuries-long internal arguments over how to interpret Nāgārjuna, Yogācārins simply redefined most of the key ideas of Nāgārjuna to suit their own purposes and went their own way. I need to look more closely at Yogācāra, but I don't think it offers much hope - it's clear that they too indulged in speculative metaphysics of the unhelpful kind. And they certainly accepted momentariness, which we know fails to solve the central problem I highlight.
It's important not to engage with religious believers like Vimarepa on their own terms because those terms are designed specifically to defeat and suppress counterfactual arguments. We must state our own terms. In this case we reject the ontological speculations and avoid being drawn into the tautological defences of the Mādhyamika rhetoric.
The simple fact is that if we do this then dependent-arising itself refutes karma because asya nirodhād idaṃ nirudhyate.
Nāgārjuna identified this problem (MMK 17.1-6) and did try to deal with it. His solution involves kicking the whole problem into the long grass of the Two Truths: it's all just an illusion. However, as above, the Two Truths are in fact two falsehoods, so this is not a workable solution either.
Of the other historical solutions to this problem (momentariness, sarva-asti-vāda, pudgala-vāda, etc), all of which involve tinkering with dependent-arising to save karma, only one survives into modern times: momentariness. BTW I have only recently realised that Yogācārins also accepted momentariness and thus I may have made some wrong assertions in that area for which I apologise. However, since I have a well developed critique of momentariness and how it fails to reconcile dependent-arising with karma, correcting my error in fact makes my task much simpler.
So that's where we are. Dependent-arising itself refutes karma.
Monday, November 16, 2015
Vimarepa's second comment demonstrates two things.
The first is that he is very definitely engaged in ontological speculation - Vimarepa is obsessed with existence and non-existence and thinks that our argument is being held in these terms. He does not see that his own epistemology itself denies him access to the kind of knowledge of existence and non-existence that his argument is predicated on. And this is, I have to say, extremely funny. The fact that he is trying to argue with me on the basis of ontology, when I am making points about epistemology is a measure of how much he misunderstands what I'm saying and also misunderstands what is under discussion.
My fundamental thesis is that epistemology places limits on knowledge. In Buddhist terms there is no access to reality, we only know that which we experience arising and passing away. This is not a disaster for Buddhism because of where it initially focusses. Before Buddhists become obsessed with ontology, they were mainly interested in why experience is unsatisfactory. In modern terms we *can* reliably infer things about reality through careful observation and comparing notes. Pratītyasamutpāda as I apply it, to dharmas arising and passing away, tends to accept as a starting point the limits understood by Buddhists for the same reasons - other concerns are secondary to the Buddhist project.
That said, I can carefully extend this argument because I have identified a flaw in how Buddhist philosophers understand epistemology - a flaw that the Europeans shared until very recently. For which I credit Sean Carroll and his Twitter bio. Philosophers are all so self-absorbed that they understand each individual to be isolated from other individuals (some go as far as to deny the existence of other individuals, but this is simply silly). When we compare notes with other people (like a scientist does) we can use similarities and patterns to infer knowledge of reality (a little like inferring the air by examining how leaves move in the wind - something the ancient Indians got disastrously wrong BTW). By comparing notes and arguing about the results, we refine our ability to accurately navigate the world using inferred knowledge. This method of empiricism and argumentation has been an incredibly, wildly successful strategy for knowledge seeking - creating modern technological culture as we find it today. However, we have no independent way of verifying our inferences. We still do not *know*, though we can he fairly confident of some of our inferences since they allow us to reliably navigate through our experience of the world. There are still epistemological limits. And Vimarepa is blind to these epistemological limits. They think they can say with certainty what reality is like. Which is not something that I believe at all.
Monday, November 16, 2015
The second thing their comment demonstrates is a kind of natural progression in the pattern of arguing with religieux. We move from denial on the basis of articles of faith, to attack in formalist ways, i.e. "you are a materialist" (Materialist/physicalist being a term of abuse here). I noted more than a year ago before the failure to understand these terms and the widespread misuse of them. I am certainly not a materialist - what someone with my point of view is called is a "Transcendental Idealist" (a term coined by Immanuel Kant). I don't believe we can directly know reality. But we can know our own experience and even to some extent gain some meta-knowledge about how experience works. Which is enough. However I'm not purely a Kantian Transcendental Idealist because of the comparing notes aspects of my view, though I do maintain a distinction between knowledge gained from experience and inferred knowledge. I know that copper-sulphate is blue; I infer that this is because of the physical properties of copper atoms and the crystal structure.
