Sunny, p. j. Dinnaga on Perception - A Critique From Zen Buddhist Perspective

7/27/2019 Sunny, p. j. Dinnaga on Perception - A Critique From Zen Buddhist Perspective

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ON PERCEPTION: A CRITIQUE FROM

ZEN BUDDHIST PERSPECTIVE

P. J. Sunny

Assistant Professor

Department of Philosophy

Sree Sankaracharya University of SanskritKalady, Kerala, India, [email protected]

It gives me immense pleasure to be an official respondent to one of the papers in this ICPR

sponsored National Seminar on Philosophy of Perception organized by Sameeksha

Research Centre. I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Sebastian Painadath, Director of

the Seminar, and Dr. Sreekala M. Nair, Coordinator of the Seminar and my colleague, for

having given me this opportunity. I am extremely happy to reflect on the paper Dinnaga on

Perception and His Conflict with the Naiyayikas, by Dr. Meenal Katarnikar, Reader in

Jainology from University of Mumbai. At the outset, let me appreciate Meenal Katarnikar for

her learned and instructive paper by telling three interesting stories from the literature of Zen

Buddhism.

The story no. 1) In a Zen Monastery a disciple started to run here and there by roaring,

fire, fire, fire. It was at midnight. The monks escaped immediately from the premises of the

monastery. But the Zen master was in good sleep. So the disciple reached the master:

Master, please leave here, the fire is nearer to you. Master asked, Where is it? Where!

the disciple was angry, The whole kitchen caught fire. Please go out. Ok, let it come here.

But now dont disturb my sleep, said the master and fell asleep.

The story no. 2) says that the Zen master Bukoju was asked by his disciple, Master,

every day we eat food, and dress. How can we get out of this nonsense? You just eat and

dress, replied the master. Master, I dont understand. If you dont understand, dont try

to understand. Put on your clothes and eat your food.


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The story no. 3) Suiryo asked Baso, "What is Bodhidharma's idea of coming to this

country from the West (that is, India)?"This is another way of asking the question, "What is

the ultimate teaching of Buddhism?" Instead of giving any verbal answer Baso gave his

questioner a kick on the chest which made the monk fall to the ground. But when he arose, he

gave a hearty laugh, exclaiming, "How wonderful! How strange! Infinities of mysteries

hidden in hundreds of thousands of samadhis are revealed at the tip of one hair which I now

perceive down to their very depths." He then bowed to the master and departed. Later he said

to his Brotherhood, "Ever since the kick given by my master, I cannot help going on

laughing."

These Zen stories reveal the standpoint of Buddhism towards life. Everybody is living in

the world of conceptual constructions by escaping from the concrete reality which is thepresent. The moment we hear certain words we begin to react as if they are real entities like a

table or a chair. The word fire is not fire but it invokes an emotional vibration similar to

that of real fire. The word nationality generates different feelings in the mind of an Indian

and a Pakistani. There is no entity nationality as such; it creates different conceptual worlds

in those who inhabit different geographical territories. A Zen master need not worry about

the things to happen, for Zen is an experience of the present. The second story reveals the

secret of boredom and its cause. People are doing different things just because of the

unbearable boredom they suffer. Doctors advise their patients to do different things to get rid

of boredom. But doing different things will cause different karmic impressions which will

condition the doer thereafter. Therefore, doing things without thinking about it is the right

path to be free of the boredom we confront in our life. For this, one has to have a non-dual

experience of doing and being, not doing and thinking. In the third story, Zen master Baso

reminds us that the principles of Buddhism cannot be found in words but in the experience of

here and now. To understand Buddhism experientially, one has to abandon all he has

acquired by way of conceptual knowledge and stand before it stripped of every bit of the

intellection he has accumulated around him. Therefore, Zen says to grasp the object with

ones own naked hands, with no gloves on. For this one has to keep the deep sense of here

and now which is the svalaksana, the ultimate reality. The here and now" of Baso's kick

did not allow Suiryo for a conceptual interpretation since it is svalaksana.


