The difference between sa^msaara and nirvaa.na
By David Loy
Philosophy East and West
volume 33 no 4, October 1983
(c) by University of Hawaii Press
p. 355-365
p. 355
That sa^msaara is nirvaa.na is a major tenet of
Mahaayaana philosophy. "Nothing of sa^msaara is
different from nirvaa.na, nothing of nirvaa.na is
different from sa^msaara. That which is the limit of
nirvaa.na is also the limit of sa^msaara; there is
not the slightest difference between the two."(1) And
yet there must be some difference between them, for
otherwise no distinction would have been made and
there would be no need for two words to describe the
same state. So Naagaarjuna also distinguishes them:
"That which, taken as causal or dependent, is the
process of being born and passing on, is, taken
noncausally and beyond all dependence, declared to be
nirvaa.na."(2) There is only one reality--this world,
right here--but this world may be experienced in two
different ways. Sa.msaara is the "relative" world as
usually experienced, in which "I" dualistically
perceive "it" as a collection of objects which
interact causally in space and time. Nirvaa.na is the
world as it is in itself, nondualistic in that it
incorporates both subject and object into a whole
which, Maadhyamika insists, cannot be characterized
(Chandrakiirti: "Nirvaa.na or Reality is that which
is absolved of all thought-construction"), but which
Yogaacaara nevertheless sometimes calls "Mind" or
"Buddhanature," and so forth.
But if, as Buddhism claims, there never was an
"I, " how can "I" experience dualistically? The
answer, of course, is that "I" do not experience
dualistically; the sense of duality is only an
illusion, since all experience is and always was
nondual. However, this only raises the question in a
different form: if not how does the delusion of
duality originate (since Buddhism "turns aside" all
such questions about first causes), then how is this
delusion of duality perpetuated? Since we are told it
is possible to overcome the sense of duality and
attain--or, more precisely, realize-nirvaa.na, what
obstructs the experience of nonduality?
The purpose of this paper is to outline an answer
to that question. It seems to me that there are three
main factors which constitute "the process of being
born and passing on," two of which--craving and
conceptualizing--are well-known. What is not so well
understood is the relation between them and their
relation with a third factor which Naagaarjuna
identifies-causality. The interaction of these three
factors works to sustain the sense of duality.
Avidyaa, ignorance, is not a separate factor but a
generic term for their interaction.
I
Craving, ta^nhaa, is the most obvious factor,
since the Buddha's Second Truth identifies it as the
cause of our dukkha (dissatisfaction). Fundamentally,
the problem of craving is not sensual desire but
attachment in general, whether to sense-experience or
to "mental events." How does such attachment generate
the
-----------------------------
David Loy is a Senior Tutor with the Department
of Philosophy at the National University of
Singapore.
This paper is part of his doctoral dissertation
to be submitted to the National University of
Singapore. Philosophy East and West 33, no. 4
(October 1983).
p. 356
sense of duality? Does not the concept of attachment
presuppose duality--an "I" which is necessary in
order to cling to something? The Yogaacaara answer is
that the tendency of nondual Mind to "freeze" or "fix
itself" gives rise to the distinction between subject
and object: "that-which-is-grasped" becomes reified
into an objective "thing" and "that-which-grasps"
becomes the "self." Here the mutual interdependence
of subject and object is obvious: there can be no
"that-which-grasps" without "that-which-is-grasped."
But it is claimed that this dualism is delusory, for
there is no real distinction between the content of
consciousness and consciousness itself. "When
cognition no longer apprehends an object, then it
stands fully in [nondual] consciousness-only, because
where there is nothing to grasp there is no more
grasping.... The absence of an object results in the
absence also of a subject, and not merely in that
grasping."(3) Nirvaa.na, of course, is "the end of
craving" and therefore the end of such grasping. "The
tendencies to treat object and subject as distinct
and real entities are forsaken, and consciousness is
established in just the true nature of one's own
[nondual] consciousness."(4)
So the problem of craving is not "moral"
(whatever that could mean) but epistemological: it
distorts "my" perception of the world.
