Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics, Volume 4: Philosophical Topics
Conceived and Introduced by His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Edited by Thupten Jinpa
Somerville, Mass.: Wisdom. 617 pp., hardcover, $29.95.
Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics, the monumental series conceived by the Dalai Lama, concludes with the publication of volume 4: Philosophical Topics. The first two volumes are dedicated to science, while the next two volumes are dedicated to philosophy. (Volume 1 was reviewed in Quest, summer 2018; volume 2, in Quest, summer 2021; volume 3 in Quest, fall 2023.)
An integral part of any teaching is, in addition to study, how to integrate it into our lives. The understanding gained through study must translate into guiding our actions by that understanding. This fourth volume has selected key topics with that goal in mind. Many topics could have been included, but this volume focuses on six vital aspects.
The first part, “The Two Truths,” deals with reality, indicating that the way things appear to us is not the way things truly are. The second part addresses the important debate about the concepts of self and no-self.
The next two parts are titled “The Yogacara Explanation of Ultimate Reality” and “Emptiness according to the Madhyamaka Tradition.” These discuss the two major strains of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. The Yogacara (or Yogachara) school belonged to the Buddhist masters Asanga and Vasubandhu; it focused on understanding the nature, structure, and functions of consciousness, while the Madhyamaka was driven by Nagarjuna and his philosophical heirs. It emphasizes the Buddha’s teaching of the “middle way,” which, according to this school, entails a denial that things have any inherent nature at all.
Part 5, titled “Buddhist Logic and Epistemology,” discusses questions on nature and the limits of knowledge. The final part, titled “Denotation and the Exclusion Theory of Meaning,” looks at the philosophy of language, specifically how language relates to the world. For example, when we say “cow,” what does that actually mean? Is there a real cow, an image, or some “universal cow that is instantiated in all particular cows”?
Buddhist philosophy primarily engages in a search for the way things are in the ultimate sense. What is the motivation for this activity? It is to free ourselves from suffering (dukkha) and help others to do the same using meditative concentration and contemplation. It delves into the causes of suffering, examination of mental afflictions and their rising, and what causes “contaminated actions.” Ignorance arises because we don’t clearly understand the difference between conventional reality and ultimate reality.
This volume explores this issue in great detail. Vasubandhu states in his Treasury of Knowledge:
If something is no longer cognized
When it is broken or mentally separated apart,
Like a pot or water, then it is conventionally existent
What other than that is ultimately existent
What does this mean? Conventional truth relates to phenomena that, if broken or split up, are no longer cognized as such by the mind that apprehended it. The important point is that when an object such as a pot is broken, the mind that perceives it as a pot is broken as well. The same is true if a pot is analyzed cognitively, into the phenomena of touch, taste, smell, and so on.
By contrast, ultimate truth refers to a phenomenon that, if broken or mentally split up, continues to be cognized as such by the mind that apprehended it. Examples here are “directionally partless particles” and unconditioned space. Furthermore, the Sautrantika school defines “ultimate truth” as relating to “that which is ultimately able to perform a function” as opposed to that which is “ultimately unable to perform a function.” This is merely a miniscule glimpse into the depth of discussion of this topic from different schools and scriptures in this volume.
The volume also discusses the issue of “self” versus “no-self.” The non-Buddhist schools postulate a Self—atman—that has three characteristics: it is eternal, unitary, and indivisible. Buddhist schools reject such a notion.
The chapter on “Non-Buddhist Assertions of the Self” discusses various justifications for existence of self. For example, the Vedanta school teaches: “The essential nature of the self, or Brahman, is posited to be eternal, unitary, consciousness, the source of elements such as earth, the basis of the first arising and of the final dissolution of the world and its inhabitants, omnipresent and nondual.”
The Buddhists refute this idea from three levels: (1) refutation of a permanent, unitary, autonomous self; (2) refutation of a substantially existent, self-sufficient self, and (3) refutation of an inherently existent self. The first two points appear in Vasubandhu’s Treasury of Knowledge and its commentaries, and the third appears in Nagarjuna’s Fundamental Treatise on the Middle Way.
The argument goes this way: if the self were permanent and not dependent on conditions, then who creates karma and who experiences results of the karma? Since the self cannot be seen apart from its aggregates (mental factors), it cannot be unitary. To say that the chapters on “Buddhist Proofs of Selflessness” and “Repelling Objections to No-Self” are compelling and exhaustive is an understatement!
A section on sources and additional notes is a pathway to further investigations into these profound selections. My Zen teacher used to urge us to assimilate teachings into our blood. The Marathi commentary on the Bhagavad Gita contains 9,000 verses, and it is said that experiencing just one of these is enough. Volume 4 of this series provides ample opportunities to take such a journey.
Dhananjay Joshi