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Buddhist
Publication Society Newsletter 2nd Mailing 1994 No. 27 |
Dhamma & Non-Duality - I
One of the most
challenging issues facing Theravada Buddhism in recent years has been the
encounter between classical Theravada vipassana meditation and the
"non-dualistic" contemplative traditions best represented by Advaita
Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism. Responses to this encounter have spanned the
extremes, ranging from vehement confrontation all the way to attempts at
synthesis and hybridization. While the present essay cannot pretend to illuminate
all the intricate and subtle problems involved in this sometimes volatile
dialogue, I hope it may contribute a few sparks of light from a canonically
oriented Theravada perspective. My first preliminary
remark would be to insist that a system of meditative practice does not
constitute a self-contained discipline. Any authentic system of spiritual
practice is always found embedded within a conceptual matrix that defines the
problems the practice is intended to solve and the goal towards which it is
directed. Hence the merging of techniques grounded in incompatible conceptual
frameworks is fraught with risk. Although such mergers may appease a
predilection for experimentation or eclecticism, it seems likely that their
long-term effect will be to create a certain "cognitive dissonance"
that will reverberate through the deeper levels of the psyche and stir up even
greater confusion. My second remark
would be to point out simply that non-dualistic spiritual traditions are far
from consistent with each other, but comprise, rather, a wide variety of views
profoundly different and inevitably coloured by the broader conceptual contours
of the philosophies which encompass them. For the Vedanta,
non-duality (advaita) means the absence of an ultimate distinction between the
Atman, the innermost self, and Brahman, the divine reality, the underlying
ground of the world. From the standpoint of the highest realization, only one
ultimate reality exists—which is simultaneously Atman and Brahman—and the aim
of the spiritual quest is to know that one's own true self, the Atman, is the
timeless reality which is Being, Awareness, Bliss. Since all schools of
Buddhism reject the idea of the Atman, none can accept the non-dualism of
Vedanta. From the perspective of the Theravada tradition, any quest for the discovery
of selfhood, whether as a permanent individual self or as an absolute
universal self, would have to be dismissed as a delusion, a metaphysical
blunder born from a failure to properly comprehend the nature of concrete
experience. According to the Pali Suttas, the individual being is merely a complex
unity of the five aggregates, which are all stamped with the three marks of
impermanence, suffering, and selflessness. Any postulation of selfhood in
regard to this compound of transient, conditioned phenomena is an instance of
"personality view" (sakkayaditthi), the most basic fetter that binds
beings to the round of rebirths. The attainment of liberation, for Buddhism,
does not come to pass by the realization of a true self or absolute
"I," but through the dissolution of even the subtlest sense of
selfhood in relation to the five aggregates, "the abolition of all
I-making, mine-making, and underlying tendencies to conceit." The Mahayana schools,
despite their great differences, concur in upholding a thesis that, from the
Theravada point of view, borders on the outrageous. This is the claim that
there is no ultimate difference between samsara and Nirvana, defilement and
purity, ignorance and enlightenment. For the Mahayana, the enlightenment which
the Buddhist path is designed to awaken consists precisely in the realization
of this non-dualistic perspective. The validity of conventional dualities is
denied because the ultimate nature of all phenomena is emptiness, the lack of
any substantial or intrinsic reality, and hence in their emptiness all the
diverse, apparently opposed phenomena posited by mainstream Buddhist doctrine
finally coincide: "All dharmas have one nature, which is no-nature." The teaching of the
Buddha as found in the Pali Canon does not endorse a philosophy of non-dualism
of any variety, nor, I would add, can a non-dualistic perspective be found
lying implicit within the Buddha's discourses. At the same time, however, I
would not maintain that the Pali Suttas, propose dualism, the positing of duality
as a metaphysical hypothesis aimed at intellectual assent. I would characterize
the Buddha's intent in the Canon as primarily pragmatic rather than
speculative, though I would also qualify this by saying that this pragmatism
does not operate in a philosophical void but finds its grounding in the nature
of actuality as the Buddha penetrated it in his enlightenment. In contrast to
the non-dualistic systems, the Buddha's approach does not aim at the discovery
of a unifying principle behind or beneath our experience of the world. Instead
it takes the concrete fact of living experience, with all its buzzing confusion