II
But such attachment seems limited to what is
immediately presented. "I" can "grasp at" a
particular appearance only because that appearance is
now appearing. How can I grasp at something that is
not present any more? In such a case, the ability to
"re-present" an appearance will be beneficial. It
gives me a way of retaining "it" and referring to
"it." It enables "grasping at a distance." Hence the
advantage of a system of re-presentation--that is, a
language.
But this is also the origin of a problem. The
fundamental difficulty with craving is that it
generates a sense of duality--"I" desire that "thing"
which, more fundamentally, I already am. The problem
of re-presentation is that it widens the gulf between
the "I" and the "object." I re-present a particular
"object" by calling it, say, an "urg." This enables
me to refer to the "object" even when it does not
immediately appear. But when the appearance is again
introduced, the re-presentation "urg" does not
disappear, as having no more function. It still
re-presents the appearance. Now we know what the
appearance is. It is "urg"; or it is a particular
instance of a universal: "an urg." Now I experience
the appearance "through" the re-presentation. The
problem is that, the more successfully a system of
representation functions, the more likely we are to
confuse the representation with the appearance. So
tathataa, the "thusness" quality of things as they
really are, is subjected to vitarka, conceptualizing,
and to vikalpa, false imaginings, which filter and
distort sense experience; we are urged to "cut
through" this "fog of concepts" if we want to realize
the true nature of the world. Mahaayaana emphasizes
this problem of conceptualizing more than Theravaada,
which emphasizes craving generally. In fact this is
the source of much of the
p. 357
quarrel between them: Mahayanists criticize
Theravaadins for reifying the Buddha's words into a
doctrinal system, and the paradoxes of the
Praj^naapaaramitaa suutras may be understood as an
attempt to avoid that pitfall.
But there is a serious confusion in the above
analysis. It is not the case that the presented world
is divided up into grasped "objects" which we later
re-present; rather, we divide up the world the way we
do (that is, learn to notice what is present) with a
system of representation. John Searle, a contemporary
philosopher of language, explains this well:
... I am not saying the language creates reality.
Far from it. Rather, I am saying that what counts as
reality... is a matter of the categories that we
impose on the world; and those categories are for the
most part linguistic. And furthermore: when we
experience the world we experience it through
linguistic categories that help to shape the
experiences themselves. The world doesn't come to us
already sliced up into objects and experience: what
counts as an object is already a function of our
system of representation, and how we perceive the
world in our experiences is influenced by that system
of representation. The mistake is to suppose that the
application of language to the world consists of
attaching labels to objects that are, so to speak,
self-identifying. On my view, the world divides the
way we divide it, and our main way of dividing things
up is in language. Our concept of reality is a matter
of our linguistic categories.(5)
Such an approach is reminiscent of Kant's
distinction between things-in-themselves and
phenomenal things-as-we-perceive-them -- the same
distinction we have made in order to distinguish
sa^msaara from nirvaana. In place of Kant's twelve
"Aristotelian" categories Searle offers language,
"our system of representation." Searle and Kant both
doubt that it is possible to experience
"things-in-themselves," but the contemporary view
seems to leave the door open in a way that Kant did
not: Is it possible to get behind language? Is that
not what occurs in meditation, when one "lets go" of
all ideas and concepts?
That this contemporary Western view of language
is consistent with Buddhist teachings may be seen by
looking at the Buddhist analysis of perception.
Various schools divide up the act of apperception
into a different number of stages (even the five
skandhas may be interpreted as one such version), but
fundamentally they agree about the nature of the
process. This is summarized by Conze into "three
levels of the apperception of stimuli," to which
"three kinds of `sign' correspond--the sign as (1) an
object of attention, as (2) a basis for recognition,
and as (3) an occasion for entrancement." In the
first stage, one turns towards a stimulus; attention
is directed to a "bare" percept. In the second stage,
what has been perceived is recognized, "as a sign of
its being such and such a part of the universe of
discourse, and of habitually perceived and named
things." So the "bare" percept is now recognized as a
girl, or table, or whatever, with all its
connotations. These connotations are elaborated in
the third stage, which "is marked by the emotional
and volitional adjustment to the `sign'."(6) In the
case of a girl, I may be attracted by her and so try
to get to know her.
