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    BUDDHIS T P HIL OS OP HY ANDIT S EUROPEAN PARALLELShi searchforphilosophical parallelsisfraught with m anyA pitfalls. Some parallelsarefruitful and significant, othersincidentalandfortuitous. I nowproposetodiscusstheEuro-pean parallelstoBud dhist thoughtin twoarticles,ofwhichthefirst is devoted to the true,and the second to the spurious,parallels.Asfor myinterpretationof thebasic principlesofB uddhism,

    I have recently givenit insome detailin Buddhist ThoughtinIndia.1 Sincemyviews differ tosome ex ten t from thoseof mypredecessors,Iwill brieflysumthemup sot h a tthereadercansee what kind of " B u d d h i s m " I compare with Europeanphilosophy.The basic teachingof theBuddhacan beexpressedin onesentence:The conditioned worldas it appearsto us is funda-mentally and irreparably undesirable, and salvation can befound only through escapeto the Unconditioned, also called NifvaMa*** Everything elseiselaboration.All conditioned thingsaremarredbyhaving thre e marks , "i.e . by bein g imperm anent , ill1^,and aliento ourtrueself .2Much thought has gone into determining the full meaningofthose marks. IE , forinstance , comprisesnotonly painandsuffering, but also the unease which is nowadays known as' ' exis tent ial anxiety" ,3and themarkof"no t-self hasgivenrisetointerm inab le discussions.4 Hu m an beings fret againstaworld whichisimperm anent,ill, andnot-selfand are not con-tenttolivein it,because they believe th a tin thecoreof their

    1Buddhist Thoughtin India (London: George Allen&UnwinLtd.,1962).Hereafter BTM.*BThI,pp.3443-3 This willbediscussedonpages 237-9.4 AboutitsrelationtoHum e's denialof a self , seepages 239-42.

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    Buddhist Philosophy and its European Parallels 211own being the y are ete rna l, at ease, an d in full control of every-thing.1 This alienation of our empirical personality from ourtrue being (i .e. , from the "Tathagata" within us2) is broughtabout by "craving 1 ' .3If we w ant to re turn to our original sta teof purity , we m us t first regenerate ourselves by developing fivecardinal virtues,4of which wisdom is th e last an d m ost im por-tant. After these virtues have sufficiently matured, we canslowly at tem p t a break-throu gh t o the Unconditioned,5 which,through the three doors of deliverance, i.e., Emptiness, theSignless, and the Wishless,6leads toNirvana,7 which is a sta tein which the self has become extinct, in which none of thisworld is any longer extant, and which therefore transcends allwords and concepts.8This is all qu ite simple to un dersta nd , thou gh at time h ard tobelieve. It is very much complicated, however, by being com-bined w ith an ontologieal theo ry of Dharma which requiresa tremendous intellectual effort.9 This theory distinguishesthree levels of reality: 1. The one and singleDharma,which isthe ultimate and unconditioned reality of Nirvana. 2. Am ultiplicity ofdharmas,or mom entary and impersonal events,which, thou gh illusory com pared w ith th e one singleDharma,10are more real than the things around us. 3. The things of thecommon-sense world, which are mere verbal constructions, inth a t the y are com binations ofdharmasheld together by w or ds ."The Buddhist "dHARMA-theory1* is unique, and has no exactequivalent anywhere else.12So much for the tenets of what I call "archaic* 1 Buddhism.They were probably formulated by the time of Aioka. 1 3 Twocenturies late r the further elaboration of these ideas led to tw odistinct schools, i .e., the "scholastic Hinayana" and the

    *BThI, pp .43-6.2I t is "A cen tral peace, subsisting a t th e heart/Of endless agitation "(W. W ordsworth). See below, p . 221.3See below, p . 223. 4BThI, pp.47-55. 5Ibid.,pp. 56-8.6Ibid.,pp. 59-69. 7Ibid.,pp . 69-79.8 The teachings of European mystics correspond to this doctrine inits general tone (see below, pp . 2202), bu t only Schopenhauer matchesit in m any particula rs (see below, p p . 2224).9BThI, pp . 92-106. I0Ibid.,pp . 223-5 (s e e below, p . 227).11Ibid.,p. 97n. 12See below p . 236.13274-236 B.C.

