A Whole New Way
of
Perceiving the World
Based on Buddhist Wisdom (Nagarjuna)
Tony Mortimer
Preliminary Note
The philosophy of the Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama approx. 500b.c.) represents something of a watershed not only in the history of Buddhist philosophy but in the history of philosophy as a whole. He claimed access to no divine wisdom, no unique intuition, no worldly or spiritual authority, and no super-human status of any kind. The philosophy he taught uproots the very beliefs and assumptions so easily resorted to in our attempt to understand the world. Among these assumptions are: the reality of solid fixed objects; the reality of a permanent fixed self in people; the reality of an intrinsic absolute or ultimate; the reality of an afterlife, or of God, or of birth and death, and so on.
This treatise is based principally on Nagarjuna (200 A.D. approx) the founder of the Buddhist Madhyamika school (Middle Way) and he is often referred to as the second Buddha. The original Buddha was Siddhartha Gautama (approx. 500b.c.). Nagarjuna attributes all his knowledge and insight to him. Many of Nagarjuna’s disciples (Chandrakirti 600a.d, Shantideva 800 a.d, Tsongkhapa 1300 a.d) as well as other Sages, teachers and philosophers (both Eastern and Western philosophers) from ancient times through to the present day who share in his view and wisdom are also included in this treatise. When the expression “the Buddha says” is used, this may be referring to Gautama or Nagarjuna or to one of his many learned disciples.
So what exactly did the Buddha (Nagarjuna) say or teach? What secrets did he reveal? Do any of us really know? It is certainly very different to what I had imagined. Fortunately, what he said was recorded and so is available today, but it certainly takes some finding. This treatise should short-circuit the search. It will concentrate on the message, which we may come to see makes a lot of sense. It is the message that has the power to liberate and change, after all, enlightenment is simply a change of mindset. Don’t try to change the world, rather, change your mind about the world. The very same world is samsara or nirvana, dependent upon one’s perspective or attitude. From the perspective of nirvana though, it is a very different world. It is said that nirvana is the clarity and peace that arises when our mental turmoil ends because the objects with which we have been identifying are realized to be empty. The key is to see all things as empty.
I hope I am painting somewhat an accurate picture of the Buddha’s message. I hope you get answers to your unanswered questions. I also hope you get as much out of this as I did in compiling it. Just to encounter the Buddha’s teachings in one’s lifetime is a miracle in itself. Anyone who applies these teachings, the Buddha says, will be freed from suffering and will attain enlightenment.
For more information: google my blog: “buddhist nonduality, melbourne, middle way, nagarjuna.”
Also, google youtube “buddhist nonduality, melbourne, middle way, nagarjuna.”
Meetings will be held in Caulfield Nth, Melbourne.
Directions: Rear laneway Cambridge St, Caulfield Nth. Park in Colin St, or nearby. Walk half way down laneway, light on, roller door open. No charge. Please contact for details.
Tony Mortimer
E.mail: tonymortimer15@yahoo.com.au
Phone 0415302827
27/3/2024.
Contents
Suffering 7
No Self 11
Dependent Origination 21
It’s all in the Mind 25
The Tangle of Theorizing 29
The Tathagata 37
Emptiness 43
Nirvana 51
Mental Constructions 57
Objects 63
Non-origination 67
No Self, No problem 75
The Twelve Links of Dependent Origination 79
Interdependence 83
Inherent Existence 91
Words and Language 99
Imputations of Mind 105
The Existence of God 109
Empty Logic 113
Views 117
The Two Truths 119
Enlightenment 127
Substance (Svabhava) 131
Anatta (Not-Self) 139
Non-creation and Non-destruction 143
Buddhist Anomalies Explained 151
Cause and Effect 163
The Debate 171
Existence and Nonexistence 177
Consciousness (Awareness) 181
Death 185
Memory 191
Buddhist Philosophy 193
Suffering
In order to break through the solidity of conditioned existence the Buddha made three basic observations, which he called “the Three Marks of Existence”, namely: that all phenomena are impermanent and nothing can be counted on to endure; that it is not possible to find lasting (permanent) satisfaction in mere transitory things; and because everything is impermanent there can be no permanent “self” that abides in people. This is the enlightened perspective. But one who does not perceive these facts will believe that things are permanent or real; that it is possible to find satisfaction in these things; and that there is a permanent enduring self or ego. This is the unenlightened perspective (ignorance) and is the root cause of all suffering.
The Buddha understood that the thing humanity was most concerned about was pervasive suffering. He also knew suffering is not an unregenerate condition; it can be alleviated. Hence, alleviating suffering is his primary goal.
Suffering, the Buddha says, is occasioned by grasping after things, be it the thirst for the pleasant or aversion to the unpleasant. This grasping or desiring, having mere impermanent (transitory) things as its object, will always be frustrated because it can never be satisfied by transitory things. This is similar to the frustration we experience in chasing (grasping) after a mirage of water in the desert falsely believing it will satisfy our thirst. We grasp after things in the world in much the same way. We commit our whole being in pursuit of mere transitory things. Once the imagined existence of things is established, attraction or aversion to perceived things (cyclic existence) inevitably follows. We become trapped in the prison of objects. Subject to the power of attachment ill will and pride, like addicts, we are compelled to pursue things without freedom to do otherwise. Undertaking this or that activity in pursuit of the appearing phenomena, shrinking from the unpleasant and the grasping after the pleasant, the pain of birth and the terror of death, the frustration of growing old and feeble that causes us great suffering. It is the inability to experience these mere transitory appearances just as they are without blocking or warping our experiences of them that affect us mostly. Even the pleasant things in life are grasped after with an unwarranted desire which overestimates the pleasure they will give, and is accompanied by a constant fear of their loss. Thus beings become bound to their conceptions, bound to objects, and principally, bound to cyclic existence itself, which is samsara.
A principal cause of affliction is the process through which a person falsely perceives reality in unreal (transitory) things feels passionate attractions or aversions to perceived things and then grasps onto them. This state of confusion naturally impels one to actions meant to secure those objects of desire, or alternatively, remove those objects of aversion. This is the basis of afflicted action, which in turn leads to further grasping and desiring. It’s almost as if we attribute the desirability or undesirability as an actual property inherent to the things themselves. To the extent that we grasp after things, we are bound to delusion that causes suffering. To the extent that we are bound, we continue to grasp.
The Buddha points out the painful and sad futility of our clinging to objects, people, ideas, experiences and a self that simply cannot be held no matter how tightly they are grasped. With no essential nature, neither our own selves nor the things around us, have any inner handle by which we can grab and hold them. The doctrine of emptiness can help eradicate suffering that comes from grasping at what are but mere empty appearances because it teaches us that there is really nothing to be possessed. Since everything is inherently empty (like empty reflections in a mirror) nothing can be truly grasped. Our continuous and unceasing attempts to satisfy our hunger by acquiring the objects of our desires are doomed to failure from the very onset. The objects do not possess within themselves properties that will satisfy our desire (the eye is not satisfied with seeing, the ear is not fulfilled by hearing, and the mind is pulsating for more) so the desire will, sooner or later, be frustrated. Our frustration arises from and feeds our grasping. We lay schemes large and small to protect and to accumulate. Over and over again, moment after moment we unwittingly fall into this trap, building a prison for ourselves, brick by brick. Trying to take refuge in insubstantial, transient, and ultimately unsatisfying things is a great source of misery for ourselves. We seem to always be in pursuit of something new, some new goal, some new object of desire. The belief that “if only I had this I would be happy”, “If only one had more money”, or “a better job,” or one was more “talented,” “healthier,” “attractive,” and so on, ad infinitum. This craving after unsatisfying things leads us to waste our lives in their pursuit, or leads us to berate and hate ourselves for failing to obtain them
Summary:
We suffer greatly and unnecessarily, the Buddha says, because we are plagued by ignorant misconceptions of how the world exists. We tend to see ourselves and the things around us as permanent, autonomous, independent entities. Whereas, the Buddha demonstrates that all things are impermanent, contingent and constantly changing. So the path to freedom, he says, is the path of abandoning our ignorant misperceptions. Ignorance is the basis of all faults and afflictions, the root of all of our problems. In this context, ignorance refers specifically to the mind that misperceives: what is unreal as real, what is constantly changing to be unchanging, what is essentially unsatisfactory to be satisfactory, what is insubstantial to be substantial and what is essentially impermanent to be permanent.
It is said that you become attached to things by the power of an afflictive misunderstanding that causes us to grasp after mere transitory things. We are positively attached to things (through attraction) or negatively attached to them (through aversion). ‘I like this and I don’t like that’, ‘I want more of this and less of that’, ‘I love this and require it to be content’, ‘I hate this and whenever it happens I am filled with dread and anxiety’. Numerous negative emotions (depression, disharmony, anger, attachment, fear and ill-will) spring up when our desires are not attained; we are left feeling dissatisfied because ‘I’ doesn’t get its way. Reality cannot be something that fulfils wants or desires.
The Buddha’s “Four Noble Truths” explains the process of suffering, namely: life is permeated by suffering (dukkha); the cause of suffering is craving (desiring) after mere transitory things; there is a remedy to suffering – the cessation of craving and grasping after things; and the path.
Desire or craving is a deep seated addiction that is at the root of all suffering. By desire, the Buddha refers to: craving pleasure, craving material goods, craving our football team wins, or craving immortality; all of which are wants that can never be satisfied by mere transient things. Desiring or craving things is like craving after a mirage of water in the desert. Understanding the futility of such craving, the Buddha says, puts an end to ignorance. When ignorance ceases, this will cause neither passionate attractions nor aversions to come into play. This will prevent grasping and craving. If one ceases to grasp and crave, then dispositions will cease, and so, suffering cease.
Finally, all truths given by the Buddha are practical tools designed to eliminate ignorance and hence, eliminate suffering. Once they have served their purpose in eliminating ignorance they are dispensed with (like a raft used to cross a river is then dispensed with). It would be a mistake to treat the Buddha’s teachings as ultimate truths. For example, impermanence is simply taught to counter permanence, interdependence is taught to counter independence; but reality avoids all extremes: truth or falsehood; impermanence or permanence; interdependence or independence; existence or non-existence; attachment or freedom from attachment; suffering or freedom from suffering; hence, the Middle Way.
No Self
The Buddha categorically states that there is no permanent “self” or ego in people. Since the body is impermanent there certainly can be no permanent “self” abiding within it. The false sense of an intrinsic “self”, he says, is at the root of all our problems.
Most of us have a compelling sense of a “self”; a “self” that is permanent like and unchanging. Buddhist thought argues against the very notion of such a permanent “self.” They claim that there is no such thing. … That is, they deny that anything retains its identity over time (this is the doctrine of universal impermanence), and that even at a given moment, there is no unchanging entity as to who we are, and nothing in us that fits this description.
Despite noticing that everything in the world is constantly changing and is impermanent, and despite noticing that thoughts, feelings, perceptions and body sensations change every instant (we are all aging), we want there to be some kind of permanent, unchanging “self” within us that remains the same, something that will survive anything that might happen to our body/mind aggregates. So one holds on tightly to this identity of a self or me; either we assume there’s someone in control of this body and mind, or that our awareness, volition, feelings, and consciousness are a sign of something inherently real underneath everything. We may believe this someone we assume is present within us, or will disappear after our death, or that it will continue on in some way, but our conviction that we exist in this real and inherent way remains unshaken.
Of course we exist. We are living beings. We make choices and our choices make a difference for ourselves and others. But at some level, for all of us, we cannot just leave it at that. To be real, to be alive, we feel that we must deep down somehow exist in a solid and independent way. Whereas, the Buddha teaches that we exist contingently dependently and not independently. We exist, but only in dependence on our ancestors, our body parts, our food, air and water. We could not and do not exist otherwise. Rather than seeing things as they are, we superimpose upon ourselves, and on the things around us, a false independent existence, a self-existence, an essential reality, an essence or a self. That so called intrinsic self, that subject of experience and agent of action, that underlying essence or core (but which Buddhist philosophers argue does not exist) is the self that we all instinctively take ourselves to be, and tenaciously protect and defend. So let us investigate and see if we can find or locate such an inherent self.
For example, if a self exists then we should be able to find it within either our body or our mind. We have to analyze each part to find where the sense of self comes from. You should investigate from the hair of your head down to your toes whether or not any particular part of your body is self. Could the self be the head, the legs, the torso, the skin, the heart, the brain, and so on. None of these body part candidates could be said to be an identical match with the self. Another reason the self cannot be the body or its parts is because the body is unconscious and the self is meant to be conscious. Perhaps then, the self is the mind (such as, feelings, thoughts, perceptions, cognition, consciousness or awareness). But if the self is the mind, then which particular state of the mind is it? The mind undergoes a myriad of states from its birth to its death. Yesterday I was happy, today I am depressed, and tomorrow I may be overjoyed. Which of these states represents the real me? It cannot be all of them, nor can I single out one of them. Likewise, the self cannot be our awareness or consciousness because they are constantly changing like our mind. Perhaps it is something that lies behind the mental states, the locus upon which the mental fluctuations occur. But if this were the case, how could I know it at all, since it would be distinct from my thoughts? On what basis would I be able to convincingly postulate that such a thing existed in the first place? And the self cannot be the combination of its body/mind parts because the combination of the parts encounters the same problems as the individual parts. Finally the body/mind can’t dwell in the self because no self is established.
According to standard Buddhist doctrine the subtlest, deepest, and most dangerous false view held by humans is the belief in a permanent, independent self. Afraid of death and the possibility of our personal nonexistence, we desperately impute and cling to a permanent, unchanging subject or self that is always there. There is something that seems to me (what I feel as subjectively existing, unchanging and independent), and something that seems not to be me (that which is experienced apart from myself, objectively). The self, or me, is like something in the background, something subjective, not objective; something apart from the body. This sense of self is not so much that “we are the body,” but rather, “we have a body.” This self or “me” is perceived as a separate entity apart from the body, hence the expressions: my body, my arm, my mind, my suffering, etc. Whatever could be named, say arm, was not me because it was “my” arm. The “my” or “I” seemed to be something different from arm. But where was this “I”? It’s not as though we don’t have a strong sense of it, but no matter where we look, it can’t be found. By contemplating “no self” gives us certainty of its absence.
The view that there is a self in here, in this body, that remains unchanged – even as the body undergoes birth, growing, ageing, and so on; or even after death for some; or perhaps only in this life for others – constitutes the view of a subjective self or “I”. If you were to lose your hand, you still feel “I am the same old me”. That view, that the self remains unchanged, pertains to the stance or position of an inherent self, which factually, simply cannot be found.
Despite our wish to be something lasting, something permanent we can’t help noticing that everything is impermanent and disintegrating. Our bodies are disintegrating moment by moment, right now. And though we desperately wish to believe otherwise, the truth is that beneath our ever changing minds and aging bodies there is nothing eternal, nothing permanent, nothing that remains unchanged. We are caught, as it were, between our sense of self as something unchanging, and the knowledge of the inescapable state of transience or impermanence of everything. As the life story of the Buddha reveals, the Buddhist path was inspired by this very problem, and it offers us a way to resolve it. In fact, the erroneous belief in permanence (inherent existence), whether that be permanent objects and things or a permanent self, has been the root cause of our confusion and suffering all along. The Buddha’s teaching on impermanence serves as a correction to permanence, but once it has done its job one should not cling to impermanence. Reality avoids both extremes, permanence and impermanence.
Belief in an existent self is illogical. In any way we empirically observe the world no intrinsic self can be found. Thus, maintaining belief in an intrinsic self after analysis is a result of personal discomfort with the idea that reality has no underlying and unchanging self or substance.
The concept of no-self is of great significance in Buddha’s teaching. There is nothing from our experience – the way we experience life, perceive life, think and communicate – which would give the secret away. There are no hints. Even Sherlock Holmes could not have solved this one. It is completely contrary to what the appearance seems to indicate, and this is the teaching of no-self. What the teaching says is that within this human being, consisting of mind and body, and the mental attributes of feeling, perception, mental formations and consciousness, there is no permanent, personal entity or self which can be found to exist. There are perception, feelings, personality traits, physical parts such as hands, legs and heart; but no self. It does not sound right. Our experience seems to point back to someone in here, a me, or a self.
Even when people develop high states of meditation, as in India, where there were many different systems of religious teachers, spiritual seekers with their own systems of training of the mind, who were very accomplished, they simply were stuck on this appearance of a permanent self. There was a centre to all this subjective experience. There was a self, a centre point, someone in there who is experiencing. Therefore, every teaching that came out of India seemed to revolve around this one form or another dealing with this self or atman or ego. In Christianity we have the soul.
So there are many different notions about this core which is the real me, and everything else are attributes of me – my house, my money, my body, my thoughts or my feelings. The me was the root of all these. So the Buddha in his teaching has burst the bubble and realised for himself that there was really no me, no self, no real point that was a centre, and he taught the teaching of no-self. And he stated it in no confusing terms. He stated very clearly no self over and over again. There is no self to be found in this mind and body, of any form or any shape either in it or out of it anywhere. “No self – full stop.” But no-self does not mean nothing, non-existence, no personality, no person. Of course you are you, the person sitting there. There is a mind and body, there is a personality, but no self.
The understanding of no self is a well kept secret. The signs are not easy to read. The conditioning is so strong. We have been taught over and over again that there is a real you and that it is within you. You believe it whether you understand or not. However we are fortunate that we have the seeds. The Buddha’s seeds are being planted in our minds. Maybe actually there is nobody there, nobody at home at all. So you can’t forget that now.
In order to catch a thief we have to know who the person is and what he or she looks like. The greatest thief of all is our mistaken sense that self and all other phenomena truly exist or inherently exist. We believe that things really exist the way they appear to our senses, as objectively established, as existing from their own side. This, then, is what we have to know in order to catch this great thief, who steals all our happiness and peace of mind. Therefore, we must recognize the false, inherent sense of self (not selflessness) before we can start actually refuting or eliminating it.
When we start observing how the false self – the self we have habitually assumed to exist in persons and objects – manifests, we soon discover that it does not exist at all. Before we begin cultivating this understanding our sense of self seems to be really there, very solid and substantial, but as soon as we start checking we cannot find it. It disappears. If the self truly did exist, the more we searched for it the more concrete it should become…we should at least be able to find it. But if it can’t be found, how can it possibly exist?
When someone calls you by your name, by the time you respond there is some kind of concept or picture of yourself that has emerged in your mind. You may not get a very clear or lucid concept of this self, but you do experience some kind of rough imagery of yourself before you answer. This self is something that seems to exist independently of anything else. It’s a sort of solid point, a fixed entity that is just there by itself. It becomes particularly clear when we’re angry or afraid. We can provoke these emotions in contemplation and, while maintaining them, recognize how we conceive our self.
The self seems to exist independent of causes or conditions (like parents), independent of its parts, and independent of being perceived. The self appears to be inherently existent. Not only does it appear to be inherently existent, we might also actually believe that it exists this way. This appearance and this belief make up the conception of inherent existence. The conception of inherent existence is said by Middle Way Buddhism to be the root of suffering. Moreover, just because we have the conception of an inherently existing self does not mean that such a really existent self exists.
How do we ascertain an inherently existing self? For example, after a swift kick in the shin or a false accusation (or a true one), a very palpable sense of an inherently existing self, arises. Blood and anger might arise, the stomach might get queasy. “How could they do that to me? I’ll show them!” This sense, fired by the pain of indignation, seems to point to a self that is really there, and at the moment, a very offended self. This sense of self (not the insulted-ness, but the self that has suffered the insult) is a sense that feels like I am really there. This sense does not seem like a self that depends on causes and conditions. It does not seem to be dependent on the parts and pieces of the body/mind, and it does not seem to be dependent upon being imputed by thought. It seems like one very wronged but very real self. Other examples where we can we ascertain an inherently existing self is that sense of disappointment when our football team loses, or we miss out on the job we wanted, or our political party loses, or we are enraged by the action of others; incompetent wasteful and unaccountable politicians, dodgy lawyers, and so on. These are examples of aversion to things, but attraction to things also causes us suffering. The happiness we experience is short lived; it is not long before our team loses. Grasping after things causes us great suffering.
It is said in Middle Way Buddhism that this conception of inherent existence is a misconception. It is said to be a misconception because although things appear to exist in this way, they actually do not exist in this way. Although the conception of inherent existence is present, inherent existence itself (existence that does not depend on anything else) can nowhere be found. Nothing exists inherently or independently. But this does not mean nothing at all exists. We exist, but dependently, dependent on aggregates, parents, food and so on, therefore, we do not exist independently or inherently.
We all have a valid, proper sense of self, or “I,” but then we additionally have a misconception of that “I” as inherently existing. Under the sway of this delusion, we view the self as existing under its own power, established by way of its own nature, able to set itself up. If there were such a separate “I”, self-established and existing in its own right, its existence should become clearer and clearer under the light of competent analysis. In fact, the closer we look, the more it is not found. This turns out to be the case for all other things as well. The fact that you cannot find them means that those phenomena are not self-established by their own power.
The misconception of self in persons, or a core or essence in phenomena, is like when a rope is mistaken for a snake. The snake is merely projected by the force of a mistaken mind. It is easy to understand that there is not the slightest trace of existence of a snake from the side of the rope. The moment that a person thinks that there is a snake where the coiled rope lies, the appearance of a snake arises in that person’s mind. That appearance, however, is nothing but a projection, imputed from the side (mind) of the person. From the side of the rope, there is no snake.
Just like a snake is imputed on a coil of rope, likewise an “I” is imputed or projected onto the appropriate constituents or aggregates. In other words, although “clinging to “I” may occur, the object of clinging (an inherently existent I) is a mere figment, as non-existent as the apparent snake. Nothing within body and mind (the head, the legs, the skin, the brain, the mind, the feelings) is in even the slightest way the “I”. Nor can we find the “I” outside the body and mind (like a soul or a spirit). Hence, the “I” is merely set up by concepts and imputed upon the body and mind aggregates; it is not established by way of its own entity. Still, the name “I” serves its function conventionally.
One of the first things labelled, and the most troublesome, is my “self”. When we are born, we are given a name, and as we grow up we learn to think of ourselves as things that “self-exist” like the other things that we learn how to name. In this way “I” gain a sense of permanent identity that persists through the various activities I do. Language is intimately involved because it is with language that our sense of self is constructed. Buddhist thought deconstructs our unexamined belief in the reification of language by revealing the contradictions that plague it. Awakening involves realizing that linguistic categories (including the “I”) do not refer to real things. There is no intrinsic entity that corresponds to the label “I”.
The “I” or self exists merely by imputation. It exists by labelling or by terms and concepts superimposed onto the body-mind aggregates from the side of the mind. However, when we consider our own sense of self, we don’t really get the sense of an imputed self; the feeling we have is more as if the self exists inherently. Let me explain how the labelling, or imputation, works. For example: two people may impute contradictory characteristics on the one basis, say John. One might say John is likeable and the other says he is unlikeable. From John’s side he can’t be both; this is a contradiction. This shows that the qualities of likeable and unlikeable do not inhere in John but are merely imputed on John through thought or conceptually from the side of the mind or observer. From the side of John, John does not have these qualities, nor the quality of a self; they are not in John
Everything we perceive, everything we experience and everything we know is mediated through our mind. Nothing can exist apart from the mediation of the mind. The self is no exception. We can only know or be aware of the self through thought or mind. So the self is imputed by thought from the side of the mind. From its own side, from the side of the self, there is nothing out there, nothing independent and autonomous that is completely apart from the mind that we can pin down and point to. When we ask how the self exists in and of itself apart from mind we never find a shred of a thing – in – itself. This is attested by logic and empirical evidence. An independent self cannot be found. The self is nothing more than a conceptual abstraction. It has no intrinsic nature in itself. It exists only by imputation from the side of the mind, somewhat like a self or I in a dream.
However, the self does not present its lack of independent nature to our senses; instead, it deceptively appears to be a real entity established in its own right. We have fallen prey to this deception, we have falsely perceived this imputed self to be a real independent entity; it is our identity, it is who we really are. And so it is this sense of our own self (which factually does not exist, but is imagined to exist) that experiences such things as birth and death, suffering and depression, pride and arrogance, win and loss. We spend our lives protecting and defending this false sense of self through the accumulation of wealth, power, and status, through the pursuit of perfection and self-promotion and through the defeat and humiliation of our rivals. The anxious self, worried about its own insufficiency, is at the root of most human anxiety.
The sense of self is intimately connected to body identification. We are obsessed with our body, “my” body (what we like or don’t like about our body). This sense of “my” body gives us the false impression of a “my” or “self” in the background that is separate from our body and it is this very background “my” or “self” that we misperceive to be “me”, to be our true reality. We don’t think “we are our body” but rather that “we have a body.” We don’t think that the body suffers but rather that “I” suffers. It is this imagined sense of I or self (a self that exists only in our mind) that is the cause of all our problems. We are habituated that we have this intrinsic quality of “self.” It is a profound and compelling addiction. And on the basis of this addictive illusion we suffer immeasurable torment. What we experience (our fears, our anxiety, our insecurity, our uncertainty, what happens after we die, etc) we misperceive as happening to me, to my “self”, which factually cannot be substantiated or found. So who is it that is born and dies, who is it that wins or loses, who suffers, and who faces an uncertain afterlife? For this reason the recognition of the lack (emptiness) of an intrinsic, independent self is the most important thing we could ever understand. After all, the self does not exist intrinsically from its own side but exists only by imputation, by thought, from the side of the mind. It is this imputed (illusory) sense of self that we have unwittingly identified with that is the cause of all our woes. When we see the self lacks any nature of its own, our conviction of its reality begins to wane, along with the suffering and anxiety it engenders. In other words, we have a change of mind. After all, enlightenment or liberation is nothing more than a change of mindset.
Summary:
Since everything is impermanent, the Buddha concluded that there cannot be a permanent self abiding in people. What we take to be a self, according to the Buddha, is simply the body/mind aggregates arising and ceasing. For example, the category of physical substance is an aggregate of earth, air, water, and fire, and the category of psychological tendencies is an aggregate of habits, likes, dislikes, greed, wilfulness, etc. The idea of a “person” is just a convenient way to refer to these five categories and aggregates of elements. It is dispositions and grasping that cause one to see an illusory self in the aggregates. Yet, when examined nowhere would there be found an organ or entity, as it were, which was an actual “self” or “ego” in this dynamic agglomeration of fluctuating elements. The appearance of the aggregates does not necessitate the existence of a “self” nestled behind the aggregates. Thus, he concluded, beings are empty of a self, or “selfless.” He did not say that there was no appearance or experience of a self, but rather, that there was no actual person that can be found to act as a referent for the concept of self. We all use the label self and we all experience a self as an apparent subject of our experiences, but when we look for a substance or essence underlying the aggregates, no actual entity of a self can be found that corresponds to that experience of self. Wherever one looks, within or without, no actual self is found. “Not finding” such a self is in fact the key to liberation. To see the deception is to be free of deception.
When a Sage has certainty that people are changing moment by moment (that is, they are impermanent) the Sage has refuted within his or her mind that there is a permanent unchanging self. (Since the body/mind aggregates themselves are impermanent the Sage has certainty of no permanent “self” abiding within them). The Sage understands that self is imputed to merely the collection of their aggregates. Since a self who is imputed merely to the phenomena of his or her aggregates, the Sage has certainty there is no intrinsic entity called “self” abiding either within or outside of the aggregates.
Dependent Origination
When the whole of the Buddha’s teachings and all of their implications are not just comprehended, but directly perceived, the goal of the religious quest has been obtained. What is this one truth? Most simply put, it is dependent origination. The Buddha says that the theory of dependent arising is alone sufficient to explain all perceptions of the world. In its most abstract form, the theory holds that: “On the arising of “that” condition, “this” effect arises. On the cessation of “that” condition, “this” effect ceases.” For example; on the arising of the conditions of wood, a spark and oxygen – fire arises; on the cessation of conditions (say no oxygen) – fire ceases.
Things appear or arise or show up, not through their own causal power, but by way of dependency. Things depend for their existence on other things, and these things depend on other things, and so on. Nothing is self-standing independent with its own nature. There is no first cause or beginning (and therefore no end). A tree, for example, depends for its existence on a seed, water, soil, sun, and so on; fire depends for its existence on the conditions of wood, spark, oxygen and so forth; a person depends for his or her existence on the body/mind aggregates, parents, water, food and air; and so on. Everything is dependent for its existence on something else. Hence, there is no inherent or independent thing, such as the tree, fire, person, or anything else. Inherent existence or independent existence – existence that does not depend on anything else – is incoherent and simply does not exist. Things being dependent and not independent or inherent, explains why we can’t find anything tangible or substantial that we can point to and say “this is that thing or object, this is the tree or treeness, this is the self.” Instead, the mind analysing the thing arrives at last at the emptiness of the thing, that is, the thing’s lack of any essential nature. Also, the “thing” in question is changing every instant as the conditions change. Hence, things are impermanent, which further explains why we can’t pinpoint anything permanent, substantial or inherent.
When we see some impressive object, a mountain or a large new building, we can see how this object arises from causes and conditions. For example, a large school building depends upon earlier people having certain ideas about education. It depends upon a society in which shared values support the work that is done in the building. It depends on money raised by people, and thus upon their work, their economic system. It depends upon people dreaming of this particular school, architects and engineers designing it, people assembling materials, people making the walls one block at a time. The wood in the building depends on trees, which depend on water, earth and light. Without hard work to maintain the building it quickly disintegrates. In other words, the school building is dependently originated all the way down and it is therefore impossible to specify precisely what it is upon which anything finally depends.
The school does not have any natural capacity to exist on its own. That is to say, it is empty of any natural power to be there. It would not be there without its underlying conditions. And it will vanish as the conditions supporting it change. The building on first impression does not appear so contingent. It does not show us how it really is. It presents itself as imposing, as though suggesting that it had some natural power to be there. This is true with all the objects we see. Whatever is supposed to be substantial is actually nothing but dependent co-origination. At no point does analysis arrive at anything that exists in itself.
It appears as if everything exists through its own “thingness” to be the way it is. However, all phenomena exist interdependently rather than independently. To conceive of phenomena existing in and of themselves through their own core nature is called inherent existence. This is the target to be refuted on the path of emptiness teachings. The absence of inherent existence is referred to as emptiness and when realized, one sees all phenomena as dependently arisen and so empty of an independent nature or essence. If something is empty is to say it arises dependently.
There is no magical or mysterious causal power that causes things to arise and then cease. Things arise dependent on conditions and cease when the conditions cease. For example, fire requires fuel oxygen friction, etc, as fire does not burn itself. It does not create itself or endure in itself. Fire exists in dependence on conditions that are not even considered to be fire. For example, fuel is not fire, nor is oxygen. However, if you remove these conditions that fire depends, there will be no fire remaining. Thus they are called conditions. Fire and the conditions of fire are unfindable as things existing in and of themselves. Because fire does not independently exist, it appears under certain conditions and no longer appears when conditions change or cease. For example, if oxygen is removed or ceases, fire ceases. It is not that the fire died because there was never an independent inherently existing thing called fire in the first place. Fire appears dependently, dependent on oxygen and wood, and even when fire is manifesting there is still no actual independently existing entity called fire because it depends on other things. Likewise, there is no actual independently existing entity called self or I, even when the self or person is appearing or manifesting because it depends on other things. Hence, there is no actual entity called self that is born, endures for a time, and then dies. All that is taking place is the constant arising and ceasing of the “selfless” aggregates. No actual “self” arises or ceases or endures. The self is merely imputed by thought on the aggregates. Just because the aggregates appear does not necessitate the existence of an underlying self.
“Buddhism does not deal with ‘selves’, but underlying conditions.”
Whatsoever arises or appears or shows up does so dependently; dependent on conditions, dependent on its parts, and dependent on thought. For example, a tree arises or appears dependent on conditions of a seed, sun, water, soil, and so forth. It is also dependent on its parts, a trunk, leaves, branches, and so forth. It is also dependent upon being thought of, imputed, or labelled, a tree. A person appears dependent on conditions of parents, food, water, air, and so forth; dependent on the body/mind aggregates such as the head, skin, legs, feelings, consciousness, and so forth; and dependent upon being thought of, imputed, or being labelled a person or self.
People commonly believe that they have a separate self that is fixed and unchanging, an inside core that is a me. Despite noticing that thoughts, feelings, perceptions and body sensations change every instant, it is believed that there exists an inner self separate from the rest of creation – animals, rocks, rivers, mountains – we believe ourselves to be this free mental thing that stands outside of materiality and causality. So one holds on tightly to this identity of a me and therefore to the mine for fear of grave loss. But there is no separate existence to defend. There is no independent self that is ever separate from what happens. This is why the separate subject “self” is an illusion or false. What we call a self depends upon everything that is not considered to be a self. If even air or water were removed, there would be no self-essence left over. Whatever exists dependently cannot also exist independently or separately. And further, since an independent (inherent) self is false, all that is experienced by the self (thoughts, feelings, consciousness, awareness, birth, death, suffering, fear of what happens after death, etc) is also false. They are like a false appearance of an oasis in the desert. The self (the inherent self) is merely imputed by thought or mind and so is nothing more than a conceptual abstraction, a fiction, and therefore is false. Our identification with this false sense of self underlies some of our most destructive behaviour.
All entities lack inherent existence in that they are mental constructs. Things originate dependent on other things so they don’t have their own nature and in this sense they do not really originate – a phantasm, a mental creation, a magic illusion, a mere appearance.
An understanding of dependent origination or emptiness is like seeing the world without the glasses which impute intrinsic existence we normally wear. It is seeing a world that has no underlying ground, but is supported by complex interrelations. In discussing emptiness, dependent arising is the ‘meaning’ or ‘content’ of emptiness. These two ideas, emptiness and dependent origination, support one another and analysis into either will give rise to insight into the other.
That which is dependently arisen does not have its own nature, it depends on other things. Whatever arises dependent on other things does not truly arise as an independent entity. Therefore, it is dependently arisen, meaning that its arising is just a mere appearance. This characteristic of dependent arising is important to remember: When something is dependently arisen, it is not truly arisen; like a reflection in a mirror, a mere appearance of something that is not really there.
It’s all in the Mind
The purpose of this chapter is to come to the understanding that the objects and things we experience as real solid independent entities “out there” are really only mental imputations (constructions) of our mind. It is important to know this, because our ignorance of this fact, the fact of the insubstantiality of things, Buddhist thought tells us, is the root cause of all our suffering.
Let us demonstrate that the objects and things we perceive to be real solid entities “out there” are really only what we have mentally constructed “out there”. Although things appear to be separate inherent entities, set up out there on their own, they could not exist independent of our mind (our cognitive and sensory faculties). Apart from our mind we would have no knowledge of things, no knowledge of the world. Nothing can exist independent of our minds. Everything we experience and know is mediated through our minds. This is an important discovery because our search is narrowed down to the key ingredient; the mind. Hence the expression: “It’s all in the mind.”
We may think that the mind is in the body, we say, “my mind” (pointing at the head). Actually, it’s the other way around. The mind is not in the body, but the body is in the mind! Even when we are in a body, “our” body, we are not really there if we do not have a mental conception of “body.” We can only truly know our body through our mind. If the matter is well examined, it will be found that all appearances manifest within the mind; they cannot appear elsewhere.
What do we know about our body? We can see it. We can hear it. We can smell it. We can touch it. But, where does seeing occur? In the mind! Where does hearing occur? In the mind! Where does smelling occur? In the mind! Where does tasting occur? In the mind! Where do we feel touch? In the mind! Because the appearing phenomena are “mind stuff” they can only be perceived through our mind.
When we think or know of the body, we do so through the agency of our minds. We have never known anything about our body except through our mind. So our entire life, from the very first day, everything we have ever known about our body and the world has happened in our mind. The entire world we see is actually inside of us. It is perceived through our senses and cognitive apparatus and hence is a construction of our mind. Everything in existence is actually just our understanding of it. Things only exist in our mind…..because that’s the only place they can exist. Our ideas of right and wrong, separation and togetherness, love and hate…..everything is in our mind. We may believe people out there, are out there…..but out there, is only out there because we see it as such. What this means is that the things that we perceive to be solid objects out there are really only what we have projected or constructed “out there” by mind. The world and things (like people, objects, birth and death, pleasure and pain, and other characteristics) we literally make it up (conjure) through thought. We don’t discover real entities out there, we only discover what we have made-up. Things appear to us as being full of our imputations. So the world we perceive as a physical reality is actually our mental construction of it. In other words, the appearing phenomena are merely constructions of our mind by thought. What we make is a fake. It has no solid intrinsic nature of its own, somewhat like a mirage or a magic illusion, so all talk of substance, matter, form, permanence, inherent existence, essence, or fixed entities, must be abandoned, a radical conclusion indeed.
Suppose for a moment we leave aside any consideration of things from the side of the mind. When we ask: “How do these things exist from their own side? What are they like in and of themselves apart from our mind, apart from any mental sensory or cognitive conception of them?” When we ask about how things are in and of themselves from their own side, we never find a shred of a thing – in – itself. (Thoughts like: (Thoughts like: “What are dogs thinking; or what happens after death; or what are aliens or extra-terrestrials really like?” are examples of us trying to understand things, in and of themselves apart from the mind of the person viewing them. Hence, such thoughts or questions are futile and unanswerable). There is nothing that is purely objective, nothing out there completely apart from mind that we can pin down and point out. We can only know of things from the side of our mind. Things are but mental constructions of our mind. For example, a self is merely imputed from the side of the mind on the aggregates; but there is no self who exists or evolves from the side of the aggregates. Similarly, a table is merely imputed from the side of the mind on the aggregates; there is no table that exists from the side of the aggregates. This may help explain why we can’t find something substantial, something with a core nature or essence called table. The table has no solid inherent nature of its own that can be identified but exists only by mental imputation.
Since things are dependent on conditions, an entity is simply a name attributed to the conglomeration of conditions coming together. If one looks for say “table” there is nothing there other than its parts and external conditions operating in conjunction. There is no separate “table”, it can’t be found. Table is simply a name, a concept which the mind imputes on the aggregates. There is no mind-independent table so the table, and other things, have merely mind or conceptual existence. Consider the Zen koan: “If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one there that hears it fall, does it make a sound?” This question of course makes no sense apart from mind and sense faculties, so it is a false question and hence, unanswerable.
People, cars, tables and things do exist, but they do not at all exist on their own, independent of our mind or senses. However, they do not present their lack of independent existence to our senses; instead they look substantial and compelling, they look as though they were established on their own, out there. Appearances are delusionary. The delusion, that is the root cause of all suffering, involves seeing things as having just this sort of objective and autonomous existence. This delusion sees things as being set up from their own side, as having their own natural way to be there, to be independent and autonomous. Yet, everything that exists depends on being imputed by our mind, so it is not set up from its own side.
It is our misperception of things as being inherent independent entities apart from our minds that causes us great suffering. Because these various projections of our minds appear before us as self-existing objects we become attached to the reality of our own projections. We are fooled by our own minds, by our own projections, and hence, the attendant attraction and aversion to these projections; which is called cyclic existence or primal confusion. Our mind is the only thing standing between illusion and awakening. Fortunately, we can change our minds. Our minds got us into this trouble, but it is also the solution out. After all, enlightenment or liberation is simply a change of mindset; a change in how we perceive things. We don’t need to change the world; we need only change our mind about the world. When the perceptual process is transformed we recognize that the appearing phenomena are not the substantial entities that they appear to be but are mere mental imputations of our mind. When this occurs, grasping at things ceases, ignorance ceases, and hence suffering ceases. What had previously appeared as samsara now appears as nirvana.
The Tangle of Theorizing
Mere speculation has occupied the minds of philosophers for thousands of years. Faced with the mystery of the cosmos, the spirit naturally tries to interpret what it encounters; and where knowledge is lacking, it will fill the void with speculation or myth. When one surveys even the little that is known of philosophical and religious history, and the successive attempts put forward by reason to account for the world and our experience of it, one cannot but marvel at the sheer inventiveness of the human imagination. Of course, in view of the fact that reason and logic seem to work well enough in the context of day-to-day it is thought it ought to be possible to reason one’s way to conclusions that extend beyond the empirical sphere. This results not in knowledge but in contradiction. It is a fact that equally plausible and coherent arguments may be constructed upon the same premise only to arrive at diametrically opposite conclusions. One philosopher will propound an attractive thesis to show that the cosmos had a beginning in time; another, with equally persuasive reasons, will prove the contrary. No one has ever succeeded in inventing a rational philosophy that is wholly incontrovertible. A procedure that appears to give us truth in fact produces only theory and opinion. And since, where metaphysics is concerned, verification is ruled out, there being no objective evidence available to compel the assent of all parties, it is clear that, in such a procedure, conflict between contrasting opinions is not only inevitable but endless. It produces illusion and not knowledge.
It is precisely because the Buddha does not immerse himself in theories about phenomena that he is able to discern their true nature, and it is this very discernment that confers liberation. To know things as they truly are is to free oneself from their tyranny. On the other hand, to elaborate theories about phenomena is not only to become engrossed in endless cogitation and verbiage; it is to veil the nature of phenomena even more and to fall even further beneath their spell. One becomes ever more entangled in what can only be productive of further frustration and sorrow. The Buddha declared: ”To hold that the world is eternal or to hold that it is not, or to hold that things truly exist or that they don’t truly exist – is the jungle of theorizing, the wilderness of theorizing, the tangle of theorizing, the bondage and the shackles of theorizing, attended by ill, distress, perturbation, and fever. This is the danger I perceive in these views, which makes me discard them all.”