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The Buddhist epistemology and logic must be understood within the background of the

philosophical import of these Zen stories. Buddhist scholars have translated the term

prapaca variously as verbal proliferation (Matilal 1986: 10.1) and thought distinct from

reality (Inada 1970:135). Verbal proliferation is nothing but conceptualization. However,

Kalupahana, while explaining the term, argues that Buddhism does not support the view that

reality is unspeakable and indefinable and he asserts that what Nagarjuna meant by the term

prapacam in Mlamadhyamakakrika 22.15 is aloofness from obsessions and hence

the term prapaca means obsession (Kalupahana 1996: 310). We need not quarrel about

the exact rendering of this term because all of them reveal the true import of Buddhist

philosophy: one who is free from verbal proliferations and conceptualizations is indeed free

from all kinds of obsessions linguistic, ethical, social, political, and religious. When one is

free from linguistic obsessions he cannot express reality in terms of a language since all

linguistic expressions are the product of some linguistic conventions or obsessions. In this

context, the scholarly interpretations are meaningless and reality is the experience of those

who have seen it. How much the folly and limitations of academe have misconstrued reality

is beyond words. It is svalaksana or thing-in-itself. Dr. Meenal rightly quotes

which Dinnaga referred to: one who says blue does not see the object

blue, because the object blue is thing-in-itself, the given in experience, the svalaksana,

discrete particular.

The original Sanskrit texts of many Dinnaga literatures have not been preserved; but they

are translated into Chinese and Tibetan languages. It is the Tibetan Buddhism that has

stressed the study of Dinnagas logic and epistemology more seriously than Indians.

Tsongkhapas Gelug School excels all other Tibetan Schools in this direction. It is also

worthwhile to note that Buddhist logic and epistemology is being taught not only in the

Tibetan Buddhist training schools but also in secular branches of learning. Tenzing Gyatso,

the present Dalai Lama, has stated that the Tibetan curriculum consists of Dinnagas

literature. He says that he had to memorize the Dinnaga, Dharmakrti and Nagarjuna

literature in his early educational period (Lama 2005: 45-74). Besides Indian scholars, the

Southeast Asian or East Asian Buddhist scholars are also apathetically approaching the

Buddhist logic.


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The first impression that I get from Dr. Meenals paper is that it provides a lucid

exposition of the Nyaya-Buddhist polemics on nirvikalpaka/savikalpaka perception. But the

very significant question whether it is Dinnaga or Naiyayika who first introduced the

distinction between nirvikalapaka and savikalpa in Indian philosophy has not even been

mentioned. Some scholars have opined that it has been the tendency since Dinnaga to discuss

perception in terms of this differentiation (Matilal 2005: 50). Dharmendra Nath Shastri

(1997:437), well-known scholar in Nyaya-Buddhist epistemology, explicitly stated that it is

first introduced by Dinnaga. But what was the necessity for Dinnaga for such a distinction if

he did not admit savikalpaka as pure perception but inference? If it is necessary in the

practical world, then why cant he admit simply its relevance in the perceptual sphere?

There are several ways by which a Buddhist tries to refute the universals to reach the

ultimate reality, the unique particular, the object of sensation. In the fifth chapter of his

magnum opus, Pramnasamuccaya, Dinnaga refutes the Naiyayika view of universals. He

argues that to say that a universal is to be apprehended by external sense organs is to say that

it must be located in space. If so, we must be able to speak where a universal is located. If it

is located wholly in a particular, then it cannot be true that it resides in a number of

particulars. If the universal resides partially in a particular, then it cannot be undivided. So

the universal cannot be an external sensible object. The only possibility of a universal is

therefore lies in its being as a concept. These conceptual constructions (kalpan) or

universals are thus not the objects of perceptual experience (Hayes 2009: 108).

Conceptual constructions are also to be construed by Dinnagas theory of apoha

according to which concepts are created through a process of exclusion or apoha. A child

does not have name before his names given ceremony. The moment name is given to a

child he becomes excluded from those who have no such names. This discriminative process

is thus a fiction, because even before the names given ceremony the child exists as an

individual. No sooner had he heard a name from the society than he felt the sense of an

identity. The remaining life of that child is with this identification a name, a fiction. A

Buddhist does not say that these fictions are unnecessary; they are useful in praxis. Dinnaga

and his followers insist that truth is not contained in these fictions; rather, we should reach

the state behind names and concepts. This pre-conceptual state is the object of perception


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calledsvalaksana, ultimate reality in Dinnagas philosophy. Here, we may change the Zen

koan What was your original face before your father and mother were born? into What

was your original name before you receive a name from your father and mother? There was

no such name. Hence all names are concepts.