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    212 Thirty Years of Buddhist Studies"Mahayana", which, contrary to what is often said, did notsignificantly conflict in their doctrines but merely divergedin their range of interest . The "scholastic Hlnayana" 1 con-centrated on the conditioned dharmas, systematized theirclassification, defined more precisely their particular attributesand general marks, and worked out the relations pertainingamong them.2 The creative contributions of the Mahayana,on the other hand, almost exlcusively concern the Uncondi-tioned. In particular , the notion of "Emptiness", which in"archaic11Bu ddhism had been one of the avenues to Nirvana,was now immensely enriched.3 I t was also buttressed by asearching analysis of the "own-being*1 of dharfnas,*using atype of logic which in Europe we would call "dialectical/ '5Equally applied to conditioned and unconditioned dharmas,"e m p tin es s" led to their identification. The result is a "m o n-i s t i c" ontology which shows many analogies to Europeanm etaphysical systems of the same ty pe ,6while th e descriptionsof the bafflement experienced by the intellect when con-fronted w ith this one an d unique Absolute resemble the positionof the Greek skeptics in many ways.7

    Of special inte res t for th e them e of these articles is th e ch ap teron "Taci t Assumptions" ,8 in which I compare Buddhist withcontemp orary m entality, and try to establish th a tBuddhist thinkers made a number of tacit assumptions which areexplicitly rejected by modern European philosophers. The first,common to nearly all Indian, as distinct from European, " scien-tific " , thought treats the experiences of Yoga as the chief rawmaterial for philosophical reflection. Secondly, all*perennial1' (asagainst " modem 1') philosophers, agree on the hierarchical structureof the universe, as shown in a) the distinction of a "triple world"and B) of degrees of tfreality", and c) in the establishment of ahierarchy of insights dependent on spiritual maturity. Thirdly, allreligious (as against a-religious) philosophies a) use ''numinous"as distinct from "p rofane" terms, and B) treat revelation as theultim ate source of all valid knowledge.101BThI, pp .119-91. aJbid.tpp . 148-58. 3IMd.tpp. 242-9.*Ibid.,pp . 239-41 (see below pp . 223-4).5BThI, pp . 2614; also below, p p . 227-8 .6See below, p p . 2247, 7See below, pp . 21720.8BThI, pp. 1730. 9For a definition, see below, pp. 2135.10BThI, p . 17.

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    Buddhist Philosophy and its European Parallels 213This is no t how everyone sees it, and the doub ting reader m us tbe referred to the arguments of my book.The cornerstone of my interpretation of Buddhism is theconviction, shared by nearly everyone, that it is essentially adoctrine of salvation, and that all its philosophical statementsare subord inate to its soteriological purpose. This imp lies; no tonly that many philosophical problems are dismissed as idlespeculations,1 but that each and every proposition must beconsidered in reference to its spiritual2 intention and as aformulation of m edita tiona l experiences acquired in the courseof the process of winning salvation. While I cannot imaginean y scholar wishing to challenge th is methodological po stu late ,I am aware that, next to D. fT. Suzuki, I am almost alone inhaving applied it consistently.Finally, an y interpre tation of Budd hism which goes beyon dthe indiscriminate accumulation of quotations, and attemptsactually to understand Buddhist thought involves an elementof choice, in th a t one ha s to decide which one am ong th e num er-ous presen tations of the B ud dh a's doctrine should be regardedas the most authentic. Bu-ston favours the Buddhism of thePala period, Frauwallner the Yogacarins, Oldenberg the PaliCanon (minus the Abhidhamma), Stcherbatsky the scholasticHlnayana and the later logicians, D. T. Suzuki the earlyMahayana and Zen, some Chinese schools the Saddharma-pupdanka, an d so on. W ithProf.Murti, I regard the Madhya-mikas as representing the central tradition of Buddhism, andbelieve that with them Buddhist theorizing reached its fullmaturity. This preference colours much of what I have to say.What, then, is the relation of these Buddhist teachings toEu ropea n philosophy? From th e outse t, I m ust adm it th a t I donot believe in a clear-cut distinction between "Eastern" and"Western" mentality. Until about 1450, as branches of thesame "perennial philosophy/ '3 Indian and European philo-sophers disagreed less among themselves than with many of

    1See below pp. 234-5,24 2 -2For a definition, see below, p . 216, no te 1.3 This te rm was originally inven ted by Catholics to describe th ephilosophy of St. Thomas and Aristotle. In all probability it was firstused by Augustinus Steuchus, Episcopus Kisami, Bibliothecarius toPope Pau l II I, in hisDe perenniphilosophia,libri x, 723 pp., Basel 1542.15