It is important to assimilate this passage in its entirety. For although it expresses an unambiguous rejection of futile theorizing, it nevertheless indicates a truth that the ordinary conceptual mind is unaware of and this truth becomes accessible precisely when theories are laid aside. It points, in other words, to a reality that avoids conceptual theorizing thought processes, yet, the vast majority of living beings are wholly unaware of it. It is called nirvana, the true nature of the mind. But it is of paramount importance not to regard this as some “thing.” Nagarjuna suggests that it is a state so subtle and so profound that in the first moments after his awakening the Buddha remained silent and declined to teach perceiving that there was little chance of ordinary beings’ understanding him. However, moved by compassion the Buddha, as we know, relented and began his mission for those who might be trained. And in words that resonate down the centuries, he declared: “Open to them are the doors to deathlessness. Let those who have ears throw off their old beliefs.” These old beliefs refer not only to the belief in the self but to all theories and constructions of the ordinary mind, the inventions of philosophy and of religion, which operate according to affirmation and negation and the two extreme viewpoints of existence and nonexistence. No one, the Buddha affirms, can hold to either of these views and hope to be free. It is necessary to analyze such false trails and, having discovered their inner contradiction, to abandon them. Only then can one progress beyond samsara.
When in a meeting with the Buddha (Nagarjuna) a student asked him for a teaching about the correct view. The latter replied that ordinary beings are used to thinking dualistically, in terms of affirmation or negation. In dealing with themselves and the phenomena that surround them, they think and speak in terms of, “it is” and “it is not.” For example, concerning say the “self”, it is commonly perceived by people as “it is”, that is, that it intrinsically does exist; whereas, if the person dies, the “self”, is commonly perceived by people as, “it is not”, that is, that it intrinsically does not-exist. They take themselves, things and situations to be intrinsically real (existent), or to be intrinsically not real (non-existent). They cling to things, act accordingly, and wander through the transient joys and sorrows of samsara, high and low, in heaven or hell. But for those who correctly perceive the truth of how phenomena arise, abide, and pass away, the Buddha said, there is no “is” and no “is not.” “That things exist, is one extreme. That they do not exist is another. But I, the Tathagata (Buddha), accept neither ‘is’ nor ‘is not,’ and I declare the truth from the Middle Position.” Without adopting a viewpoint of his own every possible position is exposed as false so the busy restless mind is reduced to silence. Conceptual construction must be stilled if the perfection of wisdom is to manifest; the mind must be brought to the Buddha’s silence for liberation to be possible.
The self-confessed mission of Madhyamika (the school founded by Nagarjuna) is to undermine the misrepresentations of philosophy and religion, the fruit of the discursive mind’s deep-rooted tendency to elaborate theories in an attempt to explain phenomena, both of the outer world of things and the inner world of thought and emotion. But all of them, from the Madhyamika point of view, fall short to a greater or lesser degree, on the one all-important issue: the ultimate status of phenomena. All of them, in one way or another, affirm something to which they attribute real and ultimate existence. In itself, therefore, Madhyamika is not a philosophy so much as a critique of philosophy. Its task is to examine the attempts of thought to give an account, in terms of conceptual elaboration of “the way things really are” and to demonstrate its failure. In being a system of pure criticism, Madhyamika has no positive content of its own. Its evolution therefore cannot be assessed in terms of doctrinal elaboration. The history of Madhyamika is, consequently, no more than the account of the system’s relationship with other philosophies. The Madhyamika “shows the stresses and strains to which philosophy was subject down the ages.”
When the Buddha began to teach, he did not, of course, immediately set forth the truth in all its purity according to the level of his own understanding. He realized that this would have been far beyond the capacity of his hearers. Out of compassion, he set forth a doctrine suited to their powers, which was designed to draw them onto the path and foster their spiritual growth. His first task was to wean them away from the gross, naïve understanding of worldly beings: their unquestioning belief in the personal self and the reality of physical objects and mental experiences. He therefore spoke about the five aggregates, the six senses, and their objects and associated consciousnesses, showing, for example, how the human person can be analyzed into form, feelings, perceptions, conditioning factors, and consciousness without the existence of an additional factor called “self”. Despite the ingrained tendency of all sentient beings to assume the existence of a self and to cling to it, analysis shows that, no matter how hard one searches, no self can ever be found. In the same way, by observing the impermanence of physical things and mental events, one can come to an understanding that phenomena, however solid and unchanging they may appear, are in a state of constant, momentary flux. On the basis of this insight, one can begin to dissolve the attachment one has to mere transitory things and loosen the fetters that bind one in the round of suffering.
The work begins with a discussion about how things come into being and evolve. Nagarjuna shows that, phenomenal appearances, to the contrary, are not independent self-contained entities but arise dependent on other things. It is because nothing exists independently as its own substance, nature or process that everything is impermanent. A tree, for example, depends for its existence on its parts, such as branches, leaves and so on; depends on conditions, such as a seed, water, soil, sun, and so on; and depends on someone labelling it a tree (conceptual imputation). Since the tree is dependent on many other factors it is in this sense that the tree is said to be empty, empty of its own independent nature. Whereas, to say that something has real existence in itself is to say that it is an autonomous, circumscribed entity, separate and not dependent on other things. This is, as a matter of fact, how we habitually view things in the ordinary transactions of everyday life. We feel that we are self-contained individuals and relate to other self-contained individuals. We encounter objects, some pleasant, some unpleasant, which we try to acquire or avoid accordingly. More or less complicated situations arise which themselves seem individual and real. We are happy and we suffer. To the uncritical observer, life consists of blocks; it is a collection of individual, discrete realities. But this is an illusion. In its anxiety for reassurance and security, the mind reifies situations and things, which it clings to and manipulates in its hopeless quest for lasting satisfaction. In order to expose this procedure as the false trail that it is, Nagarjuna relentlessly demonstrates the inconsistencies inherent in what ordinarily passes for common sense; he shows that the normal “worldview” is in fact riddled with contradiction. Even to say that things are real or that they intrinsically exist implies an unchanging permanent entity, which of course is absurd, it is not our experience.
It is important to understand, however, that he is not trying to deny our experience in the phenomenal world. That would be absurd; the world-process is all around us constantly, undeniably. The objects of his critique are not the empirical facts of existence that inescapably appear to us but the assumptions that we make about these facts. We think that real things give rise to real things; that real things come into being and pass away. But this notion of real, individual, self-contained entities is something that we impose on the raw material or aggregates. It is a figment of our imagination; in fact there are no real things in this sense. Self-contained entities can never change and can never enter into relation with other entities. The notions of coming into being or passing away cannot be meaningfully applied to them. Thus Nagarjuna’s first stanza announces: “No things are produced anywhere at any time, either from themselves, from something else, from both, or from neither.” The true status of the phenomena that we experience is not, therefore, that they are real intrinsic entities coming into existence, but in their relatedness, their interdependence with all other phenomena. This interdependence undermines the notion of individual, intrinsic reality in things; it is the very antithesis of “thingness.” Phenomena, being the interplay of interdependent factors, are unreal. Their interdependence is their emptiness of intrinsic existence. And common things like time, movement, gain and loss, cause and effect (like a seed causes a tree), which we thought to be real inherent independent processes, Nagarjuna demonstrates to be also interdependent and not real independent entities. Nagarjuna’s “karikas” is an astonishing and disconcerting performance, and the reader is forced to acknowledge that what had previously been taken as the straightforward certainties of existence is nothing but a tissue of naïve and ultimately untenable assumptions. The entire worldview commonly accepted to be real by ordinary people, is shown to be completely incoherent. If we follow Nagarjuna’s arguments carefully, we can see that the common world view makes no sense. Nagarjuna is saying that if we think that the things of the world (ourselves included) are as they appear – self-existent and solid – we are not in touch with reality; we are living in a world of mirages. Phenomena appear to be real, but they are insubstantial, dreamlike.
We may be tempted to dismiss Nagarjuna’s ideas as no more than a curious paradox with little relevance to the facts of experience. Life, after all, goes on regardless of the theories of philosophers. Nagarjuna could be right, we may say, but since we all experiencing such dreamlike experiences, why question them? What, finally, is wrong with the way we perceive things? The answer is that there is nothing “wrong” with it; the issue is not a moral one. We are not condemned for being in samsara. To believe that phenomena are solid, real entities is not a “sin”; it is only a mistake. But it is a mistake with unfortunate consequences. In his first teaching following his enlightenment, the Buddha did not speak, though he could have done so, about the dreamlike nature of samsaric existence. Instead, he referred to a more pressing, less deniable problem, namely, that existence – the samsaric dream – is, as a matter of fact, utterly painful. Beings suffer; they are not satisfied. We cannot deny that our lives are plagued by the ills of birth, sickness, old age, and death, the inescapable accompaniments of existence. It is true that suffering may be suspended by moments of happiness. But these turn out to be fragile and are marked by a transience that renders them, in the larger view, meaningless.
Caught in the dream, unaware that they are dreaming, ordinary worldly beings endlessly try to manipulate phenomena in the interests of security and fulfillment. They do this by trying to create the conditions of material and emotional satisfaction and, if they are religious, by striving to create the causes of happiness in the hereafter, whether in terms of “going to heaven” or of securing a favourable “rebirth” in their future existences. So the happiness, thus produced, may be perceived as good, but it is still samsara. It is still part of the dream; it is not the final answer, not liberation. For samsara to disappear, its cause must be identified and arrested. The Buddha is saying that a lasting solution cannot possibly lie in the reorganization of the dream, in a mere rearrangement of the furniture. A better plan is to recognize our state of deception – the fact that we are dreaming – and to wake up. And to wake from the dream, it is necessary to understand the true nature of phenomena, that is, that they are just like dream images, empty of any intrinsic nature. The misperception that things exist intrinsically is the number one culprit, the source of all our woes.
The very word emptiness is highly disturbing. It carries with it the connotation that everything is denied, nothing is real; nothing makes sense and what is the point in pursuing a spiritual path? The Buddha shows not only that emptiness is compatible with the spiritual path, but that it is the very factor that makes spiritual growth and progress on the path possible. In fact, it is precisely because of emptiness that things can be amenable to change, transformation and evolution. Change is precisely why people live, die, suffer and can be enlightened and liberated. And change is only possible if entities and the way in which we conceptualize them are void or empty of any eternal, fixed and immutable essence. Without emptiness, that is, leaving emptiness aside, the mind, that has mental objects is constrained by the noose of the attachment toward its object.
The notion that things exist intrinsically is a deep rooted misunderstanding that has blinded us to seeing the real state of things (their emptiness). Intrinsic or independent things (things that don’t depend on other things) not only do they not exist, they cannot even conceivable exist (like horns on a rabbit). Ordinary people misperceive things to be intrinsically real entities. Only awakened beings realize intrinsic nature is illusory. As such, ordinary beings fail to see the true nature of things; their emptiness. Their minds have been suffused with a poisonous clinging to the real existence of entities. They hope they can find satisfaction in those things. This is like the futile attempt of pursuing a mirage in the desert, hoping the “water” will quench their thirst. They have become addicted to such an attitude, and their habit is exceedingly strong, with the result that it is hard to abandon. Therefore, in perceiving concrete objects, beings are quite unable to discern their true nature. They are overpowered by false discursive thought, which mistakenly takes such objects to be truly existent things. It is for this reason that all living beings fail to perceive the nature of phenomena (their emptiness of intrinsic existence). In exactly the same way, it is by continuously observing a thing that looks the same from moment to moment that the mind is dulled and fails to notice the thing’s momentary nature. Although people never actually perceive anything as truly existent (like perceiving a truly existent self) – for this would run counter to the very nature of phenomena, which is emptiness of true existence – nevertheless, their minds are hampered by their mistaken thoughts and they apprehend things amiss.
When it states that all things are empty, it does not mean that all things are non-existent. It only means that things do not inherently exist, independently and on their own right. We don’t claim non-existence, we merely remove claims for self-existing things. So while all things are empty of inherent existence, nonetheless, things still appear or show up in some fashion. Whatever appears, it is impossible for it not to be empty; and if it is empty it is impossible for it to be nothing. For example, a mirage does appear or show up. Mirages really are mirages, but are not really water, though they might appear to be water. So conventional phenomena really are empty, dependently arisen, nominally real, but are not substantial, inherently existent phenomena, though they might appear to be.
One who has understood emptiness through modes of profound reasoning does not cling to phenomena as having true existence, although they appear to exist truly. Ordinary people hold things to exist truly and phenomena appear to them in such a manner. This is similar to the type of appearance and the perception of people who watch a magic illusion. Now as to the one who has eliminated ignorance and sees emptiness directly, that one does not entertain true existence and hence, not cling to things as truly existent.
Emptiness does not deny the existence of things but says that all things have no intrinsic essence. In other words, nothing exists on its own, divorced or separated from other things. Therefore, everything is interconnected and cannot exist without depending on something else. This is the meaning of emptiness. And this is dependent arising.
The Tathagata
The Buddha (Shakamuni Gautama) made quite clear the fact that the Tathagata (an enlightened one) has not “gone somewhere” in answer to his disciple Vaccha’s persistent questions regarding the nature of the Tathagata after death. (It should be noted that what happens to the Tathagata after death and what happens to an ordinary person after death is the same because the nature of an ordinary person is no different to the nature of a Tathagata). In answer to the question then, the Buddha offered the analogy of “fire”.
“What think you, Vaccha? Suppose a fire were to burn in front of you, would you be aware that the fire was burning in front of you?” “Yes” If the fire burning in front of you were to become extinct, would you be aware that the fire in front of you had become extinct?” “Yes” “But, if someone were to ask you, “In what direction has that fire gone: east, or west, or north, or south?’ what would you say?” “The question would not fit the case, Gautama.”
The point is that a fire depends on certain elements for its existence, such as wood, heat, and oxygen. When these elements are no longer present, the fire does not leave, as such; it just ceases to exist. Similarly with the Tathagata; since ignorance and grasping have ceased to be operative, and when the inertia of the last of the aggregates, i.e. the body, is spent, then the Tathagata ceases to exist. The Tathagata is “thus-gone,” but there is no transcendent realm or nirvana in which s/he goes. That is, the Tathagata has “gone,” but s/he has not gone some “where”.
An immediate question following this statement in regards to the nature of the Tathagata after death. “Then what happened to the Tathagata?” He obviously existed at one point, and now he doesn’t, so where did he go?” The Buddha’s answer is startling: “It is not assumed that even a living Tathagata exists. Neither is it assumed that he does not exist, or both, or neither.” He goes on; when fire is extinguished, it does not go anywhere, east, west, north, or south. It simply ceases to be. Similarly, the one who has appeased, or eliminated, the snares binding one to the cycle of birth-and-death can be said to have attained freedom for he or she is now free of the binding influences. But this does not mean that the freed one goes on to a heavenly realm or a state of sanctified bliss. This person does not disappear only to reappear elsewhere. The freed one simply is no longer. It is not that the enlightened person ceases to exist, for s/he never assumed they existed in the first place. It was only an illusion of real existence that caused the one now free to have been bound to existence in the first place, and it is an equally ignorant illusion of those viewing the freed one to think that s/he exists now. That is, nothing goes out of existence; it never existed in the first place.
In answer to the question above, then, is that nothing happened to the Tathagata. His existential status did not change when he attained nirvana for he could not even be said to have existed before it. If the Tathagata’s nature before his nirvana was the same as his nature after enlightenment, then the only thing that changed was his subjective understanding. His actual nature did not change.
An even more startling conclusion follows from this. If his nature did not change, then the world of suffering or samsara, must not be different from the world experienced by the freed person. This is exactly what the Buddha concludes. “Samsara has nothing that distinguishes it from nirvana. Nirvana has nothing that distinguishes it from samsara.” There is no transcendent reality, no unique state of freedom experienced by the enlightened one. The worlds experienced by the one bound by suffering and the one freed from suffering are not different worlds. Nirvana is nothing more than a shift in understanding the world and a new way of reacting to it.
However, the Buddha is quick to say, this does not mean that the cycle of life-and-death (samsara) and freedom are the same. If they were simply declared to be identical, then there would be neither the experience of suffering nor the experience of release from it. Although samsara and nirvana are not different, they are nonetheless experienced differently and are not simply one and the same.
Nirvana is not another realm or dimension but rather the clarity and peace that arise when our mental turmoil ends, because the objects with which we have been identifying are realized to be sunya (empty). Things have no reality of their own that we can cling to, since they arise and pass away according to conditions. Nor can we cling to this truth.
lt is also possible to grasp after nirvana; to reify it as a state and to crave it as a phenomenon inherently different from samsara and as highly desirable since it is indeed characterized as liberation from suffering. But this grasping onto the end of grasping is itself a grasping and so precludes the attainment of nirvana.
Nirvana, like everything else that is named, is an empty concept. If nirvana is a truly existing reality that does not arise or pass away, then there is no way for us to get there. Nor is it a state superior to samsara. Letting go of the ways of thinking in which we are normally stuck allows us to experience the world as it really is. This, “the end of conceptual elaborations” is how the Buddha refers to nirvana. “Ultimate serenity is the coming-to-rest of all ways of ‘taking’ things, the repose of named things.”
The cause of the whole sphere of confusions and misunderstandings about the nature of nirvana or freedom is the human tendency to speculate and theorize. Were there not this tendency, then one would never perceive transitory phenomena as enduring in the first place, which would prevent one from developing passionate attractions and aversions regarding phenomena. Without such passions, the dispositions, graspings and cravings would not develop, and thus suffering would not come to be. Without these passions, one would not create the concepts of eternal life, existence or nonexistence, samsara or nirvana, buddha or sentient being, heaven or hell, friend or enemy, pleasant or unpleasant, infinity of the universe, and so on, concepts which the Buddha repeatedly refused to discuss.
The notion of emptiness is an antidote to conceptualization and speculation, which has its birth in confused understanding and its result in suffering. For, “when all things are empty, why speculate on the finite or the infinite? Why speculate on the eternal or the non-eternal, samsara or nirvana, Buddha or sentient being?” When one completely and utterly ceases to grasp onto theories and perceptions, speculation comes to an end, and dispositions are “blown out.” This is nirvana.
The Buddha’s interpretation of dependent arising holds that all that can be said to have any reality is the process, not the fluctuating elements comprising the process. From the standpoint of dependent arising when the notions of permanent being, essence or intrinsic nature are “blown out,” all that is perceived is the flow of becoming. This flow is without static objects such as elements or the individual self. Wrong views arise when one, through ignorance, believes there to be absolute objects and absolute existence. “Those who posit the substantiality of the self as well as of objects, elements, essence, and so on, these I do not consider to be experts in the meaning of the [Buddha’s] message.”
As all that exists is ruled by the process of dependent arising, one cannot say that the Tathagata has an independent and transcendent existential status. Even though the Tathagata has ceased to grasp on to the aggregates he should still depend upon them in the present. As such he will be dependent. There exists no Tathagata independent of the aggregates. This is not to say that the Tathagata has a self which exists even in the present. Having abandoned grasping and self-theorizing, it is only the external appearance of him which exists. It is grasping which causes the aggregates to continue coming together in life after life, grasping for self-assertion, for sense-fulfillments, and for continued existence.
Since the Tathagata has become enlightened by virtue of having released his tendency to grasp, he no longer believes that there is a self, comprising him in the present, and so he knows that he will not exist after death, either. It is only the misguided drive to attribute reality to the objects of grasping, the grasping itself, and the one who grasps that embroils the ignorant person in the tangle of existence-theorizing. It is only this misguided person, firmly insisting that a Tathagata ‘exists’ or “does not exist,” who ascribes a present or posthumous existence to the Tathagata. That is, even though the Tathagata no longer falsely believes that he exists, it is still possible for those who do imagine he exists, to attribute an existence to him. This existence would be on the grounds of the inherent existence of the aggregates and some view about the relations of the self to the aggregates. The Buddha explains that these people are seeing nothing more than a figment of their imaginations. “Those who generate obsessions with great regard to the Tathagata, all of them, impaired by obsessions, do not perceive the Tathagata.”
Another theory was that the soul which is unenlightened partakes of the quality of bondage, and, when this soul becomes free, then its essence shifts to now partake of the quality of freedom. The Buddha explains clearly that the nature of the Tathagata (or Buddha) is identical to that of any other person, and it has neither the “quality” of bondage nor the “quality” of freedom. There is no self to be found in either the bound or the freed person; both are composed of nothing but the selfless aggregates, and there is no real self which can be thus qualified. “The Tathagata is neither the aggregates nor different from them. The aggregates are not in him; nor is he in the aggregates. He is not possessed of the aggregates.” This definition of the Tathagata is no different than that of any and all persons. The existence of a self in the Tathagata is denied for the same reasons that it is denied in any person.
There is a saying in Buddhism, “A Buddha is an awakened sentient being. Sentient beings are unawakened Buddha’s.”
Emptiness
Because everything is dependently originated, nothing has a completely independent self or essence (hence the Buddhist concept of no-self “anatta”). This lack of independent identity in things is their emptiness (śūnyatā).
The Buddha is most famous for his teaching on “emptiness” and “dependent origination”. But first, there is a traditional caveat given to those desiring to study the teachings or reasonings on emptiness. The caveat, which is given in most texts and scholarly commentaries on the subject warns that emptiness does not entail utter non-existence, or psychological depression. A crucial distinction must be drawn between nihilism and emptiness. The emptiness of phenomena does not imply that nothing exists at all on any level, that there is no path to follow and no ethical values one should abide by. The reason for this is to prevent a nihilistic approach to life and the Buddhist path. It is important to clarify that the Buddha’s philosophy, far from being nihilistic, is in fact tremendously life-affirming. Emptiness does not destroy everyday life but simply perceives its nature as being empty. Thus the ideal is not dissolution of the structures of existence, but the awareness that these structures are empty. The teachings on emptiness attempt to show that spiritual progress is possible exactly because things are empty.
All is possible when emptiness is possible. Nothing is possible when emptiness is impossible.
The word emptiness has powerful negative connotations. It suggests at first, quite the opposite of a liberating spiritual path. It may suggest deadness or nothingness. Emptiness translated does actually refer to some sort of lack or absence in things. But it is not a lack of meaning or hope or existence. It is the lack of the exaggerated and distorted kind of existence that we have projected onto things and onto ourselves. It is the absence of a false essential nature with which we have unconsciously invested everything. It can be quite frightening as we start to have doubts about this “heavy duty” kind of reality. We will feel that things cannot exist at all if they do not exist in the solid way we are accustomed to seeing them.
Consider, however, that if we actually did have a very solid kind of existence, it would mean that we could never change. If it were our essential nature to be as we are, we would always be exactly that. We would be locked into existence, just as what we are now. There could be no life, everything would be static and frozen. But such frozen, stagnant, unchanging self-nature in things is precisely what things are empty of. Recognition of this absence of a fixed self-nature in things is referred to as the perception of emptiness.
Empty of what? By understanding what empty things are empty of we gain a more precise understanding of emptiness. The word ‘emptiness’ is so often misunderstood because when one only thinks of it as a concept, one says ‘what do you mean by empty?’ Everything is there: there are the people, and there are their insides, guts and their bones and blood and everything is full of stuff – and the mind is not empty either, it’s got ideas, thoughts and feelings. And even when it doesn’t have those, what do you mean by emptiness? The only thing that is empty is the emptiness of an entity, essence, or independent nature. Emptiness is a negation of self-existence or independent existence. Things still appear or show up but there is no specific entity core nature in anything. That is emptiness.
In Buddhhist terms, synonymous with emptiness which characterizes all of conventional reality, is dependent origination. Dependent origination describes interdependence: no-thing exists apart from its relationship with other ‘things’, they are, by definition, relative. That is, they only have identity in relation to other things, as a subject has identity in relation to an object (such as a tree). There is nothing which ‘is’ or exists independently. What this amounts to ontologically, is that no “thing” has a permanent or individual essence (svabhava) there is only this dependent origination. The absence of a lasting, individual essence is another way to understand emptiness.
How could there be some “thing” instead of no “thing?”
The Buddha explains that things arise dependent on other things. It is because nothing exists independently as its own substance, nature or process that everything is impermanent. For example, fire is believed to exist as a fundamental element. However, fire is dependent upon and inseparable from countless conditions such as fuel, oxygen, a spark, and so forth. If these conditions are cleared away, or even one of them, such as oxygen, there will be no fire left burning. Therefore, apart from the conditions of fire, there is no fire. Fire is not an independent element (it does not burn itself) but it arises interdependently. It has no essence of its own. It is in this sense that fire is said to be empty. But fire is not empty of appearance or conventional existence.
“Because of emptiness there is appearance. Without emptiness there could not be appearance.”
Since everything arises dependent on other things there are no independent things. Once we know that something is dependent, it cannot be independent. Something can’t be both dependent and independent, so by eliminating one, the other is established.
If something appears, or can be experienced, or can be identified, then its appearance depends on other things so we know immediately it is not an independent entity with its own self-nature. If things had inherent existence then they would be independent so conditions could not produce them and thus they could not arise. Conversely, if things arise, they could in no way be independent. Whatsoever shows up is but a mere appearance and “a mere appearance” is the true status of the appearing phenomena. Appearances lack substance or core nature. If something appears or shows up, recognize that that thing depends for its existence on other things so it lacks, or is empty, of its own, independent, self-nature. For example, because mountains and rivers are empty (non-existent) is precisely why there are mountains and rivers.
“All phenomena are empty of essence, but exist conventionally, interdependently, and impermanently.”
For something to be empty is for it to depend on other things (which are also empty). My appearance as a person doesn’t stand alone. It depends on a body, a mind, parents, air, food, and on being labelled as a person. Apart from all these things, there is simply no person or self to be found. It is not just the person or self that is empty, everything is empty in the same way – rocks, trees, bridges, planets, sentient beings, bodies, minds, thoughts, emotions, memories, truths, standards, certainties, pain and suffering, joy and happiness, afflictive and enlightened states of mind – are without any svabhāva, literally “own-being”, “self-nature”, or “inherent existence” and thus without any underlying essence. They are empty of being independently existent; this is so because all things arise always dependently: not by their own power, but by depending on conditions leading to their coming into existence, as opposed to being. The more closely we look, the more we don’t find these things.
All form, both coarse as in a tree, and subtle as in thought, depend upon innumerable conditions so they are not the fixed entities that they appear to be. Nothing actually remains the same for an instant. Buddhists deny that anything retains its identity over time (this is the doctrine of universal impermanence), and that even at a given moment, there is no unchanging entity as to who we are, and nothing in us that fits this description. What is perceived to be an unchanging object is, on the contrary, an instantaneous, indivisible movement of disintegration and formation, even though this transience or impermanence is imperceptible in the short term.
Impermanence means that everything is in change constantly, moment by moment. No “thing” in fact truly exists as a fixed “thing” at any time. Change is at work every moment on everything. In other words, there is no static moment in “duration” for anything. This is what “impermanence” means: no lasting reality. The very moment that something “is”, is the moment when it no longer “is”; its “existence” is cancelled out. There is no candidate for permanence. That anything appears to change shows that the thing is not self-composed or independently free-standing. If there were such a self-reliant thing, it would be impervious to effect upon it. It would remain as it had presumably been originated, indefinitely, immortally, not depending on anything. We know of no such thing. The abiding soul atman an eternal, God figure posited by some schools of thought is, by definition, not dependent upon any element of the world for its existence, and the Buddha’s philosophy holds that anything that is not dependent cannot be real. It would either transcend or precede existence, and thus could not exist.
The emptiness of all things lies in the constant flux that characterises the phenomenal world. There are no fixed, static entities in the world that remain the same. No entity retains all of its properties from one moment to the next; no entity, such as the self, endures from one moment to the next. Any identity over time (a continuum) is hence a fiction. The Buddha expressed this view when he said, “the world is a continuous flux and is impermanent”. He also said “It is not possible to step into the same river twice.” “The only constant is change.”
For the Madhyamika Buddhists, there is no fixed stage upon which the cosmic drama is enacted because the entire cosmos is permeated by a continuity of alterations. Absolutely nothing remains the same for any two successive moments. Since phenomena lack a nature that remains unchanged through the unfolding of time, they are empty. Phenomena are therefore best characterised not by “being” but “becoming”. For example, we might ask, when does the seed become a plant, and when does the plant become a tree? Once again, we encounter obscurities in our attempts to pinpoint the exact natures of “seedness,” “plantness,” and “treeness,” and these obscurities are, for the Buddhists, proof that there are no such natures to begin with.
Dependent origination simply is the explicability and coherence of the universe. lts emptiness is the fact that there is no more to it than that. When we look for its essence we literally come up empty. Dependence is the very antithesis of essence or intrinsic existence. The analysis never terminates with anything that can stand as an essence.
Now, since all things are empty, all things lack any self-nature. Self-nature, or essence, is just what empty things are empty of. In fact, all things cannot but be empty; there is no other mode of existence of which they are capable. Since emptiness is a necessary characteristic of things, it belongs to them essentially; it is part of the very nature of phenomena per se. This, hence, is an ultimate truth about them.
When it states that all things are empty, it does not mean that all things are non-existent. It only means that things do not inherently exist, independently and on their own right. We don’t claim non-existence, we merely remove claims for self-existing things. So while all things are empty of inherent existence, nonetheless, things still appear or show up in some fashion. Whatever appears, it is impossible for it not to be empty; and if it is empty it is impossible for it to be nothing. For example, a mirage does appear or show up. Mirages really are mirages, but are not really water, though they might appear to be water. So conventional phenomena really are empty, dependently arisen, nominally real, but are not substantial, inherently existent phenomena, though they might appear to be.
No phenomenon is denied or invalidated by the fact of being empty; it is empty in the very moment of its appearance. In their appearing phenomena are empty; and in their emptiness phenomena appear. Take for example the moon reflected in water. The moon appears while being empty; and there is nothing that is empty apart from its appearance. Phenomena are empty in the same way, and this does not necessitate the exclusion of their mere appearance. If there is no appearance, there is no emptiness, for emptiness and appearance depend upon each other. The absence of one entails the absence of the other; the presence of one entails the presence of the other. It is not that appearance and emptiness exist separately. Neither are they alternate in the sense that when one goes, the other comes. Emptiness entails appearance; appearance entails emptiness. And the thing that appearances are empty of is intrinsic existence or true existence.
One who has understood emptiness through modes of profound reasoning does not cling to phenomena as having true existence, although they appear to exist truly. Ordinary people hold things to exist truly and phenomena appear to them in such a manner. This is similar to the type of appearance and the perception of people who watch a magic illusion. Now as to the one who has eliminated ignorance and sees emptiness directly, that one does not entertain true existence and hence, not cling to things as truly existent.
Emptiness does not deny the existence of things but says that all things have no intrinsic essence. In other words, nothing exists on its own, divorced or separated from other things. Therefore, everything is interconnected and cannot exist without something else existing. This is the meaning of emptiness. And this is dependent arising.
“What is dependently co-arisen that is explained to be emptiness. That, being a dependent designation is itself the middle way. Something that is not dependently arisen, such a thing does not exist. Therefore a non-empty thing does not exit.”
If something is dependent on something else to manifest, it is empty and has no self-existence. And if something is empty, it depends on something else to come into being; it cannot manifest on its own. Everything is co-dependent arising.
Summary:
Nāgārjuna’s fundamental conception is that all phenomena are empty of intrinsic nature because they depend on other things. Because they are empty they can interact with each other to generate the effect, which, being dependent and impermanent, cannot but be empty as well. The myriad things are interdependent, ever-changing, and empty. Significantly, things are empty mainly because they are devoid of any fixed essence or permanent nature. That things are ever-changing also indicates that they are devoid of any fixed identity. Ultimately, we cannot say what things are because they do not exist in and of themselves.
Because things are interdependently co-arisen, the Buddha says that inherently existent things cannot be found so in absolute terms one could say that phenomena as events are ultimately unfindable. This absence or “emptiness of phenomena” is Sunyata. It is actually quite subtle: there is nothing – not one single thing in the realm of phenomena – that can be either pinned down or grasped in any way. Insubstantiality, ungraspability and complete unfindability are the ultimate characteristics of experienced phenomena. They are utterly pure from the very beginning. They are beyond all conceptual constructs. In other words, dualistic mental processes, which ascribe reality to what are merely names, no longer operate with regard to them. They are beyond the discrimination of acceptance and rejection, and can be said to be neither inherently existent nor non-existent, and because they have no objectifiable essence they never really come into existence, nor do they go out of existence either. Every phenomenal event is entirely elusive and ephemeral. It is like trying to grasp an image in a mirror.
The yogi searching for the true nature of things in analytical meditation does not come up with the true existence of anything; he or she realises only emptiness. Emptiness is, therefore, the final nature, the ultimate reality, the mode of being, of all that exists. When one perceives the emptiness of intrinsic nature of a phenomenon, one perceives a nature that phenomenon has, regardless of ones perspective of it. The emptiness of intrinsic nature is the ultimate truth that must be realised on the path to liberation. But it is more than that. It is a lack of difference between entities. There is therefore no substantial difference between any two things in the universe.
Nirvana
There may be no single concept in Buddhism which has elicited more confusion and debate than nirvana. Nirvana is often translated as “freedom,” but it actually means “extinction.” A literal translation of “nirvana” is “blown out,” as in the extinguishing of a fire, or, “blowing out” of false thoughts and their concomitant desires. Nirvana is not a state of transcendent eternal bliss, like that of some forms of Yoga in Hinduism, nor sanctified salvation, like that of the Christianity, nor final posthumous nonexistence, like that of some Materialist philosophies. It is simply the clarity and peace that arises when the objects we have been grasping on to are realized to be empty.
The Buddha eliminates various misconceptions about this state of nirvana. Nirvana is not something that can be “attained,” and not something that “arises.” It is also not something that is permanent, and it is not something that can be possessed or relinquished. It is not a form of existence, nor is it non-existence. If it were a form of existence, (inherent existence) then it would not depend on anything and hence it would not relate to anything. We know of no such thing. Neither can Nirvana be said to be non-existence, for, “wherein there is no existence, therein non-existence is not evident.” The two are relative concepts. The Buddha echoed the clear assertion that nirvana is neither transcendent existence nor posthumous annihilation. It can only be described in terms of a negation; a negation of all our assumptions and conceptual elaborations about it.
Nirvana is not a “thing”. The fact that nirvana is spoken of as being “realized,” “attained” or “achieved” is not to be understood as implying that freedom is a “thing” which can be known or possessed. It is simply used as a tool for escaping suffering. But no matter how much one may stress that nirvana is not a “thing” but is a lack of “thingness,” there is much likelihood that unenlightened people would think of it as a concrete goal or a tangible heaven.
One substantialist notion was that the bound person partakes of the quality of bondage. Nirvana, then, would be the relinquishing of this nature and the adoption of a new and wholly disparate mode of existence – the freed state. This does not apply. There is not a person who partakes of qualities, and freedom is not a concrete goal that can be striven for. An eternalist soteriology would hold that the state of Nirvana transcends temporality and the one who achieves freedom also becomes eternal. Nirvana is not such, for it avoids the extreme of both eternalism (permanence) and transience (impermanence). It cannot be thought of in terms of arising and ceasing for it is “non-ceased and non-arisen.” Nirvana is thus – not a “thing” that is obtainable, not a transcendent reality, and not, like the Hindu atman, a pre-existing immanent substratum or a universal consciousness.
Another way of perceiving Nirvana is as follows: The very same world is samsara or nirvana, dependent upon one’s perspective or attitude, for all else remains as it was. When one perceives the constant arising and ceasing of phenomena, one perceives samsara. When all reification is abandoned, that very same world and one’s mode of living in it, becomes nirvana. What this is saying then is that samsara has no thing that distinguishes it from nirvana. Nirvana has no thing that distinguishes it from samsara. That nirvana and samsara are perceived separate is made by the false supposition that they are two self-existent “things.”
To say that the world of suffering is identical with the highest and most honoured of goals of Buddhism would seem to be flagrant blasphemy. It is only blasphemy from the standpoint of essentialism. If there is a self-nature in either, then the two would assuredly be different. Bondage, as a real thing, would have to be broken free from, and enlightenment, as a true state, would have to be achieved. The tendency to see them as concrete things actually would deny a person the possibility of ever releasing one and obtaining the other. If the samsaric process was real, having self-nature and if one were bound within that process, then one could never leave. Similarly, if nirvana were a real attribute of which the unenlightened individual were not yet partaking, and if it had an essence, then it could never be achieved. Such a radical separation of Nirvana and samsara severs any possible relationship between them. If this happens, then something bound can never become unbound, and someone who suffers can never hope for release. It is only because both nirvana and samsara, like all other phenomena, are empty of inherent nature that they can be said to be identical. As empty, they can each be said to lack self-nature, and are identical in that neither is real.
Because neither samsara nor nirvana is real, both of them are worldly conventions. Inasmuch as Nirvana is dependent upon the conception of Samsara and dependent upon an illusory entity, Nirvana also belongs to the realm of apparent truth.
Nirvana is none other than the non-establishment of anything in its intrinsic being. The Enlightened Ones do not perceive anything that is established in its intrinsic being. They do not apprehend things and their true nature, rather they apprehend there are no things, per se. When such entities are analyzed with wisdom, they are found to be like an illusory elephant in a magical show; non-existent in their intrinsic being. When one has understood the nature of entities to be unapprehended or without support, this is Nirvana. Since everything is empty, then nirvana is just as empty as samsara and there is no real difference between them. Hence, all phenomena are similar to nirvana because all phenomena are devoid of intrinsic nature.
At this point, the meaning of Interdependent Origination is explained in the following way. The origination of entities is not an actual origination. Inasmuch as Samsara (suffering) also participates in Interdependent Origination (it depends on a person who suffers) it is not originated in its intrinsic being, it does not actually come into existence. Because it is not originated in its intrinsic being, it is known as Nirvana. Therefore, both, that is, Samsara and Nirvana are unoriginated in their intrinsic being. Consequently, it is said in the Middle Way that there is nothing which distinguishes Samsara from Nirvana. The limit of Nirvana is also the limit of Samsara. There is not even the subtlest difference between these two. The term “limit” or perhaps better, summit, means excellence and this in turn signifies most superior. Samsara and Nirvana are one.
The pragmatic value of equating nirvana and the cycle of birth and death is that it demonstrates the attainability of enlightenment. Freedom and bondage are not identifiable things with separate and distinct spheres of influence. To borrow a simplistic view of theism, if the world comprised one plane and freedom another – transcendent one – then the feasibility of escaping one and attaining the other would be highly suspect.
The Buddha’s declaration that freedom is the world and the world is freedom demonstrates that enlightenment is readily at hand. One need do no more than shift one’s perceptions to find it. The unpleasant world is one constructed through ignorance, grasping and dispositions. The pleasant (or not unpleasant) world is found simply by understanding the meaning of emptiness and ceasing to reify the phenomenal one. Seen from the conventional or unenlightened vantage point, the cosmos is a cycle of birth and death characterized by suffering. Seen from the vantage point of dependent origination and emptiness, the cosmos is an ever-flowing, ever-changing empty process.
The highest awareness which is needed for release from samsara then is not the result of moving from the finite to the infinite but the release from ignorance about the dependent origination of anything at all. Dependently originated things, which include all existent things, are empty (empty of self-nature) because they depend on other things. Nirvana, then, is living in full awareness of dependent origination, full awareness of the empty nature of things.
The achievement of nirvana requires dependence, impermanence, and the possibility of change, all of which are grounded in emptiness. The point is that no ascription of any predicate to nirvana can be literally true. For such a predication would purport to be an assertion that nirvana is an ultimately existent phenomenon with a determinate property, and there are no ultimately existent phenomena, neither samsara nor even nirvana.
Samsara and Nirvana were demonstrated not for the sake of the Enlightened Ones, but for ordinary people. Those who do not see the emptiness of all things are attached to the world and Nirvana. When one does not see emptiness: that is Samsara. Nirvana is called the opposite of worldly existence. To ordinary people, Samsara and Nirvana, are mutually opposed antidotes to each other; one of them is meant to be removed and the other is to be acquired. But those who see emptiness are not attached to the world and Nirvana. The Enlightened One’s, who perceive the ultimate, neither perceive Samsara nor Nirvana as intrinsic entities. Consequently, for one who has seen emptiness, there is no assumption of either Samsara or Nirvana.
Because nirvana can only be spoken of by contrasting it in some sense with samsara, and because there is no conventionally existent perceptible entity that could serve as a referent for the term, there is the terrible temptation when speaking of nirvana to think that it is an inherently existent thing or state and highly desirable since it is indeed characterized as liberation from suffering.
When one perceives the constant arising and ceasing of phenomena, one perceives samsara. When all reification is abandoned, the world and one’s mode of living in it becomes nirvana. This emphasizes that all discourse is only possible from the conventional point of view. When we try to say something coherent about the nature of things from an ultimate standpoint, we end up talking nonsense. Seeing the conventional as conventional is to see it as it is ultimately.
Nirvana is simply samsara seen without reification, without attachment, without delusion. There is not the slightest difference between samsara (cyclic existence) and nirvana. To distinguish between samsara and nirvana would be to suppose that each had a nature and that they were different natures. But each is empty, and so there can be no inherent difference.
But if, as the Buddha argued, Nirvana is simply to see conventional things as empty and not to see some separate emptiness behind them then nirvana must be grounded in the conventional. To be in samsara is to see things as they appear to deluded consciousness and to interact with them accordingly. To be in Nirvana, then, is to see those things as they are, as merely empty, dependent, impermanent, and non-substantial, but not to be somewhere else seeing something else.
Nirvana does not exclude samsara. We don’t escape from samsara in order to attain nirvana because nirvana is not someplace else. Nirvana is a way of being here.