In the progression of these kinds of discussions we go from denial to anger. What comes next is usually some kind of ad hominem as the frustration of failing to win the argument begins to tell. Having given the game away I may have changed the course of the argument, but let's see if Vimarepa can resist?
Monday, November 16, 2015
Something that does not exist is what survives death? Is "survive" a word that can be applied to something that doesn't exist? I think not.
You are confusing absolute and relative levels of analysis.
Where we ought understand that neither existence (astitā) nor non-existence (nāstitā) can possibly apply to dharmas, the Mādhyamika argues that *both* apply and take dharmas to be something more than simply the objects of manas.
No, Madhyamaka argues that, ultimately, existence, nonexistence, both, and neither cannot be predicated of dharmas. Surely you've heard of the catuskoti? Madhyamikas are, in fact, quite explicit that "both existent and non-existent" do not apply to dharmas, because it refutes existence and non-existence individually, and hence jointly as well. What is left over after Madhyamaka analysis is "dependently arisen mere appearances."
Let's consider this phrase more closely, because "mere appearances" means the opposite of what you are saying, that Madhyamikas "take dharmas to be something more than simply the objects of manas." One of the targets of Madhyamaka critique is the idea that dharmas are mind-independent.
Your statement "we ought understand that neither existence (astitā) nor non-existence (nāstitā) can possibly apply to dharmas" is straight-up Madhyamaka, so it's ironic that you're using it against Madhyamaka.
I suspect your confusion comes from reading Western scholarship heavily influenced by Geluk interpretations of Madhyamaka, and reading those interpretations into the Indian Madhyamaka texts. Try reading Gorampa's "Distinguishing the Views," which was translated by Jose Cabezon as "Freedom from Extremes." His critique of Tsongkhapa will put your understanding of Madhyamaka right.
Mādhyamikas believe in an absolute reality that is beyond words
No, that's what Vedantists believe. Madhyamikas would say this is eternalist.
Monday, November 16, 2015
It is perhaps the ultimate expression of the psychology of religious belief. The absolute belief that can never be argued with. Hence the smugness of so many of its proponents I suppose.
This is extremely unjust, give Madhyamaka a fair shake. There's no way to respond to such ad homs except to say, "No way dude, I'm not smug!"
It's important not to engage with religious believers like Vimarepa on their own terms because those terms are designed specifically to defeat and suppress counterfactual arguments.
Wow, thanks! You forgot to mention, "We don't negotiate with terrorists."
The simple fact is that if we do this then dependent-arising itself refutes karma because asya nirodhād idaṃ nirudhyate.
Jayarava, it is disingenuous of you to use this statement as the seminal expression of pratityasamutpada and to make it to the work of refuting karma. What it means is, "When this ceases, that ceases," but you have interpreted it as "the conditioned cannot persist after the condition has ceased" (http://visiblemantra.blogspot.com/2015/10/mulamadhyamaka-karika-176.html) When I saw it, I suspected that it was meant in the context of the twelve nidanas, so as to say that we can break the loop of samsara by eliminating ignorance. So I did a little digging and that is exactly what it means:
And again, when this does not exist, that does not exist; when this ceases, that ceases: When ignorance ceases, activities [samskara] cease; when activities cease, consciousness ceases, and so on ... and thus ceases this whole mass of suffering. (apparently translated by Lamotte)
I should be clear now that "when this ceases, that ceases" does not at all mean that an effect can only exist so long as its cause still exists! What an incredible idea! If Buddhism actually said that, it would mean that any causal sequence of events in time is impossible, because of pratitya-samutpada.
What's even more astonishing than your ripping this phrase out of context and twisting its meaning, is that you are quoting from a Mahayana sutra (Paramartha-sunyata-sutra) and passing it off as if it speaks for the early Buddhist idea of pratitya-samutpada, and thus somehow shows that karma and pratiyasamutpada are incompatible. You've shown nothing of the sort.
As for MMK 17.6, it says, and I'm sorry I have to rely on the Tibetan as I don't know Sanskrit:
"If it abode until the time it ripened,
That karma would be permanent.
If it ceased, how will the ceased [karma]
Produce an effect?"
It is obvious that what Nagarjuna is up to here is not any special critique of karma, but his usual reductio of every single major category of Buddhist thought, in order to prove that the predicating existence and non-existence of them leads to absurdity. But in particular, here he is taking on Sarvastivada.
He follows up:
"A sprout, etc.--any continuation--
Arises directly from a seed.
The effect thereof, if there was
No seed, would also not arise.
Because from the seed the continuation,
And from the continuation the effect come to arise,
The seed goes before the effect,
Therefore, it is neither annihilated nor permanent."