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    214 Thirty Years of Buddhist Studiesthe later developments of European philosophy. The lfperen-nial ph ilosop hy " is in this con text defined as a doctrine whichholdsi I. That as far as worth-while knowledge is concernedno t all men are equa l, bu t t h a t there is a hierarchy of persons,some of whom, through what they are, can know much morethan others. 2. That there is a hierarchy also of the levels ofreality, some of which are m ore " r e a l " , because m ore exaltedth an othe rs. 3. T hat the wise men of old have found a* wisdom'*which is true , although it h as no " em p iric al " basis in observa-tions which can be m ade b y everyone and everyb ody ; and th a tin fact there is a rare and unordinary faculty in some of us bywhich we can attai n d irect contact w ith actua l reality throughthepfajfld (pammitd) of the Buddhists, the logosof Parm en-ides,1 th e sophia of Aristotle2 and others, Spinoza's AMORdeiintelleciualis,Heg el'sVernunft, and so on. 4. T h at tr ue teachingis based on an authority which legitimizes itself by the exem-pla ry life and charism atic qua lity of its expon ents.Within the perennial philosophy Indian thought is markedoff by tw o special fea ture s: 1. The reliance onyogaas providingH e states qu ite clearly the m ain presuppositions involved. The very firstsentence formulates his program , i.e.ut unum est omnium rerum princi-pium, sic unam atque eandem de eo scientiam semper apudomnesfuisseratiomultarumquegentium ac liter arum monimeniatestantur.On p. 7 andlater he explains th a t th eSapientiawas strongest in the beginning, wheni r s t given by God, and t h a t later on it becomes more and more dissipatedand w eakened. W herever it appears, th issapientia,orveritas veniens adhomines, agrees so much in essentials, ut apparet necessario unamtotius humani generis esse religionem.Late r on th e term was adoptedby Leibniz to designate Ms own brand of eclecticism (Le ttre a R6niond,1714,Gerhardt III 624-5),a n d abo ut 1908 by Willmann in MsHistoryof Idealism,3 vols. More recently it was tak en over by Aldous Huxleyand others, and m y definition is akin to th a t of Ananda Coomaraswamy.A. Huxley in Ms famous book of 1946 envisaged only the mysticalschool, whereas here I include the intellectual and speculative trends,i.e., Pla to and Aristotle as well as the German idealists. The only peoplebefore 1450 who are excluded are those who, like the Lokayatikas inInd ia, were deliberately antispiritual, bu t no t necessarily th e Epicur-eans who were anticlerical b ut no foes of a tranquil and serene life.1Being for Mm is* *one ' 'kata tonlogon(when seen by reason),* m a n y '*kata tin aisthisin (when seen by perception). Aristotle, Metaphysics,I986 b33~4 .2In MsMetaphysics,Aristotle has tak en great pains to describe th esubjective counterpart of "being as being", e.g., in Book I, gSh

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    Buddhist Philosophy and its European Parallels 215the basic raw material of worth-while experience.1 2. Theimplicit belief in karma and rebirth. Yoga, of course, has itscounterpart in the West in the spiritual and ecstatic practicesof contemplatives, and belief in reincarnation is nearly world-wide,2 though rare among philosophers accorded academicrecognition.Th en, as I see it, b y 1450, th e E ast , in decline sinceA.D.1,000,had fallen asleep an d from thereon lived on its inherited cap ital,un til in th e end inn ate letharg y an d aggression from th e ou tsidebrou gh t it to its present impasse. In th e West, a large num ber ofphilosophers discarded the basic presuppositions of the"perennial philosophy'*, and developed by contrast what forw ant of a b ette r te rm we m ay call a " sciential1 '3 philosophy.T ha t has th e following featu res: 1. N atu ra l science, pa rticula rlyth a t dealing w ith inorganic m atte r, h as a cognitive value, tellsus abo ut t he ac tual struc ture of th e universe, and provides th eother branches of knowledge with an ideal standard in thatthey are the more "scientific" the more they are capable ofmathematical formulation and the more they rely on repeat-able and publicly verified observations. 2. No being higherth an m an is known t o science, and m an 's power and convenienceshould be pro m oted a t a ll costs. 3. The influence of spiritual and

