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Mahāyāna Buddhist Philosophy— EAS
468 L. Priestley Carr
Hall 405 Tues., Thu. 3-4 Section Three: Relating the Three Natures LP returned to the third section of the Golden Lion: The lion exists according
to feelings; this is called universal imagination. The lion exists in
seeming; this is called dependence upon others. The nature of the gold does
not change; so it is called fully perfected. I indicated briefly how these three natures were understood in Yogacara, from which this doctrine is derived. Dependent Nature The dependent nature is the ongoing flow of consciousness shaping itself, transforming itself in accordance with karma, so according to the principle of causality the imaginary nature, the parikalpitasvabhava, is the world of selves and things or dharmas existing supposedly apart from the consciousness we create through our primordial misunderstanding. Perfected Nature And the perfected nature, the parinispannasvabhava, is consciousness only recognized as such, so it’s the dependent nature purified or cleansed of the imaginary nature—so the same stream of consciousness when it’s no longer seen as involving selves and dharmas external to consciousness, then it’s the perfected nature. Two Natures So there’s a sense in which there are only two natures: you have consciousness itself and the imaginary beings or things that we superimpose on it. And the dependent nature is in that sense simply the mixing up of those two, and of course the imaginary nature isn’t anything at all since these things don’t really exist. One Nature What is actually there is simply the forming of illusions in the dependent nature that is ultimately the perfected nature—so there’s a sense in which there’s only one nature, which is reality. More Mind than Madhyamaka A few points about this: one is that in broad terms this sounds similar to Madhyamaka. There too we have a reality upon which we superimpose a world of things which is supposed to have own-being or svabhava. Where it differs from that is that the things superimposed here are all supposed to be external in one way or another to consciousness itself. There’s supposed to be a self for which the consciousness exists and there are supposed to be things outside of which one has consciousness. Whereas in Madhyamaka the question of whether there are things external to consciousness or not, however interesting it might be from other points of view, is fundamentally irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if things are supposed to be external to consciousness or not. They’re empty. If there are external things they’re empty. If there are no external things then consciousness is empty. Whereas in the Golden Lion it’s set up in terms of consciousness as in some sense reality, and then things outside of consciousness—because they don’t consist of consciousness—are clearly unreal. And the illusion that there are such things is part of the functioning of consciousness. More than a Feeling Another point: I’ve translated “The lion exists according to feelings”—and some translators express this as “according to the senses.” I don’t think that’s completely wrong either, and “according to the feelings” isn’t completely satisfactory either. Vikalpa is what’s obviously meant here, and Candrakirti expresses it as not only the breaking of things into bits but also the ascribing of importance to these bits—seeing some things as good, some things as bad, some as leading to honour, others leading to disgrace—and part of that is the process of generating further putative [would-be] entities that don’t directly correspond to anything in our ordinary experience. And there is of course a strong element of emotion, of preference, of desire and aversion, loosely speaking of feeling in all of this, so I suspect that that’s the kind of thing that Fazang has in mind. You may remember that Sengzhao also speaks of people whose feelings are set on non-existence, so the imaginary nature is a world generated not simply intellectually but through the development of our samskaras, our various mental forces, which on the basis of the illusion of self ascribe various basically selfish values to the things that we suppose to exist. No Change One other point that seems to me to be of interest: Fazang describes the perfected nature as eternal and changeless, which corresponds to the traditional view of nirvana. Nagarjuna conventionally will say the same thing, but he also describes it as subject to conditions. And that strikes one immediately as odd, because the whole point of ultimate reality is that it’s beyond conditions. It is at least conventionally asamskrta, the unconditioned. Practical Transformations And what I suspect that this is connected with is the
recognition that this dependent nature, this ongoing flux
of what from the Yogacara point of view is simply consciousness, does
actually in a practical sense involve changes, transformations, in