“Jewel-Seal-in-Hand” says, “To like Nirvāṇa and to dislike the world makes dual. If one does not like Nirvāṇa nor loath the world, then there is no duality, no distinguishing one thing from another. Why is this so? Because if there is bondage then there is liberation. If from the beginning there is no such thing as bondage, who would ever seek for liberation? He who realizes that there is no bondage and no liberation will have no likes or dislikes. This is entering the Dharma-gate of non-duality. . .”
Summary:
A young disciple asked the Buddha: How do those who have achieved nirvana discern phenomena?
“Young man, those who have achieved nirvana (enlightenment) practice the discernment of phenomena by viewing phenomena as phenomena (or form as form). They do not perceive nirvana as other than form. They do not approach nirvana as other than form. They do not seek nirvana as other than form. They do not attain nirvana as other than form. They do not inspire beings to nirvana that is other than form. They do not see a tathāgata as other than form. They see a tathāgata in this way: ‘The tathāgata is the fearlessness that is the nature of form.’ They do not see the tathāgata as other than the nature of form. They do not see the nature of form as other than the tathāgata. The nature of that which is called form and that of the tathāgata is non-dual. Those who see in that way are engaging in the discernment of phenomena.”
“One should abide in the phenomenal world because this is precisely where emptiness is – in the phenomena.”
Mental Constructions
Everything we experience is mediated through our minds. Whatever we know or talk about is already a thing – as – it – is – known, a thing as conceived by a mind. We cannot talk about or get at things as they are in and of themselves apart from mind or in a way that is prior to any thought or conceptualisation. This is because things have no nature in and of themselves apart from mind. When we leave aside analysis of how things appear to our minds – that is, independent of our minds – and attempt to analyse objects (including the self) in and of themselves, we soon realise that there is nothing to which we can point. And it is not simply because we happen to be trapped in a situation where we cannot step out of our skin and take an objective view of the matter, it is because the thing in question, that which we would wish to know is already something of which we are conceiving. When we ask about how things are in and of themselves apart from mind, we never find a shred of a thing – in – itself. We suppose that the world is already and always fully real, independent of our minds, out there waiting to be revealed by the searchlight of consciousness. Our minds are actually collaborating in the creation of the world, moment by moment. The world shows up exactly the way we have constructed it. We don’t discover real objects out there, only what we have constructed “out there” by thought or mind. Hence the expression: “It’s all in the mind.”
Let me explain how the mind is involved in our misperception of things. Generally speaking, the five material sense perceptions and mental perception work together, arising and ceasing moment by moment, and so creating our image of the world. Our sensory and mental consciousness also registers concepts, memories and emotions from the side of the observer and these enter into the representation of the total perceptual field which constitutes our cognitions. Our senses, in conjunction with our mental consciousness, perceive only the mode of appearance of things. The mode of appearance suggests substantiality. The mode of appearance is deceptive; it is not the way things really are. Things appear in one way (intrinsically) yet, they actually lack intrinsic nature. Things are empty, like reflections in a mirror, or an oasis of a lake in the desert. Our sensory and cognitive instruments are an unreliable witness. We cannot rely on our ordinary sense and cognitive faculties to tell us whether something is or is not empty of intrinsic nature. When we look at a table, even our eyes present an image of something that seems to be set up right there, independent, as though apart from us, apart from our mind. In this regard, a visual consciousness is “not valid in any way,” it is “not a valid cognition”. If our ordinary senses already gave us an accurate picture of the world or of ultimate reality, what would be the point of enlightenment? Everyone would be already enlightened, which is not the case.
Our sense consciousnesses are mistaken about how conventional phenomena exist. They misperceive things as having their own intrinsic nature. Things appear to them as though they were established objectively, independently, from their own side. Our mental consciousnesses actively ascent to this false appearance, they conceive of things as existing in an exaggerated way, existing in and of themselves. We are hard-wired to see things exactly this way. We superimpose intrinsic nature (characteristics, properties, etc) on things that lack it. We are literally seeing things that are not there. So the world we perceive as a physical reality is actually our mental construction of it. Although the mental construction appears to be solid, the physical world itself is not.
So how do appearances come to be so deceptive? For example, sensory contact with the world is a catalyst for the proliferation of perceptions. In other words, what we cognize through sense-data and through the sense-faculties are then perceived or recognized by checking them, as it were, against a memory bank of past experiences, so that we can make sense of it, form ideas and motivation for various actions. In other words, we see only what we have mentally constructed, not real objects. Because these various constructions of our minds appear before us as self-existent objects, we become attached to the apparent reality of our own constructions.
What we take for objects of perception, which have certain qualities or characteristics inherent in them, are actually pervaded by deluded conceptions about those objects and that the qualities or characteristics which we believe inhere in the objects are mentally imputed to them or superimposed on them by the observer from his or her store of memories, presumptions, emotions, etc. These characteristics do not inhere in the objects themselves. They are thus not the object of perception but only what we have imputed upon it. For example, consider a picture of Donald Trump appearing in a newspaper. Upon seeing the picture, this image may engender mental images in the observers that could range anywhere from “likeable” to “unlikeable”, according to their beliefs, memories, emotions, political persuasions, and so on. The characteristics “likeable” and “unlikeable” are mentally imputed on the picture; they do not exist intrinsically, in and of themselves. This kind of mental delusion is the root of our suffering.
Buddhist thought shows us the fundamental distortion in the cognitive process which sets the samsaric cycle of the twelve links in motion and drags beings through the various realms of existence. This fundamental distortion is the tendency to take an extreme view toward phenomena, that is, to overestimate their natures. This extreme view or overestimation is that phenomena are independent self-sufficient entities which bear their own characteristics independently of a perceiving subject or observer.
Our perception of things certainly feels like it presents an immediate and accurate picture of the world, just as it is set-up out there and independent of a subject and the subject’s cognitive and sensory faculties. Yet, our perceptual and conceptual apparatus function as measuring instruments. We do not know the objects of our sensory experience directly or immediately, but only through the mediation of our sense faculties and mind. So our immediate experience of the world is an illusion of immediacy. Things appear, not directly, but are perceived through the mediation of our sensory and cognitive factors. They are but constructions of our mind. They are not real objects “out there”, but only what we have mentally constructed “out there”.
Appearances are deceptive. For example, take the colour red (as in a rose). The colour red seems to exist intrinsically and independent of our sensory perceptions. Yet bees, who can see infrared and ultraviolet, see something very different to red, and dogs, who don’t see colour, see perhaps grey or something else. In other words, there is no intrinsic red out there, things simply appear in the manner in which they are perceived; which varies according to the perceptions of the observer. The colour red is an illusion of red. Red does not exist in the rose itself but is merely conceptually imputed on the rose from the side of the observer. From the side of the rose, independent of our sensory and cognitive faculties, there is no intrinsic colour red, nor is there an intrinsic rose for that matter. There is no true nature of a thing as it really is, there is only the way things appear or show up. This is a very different way of perceiving the world.
Since the objects that we apprehend appear only subject to the conditions of our cognitive and sensory apparatus, they have no nature of their own. Hence they are not real, but illusions imputed by our minds. We don’t encounter things directly, independent of our perceptual apparatus. We only encounter illusory imputations of objects, not real objects. We cannot apperceive or experience anything directly. We are not immediately aware of anything, nor can we know anything.
We seem to have an immediate and determinate picture of what the world is like, independent of any knowledge or representation of it in thought, beliefs, experiences and assumptions. But that picture is ever elusive to us, for we have only different, endless mental representations of it. No representation can provide finally sufficient substance to that picture. An absolute conception of reality is therefore empty. No matter how deeply we may think, we only have another representation of it in thought, another illusion.
“Our knowledge of the world does not conform to how the world really is; rather, the world as we perceive it conforms to our knowledge or thought or mind of it.” Kant.
Not only are objects illusory but our subjectivity also is present to us only in an illusory fashion. We do not even know our own inner experience. Our thoughts, our awareness or our consciousness is just as deceptive as are the objects. We construct ourselves and our awareness and our consciousness just as surely as we construct the objects we posit and confuse our experience of ourselves and our inner states with their nature just as surely as we do our experience of external objects and their nature. Thinking we can know our own cognitive states directly and accurately is a cognitive illusion. All we encounter in our experience (inner and outer) are illusions all the way down; illusory objects, illusory feelings and illusory experiences. Illusion is woven into the very fabric of our experience.
The great Zen Master Dogen says: All our experiences, all the way down, are mediated through our senses or mind. They are not directly experienced but are merely illusory imputations. We have no direct or immediate experience of anything. If we think we have a true nature and that we can directly know that nature, or know ourselves, this is just another illusion. If we look for our true nature, Dogen reminds us, we will never find it. There is no true nature, only the way things appear or show up (like the colour red). Everything is groundless, empty and interdependent. There is no real, solid, underlying rock bottom basis for anything, (like a so-called transcendent or ultimate reality). If we look for it, Dogen reminds us, we will never find it. Our insistence that there must be something real, something solid and tangible that underlies our experience, again, is just another illusion. Nothing we experience is encountered just as it is. We don’t even encounter real experiences, only illusions of real experiences. True knowledge can only be the acceptance that there is none, and even this fact is just another illusion.
This is exemplified by a Zen Master exhorting his students: “Tell me, what is your true nature? If you say something, I will beat you with a stick. If you say nothing, I will beat you with a stick.” The moral of the story is that the question is false because it is based on the false supposition that there really is an intrinsic true nature. This is similar to the false question “When did you stop stealing things from the supermarket?” Any answer we give will incriminate. Such questions, the Buddha says, are unanswerable, hence he remained quiet.
What all this means is that there is only conventional reality or dependently arisen reality (things arise dependent on other things). There can be no intrinsic “thing” called ultimate reality, a theory describing how things really are independent of our conceptual resources (mind) employed in describing it. All we are left with is conventional truth, commonly accepted practices and conventions. Conventional truth is all we arrive at when viewing the world through our linguistically formed conceptual framework. This is not a second-rate reality. For example, ultimate reality is said to be emptiness (emptiness of intrinsic nature or emptiness of independent nature). Conventional reality or dependently arisen reality is also empty (empty of intrinsic nature or independent nature), therefore conventional reality and ultimate reality are one and the same thing.
Conclusion:
Primal confusion is the notion that things have their own way of existing without being posited through the force of mental imputation. Objects do present themselves with properties determined from the side of the object. But this is a cognitive illusion. Take, for example, the case of an imaginary snake that is mistakenly ascribed to a rope. If we leave aside how it is imagined from the perspective of the mind that apprehends a snake, and try to analyse what the snake itself is like in terms of its own nature, its features cannot be analysed in as much as a snake is simply not present in that object. It is similar with regard to all phenomena. When we analyse the objects in and of themselves apart from the mind analysing them, asking, “what is the manner of being of these phenomena?” we find that they are not established in any way.
It is not that things have some reality of their own which we, unfortunately, cannot ever seem to get at because we cannot step outside ourselves and adopt a “Gods eye view.” Rather, it is that the mind co-creates everything that exists. Nothing exists except as a conceptual imputation.
The understanding that we cannot know anything at all eliminates ignorance about the reality of things. This brings about the cessation of ignorantly grasping at illusions of intrinsic existence. To see the illusion is to be free of illusion.
Objects
We live in illusion. The world does not exist the way it appears. Appearances are deceptive. Our sensory, cognitive process delivers a view of life as a landscape of independent objects. There is a felt sense that things are somehow really there, solid, independent, separate from us and somehow casting themselves towards us. This creates the illusion of subject/object duality. Things seem to be self-sufficient and independent of everything. Language is involved in this reification, deepening the sense of an independent identity in what is named.
Our experience of the world is populated with a wide range of phenomena – like physical objects, forces, emotions, and people – all of which appear to be substantial entities that exist in a very real sense. For example; I am here, you are there, the tree is over there, this is my body, etc. The relationships between these things seem clear; we maintain rigid distinctions between them, and we conceive of them as separate and independent phenomena, each deserving its own ontological ground. This form of realism is founded on the notion that all phenomena possess at their core some essence, some immutable substance in which the phenomena’s intrinsic identity is contained and which serves as the bearer of whatever attributes the phenomena displays.
This assumption, while seemingly common sense, is understood in Buddhist thought as the deepest and most tenacious delusion to plague the human mind. It is a natural misconception that is hard-wired into us. Both external and internal phenomena seem real, solid and substantial. They deceptively appear to have their own independent natures, yet, when we search for the real state of their existence, their essence, we find that all phenomena, everything from galaxies to atoms to people and their thoughts and suffering, are ultimately empty of the identities we ascribe to them. There are no core natures hiding behind these things and their characteristics. Likewise there is no core entity, like “selfness” hiding behind the aggregates. Nor is there a core entity called “weatherness” hiding behind: wind blowing, sun shining, etc. Phenomena do not exist as independent entities that can be isolated and understood, but rather as momentary forms whose existence is entirely dependent on their relationships to other phenomena and the conceptual labels we impute upon them.
For example, let us investigate, say a tree, and see if we can find an inherent nature or essence of the tree. Could the leaves be what we call the tree? No one would say the leaves are the tree. Then perhaps the branches, the fruit, the bark or the trunk is the tree. No, they would not constitute the tree. And if we penetrate into the tree, everything will stubbornly remain divisible into something smaller. If we look at the wood we find that it breaks down into its cells, the cells break down into molecules, the molecules break down to atoms, and atoms break down to halves, then quarters, and so on and on.
After such a descent, how can we say that there is anything which we can call a tree? We have found nothing of substance to bear this label. Instead we have found an infinitely complex series of relationships and interdependencies: the tree only exists in terms of its parts, those parts only exist in terms of their parts, and so on ad infinitum. With no essence that we can find we can conclude that the tree does not exist inherently and is thus empty. This is not to say that the tree does not exist at all, for clearly there is some form to be perceived, but it is to say that the “treeness” of this form, its supposed identity, is merely an arbitrary and artificial concept which we have foisted upon it. The tree exists only in dependence on other things. If one looks for the tree essence, there is nothing there other than its parts and external conditions operating in conjunction. There is no separate essence called tree; it can’t be found. Tree is simply a name, a concept which the mind imputes on the aggregates. There is no mind-independent tree. So the tree has merely mind or conceptual existence.
Objects of every kind, apples, cars, people and subtle mental objects such as thought, feelings and sensations, can conventionally but not ultimately be identified or located. An object can only be designated by labels such as tree, table, self, and so forth. There are no actual entities hiding behind these labels, such as, treeness, tableness, or selfness. The more closely we look, the more we don’t find these things. No independent objects or entities can be found to exist, no self-established things. None of it is truly there. To conceive of phenomena existing in and of themselves through their own core nature is called inherent existence. This is the target to be refuted on the path of emptiness teachings. This is the primary argument of emptiness teachings. Without having refuted the intrinsic existence of an object its unreality is not established. To see through the deception of inherent existence is critical because it is the root error that leads to the endless grasping and aversion that underlies all suffering.
Of course the same line of reasoning is not limited to trees but applies to all phenomena. Even immaterial things like emotions are empty since they are never found without relations to other things. Anger requires a subject, an object, the particular causes that brought it about, and the mind that experiences it. There is no such thing as pure anger blazing on its own. The relationships that define phenomena are likewise empty because they rely on the objects they relate to in order to exist. No real thing can ever be isolated and identified
Yet, the vast majority of us spend our entire lives experiencing the world as inherent. We conceptualize it as being composed of distinct, independent phenomena which can be isolated and understood non-relationally as entities which exist inherently by their own natures. We are aware of the various causes that bring these phenomena about, and the other phenomena with which they interact, but we perceive sharp discriminatory borders between them and understand them as separate and coherent concepts. Yet this can be disputed using the example of a seed. There is no fixed boundary between the existence of a seed, the tree to which it gives rise, a piece of wood from that tree, and a table fashioned therefrom. Any designated entity is but an arbitrary stage carved out of a vast continuum of interdependent phenomena. And we cannot say at what stage a thing becomes a thing. For example, imagine in my hand I hold a small heap of sand. One by one I pick up individual sand grains and throw them into a river. At what point does this heap cease to be a heap? If at some point you say the heap is no longer a heap and I add single grains of sand back, at what point does it resume its status as a heap? This example illustrates the point that the ‘heapness’ of the sand is dependent upon mental and linguistic construction; the heap does not exist in any substantial way in objective reality.
We can apply this analysis to our tree and begin to pluck off leaves and saw off branches. So when in our process of sawing off the branches does the tree stop being a tree? The difficulty in pin-pointing a universal essence which we can unequivocally identify as “treeness” is one reason for believing there is no such essence to begin with. This implies that what we take to be things that exist in their own right are actually empty of any such inherent existence. In fact, if things did have inherent existence, the more they would be scrutinised the clearer they would become. But as the example of the tree shows, the opposite seems to be the case, namely, the more something is analysed, the vaguer it gets, until it is lost altogether.
Non-origination
The deepest spiritual truth is one in which the arising of questions becomes impossible, when it is realized. Once one has this answer, all else is self-revealing. This answer, in a sentence, the sages tell us, is that not anything has ever been created or originated from the very outset.
The Buddha explains: All things depend for their existence on other things. Since they are not arisen on their own, then they cannot be said to exist on their own. Since they don’t exist on their own they are not truly arisen, somewhat like a magic show. The Buddha challenges the very notion of “existence” itself by showing that it is also dependent and hence not a real intrinsic entity.
Before we delve into this topic it must be stressed that non-origination does not imply absolute non-existence, nihilism or that nothing matters because conventional existents are not denied, only their status as inherent entities. The purpose of demonstrating the illusory or empty nature of things is so we cease imputing intrinsic existence where there is none. When imputation ceases our mental turmoil ends because the objects with which we have been identifying are realized to be empty.
Where there is not anything from the start there is not any actual entity which can arise. So anything which it is thought has been created or exits, or has reality, is not so. In other words, the things are like a mirage of a lake in the desert. The “lake” never actually came into existence in the first place. Also, this is similar to a coil of rope in a dim area being mistaken for a snake. The snake never existed in the first place. Many of our questions are like: How wide is the lake? How deep is it? Is the snake poisonous? etc. They are false questions and hence unanswerable.
The view of “no origin” (non-origination) means: not any “thing” has started from a beginning, at anytime, anywhere. “No origin” means there has not been an origin; or beginning, of beginnings (or of time either, for that matter; or even a “where”). With not any “thing” ever originated or “created”, this does not mean that the universe has somehow always existed as it is. “Non-origination” means that a universe itself has not come into existence. In other words, the view of “non-origination” says that the universe itself cannot be truly existent. It is like the mirage. There can have been no creation of any form or entities, whether material (like humans or objects) or immaterial (like ideas or thoughts or feelings). The emptiness, or lack, implied by no origination does not suggest a universe or cosmos which is empty of all things, it is saying there has not been a universe from the start. As long as our supposition is that “I”, or any other phenomena, have existence we are starting from the presumptive bias that there is indeed something.
The illusion of the “universe” is based on the mind, which again is an illusion. What if there were no minds in the universe; would there be anything that was described as a universe; would there be any notions of a world; would anything identify itself as a self? Where a mind is not real, can any products of that mind be real? Would the self that’s in your mind be real? When we perceive that thoughts, phenomenon, selves, time, place, the universe, etc., are all dependent on discriminations in the human mind which supposes their reality, how can any of these “manifestations” be taken seriously enough to invite reactions?
Where there has been no origination – meaning no causation or creation – phenomena, which we suppose arise and disappear, cannot be anything more than is their mere impermanent appearance. All things are actually empty. Emptiness is not a cause (or an effect) of anything. This principle can be understood, not from the place of supposing that things have originated or come into existence, but rather from the position that nothing has been originated from the start. From that standpoint, or lack, it can be seen that anything which appears to exist—or have been, or will be—can have no reality. No argument, no matter how well constructed, can prove the existence of objects, things and experience.
Furthermore, where not anything is originated, there is no cessation. In other words, both birth and death are not actualities. Likewise, one’s “life” – between “birth” and “death” – is not a true reality. Where there is no beginning or end, how could there be a middle? So we should not be lead to think that birth is the origin of an entity, that aging is the midpoint in the life of that entity, or that death is the end of that entity.
The question arises: “How does a world of forms arise?” Forms appear to be present as intrinsic entities; in truth, they are not. Consider a mirage: A pool of water appears to be intrinsically present, but it is not, in actuality. The question is posed from the standpoint of real entities that have really come into existence, not from the standpoint of the non-origination of anything real. Buddhism does not start with the question ‘what is real?’ but explains the apparent arising of things are illusions and therefore are not real. The very framework of self-inquiry (Who am I?) already presumes a purest identity. The enquiry serves to strengthen the framework of duality and inherency by assuming there is an ultimate reality behind and transcending all phenomena as the transcendental witnessing consciousness. Also, questions such as: “Who made the world?” “Does God exist?” “What happens after we die?” or even “Who is aware that nothing has come into existence?” and so on, must come from an erroneous supposition that something has come into existence, that an entity has come into existence, that “awareness” of that entity has come into existence, or that God has come into existence. They are not real questions; hence the Buddha said they are unanswerable. Any answers we can get to erroneous questions will be erroneous answers, somewhat like the question, “When did you stop stealing from the grocery store?” Any answer we give will incriminate us.
Another question: “If all that we see are merely appearances, where are they coming from?” One of the major confusions for us is the idea of cause and effect. Both of these are notions, or conceptions. When we view some phenomenon as an effect, say the world or universe, or global warming, we are prompted to wonder, “What was its cause?” In answer to that; whatever appears to us is presumed to be as a result of a cause “where are they coming from?” Causes and their effects depend upon each other for their (presumed) existence; they are dependently arisen. In other words, both are empty of inherent existence; or, are not truly existent. Hence, the question is a false question and thus unanswerable; it assumes that cause and effect are real entities, when they are not.
When we recognize that all things are empty, it becomes clear that an empty cause can be the cause of nothing more than empty effect. When we have realized that the universe (the effect) is empty of inherent existence, we no longer question “What was its cause?” Causation is a conventional idea; it is not an ultimate reality. From the ultimate standpoint, not any “thing” has ever been originated, created or caused. All is, in truth, empty of any thing, anywhere.
“Things have always been empty from the start; never, not ever, anything.”
Moreover, an actual causal agent or an actual process or entity called causation that causes real entities to come into existence cannot be substantiated. Therefore, an actual origination or an actual arising of anything at all cannot be established. Such arising or origination is like the arising of the mirage of a lake in a desert. No actual entity arose or originated in the first place, just appearances of impermanence, like appearances in a dream. And since nothing arose in the first place, how could anything cease. Therefore, none of this entire universe, and the beings in it, has ever come into existence, or ceased. What does this say of a genesis or a beginning, or of God as the creator, or the Big Bang theory, or what happens to us after we die, or end time apocalyptic theories? On analysis, when all phenomena are empty, what can be gained and what can be lost? Who will be honoured or despised by whom? Whence comes happiness or suffering? What is pleasant and what is unpleasant? What is craving and for what is that craving? What world of living beings is there and who will really die here? Who will come into existence, and who has come into existence? From where can our problems, confusion or suffering appear from?
When all phenomena are empty, what can be gained and what can be lost? Who will be honoured or despised by whom? Whence comes happiness or suffering? What is pleasant and what is unpleasant? What is craving and for what is that craving? What world of living beings is there and who will really die here? Who will come into existence, and who has come into existence? From where can our problems, confusion or suffering appear from?
Things are not explained by arising and ceasing, but are characterized as non-arising and non-ceasing. As things arise dependently they cannot have any real location, substance, or independent nature. They cannot be annihilated, for they were never really originated. Nor can they be permanent, for this would require that they have self-nature, an assertion that does not withstand logical analysis. The perceiving and conceptual reifying faculties of the individual are illuminated by the non-appearance and non-disappearance of things. This pair shows that the existence of things is illusory, no essence can be found, and hence any imputations of existence to them are false.
So the idea is to fail in finding that ‘core’ or ‘essence’ which makes a thing that ‘thing’, because when we fail to find that essence, we have the potential to realize that there never has been a thing in the first place, the ‘thing’ was only ever a misconception. If you realize the non-arising of appearances then you simply know that everything that appears is unreal, like a dream, nothing being created or destroyed, nothing coming or going, nothing actually ‘there’… yet illusory appearance manifests due to conditions coming together.
“Not anything has ever actually come into existence, nor goes out of it. What lacks origination, by itself, lacks existence or emergence; and having lacked emergence, it lacks disappearance, or destruction or non-existence”. Chandrakirti.
The ultimate truth is wholly untouched by the webs of such conceptual distinctions as “thing” and “nonthing,” “production” and “nonproduction,” “empty” and “not empty,” and so on. Since therefore there is no such thing as origin, abiding, or cessation, their contraries (“no origin,” “no abiding,” and “no cessation”) can have no reality either, neither can there be any words (signifiers of such signified entities) that express them or point them out. There are in fact no such objects to be refuted and therefore no arguments able to refute them. All is false. Whatever one is refuting (be it existence, nonexistence, both, or neither), since the object of the refutation is primordially unborn, the arguments used in the refutation (all the words of which the arguments are composed and the mental processes that they express) are no different from the words and sentences used when claiming that the child of a barren woman has been killed. They are no more than conceptual acrobatics. They make no contact with the nature of things. When one is dreaming that a child born in the dream has died, with the result that one suffers thinking that the child is no more. This demonstrates that things that are assumed to exist (through a misconception of their nature) do not in fact exist. And this mere nonexistence of things is also no more than conceptually posited.
Consider the following dialogue:
As Ninakawa lay dying, Zen Master Ikkyu visited him. “Shall I lead you on?” Ikkyu asked. Ninakawa replied: “I came here alone, and I go alone. What help could you be to me?” Ikkyu answered: “If you think you really come and go, that is your delusion. Let me show you the path of no coming and going.” Ikkyu revealed it so clearly that Ninakawa smiled and passed away.
Not anything in the universe exists entirely on its own; all products and events are within a pattern of dependent arising. Even dependent arising is without ultimate reality since there are not real things which can arise, even dependently. If there were anything in the universe which had arisen entirely on its own, it would not be subject to any causes or outward influences, such as conditions. It would not then – standing uniquely on its own – be subject to any causes or conditions (such as aging or decay), which would result in its removal; it would be immortal. We know of nothing in the universe which is inherent, immortal or does not change.
All phenomena do not come into being through their own inherent identity, but as a result of the coming together of causes and conditions, and when there are no conditions they do not arise. Even at the time when they appear, they appear whilst lacking intrinsic nature. For example, a tree comes into existence dependent on the conditions of a seed, water, sunlight, leaves, and so on. So no actual independent entity called tree arises. The arising of things is somewhat like a mirage. Dependent origination is the knowledge that nothing, no independent entity, no inherent thing, has ever originated or come into existence from the beginning. When we start from this premise, in logic, it literally explains “everything” – or lack of it. When you get to nothing, there’s no further to go. What more could anyone want?
An exact analysis of the nature of phenomena leads us to the discovery that there is nothing whatsoever that can be said to inherently exist. This is realized not by denying anything “existent” but by negating something that has never existed. An inherently existing thing is like the horns on a rabbit. Not only is there no such thing, there cannot even conceivably be such a thing. If something truly originated then it could never cease.
How could there be some “thing” instead of no “thing?”
The true nature of appearances is that they’ve never been born. The reason why there is not anything that has ever existed at all is because not anything has ever been created, or has arisen or been caused. All phenomena are unreal, like reflections, and thus do not truly exist. We could say that samsara is simply a misperception or mistaken understanding of the events that appear to be happening. The very identity of what things are is that they never happen; they never come into existence. Then we will see that samsara is just the erroneous belief that suffering is real, the erroneous belief that birth and death are real. The closer one delves into the emptiness of assumed reality, the freer one is of the illusion of inherent existence.
Not anything which seems to occur during the dream of life is real beyond its appearance. Not anything which appears in the dream is permanent. Neither the dream nor the dreamer has ever originated in reality. To the extent that we have had a dream, we say that it is “real”. But as a tangible form or object, we know that it is not real.
All forms are dependently originated and dependently originated forms can seem to exist, and then, because they did not actually come into existence, seem to go out of existence. They appear to exist because “we” see them and name them as such. But “we” likewise are dependently originated and so we also do not exist inherently. What does not exist is claiming to see what is equally non-existent. What does exist? Not anything exists beyond the appearance of existing. An illusion is “real” as an illusion, but it is not real beyond its appearance of being real.
Concluding remarks:
When what is originated from the condition of ignorance is analyzed through perfect knowledge, no perception of either origination or cessation occurs. How is it that what is dependently originated has a beginning and an end?
Whatever originates dependent upon “this” and “that” does not originate in its intrinsic being. How can what is not originated in its intrinsic being be called originated? Therefore, nothing at all originates and nothing at all ceases.
When a magical illusion is supposed to originate, or when it is supposed to be destroyed, one who understands its illusory nature as deceptive, pithless, empty and wholly vacuous, will not be deluded. However, the worldly, who are infatuated by ignorance about it, will be greatly affected emotionally.
No Self, No problem
Before we can contemplate life without a self we first need to be convinced that there is in fact no self.
People tell you to “just be yourself.” But what if you don’t know who that self really is? More confusing yet, what if there’s no such thing as your “self?” If that strikes you as crazy, you’re not alone! Most of Western philosophy centres on the concept of the self, including such notable ideas as Rene Descartes’ seventeenth century assertion, cognito, ergo sum — “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes believed that humanity is defined by thinking and this in turn assumes a stable, continuous self who thinks. But does that singular “I” or “self” really exist? Where Western philosophy explicitly assumes that it does, Eastern philosophy, and particularly Buddhist philosophy, makes no such assumption. Upon investigation, an intrinsic independent self (a self that can be identified separate and apart from the body/mind aggregates) cannot be found and therefore they conclude does not exist. All human suffering, they say, can be attributed to the illusion that it does exist. The appearance of the aggregates does not necessitate the existence of an intrinsic separate “self” nestled behind the aggregates.
The Buddhist doctrine of no-self (anātman) simply aims to deflate the grasping ego and thereby undermine anxiety and live more peaceful lives. Therefore, the teachings of the Buddha have one core purpose: to eradicate dukkha, a Sanskrit word often translated as ‘suffering’. But perhaps stronger than this; is all of life’s dissatisfaction, disappointment, unfulfilled hopes and unhappiness. One of our most prominent and damaging misconceptions about reality and that causes us great suffering, the Buddha thinks, is our confused notion of ‘self’. Belief in a permanent self, he says, is the most dangerous and pernicious of all errors, the most deceitful of delusions
Although the Buddha clearly affirms the concept of no-self, there’s a lot of misunderstanding about what the Buddha really means here. The Buddha explains that the referents of ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘self’, don’t really exist in the way we think they do; that is, as real, permanent, unchanging, inherent entities. Why does the Buddha hold this position? Because, when you think about it, no part of us ever stays the same: we are changing every second of every day. Our thoughts, desires, moods, memories, the hair on our heads, the nails in our fingers and toes, the cells of our bodies — all is in flux. According to the Buddha, ‘self’ refers not to some permanent substance; it’s simply a convenient way to refer to the myriad, ever-changing aggregates and processes that, collectively, we call ‘self’.
This is similar to what we call “tree”. The word “tree” refers not to some permanent substance; it is simply a convenient way to refer to the aggregates (trunk, branches, leaves, and so on). Take the individual parts away and no “tree” remains. So it is with the self, the Buddha thinks. We use individual names and pronouns like ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘they’, ‘self’ and we may think that in using such words we are referring to individual, persisting entities. But when we strip away the body parts, no ‘I’ or ‘self’ is left over.
A famous Buddhist text that illustrates this thinking is the analysis of a chariot by 6th Century Sage, Chandrakirti. Instead of analysing a chariot we will analyse a car. So what is it that makes a car a car?
Chandrakirti asks: Are the seats that are the car? The answer is no. Is it the wheels, the engine, the windows that are the car? No. Then is it all the parts combined that are the car? No. Is there anything outside the car that is the car? Still the answer is no.
Thus, we can find no independent separate entity (like ‘carness’) that is called ‘car’. Therefore, just as ‘car’ is nothing in addition to all its parts, so the ‘self’ is nothing — no extra thing — in addition to its aggregates or parts. Like car, self is simply a convenient fiction, a shorthand reference for the many different parts (mental and physical) that make us up. Its existence is based in convention, rather than in some ultimate persisting reality. And given there is no ultimate reality (essence) in a person there is no necessity for something to be essentially a subject of experience.
So we exist in a conventional sense; we just aren’t what we think we are in an ultimate sense. “Self” is an interplay and constant flow of various factors or conditions coming together. When we refer to individuals, we are actually referring to various factors or conditions coming together (parents, food, water, air, aggregates, mind, and the label ‘self’). There is no additional factor called self. Self is simply a name or concept which is used to label the coming together of these various conditions. And these conditions are also dependent on the coming together of other conditions. In all cases entities are found to be empty. And the mind (consciousness) also is empty. In fact, all things in the world – mental and physical – are empty or lacking inherent existence.
Reflecting on his own own sense of self, David Hume, 18th century philosopher, who had a great insight into ‘no-self’, writes: “For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch ‘myself’ at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception.”
The upshot is that while thoughts and feelings exist, there is no separate ‘self’ or ‘I’, no separate person, experiencing those thoughts and feelings. We do not have an additional experience of the self on top of other experiences. There is no persisting self – nothing about us that remains the same at all times. The self is just a convenient way to refer to the aggregates. However, if we start believing the self is actually real — some kind of independent, persisting substance as opposed to a convenient fiction — the danger is that it encourages us to view everything through its lens; we feel so intimately connected to this self. We are driven by the core thought “I am most important”, my happiness is paramount.
We then judge reality only by how it impacts this fictional self which leads us to develop certain attachments and aversions. ‘I like this and I don’t like that’, ‘I want more of this and less of that’, ‘I love this and require it to be content’, ‘I hate this and whenever it happens I am filled with dread and anxiety’. Numerous negative emotions (depression, disharmony, anger, attachment, dissatisfaction, jealousy, pride, anger, and ill-will) spring up when our desires are not attained; we are left feeling dissatisfied because ‘I’ doesn’t get its way. Worse still, we become hung up on the fact that our enduring self will one day end. “We” will one day die. And this spirals into existential suffering.
Self is an imaginary, false belief which has no corresponding reality, and it produces harmful thoughts of ‘me’ and ‘mine’, desire, craving and attachment. We become enslaved by the self’s demands, which traps our thoughts feelings and experiences in ego. We view the world through the lens of desire, which creates attachment and aversion. And as the world is fundamentally transient and rarely accords with the hopes and desires we place on it, bad things happen to our sense of self, and good things always end. We base our lives on the assumption that we have a permanent self, and then suffer when our mortality shows this assumption to be false. As long as we continue to view reality through the lens of illusory self, as long as we continue to grasp for things we imagine this ‘self’ wants, we set ourselves up for perpetual suffering.
Buddhism aims to fix our misconceptions of our identity not by showing us the ‘correct’ identity, but by claiming that we do not have an identity at all. Self is an imaginary false belief which has no corresponding reality. Our belief in it is the root cause of suffering.
“To study the Buddha Way is to study the self; to study the self is to forget the self; to forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the body and mind of others drop away. No trace of realization remains and this no trace continues endlessly.” Dogen.
Concluding remarks:
The following passage is taken from an ancient Suttra in which the Sage is addressing the monks:
‘What do you think monks; ‘Is form permanent or impermanent?’ ‘Impermanent they answer.’ ‘Is that which is impermanent, unsatisfactory or satisfactory?’ ‘Unsatisfactory’ ‘And is it suitable to regard that which is impermanent, unsatisfactory and subject to change as ‘This is mine, I am this, this will satisfy me?’ ‘To which they answer No’.
The Twelve Links of Dependent Origination
As the Buddha (the original Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama approx. 500b.c.) sat under the Bodhi tree on the night of his full awakening he discovered the fact of the mutual contingency (dependence) of all existent things. His new found knowledge of dependent arising describes the ontic status of the universe (dependence), its mode of creation (dispositions conditioned by ignorance), its future fate (the appeasement of dispositions which reverses the cycle of arising). The path of dependent arising is to examine each of the twelve links indicated below for him or herself, discover how they are conditioned, how they arose, and how they can cease. One who follows this is guaranteed to see the Buddha himself, thus appeasing ignorance and suffering.
The twelve links of dependent origination provide a detailed description on the problem of suffering and the cessation of suffering. This is a tool; it is not an ultimate description of the evolution of the universe. The twelve links are: ignorance, mental formation, consciousness, name and form, the six senses, contact, feeling, craving, clinging, becoming, birth, aging and death. The theory holds that: “This is, because that is; this ceases, because that ceases”. Ignorance is the first ‘link’ in the chain. Ignorance is the belief in an actual self-nature, identity, essence or intrinsic existence in things. Because there is ignorance there are mental formations; because there are mental formations there is consciousness; because there is consciousness there is name and form, because………etc. Once the chain of dependent origination is set into motion it then perpetually builds upon itself.
The following example describes this process:
Due to ignorance (ignorance of the empty nature of things) one forms dispositions, such as attraction and aversion. On seeing a form with the eye one has likings for certain feelings and aversions for others. One abides with mindfulness of the body. One follows the path of agreeing and disagreeing and experiences whatever feeling that arises – pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Delighted and pleased with those [pleasant] feelings one appropriates them. This arouses interest in those feelings. That interest for feelings is craving. From craving there arises grasping, from grasping there arises becoming, from becoming arises birth, from birth arises old age, sickness, death, grief, lamentation, unpleasantness, displeasure and distress. Thus arises the complete mass of suffering (dukkha).
The Buddha seems to feel that the key to alleviating suffering is to remove ignorance. Ignorance (like ignorantly chasing after a mirage in the desert) can only be eradicated, he says, by seeing things as empty of intrinsic existence. Grasping and craving things, as if they are real entities, is likened to a disease, a source of suffering and delusion in life. Emptiness is a device to expunge the disease and so it is likened to a medicine. When all things are seen as being empty, one can form no dispositions about them and will cause neither passionate attractions nor aversions to come into play. This will prevent craving. If one ceases to crave, then dispositions will cease, and so suffering cease. Reality cannot be something that fulfils craving or desires.
On seeing a form with the eye one does not become desirous for pleasant forms, or averse to disagreeable forms. One does not abide with mindfulness of the body or appearances. Having abandoned the path of agreeing and disagreeing, one experiences whatever feeling that arises – pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral – just as it is. One is not delighted or pleased with those feelings and does not appropriate them. Interest in those feelings ceases. With the cessation of interest, craving ceases. With no craving there is no grasping; with no grasping there is no becoming; no becoming, no birth; with no birth, there is no old age, sickness or death, no grief, lamentation, unpleasantness, displeasure or distress. Thus ceases the complete mass of suffering.
The Buddha taught that the world and things having ignorance as its condition, consequently originates from ignorance. It is ignorance that causes one to construct dispositions, passionate desires and craving and so, indirectly, it is ignorance, as a condition, which has the power of bringing the entire phenomenal world into manifest existence. Therefore, the duration of the entire phenomenal world is the consequence of ignorance as its condition. If the condition for its continuation does not exist, it will be destroyed. Therefore, when the cause of the existence of the world (ignorance) is extinguished, cyclical existence will be extinguished.
The unreality of the world is also said to manifest due to imagination, likened to a mirage, or a child that is born lives and dies in a dream. This is why many adepts are explicitly clear that dependent origination is synonymous with a lack of origination, because phenomena that originate in dependence on ignorance as a cause, never actually originate at all. Take, for example, the phenomena called self. The self merely “appears” as a result of our inability (ignorance) to recognize its dependent nature, and thus is empty or illusory. “Appear” being the operative term because if we understand that the perception of identity results from a failure or ignorance to recognize a lack of essence in phenomena, then it is equally understood that the misconception of identity is a “mere appearance” and thus nothing is ever truly “created” at any point.
When we perceive identity in people and things we are only ever relating to our own ignorance, like seeing a rope in a dark room and mistaking it to be a snake. The snake merely “appears” as a result of our failure (ignorance) to recognize the rope (the absence of a snake). The snake never actually originates or is created at any point in time and when we recognize the actual nature of the alleged snake, we see it never originated in the first place. Likewise, people and things never actually originated in the first place.
We can apply this argument even to the apparent eternity of the universe, galaxies, etc. Just because we perceive the universe to be eternal and never ending does not mean it actually exists this way. Its seeming eternity merely appears as a result of our inability (ignorance) to recognize its genuine nature as empty insubstantial and illusory. This is what dependent origination means. Phenomena only appear to originate in dependence upon our ignorance. Regarding their actual nature, they are empty. Ignorance, it should be noted, is not a real power, for the world it brings into existence is but a phantom.
Whatever is dependently originated does not truly arise. What originates dependently is unoriginated! What is dependently created is uncreated. Nagarjuna:
“That which originates due to cause and conditions appears dependent upon [certain] conditions and disappears when the conditions are absent. How can it be understood to exist?”
Again, the world as the effect of mere conceptualization means that as the world is not established substantially, the world is constructed by conceptualization just as one constructs the idea of a fairy city. No matter how beautiful a fairy city may appear, it is not as it appears, therefore it is not real or genuine. Therefore, when it is examined in this way, the world of cyclical existence, which originates from the cause of ignorance, is not established actually. Then the unbearable city of cyclical existence is surely a product of delusion.
Because the world of cyclical existence which appears like an illusion is difficult to reverse, it is the source of many woes, and because it is difficult to recognize its true nature inasmuch as it is obscured by ignorance, it is called unbearable or terrible. It is a cause of error. Therefore, if there exist error, mistaken views and the like, the world exists, but if there is no error, the world does not exist.