    1 Notre philosophic est nSe de la curiositi et du besoin de savoir,d'expliquer le monde d'une fagon cohirente. En Inde la philosophie estrinterpretation rationelle de I*exp6rienee mystiqueJ* So Cons tan t inRegamey, on page 251 of w hat is one of the most notable contributionsso far made to comparative philosophy, i.e., "Tendences et m6thodesde la philosophie indienne c om p are s a celles de la philosophie occiden-tale,1*Revue de ThSologie et de Philosophie, TV (1951) , 245-62 . Regameyalso shows how this difference in thepoint de dSpartleads to a radicaldivergence in the criteria of absolute tru th .2 Joseph Head and S. L. Cranson, eds.,Reincarnation: An East-WestAftthology(New Y ork : The Julian Press, Inc ., 1961).3 The opponents of th e perennial philosophy prefer to describe them -selves as "scien tific/1There can be nothing m ore unscientific, however,than the drawing of extravagant and presumptuous conclusions aboutth e mind, soul, and spirit of man, an d abo ut his destiny and the purposeof Ms life, from a few observations about the expansion of gases, thedistribu tion of m oths, an d th e reflections of th e celestial bodies in l ittlepieces of glass. If I were reduced t o t h a t p a r t of myself which can be seenin bits of glass, I would certain ly feel th a t most of my being was om itted.Why should this not be true also of other things apart from my owndear self?

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    2 i6 Thirty Years of Buddhist Studwsmagical forces, as well as life after death may safely be dis-regarded, because unproven b y scientific m ethod s. 4. In conse-quence, "life11means "m an ' s1 ' life in this world, and the taskis to ameliorate this life by a social "technique 1 1 in harmonywith th e " welfare11or " w ill" of " t h e people11. Bu ddhists m ustview all these ten ets with the u tm ost distaste ."Sciential11philosophy is an ideology which corresponds toa technological civilization. It arises in its purity only to theextent that its social substratum has freed itself from all pre-industria l influences, and in th e end it mus t lead to th e elimin-ation of even the last traces of what could properly be called"philosophy1* in the original sense of "love of wisdom". Forcenturies it existed only blended with elements from thetraditional " p e re n n ia l" philosophy. As philosophies, bo th the"perennial" and the "sciential" systems possess some degreeof intellectuality, and up to a point they both use reasoning.But, considered in their purity, as ideal types, they differ inth a t t h e first is m otiva ted by mans* spiritual 1needs, and aimsa t his salvation from th e world an d its w ays, whereas th e secondis m otiva ted by his utilitarian needs, aims at his conquest of th eworld, and is therefore g reatly concerned with th e na tur al an dsocial sciences. Between t he tw o extrem es th ere are, of course,numerous intermediary stages. They depend to some extenton the quality of the spirituality behind them, which is veryhigh, say, in Buddhism, slightly lower in Plato and Aristotle,and still quite marked in such men as Spinoza, Leibniz,Berkeley, Kant, Goethe, Hegel, and Bergson. The generaltrend, however, has been a continuous loss of spiritual sub-stance between 1450 and i960, based on an increasing forget-fulness of age-old traditions, an increasing unawareness of1 1 have defined the word " spir itual in my Buddhism (3rd ed.,Oxford; Bruno Cassirer, 1957)o n P a e u as involving 1. The devalua-tion of sensory experience, 2. The renunciation of belongings; and 3.Impartiality towards other persons. The quintessence of the spirituallife,shorn of its usual accretions, was adm irably formulated by Pe trusDamiani in th e eleventh cen tury in two exceedingly fine poems whichhave recently been reprinted in F. J. E. Raby, ed., The Oxford Bookof Medieval Latin Verse (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959), pp. 1859.The second has also been trans lated into English in Frederick Brittain,ed., The Penguin Book of Latin Verse (Harmondsworth, Eng land;Penguin Books, Ltd., 1962), pp. 176-80.