This whole sequence usually occurs so quickly
that we are not able to distin-
p. 358
guish one stage from another; hence we take it to be
one simple mental event: "seeing a pretty girl."
Consequently, we are normally never aware of what it
is like to experience just the first stage, for we
never have experienced just that by itself. So
philosophers as different as Wittgenstein and
Heidegger assert that what we do immediately
experience is "a pretty girl." But Buddhism
emphasizes that we can learn to distinguish these
separate stages, and in fact to experience that first
stage by itself is the goal of the Buddhist path:
The task is to bring the process back to the
initial point, before any 'superimpositions' have
distorted the actual and initial datum. The seemingly
innocuous phraseology of the formula which describes
the restraint of the senses opens up vast
philosophical vistas, and involves a huge
philosophical programme which is gradually worked out
over the centuries in the Abhidharma and the
Praj~naapaaramitaa.`He does not seize on its
appearance as man or woman, or its appearance as
attractive, etc., which makes it onto a basis for the
defiling passions. But he stops at what is actually
seen.'.. `He seizes only on that which is really
there.'(7)
The claim of Buddhism, and most Indian
philosophy, is that "that which is really there" is
very different from what we would normally think it
to be. The Yogaacaara view is that, contrary to what
Conze writes, I can let go of the seizing," too--that
is, the "I" can be let go--and what is then
experienced is the original thing-in-itself, nondual
"Buddhanature."
One might therefore conclude that thinking (and
language), because they distort perception, have
solely the negative function of obscuring reality;
hence we should strive to "transcend" or minimize
them. But this would be a mistake, just as it is a
mistake to think that sense-perception or physical
activity must be "transcended." Nothing is to be
rejected, but its actual nature must be clarified.
The linkage between perception and conception is a
problem that has two sides. Just as concepts veil the
true nature of percepts, so perceptions also obscure
the true nature of thought. When the thought-forming
activity of the mind is used solely or primarily as a
system of representation, something fundamental about
the nature of thinking is concealed. Just as there is
nondual perception, so there must be nondual
thinking--both of which must be radically different
from our dualistic way of understanding them.
Mahaayaana calls our usual representational thinking
vij~naana and distinguishes it from praj~naa, which
is defined as that knowledge in which the known, the
knower, and the act of knowledge are one. The
etymologies of the words are revealing: they both
share the same root j~naa, "to know," but the vi-
prefix in vij~naana (and in vi-kalpa, vi-tarka)
signifies "separation, differentiation"; hence it
refers to that type of knowing which discriminates
one thing from another--most fundamentally, the
knower from the known. The pra- of praj~naa signifies
"to spring up (by itself)"--evidently referring to a
more spontaneous and creative thinking in which the
thought no longer seems to be the product of a
subject (which, of course, it never was), but is
experienced as arising from a deeper, nondual source.
In such knowing the thought and that which is
conscious of the thought are one.
p. 359
The second and third of Conze's stages of
apperception are subjective interpretations based
upon the first. The second, recognition, is part of
what we have called conceptualizing--the application
of our system of representation to what is
immediately perceived. The third, our emotional and
volitional response, will generally be some
expression of craving. It is important to see how
these two work together. In order to crave something,
I must be able to distinguish the object of my
craving from other things, and in order for this to
be done most successfully, language--a system of
representation--is necessary. It may be possible for
me to crave a particular taste without being able to
identify it, but it helps enormously if I can
represent that flavor as "chocolate." The vast number
of possible conceptual distinctions can thereby
increase and refine our cravings. This does not mean
that craving is dependent upon our concept-formation;
the Buddhist view is the opposite: that our system of
representation is at the mercy of our desires, and in
fact evolved in order to help us satisfy and
elaborate them. The motivation behind the particular
way in which we "divide up" the world through
language (hence transforming nirvaa.na into
sa.msaara) is, fundamentally, our craving. In this
way Wittgenstein and Searle turn out to have been
right: we do not first perceptually "pick out"
objects and only later name them and crave them;
rather, we learn to notice them by naming them, and
the motivation behind that naming was originally the
assistance it gave in satisfying desires. (This is
not contradictory to the Buddhist view of perception
discussed above, for what is important to the
Buddhist is that the association of perception with
craving and conceptualizing can be broken.) So a
child learns to cry "Mama!" in order to be fed or
comforted. Perhaps this can be stated more strongly:
through language I become conscious of--that is, am
able to represent to "myself"-- desires which
otherwise remain "unconscious."