When a mirage is mistaken for a lake, it was not cognized certainly, since it was constructed or imagined by ignorance. Likewise, the world does not exist substantially, because like a mirage, it depends upon other factors and conditions. Anything which depends upon conditions to exist is not established intrinsically. Therefore, the world of cyclical existence, which depends on ignorance as its condition, is not substantial or real.
Interdependence
The Buddha taught the doctrine of “dependent arising” which sees the world as fundamentally interconnected. He also taught that the world is in a constant state of flux, and that there is no true self. The “I” that we experience is in reality the result of a multitude of causes and conditions coming together. The Buddha understands the world’s transient and impermanent nature to mean that nothing has its own independent existence. If people existed in complete independence from other phenomena and had an unchanging essence, they could not come into being (we require a cause, such as our parents), nor could we ever grow or have new experiences. People would either always be in a state of suffering or always in a state of happiness (or some other state), and that those that are not already Buddhas could never become one. But everything is “empty” (sunyata) meaning things don’t cause or define themselves, but arise and cease depending on other things. Dependent arising is what we use to establish emptiness. Everything exists by depending upon something else, therefore everything is empty of its own existence or its own self-nature or its own essence. By understanding the self is dependently arisen we establish the selflessness of a person.
Humans are seen to possess a fundamentally different nature from the rest of the world but are instead dependent upon it. Without the conditions of air, water, earth, minerals, plants, the sun, a moon, ad infinitum, neither consciousness nor any human characteristic could appear, including culture, language, human society, and its interrelations. Everything is interdependent with no individual core to be found. The belief in thingness, mistakes the conceptual image of a thing for a real separate thing; mistakes the concept of death for death; mistakes the label of consciousness to be consciousness; mistakes the image of a me for a truly existent separate self.
Everything exists in dependence on something else, dependent on some other factors or conditions. Things lack, or are empty, of inherent existence. Inherent existence (a stand-alone type of existence, independent, and not relying on or not dependent on any other factors or conditions whatsoever) simply does not exist. Yet we have been ignorantly imputing such inherent existence to things, people, and mental events all our lives. We have invested our trust and confidence in something that does not even exist.
Nothing can exist independently because everything is dependent on other factors and conditions. For example, I am born dependent on parents. I also depend on the body/mind parts and I am merely labelled by name and concept. Thus, the I cannot exist independently (inherently) as it appears. Devoid of any independent or substantial nature our existence is possible only because it is dependently arisen.
Interdependent co-arising means that all phenomena arise due to the combination of a vast and incalculable array of fluid and ambiguous interdependent and interrelated conditions. It is the ever changing relationship of things which engenders infinite potential and possibility. Anything and everything can and does arise. Interdependence undermines the notion of independent inherent reality. Interdependence is the antithesis of “thingness”.
Without some “thing” how can some “one” exist? Without some “one” how can some “thing” exist?
The Buddha here emphasizes the correlativity and interdependence of subject and object. Subjectivity only emerges when there is an object of awareness. Pure subjectivity is a contradiction. Moreover, the idea of an object with no subject is contradictory. The very concept of being an object is that of being the object of a subject. For instance, a seer (a subject) could not exist without the seen (an object). Therefore there is no actual independent seer of things for a seer cannot itself see apart from an object that is seen (such as a tree for instance). In other words, a subject needs an object to be a subject, and vice versa. Both are inseparable mutually dependent and thus both are empty, empty of independent nature. They have no essence or self-nature of their own. Hence the reason no one can find an inherent subject or inherent objects. There are no such things, just a sea of interdependent conditions coming together.
Notions such as – seer and seen, fire and fuel, action and agent, motion and mover, thinker and thoughts, short and long, samsara and nirvana, cause and effect – are intelligible only relative to one another. Neither can be established as an independent basis for the analysis of the other. But it also means that neither, therefore, can be thought to inherently exist since to exist inherently would be to exist independently. While the argument is clear and seemingly incontrovertible, the consequence of this conclusion is far-reaching. If cause and effect arise only in mutual dependence, as the Buddha taught, then all talk of real, independent existence must be abandoned, a radical conclusion indeed. The Buddha’s doctrine of interdependence shifted the emphasis from one of static “being” to one of dynamic “becoming.”
We cannot say or think how or what anything is except by making reference to other things; nor can anything be how or what it is except in relation to other things. The determination of a thing or object is only possible in relation to other things or objects, especially by way of contrast. For example, “short” exists only in relation to “long”; “one” is dependent on “many”; light … is seen to exist on account of darkness; good is seen to exist on account of bad; space is seen to exist on account of form; truth is seen to exist on account of falsehood. When good is present, evil comes to be and when evil comes to be, goodness arises; when life is present, death comes to be, when death is present life comes to be; when truth is present falsehood comes to be; and so on. When a view is held, an enemy arises to confront that view. Things come into being only in dialectical relation to each other, and neither can be isolated and examined separate from its dialectical component.
There is only a problem if one attempts to separate, say, good from bad, and speak of each in isolation. This causes us to distinguish between such opposing terms and therefore want one rather than the other, yet the meaning of each depends on the other. For example, if it is important for me to live a pure life (however I understand purity) then I will also be preoccupied with impurity; that is, with avoiding it. We cannot feel that we are good unless we are fighting against some evil, ironically, often creating more evil in the process. Likewise, if it is important for me to be fair, then I will also be preoccupied with unfairness; that is, with avoiding it, ironically, often creating more unfairness in the process. If it is important for me to be non-racist, then I will also be preoccupied with racism; that is, with avoiding it, ironically, often creating more racism in the process. If I have a strong preference for winning, such as my football team winning, then I will be preoccupied with loss; that is, with avoiding it, thereby creating more loss (loss in our mind) in the process. If I have a preference for nirvana, then I will be preoccupied with samsara; that is, with avoiding it, thereby creating more samsara in the process. What I resist, persists.
The more we assert one side of the equation, the more we reinforce the other. You can’t have one without the other. The remedy, the Buddha tells us, is to see all things as empty. Winning is just as empty as losing, nirvana is just as empty as samsara. Since they depend on each other, both are empty, empty of independent nature, and therefore there is no real difference of winning and losing, nirvana and samsara. This eliminates intrinsic distinctions (extreme view) and along with it the conflict and confusion that it engenders. But if we still hold a preference for winning; that is samsara, even when we win.
The very existence of any entity depends on causes and conditions, depends on its parts, and depends on the mind that apprehends it. In other words, it cannot exist concretely and independently in its own right free of these dependencies. Consider thoughts that arise in our minds; there is not a single thought that can arise on its own, that can decide to come into existence. Thoughts can arise only when many causes and conditions come together to produce them. For example, thoughts are dependent on an object that is thought about, such as a lake. There is no independent thought.
“There is nothing that is not dependently originated so there is therefore nothing that is not empty.”
Sentient beings are unable to correctly perceive reality. It is not simply that ‘we’ perceive ‘things’ incorrectly; it is all empty. The perceiving ‘I’ and the ‘things’, these are empty illusions. This extends naturally, to the realm of language and thought: “…every rational theory about the world is a concept about something unreal evolved by an unreal thinker with unreal thoughts.”
“Brilliant and intellectual persons always abide in the cave of conceptualisation. As they understand, so do they speak.”
All the phenomena of samsara and nirvana appear due to the coming together of causes and conditions, and at the same time as they appear one cannot find the slightest trace of their actual intrinsic existence. They are appearances that are empty of any substantial essence just like the reflection of the moon in the lake; but just like the reflection, their emptiness of intrinsic nature does not prevent them from appearing vividly when the proper conditions come together. The fact that an object without inherent existence is able to produce an effect – that is, the fact that, though empty, it is able to appear and be perceived – illustrates broadly how empty phenomena are able to manifest. Whatever appears in a reflection is void, but the fact that it is so does not stop it from having an effect. This is the truth of dependent arising, the union of appearance and emptiness. It frees one from the extreme of realism, because it does not superimpose true existence onto things where there is none; and from the extreme of nihilism, because it does not deny that things appear due to the coming together of conditions.
Dependent arising means that the perceived object, the perceiving subject and knowledge are mutually interdependent. The reality of one is dependent upon others; if one is false, the others must be false. If the self is false, so are the thoughts and experiences of the self false. When a rope is perceived as a snake, the perceived object, the snake is false. The perceiving subject and knowledge of the external object must also be false. If the object lacks intrinsic nature so does the perceiving subject lack intrinsic nature. So what one perceives within or without is illusory. Therefore, there is nothing, neither mental nor non-mental, which is real. Take, for example, the mind as the perceiver. The mind itself lacks inherent existence or independent existence (it depends on a body), therefore, all that is perceived by the mind (objects, friends, enemies, birth, death, and so on) likewise, lack inherent existence. Following this logic: what lacks inherent existence (the mind) cannot be used as proof of something else (objects, birth, death, suffering, etc) having inherent existence.
Appearances and experiences have no self-essence. Since this is the case, nothing can arise and abide and nothing can cease. Apprehension and what is apprehended are like a hallucination or dream. Dreaming of an elephant while asleep, for example, is brought on by various conditions and seems real for the person incapable of realizing he or she is dreaming while asleep. Searching for the elephant and other visions that arose in a dream when awake would be absurd, a meaningless endeavour since there never was an elephant to begin with. Similarly, all phenomena seem to arise, abide, and cease conventionally, but ultimately, since no arising is observed in the beginning, there can be no true ceasing at the end, nor any abiding in the interim. They are mere appearances. We can see for ourselves that all appearances are devoid of their own self-existing essence and have no inherent reality. Nothing arises from itself, or from anything other than itself, or from out of nothingness.
All appearances and experiences have no self-existing nature; everything that arises is a mere appearance with no own essence at all. In a final analysis, no ultimate statement can really be made about phenomena since everything is empty of its own self-nature.
The understanding of dependent origination is the most powerful means of arriving at the knowledge of emptiness. When, as a result of engaging in deep analysis, we fail to find the intrinsic reality of the object of our focus, we do not conclude from this that the object in question does not exist at all. Instead, we deduce that since our critical analysis has failed to find any inherent, independent existence of the object, its existence or appearance must be understood only as dependent origination. Therefore a genuine understanding of emptiness (emptiness of independent nature) must really take place.
Emptiness is simply a shorthand way to express the interdependence of all things. Nothing has any “self-existence” or “self-presence” because everything is dependent upon everything else. Emptiness is “the exhaustion of all theories and views.” Making it into a metaphysical theory is like grasping a snake by the wrong end – look out! The Buddha emphasizes that the meaning of emptiness itself is relative; having used it to let go of other concepts and theories, we should let go of emptiness too.
When meditating on emptiness, we do not realise the non-existence of something that previously existed. Rather, meditating on emptiness involves realising the non-existence of something that has never existed. Inherent existence (like the horns on a rabbit) has never existed. Therefore, meditation on emptiness does not destroy inherent existence because things never have been truly existent. There is nothing whatsoever being removed from objects either because they never were truly existent or inherently existent. Seeing things as empty also does not add something new, such as emptiness, onto an object that previously was not empty. It is not the case that previously the object was not empty and now we are making it empty. Phenomena are not made empty by emptiness, the phenomena themselves are empty. Ultimately there is no entity of which emptiness is predicated. And things are not a product of emptiness. Emptiness produces no product.
For one to whom emptiness is clear, everything becomes clear. For one to whom emptiness is not clear, nothing becomes clear.
The moment we reflect upon our understanding of the emptiness of inherent existence that very understanding will indicate that things still appear, or exist, but dependently. It is almost as if when we hear the word ’emptiness’ we should instantly recognise its implication, which is that of existing by means of dependent origination. It is difficult to see the emptiness of things, but is easier to see they are dependently arisen. The understanding of emptiness, therefore, is said to be that in which one understands emptiness in terms of dependent origination. There is not a single thing that is not dependent so there is not a single thing that is not empty.
The Buddha asserts that the dependently arisen is emptiness. Emptiness and the phenomenal world are not two distinct things. They are rather two characterizations of the same thing. To say of something that it is dependently co-arisen is to say that it is empty. To say of something that it is empty is to say that it is dependent. What is dependent is empty and what is empty is dependent. Because of emptiness there is appearance. Without emptiness there could not be appearance. Though empty, phenomena appear; though they appear, they are nonetheless empty.
The mutual interdependence of phenomena shifted the emphasis from beingness to becoming. That is, whereas the Hindu philosophies found the essence of the universe in a substantial “standing under” ground of “true being,” the Buddha recognized no substantial essence of the universe. He saw all in terms of process, flux or change. Change is evident, but there is not some “thing” that changes. The process itself is the only thing that can be seen as having any degree of certainty or reality.
The doctrine of emptiness proposes that all phenomena, objects, people, experiences, thoughts, etc, have no intrinsic existence. In effect, all things are ‘empty’ of a permanent, self-sustaining, and self-enclosed existence. “No-self” is the polar opposite of the “self” hypothesis. The self-hypothesis maintains that each of us are essentially separate from everything else, based on an essence. No-self maintains the opposite: we do not contain an individual essence and thus are not really separate from other phenomena.
For something to be empty is for it to depend on other things – which are also empty. Effects lacking inherent existence depend precisely upon conditions that they themselves lack inherent existence. My sense of “self” doesn’t stand alone. It depends on a body, a mind, parents, air, food, and on being labelled as a “self.” So there can be no intrinsic independent self to be found. Whatever arises dependent on conditions cannot have its own nature, essence or being. Hence, it can’t be found. This is what it means to be empty of self. The label “self” is just a convenient way to refer to the body/mind aggregates.
Given that phenomena depend upon their conditions for their existence and given that nothing answering to an essence of phenomena can be located in those conditions, and given an essence could not come from elswhere, it follows that phenomena that arise from conditions are essenceless. But if you perceive the existence of all things in terms of their essence (inherency), then this perception of all things will be without the perception of conditions and dependency. This is the absurd viewpoint of things arising without depending on other factors or conditions. The consequence of this is to overlook or confine to the background the causal conditions that are actually at work in giving us the world that we have.
Inherent Existence
Conventional reality is deceptive. Things appear to exist in a certain way (intrinsically) without actually existing that way. Objects, both coarse as in a rock and subtle as in thought, appear as distinct, intrinsic entities when they are not. Phenomena are mistakenly perceived and conceptualized as self-established, each with their own core nature that makes them what they are. All thinking is based on a presupposition that things have self-established natures – it is, after all, almost impossible to talk without at least an implicit nod in the direction of self-natures and essences. In Buddhism, this deception is called inherent existence and is identified as the root error responsible for suffering.
To affirm inherent existence would be to claim that things are really objectively there existing on their own without help from anything else. They would always be there and never perish. Everything would be frozen, isolated, unchanging and nothing would relate to anything. But inherent existence is not our experience. Inherent things would not depend on anything else. But everything in this world depends on other things, and everything is in a state of constant flux or change, so how can we claim an inherent unchanging entity exists at all? Further, if such an inherent entity does exist then we should be in a position not only to negate dependent arising of the entity but also to provide evidence of the existence of such an entity. This has not yet been achieved. Hence, we can only conclude that inherent entities do not exist.
Things appear to exist in a certain way (intrinsically) without actually existing that way. A falsity is something that appears in one way and exists in another way. It appears that everything exists through its own separate nature or essence that makes each thing what it is, including a “self.” However, all phenomena are without such individual identity. To conceive of people and things existing in and of themselves through their own core nature is called inherent existence. This is the target to be refuted on the path of emptiness teachings. The absence of inherent existence is referred to as emptiness and when realized, one sees all phenomena without an independent essence or self-nature.
We see a cup. Because it appears to really be there under its own steam, independent of causes, independent of its parts, and independent of being perceived, it appears to be inherently existent. Not only does it appear to be inherently existent, we might also actually believe that it exists this way. This appearance and this belief make up the conception of inherent existence. However, just because we have the conception of inherent existence does not mean that it really exists. It is sort of like seeing a snake where there is only a rope. Just because we have the conception of an object does not establish the inherent existence of that object. This reasoning provides a meditative way to look for inherent existence and see that it is not findable. Once inherent existence is clearly seen to be not-findable, the conception of inherent existence will cease and hence ignorance and primal confusion cease.
In the Middle Way teachings, it is said that things do exist conventionally. The conventional existence of the cup is the everyday ability of the cup to hold tea, to be washed and dried, and to shatter if dropped. This conventional cup serves the purpose of a cup even though if it were analyzed with middle way reasoning, it would not be found. The purpose of the reasoning is not applied to refute the conventional, everyday existence of things, such as the teacup, the self that goes to the grocery store, or the car parked in the driveway, or the weather, because conventional existence, according to Middle Way Buddhism, is not the cause of suffering therefore, there is no necessity to refute it. Hence, conventional existence is not negated, but only the misperception of it having inherent existence. Grasping, contrivance and all artificialities is directly related to the misperception of essence (inherent existence) in things.
Since everything that exists depends on something else to come into existence, nothing can be self-existent. Nothing exists without relying on or being in relationship with other factors or conditions. For this reason, phenomena are not independent and are thus empty of independent existence. When our minds become very familiar with this, when we see that everything depends on other factors and conditions, we will see that phenomena are empty of self-existence. The reason they are not self-existent is because they are dependent. When we become angry, upset, jealous, or excited, or when we crave for or cling to something, the grasping at inherence existence is present. We need to look at the way the I appears to us at those times. For example, suppose someone comes along and accuses you of having caused some great harm when in fact you are entirely blameless. At that time you are likely to have a very vivid and strong sense of I. You may think to yourself “I didn’t do that. Why are they blaming me?” At this time you can clearly observe the inherently existing I appearing to the innate I grasping mind. You can also clearly observe the mind grasping the appearance as inherently existent.
The sense of an inherent “I” or “self” is like something in the background, something subjective, like a passive observer. From this perspective it’s not so much that we are the body, but rather, that we have a body. When we are angry we don’t believe our body is angry, but “I” am angry. It is our identification with this false sense of “I” that is the cause of all our woes. It is false because it cannot be found when looked for. The “I” exists only by imagination or imputation. It is this imputed “self” Middle Way refutes, not the conventional person.
In order to be free of the I or self we must first distinguish the object of negation; and that is an inherently existing self. What is not negated is the everyday dependently arisen, conventional self. The inherent self must then contain an intrinsic nature that is self-enclosed and logically definable. It must have an essence discoverable upon analysis. The consequence that follows is that this self must be perceivable separate from the aggregates. As this is not the case we conclude that a self (an inherent self) separate from the aggregates, does not exist.
In dealing with the concept of a self that is independent of the aggregates, such as an unchanging self, it is logically impossible to make any meaningful connection between this self and the aggregates. In simple terms, how can an unchanging entity, such as the self, relate to the aggregates which are multiple, momentary, and in constant flux? Furthermore, no such unchanging entity is the object of our “I” consciousness, or natural sense of selfhood, which always relates to either our physical or mental person, such as, I think, my arm, or my thoughts. If such an unchanging self exists it must be observable in our experience. As we do not experience this we conclude such a self does not exist.
When one refutes the object of inherent existence over and over, using the examples of different kinds of phenomena, one will see something new begin to happen. Persons and phenomena will be conceived as conventionally existent but lacking inherent existence. This is the end of the conception of inherent existence and the end of painful and afflicted arisings such as the following: “How could she do that to me? That is absolutely not permissible! I have done so much for her and this is the gratitude I get!” If these feelings are greeted with even an intellectual, inferential cognition of the emptiness of inherent existence the sense of anger, indignation and suffering will begin to dissolve. To see through the deception of inherent existence is critical because it is the root error that leads to the endless grasping and aversion that underlies all suffering. To pierce this mental fiction is to be unburdened from the view of being a separate, contained self in a world of separate, contained people and things.
The key principle – that all things are empty of inherent existence – actually means that all things are dependently arisen. The very existence of any entity depends on conditions, depends on its parts, and depends on the mind that apprehends it. Without this dependence on these other factors, an entity cannot exist at all. In other words, it cannot exist concretely and independently, in its own right, free of these dependencies. Thinking it can, is like speaking of the horns on a rabbit. Entities have always been empty so they have never truly existed.
“Whatever is dependently co-arisen that is explained to be emptiness. That, being a dependent designation is itself the middle way. Something that is not dependently arisen, such a thing does not exist Therefore a non-empty thing does not exit.”Nagarjuna.
Because things are interdependently co-arisen, Buddhist thought says that inherently existent things cannot be found so in absolute terms, one could say that phenomena as events are ultimately unfindable. Not one single thing in the realm of phenomena can be either pinned down or grasped in any way. Insubstantiality, ungraspability and complete unfindability are the ultimate characteristics of experienced phenomena. Every phenomenal event is entirely elusive and ephemeral, like a mirage. Because phenomena have no objectifiable essence they never really come into existence, nor do they go out of existence either.
The following example clarifies the sense of no inherent self: “When I was about ten years old, my friends and I would throw stones at each other. I came to realize that no matter where a stone hit me (arm, leg or even the head) it did not hit “me” but hit only my arm, my leg or my head. There was no place a stone could land that I thought was truly me. In fact, whatever could be named, say arm, was not me, because it was “my” arm. The “my” or “I” seemed to be something different from arm. But where was this “I”? It’s not as though I didn’t have a strong sense of it. But no matter where I looked, it seemed to keep shifting around, almost as though it was always in back of me! The inability to find the “I” really did begin to weaken my sense of its reality.”
The Buddha emphasizes that the object of reference for our ego-clinging is not the five aggregates but rather the idea of “I” that we entertain; in other words, a false philosophical concept. To illustrate this point, one may imagine, for example, that when a hiker in the countryside sees a scarecrow in the distance and thinks that it is the local farmer, the scarecrow is the substantial basis for the hiker’s mistaken idea. The idea “farmer” arising in his mind is due simply to a disposition grounded in past experience and habit. To be sure, in the moment of illusion when the hiker believes that the farmer is there, it is not that he is detecting something present in the scarecrow, for there is certainly no trace of the farmer contained in it. The farmer is just a baseless illusion, which does not in any way consist of, or in, the scarecrow. In just the same way, for the Buddha, the illusion of the self has no real basis. The aggregates are only the occasion of a mistaken conception.
Within our everyday, natural existence we do not relate to a metaphysical self, instead, we identify with either one or a combination of our aggregates. For example, if I cut myself I can truthfully say, ‘I have cut myself’. Likewise, if I feel happy I can truthfully say, ‘I am happy’. These are the ways we interact; either in relation to our body or our mind. In relation to the thought ‘I am’ such as in, ‘I am going to eat’, ‘I am happy’, and ‘I remember’, we always relate to either one or a combination of our aggregates. There is nothing in our experience that suggests our natural thoughts of ‘I’ can exist independent of our aggregates (i.e. feelings, perceptions, consciousness). Every time we can accurately say ‘I’ do, feel, think, etc. we are not relating to a metaphysical entity but to a conventional self that functions in everyday life.
Consider another example. Looking around us, we see distinctive phenomena. As I write this I see a cat (Lily) sleeping on a chair, for example. In the conventional view, the cat and the chair are two distinctive and separate phenomena. Notice the way the English language causes us to speak of the chair and of Lily as if their component parts are attributes belonging to a self-nature. We say the chair has fabric and Lily has fur. But the doctrine of emptiness says; not only are these component parts empty of self-nature, there is nothing intrinsic or inherent that possesses the fur or the fabric.
Insofar as conventional phenomena present themselves as more than conventional as inherently existent, they deceive us. Take for example, the phenomenon suffering. When one misperceives suffering to be an inherent entity then one is asserting it is not dependently arisen from conditions. If this is true then suffering would exist inherently in which case, there are no conditions in the absence of which it ceases to exist and hence liberation from suffering is impossible. Likewise, if one thinks that, say racism exists inherently, one will be unable to account for its dependent arising and hence liberation from racism is impossible. The same goes for such things as, anger, anxiety, prejudice and so forth.
Although phenomena undeniably appear, but when examined, no essence or inherent existence of those things can be found. This means that by their very nature, they abide in emptiness, the emptiness of being primordially unborn and unobservable. This is the emptiness that we need to establish. Phenomena that are empty from their own side are said to lack inherent identity. They are so designated because, when they are investigated by absolutist reasoning, it is precisely this inherent existence that is not found. Again, when we say that something lacks inherent nature, it is because we cannot find and identify this nature. Phenomena are likewise said to be without attributes, beyond expectation. They are said to be impossible to define, empty, without self, beyond the extremes of samsara and nirvana, space like, and so on. All this is the same as saying that they lack inherent existence. By contrast, if, on being subjected to absolutist analysis, a thing were found to resist such an investigation, it would necessarily be established as truly existent. But no phenomenon is found to resist such analysis. Phenomena are therefore said to lack inherent or intrinsic existence.
However, intrinsic existence is not understood to be unreal by ordinary persons. Instead, ordinary persons impute intrinsic nature or essence on to conventional phenomena and perceive things as being intrinsically real. Only awakened beings realize intrinsic nature is illusory. As such, ordinary beings fail to see the true nature of things; their emptiness, their emptiness of intrinsic nature. Their minds have been suffused with a poisonous clinging to the real existence of entities. They have become addicted to such an attitude, and their habit is exceedingly strong, with the result that it is hard to abandon. Therefore, in perceiving concrete objects, beings are quite unable to discern their nature. They are overpowered by false discursive thoughts which mistakenly takes such objects to be truly existent things. It is for this reason that all living beings fail to perceive the true nature of phenomena – that is, their emptiness. In exactly the same way it is by continuously observing a thing that looks the same from moment to moment that the mind is dulled and fails to notice the thing’s momentary nature. Although people never actually perceive anything as truly existent – for this would run counter to the very nature of phenomena, which is emptiness – nevertheless, their minds are hampered by their mistaken thoughts and they apprehend things amiss.
Words and Language
Although words and language are deceptive and inadequate in describing the ultimate nature of things, nevertheless, they serve a useful purpose conventionally and so should not be discarded. Many teachers, however, start with the assumption that reality cannot be explained in words. But such an excuse is accepted too easily and so questioning, thinking and enquiring on the path is put to an end.
What does language actually do? What is the nature of meaning? How can something so deceptive and inadequate, non-the-less, be useful in the pursuit of truth?
Language is always associated with conceptuality, with reification, and with predication that implicates some reality behind the words. So language is always regarded as deceptive as in need of transcendence. It is deceptive, but indispensable, another aspect of that complex fiction called samsara, the cycle of confusion, attraction and aversion that generates the mass of difficulties that is our life. But language is more than just a necessary evil; it is also the ladder that enables one to climb out of this sea of conceptual and afflictive difficulties. Whatever our prejudices, we must rely on the words to find the meaning, even if that meaning eventually releases us from the thrall of the words themselves. Language can be used non-deceptively to the extent that we are not taken in by the “picture that holds us captive.”
The Usefullness of Language:
The goal of Buddhist philosophy is liberation from suffering. But liberation, to Nagarjuna, can only be achieved by insight into the ultimate nature of things, their emptiness. But this insight can only be gained through reasoning, and hence through language and thought, which can only be interpreted literally at the conventional level.
The whole of Nagarjuna’s philosophy presupposes the perception of conventional things and their phenomenal reality. Conventional discourse does not posit any claims over and above conventional existence itself because all that can be shown to exist, exists on the conventional level, which includes language and thought.
We do not have to pass over into silence despite the limits of language nor refrain from conventional or conceptual thinking. In fact, to explain emptiness, the ultimate nature, one must use words and concepts and explain such things as interdependence, impermanence, and so forth. And all of these are purely conventional phenomena. Conventional truth must be affirmed and understood. A true “silence” a silence that has the requisite sense – a sense that no speech can convey – has that sense only when it becomes a kind of speech.
In searching for the ultimate meaning of their existence, some point to the insignificance of their mundane life in a reality that transcends that life. Nagarjuna tries to discourage this kind of search by assuring us that whatever truth and meaning there is to one’s existence can be and must be found within the confines of our human world or empirical existence, which once again includes words and language.
Nagarjuna had no choice but to explain his insight into the nature of reality in philosophical terms, formulas, theories and language. His brilliance lay in his ability to explain it so clearly, and then to build such effective safeguards against excessive philosophizing into his system, thus avoiding all conceptual extremes.
Conventional truth is necessary to point the way to the ultimate goal. Language and concepts must be utilized. Once the goal is in sight, relative truths must be abandoned. It is at this stage that one perceives all things to be devoid of self-nature and empty of reality and one realizes that the ultimate truth is itself not really a “truth.”
Nagarjuna recognizes the conventional nature of language and says that his ultimate category, “emptiness,” should not be understood as anything other than a convention. The term “emptiness” does not stand for a transcendent metaphysical reality whose meaning we can grasp by apprehending the reality behind the name.
Furthermore, there can be no such thing as ultimate truth, a theory describing how things really are, independent of our conceptual resources (mind) employed in describing it. All we are left with is conventional truth, commonly accepted practices and conventions. Conventional truth is all we arrive at when viewing the world through our linguistically formed conceptual framework.
The deceptive nature of words and language:
Words and language are deceptive and quite misleading. Nagarjuna warns; words do not refer to inherent things. Words have no meaning of themselves, and the meaning of a term is not the object for which it stands but depends on conditions or circumstances. If the conditions differ, the meaning of the word would be different and might even be lost. The Buddha might conform to the worldly linguistic usage and say: me, you, house and nirvana, but there are no extra linguistic realities that stand behind these terms or labels.
All words and names are merely conventional given due to human ignorance. Extra linguistic realities or objects – such as self, tree or Buddha – are not actual but are projections of the mind, objectified concepts. What we characterize as reality is subject to language, which is conventional, so that reality is conventional. Hence, nothing we can say of reality is true. “Words have no essence. Whatever is expressed by them is also without essence”. And how do we know this? By words and language. Words still serve an essential role.
“Nagarjuna did not teach… some thing to some one at some place.” What he did was to show that concepts are false and distort the true nature of reality. He did not offer thoughts of his own to replace false ones, but taught that all ideas must not be grasped on to. He warns; to attempt to explain extra linguistic reality involve contradictions or absurdities and hence, ought to be eliminated. One should rather know that all things are empty.
In order to make sense of the world, we divide it up in various ways. One basic way we do this is to make a distinction between our self and what we do. We usually distinguish our self from our actions and from the events that happen to us; including illness, old age, and death. Because we think of our own self as separate from events, and from everything else, we anticipate with dread the inevitable fate that awaits our individual selves.
Consider another example; “John walks.” ‘John’ and ‘walks’ are inseparable, but by separating the two words, one begins to imagine that something called ‘John’ exists independent of “walking” and that ‘walking’ exists independent of John. In fact, grammatically we are compelled to separate nouns from verbs, adjectives from nouns, adverbs from verbs, etc, but these linguistic distinctions of words conceal the actual inseparability of ‘John’ and ‘walks’. Once John has been separated off, it is a short step to positing an unchanging, inherent identity that is John, that is, his ‘essence’ or self.
Let us look at “meaning.” The meaning of any linguistic expression always depends upon some other expression, and that “other expression” is also dependent on something else. Meaning is therefore relative and always in flux, part of a chain of reference that never comes to an end. There is no intrinsic meaning. Whatever we think we understand right here and now always presupposes something else that is not present.
Most philosophers agreed that if words do not correspond to objects, they are thought to be unreliable and false; only if they correspond are they thought to be reliable and true. This claims that the meaning of a word is an extra-linguistic object for which it stands and consequently that a word is meaningful only if it stands for an object. For example, we ordinarily think of language as literal, it cannot be, since (given that all things are appearance only) there is no literal reality to which such words might refer. That any sentences bear some special relation to an intrinsic object or truth is simply to misunderstand. The pretence language that has to somehow mirror the world or deliver truth is just that, a pretence, a deception to be seen through, not one in which we should participate.
Buddhist thought says; if you seek a thing through a name (a tree) in the thing there is no actual “tree” that matches the name. If you seek a name through a thing, the name has no inherent power to obtain the thing. Therefore names do not match actuals and actuals do not match names. The meaning of a word lies not in an object or referent but in context or circumstances. If the context changes, meaning also changes. For example, the meaning of the word, say God, depends on the conditions or context in which the word is used, which may range anywhere from God being perceived as a loving forgiving father figure to an all powerful deity who is to be feared and who punishes evil. Linguistic words, whether that be – God, self, tree, birth, death, beginning, friends, enemies, suffering, moon, earth, or the “big bang” – there is no underlying actual or entity, nothing substantial that can be identified that matches these words or labels. Thinking that there are, is conceptual speculation. Metaphysical systems are fabrications that misconceive the role of language in relation to the world.
Nagarjuna’s dialectic aim was to show that words, language, or other concepts which have been used by people to describe and explain the true nature of things, are really empty. But philosophers often fail to see the empty nature of those concepts and believe that they stand for some “thing”. If we know, there must be some “thing” which we know. If we err, we must have made an error in some “thing.” Nagarjuna’s teaching has been given not to let people “know” some thing or some absolute reality. Wisdom or “prajna” is not the knowing of anything substantial or real in the world. In a strict sense it has no knowing or knowledge. To know is to search for something real in the world or the mind. Prajna avoids this kind of knowing. It is an insight that all things known and the knower of them are empty. They depend on each other so both are empty. Emptiness is a device to cure the disease of conceptual thinking by showing that all things, all words and linguistic phenomena are empty. This makes one realise that metaphysical questions of the world are absurd and hence frees one from metaphysical speculation.
Language still serves a useful purpose. There is no reason to replace everyday language with a more precise technical language that helps avoid misrepresenting the nature of things. In using language one cannot avoid using words that apparently commit one to accepting the presuppositions upon which language rests. It is the task of the middle way philosopher to expose those presuppositions as untenable, to see that language is not grounded in realities, that words used in sentences have no referent, but is purely conventional.
Imputations of Mind
As with our inveterate desires and fears it is through the effect of habitual tendencies ingrained in us from beginningless time that we experience the appearances of bodies, possessions, places, and so forth. But ordinary people naïvely fail to recognize these things as projections of their own minds. They consider that the mind is here and the object over there, and they imagine that there is a gulf separating the perceiver from the perceived object, which they assume to be real. But this is just as if they thought that an elephant seen in a dream is an extramental reality and not the mind’s projection. It is not how things are. The reality of extramental objects is no more than an imputation or imagination and these same things, in other words, are illusory.
The recognition that phenomenal appearance are but the play of the mind itself is a means of discovering how beings fall into samsara and how they can be liberated from it. Due to the fact that various misguided habitual tendencies have been deposited upon the mind, the unbroken continuum of samsara occurs as different kinds of dreamlike appearance. Knowing that everything is a projection of mind, we can change our mind. On the other hand, to say that the world of appearances is not a projection of the mind necessarily implies the belief that it is caused by something else. And since this involves the assertion that beings are bound in samsara or delivered from it through causes other than their own minds, it will doubtless cause one to fall into non-Buddhist tenet systems. It is therefore established that if there is no external creator and no external world, extramental objects are but the mind’s self-projection. Consequently, the knowledge that phenomena are the mind’s projection gives rise to a firm and certain understanding of how the samsaric process is set in motion and how liberation from it is to be achieved.
If one accepts that phenomena are the projection or manifestation of the mind, a true understanding of the actual mode of being of the conventional is achieved—together with a confident grasp of how beings enter the samsaric process or turn away from it. If one examines phenomena, which are the deposit of mental habituation, they are found not to exist. (They don’t inherently exist as mind either). However, they appear incontrovertibly within the forum of our experience. This cannot be denied. Reasoning based on phenomenal evidence proves that they are merely mental appearances. They are, in other words, the mind’s projections, which is to say the mind’s self-experience.
Given the correct functioning of the sense faculties, perception is “somewhat” accurate; it is only in the process of conceptual assessment that mistakes occur. For example, consider the stock example of a rope mistaken as a snake. For our minds, what exists (the rope) appears like it doesn’t exist, and that which doesn’t exist (the snake) we think does exist. So it is completely opposite. Reality and the way things appear to us is totally opposite. This very subtle hallucination occurs not only with the illusory snake but in our everyday perception of things. For example, consider a tree. While the tree is impermanent, it appears as permanent; while it depends on the parts, it appears existing alone; while it is dependent on causes and conditions (soil, water, sunlight, etc) it appears existing independently with its own self-nature. Even though it exists merely imputed and labelled by the mind it appears back to one’s mind as though it is not just merely imputed by the mind, but something more than that, something beyond that, something solid substantial and intrinsic. There appears something extra, slightly more than what is merely imputed by mind – something from there, something additional to what is merely imputed by the mind. This very subtle thing is what doesn’t exist, what is not there (something extra to what is merely imputed by the mind). It is something which doesn’t exist on the tree, the merely imputed tree. This is the object to be refuted – this slightly extra, addition to what is merely imputed by the mind. Identifying correctly the object of negation is crucial.
In reality there is only emptiness (emptiness of the snake and emptiness of the tree); the emptiness we have to realize to cut the root of samsara, the ignorance. We have to realize this very subtle delusion (intrinsic existence), this false view, for what it is, and then see that it doesn’t exist. It exists nowhere. It is empty. So, what is not there? It is the merely labelled tree appearing back as a real intrinsic tree from there. The very subtle false view of the object to be refuted, according to the Madhyamaka/Prasangika school, arises when the tree appears back as though it is not merely imputed by mind. It is good to use this phrase: “not merely imputed by mind.” This will help you to come to know the very subtle object to be refuted. That is what we have to realize is empty. Only then can we be liberated from samsara.
In exactly the same way the “tree” appears so does the “I” appear. The merely labelled “I” appears not merely imputed by the mind but as though it is something real from there, from the aggregates. But the “I” is totally non-existent (like the snake) – it exists nowhere. The same applies to the aggregates, the body, the mind, everything that appears back not merely imputed by the mind. As well as form, sound, smell, taste, tangible objects, all the senses and all the sense objects, all the rest of the phenomena, objects, good, bad, friends, enemies, birth, death, virtue, karma, etc, all of which are merely imputed by the mind but appearing back not merely imputed by the mind. Further, it appears to our mind to be independent of our mind, even though it is a creation of our own mind. So all phenomena that are merely imputed by the mind, appearing back to our mind as though they are not merely imputed by the mind – all this is totally hallucinatory, totally empty. All these appearances we can say, is just in the mind, which is another way of presenting what is hallucination. It is one way of getting the idea or feeling of what is hallucination. Since everything – what is called “this” and “that” – is all imputation coming from the mind, given by the mind, it means that everything is merely imputed by the mind. Therefore nothing exists from its own side. (i.e. everything is empty of inherent existence or empty of its own existence) There is no “I” existing from its own side as an independent entity. We have to realize this very subtle hallucination, this false view, for what it is, and then see that it doesn’t exist.
Summarizing:
When we analyze the objects and the “I” in and of themselves and ask, ‘what is the manner of being of these phenomena from their own side?’ we find they are not established in any way that they can be understood in and of themselves apart from the mind of the person viewing them or apart from being posited through the force of a mental imputation. (Thoughts like: “What are dogs thinking; or what happens after death; or what are aliens or extra-terrestrials really like?” are examples of us trying to understand things, in and of themselves apart from the mind of the person viewing them. Hence, such thoughts or questions are futile and unanswerable). We can say, therefore, that what we perceive exists objectively and intrinsically in terms of its own essence, without being posited through the power of mental imputation, is called ignorance. Therefore, the object to be refuted is a conception that phenomena have a way of existing in and of themselves as solid real discreet independent entities, apart from being posited through the force of mental imputation. We need to recognize the object to be refuted within our own experience. The very subtle false view of the object to be refuted arises when the object in question appears back as though it is not merely labelled by mind but it exists as a real intrinsic substantial entity. The fact is, that objects and things are but mere imputations of mind, yet they appear back to us real solid entities and “not merely imputed by mind.” The self also is a mere imputation of mind, yet it appears back to us (our untutored mind) as if it is not a mere imputation of mind. That things are as they appear, “as real discreet entities with their own self-nature or essence,” is the object to be negated. To the awakened ones, who know that objects, things and the self are but mere imputations of mind, these appearing phenomena and the self, are no longer perceived in terms of being real intrinsic entities. So they are not bound by things or bound by a self. Ignorance has ceased.
We routinely and innately give our assent to a real external world that exists apart from our minds. The most subtle and pernicious form of ignorance – it is the deepest root of cyclic existence. All of the afflictions that hold us in cyclic existence are built on the misperception that things are distant and cut off from our minds that perceive them. To see the deception is to be free of deception.
The Existence of God
The Madhyamaka’s critique of the scholastic idea of svabhava (own existence) is the denial of anything self-existing, transcendent, noumenal or God. There is no room for a noumenal, source or God in madhyamaka’s argument for the emptiness of all things. Let us examine and see how madhyamaka’s put conceptual speculation to an end.
Consider, for example, the proposition “whether or not God exists”. Madhyamaka’s do not assert that the existence of God is false, but that God’s existence as the creator is unintelligible because it leads to certain absurdities or contradictions. If God created all things, then who created him (or her)? Not God himself because nothing can create itself. If he was created by another, he would not be self-existent. Moreover, if God had a cause and came from another then the burden of proof of the existence of God is transferred in its entirety to this other, then this other would come from still another. There would be an infinite regress.
The true approach to the problem of the existence of God appears neither theistic nor atheistic. It is not theistic because madhyamaka’s do not assert God exists, and it is not atheistic because they do not assert God does not exist. They merely state he cannot be conceived of as existing. Christianity begins with the assumption of Gods existence and that religious knowledge is knowledge of him. Madhyamaka’s do not assume God’s existence and do not believe the assumption of an absolute is necessary for wisdom.