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    Buddhist Philosophy and its European Parallels 217spiritual prac tices, an d an increasing indifference to th e spirit-ua l life b y t h e classes which d om inate society.Leaving aside th e relative me rits of th e " perennial11and th ef

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    218 Thirty Years of Buddhist Studiesclose similarity, both in intention and structure. They alsoagree in that the history of skepticism exhibits the same ten-dency to dev iate in to a p urely theore tical intellectualism whichhas continually threatened the integrity of Buddhist thought.Greek Skepticism went through four stages, which R. G. Bury 1has called the practical, the critical, the dialectical, and theempirical. The parallel with Buddhism is closest in the firststage, i.e., with Pyrrho (360-275 B.C.). In the last, with SextusEm piricus (A .D . 160-210), it is barely perceptible. Indeed,tak ing the later developm ents as his norm , B ury can affirm th a tPyr rho " was prob ably not a t all a full-blown Sceptic, bu t ra thera moralist of an austere and ascetic type who cultivatedinsensibility to externals and superiority to environment/ '2It was only in the New Academy, with Arcesilas (315-241B.C.), th a t Skepticism " ceased to be purely practica l an dbecame mainly theoret ical / '3 "Thus, while Pyrrho had re-nounced and Timon flouted the Dogmatists, Arcesilas startedthe practice of refuting them scientifically and systematically,an d earned the reb y th e abuse of Timon for his lapse from pu rePyr rhon i sm/ '4 In fact, when we read Sextus Empiricus, wefind that, although some of the original message has remainedintact ,5 it has been overlaid by a vast technical apparatusaccumulated over five centuries and by numerous concessionsto common sense. Th e bulk of Sextus1work is parasitical on th edogmatic philosophers, and seems to be motivated more bydisputatiousness and the desire to score debating points thanby a positive interest in mental repose. In many ways hisat titu d e resembles tha t of the later B udd hist logicians.At the time of Cicero, halfway between Pyrrho and SextusEm piricus, this loss of spiritua l com m itment h ad no t gone qu iteso far. Some of the statements which Cicero makes in his

    1 R. G. Bury, trans., Sextus Empiricus, 4 vols. Vol. I, Outlines ofPyrrhonism(New Y ork : G. P . P utn am 's Sons, 1933), p* xxx.2Ibid.,p . xx x ; Cf. also p. xxx i.3Ibid,,p . xxx ii. 4Ibid.,p. xxxiii.5 E.g., in what the skeptiki agoge("sceptical procedure") (Book I.Chap. 4) has to say about ataraxia(*=iamatha) as the end of life (I.2530), or a b o u t t h e svabhava (physis orperi ton exothen hypokeimendn)(1.15,22, 93 ,163), th e rela tivity of everyth ing (1.135), or on non-asser-tion (I. 192-193), non-determination (I. 197), and non-apprehension(I. 200).

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    Buddhist Philosophyand itsEuropean Parallels 219Academica,1 on behalf of or in response to the Skeptics,areindeed strikingly similarto theteachingsof the Madhyamikasand other later Buddhists.The Skeptics were people who "sanctioned nothing asproved (quinihilprobarent2). Allthose thingsyoutalk aboutare h idden , closely concealed (occuUata)and enfolded in thickcloudsof darkness,sot h a t nohu m an intellect has sufficientlypowerful sightto beabletopenetratetoheavenand getinsidethe ear th ." 3Though it ispossiblythecase th a t w hen exposedand uncovered they change their character (quia possit fieriut patefactaetdetecta mutentur).4 TheSkeptics " ha v e a habi tof concealing (occultandi)their opinion, and do not usuallydiscloseit to any one except those that had lived with themrightup to oldage '1 .5And theopponent says, "W h a t prayarethose holy secrets (mysteria)of yours, or why should yourschool conceal(celatis)itsdoctrineassom ething disgraceful? 6

    " I t is the wiseman (sapiens) t h a twe are invest igat ing",7and it is on him tha t all this enquiry turns '1 .8 He "avoidsbeing takenin andseesto it t h a the is not deceived}t.9 Theyhold that "nothingcan bepe rce ived 'V0 orgrasped(compre-hendi, anupalabdhi)," and the"wisemanwill restra inallactsof assent>f (adsensus, abhiniveia).12 Thereisalsoareferencetothe pervers i ty" (pmvitas)ofseeingthenon-realasreal,

    1 3andto arguments against thesenses, whicharesaidto be"fullofdarkness" , 1 4 and against "everything that is approved in