of contrasts and tensions, as its starting point and framework, within which it
attempts to diagnose the central problem at the core of human existence and to
offer a way to its solution. Hence the polestar of the Buddhist path is not a
final unity but the extinction of suffering, which brings the resolution of the
existential dilemma at its most fundamental level. When we investigate
our experience exactly as it presents itself, we find that it is permeated by a
number of critically important dualities with profound implications for the
spiritual quest. The Buddha's teaching, as recorded in the Pali Suttas, fixes
our attention unflinchingly upon these dualities and treats their acknowledgement
as the indispensable basis for any honest search for liberating wisdom. It is
precisely these antitheses—of good and evil, suffering and happiness, wisdom
and ignorance—that make the quest for enlightenment and deliverance such a
vitally crucial concern. At the peak of the
pairs of opposites stands the duality of the conditioned and the
Unconditioned: samsara as the round of repeated birth and death wherein all is
impermanent, subject to change, and liable to suffering, and Nibbana as the
state of final deliverance, the unborn, ageless, and deathless. Although
Nibbana, even in the early texts, is definitely cast as an ultimate reality and
not merely as an ethical or psychological state, there is not the least
insinuation that this reality is metaphysically indistinguishable at some
profound level from its manifest opposite, samsara. To the contrary, the
Buddha's repeated lesson is that samsara is the realm of suffering governed by
greed, hatred, and delusion, wherein we have shed tears greater than the waters
of the ocean, while Nibbana is irreversible release from samsara, to be
attained by demolishing greed, hatred, and delusion, and by relinquishing all
conditioned existence. Thus the Theravada
makes the antithesis of samsara and Nibbana the starting point of the entire
quest for deliverance. Even more, it treats this antithesis as determinative of
the final goal, which is precisely the transcendence of samsara and the
attainment of liberation in Nibbana. Where Theravada differs significantly
from the Mahayana schools, which also start with the duality of samsara and
Nirvana, is in its refusal to regard this polarity as a mere preparatory
lesson tailored for those with blunt faculties, to be eventually superseded by
some higher realization of non-duality. From the standpoint of the Pali Suttas,
even for the Buddha and the Arahants suffering and its cessation, samsara and
Nibbana, remain distinct. Spiritual seekers still exploring the different
contemplative traditions commonly assume that the highest spiritual teaching
must be one which posits a metaphysical unity as the philosophical foundation
and final goal of the quest for enlightenment. Taking this assumption to be
axiomatic, they may then conclude that the Pali Buddhist teaching, with its
insistence on the sober assessment of dualities, is deficient or provisional,
requiring fulfilment by a nondualistic realization. For those of such a bent,
the dissolution of dualities in a final unity will aways appear more profound
and complete. However, it is just
this assumption that I would challenge. I would assert, by reference to the
Buddha's own original teaching, that profundity and completeness need not be
bought at the price of distinctions, that they can be achieved at the highest
level while preserving intact the dualities and diversity so strikingly evident
to mature reflection on the world. I would add, moreover, that the teaching
which insists on recognizing real dualities as they are is finally more
satisfactory. The reason it is more satisfactory, despite its denial of the
mind's yearning for a comprehensive unity, is because it takes account of
another factor which overrides in importance the quest for unity. This
"something else" is the need to remain grounded in actuality. Where I think the
teaching of the Buddha, as preserved in the Theravada tradition, surpasses all
other attempts to resolve the spiritual dilemmas of humanity is in its
persistent refusal to sacrifice actuality for unity. The Buddha's Dhamma does
not point us towards an all-embracing absolute in which the tensions of daily
existence dissolve in metaphysical oneness or inscrutable emptiness. It points
us, rather, towards actuality as the final sphere of comprehension, towards
things as they really are (yathabhuta). Above all, it points us towards the
Four Noble Truths of suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the way to its
cessation as the liberating proclamation of things as they really are. These
four truths, the Buddha declares, are noble truths, and what makes them noble
truths is precisely that they are actual, undeviating, invariable (tatha,
avitatha, anannatha). It is the failure to face the actuality of these truths
that has caused us to wander for so long through the long course of samsara. It
is by penetrating these truths exactly as they are that one can reach the true
consummation of the spiritual quest: making an end to suffering.