The assumption that God exists, is the fallacy of, “begging the question”, meaning, that an argument smuggles its conclusion in among its premises. Here is a stock example: “Of course God exists it says so in the Bible. And everything in the Bible is true since it is the word of God.” This argument begs the question by including a premise, “the Bible is the word of God”, that presupposes the truth of the conclusion, “God exists”. It is fallacious because you can’t prove that the conclusion, “God exists”, is true by using evidence that already assumes it is true. Another unverified assumption: “The thought arises; what an incredible universe! It must have been made by an incredible maker. Hence, it was created by God.”
Madhyamaka’s denial of theism does not entail atheism. For madhyamaka’s, if theism is unintelligible, then so is atheism. If the assertion that there is a God is non-sensical then the atheist’s assertion that there is no God is equally non-sensical. When the existence of God is not established, the non-existence of God is also not established because for the non-existence of God to be established the existence of God must first be established, which it is not. Furthermore, by positing non-existence of God we indirectly assume the quality of existence of God. That is, non-existence of God is assumed to be an existent entity.
In ruling out atheism as well as theism, madhyamaka’s position may seem to be agnostic. In a sense, this is true because both madhyamaka and the agnostic refrain from assertion. However, in the agnostic view we do not know whether or not God exists. It is an attitude of doubt and despair, but for madhyamaka’s they do know that the question of whether or not God exists is unintelligible. It is an attitude of conviction and certainty. Further, it is characteristic of agnostics to hold that the existence of God is possible; there is no good reason either to believe or disbelieve. So the Agnostic does not deny that the question “whether or not God exists” is a genuine question. But according to madhyamaka’s, all statements about the existence of God involve absurdity, and they might go further and declare agnosticism untenable because if a statement about the existence of God is unintelligible, then it is unintelligible to doubt as well as to affirm.
Madhyamaka’s rejection of the concept of a noumenon or God does not imply that he accepted the empirical as real. The empirical reality or the phenomenally real are also unintelligible ideas. However, logical positivists hope to convince us that the empirical is the only reality or the objective data we can accept. It is then maintained that God does not denote any empirical entity and is a pseudo term. All statements about the existence and nature of God are not empirically verifiable and hence are meaningless. By contrast, madhyamaka’s philosophy hopes to free us from making any ontological commitments to anything whatsoever, even to empirical phenomena. For madhyamaka’s sense experience is as empty as transcendental reality. God is a pseudo term not because it denotes no empirical object, but rather because the concept itself leads to absurdity or contradiction. From his stand point, logical positivism (empirical reality) would be a new dogmatic metaphysics, thus it should be ruled out.
Madhyamaka’s presented several arguments to show that creation, making, production, or origination, are ultimately empty and that creator, maker, producer and originator are not genuine names referring to reality. So the question of the making or creation of something is not a genuine question and also why the assertion of the existence of God as the maker or creator of all things makes no sense.
Theists tend to attribute characteristics of omnipotence, omniscience, perfection and self-sufficiency to a deity. In examining these aspects Madhyamikas discussed what philosophers called the problem of evil. They argued that the existence of evil in the world proves that God is either not omnipotent or not all good and therefore God does not exist. Their reasoning: obviously there is evil in the world, both moral evil and physical suffering. We find not only the fact of moral evil, but also the fact that evil people enjoy happiness and that good people suffer, it seems that God cannot prevent this, or else he can prevent it, but will not. If God cannot prevent evil he is not omnipotent and if he can but will not, he is not all good. Now, if God is not omnipotent, or not all good, then by definition he is not God. So God cannot be conceived to exist.
Furthermore, if God is the sole omnipotent and omniscient creator of the world, there should have been no obstacle to the process of his creation and the world ought to have been created in its totality at one and the same time. However, the scriptures speak thus: God wanted to create all creatures, he practised aesthetic deeds and then created all creeping insects; again he practised aesthetic deeds and created winged birds; he practised aesthetic deeds and created men, women and heaven. If it were due to the practise of aesthetic deeds that all these were produced, we should know that all things were produced from causal conditions, not by God. Also, this would mean God is dependent on aesthetic deeds, therefore, he is not omniscient.
And finally, we often tend to ask questions like “Who created the world?” This is a loaded question, one that is wrongly put. We assume it is a “who” (some kind of entity) that “creates” the world. We assume that the world is “created,” and so we assume that there is also a “Creator.” The idea itself of a Creator or of a Source is highly problematic. What would be the Source of such a Source?
Empty Logic
Emptiness is used as an adjective to describe the arisen existents “the empty.” Only if these things are seen as “empty” can everything be “pertinent,” that is, can one formulate coherent and valid thoughts about reality. The fact that all arisen things as well as the process of arising are empty is encompassed by the theory of “emptiness.” This theory is comprehensive, encompassing any and all other concepts by virtue of showing how any description of reality must ultimately itself be negated and thus be empty. Only if one includes the notion of “emptiness” in one’s worldview can one’s theory be “pertinent.” As a method of negation, then, emptiness is like the diamond, an incisive and effective tool. It does not merely refute false concepts but it refutes them so comprehensively that the ball is in the opponent’s court, so to speak. After emptiness has shown the falsity of wrong views, like essence and self-nature, its job is done and negation itself must be negated.
Emptiness is not a theory which the Buddha invented, nor even one which he clarified. Emptiness is just the description of the way things are, i.e. impermanent and without essences or self-natures. It is only the opposites of emptiness that are concepts. That is, metaphysical theories like self-nature, permanency, the soul, Atman, Brahman, Pure Awareness, or God, are concepts that require definition and defending by those who hold them. Emptiness requires no defending.
Emptiness is empirically evident. That emptiness is perceptible is only a manner of speaking, for it is explained that emptiness is not a “thing” which can be defined and perceived. Rather, it is a lack, as, for example, one can speak of the concept of darkness even though it is nothing more than a lack of light. The term used most frequently is “perceives.” What is perceived is the nonexistence of self-nature or essence in things, and an awareness of this non-existence is referred to as the perception of emptiness.
“The Perfection of Wisdom school taught that emptiness is a fact of reality that is indirectly perceived by virtue of inherent things not being perceived.”
The main reason for declaring things to be without essence, is empirical. Self-nature simply is not observed. Logic leads to the same conclusion. The logical argument of emptiness is this: “The nature of reality is dependently arisen; that is attested to by the Buddha, by observation, and by logic. A thing that is not dependently arisen is not evident” Nagarjuna declares. If things are dependently arisen, then they are phenomenal appearances but not real entities.
This idea of non-being is not a nothingness, for it does not deny that things do, in some way, exist. Rather, non-being is the denial of an essential self-nature or essence. “All phenomena are empty (it is of essence in this sense that they are empty) but exist conventionally, interdependently and impermanently.” On the other hand, to say that if something exists, it does so in virtue of having an essence and hence, cannot interact or change or pass out of existence. This would entail the absurd position that everything is eternal. The very concept of an inherently ęxistent entity at all is incoherent.
The Buddha charges that self-nature or essence theories are incoherent and render liberation impossible. It is the philosophy of emptiness that makes possible all change and growth and nirvana itself. It is only the fact that things do not have an immutable essence and identity that makes them able to change, interact, and condition new events. Further, it is only the fact that the defilements and suffering are empty of self-nature that makes them susceptible to eradication. If there were self-nature in things, then defilements would be eternal and suffering inescapable. Emptiness is not only the description of dependently arisen things nor only the nature of the process of dependent arising itself, rather, emptiness is the very thing which makes dependent arising and hence the entire phenomenal world possible. Whatever one’s attitude to the world, emptiness is a positive theory, and the very means to help fellow humans.
One might ask that if all things are empty, including the pleasant things, then how can one retain hope and aspire to the ultimate goal of freedom, nirvana? The Buddha says this is a distorted view of emptiness and as such one is tormented by emptiness. But when one comprehends emptiness truly, one ceases to cling to desires for the things one would desire are shown to be empty and thus not desirable; one would cease to grasp and cling for the pleasant things which one would want to hold onto for they are seen as unreal; one would cease to form false theories and concepts about reality for the theory of emptiness precludes the tendency to theorize; one would not entertain false hopes for a concrete afterlife and a real saviour-figure, for the Buddha and his teachings are both seen as provisional, like a raft to get us to the other side; and, finally, one would have an incentive to appease suffering, for, being empty, suffering is susceptible to change and, hence, can be vanquished.
One of the chief causes of bondage is not so much the faculty of conceptualization but rather the propensity to grasp (desire) onto the products of that faculty. Desiring pleasure, the mind reifies the apparently pleasurable things in the hope of thereby possessing them and preventing them from ceasing. Fearing death, the individual reifies the apparent existence of life itself. We wrongly believe that the things we desire are permanent or real, we become attached to them, and then we suffer when they reveal their impermanence or transience. Desires are, indirectly, the cause of bondage. Desires are always desires for some “thing” and if the object of the desire is subject to flux, then the desire will, sooner or later, be frustrated. “Desire, know I thy root.”
Desire, say desire for pleasure, the Buddha says, inevitably leads to suffering. How? Well, it is basically down to misperception: we enjoy something because we find it pleasurable (insofar as it makes us fleetingly happy) and we subsequently cultivate attachment to the pleasure, and then erroneously to the object. Owing to our attachment to this pleasure and the object of pleasure, we then try to replicate and reproduce this pleasure; pleasure which we have already said is necessarily fleeting and impermanent (it does not last). So we are dissatisfied; the world never gives us what we want.
The Buddha taught that dissatisfaction (dukkha) is rooted in attachment to identity and permanence. That is, through mind or thought we project into the world of changing processes the illusion of substantial persisting unchanging entities we call “objects.” We are positively attached to things (through attraction) or negatively attached to them (through aversion). We are unhappy because we desire that the world be something that it is not. So the world never gives us what we want. We are dissatisfied. Nagarjuna takes the position that through mind or thought we create the illusion of enduring objects (reification) and project these objects into reality as substantial, persisting and independently existing entities. But this conceptual, or mind-framework can never grasp reality as it is, which is emptiness, empty of such substantial, independent existence.
The ordinary person, without insight to see all things as empty, may need to use concepts as a temporary guide. The mind, by its very nature, needs to think. The trained mind can dwell in peaceful wisdom but the untrained one needs a system to direct its thoughts properly. The theory of emptiness can act as an object for contemplation, an abstraction on which meditation can be focused. Once the mind in training achieves perfect wisdom then even the notion of emptiness itself must be abandoned.
Emptiness is not a thought but the absence of thoughts, not a theory but a lack of theories. Ascribing excessive validity to the products of thought will cause one to grasp onto them and lose sight of the true nature of things, which is empty. The truest conceptual expression of reality will always be a paradox.
Nagarjuna writes: “If I were to advance any proposition whatsoever, from that I would incur error. On the contrary, I advance no proposition. Therefore I incur no error.”
Emptiness is the only possible description of ultimate truth, for it demonstrates relativity and provides a sort of anti-theory on which the rational faculty can focus. Were there no dependently arisen things, there would be no theory of dependent arising. Further, even though these things are empty, they are at least phenomenally real; if they were not, there would be no theory of emptiness, for there would be nothing on which to base it. The whole of Nagarjuna’s philosophy presupposes the perception of everyday things and their phenomenal reality. It is vital that one following his philosophy understand that emptiness, every bit as much as the things it describes, is relative.
Views
Perceiving reality in any particular mode (such as our biased opinion or viewpoint) necessarily creates an “other,” the opposite from which it is distinguished. We cannot help being attached to our view and reject others. A view, because of its restriction, inclination and determination, carries with it duality, the root of saṁsāra, from which attachment and aversion and all vices spring up.
What we mean by “view” could be our religious, political, cultural or metaphysical persuasions; or global issues like global warming; or social issues like racism, gender concerns, inequality, and so on. Every view contains contradictions or, at best, consists of a label that obscures the reality. The Buddha does not advocate a withdrawal of a view or resistance to express a view or put down all views. He does make explicit that views do not contain an inherent and unquestionable truth or reality. A “true” view, he says, is not a view in itself, rather the absence of views. A true view is actually as empty as a wrong view. Hence, there is no inherent truth to a view.
When one asserts one’s viewpoint to be real or true this causes attachment and ill will to arise. Here, the term attachment refers to attachment to one’s own position. The term ill will refers to our attitude toward those who hold a different view. This attitude is called “terrible” because the consequences of it are extremely unpleasant and difficult to bear. Moreover, it is terrible because it damages ones mental continuum and is difficult to escape. What is the attitude in question? It is none other than the grasping of views.
If there exists grasping of views, so then there occurs the wish to demonstrate the objects which are accepted by oneself and the desire to defend the facts that one accepts. Again, there occurs the desire to debunk what is accepted by others if it is contrary to one’s own view. Therefore, the disputations which arise from the grasping of views arise from the basis of the inclination to accept views.
The acceptance of views is the basis from which attachment, disputations and all the varieties of discriminating conceptions arise. Once discriminating conceptions are present, then the afflictions which are born from adherence to views will occur. Attachment to one’s own view will lead to pride and arrogance. Moreover, ill will toward the views of others will occur in its turn. (Ill will or aversion to another’s view is also grasping a view). Fuelled by inclinations and engrossed with likes, views produce afflictions.
The Buddha had written that he has no thesis to advance. He cannot be refuted, he says, precisely because he has no position to defend. He had also written that he apprehends no objects at all and therefore has no need to affirm or deny anything. Nor does he put forward counter positions in opposition to the claims of other philosophers; rather, he shows the problems involved in the positions of others and argues only until the other philosophers realize the inadequacy and absurdity of their positions and become silent. If he had put forth arguments, then he would have opened himself up to endless disputation; since, however, he knew that the purpose is to bring all disputation, and indeed all kinds of idle chatter, to an end, he wisely avoided putting forth formal arguments that a persistent opponent might take as an invitation to debate.
The key point, the Buddha tells us, is to see all things as empty, including our viewpoints. When views are seen as empty, or not real, then attachment to them can be removed. When one has removed attachment to views one can then remove grasping at views. Here, by grasping, is meant the appropriation of views; that is making views one’s own. Once this attachment, this appropriating tendency is removed then attachment to desirable objects, aversion to undesirable objects, attachment to views and attachment to disputation can also be eliminated. One comes to a state of freedom, for nothing has been established as “one’s own position.” This is the Buddha’s good medicine to overcome the sickness of attachments and erroneous views.
Whosoever has grasped on to a view will be caught by the deceiver; the serpent of the afflictions. Those who have not grasped a view will not be caught. This is the real state of things.
The Two Truths
The Two Truths are: the ultimate and the conventional. Conventional truth refers to our everyday perception and understanding of things such as saying: that the sky is blue, that fire burns, that dark clouds foreshadow rain and that an object with four legs and a top is called a table. The ultimate truth is the emptiness of those things. The ultimate truth, of say the table, is the emptiness of the table.
Conventional truth:
Conventional truth may be defined as functional, something known by mind, is impermanent and it lacks an essence that can be found. It is our agreed upon identification of things and how they work, and this understanding directs our worldly activities. It includes what is called valid cognition because it is able to distinguish conventional truth from conventional falsehood. For example, there are consequences in distinguishing a snake from a rope and that sense of being right matters. If there was no reliability to our everyday assessments our activity would be senseless. There is coherence, so that conventional truth cannot be constructed randomly.
To exist conventionally also involves the understanding that since all phenomena depend upon conditions, they cannot substantively exist. For instance, an apple is produced in dependence upon the conditions of clouds, water, soil, sunlight, air, seeds, ad infinitum. So what is an apple really? An apple is a useful and valid description of what can be relatively and conventionally designated, but cannot ultimately be identified because an apple depends on other things. The same goes for all other things. Since conventional phenomena depend upon other things they cannot have an essential nature or existence of their own. To exist conventionally means that as everything is interdependent nothing can ultimately be identified.
Ultimate Truth:
Ultimate truth, on the other hand, may be described as the perception of the emptiness of phenomena. It is the automatic consequence of inherent things not being perceived. That is, the emptiness of things follows automatically. The Buddha’s know that everything depends on something else so they know there has never been an object or entity that can be apprehended. This is the perception of emptiness, and thus the perception of ultimate truth.
The difference of a dualistic and non-dualistic awareness is one of attitude, for all else remains as it was. When the Buddha cultivates non-dualistic knowledge he both sees and sees through the natural interpretations that structure his world. He sees nothing new or different, but knows, directly and incorrigibly, that all the elements of experience are dependent upon one another and upon the nature of the perceiving mind and are therefore empty of their own nature.
The ultimate nature of things, like a table, is its emptiness of inherent existence. Emptiness is the ultimate nature of conventional things. Emptiness is the ultimate nature of the table; emptiness is the ultimate nature of the self; emptiness is the ultimate nature of anxiety, of death, and of each and every thing that exists. This is because when an analytical mind asks, “What is this table really?” and searches deeply it fails to find any core or essence of being in the table. Hence, its emptiness.
Emptiness is an absence, a negation of inherent existence. Ultimate analysis does not negate the conventional, but is the ability to return to the conventional, seeing it merely as conventional. It is the superimposition of inherent existence upon phenomenal appearances that ultimate analysis targets. When objects cannot be found from an ultimate perspective, it means that they do not inherently exist, not that they do not conventionally exist and in a way that works in everyday life.
When inherent existence is globally negated through ultimate analysis, conventional images do not then disappear but no longer deceive. There is no need to withdraw from objects for they are directly and immediately recognized as empty or illusory-like. Whatever form appears, that is empty; whatever is empty, that appears as form. When emptiness arises as an appearance, we are confident that everything is empty.
Ultimate truth does not point to a transcendent reality but to the transcendence of deception. It is critical to emphasize that the ultimate truth of emptiness is a negational truth. In looking for inherently existent phenomena it is revealed that they cannot be found. This absence is not findable because it is not an entity.
Conventional truth is how we usually see the world, a place full of diverse and distinctive things and beings. The ultimate truth is that there are no distinctive things or beings. Conventionally, phenomena arise, have location, and function without such arising, location or function being actual, inherent, or substantial, which is their ultimate truth. This is the emptiness of phenomena and thus their mere conventional existence, the only existence we can know or speak of.
From the ultimate standpoint, there are no phenomena or standpoints. Being dependently arisen, phenomena are ultimately unfindable, which includes finding that they are empty. Things are not empty because of emptiness; to be a thing is to be empty. The conventional designation of objects requires boundaries in which to single things out, ultimately there are no boundaries, no independent things to designate. Objects are a conventional construct.
Although we cannot find any intelligible account for the arising of phenomena, Buddhist thought acknowledges that in everyday experience we encounter phenomena coming into being all the time. The ultimate truth – that is, truth concerning the highest goal – is that phenomena do not arise or cease or come into being. The conventional transactional truth, on the other hand, is that things do come into being and that their arising is conditioned. Conventional truth can be understood as a kind of screen, an obstacle that stands in the way of seeing the ultimate truth, their emptiness. Conventional truths are actually delusions that, if believed, prevent one from attaining the wisdom that is capable of leading to nirvana.
The transcendence of primal ignorance is not the transcendence of the conventional but the transcendence of deception by it. Ultimately, since all phenomena, even ultimate truth, exist only conventionally, conventional truth is therefore all the truth there is and that is an ultimate and therefore, a conventional truth. To fail to take conventional truth seriously as truth is therefore not only to deprecate the conventional in favour of the ultimate but to deprecate truth per se. If we disparage the conventional we have no ethical world left.
All language directed at the conventional world is to be merely a useful instrument, as nothing in the conventional world literally exists as it is described in language: language implicates true existence, but everything exists merely conventionally. On the other hand, on this reading, the language directed at the ultimate indicates a reality, but does so figuratively, for the ultimate, is inexpressible. The “meaning” of this language is to be taken seriously, but not the language itself.
The direct perception of emptiness depends upon conventionally designated phenomena to discover that they are empty. The emptiness of the table (its ultimate truth) depends on the table. Conventional truth is the ladder by which the deceptive structure of its own conceptuality is ultimately undermined. Conventional truth provides the conceptual force necessary to subsequently perceive the ultimate emptiness of phenomena. Ultimate truth is not more than phenomenal emptiness. If ultimate truth was the entire truth, then nothing could be said to exist at all as all there would be was an absence, a negation. This would take us to the affliction of nihilism. That is why it is so important to identify the object of negation to be only the inherent existence of phenomena, not their conventional existence, and to recognize ultimate truth as only that absence. Liberation requires a well-reasoned path.
Nagarjuna asserts that the dependently arisen is emptiness. To say of something that it is empty is another way of saying that it arises dependently. To say of something that is dependently co-arisen is to say that it is empty. Emptiness and the phenomenal world are not two distinct things but two characterizations of the same thing.
Even though both the phenomenal world and the self are empty, it should be clarified that Nagarjuna does in fact acknowledge the value of our everyday, common sense understanding of the world. One should abide in the phenomenal world, because this is precisely where emptiness is – in the phenomena. Awakening brings us back to the world, back but with insight replacing confusion.
What Nagarjuna intends by the doctrine of emptiness is to expose the real nature of things for without it we could not attain genuine enlightenment. If emptiness is coherent then all is coherent. If emptiness is not coherent then likewise all is not coherent.
Intrinsic nature does not exist at all; not even conventionally (like the horns on a rabbit). To assert intrinsic reality to phenomena, Nagarjuna suggests, is not only philosophically deeply confused, it is contradictory to common sense. Common sense neither posits nor requires intrinsic reality in phenomena, so it sides with emptiness.
Emptiness is Ultimate Truth:
If we are to use the term “ultimate truth,” it is the emptiness of all things. Even emptiness exists on the conventional level as it does not exist in-and-of-itself. In this way, emptiness is not some type of essential essence or ultimate reality that can be grasped on to. There are not two spheres of reality, one ultimate and one conventional, but two faces of the same world. There is only one world, the world of our everyday experience.
Everything, including this written thesis, has only nominal truth and nothing is either inherently existent or true. As soon as anything is identified it can only be a conventional designation as nothing can truly be located or pointed to. The ultimate truth about reality is that it is empty of any ultimate truth. Reality has no nature. Ultimately, it is not in any way at all. So nothing can be said about it. No truth has been taught by a Buddha for anyone anywhere.
Some things: there is a Buddha, there is delusion, there is realisation, there is birth and death, there are sentient beings; these are conventional truths. As the myriad things are without an abiding self-nature, there is no Buddha, no delusion, no realization, no practice, no birth, no death and no sentient beings; these are ultimate truths.
“From that which involves no origination, everything originates; and in that very origination, there is no origination! In it’s very enduring, there is no enduring! In it’s very cessation, there is no cessation!”
“As many beings as there are in the universe of beings, all these I must lead to nirvana, into that realm of nirvana which leaves nothing behind. And yet, although innumerable beings have thus been led to nirvana, no being at all has been led to nirvana.” Dogen.
Ultimate truths are those about ultimate reality. Since everything is empty, there is no ultimate reality. There are, therefore, no ultimate truths. Thus, for example, it may be perfectly acceptable to teach people that there is a Buddha, the four noble truths, the eightfold noble path, et cetera. As one may come to understand later, however, such things are, in a certain sense, misleading.
Nagarjuna is not disparaging the conventional by contrast to the ultimate. This is done if one reifies the entities associated with the ultimate, such as emptiness or impermanence, or the Four Noble Truths, or the Buddha. Then one treats these as real, true, intrinsically existent phenomena. The conventional then becomes false, second rate, or the world of illusion. This results in an untenable dualism. Those who reify emptiness see the conventional as illusory and emptiness as the reality standing behind it. Nihilism about one kind of entity is typically paired with reification of another.
To assert that things are empty, then, is not to assert that they are non-existent, but to assert that nothing has an essence or intrinsic identity. To see the world in terms of independently existent phenomena is a fundamental metaphysical error. Conventionally there are people, dogs, tables and chairs, and each of these things has countless properties. Ultimately there are no such things and no such properties. The ultimate truth is that everything is empty, that nothing is ultimately real, not even emptiness. It too, is only conventionally real. To be dependently originated; to exist in dependence on conditions in relation to other things and to have an identity dependent on conceptual designation is what it is to be empty. When we consider things carefully, that is how everything is.
Emptiness is only the emptiness of empty things, not a self-subsistent universal. It, too, is therefore merely conventionally real. The conventional reality of things is their emptiness, and hence their ultimate reality. Ultimate reality is just as empty as conventional reality. So ultimate reality is no more real than conventional truth, but is just a different way of looking at the same thing. Ultimate reality is hence only conventional reality. And so the two truths – conventional and ultimate; the world of dependent arising and the emptiness that is ultimate reality – are identical.
To take emptiness as ultimately real and everything else as merely conventional would create an unrepairable dualism. Emptiness would be reified as an ultimately existent phenomenon and conventional reality would be deprecated as a second-class existence, as illusion. We would then be stuck with an inaccessible real world and an illusory world we are condemned to inhabit. Emptiness is not an alternative to existence, but an analysis of existence.
Emptiness is the lack of essence of the conventional. lt is no more than that. Seeing the conventional as conventional is to see it as it is ultimately. Nagarjuna makes a similar move with nirvana and draws a most startling conclusion. Just as there is no difference in entity between the conventional and the ultimate, there is no difference in entity between nirvana and samsara; nirvana is simply samsara seen without reification, without attachment, without delusion.
Perhaps there is no better example of countering the notion of two distinct realms of reality – Absolute and Relative – than Dogen’s (Zen master) talk entitled “Gabyo” or “Picture of a Rice Cake.”
It is said that all beings and all things are painted pictures (painted rice cakes) and so are equal in spiritual status in that they are all painted, meaning, they are all mental construction of mind. We paint everything, everything is mentally constructed. All rice cakes are painted; none are unpainted or unconstructed. All things are equal (non-dual) in this respect. However, the so-called ultimate or absolute (unpainted) is privileged over the conventional (what is painted and so inferior) thus creating a duality between the ultimate and the conventional. This is precisely the kind of thinking that Dogen attempts to correct by helping us see how we “paint” or “construct” both elements; the ultimate and the conventional. Both are the results of this “painting” activity.
The “ultimate” does not hide behind or below the “conventional.” It is not some real rice cake devoid of any painting. There is not a single activity that is not a painted picture, a mental construction. The ultimate is no less painted than the conventional forms that we experience. Dogen here poetically presents Nagarjuna’s “emptiness of emptiness.” Life and death, their comings and goings, are all painted pictures; all the things in the world, the empty sky, supreme enlightenment and the ultimate reality itself, there is nothing whatsoever that is not a painted picture. The relative (painted) is empty of any ultimate reality and the so called ultimate (unpainted) is also empty of ultimate reality. Both are empty, so no distinction. Dogen here is entertaining the possibility that: “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth.” He is rejecting the idea that the truth of a statement must hang on some ultimate nature of reality, on some “unpainted” rice cake.
This radical teaching is a much-needed corrective to an experience or insight of oneness as a privileging of some absolute. “Nothing is hidden, all is painted.” We would all benefit from attending to our painting and not be distracted by a craving for the unpainted. He says: “There is no remedy for satisfying hunger other than a painted rice cake. (There are only painted rice cakes; none are unpainted). In this way, all rice cakes actualized right now are nothing but a painted rice cake. If you look for some other kind of rice cake (an unpainted one) you will never find it, you will never grasp it.”
As the entire world and all phenomena are a painting, human existence appears from a painting, and buddha ancestors are actualized from a painting. Since this is so, there is no remedy for satisfying hunger other than a painted rice cake. Without painted hunger you never become a true person. There is no satisfaction other than painted satisfaction. In fact, satisfying hunger, satisfying beyond hunger, not satisfying hunger, and not satisfying beyond hunger cannot be attained or spoken of without painted hunger. For now, study all of these as a painted rice cake. To enact this ability is to actualize the painting of enlightenment.
Enlightenment
The greatest hindrance to enlightenment, the Sages tell us, is our misperception that things intrinsically exist. By intrinsic existence we mean something real and substantial having its own core-nature or essence; something permanent and unchanging; something independent that does not depend on other things. The Sages challenge the very notion of such intrinsic independent existence by demonstrating that all things depend for their existence on other things. For example, fire depends for its existence on fuel, oxygen and a spark; a person depends for their existence on the body/mind aggregates, parents, food and so on. So they conclude there can be no independent things in existence. Independent unchanging things can in no way arise, therefore, if things arise, they can in no way be independent and unchanging. The fact that something arises or appears is a clear indication that that thing depends on other things (because everything that arises depends on other things) so it cannot be an independent autonomous entity. Things lack intrinsic independent nature; somewhat like a reflection in a mirror. Failure to see this lack or “absence” of intrinsic nature in things is the root cause of our unenlightened state.
Appearances are deceptive though, things appear to be substantial intrinsic entities, when they are not. We have fallen prey to this deception. We have falsely assumed that a mere appearance of things equates to real existence of those things. But when we examine these things, a tree for instance, looking for something substantial with its own core-nature that is representative its essence, it cannot be found. Likewise, when we search, looking for an intrinsic “self” in people that we can point to and single out, it simply cannot be found. The reason we can’t find such intrinsic independent nature in people and things is because things depend on other things; they lack independent nature or essence.
Enlightenment is not a tangible goal, it is not something that intrinsically exists, rather, it is the recognition of the “absence” of any such intrinsic existence. This absence (emptiness) is indirectly perceived by virtue of intrinsic things not being perceived. It is like realizing that something we are looking for (our car keys) are not there in their usual spot (the top drawer) and right then directly perceiving the “absence” of our car keys. An awareness of this absence (enlightenment) is referred to as the perception of “emptiness”. Enlightenment is thus not the finding of some “thing” – like a bliss state, or peace, or even God) – but rather, it is the insight that any such intrinsic “thing” simply cannot be found. In other words, enlightenment is not an affirmation of some “thing” but is purely a negation, a negation of all our conceptual constructs, a negation of any such “thing”, essence, or core nature. Enlightenment, then, is not in “finding” but rather “not finding”, which actually, is wholly positive and life-affirming. The Sages know that nothing exists intrinsically that can be isolated out. They do not “apprehend” things and their true nature, rather, they apprehend that there are no things, per se. Understanding the empty nature of things provides one with a certain sort of power; not power to construct, but power to refrain from constructing. This puts an end to conceptualizing.
Emptiness, the absence of inherent nature, is the true status of the appearing phenomena. This is attested by logic and empirical facts. Inherent existence of things simply cannot be foundIn fact, the true status of things (ultimate nature) is that they are but mere appearances. They are nothing more than that, somewhat like a mirage of a lake in the desert. And further, the “lake” never actually arose or came into existence in the first place. There never was a lake, just a mere empty appearance (a light refraction pattern). This is also similar to the example of a coil of rope mistaken to be a snake in dim light. The snake merely “appears” as a result of our failure to recognize the rope (the absence of a snake). The snake never actually originates or is created at any point in time and when we recognize the actual empty nature of the alleged snake then we see it never originated in the first place. Likewise, the appearing phenomena – objects, people, thoughts, feelings, in fact, the entire world – never actually arose from the outset; the world is somewhat like a fairy city. Things are but mere appearances, like reflections in a mirror, and are thus not real entities. Hence the reason we can’t find substantial existence of such things. The non-origination of things is the ultimate nature of those things. Enlightenment, once again, is the perception of an absence. A great secret is greatly apparent.
We perceive the world and things to be inherent entities because we are unaware (ignorant) of their actual empty nature. This fundamental error has corrupted our whole way of seeing the world. Because we see things in such an exaggerated substantial way, things appear that way. The world reflects back to us our own ignorance. So what we are looking at in the world is our own ignorance. Things appear as a result of our inability (ignorance) to recognize their genuine nature as insubstantial and illusory. Everything we see, everything we think, everything we experience, everything we do and everything we label we misperceive to be real substantial entities. Hence things appear as such. Our ideals, our culture, our friends, our enemies, our anger, our suffering, our birth, and our death, that we grasp on to, is an indication of our conviction of the reality of such things. We are aware of objects and things, we experience anger and suffering, we gravitate to our friends and are averse to our enemies, we welcome birth and dread death, and so we erroneously impute reality to such entities as awareness, anger, suffering, friends, enemies, birth and death, as well as a someone, a “self”, who is aware of or who experiences such things. Awareness, to some, is even given the status of ultimate reality.
Our misunderstanding that things exist as inherent fixed entities has been a great source of confusion and suffering. The Buddha challenges the notion of such inherent fixed entities by showing how this would exclude all possibility of change. Instead, he makes the argument that everything arises dependently without attaining its own nature, thingness or essence, so all talk of independent fixed entities, essence, beingness, or self-nature, must be abandoned, a radical conclusion indeed. This new way of viewing the world shifted the ontological emphasis from that of static fixed “being” to one of dynamic “becoming.” Nothing attains its own nature. Without independent, fixed nature, change is possible and hence liberation is possible. After all liberation or enlightenment is a change of mindset. Change is the key. Change is at work every moment on everything. In other words, there is no static moment for anything. This is what impermanence means: no lasting reality. That things appear to change shows that those things are not permanent free-standing entities. If there were such a self-reliant thing it would be impervious to effect upon it. It would be eternal, frozen and unconnected to anything. It would remain as it had presumably been originated, indefinitely, immortally. We would be trapped eternally with no avenue of escape. But this is not the case, change is at hand. If you are feeling disappointed, depressed or anxious, recognize it is impermanent and is thus subject to change so it will soon pass.
Concluding remarks:
The notion that things “exist” inherently or intrinsically is a deep rooted misunderstanding that has blinded us to seeing the real state of things (their emptiness). Inherent independent things (things that don’t depend on other things) simply do not exist. We have been seduced by the mere impermanent appearance of things in the hope we can find lasting satisfaction in these things. This is like being seduced by a mirage in the desert, hoping the “water” will quench our thirst. To see the deception is to be free of deception.
Substance (Svabhava)
The philosophical position Nagarjuna advocated, which denies the ontological reality of substance, inherent existence, being, entities, or essences. Nāgārjuna means by substance or inherent existence, any entity which is independent, which has a nature of its own (svabhāva), which is not produced by causes and conditions and so is not dependent on anything else. If any such substance, inherent existence or entity exists it should be discoverable upon analysis. This is not the case. So rigorous was Nagarjun’s logic in refuting inherent existence or substance that a whole school, the Madhyamaka, was founded on the basis of his arguments.
The core claim of Madhyamaka is generally acknowledged to be that nothing in the universe has any svabhāva. Many scholars have now adopted the translation “intrinsic nature” for svabhāva, but it has also been rendered at various times as “essence”, “substance”, “own-being”, and “intrinsic existence”, among many other attempts. If something had svabhāva, then it would be possible fully to understand that thing’s nature as it is in itself, independently of any relations it might bear to anything else, and independently of the conceptual or linguistic activities of sentient beings. Mādhyamika teachers argued that nothing could possibly have svabhāva as just described. If something did have svabhāva, it would be permanent, unchanging, and independent; and Buddhists argue that nothing in the world has these qualities. Instead, everything that arises in our experience, or could so arise, is impermanent, constantly changing, dependent on causes and conditions, and understood within a conceptual framework. We cannot say or think how or what anything is except in relation to other things. Thus, everything is empty of intrinsic nature. In the Madhyamaka, this claim is taken to be equivalent to the statement that nothing can exist at the ultimate level of truth; instead, everything that exists, does so at the conventional level. Conventional existence is the only kind of existence that anything has or could have.
The lack of intrinsic nature is illuminated using the analogy of a mirage. A mirage is deceptive: the way in which it exists is not the same as the way in which it appears to exist. Similarly, the objects of our everyday experience appear to us to exist by way of intrinsic nature, while in fact they exist conventionally. Finally, and more controversially, a mirage is something that exists only from a certain point of view, from the perspective of a particular conceptual schema – an imputed existence from the side of the observer – and not in a robustly objective way, not “from its own side”.
Nagarjuna’s whole position is summed up. All phenomena are devoid of substance or inherent existence. “Inherent existence” (svabhava) is a term which refers to the pervasion of the phenomenon by a certain ontological status: “intrinsic existence.” In other words, the phenomenon is believed to exist inherently from its own side without depending on any other things. However, no phenomenon is dependent on itself for its existence for no phenomenon can arise by its own power but all phenomena are dependent on other conditions for their existence, like fire depends on the conditions of fuel, oxygen and a spark.
Inherent existence (svabhāva) is regarded as a superimposition mistakenly projected onto objects which in fact lack it. Recognition of this lack or emptiness is the remedy to svabhāva. This does not entail that phenomena will no longer appear as having svabhāva. They will cease to be mistaken as having svabhava as a result of the realization of emptiness. The aim of madhyamaka thought is therefore not simply to present an accurate account of the nature of the world and the self, but to bring about a cognitive shift, a change in the way in which the world appears to us. The alternative presented by the madhyamaka’s is a view of the self that regards it as a continuously changing array of five psycho-physical aggregates (the physical body, sensation, perception, intellect, and consciousness) without an inner core.
When we carefully examine a phenomenon we find that the basis of its presumed existing as an independent entity (inherent existence) is unfindable, and yet the phenomenon does arise or appear in dependence on other conditions or factors. Hence, phenomena are devoid or empty of substance or inherent existence or true existence or self-existence. However, this does not mean that phenomena have no existence whatsoever. It is not said that they are devoid of conventional existence, which is how they appear to the ordinary person. Yet when we look for something inherent, something with substance that is representative of the appearing phenomenon (such as “treeness”) it simply cannot be found. Phenomena are mere empty appearances (like a reflection). They are nothing more than that. Hence the reason an inherent entity can’t be found. The concept of an inherent entity is a mental construct; it is a figment of imagination and belongs to the realm of appearance; it is unfindable in actual reality.
For madhyamaka’s it is not merely sentient beings that are non-substantial, all phenomena are without any svabhāva, literally “own-being”, “self-nature”, or “inherent existence” and thus without any underlying essence. This is so because all things arise always dependently, not by their own power, but by depending on conditions leading to their coming into existence, like illusions, as opposed to being, essence or substance.
“Things are produced from various conditions, and hence have no self-nature. If they have no self-nature, how can there be such things?” Nagarjuna
The main complication in thinking of things as independent is self-nature, svabhava or substantialism. Anything that is dependently arisen must be without self-nature or substance, incapable of being isolated and, ultimately, not even real. It was in the light of these self-nature theories that he responded with this teaching of relativity. If all things are dependently arisen, then they are not arisen independently, on their own. If not arisen on their own, then they cannot be said to exist on their own.
Madhyamaka’s interpretation of dependent arising, then, holds that all that can be said to have any reality is the process, not the fluctuating elements comprising the process. Wrong views arise when one, through ignorance, believes there to be absolute objects, absolute subjects. “Those who posit the substantiality of the self as well as of discrete existents, these I do not consider to be experts in the meaning of the Buddha’s message.”
It is not simply that ‘we’ perceive ‘things’ incorrectly – it is all empty. The perceiving ‘I’ and the ‘things’ – the very categories of self and other, subject and object – these are empty illusions. This extends, naturally, to the realm of language and thought: “…every rational theory about the world is a theory about something unreal evolved by an unreal thinker with unreal thoughts”.
The appearing phenomena that we perceive, feel, understand and react to, is nothing but a temporary construction which changes as different conditions change. Therefore, there is no such thing as an essence that comes into being by itself and remains unchanged forever. If such were the case everything would be frozen and static. An ordinary human being will never become a Buddha. The suffering we now experience will never cease. Only when we can see that both of them are nothing but temporary constructions or dependent designations that can change so that an ordinary human being can have the opportunity to be transformed into a Buddha and suffering transformed into liberation. This is possible because the temporary construction is not based on anything that is permanent but is a result of various conditions. When the conditions change, so will the result. Thus, the result or the temporary construction is empty in essence, which also includes the entire world from the physical universe to the individual and his troubles and suffering.
Our troubles include dispositions, desires and craving. They all stem from our thoughts and memories and are rooted in our differentiation of various phenomena. Where there is discrimination, there is picking and discarding. It is our tendency to differentiate that creates opposites such as, pleasantness and unpleasantness. This leads to grasping or craving after things, be it the thirst for the pleasant or aversion to the unpleasant. Pleasurable sensations lead to craving; unpleasant ones lead to craving for their end. (And even when we achieve the pleasant, or our football side wins, craving or dissatisfaction remains). So we do not see things for what they are, but see them in a distorted fashion. This is the basis of afflicted action, which in turn leads to further grasping and craving.
However, since what we crave for, or are averse to, are indeed not fixed entities (they are results from other factors and conditions and so are empty of entity) our craving and aversion (as well as our belief that some objects are inherently desirable or undesirable) are also not fixed but are empty of entity. In other words, they can be changed as the conditions change. This means that our actions or karma are not fixed and can be changed as well. When our actions are changed, so will the resultant suffering. That is why madhyamaka’s say that all our troubles, karma and suffering are empty; empty of entity.
It may be easy to accept that our thoughts and concepts are empty because they seem to be more abstract or elusive. When confronted with a physical object or person, however, we may reasonably raise questions about calling them “empty”. Here, the terms “temporary construction” or “dependent designation” may be helpful. In other words, while these concepts, objects, and persons are ultimately empty in nature, they are, nevertheless, dependent for their appearance on temporary conditions that change at every moment, so too, these phenomena change at every moment. This is why they are impermanent. At the same time, unless there are drastic changes in the causal conditions, the phenomena will maintain their previous form and function, thus they are also continuous.
The theory of emptiness is not sterile or independent of human interests and concerns but is intricately bound up with such interests and concerns. If there were no human minds who mistakenly read the existence of svabhāva into phenomena which lack it, there would be no point in having a theory to correct this. It is only due to our erroneous view of things that the theory of emptiness is required as an antidote against superimpositions of svabhāva wherever they arise.