    1Cicero,BeNaturaDeorum Academica,H.Rackham,ed. andtrans.(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961).2Ibid,,pp.488-9,Academica,II (Lucullus),vi, 17.3Ibid.,pp.6245,Academica,II (Lucullus), xxxix,122.*Ibid.5Ibid.,pp.462-3,Academ ica,fragmentNo. 21.6Ibid.,pp.542-3,Academ ica,II(Lucullus), xviii,60.7Ibid.,pp.5501,Academica,II (Lueullus),xx, 66.8Ibid.,pp.614-5,Academ ica,II (Lucullus), xxxvi,115.9Ibid.,pp.550-1,Academ ica,II (Lucullus),xx, 66.10Ibid.,pp.550-1,554-5, 608-9, 489-90,542-3.They do notdenyth at some tr u th exists,butdeny tha tit can beperceived11(quivert esse

    aliquidnonnegam us, percipi posse negamus),II,xxiii,73.11Ibid.,pp.620-1,Academica,II (Lucullus), xxxviii,119.12Ibid.,pp.554-5,Academ ica,II (Lucullus),xxi, 68." Ibid.,pp.566-7,Academ ica,II (Lucullus),xxv, 80,*4Ibid.,p. 559,Academ ica,II (Lucullus), xxiii,73.

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    220 Thirty Years of Buddhist Studiescommon experience*1 (consuetudo^safhvrti),1 And, as thoughhe had read thePrajnapdramitd herself, an opponent pointsout that "as for wisdomherself, if she does not know whethershe is wisdom or no t, how in t he first place will she mak e goodher claim to the name of wisdom? Next, how will she venturew ith confidence to plan or execute any un de rtak ing when therewill be no thing certain for her to a ct upon? 22. Secondly, there is a close similarity with those ascetic,other-worldly, an d " m y st ic a l" th inke rs who assigned a decisiveimportance to "spiritual experience". They are representedby four main trends:a) First, there are th e Wisdomspecu lations of theNear Eastbetween 200 B.C. and A.D. 300. Their conception ofchochmaandsophiais closely analogous to t h a t ofprajnapdramitd, andsome of the similarities are really quite startling.3B) Next, we must mention the kindred Gnostic and Neo-Platonicmodes of thought, especially the later Neo-Platonists,like Proclus and Damascius,* and also their Christian form inOrigenes an d in D ionysius Areopagita, who in some passages ofhisMystical Theology5gives w ha t m ay well be called a Christianversion of the Heart Sutra.c) Thirdly, there are the great mystics of the thirteenth andfourteenth centuries, such as Meister Eckhart, 6 Ruysbroeck,and Suso. Their kinship with Buddhism has been noted so1Ibid.,pp .562-3,Academica,I I (Lucullus), xxiv, 75.2Ibid.,p. 499;Academica,I I (Lucullus), viii, 24.3For some details, see m y review of H . Ringgren, Word and Wisdom,on pp. 207-9.* Some useful m ateria l has been collected b y R, Gnoli inLa Parola delpassato,I (1961), fasc. LXXVII,153-159. See also J. Rahder's sugges-tions oniunyatainIndogaku Bukkydgaku Kenkyu (Journal of Indian andBuddhist Studies).IX , N o. 2 (1961), 754. On th e other hand , I can see nomerit in E. Benz fs attempt to establish a direct link by claiming thatPlotinus* teacher, Ammonios Sakkas , was either a member of theIndian dynasty of the "Saki", or a "Sakya" (Sakiya, Sakka), i .e., aBuddhist monk.Qrientalia Rom ana, I (1958), 18-20 (Instituto Italianoper il Medio ed Estremo Oriente. Serie Orientale Roma, XVII).s I.e., 1.2, I I . 1, I I I , 1, chaps. 4 and 5. The translations are ap t to obscurethe parallel, which becomes strikingly obvious as soon as the Greektex t is consulted.6Cf. Daisetz T . Suzuki, "M eister Ec kh art and Buddhism, " in Mysti-cism, Christian and Buddhist (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.,1957).PP- 7-35-