This is the "middle way" between his previous reductio. In one sense, the seed has not "ceased" because there is a causal chain that arises from the seed. But in another sense, it has ceased and is not permanent because it precedes the effect and does not exist simultaneously with it.
Monday, November 16, 2015
The fact that he is trying to argue with me on the basis of ontology, when I am making points about epistemology is a measure of how much he misunderstands what I'm saying and also misunderstands what is under discussion.
I'm not sure who you're addressing here. You could actually just address me, your interlocutor, because we are two human beings having a discussion. But it is again disingenous of you to say you are making an epistemological argument when you have made an ontological one:
What we need to understand about this equation is that at the mass, energy, and length scales relevant human experience, we can describe the behaviour of matter and energy very, very accurately. No extra force needs to be added to explain any observed behaviour of matter and energy on these scales. If there were other forces, of any kind, that could affect matter on this scale (and thus be part of our experience of the world), then we'd have seen some evidence of them in the millions of experiments carried out to date. If they cannot affect matter then they are of no interest as they cannot make a difference to us.
Then:
"you are a materialist"
This phrase you have placed in quotes, as if I said it. But I did not say it. I did respond, however, to your argument that the afterlife is impossible because it would require dualism, and dualism is refuted because physics is a closed system. You used the term "dualism," I phrased it "non-physicalism wrt to mind"--six of one, half a dozen of the other--but nowhere did I say you are a physicalist. What I did do was give an argument in which I pointed out a contradiction in your thinking. I note you have not actually addressed the contradiction, but have instead sidestepped it with an irrelevant declaration of your Kantian affinities, as well some condescending remarks about how I am about to deliver an ad hominem because of "failing to win the argument" (even as you avoid any actual argumentation)--right after your own ad hominem exposing the "psychology" of the "religieux."
I will conclude with the observation that every vice of the "religieux" which you have mentioned--smugness, dogmatism, ad hominem fallacies, etc.--are on display here, but not by me.
I don't know what I did to get on your nerves besides disagree with you. I don't really care. I had already started writing my response before your later comments, and I decided to finish what I started. But now I'm finished, as I don't much enjoy the abuse.
Monday, November 16, 2015
"You are confusing absolute and relative levels of analysis."
No I am rejecting the terms on which one erroneously analyses experience as absolute or relative. It's a metaphysical analysis with no basis in experience. What you claim to be a valid speculation about the nature of dharmas I argue there is no epistemological basis for.
You clearly do believe in an absolute, but are well enough schooled in the word games you play to never admit it openly. But it's obvious in the way you write. This is what I mean about the rhetorical strategies and why I don't accept the frame of reference you are arguing from.
Another big difference between our approaches is that you cite translations of translations, whereas I cite the Pāḷi and Sanskrit versions of the words. I understand how to read a locative absolute construction using present participles or an ablative of cause and thus I can be confident of simply reading the text. I don't read it through the interpretive intermediary of a translator. I don't need to refer to some secondary authority, or if I did it might be a grammar book. Certainly not a secondary translation. The words are not ambiguous or difficult to read. They certainly don't say what you would like them to say. And Nāgārjuna clearly agrees with me despite your attempt to interpret his intent - the words themselves give the lie to the interpretation. Here is what Nāgārjuna wrote in Sanskrit:
tiṣṭhaty ā pākakālāc cet karma tan nityatām iyāt /
niruddhaṃ cen niruddhaṃ sat kiṃ phalaṃ janayiṣyati // MMK 17.6 //
What could be clearer? If an action has ceased, then being ceased what fruit can it produce? Nāgārjuna obviously understands the Sanskrit phrase asya nirodhād idam nirudhyate in exactly the same way that I do. If the action remains beyond the time of maturation - tan nityatām iyāt, i.e. THAT (tan) WOULD BE (iyāt) ETERNALISM (nityatām). We are saying exactly the same thing at this point.
You want the words to confirm your articles of faith. They simply do not. Nāgārjuna's critique of early Buddhist karma and mine are perfectly aligned. If you understood your own source texts better you would be in a better position to think about this.
Monday, November 16, 2015
I think perhaps your English translation of the Tibetan translation of MMK has confused the follow up verses to 17.6. Nāgārjuna doesn't talk about the Sarvāstivāda at all in this chapter (who in any case did not have a seed theory, but instead had a always existent dharma theory). What is being described here is the Sautrāntika bīja metaphor for karma. It seeks to describe the working of karma, which cannot be observed, by analogy to a process which can be observed, the growth of a seed. But the analogy doesn't work because an action isn't a seed; or even like a seed. It's just a false analogy. Th seed analogy just one of those really common Indian analogies that one finds everywhere in Indian literature. It's what they said when they didn't understand how a process worked, but had some sense of the inputs and outputs to the process.