Dr. Meenal has slightly mentioned the Buddhist doctrine of artha-kriy-smarthya

which asserts that anything that exists entails the causal efficiency. This doctrine is

introduced in Buddhist logic by Dharmakrti, the disciple of Dinnaga, to distinguish objects

that really exist from illusory ones. A proper understanding of this theory will also shed light

on why conceptualization is rejected in Dinnagas logic of perception, for it reveals the

Buddhist principle that a non-momentary object cannot have any function either in

succession or in simultaneity.1

It is the svalaksana which is momentary in existence; it only

has the eternal present, namely, the here and now. Every pre-conceptual experience is

momentary and concepts are constructions of the mind and hence vitiated by all the

fluctuations of the mind.

Zen masters have the experiential conviction that only the objects have causal efficacy

and the concepts are oscillations in the outer layers of the mind. For this reason, the most

vital part of the training for a Zen novice is to learn how to get liberated from the pestering

mind. Zen Buddhism thus asserts the state of no-mind as the real goal whereby one is freefrom all types of conceptual constructions.

Dr. Meenal says that Dinnaga gives a definition of perception in Pramnasamuccaya.

But, in fact, Dinnaga does not give a definition of perception per se (Vidyabhusana 2002:

277); however, he describes it as that which is free from conceptual constructions such as

proper name, class name, quality-name, action-name, or substance-name. For Dinnaga

anything which is explained in terms of these five mental constructions is not to be

hypostatized into a real entity. The definition for perceptual experience was not attempted by

Dinnaga because that would militate against his view of perception. Definition is impossible

1arthakriysmarthyalaksanamath vyvartam Vdanyya of Dharmakrti I. 4, translated by Gokhale (1993: 5)


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without the application of these five conceptual constructions and hence he kept aloof from

it.

The learned scholar says that the choice between Nyaya and Buddhism as the better

theory is to be counted by way of a conceptual decision. But there seem to be an attempt in

the paper to defend Dinnaga from empirical standpoint, because the paper observes that from

the empirical stance Buddhist philosophy in general, and Dinnaga in particular, have

accounted for the empirical fact ofsavikalpakapratyaksa. Besides this, while explaining the

difference between Nyaya and Buddhist views on perception Dr. Meenal has rightly pointed

out that in Buddhism, nirvikalpakapratyaksam is genuine perception and savikalpaka is

pseudo-perception; in Nyaya it is savikalpakapratyaksam which is genuine andnirvikalpaka

is only a logical requirement. She has wisely indicated the problem here: if the Buddhist view

is correct, then savikalpaka is either inferential knowledge or not perceptual knowledge at

all. In the former case there would be the question of vyptijna, the ground of inference;

in the latter case, the question is related to the ontological status of the external world as to

whether it is real or unreal. Here the discussion seems to go awry since we do not have a

clear understanding of what these philosophers taught.

The problem lies in the non-understanding of mystical perception in Buddhist experience.

Dinnaga himself says that what apprehends in perception is the particular (svalaksana)devoid of conceptual construction (kalpanpodham) and what apprehends in inference is the

universal (smnyalaksana) associated with conceptual construction. This indeed clarifies

the nature of perception as something mystical. Dinnaga should have conceded that logical

argumentation would fail to capture the reality. The frontier of logic and metaphysics is so

sensitive that upon which the Buddha kept silence many centuries back. Zen Buddhism

recognizes the living in the present which disavows all types of conceptual constructions. For

this reason, Zen masters respond spontaneously to the questions of their disciples and a Zen

discourse is always unstructured as the structure is nothing but attachment to a name, class,

and so forth. A spontaneous response needs deep attunement to the present; it is a mystical

perception. In Sh, one of the classics of Zen Buddhism, master Dogen

emphatically pointed out that perception lies beyond the realm of the mind (Dogen 2007:

246). Zen perception is mystical which can be acquired by the practice of mindfulness in


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Zen monasteries.2

We can read the full version of this training in theMahsatipatthna sutta

ofDgha Nikya.

The early Buddhist literatures like Nikyas were composed by observing the logical

principles of non-contradiction and consistency.Majjhima Nikya provides examples for this

where the Buddha refutes his opponents by indicating their contradictory and inconsistent

statements. By disclosing the contradictory position of the opponents the Buddha often

taught them to see and experience the truth for themselves. We are entrapped by the

contradictions and inconsistencies because we are ensnared by the conceptual constructions.