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    Buddhist Philosophy and its European Parallels 221often that I can be quitebrief.Ruysbroeck says of th e " God-seeing man11 that "his spirit is undifierentiated and withoutdistinction, and therefore feels nothing without the unity1*.Among Western contemplatives, iunyata corresponds to the"desert of the Godhead Jf, to Ruysbroeck's "idle emptitiess*1,to Eckhart's still wilderness where no one is at home, to the"naked orison11, the "naked intent stretching unto God1*,which becomes possible with entire self-surrender, and also toth e fathomless abyss of Ruysbroeck an d Tau ler. l Th is " abyss "is wholeheartedly welcomed by those steeped in self-negationand self-naughting, but, later on, less selfless people like B,Pascal2 and Ch. Baudelaire3 felt rather ambivalent when con-fronted w ith it, since they wene clearly none too ench anted w iththe implications of being " separated from all created things 1*.TheTheohgia Germanica*(ca.1425), as is well know n, containsmany formulations with a distinctly Buddhist flavour. Themost striking similarity lies, of course, in th e cons tan t emphasison " I-hood an d selfhood **,and " I , me, and minef*a s th e sourceof all alienation from tru e reality, and on the need to undo th a t"blindness and folly1*.5 But this is not all. On re-reading thebook I have been astounded to find how close it is in so manyways to Buddhist m entality, in spite of i ts au tho r 's "ca utio uslimitation of his speculations to what is compatible with theChurch*',6 and some minor concessions to theism, especiallyin th e lat er par ts. A pa rt from th e subject of satkayadrstithis istru e of w ha t is said abo ut th e Godhead ( =Nirvana), thq'' deified

    1For a good description, see Tauler, "Serm on on S t. Jo hn theBapt i s t ,inThe Inner Way: 36Sermonsfor Festivals.New translation,edited w ith Introduction by A rthur W ollaston H utt on (London:Methuen & Co., L td., 1901), pp . 97-9 . Cf. St. Jo hn of th e Cross,NocheOscura,V ol. I, Book 2, chap . 17.2E.g., L. Brunschvicg, ed.Pensies(14th ed., P ari s; H aeh ette, 1927),p . 350.3 I t is qu ite interesting to note, when readingLes Fleurs du Mai, thevary ing and conflicting connotations of such key term s asgouffre, ab ime,andvide. New Y ork: Pantheon Books, Inc ., 1949. Lo ndon: Gollancz, 1950.This is th e transla tion of S. W inkworth, revised by W . Trask, on th e basisof J . Be rnh art's translation into modern Germ an:TheohgiaGermanica(New York: Pantheon Books, 1949).s Chaps. i~5, 20, 22, 24, 32, 34, 40, 44, 49, 51 .6Bernhart, op. cit.tp . 101.

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    222 Thirty YearsofBuddhist Studiesm a n " ( = the bodhisattva), activated by both "cog ni t ion"anda " love1 ' wherein "there neitheris nor canremainany I,Me, Mine, Thou, Thine,and the l ike" ,1 non-at tainment,2 theperverted views,3 self-deception ( =Avidya),4 Suchness,5faith,6 the One,7 emptiness,8 desire,9 and so onin fact,quiteanimpressive list.d) Towardsthe end of theseventeen th ce ntu ry, sho rtly afterGalileo, European mysticism of this type lost its intellectualdistinction, and faded away into the "Qu ie t i sm" of MolinosandMme.Guyon.In theaftermathof the French revolution,m an yof thebasic lawsof the spiritual life were re-discoveredby great poets who were also fine thinkers, such as Blake,Shelley, Wordsworth,andColeridgeinEn gland . Though oftenvitiated by a fatal rift between theory and practice, theirthought offers many parallels to Buddhist thinking. To thisgeneration of rebels against the Goddessof Reason belongedArthur Schopenhauer, whose thoug ht, pa rtly under Indianinfluence, exhibits numerous, and almost miraculous, coinci-dences withthebasic ten etsofB udd hist philosophy.lTheterm"p ara l le l" implies th attwolinesrunparallelatmore thanonepoint,and thedegreeofaffinity existing between Schopenhaueran d Bu ddhism w ill giveus as tandardbywhichtojudge otheralleged "parallels."

    Ashehimself said, Schopenhauer continuedthetriple trad i-tionof quietism,i.e. thegivingup of allwilling, asceticism ,i.e.inten tional m ortification ofone'sownwill,andm ysticism ,i.e.consciousnessof theidentityofojie'sowninner being with th a tofallbeings,orwiththekernelof theworld."**Heshows th a tlifein theworldismeaningless, essen tially suffering,andboundIIbid.,pp.191-2,197. 2Ibid.,pp. 167, 180, 183.3IMd.tpp. 119, 186. 4Ibid,,p. 200.sIbid.,pp. 206, 240. 6Ibid.,p. 207.7Ibid.,pp. 197,204-6, 218-9. 8Ibid.tpp. 144,219-20.9Ibid.,p. 115, liebheyt.10Cf. R.Russell,TheNatureandPurposeoftheAscetic Ideal (Kandy,Ceylon: Buddhist Publication Society, i960). H. v. Glasenapp,DiePhilosophicderInder (Stuttgart: Alfred Kroener Verlag, 1958),pp.428-9.I IB. F. J.Payne, trans.,TheWorldasWillandRepresentation(WWR),2 vols. (Indian Hills, Colorado:TheFa lcon's Wing Press, 1958),p. 613,Vol.II.