accordance with karma. And it’s on the basis of the transformations that we can correctly speak conventionally of this or that state of being, this or that activity, this or that attachment, this or that stage of achieving liberation. Reality Just as It Is It’s true in a way and in an important way, but it neglects the fact, or glosses over the fact, that all of this, just as it is, is reality whether we conceive of it as material and mental existence or as all consciousness. But it’s all here in this form and we either construct a pseudo-reality on top of that in terms of things with own-being, as the Madhyamika would say, or we project from that a self and external objects, as the Yogacarin would say. But all of this has the features that it has however you explain or misinterpret it. There is a table here conventionally and nothing else, and how you conduct your life does make a difference to how things go for you. If you live your life well from a Buddhist standpoint then you will be reborn into a better kind of life. If you live it badly you’ll be born into a less pleasant existence. Caught between One and the Many A student asked if the variety we see in this world,
this differentiation, were the result not of ignorance but rather the
interpretations we make—but in Madhyamaka variety is actually arising from
ignorance. No, the concept of all of this variety arises from ignorance, but to conceive of it as one, as devoid of variety, is also the result of ignorance. It’s truer to say it’s neither the one nor the many. If you know what you’re doing you can think of it as one or as the many depending on the circumstances. So there aren’t two levels of reality, there’s one reality and then our failure to deal with it satisfactorily. And the reality itself is neither one nor many. It’s not universal sameness and it’s not different everywhere either. Section Four: “Showing the Non-existence of Characters” Let’s press on. The fourth section: “Showing the Non-existence of Characters.” This relates to one of the three gates of liberation, which are emptiness, lack of characters or signs or marks, and lack of intention I suppose one could say. And these are basically meditative states or stages, but they are reflected in Mahayana philosophy as well. I think whenever emptiness is talked about, even if it’s not directly identified with the first of the three gates of liberation, there’s still felt to be a connection with it. And the Perfection of Wisdom sutras, I should think, talk as much about the lack of characters or marks, animitta. The lion in its entirety
consists of gold. Apart from the gold there is no character of a lion to be
perceived, and so it is said that the character does not exist. Mark of Nothing This is perfectly straightforward Madhyamaka, it seems to me. Nothing is ultimately a mark of anything Because nothing exists in its own right it can have no mark that identifies it as absolutely distinct, and in that sense self-existent. Section Five: “Explaining the Unarisen” Next, the fifth section: “Explaining the Unarisen.” The “unarisen” of course is basically nirvana. Where earlier Buddhism tends to speak of nirvana simply as cessation, the Mahayana tends to think of it as non-arising. And the point of this is that nirvana ultimately can be described in terms of the ongoing existence of a person as the passing away:
So it’s the non-arising that is significant. What’s important is that things should pass away and not recur. But in the Golden Lion it’s not just the non-arising of things that have passed away but also the non-arising of anything in the first place. Nothing exists with svabhava. [When the arising of the
lion is seen rightly, it is only the arising of the gold. Apart from the gold
not a single thing exists. Although for the lion there is arising and
vanishing, for the gold which is its substance there is neither increase nor
decrease. And so it {is} said to be unarisen.] Tattva Rules So “when the arising of the lion is seen rightly…”: When the things of samsara are seen to come to be. “…it is only the arising of the gold.”: There’s no change. In the reality of you, it’s all still tattva. “Apart from the gold not a single thing exists.” Whether Fazang would say the gold is a thing is left open but I think we can say at least that it’s not a thing in the sense that the various parts of the lion are supposed to be things. “Although for the lion there is arising and vanishing, for
the gold which is its substance there is neither increase nor decrease.” So the gold can be given different shapes and we can say then that different things are coming to be, and so there are endless transformations but it’s all--from another standpoint—the same inasmuch as it’s all tattva or suchness. “And so it is said to be unarisen.”: The gold is unarisen and the lion also is unarisen in the sense that no relation has come to be. There never was anything other than the gold. Independent Lion A student complained that the analogy of the Golden
Lion was making reference to an independent referent, “the lion.” I think you’re pretty certainly right that he is making use of the lion image as something that isn’t a real lion. But of course within this model there is no real lions out there anyways. The golden lion is the universe. In a sense Fazang is relying on something that’s a bit illegitimate. It’s not the golden lion vs. the real lion, but rather the golden lion as the world. There’s a strong tradition in Buddhism, it seems to me not universal but certainly widespread, that shape is unreal. And I can’t say that it’s one of the aspects of traditional Buddhism that I find terribly convincing. I think shape is pretty important and real, but as far as I know the Sarvastivadins are the only ones that regard shape as dravya, somehow substantially existent. I think they think that way because you can take gold and give it different shapes. It’s part of the circumstances that sometimes leads people to feel that material, the stuff of which things are made, is somehow more real than the forms they assume. So I think it’s more that he’s drawing the unreality of the lion in its transience—because the gold can be given a different shape, and also that the lion seems to exhibit the same indeterminate relation to the gold that the self does to the aggregates. It’s not the same as the gold, but you can’t get any shape of the lion apart from it. The student again made some comments. The golden lion