III
The third factor which polarizes nondual into
dualistic experience is causality. Inasmuch as any
connection between two bits of experience can be
interpreted as causal, causality may be the most
fundemental of the three; in this way Schopenhauer
was able to reduce Kant's twelve categories to a
single one. For both Kant and Schopenhauer, causality
cannot be predicated of things-in-themselves, because
it is part of what we superimpose upon the noumenal
world in order to experience it phenomenally.
Naagaarjuna agrees:
The universe viewed as a whole is the Absolute
[nirvaa.na], viewed as a process it is the phenomenal
[sa^msaara]. Having regard to causes and conditions,
we have the phenomenal world; this same world when
causes and conditions are disregarded, it is called
the Absolute.(8)
This is generally the view of those who
distinguish between Appearance and Reality: Causality
is the way we relate one object or event to another
in the phenomenal world, but it cannot be predicated
of Reality itself. In fact, the
p. 360
category of causality first becomes necessary because
we phenomenally distinguish between one thing and
another; insofar as we then perceive the world as a
collection of separate objects and occurrences, we
must then determine their relationships to each
other. If and when we experience the world as a
"Whole," there is no such necessity, as Nietzsche
pointed out:
... Cause and effect: such a duality probably
never occurs--in reality there stands before us a
continuum of which we isolate a couple of pieces;
just as we always perceive a movement only as
isolated points, therefore do not really see it but
infer it.... An intellect which saw cause and effect
as a continuum and not, as we do, as a capricious
division and fragmentation, which saw the flux of
events-- would reject the concept of cause and effect
and deny all conditionality.
One should make use of "cause" and "effect" as
pure concepts only, that is to say, as conventional
fictions for the purposes of designation and
communication, not for explanation. In the an sich
[Kant's "things-in-themselves"] there is nothing of
"causal connection, " of "necessity, " or
"psychological unfreedom." There is no following of
effect after cause. No laws hold. It is we alone who
have invented the causes, the after-one-anothers, the
for-one-anothers, the relations, the constraint, the
number, the law, the freedom, the ground, the
purpose.(9)
The well-known problem with Kant's metaphysic is
that, while agreeing that causality is a phenomenal
category, he also illegitimately inferred that
things-in- themselves must be the cause of our
phenomenal appearances. Nor can be easily escape this
difficulty, for without some such view there is no
reason to postulate the existence of
things-in-themselves at all, since he believed they
cannot in principle ever be directly experienced. The
Mahayana view is not subject to either criticism,
since "things-in-themselves"--the Absolute in
Naagaarjuna's quotation just given--are experienced
immediately upon the cessation of appropriation or
dependence--that is, of attachment. Furthermore, the
view that reality is actually nondual avoids the
error of postulating a Reality "behind" Appearance;
rather, Reality is "within" Appearance--or, more
precisely, the Reality that is sought is Appearance
itself, but not, of course, appearance as we normally
understand it. From this perspective, it is our usual
"common sense" view--in which we distinguish between
material objects and their appearance to us--that is
(as Berkeley realized) guilty of metaphysically
postulating a Reality "behind" appearance.
Vasubandhu, like Berkeley, denied not sensible
qualities, such as solidity, but the independent
substratum -- matter-- in which they supposedly
adhere.
