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Wk 06 Wed, Feb 10

Today, Wk 06Further developments in Buddhism Jay L. Garfield ’s Ch. 7, “Just Another

Word for Nothing Left to Lose” in Dasti,Matthew and Edwin Bryant, eds. 2014.FWASIP

Ch. 6 on Things & No-things in Hamilton’sIP: VSI

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WOTD• pratītyasamutpāda Samhita

• Imputation Miles, Dhandeep

Next Class: Wednesday Jainism

– Khilnani’s “Mahavira: Soldier of Nonviolence.”2016

– Padmanabh S. Jaini’s "Karma and the Problemof Rebirth in Jainism." 1980

– Kalghatgi, T. G. 1965. "The Doctrine of Karmain Jaina Philosophy." Philosophy East and West 15 (3/4): 229-42.

– Christopher Key Chapple’s Ch. 3 “Free Willand Volunteerism in Jainism” in FWASIP

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Recap: The 3 Insights of the Buddha

1. See previous lives & their influence on subsequent lives,

2. See the consequences of past lives on current life of others,

3. How to eradicate factors that lead to continued rebirth:• Appetitive desires• Desire for continued existence• Ignorance of true nature of reality• Holding of opinionated ‘views’ (Hamilton, 42-5)

Recap: Buddhism: Central Concepts

Everything is impermanent, anitya Everything has no self, anattā / anātmā

– Personality = 5 aggregates, skandha-s1. Material quality, rūpa2. Feelings / sensations, vedanā3. Perceptions, saṃjñā4. Predispositions, saṃskāra5. Consciousness, vijñāna

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12-fold Dependent Origination,pratītya-samutpāda

1. ignorance → (causes)2. karma / saṃskāra →3. consciousness →4. name & form →5. 6 sense organs →6. contact (with objects) →7. sensation / feeling →8. desire / craving →9. attachment →10. existence →11. birth →12. old age, death, sorrow, misery, lamentation [… → ignorance]

passive, resulting from past karma

the cycle can be broken here

Textual Sources Theravāda Pali canon, tri-piṭaka (3 baskets)

1. Vinaya, monastic rules2. Sūtra, discourses = Nikāyas / Āgamas

1. Dīgha, long2. Majjhima, middle-length3. Saṃyukta, connected4. Aṇguttara / Ekottara, numerical lists5. Kuddaka, 15 small texts including

– Dhammapada, Udāna, Sutta, Therigātha, Jātaka

3. Abhidharma, scholastic / philosophical Study of dharma

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Some Early Schools“Hīnayāna, Lesser Vehicle”

Theravāda, Elders – Sri Lanka, SE Asia– Abhidharma followers

Mahāsaṅgika …. → Mahāyāna – ~320 BCE– ~100 years after Buddha’s parinirvāṇa

Sarvāstivāda, ~250 BCE– Vaibhāṣika – pluralists, realists. Abhidharma.

Sautrāntika … → Yogācāra / Vijñānavāda – ~100 CE

Dharma ≠ Dharma of Hinduism Dharma/dhamma in Buddhism

1. Teachings of the Buddha as a whole IP: VSI, 88

2. “everything,” not-self IP: VSI, 89

Alternate translations:– Factors of existence / things– Mental content / object of a thought / idea / fact– Manifestation of reality– Momentary, causally interacting constituents of reality

(Garfield 177)

3. Cosmic law, governs karma, rebirth4. Ethical rules & norms of behavior

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Mādhyamaka Buddhism Mahāyāna

– Emptiness doctrine– Bodhisattva ideal

The Middle Path between– being and non-being– self and non-self– indulgence and mortification– substance and process

2nd Turning of the Wheel of Dharma

Nāgārjuna ~150-250 CE

– Mūla-madhyamaka-kārikā, MMK 448 verses, in 27 chapters

– śūnyatā, emptiness– Things have no essence of their

own All dharma-s are empty, śūnya, of

own-being, svabhāva.

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Prasaṅga, reductio ad absurdum Rejection of all 4 alternatives (catuṣkoṭi):

1. A2. Not A3. Both A and Not A4. Neither A nor Not A

See box, Hamilton 99

Nāgārjuna A being cannot change, nor cease to be An entity has no essence

– simple v. composite– permanent v. instantaneous– whole / part (cf. #2, Garfield 172)

Thus all entities & concepts are empty saṃsāra = nirvāṇa“The world is a phantom (māyā) conjured by karmic action, the magician, but the magician itself is also a phantom.”

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Emptiness An experience which

– Cannot be linguistically / conceptually communicated

– is non-dual– Content-less– beyond sense perception– ≠ non-existence

Is itself empty– Reminder: emptiness = dependent origination

– Garfield 178, Hamilton 94

Nāgārjuna’s Method Use of logic to destroy logic!