It is funny the nonsensical things that Buddhists are willing to believe in order to preserve karma. Funny to see ignorance masquerading as knowledge. The mere repetition of a formulaic spiel is no substitute for thinking for oneself.
The trouble is that if we admit to a flaw, or to a false analogy, then we have to admit that we do not understand karma. The claim to understand it, despite all the evidence to the contrary, is yet another manifestation of the dynamics of the belief system. Belief that they know the ultimate truth makes religious people are more or less impervious to counterfactual arguments.
And we end with the predicted personal comments. So far so good. My model of the psychology of religious belief accurately predicts the tone of your response to my raising doubts about your articles of faith. Thanks for the demonstration. Though of course when n=1 the test is rather trivial and inconclusive.
Well, dear readers, this is what we are up against. Is it worth it?
Monday, November 16, 2015
That's a very nice game you played. First, when someone comments, you quickly suss out if they are "religious" or not. If so, you tell yourself, "Aha! they are going to follow the predictable stages of argumentation, according to the religious psychology that I have identified!" Then you provoke them with insults and condescension. You are allowed to do this, but they are not, because this is your show. If they deviate from the ostensible subject matter and respond to your personal provocations at all--even with such a mild observation as that you are doing the very thing you accuse them of doing--you triumphantly exclaim that the expected ad hominem has materialized. Checkmate! See, dear readers, how right Jayarava was all along? Did you enjoy the show? Now you see what we're up against. Is it worth it to engage such a perverse psychology?
Buddhists who agree with me about karma and rebirth ought to take evolution as a cautionary tale. We can easily screw this up, by failing to express enough kindness towards the people whose views we disagree with.
Off to a great start!
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
Hi Vimarepa
You don't factor your own approach and attitudes into the discussion. I'm sure I've mentioned this kind of thing before, but it will be worth using this example to highlight the self-blindness (the lack of self-awareness) that seems to come with religious faith. There might even be a blog in it.
If you think this exchange was a game it might be because of your opening gambit. I mean, take a close look at your first comment and it's clear that you sought to play me from the outset. Your comment is dripping with condescension. No wonder you find this word apposite as you seem to constantly express the emotion. Now you are complaining because I out-played you? Look at the other comments on the thread. Those who approach me on the level get a level answer. Those who point out real flaws in my argument are duly acknowledged for their contribution (a few will even be cited in my book on the subject). My response to you is a reflection of your approach to me.
And yes, it has been a game. A game you lost, this time. But better a game or a dance than a war, eh? A game doesn't mean anything, though it has helped to highlight methods for dealing with your kind of passive-aggression. So for me it was quite useful.
And yes it is difficult to express kindness when someone is being an arsehole and being so very persistent about it. And yes, when someone opens a dialogue with a derisive put-down I do find it difficult to warm to them. On the other hand I did think you were inadvertently very funny, so I was experiencing pleasant emotions most of the time. I laughed out loud a few times. And in your accusing me of lacking kindness I get another laugh, because you set out to belittle me and now complain that I was not kind enough to you. It's funny, no?
Do take a look at the other threads here, Vimarepa. Or any number of threads anywhere on the blog. There is a pervasive pattern. I respond in kind (and I am an expert at textual analysis). You set out to take me down a peg. Indulging your behaviour would not have been a kindness.
I admit to being a little bit provocative, though I was not so outrageous about it as you were. A few small barbs that very easily got under your skin and which you have now inflated out of all proportion. If you have the affront to attack me in my own house... well, (to change metaphors mid-stream) I'd be unkind to myself to just let you take a dump on me. Wouldn't I? And that's what you were trying to do.
But, you did not lose because I was a tiny bit mean. You lost the argument because I know the source material better than you do, and that became painfully obvious. You were floundering and grasping at straws. Also I refused to argue within the framework you take to be absolute and that means you really have nothing to say - typical of religious thinking is the inability to get outside the little box that you take to be the absolute truth. Lastly, you underestimated my willingness to take your challenge and run with it (a lot of Mādhyamikas seem to think they are invincible in argument).
You know what else is funny? A little Google search showed up that we have met online before. I disagreed with one of your comments on an article in the Guardian titled "Take me to the cosmic vagina: inside Tibet's secret tantric temple". A week later you show up here...
So thanks for the game, sport.
Love
Jayarava
Tuesday, November 17, 2015