BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHICAL DOCTRINES

BASIC BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHICAL DOCTRINES

There are some philosophical doctrines that are so early and so fundamental to Buddhism that denials of them tend to be regarded as profoundly non-Buddhist heterodoxies. All forms of Buddhismendeavor to maintain these principles.

1. Momentariness: Nothing exists for any length of time. There is no substance or duration to things. Each moment is an entirely new existence, which is succeeded by an entirely new existence. The only connection between one thing and the next is that one causes the next. This doctrine sounds much like the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. You cannot step into the same river twice. The "things" tend to be called the dharmas in Buddhist thought.
2. Relative Existence or No Self Nature: Nothing has a essence, nature, or character by itself. Things in isolation areshûnya, "empty." The nature of things only exists in relation to everything else that exists. Existence as we know it is thus completely relative and conditioned by everything else. Only Nirvân.a would be unconditioned, although we cannot know what it is like. The distinction between the conditioned reality that we know and the unconditioned reality that we do not know is similar to the distinction betweenphenomena and things-in-themselvesmade by the German philosopherImmanuel Kant. The notion that thedharmas derive their nature from everything else has led to comparison with the "monads" of another German philosopher, Leibniz. The monads also represent the whole universe. However, since the dharmas are momentary, this is actually more like the actual entities postulated by Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) in his "Process" philosophy.Shûnyata, "Emptiness," is easily misunderstood. It is not nothingness. Emptiness is neither existence, nor non-existence, nor both existence and non-existence, nor neither existence nor non-existence. At the very least, this means that we don't know what is left when we take away all conditioned relations. Beyond that, it can mean that we cannotknow what that is. No Self Nature means that there are no essences, just as Momentariness means that there are nosubstances.
   
3. No-Âtman: There is no Self (âtman) in Buddhism, either as an essence or as a substance. What we call our self is a collection of things, the "aggregates" (skandhas): 1) the body, or "form," 2) feelings, 3) ideas, 4) impressions, & 5) momentary consciousness. There is no enduring thing present in the aggregates. This critique of the self as just a collection is very similar to the view of the Scottish philosopher David Hume -- though without Hume's critique of causality. An implication of No-Âtman is that reincarnation cannot be transmigration, since there is nothing to migrate.
4. No-God: There is no Brahman or any other such ultimate enduring substance or nature to reality. Nirvân.a thus cannot be characterized as realizing either Self, Brahman, or God.
5. Dependent Origination: Everything has a cause. A momentary existence occurs as it does because of a previous momentary existence, but the cause itself is also momentary. Dependent Origination combines the doctrines of momentariness and relative existence and is why in the Second Noble Truth desire and ignorance cause each other. That relationship can be expanded:
   
   1. ignorance (avidyâ), causes
   2. impressions (samakâras), which cause
   3. consciousness (vijñâna), which causes
   4. mind-body (nâmarûpa), which causes
   5. the sense organs (s.ad.âyatana), which cause
   6. contact with objects (sparsha), which cause
   7. experience (vedanâ), which causes
   8. desire (tr.s.n.â), which causes
   9. clinging (upâdâna), which causes
   10. the will to be born (bhâva), which causes
   11. rebirth (jâti), which causes
   12. suffering (jarâmaran.a), which in turn causes
   13. ignorance (avidyâ).
   Nirvân.a is thus not the removal of an ultimate cause but the simultaneous removal of all causes, all of conditioned existence. The interpretation of Buddhist doctrine discussed above, that "suffering" is really more like unhappiness or dislocation, puts forward the notion that our understanding of Dependent Origination (now often called "Interdependent Arising") enables us toadjust to the world and thus live a happy and normal life. This may be a reasonableMahâyâna or Japanese interpretation, but the point of the original teaching (the Third Noble Truth) is that Nirvân.a is to be attained by the removal of the causes of suffering, which means the entiresystem of causation in Dependent Origination -- to be free of the world, not adjusted to it. The normal in this world is what the Buddha wanted to avoid.
   
6. Karma: Because there is no substance or duration in Buddhism, the Buddhist view of karma is different from that in Hinduism or Jainism. Karma is only causation, without the mediation of any substance (apûrva, causal body, etc.). Reincarnation thus consists in our beingcaused by something in the past, and our karma is simply the effect now of past actions.

In the history of Buddhist philosophy, these doctrines created some difficulties. If there is no self, then what is it that attains enlightenment or Nirvân.a? It is not me, for I am already gone in an instant; and if it isnot me, then why bother? Also, if there is no enduring self, then the rewards and punishments of karma are visited ondifferent beings than those who merited them. Why do I, instead of someone else, deserve the karma of some past existence? The Buddha himself probably would have been irritated with the doctrines that created these difficulties, since he rejected theorizing (it did not "tend to edification"), and he would have expected no less than that such theories would lead to tangled and merely theoretical disputes.

The important philosophical lesson of these difficulties, however, is whether the concept of causality (which is accepted with none of the skepticism visited upon substance and essence) can be used as a substitute for the concept of substance. In all honesty, no. Something rather like the Buddhist position, however, can be formulated by Kant, for whom the concept of substance applies to phenomena but has only uncertain meaning when applied to things-in-themselves. Phenomena are only "provisional existence" to Buddhism, and the Buddhist doctrine of no enduring Self could easily be adapted to the Kantian transcendent.