can’t be the whole lion unless we’re going to have something outside that
universe for it to resemble. Yes, the golden lion analogy is very illuminating up to a point but only up to a point—and if we try to push it too far it seems like nonsense. But it seems to be useful. Section Six: “Discussing the Five Doctrines” The sixth section: “Discussing the Five Doctrines.” And I’ll read through all five before I start talking about these. (1) Although the lion is a dharma
which has a cause and conditions, arising and vanishing from moment to
moment, in reality there is no aspect of a lion to be perceived. This is
called the doctrine of the śrāvakas who are unintelligent about dharmas. (2) Now these dharmas which have
arisen dependently, being each without any nature of its own, are ultimately
nothing but emptiness. This is called the preliminary doctrine of the Mahāyāna. (3) But although they are ultimately
nothing but emptiness, their illusory existence is not hindered from being as
it is. The two aspects, dependent origination and nominal existence, both
remain. This is called the final doctrine of the Mahāyāna. (4) Now these two aspects cancel each
other and both vanish; no construction of the feelings remains. Both are
powerless; emptiness and existence are both obliterated. The course of
utterance is stopped, and the mind rests without lodging. This is called the
sudden doctrine of the Mahāyāna. (5) Now these dharmas in which the
feelings are eliminated and substance is revealed merge into a single mass.
Its vast activity springs forth in many ways, and whatever arises can only be
perfect reality. The myriads of images in their profusion intermingle without
disorder. The all is the one, for everything is equally without a nature; and
the one is the all, for cause and effect spread out in sequence. Power and
activity receive each other, rolling up and unfolding again in freedom. This
is called the round doctrine of the One Vehicle. Old and Improved Sutras Quite nice stuff, actually. So this is presenting a series of Buddhist doctrines. They’re all Buddhist, and they’re presented in ascending order. So it’s a way of indicating how these various doctrines can all be acceptable without our saying that they’re all equally effective and therefore equally valuable. Instead we have a hierarchy of doctrines. To some extent this grows out of the circumstances of the Mahayana itself, which developed to some extent as a movement critical of at least some of the doctrines and tendencies of early Buddhism. But since there really could be no disputing the fact that the sutras, which the Sravakayists were basing their opinions on, were spoken by the Buddha, the Mahayanists couldn’t just say the sutras were wrong, or even partly wrong. The Buddha [the tradition believed] didn’t make any mistakes, and he always expressed himself appropriately. So if you want to represent doctrines that differ in any significant way from the early sutras you have a problem. And you deal with this problem by reinterpreting what’s in the early sutras, and to some extent by appealing to other sutras not previously known. Some of the followers of the early schools, the Sravakayana schools, will accept some of these new sutras and others will reject them. Huayan Hierarchy But in any case the Mahayanists can’t simply present the Mahayana doctrines as right and the earlier ones as wrong. They have to present them as stages of gradual teaching, as Nagarjuna does in the 18th chapter of the MMK. So the various Chinese Buddhist thinkers who addressed this problem were solidly in the Indian Buddhist tradition of trying to make sense of a bunch of often divergent teachings that in some ways contradicted themselves—all had the authorship of the Buddha [it was believed by Buddhists]. So in this hierarchy of doctrines each Buddhist thinker will naturally put his own teachings on the highest level, so there’s no doubt that the fifth stage here is Huayan. But then there’s the question of what the other four are. The first is explicitly the doctrines of the Sravakas—so they’re of the Sravakayana Buddhists, particularly the Sarvastivadins, but also other Sravakayana schools too. Fortunately, Fazang wrote a fairly extensive treatise on these five doctrines and went some way to identifying the schools he had in mind, or the traditions within Buddhism he had in mind. So as I recall the Vatsiputriya school of the Pudgalavadins is also included in the first stage. Now, the preliminary doctrine he identifies as both the Madhyamaka and the Yogacara. Even though in some ways they’re very different, he saw them as representing roughly the same stage in their penetration, their understanding. So this is a particular stage in the Buddha’s explanations represented in those sutras that tend to support the Madhyamaka or the Yogacara. The fourth doctrine is evidently the tathagatagarbha. He explicitly mentions the Awakening of Faith and another work. LP says it’s hard not to suspect Zen or Chan here, but
