Introduction
From early times, Buddhism has employed philosophy as a means to understanding moral and what it means to live a meaningful life without regrets in the end. Unlike most religions, Buddhism generally has no creator god. Buddhists believe that people are all born with the ability to stand out and be all they can be. Buddhism rejects certain philosophical concepts. The Buddha is said to have questioned all concepts of metaphysical being and non-being, and this critique is considered by some to be inextricable from the founding of Buddhism.
Particular points of Buddhist philosophy have often been the subject of disputes between different schools of Buddhism.
Readers should note that theory for its own sake is not valued in Buddhism, but theory pursued in the interest of enlightenment is fully consistent with Buddhist values and ethics.
Some have asserted that Buddhism as a whole is a practical philosophy rather than a religion. It is "practical" in that it has specific methods of application of various sets of philosophical principles. Proponents of such a view may argue that Buddhism is non- and religions necessarily involve some form of theism. Others might contest either part of such an argument. Other arguments for Buddhism "as" philosophy may claim that Buddhism does not have doctrines in the same sense as other religions.
A third perspective might take the position that Buddhism can be practiced either as a religion or as a philosophy. A similar distinction is often made with reference to Taoism.
Lama Anagorika Govinda expressed it as follows in ''A Living Buddhism for the West'':
"Thus we could say that the Buddha's Dharma is,
:as experience and as a way to practical realisation, a religion;
:as the intellectual formulation of this experience, a philosophy;
:and as a result of self-observation and analysis, a psychology.
:Whoever treads this path acquires a norm of behavior that is not dictated from without, but is the result of an inner process of maturation and that we - regarding it from without - can call morality."
In the South and East Asian cultures in which Buddhism achieved most of its development, the distinction between philosophy and religion is somewhat unclear and possibly quite spurious, so this may be a semantic problem arising in the West alone.
Philosophical areas addressed in Buddhism
Epistemology
Decisive in distinguishing Buddhism from what is commonly called Hinduism is the issue of justification. The schools of Indian logic recognize various sets of valid justifications for knowledge, or ''pramana'', while Buddhism recognizes a smaller set. Both accept perception and inference, for example, but for some schools of Hinduism and Buddhism the received textual tradition is an epistemological category equal to perception and inference .
Thus, in the orthodox schools, if a claim was made that could not be substantiated by appeal to the textual canon, it would be considered as ridiculous as a claim that the sky was green and, conversely, a claim which could not be substantiated via conventional means might still be justified through textual reference, differentiating this from the epistemology of .
Some schools of Buddhism, on the other hand, rejected an inflexible reverence of accepted doctrine. As the Buddha said, according to the canonical scriptures:
"Do not accept anything by mere tradition ... Do not accept anything just because it accords with your scriptures ... Do not accept anything merely because it agrees with your pre-conceived notions ... But when you know for yourselves — these things are moral, these things are blameless, these things are praised by the wise, these things, when performed and undertaken, conduce to well-being and happiness — then do you live acting accordingly."
Early Buddhist philosophers and exegetes created a metaphysical and phenomenological system, in which all experiences of people, things and events can be broken down into smaller and smaller perceptual or perceptual- units called ''''. These dharmas were interpreted differently by different schools: some held they were real, some held only some were real, some held all were illusory, some held they were , some held they were intrinsically associated with suffering, etc.
Other debates in metaphysics and phenomenology include the issue of the ''pudgala'', or "person", which was inserted by the Pudgalavada school to replace the ''ātman'' as that which transmigrates and which carries the burden of karma from one life to another. Other schools made unsurprising objection to this. There were further sub-debates regarding whether the ''pudgala'' was real or illusory or something in between. The Yogacara school, somewhat later, would later elevate the mind to act as a substitute for ''brahman'', much as the ''pudgala'' replaces the ''ātman''. And the Tathagatagarbha doctrine of some schools of Mahayana Buddhism would see the Buddha of those Tathagatagarbha sutras insisting that the ''atman'' lies at the very heart of the Buddha himself and of ''nirvana'' , as well as being concealed within the mass of mental/moral contaminants which blight all beings. In what claim to be the final Mahayana teachings of the Buddha, the eternal Self is distinguished from the five impermanent ''skandhas'' which make up the non-Self or worldly ego, and the True Self is identified as the ''dharmakaya'' of the Buddha in deathless Nirvana. Such doctrines saw a shift from a largely apophatic philosophical trend within Buddhism to a decidedly more cataphatic modus.
In many or all of these debates, some would point out the irony of pursuing questions some might consider similar to some of those which the Buddha of the ''agamas'' / Pali Suttas is often prone to refuse to answer, on the grounds that they were non-conducive to enlightenment. The Buddha of the Mahayana, however, would on occasion take a different stand and speak of allegedly higher doctrines suitable for the more advanced of his monks.
For more detailed information, see Schools of Buddhism, Mahayana, Tathagatagarbha and articles devoted to the individual schools themselves.