Part 1! of this
essay will appear in the next BPS Newsletter. Publications
Recent Releases
The Vision of
Dhamma. Nyanaponika Thera. The BPS is happy to announce the publication of this
outstanding one-volume collection of our esteemed Co-founder and Patron's
writings from the Wheel and Bodhi Leaves series. The book—a treasury of wise
counsel—offers one of the most mature and authoritative contemporary expressions
of Theravada Buddhism. Contains: The Worn-Out Skin; The Power of Mindfulness;
The Roots of Good & Evil; Anatta & Nibbana; and more. "The writings
of Nyanaponika Thera are a `Guide for the Perplexed' in the last quarter of
this century" (Erich Fromm). Not for sate in U.S.A. Softback: 368 pages A Pali-English
Glossary of Buddhist Technical Terms. Bhikkhu Nanamoli. In the course of his
translation work, the well-known British scholar-monk Bhikkhu Nanamoli had
compiled a comprehensive glossary of Pali philosophical and psychological
terms, to which he had added words and word-meanings not in the PTS's
Pali-English Dictionary. This glossary, hitherto only privately circulated,
has now been issued by the BPS in a neatly printed edition to assist scholars
and students of Pali Buddhism. The glossary contains close to 3,000 entries,
with meanings, textual references, enumerations, etc. Softback: 176 pages King Asoka and
Buddhism. Edited by Anuradha Seneviratna. This book comprises scholarly essays
which seek to define, from both historical and literary angles, Asoka's
relationship to Buddhism. Contributors: Richard Gombrich, Ananda Guruge, Romila
Thapar, N.A. Jayawickrama, John Strong, Anuradha Seneviratna. Softback: 176 pp.,
with maps Being Nobody,
Going Nowhere. Ayya Khema. A popular book of talks on meditation practice by
the well-known German nun, given on a ten-day meditation retreat in Sri Lanka.
For sale in Asia only. Softback: 190 pages In Preparation
The Pali
Literature of Ceylon. G.P.
Malalasekera. A reprint of an old classic, which admirably surveys
Sri Lanka's rich heritage of Pali Buddhist literature, from the earliest period
down to the present century. Available late October 1994. Softback: 350 pages Living As A
Buddhist. Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano. Planned for late 1994 or early 1995. The Seven Contemplations
of Insight. Ven. Matara Sri Nanarama Mahathera. Planned for late 1995. The Progress of
Insight. Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw (reprint). Available by late September. The Buddha's
Noble Eightfold Path. Bhikkhu Bodhi (reprint) The Great
Discourse on Causation. Bhikkhu Bodhi (reprint) BPS Books in Britain
The BPS is proud
to announce the appointment of Lavis Marketing—long-time book distributor for
the Pali Text Society—as its own exclusive distributor in the United Kingdom,
Northern Ireland, and the Irish Republic. We request all our associate
members, customers, and retail agents in the stipulated region to order BPS
books (inclusive of Wheel and Bodhi Leaves titles) directly from Lavis
Marketing, who will be able to supply them quickly and conveniently: Lavis
Marketing, 73 Lime Walk, Headington, Oxford OX3 7AD. Phone (0865) 67575; fax
(0865) 750079. Membership applications and renewals, however, should be sent directly to the BPS. Book Review
Forty-Three
Years Ago. Sangharakshita. Glasgow: Windhorse Publications, 1993. 59 pp. Pds.
3.50; $6.50. This recent booklet
by Sangharakshita is packaged as "Reflections on my Bhikkhu
Ordination," but it is in fact little more than a misinformed and
malicious attack on the Bhikkhu Sangha and the millions of laypeople who
follow Theravada Buddhism. Sangharakshita begins his reflections by recounting
how, six years after his own bhikkhu ordination in India in 1950, he discovered
a technical irregularity in the proceedings which, he concluded, had rendered
the ceremony null and void, invalidating his status as a bhikkhu. He then
launches into the main theme of his essay: a sustained attack on the very
notion of valid bhikkhu ordination, intended to establish that
"technically valid (bhikkhu) ordination is virtually impossible of
attainment and ... if one did, miraculously, obtain it one could not know that
one had done so" (p.23). Such hostile accusations pervading the booklet
clearly reveal its intent. Not that Theravada
Buddhism does not welcome accurate and constructive criticism. However, the
disappointment with Sangharakshita's booklet is that it is neither accurate
nor constructive. Indeed, his entire argument rests upon a premise about the
legality of bhikkhu ordination that is factually mistaken: "The bhikkhus
constituting the ordaining chapter ... have moreover to be parisuddha or
`completely pure' in the sense of being guiltless of any major breach of the
sikkhapadas or rules of training, such as would render them liable to expulsion
or suspension from the Order" (pp.8-9). This simply is not correct, as
anyone who has carefully studied the Vinaya would know. A bhikkhu who has
committed a Parajika, an offense entailing immediate and automatic return to
lay status, but who has not admitted his transgression, is technically a layman
in the guise of a monk, a "sham bhikkhu." Contrary to
Sangharakshita's thesis, the presence of a sham bhikkhu in an ordination
ceremony -even in the position of preceptor—does not invalidate the ordination.
