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From: japlady@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Rebecca Radnor)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Zen and Brahman
Message-ID: <1991May6.224737.17589@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 6 May 91 22:47:37 GMT
Sender: japlady@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Rebecca Radnor)
Organization: Northwestern University
Lines: 35
Approved: prabhu@amelia.nas.nasa.gov


    Regarding Madhyamika and Vedanta (re J, Wheeler); I do agree that there
are parallels between the two traditions, especially their respective
emphasis on uprooting erroneous conceptualizations.  Although many
of the differences are merely semantic I think there are some major
"disagreements".  As I understand advaita vedanta, one of the basic
doctrines is that of sat-cit-ananda, or Being, Consciousness, and Bliss;
these designations describe Brahman (of course we cannot really talk about
characteristcs of Brahman since Brahman is w/out a second) and imply an
underlying unchanging Reality covered by the illusory perception of change
and multiplicity.  This assumption is one that the Madhyamika denies
totally; in fact there is no Reality in the vedantic sense for the
Madhyamika.  The only Truth is the identity between emptiness and dependent
co-arising, which simply means that any phenomenon in and of itself.  Many
Indian scholars and westerners trained in Indian philosophy in general have
given quasi-vedantic interpretations of Madhyamika.  There is also this odd
notion of the perennial philosophy of the "East" which results in a
"Hinduistic" interpretation of all asian religions if not all religions.
Others of Xtian persuasion try (at leasst used to) to interpret emptiness
in terms of the Wholly/Holy Other which has ethnocentric/racist
implications.  If one is really interested in comparing madhyamika with
other 'systems' you should ask the following question; is this system's
concept of the Absolute necessary for its coherence?  E.g., can you toss
out your beleifs in Brahman/Atman or God, etc?  Is one willing to even
consider that nivana IS samsara? 
    As far as the statement "the buddha is your own mind": this is
equivalent to "your everyday life is enlightenment" which brings us back to
Nagarjuna's statement 'nirvana is no other than samsara, samsara no other
than nirvana'.  If we can talk about a 'Truth' in buddhism, particularly
zen, it is that the moment to moment presencing of all things is the truth;
i.e., lets not waste time searching for some underlying reality.  
     Regarding my own experience in actual practice, I've been sitting
(zazen) for 10 years.  This of course neither lends credence to nor takes
away from the above comments.
     (J. Cha  c/o Japlady)