Xref: utzoo soc.religion.eastern:356 talk.religion.misc:33531 Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!eagle!data.nas.nasa.gov!news From: david@star2.cm.utexas.edu (David Sigeti) Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern,talk.religion.misc Subject: Buddhism and the reality of the phenomenal world (was Re: bloody Buddhists!) Message-ID: <1990Dec18.004932.9293@nas.nasa.gov> Date: 18 Dec 90 00:49:32 GMT References: <3083@sequent.cs.qmw.ac.uk> <4293@idunno.Princeton.EDU> <4542@idunno.Princeton.EDU> Sender: news@nas.nasa.gov Organization: University of Texas at Austin Lines: 210 Approved: prabhu@amelia.nas.nasa.gov In article <4542@idunno.Princeton.EDU> elturner@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Edwin L Turner) writes: [An extension of our discussion of the relationship between Buddhism and violence.] It seems to me that there is really too much going on in this discussion for a single thread so I am going to break up my response into several new threads. Here, I will discuss the attitude of Buddhism toward the question of the reality of the phenomenal world. In a later posting, I will talk about the specific question of the reality of suffering. Finally, I hope to produce a posting on the question of whether or not Buddhism has an "essence" that can be seen as purely transcendental. The exchange began when Ed wrote: >> 1) Buddhism does not consider violence (or anything else) wrong >> or bad in principle ("mindless killing" takes on a new >> meaning within a zen vocabulary). I replied: >This is simply not true. Buddhism considers anything that >increases the suffering of sentient beings evil and has always >opposed violence as a primary source of suffering, both for the >victims and the perpetrators (assuming the action of the law of >karma). Ed replied My understanding is that "the suffering of sentient beings" is not evil; rather it is illusion, a dream, yet another aspect of the clouds of Maya. The goal of Buddhism is to escape the illusion by awakening; to get caught up in trying to control/modify/judge the dream is just the desire/attachment which chains us to it. This is the most standard and basic Buddhist philosophy and is essentially what is expressed in my .sig below, a quote often said to capture the essence of the Buddha's teachings. . . . . . . . . Ed Turner "Suffering alone exists, none who suffer; phoenix!elturner The deed there is, but no doer thereof; Nirvana is, but no one seeking it; The Path there is, but none who travel it." or elturner@phoenix.Princeton.EDU - The Visuddhimagga (16) The notion that Buddhism teaches that suffering, or other aspects of observable reality, are "illusions" is a very serious (but very common) misreading of Buddhist teaching. It seems to arise in part from a confusion of Buddhism with certain forms of Brahminism. For example, I have never seen any reference to the "veil of Maya" in any Buddhist sutra, although many people seem to think that the concept is a part of Buddhism. Ironically, the quote in Ed's signature directly contradicts his conclusion. It says quite clearly that suffering -- along with actions, nirvana, and the path -- exists. The quote is really just a restatement of the fundamental Buddhist doctrine of anatta -- the teaching that there is nothing in a human being (or anything else) that corresponds to a "self" or "essence". What Buddhism *does* teach is that our picture of the phenomenal world is fundamentally distorted by our ingrained habit of grasping. This grasping is not just the kind of gross behavior visible as, for example, greed. Rather, it is a property of our most basic mental processes. It is traditionally held to come in to play around or just after the point where we first become aware of something. In other words, it follows right on the heels of each momentary perception that we have. Thus, things are not as we think they are not because our senses are deceiving us but because our habit of grasping distorts the picture that we have of the world and what it contains. One particular distortion caused by this habit of grasping is that we tend to see things as being more substantial, solid, and permanent then they really are -- the better to grasp and hold them. In other words, we fail to see the impermanence of the phenomenal world. Another way that our view of the world is distorted by our habit of grasping is that we tend to think that if we can just get hold of the thing that we are trying to grasp *right now*, then we will be happy. Of course, once we get the thing that we are trying to grasp *right now*, we will start hankering after something else. We fail to see the inherently limited ability of the things that we grasp to make us happy. A somewhat less obvious (but really more important) consequence of our habit of grasping is that we tend to see things as having an "essence", a "heart", that can be grasped. In particular, we come to believe that *we* have an essence, a "self", some part of us that is our true heart, our true being. Now, in the course of ordinary life, it is necessary to "grasp" many things, both physically and mentally. In this context, it is often convenient or even necessary to regard some property of an object or situation as "essential". Indeed, this is the most common colloquial use of the English word that I just quoted. Clearly, such "essences" have no absolute or ultimate reality. In particular, they have a tendency to change when we need to approach the object or situation in a different way. In