As long as there are at least five "real bhikkhus" present (ten in
Northeast India) the ordination holds. Moreover, the "real bhikkhus"
completing the quorum do not have- to be "completely pure" as
Sangharakshita states. According to the Vinaya an ordination only fails for
lack of a quorum when there are less than five real bhikkhus (ten in Northeast
India) among the assembly that approves the ordination. Building upon this
basic error, Sangharakshita proceeds to argue that all bhikkhu ordinations are
invalid, or at best open to such serious doubt that the very notion of valid
ordination is undermined. This is as preposterous as it is mischievous. Even if
Sangharakshita's ordination was itself invalid—and this is now uncertain—it is
quite illogical for him to infer the same about all bhikkhu ordinations. In the
countries following Theravada Buddhism ordination ceremonies are always
performed with the utmost care and sufficient bhikkhus are invited to ensure
that even if a few unrecognized sham monks participate, the required quorum
will be met. Sangharakshita next turns upon the lifestyles of bhikkhus and
laypersons. He claims that in Theravada "not being a bhikkhu, i.e. not
being ordained, a layman strictly speaking has no spiritual life" (p.26)
and "°Theravadin laypeople ... are in fact second class Buddhists"
(p.32). These are the misunderstandings of an outsider, one with little
experience of the rich and beneficial lifestyles of both the bhikkhu and the
layperson in the traditional Theravada countries and now amongst Westerners
following Theravada, who experience an immensely powerful training in virtue,
meditation, compassion and wisdom. But Sangharakshita
should know his Buddhism better than to make such claims as: "Going for
Refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha is the central and definitive Act of
the Buddhist life." This recurrent slogan is Sangharakshita's own idea;
the Buddha explained the path to liberation differently. Going for Refuge to
the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha (the Bhikkhu Sangha, according to the most
ancient suttas) is the first stage of a Buddhist's spiritual journey, usually
occurring when a layperson first gains confidence in the Dhamma. The next
decisive stage along the direct path to deliverance, as the Buddha described
it, is the Going Forth, whereby the Buddhist layperson in a position to take
this step leaves the lay life and becomes a bhikkhu. This he does having
realized that the way of life most conducive to the realization of Nibbana
is—in the Buddha's view though obviously not in Sangharakshita's—the monastic
training exactly as described in the Theravada texts. The meaning of this
step, formalized in the bhikkhu ordination ceremony, is a voluntary undertaking
of the lifestyle followed by the Buddha himself and prescribed by him for those
fully intent on reaching the end of suffering. The Buddha was a bhikkhu, and I
would add here that the rules, dress, and code of conduct laid down for a
bhikkhu are certainly not "cultural baggage" (as Sangharakshita
implies, p.41), but were prescribed at the very beginning by the
All-Enlightened One. The following stages, which can only be perfected when
virtue is well purified, are the achievements in jhana and insight culminating
in Arahatship, which the entire lifestyle of the bhikkhu is designed to foster
in the finest details. Finally, seeing how
Sangharakshita extols the Going for Refuge to the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, I
might point out that the author of the Theravada monastic lifestyle is the
Buddha himself; that the Dhamma includes the Vinaya procedures such as bhikkhu
ordination; and that the Bhikkhu Sangha has always contained within it the
vast majority of the Ariyan Sangha, i.e. those attained to the four stages of
enlightenment. It is to be hoped that the author of this booklet will realize
these aspects of the Triple Gem and be more respectful of them in the future.