according to Francis Cook’s unpublished doctoral thesis, which translates the
essay on the five doctrines and its introduction, Fazang doesn’t mention
Chan. However, Fazang likely knew of a Chan contemporary. Doctrine of the Sravakas So let’s look at these individual doctrines or his account of them. “Although the lion is a dharma which has a cause and conditions…”—perhaps better would be, “Although the lion is a dharma which has causes and conditions…” “Although the lion is a dharma which has a cause and conditions, arising and vanishing from moment to moment, in reality there is no aspect of a lion to be perceived.” It seems he’s thinking of the self in relation to the aggregates, and even if he mentioned the Vatsiputriyas he’s thinking primarily of the orthodox view of the self, it seems. The self exists only conceptually on the basis of the grouping of the dharmas and the five aggregates. Preliminary Doctrine of the Mahayana Then the second part: “Now these dharmas which have arisen dependently, being each without any nature of its own, are ultimately nothing but emptiness.” So these are the Perfection of Wisdom sutras, Madhyamaka, and Yogacara suitably interpreted. Final Doctrine of the Mahayana Third section: “But although they are ultimately nothing but emptiness, their illusory existence is not hindered from being as it is. The two aspects, dependent origination and nominal existence, both remain.” So this would seem to relate to the tathagatagarbha doctrine in involving an affirmation of the practical reality of the world of dependent origination. The tathagatagarbha doctrine does rather more than that but it can be seen as restoring the balance that might have been lost through a misunderstanding of Madhyamaka as denying the existence of everything in every sense. “The two aspects, dependent origination and nominal existence, both remain.” The following remain as two aspects of a single
reality:
Sudden Doctrine of the Mahayana Fourth section: “Now these two aspects cancel each other and both vanish; no construction of the feelings remains. Both are powerless; emptiness and existence are both obliterated.” So each is in some sense invalidated by the other, and that presumably is on the basis of each having whatever being ascribed to it only in relation to the other. Dependent origination is conceivable only in terms of nominal existences, which are established only on the basis of dependent origination. So in a way that’s now familiar to us [these two aspects] are mutually dependent and are not ultimately real. So they dissolve. Both are powerless. Emptiness and existence are both obliterated. Emptiness is no longer affirmed as any kind of reality. Existence is no longer affirmed even as a relative kind of being. They’re both seen simply as invalid. No Room at the “The course of utterance is stopped, and the mind rests without lodging.” Now, one might reasonably observe that this point, it seems to me, is precisely what Nagarjuna thinks he’s arrived at—and the Yogacara view is not terribly different in this regard after all. But this [verse] seems to emphasize the impossibility of really saying anything about reality and finding a resting place for the mind. And to that extent it corresponds to the insistence in Chan that none of these notions we get hold of, thinking that they’re going to help us in getting us to realization, should ultimately be held on to. Here and Now The notion of emptiness is in the long run just as much a snare as the dharmas and svabhava, let alone the notion of the self. There is nothing absolute at all that can be grasped, that we can seize on as a point for the mind to rest on even, in fact, this notion of there being no point to rest on. There is in actuality absolutely no recourse for the mind, and if this is sufficiently realized the mind has no choice except to let go of the whole thing, at which point it’s free of attachment. This is called the “sudden doctrine of the Mahayana,” presumably in the sense that in theory at whatever stage one has reached in the process of coming to a realization of emptiness, of thusness, at any stage one could in principle recognize that there is nothing to be grasped, in a sense nothing to be understood. Reality is here waiting for us, so at any point we can
take a short cut, achieving a breakthrough all at once. Round Doctrine of the One Vehicle… Delayed In the fifth section: “Now these dharmas in which the feelings are eliminated and substance is revealed merge into a single mass. Its vast activity springs forth in many ways, and whatever arises can only be perfect reality. The myriads of images in their profusion intermingle without disorder. The all is the one, for everything is equally without a nature; and the one is the all, for cause and effect spread out in sequence. Power and activity receive each other, rolling up and unfolding again in freedom. This is called the round doctrine of the One Vehicle.” We have about two minutes left, and I can’t say what I want to say about this in two minutes. LP made a joke that he didn’t want to break it into
parts, though of course everything is one anyways. He’ll resume talking about
the Golden Lion next Thursday. He also reminded us that the test is next Tuesday. He noted that the class does continue beyond that day,
so as long as other people show up he’ll be there too. Unofficial notes by Jeff Lindstrom |
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