Kant, of course, was responding to the problem
with causality that Hume had pointed out. To say that
one event causes another is to assume a necessary
connection between the two, but such necessity is not
something we can ever observe or infer from the
events themselves; we can conclude only that there
seems to be a constant conjunction. The idea of
necessary connection is something we superimpose upon
our sense-perceptions. Hume's view is that this
arises due to the constant association of ideas, that
we eventually notice the connection between events
and then come to expect it. But Kant and others since
him have
p. 361
pointed out that our minds are not so passive: we
instinctively look for--try to make--causal relations
between events.
Naagaarjuna would agree that causal connections
are something that we superimpose upon the world we
experience--hence one of the ways we "transform"
nirvaa.na into sa^msaara. This applies not only to
relations between perceptions but also to relations
between thoughts. Objectively, exploring the
relationships between thoughts results in logic;
subjectively, the apparent connection between
thoughts is an essential aspect of our sense of self.
But this link, like the self, is an illusion:
So with former thoughts, later thoughts, and
thoughts in between: the thoughts follow one another
without being linked together. Each one is absolutely
tranquil.(10)
In the exercise of our thinking faculty, let the
past be dead. If we allow our thoughts, past,
present, and future, to link up in a series, we put
ourselves under restraint. On the other hand, if we
never let the mind attach to anything, we shall gain
liberation.(11)
The general problem with making causal
connections is that in so doing we never experience
the thing-in-itself (tathataa) wholly, because only
part of the mind is perceiving it; the rest is busy
relating it to something else. Of course, insofar as
objects are perceived as distinct, they must be
causally related, but as a consequence we miss
something important about the true nature of that
"object." Just as recognizing and craving for an
object mean we distort "what is actually there," so
does relating the object causally to other objects
and events. The ingrained tendency to see causal
relations is part of that subjective gloss which
distances me from the object and keeps me from
realizing that I am it.(12)
Heidegger's concept of zuhanden(13) ("utensils";
Greek, pragmata) is helpful here: In our usual
day-to-day living what we immediately experience are
not objects just "simply there" but utensils to be
used in various ways. I do not perceive the pen I am
writing with as it is in itself because I am busy
utilizing it to write down words, and the paper I
write upon is not perceived in its full presence but
also just utilized as something to write words upon;
the table is utilized as something to support the
paper; the chair as that which supports me, and so
forth. Heidegger concludes that we immediately
experience the world as a "totality of destinations"
(purposes) which ultimately refers back to me.
Vorhanden, objects just "lying there, " are a
derivative category dependent upon zuhanden, for we
become aware of objects as zuhanden only when they
fail or are not where they should be, or as something
unexpected that "gets in the way"; so, for example, I
will experience my pen as vorhanden only when it runs
out of ink and perhaps not even then: for I may see
it then as a utensil whose utensility is that it is
something to be thrown away into the rubbish bin.
The fact that we normally experience things in
this way fits perfectly with the Buddhist view that
we do not experience things as they are because we
view them causally. But there are two significant
differences between Heidegger and the
p. 362
Buddhist attitude. First, in Buddhism the "totality
of destination" does not refer back to me, it is
"me"; that is, the tendency to treat things in this
way (part of our sa^mskaaras) constitutes the sense
of self, or an important part of it. Second,
Heidegger views vorhanden as derivative from
zuhanden; he saw his project in Being and Time as
overcoming the error (prevailing since Parmenides) of
basing a metaphysics upon vorhanden. The Buddhist
view, as we saw in Conze's three levels of
apperception, is that the primary category is "that
which is actually given, " upon which craving,
conceptualizing, and causality build--except, the
Buddhist agrees, for the fact that usually the
various processes occur so quickly that we are not
able to distinguish between them.
Why do we tend to see objects causally, that is,
as utensils? This is obvious enough: insofar as I
crave, I will need to manipulate the world in order
to obtain what I want. To manipulate requires us to
think causally: what causal factor will lead to the
desired effect? In fact, the desire for such
manipulation may be seen as the root of the concept
of causality:
The idea of cause has its roots in purposive
activity and is employed in the first instance when
we are concerned to produce or to prevent something.