Dependent origination is the idea that there is no objective, mind-independent reality that is accessible to us. This contrasts with the essentialist metaphysics of the self (ātman) and ultimate reality (Brahman) that was prominent in his day, which held that there is a true and universal omniscient reality that one, with effort, can come to know. Madhyamaka’s argued instead that what we make of reality inevitably depends on the cognitive structure of our mind, rather than on anything we can identify as fundamental, innate, or essential attributes of reality itself (svabhāva). There is no escape from our conventional categories, no firm foundation we can reach beneath the world of appearances. Indeed, we are stuck with our cognitive inheritance, which gives us our world of appearances. Our coming to this realization—akin to Wittgenstein’s idea of dissolving confusion—has profound implications for us. As our illusions fall away, we begin to regard ourselves as contingent beings, inextricable from a reality that we shape and which in turn shapes us, rather than as beings able to detach ourselves and discover our true and universal reality apart from everything else.
Nagarjuna’s rigorous analysis of phenomena reveals the incoherence of the idea that the self possesses an intrinsic nature or an eternal unchanging essence that does not depend on anything outside itself. This is the concept of ‘emptiness’ – a term that refers to the lack of autonomous existence, not nihilism or non-existence. The Self is our own conceptual construct. The problem with this understanding of the self is not only that it is erroneous, but it causes us to suffer. But if I self-exist, how can I change? How could I die? How could I have been born? This is the simple contradiction that Nagarjuna uses to deconstruct self-being. That all phenomena appear and disappear according to conditions means that our usual way of perceiving the world as a collection of separately-existing things, is a delusion.
Nothing exists independently but exists only in relation to other things so that one cannot speak of an intrinsic nature of anything understood as its eternal, permanent and immutable nature. That things do not have an intrinsic nature, however, just implies their impermanence or dependence on other things.
The cause of the arising of our afflictions is the perception of entities or own-being. So long as it exists, the afflictions will continue to be present. Ordinary people who are attached to entities are deceived by their own minds because the intrinsic being of entities is not established, that is, it is not independently valid.
But those who are wise in regard to entities see that entities are impermanent, deceptive factors, pithless, empty, insubstantial and wholly vacuous. Here, the term entities, refers to objects and mental events. Such factors have the nature of momentary destruction, that is, the absence of substance, essence or permanency. Nonetheless, for ordinary people, the actuality of their real nature appears to exist. Therefore, like illusion, entities are deceptive factors. Such factors cannot endure for long. They are fragile, and are said to be pithless. Without essence, they are called empty, and as they are without substance, they are insubstantial. Impermanence, therefore, is the very nature of entities. Through seeing entities in this way, the wise one sees them as vacuous. The term vacuity, means empty. Moreover, vacuity implies non-origination, its literal meaning. Therefore, when it is said that the yogin or yogini has seen the vacuity of entities, it means that he or she has seen their emptiness. But the vacuous nature of existence is not seen through abandoning entities. Rather emptiness is seen inasmuch as entities are empty.
Summary:
Nagarjuna taught that self-nature, substance, essence or real being can never be compatible with dependent arising and emptiness. In fact, real inherent entities, he says, makes no sense at all. For something to be real or inherent it must be self-existing with a nature of its own (svabhāva), which is not produced by causes and conditions and is not dependent on anything else. Such a real entity must be permanent, so it cannot arise, change in any way, or cease to be. It must be eternal—it never comes into being from causes and conditions (since whatever is eternal never arose or ceases). It must also be unchanging during its existence (since a change would not be eternal). So too, it is not created by anything else or in any way dependent upon anything else (since it would then not have its own independent reality). Nor can it affect anything else (since that would involve a change). Thus, it must exist by its very own power. So too, its very nature cannot change in any way or be the result of any dependence upon something else. In sum, what is real exists totally independently of all other things and any causes or conditions. Thus, it must be self-contained in both its nature and existence. In short, it must exist by its own existence.
But, Nāgārjuna argues, if everything was permanent, unaffectable, and unchanging, we could never become enlightened—we would be stuck permanently in our current unenlightened state. Buddhist praxis would be meaningless, and suffering (duḥkha) could never be ended. Indeed, nothing would work if things existed by self-existence (since nothing totally self-contained could ever change). But we do see things arise, change, and cease to be. In fact, we see that everything internal and external is subject to arising, changing, and ceasing dependent upon conditions. We see things arise (so we reject the extreme of nonexistence) and we see things cease (so we reject the extreme of eternal existence). Thus, self-existence is not found by experiences or the examination of things: when we analyze a car, we find no “essence”, no “car-ness”, but only parts that in turn are also empty of “essences.” So too, more generally: when we analyze any of our experiences and any object that we experience, we find only impermanent, conditioned phenomena. Hence, self-existence is not established. This means that nothing exists by self-existence.
We must conclude from experience that everything is empty of self-existence and thus nothing is actually real in the specified sense. No positive argument is needed to establish emptiness (śunyatā)—it is simply the automatic consequence of self-existence not being established. That is, the emptiness of things follows automatically and thus does not need its own supporting argument.
Self-existence –substantial and nondependent; dependent arising–insubstantial and of dependent nature; how, without contradiction, could these two ever come together?
Consequently, that which dependently arises has forever been empty and void of self-existence. Things, however, do not appear that way. All this, you have said, is therefore like an illusion.
Only by jettisoning the deeply ingrained tendency to search for some ‘essential’ self-existent nature to things and to our life, can we find liberation and “awaken to reality”. This obsessive delusion we have in thinking that we are dealing with a ‘self-existing real substance’ is ignorance as all we really have is “a construction of our minds.”
Anatta (Not-Self)
What is the self? The self is regarded as the thinker of all his thoughts, the doer of his deeds and the director of the body organism generally, a kind of background substratum. Some say the self is a soul, or a body, or a psychology. Looking more closely, the self is seen as something distinct from both our body and our psychological states, as essentially unchanging, as a unifier of our diverse beliefs, desires and sensory impressions, and as an agent that makes the decisions that shape our lives. Buddhist philosophers have offered a different, surprising answer: there is no persisting self—nothing about us that remains the same at all times. This view regards self or me as a continuously changing array of five psycho-physical aggregates (the physical body, sensation, perception, intellect, and consciousness) without an inner core. If we look closely we do not find such an inner core. This denial of an intrinsic self or core nature is known as anātman or anattā or not-self.
First, it is important to understand what anattā actually says. Anattā doesn’t deny you exist, deny you have a personality, or imply you shouldn’t have an “ego.” It does not claim that there are no human beings or that the person who delivers your mail is really a robot or a ghost. Rather, anattā is a denial that our existence is some sort of deep, special fact, a unified, persisting being separate-unto-itself and unchanging who continues to exist from one moment to the next.
Specifically, we think that our self has some sort of essence. The essence of something is its core, defining characteristic without which the thing could not exist. If our self has an essence, then this essence is what makes us, us. If you lose your essence, there is no longer any you. But as long as your essence exists (whether that essence is a body, a soul, a psychology, or something else), you exist.
According to anattā, this idea of the essentially existing self is mistaken. There is no essence of what people often take to be the self. Rather, the self is just the collection of constantly changing features, like the physical parts of your body and the sensations and perceptions that make up our mental life. There is nothing else about us that persists through these changes: all we are is a series of changes.
“In any given moment or succession of moments we can observe a flux of sensations, sounds, smells, thoughts, images, memories, but no self. Meditation reveals a world of sense objects and a process of knowing, but nothing solid we can call a self.”
The no-self theorists thus agree with philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), who argued that our sensations never include a distinct sensation of the self. Hume says we experience particular sensations like the taste of a carrot or the sound of thunder or the warmth of a fire. But Hume and the no-self theorists claim that we only ever experience these particular states or sensations: we do not have an additional experience of the self on top of these other experiences.
He writes: ”For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch my “self” at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception.”
This point is illustrated using examples such as: “I see”, “I think”, “I am happy”, “I am short”, “I am white”, “I am black”, “I was born”, “I will die”, “I am suffering”, “I am anxious”, and so on. Conventionally this is correct, of course. But we believe these experiences to be intrinsically real, and even more so, we believe the I or me that experiences these things also to be intrinsically real. I is perceived to be a real, autonomous, independent, permanent entity; it is me, it is who I am. And it is this innate sense of I or me that we believe that sees, that thinks, that is white, that was born, that will die, that suffers. These experiences are therefore misperceived as happening to oneself, to me or I, and this causes us immeasurable torment.
The Buddha claims, however, such an autonomous, independent I who experiences such feelings does not even exist. He demonstrates that such an I is very much dependent for its existence on many other things. Foremost, the I is dependent on a body. Without a body there can be no sense of I. And the body in turn depends on parents; depends on its parts such as legs, arms, heart, blood, brain and mind; and depends on conditions such as food, water, air and so on. Therefore, the Buddha concluded there can be no permanent, autonomous, independent I or self in existence whatsoever. This is verified by the fact that no such permanent, independent I can be found. When we search, looking for such an inherent I, nothing can be found. Also, the fact that everything is impermanent excludes any possibility of a permanent I existing. The I is merely a convenient fiction, a name referring to the ever changing, impermanent, selfless aggregates. We can conduct our everyday lives from the perspective of this conventional I without asserting a real, autonomous, I or me.
Nagarjuna does not deny that we perceive a conventional ‘I’. It would be silly to say that we do not feel a sense of something that it is to be ‘us’. For Nagarjuna, though, this is merely due to myriad dependently arisen phenomena being experienced through the dependently-arisen aggregates such as: form; sensation; perception; volition; consciousness. There is nothing about our experience that necessitates there being an essential self. It is possible for us to experience without there being an unchanging subject doing the experiencing. It is the Madhyamika view that any notion of essence should be jettisoned on account we can’t find such an essential self?
However, Nagarjuna does not deny the conventional ‘I’, the feeling of self that is imminent to us all, as long as it is empty of essence – he only denies an essential, independent, intrinsic ‘I’ that we reify. Since an unchanging, intrinsic I makes no sense, Nagarjuna hints at a conventional I – that is, the feeling of a sense of I. He is not disputing that we have a sense of I but argues that this does not constitute anything that should be termed an inherent I or ‘self’. ‘Self’ necessarily has connotations of permanence and inherent existence.
A foundational doctrine of Buddhism is that of “interdependent origination” which holds that everything arises in dependence upon multiple causes and conditions. No separate or independent entity can thus be admitted. Another mainstay of Buddhism is the principle of emptiness Emptiness refers to the absence of inherent essence of phenomena, or to the non-self nature of people and things.
Nagarjuna’s dialectical method does not provide any positive definitions of reality, but assumes the task of dismantling all other philosophical positions, and in particular the notion of a subjective I. Its non-dual character lies in the impossibility of abstracting an observer from it. He eliminates the notion of subjectivity by maintaining that the constituents of phenomenal experience (body/mind aggregates) do not amount to a personal self. Only an interdependent and impermanent flow of change or becoming exists, which excludes any possibility of a permanent, inherent self.
We are hard-wired to believe that what we perceive in the world is occurring to me. Experiences, thoughts, mental states and consciousness are thus interpreted as occurring to an I or self, and this dualism is extensively supported by the use of language structured in an intentional way giving rise to phenomenal experience, such as: “I am thinking”, “I am sick”, “I am happy”. Non-dual philosophies assert not a subjective idealism, but the lack of any subject or I involved in the perceptual process. Given there is no essence or self-nature in a person there is no necessity for something to be essentially a subject of experience.
Concluding remarks:
The innate sense of self is activated, confirmed, and intensified in the course of everyday experience, and this is in turn grounded in the naïve and unexamined conviction that the external world is intrinsically real. This produces clinging. The self, as the object of innate ego-clinging, is no more than a designation. “Well, what is it that we are clinging to?” The answer is that, fixating on the imagined self, beings constantly apprehend and cling to an “I”; and they apprehend as “mine” whatever is connected to it as a property. This self of everyday experience is the manifestation of ignorance; it appears as long as it is not examined. It does not exist in and of itself. To the question whether it is possible to eliminate such a root of self, the answer is yes, for the sense of self is no more than a misconception, a designation superimposed on what is truly the case.
Non-creation and Non-destruction
A mirage appears but is empty, likewise, phenomena appear but they lack intrinsic nature. Hence the Buddha speaks of the non-origination of anything in its intrinsic being. All Interdependently Originated phenomena, which are like a mirage, are non-originated in their intrinsic being. And how can what is non-originated be destroyed?
Those who possess the unobstructed knowledge of the Buddhas who have seen complete Enlightenment and known reality in all its aspects are not affected by the alternatives of origination and destruction. They saw that phenomena originate only in dependence on other phenomena (Interdependent Origination), they do not originate in their intrinsic being. In proclaiming Interdependent Origination they avoided the supposed origination and destruction of entities. This is the only cause of seeing rightly.
Those yogins and yoginis who have known precisely the meaning of Interdependent Origination see neither the origination nor the destruction of anything. Therefore, nothing at all originates and nothing at all is destroyed. “Origination, duration and destruction are demonstrated to be like an illusion, a dream and a fairy city.”
Now, if one says that when two things are dependent, one upon the other, neither of them is established, and further recognizes that they have no origination and destruction in their intrinsic being, then this is a description of Interdependent Origination. Moreover, this is also accepted by the exponents of Emptiness. “Wherein there is no origination, therein destruction is not evident.” Those who comprehend the profound nature of Interdependent Origination have avoided the extremes of origination and destruction.
If an entity were existent without depending upon another entity, it could be seen to exist in its intrinsic being. The Holy Personalities do not apprehend anything that is established in its intrinsic being. (There has never been an object to be apprehended). When such entities are analyzed with wisdom, they are found to be like an illusory elephant in a magical show, non-existent in their intrinsic being. Whatever is non-existent in its intrinsic being and whatever is unoriginated is called Nirvana. Thus when one has understood the nature of entities to be unapprehended, this is Nirvana. Nonetheless, the Holy Personalities who perceive the ultimate, neither perceive Samsara nor Nirvana. Consequently for such, there is no assumption of either Samsara or Nirvana. Nirvana is none other than the non-establishment of anything in its intrinsic being.
When what is originated from the condition of ignorance is analyzed, no perception at all of either origination or cessation occurs. When there is no perception of the origination or cessation of volitions, dispositions, desires, suffering and the rest, perfect supraknowledge arises. Then Nirvana is achieved in this very life. Then, in this life, one is beyond sorrow and has done what had to be done.
However, those who are deceived with regard to the nature of appearance are taken in by its fascination. When a magical illusion is supposed to originate, or when it is (supposed to be) destroyed, one who knows about it is not deluded, (but) one who is ignorant about it will be greatly affected emotionally.
Ignorance is not simply the absence of knowledge, but the direct opposite of knowledge; a destructive denial of the truth. Ignorance takes things to be something that exist as they appear. Ignorance implicitly conditions the way we see the world. This unwarranted exaggeration of the way things exist (intrinsically) is extremely pernicious because it allows other afflictive emotions – desire, hatred, jealousy, anger, and so forth – to bite into our minds.
Conventionally, form originates, feeling originates, suffering originates, and so forth. Consequently, it may be supposed by someone that origination exists. Then, alas, such a one has entered the wrong path. The wise person whose intelligence conforms to the facts through analytical reasoning knows that what is not originated in its intrinsic being cannot be called originated at all. When an originated entity exists, the duration of that entity is the consequence of conditions. If the conditions for its continuation do not exist, it will be destroyed. Therefore, when the cause of the existence of the world (ignorance) is extinguished (in one’s mind) one obtains peace and Nirvana.
Despite origination and destruction not existing in their intrinsic being, the Buddha taught the world Interdependent Origination. Origination and destruction were taught by Him intentionally, that is to say, with a purpose in mind. It is said that through knowing origination, destruction is also known, because origination is the foundation or basis of destruction. Further, through knowing destruction, one can penetrate the significance of destruction, that is to say, impermanence. Whoever finds oneself within the burning flames of the transitory three spheres of existence but wishes to escape from this situation will surely be freed by the knowledge of Interdependent Origination. If such a person penetrates the truth of non-origination and non-destruction, he or she can realize the profound truth of Nirvana by means of this understanding.
Those who know that Interdependent Origination is well clear of origination and destruction cross the ocean of worldly existence that is born of views and dogmas. One who strives to understand Emptiness will surely cross the ocean of existence by means of the great vessel of Emptiness. Those who fear Emptiness are not able to avoid falling into the two alternatives of origination and destruction. Ordinary people, who have the notion of origination and the substantiality of entities, are flawed by the erroneous views of existence and non-existence and thus they are deceived by their own minds. Because they conceive of things in terms of origination, they cannot realise what is without origination, because that transcends the ordinary mind. Because they conceive of things as substantial, they cannot realise that which is insubstantial (emptiness) because that transcends there being an object.
Ordinary people, literally individual people, are so called because they are born individually in accordance with their afflictions and their actions. Those who grasp at the view that a substance or essence abides in entities possess the notion of the substantiality of entities because they cling to the idea of a self or substance in things. They are controlled by and are subject to the afflictions that are generated by the erroneous views of origination and destruction. They become attached to entities which they consider pleasant, while in regard to entities which they consider unpleasant, they produce aversion or hatred. Their conduct is therefore determined by the afflictions. In this way, ordinary people who are attached to entities are deceived by their own minds. Their attachment to entities is superimposed by their own minds, since the intrinsic being of entities is not established. Therefore, the vision of the true reality of entities is obscured from such ordinary people.
It is said that like the rungs of a water wheel there is no beginning (origination), therefore, the Buddha did not proclaim a beginning, then, as there is no beginning, there is also no end (destruction). If there were a beginning, then definitely a view would also be adopted. But whoever accepts Interdependent Origination holds that beginning and end are not originated in their intrinsic being.
The Sage sees the whole world of conditioned cyclical existence as similar to a magical illusion. Ultimately, he apprehends nothing at all. Whatever be the nature of entities, he is not deluded by the alternatives of a beginning (origination or birth) and end (destruction or death). Such a yogin is not subject to erroneous views. Others, like the unwise, who are attached to illusory appearances, give up the path of the knowledge of insubstantiality. Those who impute the origination and destruction to people and things fail completely to understand Interdependent Origination in which there is neither beginning, middle or end. Whatsoever originates dependent upon this and that does not originate in its intrinsic being. How can what is not originated in its intrinsic being be called originated?
Because of all this, it is said that the world of cyclical existence is not established. Therefore, the world of cyclical existence is an error. Consequently, it is not appropriate to consider the world of cyclical existence as existing in truth. Now, it may be asked, if indeed there is no cyclical existence, then how is it that its reality appears in various forms? The Holy Personalities do not perceive it in various forms. For them, cyclical existence has only a single character, i.e. emptiness. In emptiness, there are no various forms. Ordinary people deluded by the sleep of ignorance perceive various forms as if in a dream. Whatsoever appears to the worldly as real is false for the Holy Personalities. The world of cyclical existence is not established substantially, but rather by ignorance. It certainly springs up from the cause of the seed of ignorance. Therefore, it is said that beginning, middle and end are to be rejected and that origination, duration and destruction are absent. So the world of cyclical existence, which originates from the seed of ignorance, is like a dream, without essence. If it were not originated from the seed of ignorance, then when subjected to examination an essence would be found. However, when objects are examined, an essence can’t be found. Whatever has no essence, but contrary to fact appears as if it had an essence, does so by the power of ignorance.
Therefore, the world of cyclical existence, like a dream, is not real. When it is examined in this way, the world of cyclical existence which originates from the cause of ignorance is not established actually. Then, the unbearable city of cyclical existence is surely a product of delusion. Because the world of cyclical existence which appears like an illusion is difficult to reverse although it is the source of many woes and because it is difficult to recognize its true nature inasmuch as it is obscured by ignorance, it is called unbearable or terrible. But those who are free from ignorance see it to be like an illusion. The city of delusion experienced by ordinary people is seen to be mere illusion by the Holy Personalities. Because ignorance is like delusion, the world of cyclical existence is not substantial.
Therefore, there exists nothing which is not like a dream or illusion. The worldly who are infatuated by ignorance follow the current (of their) desires. Therefore, the whole world of sentient beings from Brahman down without exception, fail to see the truth. Consequently, they are whirled powerlessly in the great whirlpool of cyclical existence agitated by the wind of error. Therefore, without doubt, whatever is real for worldly, like Brahman, etc, who follow the way of cyclical existence, is false for the Holy Personalities. They understand that cyclic existence is also non-originated in its intrinsic being.
The Buddha explains that emptiness (nothing arose in the first place), should not be taught in the beginning to those whose intellects are not purified. First, they should be taught conventional truth; that there are people, objects, mental states and a world. Then dependent origination should be taught, ie, that these things depend on other things, and hence, are empty of independent nature and so are not originated in their intrinsic being. So emptiness or vacuity (nothing arose in the first place) should not be taught initially but later on to those whose minds are not matured.
Failure to recognize non-origination is called ignorance. Ignorance is always surrounded by the retinue of the afflictions of attachment and so forth. Failing to go beyond ignorance, things, and in fact the entire world, are imagined because of erroneous views. The world having ignorance as its condition, consequently originates from ignorance. Therefore, since ignorance is a condition, why is it not justifiable to regard the world as the effect of mere conceptualization. Again, the world as the effect of mere conceptualization means the world is not established substantially but is constructed by conceptualization. Therefore, if there exist error mistaken views and the like, the world exists, but if there is no error, the world does not exist.
If the world existed in its intrinsic being, that is, if it existed substantially, then it would not be dependent upon cause and conditions. In that case, it would not be created. Further, if the world were established substantially it could not change its form. Anything which is established substantially cannot change. In that case, it cannot be eliminated.
If when analyzed what are called this and that are not perceived, (then) what wise man or woman will argue that this and that are real? Thus, all conditioned factors: form, feeling, consciousness and so forth, which participate in Interdependent Origination, therefore, they are not originated in their intrinsic being. The characteristic mark of whatever is not originated in its intrinsic being is not perceived. This is an ultimate truth of things; their non-arising.
The conceptions of truth and falsity depend upon entities. However, the appearing phenomena that participate in Interdependent Origination are not essentially entities, but appear like a reflection. Therefore, they are not real. If they were real, then consequently it would be impossible for them to change their mode of being. In the world, however, things appear to be real or true, therefore, they are not also altogether false. Moreover, because things are not true, we are not Eternalists or substantialists. However, things are also not false, consequently, we are also not Nihilists.
The things (objects) that participate in Interdependent Origination are deceptive. When one has realized that such entities are not real, then attachment to them can be removed. When one has removed attachment to entities, one can then remove grasping at entities. Here, by grasping is meant the appropriation of entities, that is making entities one’s own. Once this appropriating tendency is removed, then attachment to desired objects, attachment to views and attachment to disputation can also be eliminated.
Whosoever has apprehended any objective position (an entity) whatsoever will be caught by the deceiver – the serpent of the afflictions. Those whose minds have not apprehended an objective position will not be caught. If there existed no perception of entities, then there would be no apprehension on the part of the mind. Therefore, those who have no mental perception of an objective position (an entity or substantialism) are not caught by the vicious deceitful, serpent of the afflictions. Those who perceive form etc. in their intrinsic being, although they think they can abandon the afflictions, cannot in fact do so.
If entities (objects, etc) are perceived (apprehended) the presence of the afflictions like attachment and the rest without doubt, cannot be removed. If those entities (objects, etc) remain agreeable to the mind, it will be difficult to remove attachment to them. On the other hand, if they are found not to be agreeable, then it will be difficult to remove the consequent attitude of aversion toward them.
As children are attached to a reflection, perceiving it to be true, so the worldly are trapped in the prison of objects. Just as children who are not conversant with the conventions of the world, when perceiving a reflection, believe that they are apprehending objects that exists substantially and become attached to them and pursue them. Similarly, the worldly who are ignorant are attached to the belief that entities which are born from the power of delusion are true or real. The worldly are infatuated by ignorance and follow the current of their desires. Led by inclinations they commit their whole being to the pursuit of such entities. Attracted by the imagined existence of entities and subject to the power of attachment, ill will, pride and so forth, they pursue them without freedom to do otherwise like children. Undertaking this or that activity in pursuit of their object they become trapped in the prison of objects, that is Samsara. But the Great Persons who have understood entities to be non-originated in their intrinsic being certainly do not fall into cyclical existence because of the afflictions of attachment and so forth.
Buddhist Anomalies Explained
The Buddha’s words are often puzzling:
The Buddha was a practical teacher and his teachings were given according to the intellectual and spiritual condition of his audience. Different messages were delivered from different standpoints and each is to be known from its appropriate standpoint. No truth is true by itself but is recognised as true in a context. Ultimately, no truth is “absolutely true” all truths are essentially pragmatic in character and eventually have to be abandoned. To the extent they are true or not depends on whether they leave one to clinging or non-clinging. After extremes and attachment are banished from the mind, the so called truths are no longer needed and hence are not truths anymore. One should be empty of all truths and lean on nothing.
However, because the Buddha’s message differed in order to accommodate the different stages of development of the disciples, many misunderstood him and errors arose.
People are often attached to some view and stick to some law. In order to free people from attachments the Buddha preached certain truths and followed certain logic in order to eliminate extreme views. For the sake of repudiating the absolutist, the Buddha taught that existence is unreal, and to refute the nihilist he stated that existence is real. Although existence, real and unreal are all empty the teaching can be regarded as truths so long as they can help dispel the disease of attachment and ignorance. For example, the Buddha’s “Four Noble Truths” are necessary to counter illusions such as the belief there are permanent things in the world and that a self exists in people. But when attachment and ignorance are removed, the four noble truths have served their purpose and so are no longer truths. Or, when the disease disappears, the useless medicine is also discarded.
The Buddha’s words himself are often puzzling and may even seem to be contradictory. In one moment he says there is a self and in the next he says there is no self. One needs to know the distinction between the conventional self and the inherent self. It is the inherent self that is refuted, not the conventional self.
When the Madhyamikas claim that an idea is true if it is useful, they merely mean that the idea can be accepted as true if it can effectively eradicate ignorance, attachment and metaphysical speculation. The refutation of false views is the illumination of true views. A true view is not any verified or justified view, but an absence of views. The aim of Nagarjuna’s dialectical method is to eliminate the conceptual way of thinking. Brilliant and intellectual people always abide in the cave of conceptualisation. As they conceptualize, so do they speak.
Karma:
All of the major Indian religious systems — Hinduism and early Buddhism — accepted the reality of karma and its corollary, rebirth. All acts were necessarily followed by their fruits. If the fruit of an act had not as yet become manifest by the time of the individual’s death, then that individual would be forced to return to existence in another life, again and again, until the fruits of all actions had materialized. There have been quite literally as many interpretations of karma as there were schools of Indian philosophy.
The tendency of substantialist thinking is to treat karma and its effects as real entities. Such a reification of karma ultimately contradicts “anatman” or “selflessness”, the Buddha’s declaration that nothing has a substantial existence. Yet it was of paramount importance to affirm there is karma and that its effects are inescapable for a denial of it would destroy justification for morality.
This “selflessness” of the Buddha awakened him to the plight of the suffering world, leading him to teach “for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world.” One who does not have this insight into “selflessness” may need an incentive to act compassionately, an incentive which the doctrine of karma provides. There was thus a need to affirm, in some way, the reality of karma. On a conventional level the Buddha stressed the inescapability of karma by saying that conventionally it produces consequences for human beings. Karma from the Buddhist is a straightforwardly deterministic process and not a matter of accounts being kept by a cosmic accountant.
Who determines what is good and what is evil. For Buddhists the anwser is no-one does. Karma is not a set of rules that are decreed by a cosmic ruler and enforced by the cosmic moral police. In this respect the karmic laws are just like the so called natural laws that science investigates. It is a causal law that when I let go of a rock while standing on a bridge, it will fall. No one passed this law, and no-one enforces it. The same goes for karma.
The point is this: Every moment of our lives represents the causal consequences of, inter alia, all of our prior actions. No action “lies dormant” waiting for its consequences to emerge. Nor does any action somehow become “cancelled” when some salient consequence is noticed. There is no accounting kept, and no debit and credit system, either from the causal or the morał point of view. Rather, at each moment we are the total consequence of what we have done and of what we have experienced. And the only sense in which some past action may determine some future reward is one in which that past action, as well as other conditions, have determined a state now that, together with other future conditions, will determine that reward. Although the process of karma is evident, the fact that an effect and its cause arise only in mutual dependence means that neither is truly real, and neither is karma.
The Unanswerables:
The Buddha refused to answer questions such as: How did we get here? Is the world eternal? Is this true, that false? There are three reasons why the Buddha’s refused to answer the “unanswerable questions.” First, any answer he would have given would have been misconstrued and would have had adverse consequences for the student. Second, by refusing to answer, the Buddha was indicating that asking these questions does not conduce to successful practice and that one should focus one’s mind on practical issues. He said that debating metaphysical issues, such as who made the world and so on, was like being struck by an arrow and refusing to be treated until one knows what wood the arrow was made of, who shot it, and so forth. Instead of offering a speculative explanation of the world, the Buddha’s approach was pragmatic. He compared his dharma to a raft, which should wisely be used to cross the river of life and death. Once having crossed, however, one should not carry it everywhere on one’s back. All these questions are in fact metaphysically misguided. They all involve incoherent essentialist presuppositions that, when rejected, render the questions meaningless.
For example, the questions arise. “Who made the world?” “Does God exist?” “What happens after we die?” or even “Who is aware that nothing has come into existence?” and so on, must come from an erroneous supposition that something has come into existence, that an entity has come into existence, that “awareness” of that entity has come into existence, or that God has come into existence. They are not real questions hence, they are unanswerable. Further, the question arises “Who is aware of awareness?” Once again this is a false question because it is based on the false supposition that awareness is a real intrinsic entity and has come into existence. Any answer we get to erroneous questions will be erroneous answers. When such questions cease, that is peace or nirvana.
According to the Madhyamika, the Buddha’s emptiness is a medicine for curing the disease of conceptual thinking. The Madhyamika way of emptiness is an observation that philosophers had been misled by concepts and failed to see that such metaphysical questions are not genuine. The true solution is not a new metaphysics but to stop conceptual thinking. This is what the Madhyamikas mean when they say that they have no view. The Buddha’s teachings are merely instruments to assist people in eliminating conceptualization so that they may be “empty” of all attachments.
Ultimate beginning and end:
As to ultimate beginning or end, the Buddha stated that it is not evident and hence inconceivable. Such a view presupposes one can talk coherently about the beginning or end of the world, or beginning or end of personal existence, or to be able to speak of a future time where nothing exists, or of the end of time, or of a definite moment when the self ceases to exist whereas before it had existed.
Since all things arise dependently (they depend for their existence on other things) they cannot have their own nature so they don’t truly arise. Therefore, nothing truly arises (or is born) in the first place. And what is not born cannot cease (or die). Since birth and death do not exist therefore, one can in no way speak of origins or ends, of effect and cause, or of the entire life process itself. What does this say of the existence of former (antecedence) states, such as past lives, and so on; and to the existence of later (subsequent) states, such as future lives, reincarnation, heaven, hell, and so on? Furthermore, who is it that is born and dies, who is it that goes to heaven or hell or that reincarnates?
Direct experience:
Direct experience is another source of great error. What is perceived to be direct experience of the way things really are often turns out to be the mere experience of the way things appear to be. Appearances are deceptive. Things appear to be what they are not.
For example, a traveller who has lost his way, confused by error, may fail to see the way things really are. The traveller sees in the distance a river. He wants to cross the river, but he does not know how to do so, and he is moreover afraid of being unable to do so. Therefore, he asks a farmer who belongs to that country how deep the water is? The farmer answers that there is no water at all. Although it may appear to be a river, it is in fact a mirage. If you do not believe what I say, says the farmer, go and see for yourself. Then my words will turn into direct experience. In this way, the farmer demonstrates the nonexistence of the water to the traveller. Similarly, my words also turn into direct experience. Likewise, non-existence and non-perception in the conventions of the world turn into direct experience. Therefore, the cognition of non-apprehension or non-perception may be called direct experience without fear of contradiction. It is said that – the knowledge of the non-origination of things, like the knowledge of the non-origination of the self, or the non-origination of suffering, or the non-origination of any other entity – is direct experience or “non-dual” experience.
Direct experience (knowledge of the non-origination of things) is not experience of objects and things. It is not a positive affirmative thing (like some amazing experience) but the perception of an absence; the absence of intrinsic nature in anything. This absence is indirectly perceived by virtue of intrinsic things not being perceived.
And further, everything we perceive, everything we experience and everything we know is mediated through our mind. Nothing can exist apart from the mediation of the mind. So we do not have a direct experience of anything. We have only different, endless mental representations of it. No matter how deeply we may think, we only have another representation of it in thought, another illusion. In this sense, direct experience is but another illusion.
Wholes and parts:
If a thing can be analysed into distinct components, this shows that it borrows its properties from those components; it is a whole made of parts and so is not an independent real entity. None of the external objects appear to us singularly, but always in conjunction with something else, so they are empty of their own nature.
The goal is to realize that all material dharma (things) are empty of inherent existence. If we try to find the whole in its parts we cannot find it. And this is generalizable to trying to find any whole (such as tree) among its parts. There is no single whole component (like tree or treeness) independent of the parts. When the mind sees the parts it labels the whole and then we see the whole. Not the other way around. The whole (the tree) continues to exist as long as the conditions are present. And further, since there is no single whole, “one”, indeed there is no “many” either.
Now consider the self (as in terms of a whole). The self is not the feet, the calves, the thighs, the abdomen, the back, the chest, or the arms. It is not the hands, the sides of the torso, or the armpits. Then what here is the self? (i.e. none of the individual limbs are the self. The collection of the limbs is also not the selfbecause the self is merely imputed in dependence upon this collection. The self can also not be found apart from the individual parts and their collection. In this way it is shown that the self is merely imputed by the conceptual mind and in no way exists inherently from its own side.
We can only conclude that the self does not intrinsically exist (we cannot find it). However, on account of delusion, there is the impression of the self with regard to the hands and the like, because of their specific configuration. As long as a collection of conditions lasts, the self appears like a person. Likewise, as long as it lasts with regard to the hands and the like, the self continues to be seen in them. Although we cannot find the self, but we will continue to think it exists as long as the causes and conditions for this imputation remain.
Free will:
Everything in this world is dependent so there can’t be any will that is absolutely “free”. All things are dependent upon other things, and so does the will. The will depends on a person or body, for one thing, hence, there is no intrinsic independent entity called free will. Free will is relative. Also, the notion of freedom is conditional and dependent. There can’t be existence of anything in this world which is free or independent of conditions or some other thing and that includes the will.
This does not mean the universe is bound by inexorable determinism. Conventionally we use the term “free will”, such as: we exercise free will not to walk in front of a bus. (But such “free will” is not exactly free also; it depends on the bus). Therefore, as to an intrinsic independent “free will”, there is no such thing. It is the intrinsic free will Middle Way targets, not the conventional term free will.
Intelligence:
Intelligence is not a static, fixed thing: we act intelligently one moment and unintelligently the next. Intelligence is not permanent. At any moment it can be impaired by age, injury, or disease. Intelligence is also not “ours;” we cannot take credit for it, It is a function of our parents’ genes, adequate nutrition, gifted teachers, good study habits, and the knowledge passed on to us from past generations. So there is no reason to cling to it, it is something that is here due to previous causes and conditions. It is the same with every trait of the self; our kindness, our beauty, our courage, our strength. All of it is due to conditions, and will vanish with changing causes and conditions; none of it is ours. We can’t claim it as our refuge.
Nothing is the same or different:
Middle Way philosophy contends that neither alternative makes any sense. Let us explain using the example of a self. If a self exists essentially and intrinsically then the self is either the same as the body/mind aggregates or something different from them. This covers all sensible alternatives. If there were an essentially existing self that was exactly identical to the elements and aspects of the mind and body, then these aggregates would be that self. There would be no need to talk about it, conceive of it, or argue about it. Yet in speech the self of a person seems very distinct from the person’s mind and body. We use expressions like “my mind”, “my body”, “my life”. How can the “me” be precisely the feelings themselves? Further, the self that is posited is meant to be unitary, and the aggregates are plural. Also, if an intrinsically existing self were identical to the mind and body then it would have to change moment by moment, just as the mind and body do. We would be forced to admit that we were someone new every time we clipped our finger nails, ate a meal, or a had a new thought, which is absurd. Therefore, the essentially existent self cannot be identical to the mind and body.
We should next consider: is the self different from and unrelated to the aggregates? For example, if a person had a self that was different from the mental and physical aggregates, we should be able to strip away all of the aggregates, in thought, so that my “self” could be found and identified apart from my mind/body. We should also be able to point out my essential self in one place while my mind and body were somewhere else altogether, which of course is absurd.
Furthermore, if the self was different from the aggregates, the relation between them is lost or becomes completely mysterious; the self becomes unknowable, and the fate of the aggregates becomes irrelevant to the fate of the self. This is not our experience. We can only conclude that a self, separate from the aggregates, does not exist. Generations of sages have found that there is nothing to be found beyond the body/mind aggregates.
All thinking presupposes the categories “same” or “different” but as explained, these categories are incoherent and have no referent. We can apply this argument another way. For example, it is a fallacy to think that I am inherently the same person this morning as I am in the evening. I am a little bit older in the evening, cells may have changed, and so forth. And I am not completely “different” either. The me of this evening is very much dependent on the me of this morning. No me this morning; no me this evening. Also, obviously, I am not the same as the table in front of me. But nor am I completely different to the table. The me, as a subject, is very much dependent upon the table, an object, in order for me to be a subject, and vice versa. Further, neither exists as a separate entity from which an ultimate comparison of sameness or difference can be made. Being interrelated, who can say things are truly the same or different?
If someone cuts you it is different from what someone else would be experiencing, but still your pain does not arise independently in a self-generated way. Although the pain is not in the object that has cut you but yet it is not separate from you; from your pain. Your pain is not exactly the same as the knife, but nor is it completely different.
If your sensation of pain depends upon an object that is not literally you then sensation is empty of its own inherent nature. When things are not seen as having their own fixed nature, we can then account for the changing nature of sensation that allow for the diversity of experience for nothing can create itself, if it could, why would it bother? It would be redundant.
Deconstructing Form and Awareness:
It is thought by ordinary people that form (objects, etc) is real. The evidence of its reality, they say, is awareness of form (sensory and cognitive). Since the evidence (the awareness which considers form) truly exists, they say, form is also established to truly exist. Therefore form is proved to be truly existent from the evidence of awareness.
But here it is explained by the Buddha. Since awareness depends on the form (awareness needs some sort of form to be aware of) so awareness is not a real, independent, self-contained, intrinsic entity and hence it cannot be used as evidence that something else (form) has intrinsic, independent existence. How can what is not established as being real, intrinsic or independent be used as evidence that something else is real? We use our awareness, which is not real or not inherent, as evidence that something else (objects, stars, thoughts, feelings, views, global warming, etc) is real or inherent. Also, the form depends for its existence on awareness, so it, likewise, lacks independent or intrinsic nature. Since form does not exist, it is a mistake to think that awareness exists. So neither form nor awareness are real entities and so, both lack intrinsic nature. This helps explain why we can’t find an “essence” in things (form), or an essence in awareness. So the goings on in the world is somewhat like a mirage.
On the other hand, if form exists because of the power of awareness, how does one arrive at the true existence of awareness? If awareness exists because of the power of the form of awareness, how does one arrive at the true existence of the form of awareness? If their existence is due to their mutual power (dependent on each other), neither can exist as independent entities.
Further, since we are aware of form through our mind (cognitive and sensory) we don’t have direct access to the nature of form but only what is mediated through our mind. In other words, our perception of form is nothing more than a mental abstraction and this abstraction is coloured by our thoughts, beliefs, memories, emotions, dispositions, biases, and so on. So our awareness, which we use as the evidence of form, is nothing more than a conceptual abstraction.
No Viewpoint:
Nāgārjuna had written that he has no thesis to advance, nor hold any position or have any viewpoint of his own. He had also written that he apprehends no objects at all and therefore has no need to affirm or deny anything therefore he need not supply any reasons to justify his stance. And he claimed that a person who makes no claims, either that anything exists or does not exist, or that things are true or false, cannot be refuted. He does not put forward counter positions in opposition to the claims of other philosophers, rather, he merely exposes the absurdity or contradiction implied in an opponent’s argument and argues only until the other philosophers realize the inadequacy of their positions and become silent. He need not construct formal arguments. He says he cannot be refuted because he has no position to defend. If he had put forth arguments then he would have opened himself up to endless disputation, flaws and all kinds of idle chatter. He avoided putting forth formal arguments that a persistent opponent might take as an invitation to debate.
Starting from the assumption that everything is empty, Nagarjuna does not take part in the adversarial process of debate; he attempts to undermine all views (which his opponent perceives to be real) by showing they make no sense. His method used is called the logic of “reductio ad absurdum.” Self-nature, essence, beingness or intrinsic nature is his main target of refutation.
Cyclic Existence:
There are many pitfalls in mundane (cyclic) existence, but there is not this truth there. There is mutual incompatibility. Reality could not be like this. There are incomparable, violent, and boundless oceans of suffering. Strength is scanty there; and the life span is short. In hunger, fatigue, and weariness, in sleep and calamities, and in unprofitable associations with fools, life passes by swiftly and in vain. As they live like this, pretending that they are not subject to aging and death, terrible calamities come, with death the foremost. Thus, people are afflicted by the sufferings of cyclic existence and it is appropriate to feel sorrow. The appearance of a Buddha is extremely rare. The flood of mental afflictions is difficult to impede. Ah, there should be great pity for those adrift in the flood of suffering, who, although miserable, do not recognize their wretched situation.