Dependent Origination
What some consider the original positive Buddhist contribution to the field of metaphysics is '''', which arises from the Buddhist critique of Indian theories of causality. It states that events are not , nor are they random, and it rejects notions of direct causation owing to the need for such theories in the Indian context to be undergirded by a substantialist metaphysics. Instead, it posits the arising of events under certain conditions which are inextricable, such that the units in question at no time have independent existence.
''Pratitya-samutpada'' goes on to posit that certain specific events, concepts, or realities are always dependent on other specific things. Craving, for example, is always dependent on, and caused by, emotion. Emotion is always dependent on contact with our surroundings. This chain of causation purports to show that the cessation of decay, death, and sorrow is indirectly dependent on the cessation of craving, and ultimately dependent on an all-encompassing stillness.
, one of the most influential Buddhist philosophers, asserted a direct connection between, even identity of, dependent origination, anatta, and ?ūnyatā. He pointed out that implicit in the early Buddhist concept of dependent origination is the lack of any substantial being underlying the participants in origination, so that they have no independent existence, a state identified as emptiness , or emptiness of a nature or essence . This element of 's thought is relatively uncontroversial, but it opens the way for his identification of and nirvana, which was revolutionary.
Interpenetration
This doctrine comes from the Avatamsaka Sutra, a Mahayana scripture, and its associated schools. It holds that all phenomena are intimately connected. Two images are used to convey this idea. The first is known as Indra's net. The net is set with jewels which have the extraordinary property that they reflect all of the other jewels. The second image is that of the world text. This image portrays the world as consisting of an enormous text which is as large as the universe itself. The 'words' of the text are composed of the phenomena that make up the world. However, every atom of the world contains the whole text within it. It is the work of a Buddha to let out the text so that beings can be liberated from suffering.
This idea was enormously influential on the Japanese monk Kūkai in founding the school of Buddhism.
Ethics
Although there are many ethical tenets in Buddhism that differ depending on whether one is a monk or a layman, and depending on individual schools, the Buddhist system of ethics can, according to some, be summed up in the Eightfold Path.
:"And this, monks, is the noble truth of the way of practice leading to the cessation of suffering -- precisely this Noble Eightfold Path -- right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration."
The purpose of living an ethical life is to escape the suffering inherent in ''samsara''. Although early Buddhism is contrasted with later Buddhism in that the latter emphasizes striving for the enlightenment of all beings rather than simply oneself, in neither case can the motivation for ethical living be called 'selfish', because Buddhist doctrine holds the notion of a 'self' to be illusory.
Buddhist teachings claim that there is no real difference between ourselves and others; therefore one should attempt to increase the happiness of all living things as eagerly as one's own. This is why some Buddhists choose to be .
Historical development of Buddhist philosophy
Early development
Certain basic teachings appear in many places throughout the early texts, so most scholars conclude that the Buddha must at least have taught something of the kind:
* the three characteristics
* the five aggregates
* dependent arising
* karma and rebirth
* the four noble truths
* the eightfold path
* nirvana
Some scholars disagree, and have proposed many other theories. According to such scholars, there was something they variously call Earliest Buddhism, original Buddhism or pre-canonical Buddhism. According to some of them, its philosophical outlook was primarily negative, in the sense that it focused on what doctrines to ''reject'' more than on what doctrines to ''accept''. This dimension is also found in the Madhyamaka school. It includes critical rejections of all views, which is a form of philosophy, but it is reluctant to posit its own. Only knowledge that is useful in achieving is valued. According to this theory, the cycle of philosophical upheavals that in part drove the diversification of Buddhism into its many schools and sects only began once Buddhists began attempting to make explicit the implicit philosophy of the Buddha and the early Suttas. Other scholars reject this theory.
After the death of the Buddha, attempts were made to gather his teachings and transmit them in a commonly agreed form, first orally, then also in writing .
Later developments
The main Buddhist philosophical schools are the following.
* the Abhidharma schools, particularly
** Theravada
** Sarvastivada
* Madhyamika
* Yogacara
*
* Tiantai
Comparison with other philosophies
* Baruch Spinoza, though he argued for the existence of a permanent reality, asserts that all phenomenal existence is transitory. In his opinion sorrow is conquered "by finding an object of knowledge which is not transient, not ephemeral, but is immutable, permanent, everlasting." Buddhism teaches that such a quest is bound to fail.
* David Hume, after a relentless analysis of the mind, concluded that consciousness consists of fleeting mental states. Hume's Bundle theory is a very similar concept to anatta.
* Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy was very similar to Buddhism.
* Ludwig Wittgenstein's "word games" map closely to the warning of intellectual speculation as a to understanding, such as the ''Parable of the Poison Arrow''.
* Friedrich Nietzsche, although himself dismissive of Buddhism as yet another nihilism, developed his philosophy of accepting life-as-it-exists and self-cultivation as extremely similar to Buddhism as better understood in the West
* Heidegger's ideas on Being and nothingness have been held by some to be similar to Buddhism today.
Some Buddhist philosophers
* Asanga
*
* Chandrakirti
* Dignaga
* Dogen
* Fazang
* Jinul
* Jizang
* Nagarjuna
* Vasubandhu
* Wonhyo
No comments:
Post a Comment