Ven. Brahmavamsa is
Acting Abbot of Bodhinyana Buddhist Monastery in Western Australia and a
specialist in Vinaya studies. BPS Goes
On-Line. This year the BPS entered the information age in earnest. Through
contacts in the U.S., BPS is collaborating with DharmaNet, an international
network of Buddhist-oriented computer "bulletin board systems," to
transcribe selected BPS titles into electronic form and distribute them freely
on computer networks around the world. A team of volunteer typists,
proofreaders, and computer experts associated with DharmaNet has so far
produced electronic versions of more than a dozen BPS booklets. These are now
available to anyone with access to a computer and a modem. For more
information, write to: DharmaNet International, PO Box 4951, Berkeley, CA
94704-4951, U.S.A. Or, if you are already on the Internet, send your inquiry
to: librarian@metta.ci.net. Guidelines to Sutta Study
In the previous
instalment of this series we saw that the Buddha, in his account of the gradual
training (Kandaraka Sutta, MN 51), begins with two events which are not so
much actual phases of the gradual training itself as its prerequisites. The
first is the arising in the world of a Tathagata, a Fully Enlightened Buddha;
the second, his teaching of the true Dhamma, the doctrine which reveals the
path to deliverance. The appropriate response on the part of a qualified
listener is to place faith (saddhd) in the Master and his Message. In the
sutta the disciple who is prepared to tread the holy life to its final goal
takes another major step that marks a complete break with his accustomed
routines. In order to live the holy life in its purity and perfection,
unencumbered by distracting obligations and the allure of sensual pleasures, he
renounces the home life and goes forth into homelessness. Thus the first step
of the gradual training in its proper dimension, aimed at liberation from the
beginningless cycle of existence, is the going forth: the taking up of the way
of life of a bhikkhu, a homeless monk. This step throws open to the disciple
the magnificent edifice of the gradual training, making it accessible without
the concessions, compromises, and infringements that seem virtually inseparable
from life in the world. On the basis of his enlightenment, the Buddha has
arranged the gradual training into an extraordinarily methodical structure
which facilitates the entire process of purification. Step by step the
training proceeds from the subduing of the coarsest, most external levels of
unwholesome activity through increasingly subtler inward levels, to its
culmination in the mind's deliverance from even the most deeply rooted bonds
and fetters. When embarking upon
the gradual training, the first layer of defilements that must be controlled
and eliminated is the coarsest, that pertaining to conduct. It is only when the
infringements of moral principles by bodily action and speech are held in
check, that significant progress can be made in the direct training of the
mind by the practices designed to foster concentration and wisdom. However,
though the training in conduct may be described as coarse in relation to the
more refined training in concentration and insight that follows, the influence
of unwholesome tendencies upon our bodily and verbal behaviour is usually much
subtler and more extensive that we realize. And since one aspect of the
spiritual ideal that the Buddhist training seeks to embody is impeccable
conduct, conduct that bears testimony to inward purity and restraint, the Buddha
has promulgated a comprehensive body of training rules designed to impress
these ideal modes of behaviour upon the disciple from the start. This body of
training rules comprises what is known as the Vinaya, the Discipline. The type of training
inculcated by the observance of these training rules is called silasamvara,
restraint by morality. In the suttas the Buddha has laid down, as the minimum
moral discipline expected of the lay disciple, the Five Precepts: abstaining
from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false speech, and intoxicants. But
in the exposition of the gradual training he intends to describe a disciple who
aims for nothing less than the final goal, the realization of Arahantship in
this very life, and thus in setting forth the moral training he makes known the
training of the bhikkhu, who has taken upon himself the whole body of moral
regulations prescribed by the Buddha. In alternative accounts of the gradual
training found in other suttas, the Buddha concisely describes the moral
training of the bhikkhu in terms of "the restraint of the Patimokkha (the
Code of Monastic Rules)" (see MN 107, 125, etc.). But in the Kandaraka
Sutta sequence on the gradual training, he compresses the bhikkhu's moral
training into a schematism that conforms more closely to the universal ethical
principles enunciated in his teaching. This stock passage
contains two sub-sections. The first describes seven principles of conduct that
are also comprised, with one important variation, within the Noble Eightfold
Path under the headings of Right Action and Right Speech. As the Buddha
expounds them in the suttas, each of these moral maxims has two aspects,
distinguished as varitta, avoidance, and caritta, performance. The seven main
principles of the bhikkhu's conduct, viewed from the angles both of avoidance
and performance, are thus: (1) to abstain from killing and live
compassionately; (2) to abstain from stealing and live honestly; (3) to abstain
from incelibacy and observe celibacy; (4) to abstain from false speech and
speak the truth; (5) to abstain from divisive speech and speak only what
promotes concord; (6) to abstain from harsh speech and speak gently; and (7) to
abstain from idle chatter and speak what is meaningful. The one rule among
these that is specific to the monastic discipline, and that is not also
incumbent upon the lay Buddhist, is the observance of celibacy, which replaces
the lay disciple's obligation to abstain from sexual misconduct. The second part of
the passage on restraint by morality describes aspects of the bhikkhu's
discipline which are not strictly moral in the narrower sense of the term. In
this passage, a shift in emphasis takes place, the ethically oriented training
rules shading off into guidelines to conduct that are predominantly ascetic in
character. While some of the abstinences described here remain moral—such as
abstaining from cheating, deceiving, wounding, plunder, and violence—others
prohibit actions that are not the least bit blameworthy when engaged in by a
person living a righteous lay life. Among these are the training rules (6)-(10)
undertaken by novices in the Order: abstaining from food after mid-day; from
dancing, singing, music, and improper shows; from using cosmetics; from using
high and luxurious seats; and from accepting gold and silver. These actions
have been proscribed by the Buddha, not because they are inherently immoral,
but because they fall short of the ideal standards of renunciation, restraint,
detachment, and simplicity that the gradual training is designed to actualize.
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