The Buddha uses the term seeing in the Nikyas for what we call experience. For the

Buddha this seeing is knowing because, what is not seeing is conceptual which is not

knowing. Therefore, knowing-seeing is direct perception or mystical awareness. This

Buddhist epistemological approach has been enriched later by Nagarjuna by his radical

refutation of pramana theories and conceptual thinking. This has been developed by Dinnaga

and Dharmakrti in accordance with Yogacara philosophy.

The culmination of this Buddhist approach is to be found in Zen Buddhism where it

becomes fully praxis, a lived experience. Yaoshan, a Zen master, often prevented his students

from reading scriptures for the reason that it is through meditation and not by books one gets

enlightenment. One day, a disciple caught him while he was reading a Buddhist stra.Master, you have not allowed me to read scriptures. Now, you yourself are reading books!

Why did you do this? he asked. My eyes need to take rest somewhere, replied the master.

Well, but, my eyes too can have it, the disciple retorted. Of course, master said silently,

But your eyes will pierce the whole page.

Bodhidharma, the founding patriarch of Zen Buddhism, declares that Zen is a direct

transmission separate from the scriptures. Zen does not, however, deny the status of the

scriptures as the devices to access the reality. A Zen novice will later realize that scriptures

are nothing but fingers pointing to the reality.

2 In modern times many Zen masters like Thich Nhat Hanh, Seung Sahn, and John Daido Loori have been giving

classes on mindfulness training. Nhat Hanhs Engaged Buddhism is wholly based on mindfulness training and the

Buddhist notion of emptiness nyata.


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When discussing the problem of error the paper observes that, sensation according to

Dinnaga is non-erroneous and the distinction of truth and falsity is not applicable to the

sensation. Here is a possibility of transcending the empirical constructs of good and bad.

Sensation is immediate experience. When a concept interferes this immediacy loses its

purity, svalaksana, and becomes the mediate experience. This mediate experience is the

realm ofsavikalpaka perception.

The paper rightly makes it clear that the svalaksana is a momentary bare particular. This

bare particular is otherwise known in Abhidharma philosophy as ksana. It points to the

Ksanabhanga-vda of early Buddhism. So, we may observe here that the philosophy of

perception in Dinnaga is a logical culmination of the Ksanikavda andAnattavda of early

Buddhism. Both the Anattavda and nyava are based on the doctrine of Prattya

Samutpda which is the original doctrine of the Buddha. So Dinnagas philosophy also must

be understood in the context ofPrattya Samutpda. Zen Buddhism is the scenario where we

find the practical applications of all these principles.

REFERENCES

Dogen, Eihei. (2007) Sh, Translated by Hubert Nearman, Shasta Abbey Press,

California.

Gokhale, Pradeep P. (1993) Vdanyya of Dharmakrti:The Logic of Debate, Sri Satguru,

Delhi.

Hayes, Richard. (2009). Sensation, Inference, and Language, in William Edelglass and Jay L.

Garfield, eds., Buddhist Philosophy: Essential Readings, Oxford University Press, New

York.

Inada, Kenneth K. (1970) Ngrjuna: A Translation of His Mlamadhyamakakrik with an

Introductory Essay, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo.

Kalupahana, David J. (1996) Mlamadhyamakakrik of Ngrjuna: The Philosophy of the

Middle Way, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi.


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Lama, Dalai. (2005) The Universe in a Single Atom: How Science and Spirituality Can Serve

Our World, Little, Brown, London.

Matilal, Bimal Krishna. (1986) Perception: An Essay on Classical Indian Theories of

Knowledge, Clarendon Press, Oxford.

______. (2005)Epistemology, Logic, and Grammar in Indian Philosophical Analysis, Oxford

University Press, New Delhi.

Shastri, Dharmenra Nath. (1997) The Philosophy of Nyya-Vaiesika and its Conflict with the

Buddhist Dinnga School, Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan, Delhi.

Vidyabhusana, Satis Chandra. (2002) A History of Indian Logic: Ancient, Medieval and

Modern Schools, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi.

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Sunny, p. j. Dinnaga on Perception - A Critique From Zen Buddhist Perspective