To discover the cause of something is to discover
what has to be attested by our activity in order to
produce or to prevent that thing; but once the word
"cause" comes to be applied to natural events, the
notion of altering the course of events tends to be
dropped. "Cause" is then used in a nonpractical,
purely diagnostic way in cases where we have no
interest in altering events or power to alter
them.(14)
However, this view that causality is merely
phenomenal would seem to contradict the Mahaayaana
understanding of `sunyataa as dharma-nairaatmya.
`Sunyataa in Mahaayaana has two primary meanings:
first, that the world (the true world, nirvaa.na) is
empty of predication; this is essentially the point
already made about conceptualizing as obscuring
tathataa. Second, `sunyataa means dharmanairaatmya,
that there is not anything `in' the world that has
any self-nature, because all things are conditioned
by each other and hence are relative. So Naagaarjuna
interpreted pratiityasamutpaada, the law of dependent
origination, as showing the interdependence of all
things--presumably, as their causal interdependence.
This seems inconsistent with our view that causality
is merely thought-expectation, part of the subjective
filter which interprets what is immediately
experienced.
But there is no contradiction. The essential
interdependence of all phenomena does not mean
causality, in the sense that we and Nowell-Smith have
meant, which is rooted in purposive activity to
attain something desired or to prevent something
disliked. That sense is temporal and linear: some
specific cause A will produce effect B. This
presupposes experiencing the world as a collection of
separated objects; causality explains their
relationship, and our understanding of their
interaction is used to obtain one object and not
another. `Sunyataa as complete interdependence means
that there are no objects and hence no linear causal
relations between objects. Dharma-nairaamya implies
that the world, as
p. 363
Nietzsche pointed out, is a continuum. We may isolate
a couple of pieces, designate them as objects and try
to determine their causal relationship; but in fact
there are no such isolated pieces; there is only a
holistic flux of events. All particulars are simply
momentary appearances, empty forms that the continuum
takes in its constant transformation. Each form is
empty because it has no nature of its own: it is
simply what the whole continuum is doing at this
place at this moment. The other side of the coin is
that because each form is empty it is the complete
manifestation of the entire continuum. Each
particular contains and manifests the whole. Hua-yen
expresses this insight with the analogy of Indra's
infinite net: at each interstice is a jewel which may
be said to be empty because it simply reflects all
the other jewels; but it may also be said to contain
all the others. Thus our cosmos is symbolized as an
infinitely repeated interrelationship among all its
members--each one of which encompasses and expresses
all the others. This is very different from our more
usual linear and temporal conception of causality;
Jung's concept of synchronicity--"an acausal
connecting principle"--is closer.(15)
IV
Let me summarize what has been said so far. In
answer to the question of why we experience this
world (which in itself is nirvaa.na) as sa^msaara,
three factors have been identified: craving,
conceptualizing, and causality. The relations between
craving and the other two have been discussed:
insofar as I crave, I will need to distinguish
conceptually the objects I crave, and I will relate
to objects causally in order to obtain that which is
craved. To complete the triangle, we must look at the
relation between conceptualizing and causality. What
remains to be seen is how causality is built into
language itself.
Earlier, Searle was quoted to point out that
naming is not just a matter of pinning labels on
objects that are self-identifying. "The world doesn't
come to us already sliced up into objects and
experiences: what counts as an object is already a
function of our system of representation, and how we
perceive the world in our experiences is influenced
by that system of representation." So, in naming, I
do not first see a thing and then decide to call it a
"door," for example; to call it a "door" is how we
learn to pick it out and notice it. We divide up the
world and come to see it as a collection of objects
by giving names to those objects. But now we must
take a further step. How does naming "mean"? The
conclusion of recent philosophers such as
Wittgenstein is that we cannot understand how
language functions until we see its connection with
our behavior. Language is an integral part of a way
of life, and the only way we have to determine
whether a person "understands" certain language
patterns is by observing his behavior. A person
understands the meaning of "door" not by being able
to give us a verbal definition, but by being able to
use it in the appropriate way for going in and coming
out. So to understand that "that" is a door includes
understanding the
p. 364
To understand that "that" is "a door" is thus to
define my relationship with "that"; the concept
"door" itself is enough to identify the place of that
thing in my vorhanden system of utensils. As soon as
I recognize something as "a piece of chalk," my
causal relationship with it is established: It is to
be used for writing on a blackboard. At that point, I
will usually put it in its "place" and then pay no
more attention to it until I need to write on the
blackboard. Of course, other recognitions are more
emotionally charged, such as identifying particular
forms as "cigarette" (if one is addicted to tobacco)
or "a pretty girl"; in such cases my possible
relationships with these objects are more obviously
defined in terms of cravings.