Since I am just like others in desiring happiness, what is so special about me that I strive for my own happiness alone? It is our own mind or thinking, the belief that “I” am most important, that is the root of primal confusion, the root of vicious attraction and aversion, of all vice and so of all suffering. But our mind is the only possible root of insight and understanding. When one becomes truly aware of the terror that frames one’s life and that lies at the root of self-deception and vice, this generates the impulse to take refuge and to strive for awakening.
Contemplations:
Consider a person who criticizes us and treats us badly as the kindest and best of friends. Together we are destroying my self-cherishing mind. How unbelievably kind this person is.
When the urge arises in your mind to feelings of desire or angry hate, do not act! Be silent, do not speak!
Amassing wealth only thrusts you into mundane concerns, inflaming the corrupting influences of attachment and aversion. It compels you to create, increase, manage, and protect your riches, so that you spend your life dissatisfied.
If you do not treat people with partiality – as friends or enemies – you will be in harmony with everyone.
Conquering enemies who harm you only means you will make more later on.
Engaging in a plethora of activities means you will have to do.
Understand that negative circumstances are in fact your allies.
If you respond in anger when another harms you, does your wrath remove the harm inflicted? Resentment surely serves no purpose in this life.
You desire that the world be something that it is not. So the world never gives you what you want.
Reacting to what others think means you will react more and more.
Give up self-perpetuating plans and projects; there will never be a time when you will cease to be occupied.
Cause and Effect
Conventionally we say that a seed is the cause of a tree (the effect); or that parents are the cause of a child, and so on. Nagarjuna does not refute conventional cause and effect but he emphatically refutes inherent cause and effect, that is, that an inherent independent real seed causes or produces an inherent independent real tree. Nagarjuna challenges the notion of inherent cause and effect or inherent production, not conventional causation. He argues that all phenomena lack inherent existence, meaning that nothing exists with its own inherent nature, essence or being. He refers to this lack as emptiness. Since all phenomena are empty of inherent nature, any causal process could not involve inherent entities either. He points out that it is impossible to explain the relationship between a cause and an effect and to relate substantial independent entities.
His approach is to consider the various ways in which a given entity or object is caused to come into existence and then to show that none of them is tenable because of the absurdities that would be entailed. He used “the Four Errors” or “Tetralemma” as the main logical apparatus to investigate causal production. In the case of something that is regarded to be a real effect of a real cause, then there are four possible means by which the effect could come into existence. It must be either: self-caused; caused by another; caused by both of these; or uncaused. Nararjuna refutes each of these four positions and argues that causal production is really impossible.
Self-causation:
For a thing (an effect) to be produced from itself is illogical because once something exists with its own particular identity it is pointless for it to arise or reduplicate once again. Why say that something “arose” after it was already existent? And since it already exists, nothing new has occurred, no change has been caused or come to be, which defeats the very idea of cause and effect. Also, if a thing causes itself it is the subject and the object at the same time; which is impossible. And further, things can’t arise from themselves because we can’t pinpoint a core nature or essence from which things arise.
Other causation:
If a cause is inherently different from an effect how could it produce the effect? How can anything be produced from something that it is inherently different and separate from? That would be magic. The relationship is lost, then anything could be produced from anything, cause and effect lose all meaning. A cow might arise from a horse.
Moreover, should a cause and effect co-exist; how could one be defined as a “cause” and the other as an “effect?” Also, if a thing is caused by another, it has the “other” as its substance. Further still, to explain production by way of an independent causal property is to beg the question of what caused the cause.
Both self-causation and other-causation:
The third option (the cause is both the same and different to the effect) is a contradiction, and also, the difficulties of the first two options are compounded.
Neither self-causation nor other-causation:
This amounts to uncaused, but happens by mere accident. Also, “a thing caused by no cause” is a contradiction in terms and hence makes no sense. If something can come from no cause, anything can be the cause of anything else. Anything could arise anytime and anywhere. In this theory everything would be random and unpredictable. No one would have a clue as to what was happening and why.
Therefore, the four alternatives of causation (cause and effect) are doomed to failure. They are wrong views and must be rejected outright. It is unintelligible to hold that real events are caused. One can only conclude that the very ideas of causality, and of arising and perishing, cannot correspond to reality. Causality and arising and perishing are essential for describing conventional existence. Nagarjuna did not deny that from the practical conventional point of view all things (effects) appear to be produced from causes. What he did deny was that this causal principle can be proved and that it is the ultimate principle of the universe.
Summarizing so far. Since causal relations cannot be established, it makes no sense to say that all things are “causally related” and that there is a “necessary connection” between cause and effect. Nagarjuna also argued that causality as such cannot be established. Hence it also makes no sense to assert that causation is the ultimate principle of the universe. If there is a reality of casuality or an act of causal production, it must be “self-caused,” “other-caused,” “both self-caused and other-caused,” or “noncaused.” A thing cannot cause itself. If a thing causes itself, it is the subject and the object at the same time. But this is impossible because the subject and the object are two different things. A thing cannot be said to be caused by another either. If a thing is caused by another, it has the other as its substance. But how can they have the same substance? If they have the same substance, they are one and the same thing. The so-called other cannot be called “other.” And one cannot say that a thing is both self-caused and other-caused either, for this implies that there can be the acts of self-caused production and other-caused production. But this is impossible because there can be neither self-caused nor other-caused production. For Nagarjuna, the act of non-caused production is not possible because “a thing is caused by no cause” is a contradiction in terms and hence makes no sense. If something can come from no cause, anything can be the cause of anything else; but this is absurd.
Nagarjuna argued that intrinsic cause and effect activity does not even exist and there is not even the slightest so-called production that can be observed. He concluded that things do not really arise at all. Following this logic we might therefore conclude that all the apparent goings-on in the world, the apparent interrelation of causes and effects, is somewhat like what takes place in a dream. Recognizing that nothing is produced or endures by way of intrinsic cause and effect is an altogether different understanding of life.
The more one tries to respond to Nāgārjuna’s objections as to the truth of intrinsic cause and effect the more one finds oneself proposing hypostatic explanations. Nāgārjuna’s method is precisely the ferreting out of those hidden presuppositions that reveal themselves through our compulsion to propose these explanations. By revealing them and recognizing them to be incoherent and insupportable one ceases clinging to them and they thus cease to act as hidden compulsions and proclivities so that the suffering and anxiety they engender are brought to rest.
People might argue that although causal relation or causality cannot be established on rational or logical grounds it can be established by experience. For example, when we examine the empirical facts we see, for example, that a tree (the effect) is caused or produced from a seed (the cause), hence convincing us that a causal relationship between the two really exists. But when we examine, we cannot even isolate or demonstrate something that is representative of an inherent seed or something that is representative of an inherent tree, so how can we establish a really existent relationship between two non-existent entities? The notion of causation and production has only been assumed to exist but is yet to be proven. Any “empirical” justification of the principle of causation assumes the very principle it tries to prove.
Causation was used to describe both moral and physical phenomena. When the principle is enunciated as a moral law it means that there are good deeds, and rewards for them; and there are bad deeds, and punishments. The principle of causality or production was believed by early Buddhists to be “objectively” “necessarily” and “eternally” as well as “universally” valid. But Nagarjuna argues that the “necessary connection” between a good deed and a reward and between a bad deed and punishment; or between an inherent cause and an inherent effect, cannot be rationally explained and justified and therefore is to be rejected.
Rather than point to explicit causes that bring about their effects through some enigmatic power, Nagarjuna appeals to the various underlying conditions to explain the effect without ascribing the conditions any active causal involvement in the process. For example, fuel, oxygen and a spark are the “conditions” necessary for fire, but none of these conditions has the power within them to cause fire; such as wood causing fire. Another example: a seed, fertile soil, steady sunlight, and a strong water supply are the “conditions” necessary for the growth of a tree, but none of these conditions are inherent causes in the sense that they exert some power to provoke the tree’s growth. The condition, say soil, does not have power on its own to provoke the tree’s growth; nor does the condition of, say a seed, have power within itself to cause the growth of the tree. If you place a seed in your hand for a millennium it will not turn into a tree. Regularities and logical consistency of conditions, (a seed, water, soil, sunlight, etc) are what count, without attributing inherent causal powers to these conditions. When the effect (the tree) is investigated we do not discover an entity (called tree or treeness) either existing in itself or in its conditions. We can only appeal to regularities of conditions emptily nestled within countless other regularities, but these conditions do not exist as independent causes.
Nagarjuna’s fundamental conception of causality is that all participants in the causal nexus are empty of intrinsic nature because they depend on other things. Because they are empty (or dependently arisen) they can interact with each other to generate the effect, which, being dependent and impermanent, cannot but be empty as well. That things are ever-changing also indicates that they are devoid of any fixed identity. Ultimately, we cannot say what things are because they do not exist in and of themselves.
Nagarjuna’s famous Stanza from The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, states: “When this is, that is; when this ceases, that ceases. “
However, many people interpret this principle as saying: “When this inherent cause is, that inherent effect is; when this inherent cause ceases, that inherent effect ceases.”
This view gives inherent status to “this” and “that” in the formula as referring to real inherent independent causes and real inherent independent effects; which early Buddhists seemed to follow. Whatever exists, exists because of a real independent cause producing a real independent effect. It is a view that entails fixed entities, but fails to explain change. Whereas, Nagarjuna’s dependent arising as an essenceless, interdependent movement avoids this contradiction and explains change.
Addressing inherent causation or inherent production challenges an ingrained perspective in which phenomena are believed to be inherent fixed entities. We can instead recognize that our attempt to land on explanations grounded in inherent entities with causal power leads to dead end inquiries with questions and answers rooted in the belief in solid, fixed, final truths rather than interdependence and relativity. For example, let us say we want to investigate the cause of suffering. The aim of the Buddha’s Dharma is not to find the cause of suffering, or to have a conceptual understanding of any causal phenomenon, but rather to see that all things, including suffering and its cause, are empty, and hence to cease all conceptualization. So, when someone wanted to discuss the cause of suffering with the Buddha, he remained silent:
‘Is suffering made by itself?’ The Buddha kept silent
and did not answer. ‘World-honoured! If suffering is not
made by itself, is it made by other?’ The Buddha still
did not answer. World-honoured! Is it then made by itself
and other? ‘ The Buddha still did not reply.
‘World-honoured! Is it then made by no cause at all?’ The
Buddha still did not answer. Thus as the Buddha did not
answer these four questions, we should know that suffering
is empty.”
The so-called Four Noble Truths were given by the Buddha from the practical, conventional standpoint. Ordinary people believe in the “reality” of suffering and the “universal” and “objective” validity of causality. In order to help sentient beings to obtain enlightenment, the Buddha used words, such as “suffering” and “happiness,” “the origin of suffering” and “the cessation of suffering,” “cause” and “effect,” “true” and “false,” to expound his Dharma. Actually, all the words and statements he made are empty. Nagarjuna said, “Words have no essence. Whatever is expressed by them is also without essence.”
The Buddha’s verbal teachings are merely instruments to assist people in eliminating conceptualization so that they may be “empty” of all intellectual and emotional attachments. Once one realizes this “empty” nature of the Buddha’s Dharma, he will have abandoned conceptual speculation of everything, even the Four Noble Truths. However, if one is attached to causality and insists on speculating about the cause of suffering, he cannot see the Buddha’s Dharma.
So how do we explain the apparent production of things in the world then? A tree, for example, arises dependent on favourable conditions (water, sunlight, soil, etc), and ceases when the conditions cease (no water). But the tree, being dependent on innumerable other conditions, is not a real intrinsic independent entity that has been “really” caused to come into existence. And its conditions are also dependent on innumerable other conditions, so they also are not real intrinsic entities. Since the tree is not arisen on its own, then it cannot be said to exist on its own. Since it doesn’t exist on its own it is not truly arisen (somewhat like what takes place in a dream). The problem is not the things in themselves – the tree, suffering, global warming, and so on – the problem is the misperception that these things are real intrinsic entities (effects) that are caused by real intrinsic causes. We are fixated (hard-wired) to believe that things (effects) are real; that the tree is real, that suffering is real, or that global warming is real. Yet these things depend for their existence on other things so they are not intrinsic real entities that have been “caused” to come into existence. This is not to negate their status as conventional entities but only to negate their status as intrinsic entities, ie that they exist independent of other things. The key is to see all things (the effect, the cause and the causal principle) as empty of intrinsic nature.
“As for the content of wisdom, it is the realization that no phenomena come into being. All things, ideas, events, etc., are ’empty,’ they don’t cause or define themselves but arise and cease due to conditions.”
Conclusion:
We can only conclude that an actual causal agent that causes real entities to come into existence cannot be substantiated. Therefore, an actual origination or an actual arising of anything at all cannot be established. Such arising or origination is like the illusory arising of an oasis in a desert. No actual entity arose or originated in the first place, just appearances of impermanence. And because no actual entity arose or originated in the first place no actual entity ceases or goes out of existence.
All confusion and all affliction in the world boils down to the cause of apprehending entities. When dependent origination is seen the substantial nature of entities ceases to be perceived because whatever originates dependent upon something else is essentially not originated.
Ordinary people, however, imagine substantial origination. They become attached to this imagined substantial origination and become confused and afflicted. To free them from this affliction, the Buddha said, that whatever is dependently originated does not really originate.
The Debate
Based on Chandrakirti (6th Cent, founder of the prasangika school), a disciple of Nagarjuna (founder of the Madhyamika school).
The issue under discussion is always the belief in intrinsic existence in one form or another, whether that be an intrinsic object, an intrinsic self, or an intrinsic ultimate reality. The Madhyamika refutes intrinsic existence, while the opponent affirms it. By intrinsic existence we mean something with essence, something fixed permanent and unchanging, or something independent that does not depend on anything else. If there were such a thing, everything would be static, fixed frozen and unchanging, nothing would relate to anything. Of course we know of no such thing. The Madhyamika dismisses the reality of intrinsic existence by reducing its arguments to absurdity. Reductio ad absurdum is the preferred method of Madhyamika.
We are to imagine a discussion between a Madhyamika and a representative of the four types of philosophical realism schools (the Hindu Samkhya, the Buddhist Abhidharmika, the Jaina, and the Charvaka), all who believe that there is at least something, the intrinsic existence of which must be accepted. The purpose of the Madhyamika critique is to demonstrate their mistake and to produce in their minds an understanding of the emptiness of intrinsic existence of all phenomena.
Let us examine the Hindu model (Advaita Vedenta) which believes in an intrinsic ultimate creative principle in the world (Atman, Brahman, the Primordial, the Eternal, the Absolute). This principle is pure consciousness, self-originated, self-created, not depending on anything but itself. This oneness unifies all beings; there is the divine in every being. Everything that arises, arises from itself, arises from that creative principle (prakriti). Madhyamika argued that these assertions are untenable. To say that things arise “from themselves” is absurd, because if they already exist (being one with their cause), it is pointless for them to arise or reduplicate once again. Why say that something “arose” after it was already existent? Also, an intrinsic Primordial creative principle, like Brahman or the Absolute, is only assumed to exist, it is yet to be proven to exist. It is no more than a mental abstraction. The Hindu account is therefore incompatible with what we experience, either in theory or in fact. The madhyamika simply exposes the contradictions in the Hindu model rendering it unviable. The Madhyamika does not substitute a theory of his own.
The Madhyamika in confining himself to consequences that entail absurdity, and in being evidently reluctant to involve himself in the sophistications of logic and epistemology as these were developing at his time, he emulated Nagarjuna, who had employed consequential reasoning very often (though not exclusively), who had been careful to confine the use of logic to the level of conventional truth, implying the illegitimacy of using it to establish anything transcending that sphere, such as an intrinsic primordial or eternal reality. The purpose of madhyamaka is to refute a position, not by stating a more plausible counter position but by exposing an absurd consequence (intrinsic existence of an assumed ultimate) unwanted by the proponents, on the basis of arguments that the proponents themselves accept. The only object was to enable them to see for themselves the falsity of their position (an intrinsic ultimate) and to abandon it. The position of the adversary is not destroyed, as it were, from outside by arguments adduced independently by the Madhyamika. It is shown instead to be intrinsically absurd, so that it collapses, so to speak, under its own weight.
Chandrakirti argued that madhyamaka thinkers should only rely on prāsaṅga (madhyamika) arguments, literally “consequence”, which mainly refers to reductio arguments that seek to show how an opponent’s views lead to absurd or unwanted consequences. Furthermore, these reductio arguments only refute the opponents position on the opponent’s own terms. They do not put forth a counter position in return nor do they commit the madhyamika to the principles and conclusions used in the course of the argument. In this sense, the madhyamika merely point out the absurdity of their opponents views without stating a position of their own, and merely indicate the truth indirectly.
A consequential argument (reductio ad absurdum), Chandrakirti insists, is perfectly adequate to the task of refuting the false position. If the adversary refuses to accept defeat even after it has been shown – on principles already acceptable to him – that his view is untenable, it is clear that the further adduction of an independent argument would serve no purpose. If the opponent still maintains his position even after its incoherence is laid bare, it is clear that he does so for motives that cannot be rational. Either he is too dull to understand the refutation or he clings to his position out of prejudice. This being so, it is futile to discuss further. According to the rules of logic, when an independent syllogism is framed (that is, a viewpoint, an inference, a positive affirmation of something real) its validity depends on the fact that its terms denote exactly the same thing for both parties in the debate. This, Chandrakirti argued, is impossible in any discussion between a Madhyamika and a realist philosopher (such as the Samkhya Hindu) when the subject of discussion is the ultimate status of phenomena. A debate presupposes the intrinsic existence of objects that both sides accept. But the whole purpose of the Madhyamika is to show that no such intrinsic objects exist, which includes an intrinsic ultimate, like Brahman. Thus, a true madhyamika cannot put forth a position of its own which is not defective and not fatally compromised.
The Madhyamika teaching on the two truths emphatically refutes all views, all positive assertions, because they entail the acceptance of intrinsic existence of things. This is not accepted by the opponent. Hence, this necessarily excludes any community of understanding with the realist concerning the existential status of phenomena. Further, if both parties use the same terminology but interpret them differently, they also lack a common understanding on which to ground a debate. One says things are not intrinsic, the other says they are. Madhyamika arguments are mainly negative and thus do not require the affirmation of any positive thesis or view but merely deconstruct the arguments of one’s opponent. According to Chandrakirti, madhyamaka presents no positive view at all, he cites Nagarjuna’s “Vigrahavyāvartanī”. “I have no thesis” in this regard.
The fundamental teaching of Madhyamika is the rejection of the intrinsic existence of all entities. For them, no compromise is possible. All things lack intrinsic nature so there is no “positive” view of anything. Therefore, when establishing the view and in debate, the Madhyamika express no position, no thesis. They confine themselves to consequential arguments, the reduction to absurdity of the opponent’s position. The ultimate truth is indicated only indirectly by the demolition of theories. Theories are what take place in the conventional. The Madhyamika’s do not care to theorize about the conventional (the appearance realm). They do not philosophize.
Indeed, in situations where one is trying to penetrate to the ultimate status of phenomena, the introduction of theories as a means of explaining the working of the phenomenal world fogs the issue and actually undermines the correct approach to the true nature of the conventional. Far from elucidating the conventional, Chandrakirti says, theories actually undermine it. It is the conventional itself, what actually happens; that is the means of entering the ultimate. To create a theory as a way of explaining the mechanics of the conventional does not help to introduce the ultimate; it merely complicates the matter. Therefore, theories are dangerous, they obscure the conventional; they hinder the procedure whereby one can “see through” the mere appearance of phenomena and perceive their lack of intrinsic “thingness.” “To create a theory about the conventional is in a sense to “destroy” the conventional; it produces an account that, however coherent it may be, is always at variance with what we actually experience.” Chandrakirti. As such, it is at best irrelevant to the task in hand, namely; to perceive the true nature of phenomenal appearance. At worst it is a hindrance and a trap.
To create a theory about the conventional is in a sense to move away from the conventional (which alone is the gateway to the ultimate). The progression from the conventional to the ultimate is rendered more difficult by the invention of ill-conceived hypotheses. Therefore, in discussions about the reality or otherwise of phenomena, the Madhyamika restrict the terms of discussion to the position propounded by the non Madhyamika opponent. They do not allow themselves, by the use of sophisticated logical arguments, to become involved in an exchange that might give the impression that they believe in the real existence of the topic under discussion. Hence, if one makes an assertion about the phenomenon in question, this very fact is liable to imply that one agrees in the thing’s existence. In such debates, therefore, the Madhyamika say that one must abstain from expressing an independent position of their own because this falsifies one’s position and misrepresents the case. So it must be stressed that in debates between the Madhyamika and other philosophies, the only point of issue is intrinsic existence. The opponents (Samkhya, Buddhist, Hindu, and so on) all contend in one way or other that something exists. The Madhyamikas deny this. Therefore, for Madhyamikas to discourse about phenomena as if they believed in their intrinsic existence, would necessarily weaken the force of their argument.
When debating the final status of phenomena, the Madhyamika content merely to deconstruct the false opinion; they refrain from verbalizing a position of their own. In the same way, they abstain from elaborating a theory of the conventional. Ultimately, phenomena are empty by their nature; conventionally they appear by the force of dependent arising. The appearances of the common consensus are accepted, without analysis, as the conventional truth. No theory is advocated as to the nature of phenomena, and no sort of existence is attributed to phenomena on a provisional basis. In debate, a realist may hold to the view, let us say, that phenomena truly exist in the way that they appear. But in undermining this notion, the Madhyamika does not intend to show that phenomena do not exist. On the contrary, the true status of phenomena lies wholly beyond both existence and nonexistence. The Madhyamika does no more than expose the inadequacy of the opponent’s position. The effectiveness of the consequential method depends as much on the acuity and honesty of the opponent as it does on the accuracy and cogency of the argument. Whether or not the opponent “gets it” and realizes the point that the Madhyamika is making, and whether or not he or she is then able to apply it to good purpose, depends on many conditions; intelligence, merit, receptiveness of the mind, virtue on the path, and so on. It is therefore said that the Madhyamika approach, which, by a process of austere annulment of all intellectual positions, is appropriate for persons of the highest spiritual faculties. Incidentally, that is not to be confused with mere intellectual acumen.
From the very beginning, phenomena are beyond the four conceptual extremes (things exist, don’t exist, both or neither), it is not necessary for Chandrakirti to enter into a close philosophical investigation of the way phenomena appear on the conventional level. When one assesses appearances with words and concepts, one may, for instance, say that phenomena exist or do not exist, that phenomena are or are not the mind. But however one may assert them, they do not exist in that way on the ultimate level. Therefore, with the consequences of the Madhyamika reasoning, which investigates the ultimate, the Madhyamika is merely refuting the incorrect ideas of the opponents. And given that his own stance is free from every conceptual reference, how could he assert a theory? He does not. Without a theory or point of view, no distinction is made between the two truths (conventional and ultimate). In this way, he can refute, without needing to separate the two truths. (Separating the two truths creates dualistic thinking). Whereas, holding to one’s own view or theory implies something other, and hence a distinction of the two truths. But as Chandrakirti’s quotes in the Madhyamakavatara: “On the ultimate level, O monks, there is no two truths. This ultimate truth is one.” Therefore, from the beginning Chandrakirti emphasizes and establishes the ultimate in itself. He does not do away with mere appearances, for these are the ground for his absolutist type of investigation, the means or gateway to the ultimate. He therefore takes them as a basis of debate and establishes them as being beyond all conceptual extremes. Madhyamika do not invalidate the conventional level. They assert conventional phenomena as mere appearances or simply as dependent arisings, somewhat like reflections in a mirror.
Existence and Nonexistence
Katyayana was Buddha’s disciple noted for his debating skills. He asked Buddha: “What is the side of existence? What is the side of non-existence?” Buddha said to him: “Generally speaking, when people see the appearance of a thing they assume it exists, hence they side with existence; when they see the disappearance of a thing they assume it is non-existent, hence they side with non-existence.
A learned Buddhist will not react this way. When one observes the coming about of something in the world, one understands that everything can make its appearance under the appropriate conditions so one does not harbor a view of non-existence. When one observes the destruction of something in the world, one understands that there is no objective existence for anything because if something exists objectively, it will be impossible to relinquish or to destroy. Thus a Buddhist will leave the side of existence as well as the side of non-existence, leading to emptiness. Thinking things are real gets us tangled in existence/non-existence theorizing.
For a thing to exist inherently is for it to exist independently without help from anything else. To affirm existence is to fall to the extreme of eternalism. It would be to affirm that the self or objects is really, truly, objectively there. To really be there, it would never have been able to come into existence or pass out of existence. The self would have to exist without help from anything else. It would then be unable to change or respond to conditions. It would be fixed and frozen. I wouldn’t be able to go to the store. I would be right there, the way I exist, unrelated to other things. For a thing to be inherently non-existent is for it to not exist in any sense at all; not even conventionally or dependently. To deny existence is to fall to the extreme of nihilism. If the self utterly lacked existence, then I also couldn’t go to the store. There would be absolutely no “me” or store. If we cannot pin down the existence of a ‘self’ to begin with, how can we assert the non-existence of a self: which means that an existent ‘self’ annihilates or goes into non-existence? To assert non-existence, you must have a base, an existent entity to begin with, that could become non-existent. If the convention ‘self’ is baseless to begin with, then existence and non-existence become untenable positions.
Middle Way philosophy is neither nihilistic or essentialist. Because things appear in some fashion, they are not non-existent. Because no self-nature or essence can be found in those things, they are not existent. Middle Way is the middle path between the two extremes.
Because all things are empty means that things neither absolutely exist nor absolutely do not exist. If things existed absolutely, they would have their own nature and would not be dependent upon causal conditions, but nothing in the world is independent of conditions. Thus the existence of things cannot be absolutely real. And if the existence of things were absolutely unreal, there would be no change or motion in the universe, yet myriad things are perceived to arise from causal conditions.
A popular theory is that something non-existent can turn into something existent. The stock example is the seed and the sprout. You might think that the effect, such as the sprout, was formerly non-existent but is made anew into something existent by causes such as the seed. It is not so. Since existent and non-existent are mutually contradictory, they could never combine on the basis of a single entity. There are no phenomena that were formerly non-existent and later changed into something existent; or that were formerly existent and later changed into something non-existent. If we cannot pin down an existent entity to begin with, how can we assert a non-existent entity? Existent and non-existent become untenable positions. Further, an existent thing does not become non-existent (cease), since it would follow that it would be of two natures. Thus, there is neither coming into existence nor cessation at any time. Therefore, this entire world does not arise or cease.
Conventionally, effects appear based on causes. Prior to the gathering of their causes and conditions, they did not appear, and now, when the causes and conditions are assembled, they do. For example, the conditions of a seed, water, fertile soil, sunlight, etc, produce a sprout. The conditions of fuel, oxygen and a spark produce a flame. The mind relates these two stages to one another, and then there is the conceptual statement, “This did not exist before but now has arisen and exists!” Or, “This existed previously and then it did not exist.” Phenomena or conventional entities simply appear by the force of dependent origination but there are no existent phenomena whatsoever that transform into non-existent ones, nor non-existent phenomena that transform into existent. Nothing arose in the first place, so there is nothing to appear, and nothing that is lost. Existent and non-existent phenomena never existed from the start.
We can apply this understanding to the existence of former (antecedence) states, such as past lives, and so on; and to the existence of later (subsequence) states, such as future lives, reincarnation, heaven, hell, and so on. The Buddha explains: When the right conditions come together phenomena appear; when those conditions cease, so does the appearing phenomenon cease. There is no speculation of an antecedent state nor a subsequent state, nor the transformation of something existent into something non-existent or non-existent into existent, of any going or coming, arising or ceasing, increasing or decreasing. When it is understood that arising enduring and disintegrating are devoid of true existence then it will be understood that “existing” and “non-existing” are also devoid of true existence. The arising of effects is nothing other than the undeceiving appearance of dependent origination and when analyzed as to whether it is existent or non-existent, it is not established in any way whatsoever but is just like a mirage.
For example, seeing the mirage of an oasis in the desert and taking it to be real, you would hurriedly go to that oasis because it appears to exist and you even proclaim that it exists. You would be elated that there is water which is not far away. Upon getting closer you would realize that the oasis is just a mirage and it would dissipate. It is not that the oasis (lake) once existed before and then ceases to exist. Your conviction of an existent oasis was based on a deluded cognition; there never was an oasis. Upon realizing that, the notions of existence, non-existence, both or neither, cannot actually apply to anything. The oasis was a figment of confusion, a hallucination. It now cannot possibly actually exist or not exist.
When we finally recognize that the oasis is a mirage, the misconception of an oasis is immediately liberated. And it is directly known that there never was an actual oasis from the very beginning. This is not a negation of something that once existed before and then ceases to exist by negation. Rather, the oasis never existed. All things are like that. They appear due to the cause of ignorance and abide as long as the conditions of ignorance remain. When ignorance is dispelled, the object is known to be non-arisen.
And finally, concerning the “self”, the Buddha’s teaching of “no self” has been misinterpreted as the Buddha reifying the non-existence of the self. To interpret the Buddha as teaching the non-existence of the self is as bad as the tendency to reify a self in the first place for nihilism and pessimism would result. Thus, while the Buddhas have made known the conception of self and taught the doctrine of no-self, “they have not spoken of something as the self or as the non-self.” The teaching of no-self (anatman) is a dialectical device used to counteract the tendency to believe in the self, nothing more.
Quoting from the Stanzas: “Moreover, these sentient beings must have discarded all arbitrary ideas relating to the conceptions of a personal self, objects and a universal self because if they had not their minds would inevitably grasp after such relative ideas. Further, these sentient beings must have already discarded all arbitrary ideas relating to the conception of the non-existence of a personal self, objects and a universal self. If they had not, their minds would still be grasping after such ideas. Therefore, every disciple should discard, not only conceptions of one’s own selfhood objects and a universal selfhood, but should discard also all conceptions and all ideas about the non-existence of such conceptions because the ‘self’ is not an homogenous quality or capacity which can truly exist or not exist.”
The Great Person is freed through the complete understanding of the interdependence of existence and nonexistence. They depend on each other so neither is established. Therefore, knowing existence and non-existence means knowing that they both do not exist. Attachment which arises from the conception of the marks of existence and non-existence is the cause of going astray. Ordinary people are bound in just this way. They are rendered powerless by the conceptions of existence and non-existence and consequently they circle in cyclical existence. The habit of attachment etc. is broken, ie, when existence and non-existence are not apprehended. When the habit of attachment is broken one achieves liberation.
Consciousness (Awareness)
Humans tend to regard themselves as supreme by nature in contrast to what is viewed as a primitive world. We live with a sense of divinity, assumed to distinguish us from everything else. People commonly assume that they are at least subtly God-like, marked by what is called “Consciousness” or “Awareness”. A dividing wall is imagined to separate mind from matter, the animate from the inanimate. Consciousness is our divine self, and death, a fall into lowly materiality. An altogether different understanding of life and death and of consciousness is necessary.
The notion that consciousness marks humans as divinely distinct can first be challenged by recognizing that consciousness does not independently exist, but is an interrelational function. What is considered to be conscious is inseparable from what is not considered to be conscious. Consciousness depends upon sensory organs such as eyes, ears, touch, cognitive function, as well as an object of consciousness, such as a “tree”, for example. Without an object of consciousness, a “tree”, there is consequently no consciousness. If you look at all that consciousness depends upon and cleared it away, there would be no consciousness essence or function left over. Hence, consciousness cannot be established as having its own independent nature or being. Also, since the subject of consciousness and its objects are mutually dependent, there cannot ultimately be a distinction made between sentient and insentient either.
Consciousness is an abstract conventional name for what is not reducible to a separate entity that is conscious in and of itself. Nor can matter be reduced to an essence that is inherently material. One cannot say what mind or matter truly are because all formations are relational, interdependent and therefore cannot ultimately be singled out. Objects appear and function but have no nature of their own. Regarding consciousness, the straightforward recognition that it cannot manifest apart from a body makes the point that consciousness cannot have its own nature. Likewise, the arising of conscious thought upon reading these printed words does not have its own nature; ie it depends on these printed words. Thought is a dynamic interplay without an independent nature of its own. Thinking is not an independent entity or faculty that stands to the side objectively observing and interpreting a world. There is no such separate consciousness to which anything appears. There is no substance to be found in its name.
“Consciouness is a name. The name too, has no own being.”
This understanding advances the refutation of an inherently existent consciousness and correspondingly, the notion that it is privileged in comparison to what is regarded as matter. It discredits the idea that consciousness establishes a dividing wall between what is human and everything else. Since consciousness lacks a self-essence it cannot be the identifier of a human self either.
The vast majority of what goes on in the mind-body-world, including the formation of consciousness, is not, by definition, consciously perceived or regulated. Body functioning, such as the immune system, the production of a flower, or the overall coherence of the universe for that matter, does not take place through the use of conscious images. With this understanding it is not consistent to grant conscious activity supreme status.
The role of consciousness makes human culture and society possible. However, on all counts, consciousness is inter-relational rather than the activity of an autonomous entity. These reasonings are not intended to deny or devalue the function of consciousness but to appreciate its interdependent magnitude and to therefore recognize the “equality of all phenomena.”
Consciousness originates dependent upon an object of consciousness therefore it is empty of its own being. Without an object of consciousness there is consequently no consciousness. For the idea of consciousness existing in and of itself not only perpetuates the sense of an inherently separate self but involves an argument supporting the separate existence of all phenomena.
Consciousness is commonly viewed as independent from everything else, existing with its own essential nature. Within nonduality this is often referred to as pure consciousness and is seen as a foundational and transcendent reality, as the essence of everything. Such a perspective does not recognize consciousness as dependent upon other phenomena to appear, but sees it as self-originated, self-created. We know of no thing in the world that fits this description. Everything depends for its existence on something else, and that includes consciousness.
Additionally, consciousness is said to be conscious of itself as an undifferentiated unity. But for consciousness to indivisibly know itself is a muddled notion in more than one way. Consciousness must be conscious of something to be considered conscious. If there is no content to be conscious of, how could consciousness be considered conscious? Conscious of what? When it is seen that consciousness depends upon other (empty) things then consciousness can also be seen as empty, empty of its own independent nature.
When consciousness is viewed as an independent entity it must necessarily be changeless and identical only to itself. However, whatever is fixed and unchanging would be inherently dead, isolated from the flow of interdependence which constitutes the world. If consciousness was purely subjective it could not recognize anything else.
The conventional designation of consciousness is also dependent upon a body, including the senses. So what sort of pure consciousness can there really be? Consciousness is not an independent and objective witness waiting vacantly for phenomena to enter it. It is not separate from what is perceived.
Consciousness is mistakenly believed to exist in a self-created, self-powered way. It is assumed that it operates itself, but this would be like saying that trees that are blowing are blowing themselves. Consciousness is an interrelated, essenceless movement.
Also, as there is no inherently existent consciousness, there is no inherently existent me. This implies the absence of a self-identity to defend or the need to desperately grasp and cling to things as mine.
Death
All form, both coarse as in a tree, and subtle as in thought, depend upon innumerable conditions and are not the fixed entities that they appear to be. Nothing actually remains the same for an instant. The me of today is a little bit older than the me of yesterday. Cells and so on have changed. What is perceived to be an unchanging object is on the contrary, an instantaneous, indivisible movement of disintegration and formation, even though this transience is imperceptible. It is in this sense that what is called death is also life dependently arisen as a perpetual transformation of all phenomena.
A good example to show that death is essenceless, empty, and dependently arisen is that of fire. For example, fire appears under conditions of say oxygen, fuel and a spark. When conditions for fire are no longer present (say no oxygen) we say the fire died. Yes, this is understandable. However, it is not that the fire died because there was never an independent inherently existing thing called fire in the first place. Fire appears dependently, dependent on oxygen, fuel and a spark. There is no actual independently existing entity called fire. So fire cannot die as an entity that ever existed in and of itself. Likewise, there is no actual independently existing entity called self or I that ever existed in and of itself. Hence, there is no actual entity called self that is born, endures for a time, and then dies.
Death, however, is falsely viewed as an independent process that results in the annihilation of life. But if birth and death were independent processes, there would be no relationship between them. They would be separate and independent. Then things that are born, being independent, would remain born things and cannot die; and the things that die will never have been born. This of course is absurd.
These contradictions can be avoided by recognizing interdependence and to see what arises dependently cannot be inherently created or destroyed. For no phenomenon is ever its own thing to begin with. Therefore, there is not a separate independent self that can be overtaken by a force called death. Thought, feeling, sensation, perception and a body are all vastly interrelational and impermanent, never remaining the same for an instant. The notion that there exists a separate, permanent self above and beyond a vast web of dependent conditions is a fiction. Death, which is merely impermanence, has been here all along.
An understanding of impermanence refutes the idea that separate entities just show up from out of nowhere concretely formed, and then disappear in a final act called death. Things appear to have a separate location and to independently come and go, as well as function. However, when these mechanistic impressions are carefully examined, such appearances, activities, and functions are recognized as relative, dependent relationships with no nature or being of their own. Everything is like a movie show.
The belief in a dividing wall between life and death is a great misunderstanding. There is no location from which things are born or to which they return and so there is no place to die. There are relative differences between birth and death, mind and matter that are of consequence. But that should not lead us to think that birth is the origin of an entity, or that death is the end of that entity.
The appreciation that everything is interdependent is the undoing of inherent separateness, conflict and fear. There is the recognition that the spring leaf is not inherently different from the autumn leaf. The spring leaf arises dependently, dependent upon underlying conditions. It never was its own independent identity (it depends on other things) and so the appearance of its ultimate death is an illusion. Whatever arises dependently cannot have its own nature. This is why nothing truly begins or ends, why nothing is born and nothing dies.
Just understand that birth-and-death is itself nirvana. There is nothing such as birth and death to be avoided. There is nothing such as nirvana to be sought. Only when you realise this are you free from birth and death. (Dogen)
The Emptiness of Emptiness
Madhyamaka’s reminds us that emptiness also is dependently arisen and therefore is empty. Suppose that we take a conventional entity, such as a table. The table, we find, depends on its parts, it depends on conditions (like a tree) and it depends on being labelled a tree. So we conclude that it is empty, empty of its own nature. But this emptiness is dependent upon the table. So emptiness is dependent and therefore also empty. This understanding saves us from reifying emptiness as something inherent.
To be empty is to be dependently arisen and emptiness is no exception. Ultimate truth is fully dependent upon conventional phenomena to perceive its emptiness. And as entities are ultimately unfindable, emptiness, cannot be findable. This recognition uncovers the ultimate truth that emptiness is empty.
To reify the concept of emptiness is a blatant error, for emptiness is an idea whose function is to prevent reification of concepts. “Those who are possessed of the view of emptiness [as a theory] are said to be incorrigible.” Since emptiness is not a thing, it cannot be thought of in positive terms. It is nothing more than a lack of theories, not a theory itself. Nagarjuna writes: “If I were to advance any proposition whatsoever, from that I would incur error On the contrary, I advance no proposition Therefore, I incur no error.”
Emptiness is the perception of an absence, the absence of the inherent existence of phenomena. To say that things are empty is to say that they dependently exist, that they are essenceless without their own nature or being. Buddhist emptiness is not a universal essence or a source (like the Vedanta philosophy). It is the recognition that the way phenomena appear to inherently exist is unfindable and thus illusory. So again, emptiness is an absence, not a thing. Emptiness teachings resist turning this absence back into an intrinsic entity, which would contradict the insight that everything is empty. When the belief in inherent existence is refuted, the emptiness, the groundlessness of all phenomena, is realized. It is like realizing that something you were looking for is not there, and right then, directly perceiving the absence of the object.
The theory of emptiness is not to be regarded as an ultimately true theory. Such a theory would describe things as they are independent of human interests and concerns. But the theory of emptiness is intricately bound up with such interests and concerns: if there were no human minds who mistakenly read the existence of svabhāva into phenomena which lack it there would be no point in having a theory to correct this. It is only due to our erroneous view of things that the theory of emptiness is required as a corrective.
Emptiness teachings are not about a transcendent reality or truth, but about transcending deception. Emptiness avoids falling into the two extremes of essentialism and nihilism. In essentialism, phenomena are seen to inherently exist and in nihilism, to not exist in any way at all. Putting this another way; essentialism derives from the failure to note impermanence and leads to grasping and craving and the attendant suffering. Nihilism is motivated by the failure to note the empirical reality of arising phenomena. This is why emptiness teachings are referred to as the path of the middle way.
Entities arise co-dependently; they depend for their existence on other factors so they are empty of their own (independent) nature. In this sense then, all phenomena are intrinsically empty, unreal and like illusions, since they truly are not what they appear to be. According to Chandrakirti, this very ultimate truth (i.e. emptiness and non-arising), is also empty, in the sense that emptiness is also dependent (emptiness is dependent on an object in order to establish its emptiness) so it is also empty. Another way to state this is that it is only empty things (dependently originated things) that can arise and their arising is like a mirage in the desert.
Because all things are dependently arisen and thus empty of an independent nature, one cannot ultimately identify anything for nothing can be individually located. Again, this is why everything, including emptiness, can only be seen to conventionally exist. Emptiness is therefore not a positive identification of anything. It is but a negation that anything exists in its own right. Madhyamaka’s recognized that the two truths of Buddhism, convention truth and ultimate truth, are ultimately the same. Ultimate reality is just as empty as conventional reality. Ultimate reality is hence only conventional reality. And, since everything is empty, there is no ultimate reality. Further, since everything is empty, how can emptiness exist?