other words, even though we think that what we are taking as "essential" is an absolute or inherent property of the object, in reality it is a contigent property of our current (basically practical) relationship to the object. In psychological terms, we might say that what is wrong with our approach to the world has two aspects: an affective aspect, grasping; and a cognitive aspect, principally a belief in "essences". Although refuting the cognitive error is clearly not going to solve the problem on its own, doing this can be a valuable *aid* to curing our habitually misdirected approach to the world. This is precisely the purpose of the many statements in the Buddhist literature that are sometimes misinterpreted to be saying that the phenomenal world is somehow illusory or nonexistent. When the sutras say that "the sentient beings are not really sentient beings," they are not saying that the sentient beings are not there at all. Rather, they are saying that the sentient beings are not what we take them to be. In particular, *we* are not what we take *ourselves* to be. This is worth repeating: WE ARE NOT WHAT WE THINK WE ARE. I can't think of a more important insight in the whole of Buddhism. I found this conclusion increasingly evident and inescapable pretty early in my practice of zazen: "Good Heavens, I really am *not* what I thought I was." When the emperor asked Bodhidharma, "Who are you?" Bodhidharma replied, "I don't know." Do *you* know who *you* are? Lin-chi (Rinzai) said, "No man, but causation." There is no human being, only a chain of causation. The old man (who was really a fox) said to Pai-chang (Hakujo), "I am not a human being." Indeed, are any of us "human beings"? As for me, I think that this is "unreality" enough to last me for a lifetime. NOTES 1. In Buddhist literature, one often finds references or allusions to the "three signs (or marks) of being". These are: 1. "dukkha", usually translated "suffering" but more properly "unsatisfactoriness" or even "stress"; 2. "anicca", meaning "impermanence", and; 3. "anatta", translated "no-self" or "not-self". The first two are taken to be characteristic of all "samkhara" (conditioned things) while the third is characteristic of all "dhamma", that is, of all things whatsoever. This includes, in addition to conditioned things, the "unconditioned", that is, nirvana. 2. As Ed seems to be saying, somewhat indirectly, the teaching of anatta ("no-self" or "not-self") is frequently presented as the "core" or "heart" of Buddhism. I am not sure that I would go this far. It should be clear from the discussion above that I am likely to be suspicious of a claim to present the "essence" of Buddhism (or of anything else). Nevertheless the teaching of anatta is clearly central to Buddhism and is certainly its most distinctive feature. Theravadin Buddhism emphasizes anatta as its most important teaching. The concept is even more important (if that is possible) in Mahayana in the form of the doctrine of "shunyata" (emptiness). That shunyata is essentially (:-)) the same as anatta is stated explicitly by Nagarjuna, who first promulgated the doctrine of shunyata about 2000 years ago (I am not sure about the reference). That this is a fundamental point of agreement between Theravada and Mahayana is pointed out by the Theravadin monk Walpola Rahula in "What the Buddha Taught" in the chapter on anatta. 3. I have included the quotations from Zen sources partly to show how Zen takes basic Buddhist teachings and presents them in its own distinctive and very effective style. It has been my experience that, most of the time, what the Zen masters are saying is just basic Buddhism. Generally, I think that if one wants to understand what the Zen masters are saying, one needs to approach them through Buddhism. Trying to go the other way -- trying to understand Buddhism through Zen -- seems to result mostly in missing the point. Bodhidharma's "I don't know," is a very famous Zen story that is probably well known to almost every student of Zen. I think that the meaning, on this level, is fairly clear. The quote from Lin-chi is less well known. I don't know a reference off-hand but it should be findable in any good book about Lin-chi's teachings. Its meaning is, I think, even clearer than Bodhidharma's "I don't know," especially when one realizes that Lin-chi is alluding to the "chain of conditioned origination" of Buddhist psychology (Abhidharma). "I am not a human being," is from "Hyakujo's fox", the second koan in the Wu-men kuan (Mumonkan). I certainly don't want to claim to understand this koan on even the most superficial level. It is unusually long and eerily evocative and is reputed to be very difficult and "advanced". It has also served, I have been told, as a nearly bottomless source for commentaries. That said, I have it on good authority that the phrase that I have quoted is the "key" or "gateway" to the koan and this much seems clear to me. Certainly, if the old man is not a human being it is hard to see what he is doing listening to a Zen master's talks and asking him questions. Conversely, if he *is* a human being then it is hard to see what his problem is. Thus, we are naturally led to the question, "What is a human being?", and then to this question in its most intimate form, "What is *this* human being (right here)?". I don't mean to imply that this is *the* point of the koan -- only that the koan is clearly raising this question. -- David Sigeti david@star2.cm.utexas.edu cmhl265@hermes.chpc.utexas.edu