– a thorn to remove another thorn Not arguing for inadequacy of logic

– Otherwise his method wouldn’t work Reason / logic cannot know reality

– Absolute reality transcends language prajñā = intuitive wisdom content-less, non-dual, unconditional

“Calming of all verbal differentiation” Hamilton 97-9

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After NāgārjunaTwo branches develop in Madhyamika:1. Svātantrika

– Bhāvaviveka / Bhavya, (c. 490–570)– use of a syllogism-based (svatantra) method

that aimed to establish true and validpropositions

2. Prāsaṅgika– Chandrakīrti (c. 600-650) – reductio ad absurdum (prasaṇga) method of

argument

Candrakīrti Follower of Nāgārjuna 600-650 CE Author of commentary on MMK

– Madhyamakāvatāra

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Śāntideva 8th century Madhyamaka proponent

~ 685-763 CE Author of Bodhicaryavatara, Guide to the

Bodhisattva's Way of Life

Yogācāra / Vijñānavāda /Citta-mātra (mind-only)

“Practice of Yoga” 3rd Turning of the Wheel of Dharma Consciousness is the only reality

– external world denied??– no reality independent of perception≠ “illusion”

Founders: two brothers– Asaṅga & Vasubandhu, 420-500 CE

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Yogācāra (101-4) beyond scope of thisclass…

Hamilton 105: Developments in Buddhist Thought – a good summary

p. 19, Thomas Pink. 2004. Free Will: A VSI. OUP.

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Meyers: Varieties of Free Will Causal Determinism: prior events → exactly one

metaphysically possible future (48) Can Determinism coexists with Free Will? If No, Incompatibilism

– If no free will, Hard Determinism– If free will exists, Determinism impossible

Libertarianism If Yes, Compatibilism

– Agent has control over actions Fatalism

– Our efforts don’t affect the future Buddhism neutral on Determinism

Meyers: Two Truths1. Conventional truth, saṃvṛti-satya

– Agents, agency, free will– Mental construct, no independent reality– Personal– Autonomy is a necessary delusion, distortion (61)

2. Ultimate truth, paramārtha-satya– Only dharma-s, factors– Irreducible, independent– Impersonal

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Garfield & Western Conception of Free Will

Theodicy = “the justification of God”– Explanations of why a morally perfect,

omnipotent, omniscient God permits evil.

Defenestration = the throwing of a personor thing out of a window

The Western Problem If God exists, then

God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect. If God is omnipotent, then

God has power to eliminate all evil. If God is omniscient, then

God knows when evil exists. If God is morally perfect, then

God has the desire to eliminate all evil. BUT evil exists. If evil exists and God exists, then either

God doesn’t have the power to eliminate all evil, ORGod doesn’t know when evil exists, OR God doesn’t have the desire to eliminate all evil.

Therefore, God doesn’t exist.

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Some Attempted Solutions Evil a consequence of The Fall (Eden exit) Mix of good & evil, free will =

environment for humans to grow &mature

… No Contradiction – God works in ways

unfathomable by humans

Inapplicable to Buddhists!West presupposes Agency

– “our identities arise … from our own impositionof a unity & coherence on a complex … streamof events & processes (Garfield, 174)”.

– “the person is a conceptual imputation … withno reality apart from that designation (178).”

Buddhism → Dependent Origination– no causal independence

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Mādhyamika: Two Truths At the Conventional level

– Things “exist” At the Ultimate level

– Persons, things are just concepts– Nothing exists– Emptiness

MMK 24:18,19 (Garfield 178)

That which is dependent originationIs explained to be emptiness.That, being a dependent designationIs itself the middle way.There does not exist anythingThat is not dependently arisen.Therefore there does not exist anythingThat is not empty.

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Mādhyamika Self & Agency Self is a Construction Identity: Three universal characteristics (180):

1. Impermanence2. Interdependence3. Absence of Self

Choices “occur” based on background disposition & states

Imagined self has freedom to react/respond based on:– fear, anger, despair, greed – OR –– compassion, sympathetic joy, generosity, confidence– Freedom of Authority as opposed to Will– Causal determinism

Self as a Narrative 180-182

“To act … is … for the causes of our behavior to be part of the narrative that makes sense of our lives …” (180)

“… West—we do make choices, often hard choices; we do perform acts that merit moral assessment; we do assign responsibility to agents for their actions, and absolve others; and we do assess acts morally. But none of this requires us to talk about freedom or about a faculty of will.” (181)

“Some actions are expressive of and conducive to virtue, happiness, liberation, and the welfare of others and merit praise; others are not. But there need be no more to moral assessment than that.” (182)

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Garfield’s Conclusion“[T]he path to liberation, seen in the context of a self that is but a conceptual imputation, is a path to the authorship of a narrative in which a better self is the protagonist, a self whose actions are conditioned by compassion, sympathetic joy, generosity, and confidence, by responsiveness as opposed to reaction. The self I imagine at the higher stages of the path is free in ways that the self I construct now is not. … a freedom of a conceptually imputed person from the bars of a self-constructed prison, a freedom that in no way demands any causal indeterminism.” (182-3)