So causality is built into language. Names do not
simply cover things like a blanket of snow resting on
the roof of a house. Learning a language is learning
to make causal connections, learning to see the world
as a collection of utensils used in order to
accomplish certain ends. Naming, in the act of
picking out objects, also determines how we relate to
them. In this way, craving, conceptualizing, and
causality work together to sustain a sense of self
"in" an objective world. If "I" want to experience
the "world-in-itself," all three must be overcome.
The "thing-in-itself"--- tathataa---must be realized
to be distinct from any craving for it, from my
representation of it, and from whatever causal
associations it may have for me. For only then can I
realize that I am it.
p. 365
NOTES
1. Na samsarasya nirvanat kineid asti visesanam
Na nirvanasaya samsarat kineid asti visesanam
Nirvanasya ca ya kotih kotih samsaramasya ca
Na tayor antaram kincit susuksman api vidyate
(Naagaarjuna's Maadhyamaka Kaarikaa XXV, 19-20)
2. Ya ajavamjavibhava upadava pratitya va
So pratitya anupadaya nirvanam upadisyate
(Ibid., XXV, 9 (Sprung's translation))
3. Vasubandhu's Tri^m`sikaa-vij~naapti-kaariika, 28.
4. Ibid., 29.
5. From Men of Ideas, ed. Bryan Magee (New York:
Viking Press, 1978), p. 184.
6. Edward Conze, Buddhist Thought in India: Three
Phases of Buddhist Philosophy (London: George
Allen & Unwin, 1962), pages 62-63. The emphasis is
Conze's; he quotes from his own Buddhist
Meditation.
7. Ibid., p.65.
8. Maadhyamaka Kaariikaa XXV, 9 (Murti's Vedaantic
translation of footnote no. 2 above).
9. Nietzsche's The Gay Science, section 112, trans.
Hollingdale; and Beyond Good and Evil, section 21,
trans. Danto.
10. Zen master Ma-tsu (d. 788) , from the
Ku-tsun-hsu Yu-lu (Shanghai: Fu-hsueh-Shu-chu, no
date), I:4.
11. From the Platform Suutra of the Sixth Patriarch,
chapter IV: "Samaadhi and Praj~naa."
12. This view of causality is intimately related to a
different way of understanding time. Causality
requires that the past become the present; that
is, that past causes determine present effects.
To deny causality is to deny this also.
Past things are in the past and do not go there
from the present, and present things are in the
present, and do not go there from the past....
Rivers which compete with each other to cover the
land do not flow. The `wandering air' that blows
about is not moving.
(Seng-chao, Chao Lun)
Dogen later elaborated on this:
... we should not take the view that what is
latterly ashes was formerly firewood. What we
should understand is that, according to the
doctrine of Buddhism, firewood stays at the
position of firewood.... There are former and
later stages, but these stages are clearly cut...
We do not consider that winter becomes spring or
that spring becomes summer.
(Shobogenzo, fascicle 1)
13. Being and Time, III; "The Worldhood of the
World", 15.
14. P. H. Nowell-Smith, "Causality or Causation".
15. The link between the two Mahaayaana meanings of
`suunyataa--otherwise an obscure relationship--is
that by eliminating thought-constructions we
experience the world as such a nondual continuum.