Emptiness, therefore, is not a synonym for ultimate reality. There is not just one overall emptiness. Things don’t arise from emptiness or subside back into emptiness. Instead, emptiness is the mode of existence that things have. It means that things cannot be found when looked for closely. Emptiness is not applied to things. That is, things aren’t empty because of something big called “emptiness.” Rather, to be, in the first place, is already to be empty.
Emptiness does not assert a positivist view of reality, but is a refutation of the view that anything could possibly exist inherently or independently. Thus it cannot be refuted because it is not proposing anything. The negation of intrinsic existence alone is enough to insure liberation from cyclic existence; thus, the conception of intrinsic existence is the subtle form of the obstructions to liberation.
Emptiness is not the real object as opposed to the unreal objects of ordinary perception, not the object that appears when false appearance is shed, and not what is contrasted with other things that are inherently existent. In fact, to the extent that it appears as an object at all, it does so falsely. The best we can then say is that from such a standpoint the words “emptiness is empty” ascribe no property to any object at all. From that standpoint, there is no view to be expressed, nor something to view.
To realize emptiness is to recognize that there can be no ultimate reference points, nothing specific, no essence or core nature in anything. It is to appreciate the negative assertion that as soon as anything is identified it can only be dependently arisen, a mere appearance, as nothing can truly be located or pointed to or singled out. The doctrine reveals that the ultimate truth is empty of any ultimate nature and thus of any ultimate truth.
What is the ultimate truth? There is no ultimate truth.
The emptiness of emptiness refutes ultimate truth as yet another argument for essentialism under the guise of being beyond the conventional or as the foundation of it. To realize emptiness is not to find a transcendent place or truth to land in but to see the conventional as merely conventional. Reality is not beyond the limit of everyday conventional existence. Instead, everything that exists or arises does so at the conventional level. Conventional existence, on this view, is the only kind that anything could have. Here lies the key to liberation. For to see the deception is to be free of deception, like a magician who knows the magic trick. When one is no longer fooled by false appearances, phenomena are neither reified nor denied.
Memory
Memory will be examined as an experience, the only way we can examine it.
Memory is always a memory of something. Both the memory and the objects of memory are mutually dependent. Memory depends upon objects that are not considered memory, such as events and places (like a lake). Therefore, memory cannot have its own separate nature. To say that memory is empty means that it lacks inherent existence; that it is unable to be established in and of itself.
For memory to exist in and of itself, would be pointless. Memory must be related to what is not itself (such as a lake) in order to be considered memory. Memory does not involve an autonomous faculty or substance but is an interrelated function without ever becoming an independent entity that stores experiences. Memory is not separate from life events, as if it stores a past, but is fully dependent on such events, places and conditions.
If memory was an independent and fixed storehouse of past experience, memories could not be presently remembered, new memories could not arise and memory would therefore be irrelevant to what was occurring. Memory could not function. Because memory does not exist separately but is related to everything else, the process of remembering can conventionally be said to occur.
Memory cannot contact an intrinsically separate past, because there isn’t one. If the past and present were separate entities, nothing could change. Past and present are interrelated phenomena. The past depends on the present and is not inherently separate from it. To speak of the past or present is relational. What is remembered is not separate from the present. Memory cannot look back upon, or revive a past event. Memory of the past is called the present.
Emotion “added” to memory creates the false impression that memory has been revived. But memory is a present day experience as there is no memory located in a past that is no longer.
Being a relational movement, memory does not endure in itself. Memory arises when conditions come together such as, objects, places, events, neural activity, and so on. For if you clear away all of the conditions that memory depends upon, there is no memory left over. Because memories do not create themselves, they are neither born nor disintegrate in and of themselves.
Just like memory is dependent on conditions; sensory perception, cognition, emotion, places, etc, memory itself is also a condition for mental functioning. For “to think is to remember.”
Memory involves a mental image that makes it appear as “mine.” Yet, as memory cannot be singled out, it cannot truly be owned. Memory does not stand to the side objectively retaining or reliving life events. There is no such independent witness.
The key is not to dismiss memory as a total fabrication, but as lacking inherent existence. It is to see its mode of existence as dependently produced and therefore empty of an independent essence. It is precisely because memory is dependently arisen, and therefore empty, that remembering can occur. For if memory existed independently it wouldn’t relate to anything.
And as memory is unable to establish its autonomy, so the object of memory cannot be established either. Memory is not a copy of what exists out there. What we call memory is dependent upon countless conditions and thus indefinable. Therefore, memory is only a conventional, nominal characterization.
Buddhist Philosophy
Emptiness (Sunyata):
Nagarjuna offered sharp criticisms of Brahminical (Vedic) and Buddhist substantialist philosophy. He calls into questions certain philosophical assumptions so easily resorted to in our attempt to understand the world. Among these assumptions are the existence of fixed substances, self-nature, an intrinsic absolute or ultimate, real causes producing real effects, the individuality of persons, the belief in a fixed identity or selfhood, and the strict separations between good and bad conduct and the blessed and fettered life. All such assumptions are called into question by Nagarjuna’s insight of emptiness (sunyata), a concept which does not mean “non-existence” or “nihility” but rather the lack of autonomous, independent existence. Denial of autonomy, according to Nagarjuna, does not leave us with a sense of loss of some hoped-for independence and freedom, but instead offers us a sense of liberation through demonstrating the interconnectedness of all things.
The Buddha himself said that he did not want his words to be a ground for metaphysical debate. Metaphysics are of minimal concern to the Buddha. What is crucial is the recognition of emptiness of everyday phenomena in order to further Buddhist praxis and to reach enlightenment. He does not seek to create a metaphysical framework as his end product — he actually seeks to remove views that he sees as obstructing wisdom and truth rather than instil new ones — these too would obscure wisdom and truth and further remove us from liberation! Clear thinking about what one hears others say enables one to discard teachings that, if acted upon, are unlikely to produce positive results; and to follow teachings that, if acted upon, will lead one to a positive goal that is not dealing in theories and concepts.
The theory of emptiness is not to be regarded as an ultimately true theory. Such a theory would describe things as they are independent of human interests and concerns. But the theory of emptiness is intricately bound up with such interests and concerns: if there were no human minds who mistakenly read the existence of fixed essence into phenomena which lack it there would be no point in having a theory to correct this. It is only due to our erroneous view of things having a core essence that the theory of emptiness is required as a corrective.
Nagarjuna’s philosophy can be seen as an attempt to deconstruct all systems of thought which analyzed the world in terms of fixed substances and essences. Things in fact lack essence, according to Nagarjuna, they have no fixed nature and indeed it is only because of this lack of essential immutable being that change is possible. This is not a metaphysical view, but the human mind might turn it into such. Emptiness is primarily a soteriological device for eliminating extreme views so that one may be “empty” of any attachment.
Emptiness does not mean that things are not experienced and, therefore, non-existent; only that they are devoid of a permanent and eternal substance (svabhava) because, like a dream, they are mere projections of our mind. Nor does emptiness describe some transcendent reality such as brahman, atman or God. Emptiness simply signifies that things have no self-being or “essence” of their own. Everything arises and passes away according to underlying causal conditions. For Nagarjuna, emptiness is a heuristic (problem solving) concept, a shorthand device used to refer to this absence of self-existence or independent existence. Yet the term is often misunderstood. For some, emptiness means that nothing whatsoever exists in any way. Such nihilism is dangerous because then it makes no difference what we do or not, and there is no point in trying to follow a spiritual path.
In order to realize ultimate truth (emptiness) conventional truth is required. The conventional is not ultimately true, but it’s needed in order to point to the ultimate. Emptiness is itself empty, but it is useful only for pointing out that nothing has self-existence. It helps pry us free from our attachment to things. Since ultimately there are no self-existing things, there is therefore no emptiness, either. As with the Buddha’s raft; we need to let go of emptiness too. If we use reason to examine the conventional world as it appears to us, we can find nothing that is real, nothing that has intrinsic nature. That, “not finding” is itself the ultimate.
“The nature of things is to have no nature; it is the non-nature that is their ultimate nature.” Nagarjuna.
According to the Madhyamaka view of truth there can be no such thing as an intrinsic ultimate truth; a theory describing how things really are independent of our sensory, conceptual and cognitive resources employed in describing it. All one is left with is conventional truth, truth which consists in agreement with commonly accepted practices and conventions. These are the truths that are arrived at when viewing the world through our linguistically formed conceptual framework. But we should be wary of denigrating these conventions as a distorting device that incorporates our specific interests and concerns. The very notion of ‘distortion’ presupposes that there is a “true” world out there (the way things really are) that is undistorted or untainted by conceptuality, even if our minds can never reach it. But the very notion of such a ‘way things really are’ is argued by the Mādhyamika to be incoherent. There is no way of investigating the world apart from our linguistic and conceptual practices, if only because these practices generate the notion of the ‘world’ and of the ‘objects’ in it in the first place. To speak of conventional reality as distorted is therefore highly misleading. Our way of investigating the world is inextricably bound up with the linguistic and conceptual framework we happen to employ.
Dismantling the concept of fixed essence:
The Buddha is famous for not answering certain questions. For example, he refused to answer questions about such airy metaphysical ponderings like “Does the world have a beginning or not?”, “Does God exist?” and “Does the soul perish after death or not?” These questions are metaphysically misguided. They come from an erroneous assumption that something has come into existence, that an entity has come into existence, “awareness” of that entity has come into existence, or God has come into existence. They all involve incoherent essentialist presuppositions and so are not real questions; hence the Buddha said they are unanswerable.
Theorizing or conceptualizing, in Nagarjuna’s view, was the enemy of realizing emptiness. The method Nagarjuna suggested for carrying out the undoing of conceptualizing was, curiously, not a method of his own invention. He borrowed the claims and assumptions of his philosophical adversaries without establishing or even implying a view or theory of his own. If one provisionally accepts the concepts and verification rules of the opponent the refutation of the opponent’s position will be all the more convincing to the opponent than if one simply rejects the opponent’s system out of hand. Only by employing Brahminical method against Brahminical practice could one show up the flaws of self-nature and essences which they are based on.
The Brahmans at the time held that things in the world must have their own fixed essence (svabhava), for otherwise there would be no way to account for persons, natural phenomena, or the causal and karmic process. Nagarjuna’s response was to expose this metaphysical position of old Buddhist practice, Hinduism and Brahman by demonstrating that the change Buddhism was after was only really possible if people and things did not have fixed essences. If they did, then change would be impossible. Also, we do not experience anything empirically which does not change, and so we can never know of fixed essences in the world about us. Once again, the proponent’s assumption of fixed essence has been taken up in an ingenious way to undermine his conclusions.
In the process of dismantling all metaphysical and epistemological positions, one is led to the only viable conclusion for Nagarjuna, namely that all things, concepts and persons lack a fixed essence, and this lack of a fixed essence is precisely why and how they can be amenable to change, transformation and evolution. Change is precisely why people live, die, suffer and can be enlightened and liberated. And change is only possible if entities and the way in which we conceptualize them are void or empty of any eternal, fixed and immutable essence.
On the other hand, if all things are not empty and therefore unchanging, “anyone who is not a Buddha cannot hope to attain enlightenment even by serious endeavour or practice. Nirvana would be impossible. It is only when emptiness prevails that change and enlightenment is possible. “With emptiness, all is possible; without it, all is impossible.”
Nagarjuna says that whatever is dependently arisen is impermanent and without distinction. Our attempt to make distinctions between things is based on our perception of their conventional appearance. When we make distinctions between things, we act as if they were self-contained, independent entities. But the ultimate reality of things is that they are dependently arisen. Their arising depends on causes and conditions beyond themselves. Everything shares a lack of self-nature, a lack of self-identity and a lack of independent existence. Nothing is self-caused or self-existent. Everything is empty of self-nature, self-causation and independent existence. Nagarjuna also says that if everything is empty, then there is no “self” arising and no “self” ceasing or passing away. Thus he makes the radical suggestion that if everything is empty, then nirvana is just as empty as samsara, and there is no real difference between them.
The metaphysical schools argue that those causes which lead to enmeshment in the worldly cycle of existence (samsara) cannot be the same as those which lead to peace (nirvana). To be a so called Buddhist then means precisely to distinguish between ignorance and enlightenment, between the suffering world of samsara and the purified attainment of nirvana. In his revolutionary tract of The Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way, Nagarjuna abjectly throws this elementary distinction between samsara and nirvana out the door, and does so in the very name of the Buddha. “There is not the slightest distinction,” between samsara and nirvana.” The limit of the one is the limit of the other. Nagarjuna rejected the causal theories which necessitated notions of fixed nature theories which metaphysically reified the difference between samsara and nirvana. There is no difference, he says, because both are empty of intrinsic nature.
Nagarjuna says that if we maintain the philosophical assumption that things in the world have fixed unchanging essences then we shall come away empty-handed in a search to explain how things could possibly relate to one another, and so would have no way of describing how change happens. He concludes that; since things do not arise if phenomena have fixed essences then they must arise because phenomena lack fixed essences. Phenomena are malleable, they are susceptible to alteration, addition and destruction. This lack of fixed nature, this alterability of things then means that their physical and empirical forms are built not upon essence but upon the lack of essence. It is not that things are in themselves nothing, or that things possess a positive absence of essence. Change is possible because a radical indeterminancy (emptiness) permeates all forms with nothing attaining its own nature, essence or being. Nothing can be pinned down.
The Buddha, or Tathagata, is colloquially known as “the one who came and went”. The name and person of “Buddha” should not serve as the theoretical basis and justification of distinguishing between the ordinary ignorant world and perfected enlightenment. After all, all change in the world, including the transformations which lead to enlightenment, are only possible because of interdependence and interdependence in turn is only possible because things, phenomena, lack any fixed nature and so are open to being transformed. The Buddha himself was only transformed because of interdependence and emptiness and so; “the nature of the Tathagata is the very nature of the world”. The words and labels which attach to both the world and the experience of nirvana are not the means of separating the wheat of life from its chaff, nor the enlightened from the “everyday” rabble. Rather, they signify that the world of suffering and the world of peace have the same extension and boundary.
The true state of things, the Buddha says, cannot be absolutely real (existent) because all things are impermanent and are dependent upon causes and conditions. Nor can the true nature of things be absolutely unreal (non-existent) because there would be no changing phenomena and sensible appearances would not arise. But myriad things do appear to arise from various causal conditions. Hence, nothing can be described as real or unreal. Everything is dependent on other things. The perceived object, the perceiving subject and knowledge are mutually interdependent. The reality of one is dependent upon others. If one is false, the others must be false. When a rope is perceived as a snake, the perceived object, the snake, is false. The perceiving subject and knowledge of the external object must also be false. So what one perceives within or without is illusory.
Hindu Philosophy (Advaita Vedanta):
According to Hindu philosophy “non-duality” is “oneness”, “singularity”, or a “unifying principle” behind or underneath experience. But there is another sense of non-duality from a Buddhist perspective. Instead of non-duality as “oneness”, Buddhist non-duality is “freedom from dualistic extremes”. This entails freedom from the pairs of metaphysical dualisms such as: existence/non-existence, subject/object, true/false, samsara/nirvana, duality/non-duality, etc. These pairs are dualisms in this sense. If you experience things in the world in terms of one side of the pair, you will experience things in the world in terms of the other side as well. If some things seemed like they truly exist, then other things will seem like they don’t truly exist. You will experience your own self to truly exist and fear that one day you will not truly exist. Emptiness teachings show how none of these pairs make sense and free you from experiencing yourself and the world in terms of these opposites. Emptiness teachings are non-dual in this sense.
Traditional Hindus and early Buddhists have often made an ontological “commitment” to some “thing”, such as – Atman, Brahman, the Absolute, Pure Consciousness, Awareness, the eternal witness, and so on – and consider it the reality of the universe. (The key word is “commitment”). This single, unified, eternal truth, pure consciousness, self-originated, self-created, not depending on anything but itself, is the essence of everything, the one true reality. So it posits that there is a true reality, which Madhyamika’s refute. The goal of Vedanta is to know the “truly real” and thus become one with it. Brahman is the highest Reality. It is the “creative principle which lies realized in the world”. Its philosophy relies on the Hindu concept of Ātman, which is the “real self” or “soul” of the individual. Atman is self-existent witnessing awareness, limitless and non-dual that sits outside of space and time. It is simple, unitary, persistent and unchanging. It is ‘the innermost reality of the individual, the subtle essence, the same as Brahman, the one true reality. This Oneness unifies all beings, there is the divine in every being and all existence is a single Reality.
The Madhyamika philosophy of emptiness, on the other hand, aims to show that these ontological realities (Atman, Brahman, the Absolute, Pure Awareness, etc) cannot be established and are really objectified concepts. Any “commitment” to them is an attachment to be eliminated. Truth for Madhyamikas is relative. There is no fixed, single, unchanging Atman or Awareness existing by its own intrinsic nature separate and independent of everything else. Atman, the ultimate, awareness, the eternal, and so on, are no more than labels that are mentally imputed by a designating mind. So what is labelled ultimate or atman is dependent on mental imputation. Without a label and without a designating mind (a person) imputing the label there could be no Atman, awareness, or the ultimate. Therefoe, such an ultimate or atman, can’t be the eternal, autonomous, independent, unchanging reality that it is claimed to be. Further, if Atman is an inherent, eternal, independent entity one should be able to refute its dependent arising (it depends on mental imputation) and also, demonstrate its inherent nature. This is not the case and no such entity as Atman or an Absolute can be found in any existent thing. The Madhyamikas theory of dependent arising is alone sufficient to coherently and comprehensively describe reality without any recourse to a theory of Atman or an unchanging ultimate reality. Madhyamikas argue not only that there is no Atman or soul but that there could not conceivably be any such entity. In fact, Buddhism arose in the first place specifically to refute Atman, self-nature, or an inherent Absolute or Eternal. Perceiving anything in terms of intrinsic nature (including an absolute or ultimate) is the extreme of essentialism or eternalism, which Madhyamikas emphatically refute. No such intrinsic ultimate can be found.
By denying the reality of an eternal, fixed, unchanging Atman, the madhyamika’s were subverting one of the most cherished of all concepts in Indian religion. However, the doctrine of “no Self” (no eternal Atman) was an inescapable conclusion of the perception of change. If all existent things are subject to change then there can be no unchanging Absolute Atman that exists. Atman cannot be demonstrated logically, empirically or fact and belongs to the realm of imagination.
Furthermore, the Absolute or ultimate reality, in Indian philosophy, is often referred to as: “changeless, not originated, and not dependent on something else.” But isn’t this also the very definition of svabhava (inherent existence). According to this definition, ultimate reality is something with svabhava, a truly existing entity. Madhyamika’s deny all forms of svabhava or true existence, including true existence of ultimate reality. In Indian philosophy, consciousness and awareness are often perceived this way, as having svabhava or true existence or ultimate reality. And in early Buddhist philosophy emptiness was often perceived as having self-nature or svabhava. The doctrine of the emptiness of emptiness counteracts this false view.
None the less, according to the Hindu philosophers, Atman (the Absolute) is the one true unchanging reality while everything else is perceived to be māyā, “illusion”, apparently existing but ultimately not real and to be negated (neti-neti). This creates a duality. The Absolute or Atman is esteemed or privileged whereas the conventional is perceived as inferior. The Mādhyamika school (emptiness view) holds there is no difference between ultimate truth and everyday truth (the nonduality of duality and nonduality) because everything is empty. The Madhyamika negation is quite different from the “neti-neti” (not this, not that) expression of the Hindu Upanishads. For the Hindu’s, an assumption (or affirmation) of the absolute essence, Atman-Brahman, is necessary for wisdom; hence the expression: “I am that I am”, “I am that” “How could I not be that?”, which actually encourages grasping after “that”. For the Madhyamika, wisdom is not right understanding of an Absolute unconditioned reality but rather to know that all things are empty, which includes an Absolute or Atman. In other words, the Hindu negation of conditioned existence (I am not this body/mind; the world is maya) is done with an ulterior motive in mind, which is to affirm the existence of an Absolute or Atman (which only creates more grasping and clinging). So it negates, in order to affirm. Madhyamika’s negation, on the other hand, is done not for the sake of the affirmation of their own view, but as a complete negation. So the Hindu view entails the erroneous presumption of the existence of an Absolute, Atman or some transcendent reality, hence it sides with the extreme view of “self-nature” or “inherent-existence” (svabhava) which is refuted by Madhyamika’s.
Also, a transcendental realm, such as Atman or Brahman, is not our experience in the empirical world. We have no such evidence of the existence of a transcendental dimension. And we could only judge that transcendental dimension from the point of the empirical, or the everyday, or the conventional. Therefore, the so called transcendental is purely conventional. Therefore, there is no transcendental dimension or reality.
There is another fundamental difference between Buddhist thought and that of Hinduism in that Buddhism has as its philosophical basis the doctrine of Dependent Origination according to which “everything is without an essential nature because things depend on other things”, while Hinduism does not rely on this principle at all. Hinduism advocates that there is one true, independent reality which is Atman or the Absolute. Likewise, those Buddhist’s advocates who would see the doctrine of emptiness as Absolutism and give a special status to the Tathagata as Ultimate reality would be subject to the same criticisms as advocates of the atman-brahman view. Actually, to give the Tathagata special privilege as transcendent or self-existing reality runs counter to the basic doctrines of dependent arising and impermanence. For the Madhyamika, absolutism or any theological approach to the Buddha damages our understanding of the Buddha.
Absolute or Ultimate reality is sometimes referred to as “changeless, not originated, and not dependent on something else.” But isn’t this also the very definition of svabhava (intrinsic existence), which Nagarjuna emphatically refutes? According to this definition, ultimate reality is something with svabhava. Whereas, Nagarjuna regards the idea of svabhava as the source of delusion.
To perceive anything as real, even Ultimate Reality, is the perception of self-nature (svabhava). Nagarjuna’s attitude towards self-nature is wholly explained by one fact. The theory of dependent arising necessarily upholds the Buddha’s doctrine of emptiness (no independent self-nature) which can never be compatible with self-nature (svabhava) theories such as Atman, Pure Awareness, and so forth. Among other things, Hinduism holds the premise, “Atman exists as self-evident truth”, a concept it uses in its theory of non-dualism. Buddhism, in contrast, holds the premise, “Atman does not exist as self-evident truth”, hence Anatman.
The very fact that the atman is essential means that it is necessarily unchanging and indeed unchangeable. In turn, this means that the presence of an essential self makes accounting for the inner change that the Buddha propagated as the means to reach enlightenment (and subsequently end suffering) very difficult indeed — how can we change the unchangeable? In virtue of this apparent contradiction, any concept of a permanent, essential self must be eschewed. Nagarjuna does not identify a concrete, existent essential self whatsoever — instead, he argues that all phenomena are empty of essence or self-existence. Any I-notion (me, mine) is both a symptom of and a source of bondage to suffering (duhkha) through desire and attachment.
Nagarjuna and Zen:
The Mulamadhyamakakarika (Fundamental Stanzas on the Middle Way) is assigned to Nagarjuna and is one of the most important and influential texts in Buddhism. The thrust of the text is not to create another viewpoint but to negate all viewpoints, thereby destroying all speculation about reality. Zen Buddhism took up many of the principles outlined in the Mulamadhyamakakarika. Nagarjuna and the old Zen masters had the same goal in mind – to end ignorance and relieve suffering. Only the approaches differed. They held that all philosophy and speculation on reality leads not to knowledge but to illusion. They reject all philosophical views, including their own, and claim that they assert nothing.
The erroneous viewpoint that objects and things are inherent entities is the beginning of all our troubles. We tend to believe that once a thing exists (say a table), it is not only distinct from all other things, but can continue existing unchanged until such a time as something affects it to cause a change. Our tendency to objectify the world around us, while it may be convenient, causes us to believe that things (and this includes ourselves) have an independent ‘self-existence’. Nagarjuna’s dialectic was all about destroying this viewpoint. Only by jettisoning the deeply ingrained tendency to search for some ‘essential’ nature to things and to our life, can we find liberation and “awaken to reality”. This obsessive delusion we have in thinking that we are dealing with ‘an existing substance’ is ignorance as all we really have is “a construction of our minds.”
Buddhist and Zen teachings are nothing more than a method or skilful means to overcome deeply ingrained ignorance and attachment, both to viewpoints and to words. Nagarjuna said: “I don’t have a viewpoint to give to anyone. All I have is cure from bondage.” He rails against students who “seize on words and form their understanding on that basis.” The old Zen masters, when they found that words were leading to attachment, when the words were becoming more important than the experience they were trying to convey, resorted to striking, shouting, or direct action, such as Chao-chou putting a sandal on his head or Kuei-shan kicking over the water jug.
Nagarjuna, like all Zen teachers, draws us back to this mundane human world, which is none other than nirvana, through his use of language. We live in this world of samsara, of suffering, deception, ignorance and Zen does not deny it nor attempt to escape it. When Chao Chu was asked, “In the day there is sunlight, at night there is firelight. What is ‘divine light’?” Chao Chu replied, “Sunlight, firelight.” The divine and the mundane are one and the same. Nor does Zen attempt to transcend language per se, but to “reorient within it,” to become fluent in expression without dualisms or attachment to the words. Words can liberate or they can bind.
Nagarjuna’s words were designed to liberate but not all who read them can penetrate their subtle meaning or their mystery. All too often Nagarjuna’s words, like the Zen masters’ words, are taken as an Ultimate truth instead of as upaya (skilful means). Through the process of reductio ad absurdum he negated all truths without affirming any truth. By affirming that all things are empty, he was able to negate both existence and non-existence without contradiction. The great Sun-lun master, Chi-tsang wrote, “Originally there was nothing to affirm and there is not now anything to negate.” Zen eschews all intellectual speculation and places the emphasis on the practical aspects of achieving enlightenment and liberation. At first, this seems quite different from Nagarjuna’s dialectical approach and it is indeed different. But the difference is only in the methodology, not in the purpose. Both Nagarjuna and the old Zen masters were after the same goal: a method of awakening the ignorant and the alleviation suffering.
Self-nature (svabhava):
For Nagarjuna, the source of all suffering is the belief in svabhava, a term that literally means “own being” and has been rendered as “intrinsic existence” and “self-nature.” It is the belief that things exist autonomously, independently, and permanently. To hold this belief is to succumb to the extreme of permanence. It is equally mistaken, however, to believe that nothing exists; this is the extreme of annihilation. Emptiness, which for Nagarjuna is the true nature of reality, is not the absence of existence, but the absence of intrinsic existence.
The central concept around which all of Nāgārjuna’s philosophy is built is the notion of emptiness (śūnyatā). Emptiness is of course always the emptiness of something, and the something Nāgārjuna has in mind here is svabhāva. Different terms have been used to translate this word (svabhāva) into English: “inherent existence” and “intrinsic nature” appear to be the more popular choices, but “substance” and “essence” have also been proposed. By understanding what empty things are supposed to be empty of we simultaneously gain a more precise understanding of the concept of emptiness.
According to Buddhist philosophy, Svabhava is regarded as a conceptual superimposition, as something that is automatically projected onto a world of objects that actually lack it. This superimposition or “cognitive default” is rooted in what the Buddha regarded as our tendency to become attached to things, reflecting a need for solidity and permanence but forever frustrated by the certainty of death. For the Buddhist, to see “things” as empty of self-nature or empty of svabhava is to see them as conceptual constructs, dependent on our minds, and therefore illusory in the sense of not existing objectively outside, independently of our minds.
Self-nature is the insidious nemesis of Buddhist philosophy. A refutation of it was necessary for all false philosophical positions are based on its often subtle influence. Dependent arising is the chief principle by which to refute self-nature.
Self-nature asserts that things exist independently having their own nature essence or being. Whereas, dependent origination states that no “thing” exists apart from its relationship with other ‘things’; there is no thing which ‘is’ or exists independently. If not arisen on their own, then they cannot be said to exist on their own. The absence of self-nature of a thing is a way of saying it is empty.
Dependent arising, that is, the fact that all existing things come into and go out of being only in dependence with other existing things and that no thing can exist “on its own,” as it were, demonstrates the fundamental “emptiness” (sunyata) of all things. One who sees the true nature of things sees that they are empty.
Emptiness does not mean nonexistence or a void. It signifies that things have no “essence” of their own. Everything arises and passes away according to conditions. Emptiness is a shorthand device used to refer to this absence of self-nature. Emptiness is the closest that the Madhyamika comes to advancing a doctrinal tenet. It is the only possible description of the ontological status of the world.
As things arise dependently they cannot have their own nature so they don’t truly arise, nor can they truly cease. The perceiving and conceptual reifying faculties of the individual are illuminated by the non-arising and non-ceasing of things. This pair shows that the existence of things is illusory, and hence any perceptions of them are evanescent, and imputations of existence to them are false.
The Buddha saw that the nature of all conditioned things is transitory and he announced this transitoriness. Asserting a permanent self-nature contradicts the Buddha’s enlightened observation. If permanent, it would be uncaused and unconditioned and wholly autonomous. As such, it could have no influencing effects on the rest of the universe, and so it could never be known. The theoretical denial of self-nature is further upheld by an empirical fact: self-nature is never observed to exist, and so its assertion must be pure metaphysical speculation. Those who do claim to perceive immutable and eternal identity are simply myopic, filtering their perceptions through defilements, grasping and dispositions.
Self-nature is not only imputed on a self and objects but on “other” dimensions such as: (transcendental realms, God, the Absolute, Brahman, extra-terrestrials, aliens, ghosts, near death experiences, and so on). If self-nature of things in this world cannot be established, how can self-nature of something “other” than this world (a ghost) be established? And besides, we could only know such “other” dimension from this dimension. There may be appearances of “other” dimensions (a ghost, or a U.F.O.) but such appearances are empty, just like appearances of this world are empty. “Those who perceive self-nature as well as “other” nature, they do not perceive the truth embodied in the Buddha’s message.” Positing something “other” could never leave the realm of speculation, and so is pointless.
Nagarjuna refuted self-nature so one could escape suffering and appease dispositions and grasping. But if things had self-nature then dispositions and grasping would themselves have self-nature. Since self-nature is unchanging, then the dispositions and grasping themselves would be permanent, unappeasable and eternally binding. One could never break free from them and one’s ability to effect real change would be impossible
The Buddha’s teachings have one purpose, namely, the liberation of one’s mind from metaphysical speculation. Conceptual reasoning, for the Madhyamikas, is often the self-nature (svabhavic) way of thinking. When one is engaged in philosophical reasoning one tends to ascribe a definite nature or essence to an object, thing, or event. The object is believed to exist in a primary manner, unconstructed, permanent, unchanging, not dependent on anything else, and is regarded as the ultimate or final nature of things. The Sanskrit word Brahmanism used for “unchanging essence,” was “svabhava.” It was said that Brahman was svabhava, and so was the individual atman. Svabhava represented the transcendental order of the cosmos, the unchanging nature of ultimate reality beyond the ever changing world of phenomena that shapes our lives, seemingly caught up in a stormy sea of impermanence which is described as illusion.
Traditional Hindu philosophers employed this svabhavic way of thinking and held that Atman or Consciousness or Awareness is the ultimate reality of the universe. Early scholastic Buddhists also used the svabhavic way of thinking and held that dharmas (morality, divine law) are the real constituents of the world. All those philosophers have the same error, namely, the svabhaavic way of reasoning. Dependent origination has been used by the Madhyamikas to refute this. The concept of a definite nature or real essence is contradictory to or at least incompatible with the empirical phenomena that things are subject to causal change. So it cannot be used to describe the true state of our experience. Consequently it is unintelligible to use ontological entities to explain the reality of the universe. Nagarjuna said, “Things are produced from various conditions and hence have no self-nature. If they have no self-nature how can there be such things?” Thus dependent origination serves as a means to refute the concept of self-nature and thereby to eliminate the ontologization of any entity or object.
The theory of dependent arising necessarily upholds the Buddha’s doctrine of selflessness, which selflessness can never be compatible with self-nature theories. If self-nature is true one should be in a position not only to negate dependent arising of all things, but also to provide evidence for the establishment of a metaphysical substance called self-nature. This has not yet been achieved.
The Buddha’s teaching of dependent origination, according to the Madhyamikas, is concerned not only with the conceptual description of the reality of the universe but also with the conceptual explanation of human behaviour. The fatalist claims that all things are causally determined and one cannot shape one’s future; while the fortuitist argues that everything happens by chance and one is not responsible for one’s actions. For the madhyamikas, fatalism and fortuitism were two extreme views; either one could make human responsibility and religious discipline impossible. Fatalism is untenable because it is contradictory to the empirical fact that the existence of everything is conditional and subject to change. Fortuitism is also untenable because it is also contradictory to the fact that all things are dependent upon causal conditions.
The Buddha tirelessly taught these truths of emptiness and dependent origination till the time of his mahaparinirvana. But the teachings left several doubts in the minds of the disciples and they began to interpret his teachings in their own ways. Consequently they began to expound the teachings in terms of realism, agnosticism, scepticism, and nihilism. As a result of such clinging, the views of an “eternal self” and “self-nature” began to emerge.
The “Materialist” philosophies of the early classical period were clear about the reality and function of self-nature. Since causation could be attributed neither to a God nor to an inner soul, they reasoned only inherent self-nature could be invoked to account for it. Thus, self-nature became elevated to the status of a fixed, universal law. Self-nature was perceived to be the only determinant of, and force behind, causation or production.
The main difference between, Hindu (svabhava) and Materialist (svabhava) boils down to morality. First, the Hindu was more transcendental. The eternal all-pervasiveness of atman required that nothing really new come into existence. Causal change was always ultimately superficial. The Hindu tradition emphasized the spiritual quality of ultimate reality, a corollary of which was that morality is real. One’s action determined one’s fate. The Bhagavad-Gita’s final chapter states clearly that each person has a self-nature which determines his or her duties in life. One can only obtain freedom by properly living out and manifesting one’s svabhava.
The Buddhist theory of self-nature is unlike any of the above. Any ideas of self are false and imaginary beliefs, which have no objective ground. Further, the illusory belief in self-hood is the direct cause of craving and greed. “In short, to this false view can be traced all the evil in the world.” Although the Buddha clearly stated that there is no self, but he did not intend for this to be interpreted as a negation of something that once existed.
It is the inherent self that is negated, not the conventional self. By negating the conventional self, i.e. denying any sort of self-hood, the result is annihilationism, a state of distress over losing that which one believes one now has. Also, annihilationism would undermine moral accountability. On the other hand, the Jains fatalistic determinism is another threat to accountability; if one’s nature and actions are determined as inexorably by previous karma, as the Jains held, then the motivation of individual initiative is greatly lessened.
At this time the Realists offered their view. They asserted that if there is no metaphysical soul behind the aggregates then the aggregates themselves must be real. If the soul is not an ultimate entity, then the individual atomistic elements (dharmas) of which the world is composed must be ultimately real. These elements are real, they taught, and each has its unique and individual atomic “self-nature,” svabhava.
The Hindu Upanisads asserted an unchanging and eternal agent perceiver, and declared that this eternal soul is the ultimate object of all perceptions. They argue that prior to [perceptions], such a perceiver “is.” The immediate problem with this is that such a “prior subject” could be nothing more than a speculative abstraction. If the subject is said to exist prior to perception then “by what means is it made known?” There is no way to be aware of or even to posit the existence of a subject prior to perception. Further, if such a prior entity were posited, then perceptions would exist independent of the perceiver, which is absurd. The analysis shows the impossibility of the subject’s existence independent of any of its experiences by virtue of existing prior to them. The consequence of this is broad. “Someone prior to, simultaneous with, or posterior to [perception] is not evident,” and therefore neither are the experiences themselves evident.
Beginning and End:
The process of dependently arising phenomena is beginningless. There is no first cause (or beginning) because every factor is dependent on some other factor. If it had a beginning, then there would be one thing which came first, which thing would then be the originating cause of the entire subsequent chain. It is not that a beginning is hidden in immemorial time, nor that it is inaccessible due to having been set in motion by a transcendent power. Rather, a beginning (something that does not depend on anything else) is simply inconceivable. Without a beginning, neither can there be said to be an end to the process. Whatever arises dependently cannot have its own nature. This is why nothing truly begins or ends, why nothing is born and nothing dies.
When asked about the beginning, The Great Sage said that “nothing is known of it”.
The Buddha says it is not even appropriate to speak of the ultimate ends of an individual life-span, for they cannot be “real.” If birth were real, then three undesirable options would arise. If birth preceded the entity of death, then there would be a birth without old age and death, and all arisen things would be immortal. If death is inherent in birth, then something will be dying at the same moment it is being born. Finally, if it is flatly stated that birth and death are separate, then no born things will die and the things that die will never have been born. This is a whole different way of viewing the nature of birth and death: they do not exist on their own, and therefore one can in no way speak of origins or ends. The prior and posterior are not evident.”
Whatever our current situation in the world, it had to have its own conditions, and those conditions had to have their own conditions, and so on; nothing in the cycle of existence occurs without causes and conditions to bring it into being. We can therefore never find an “original cause” that would constitute the beginning of cyclic existence, because if there were one, it would have arisen without conditions itself, which is impossible. Nowhere is there a single original cause that has the power to produce everything. Thus, there was no actual point when the world began, and how could something that never began ever end? Without a beginning or an end, how could there be any period of time in the middle? Since it has neither beginning middle, nor end, the world does not truly exist. It is like a magical illusion.
The Buddha spurned discussions of beginning and end both because the only important things to worry about are those in the present, and also because ultimate beginnings and ends are not evident and hence inconceivable. In fact, time itself cannot be established. For example, since the past, present and future are imputed to be established dependent on each other, they are without self-nature, hence time is without self-nature, without intrinsic existence. Furthermore, time cannot be considered to be a self-existing thing that is somehow not dependent on other existing objects. The timespan or age of a tree, for instance, depends on the tree. So time itself cannot be truly independent as long as it remained defined by its relation to such supposed objects. Time is not a self-existing substratum or arena in which equally independent things endure or independent events occur. Since time lacks self-nature, there is no intrinsic time when one was born, endures, and when one dies.
Another doctrine, popular at the time, was that the meditator tries to pierce through the appearance to discover the reality behind appearance. But the Madhyamika demonstrates that the ‘concealing’ reality (the appearance of things) does not, in fact, conceal anything, or what amounts to the same thing, it conceals emptiness. Therefore, according to the Madhyamika, the meditators search for the ultimate reality must end up in a quagmire of confusion unless it leads him or her to emptiness.
If the meditators are looking for an ultimate reality, besides what is called the appearance, a reality which is better and more secure than the appearance, then the truth is that there isn’t any such thing. The appearance is the reality. The appearance is all that there is and it is exactly as it is supposed to be, i.e., devoid of any ‘own-nature’, of any essence, any value – it is empty like a reflection. The samsara (the appearance) is the nirvana when it is properly understood. It is the very essence of peace, it is santa and siva. It is the cessation of all our discursive thoughts, all misguided drives and misconceived propensities and their attendant frustrations.
Another false doctrine was Transcendentalism. After the Buddha’s death many disciples came to believe that the Buddha had totally transcended the world, not just ceased to exist. Mahayana Buddhists came to believe that, although the physical Buddha was dead, his intelligence and his teachings remained in a form called the “Dharma Body”, an expression of the ultimate reality, the true nature of things. The Dharma Body came to be known by diverse terms, such as “Buddha-nature,” “Thusness,” or “Suchness of Existents,” and its nature has been interpreted in many ways. Moggaliputtatissa refuted this belief in a transcendent nature of the Buddha by explaining it is an extreme view which sides with the self-nature “svabhava” way of thinking and hence militates against the dependent arising or the empty nature of things.
Concluding remarks:
Dependent arising explains all aspects of the relative world, for it details the process of causation and, hence, the ontology (metaphysics) of the world. Dependent origination (whereby things lack or are empty of independent self-nature) demonstrates relativity and provides a sort of anti-theory on which the rational faculty can focus. The theory is abstruse and its ramifications vast. In the eyes of Buddhism, the doctrine of dependent arising solves all metaphysical and philosophical problems:
A genesis (origination) is solved because no absolute beginning or birth can be established. Without a beginning, an end can’t be established, so eschatology (the doctrine of end-times and death) is solved. There is no need to predict apocalypses or nihilistic destruction of existence. Things arose, but there was no ultimate cause, and things will cease, but there is no ultimate fate.
Soteriology (doctrine of salvation) is likewise solved; one need not face either a final Judgment day or mere annihilation but rather one will just face the abandonment of afflicted existence. Since no “self” can be established, who is it that is born and dies, who is it that goes to heaven or goes to hell?
Although the process of karma is evident, and it was taught simply because a denial of it would destroy the justification for morality, the fact that an effect and its cause arise only in mutual dependence means that neither is truly real and therefore, neither is karma.
Reincarnation is similarly solved with no recourse to a self or entity that reincarnates. Aggregates beget aggregates, but no entity or self reincarnates. Rebirth, on the other hand, means we are “reborn” every instant. Nothing stays the same for an instant, so we are new creations every moment. We are different creations from ten seconds ago. We are ten seconds older; cells have changed, etc.
Two more theories repugnant to the Buddha, the extremes of eternalism and annihilationism, are made reduntant by dependent arising. Nothing is eternal, for, when a thing’s conditioning factors cease, then it will cease. Neither is anything destined to face destruction in non-existence for, as contingent upon other things, it was never independently real in the first place.
Finally, since things are not ultimately real, the affliction of suffering can be vanquished. If suffering were ultimately real, then it could never be abolished.
Those who have faith in the Buddha’s teachings have understood about it in terms of non-inherent existence. They clarify this for others which helps them to attain enlightenment by abandoning grasping at the apparently true existence of things.
“Buddhist Nonduality, Melbourne, Middle Way, Nagarjuna 