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    Buddhist P hilosophy and its European Parallels 223to disap point th e hope th a t our desires m igh t be fulfilled. H eattributes this suffering to "the will to live/ 1 which is theequivalent of trsnd, and which "involves us in a delusion."He looks for salvation from this world by way of a " denial ofthe will to live/' which is a "consequence of the dawning ofbe tter know ledge/1*and by an asceticism and self-renunciationexemplified in < rthe lives of saints, penitents, samanas, sanny-asins, and so on."2 We may add his atheism, his denial of animmaterial, substantially unchanging, soul, his belief in rein-ca rnatio n, his stress on compassion as th e b asis of m orality, hisindifference to the "a ch iev em en ts" or " rh y th m " of hum anhistory,3as well as his insight into imperm anence4and into th ereasons why Nirvana can be described only negatively, andyet it is not nothing.5

    I t is only on two po ints th a t he differs from Budd hism .A. He fails to appreciate the importance of disciplinedmeditation. Educated non-Catholic Germans of the nineteenthcentury were quite unfamiliar with the tradition of spiritualcontemplation. On the other hand, for relaxation they habi-tually visited art galleries and went for walks in the country-side.It is no wonder, therefore, t h a t Schopenhauer sees the fore-taste of "the exalted peace" of Nirvana, not in the trances(dhyana), but in "pure esthetic contemplation." Although thecontem plation of beau ty h as some analogy to th e conditionsprevailing in tran ce , it is on the w hole an undisciplined faculty,an d its results are rath er fleeting a nd hav e little power to tran s-mute the personality. In this respect, the German bourgeoistown-dweller was a lesser m an th an th e Ind ian m an in th e forest.

    B . Secondly, Schopenhauer teaches that the Will is theThing-in-itself, whereas in Buddhism "craving" operateswithin the conditioned and phenom enal world, and the uncon-ditioned noumenon lies inNirvana, which is qu ite calm as t h eresult of the abolition of craving. Unacquainted with thepractice of yogA, Schopenhauer d id not know th a t at th e bo ttomWWRt Vol. I I, p . 608.2 Quoted in Fussell, op. cit., p. 1.Samaras= recluses; sannyasins^ascetics.3WWRt Vol. II , chap . 38. WWRf Bk. I, par. 3 ; Bk. I l l , par. 33.sWWR, Vol. I I , pp . 608, 612.

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    224 Thirty Years of Buddhist Studiesof every m ind the re is a calm q uietud e w hich is th e pro toty pe ofNirvana. His central metaphysical thesis is, however, incom-pa tible, no t only w ith Bu ddh ism , bu t also w ith his own soterio-logical aspirations. It is, indeed, not only hard to see how anycognitive act can ever reach the Thing-in-itself, but it alsoremains incomprehensible how thought can ever have thestrength to stand up against the Will, and, what is more, howas a p a rt of the p urely illusory phenom enal world it can possiblyovercome and effectively "deny 1 1 i t .1T his was early on recog-nized b y F . N ietzsche2and J . Bahnsen3 (1881), Schop enh auer'sim m edia te successors, an d led them , respectively, into nihilismand a pessimism unrelieved by the hope of escape.C. Furthermore, Buddhism has a distinct affinity with the"monistic** traditions of European thought. The Eleaticem phasis on the On e4implied deva luation, depreciation, an d attimes even rejection of the plural and multiple world. However the y m ay phrase it, all m onistic system s are in tu ne w ithth e feeling which Shelley formu lated in th e famous v erse ;

    Life,like a dome of many-coloured glassStains the white radiance of eternityUntil death tramples it to fragments.5Parmenides (ca.480 B.C., nearly th e B ud dh a's contem porary)and his successors assume a radical difference between appear-ance an d reality, between surface an d de pth , between w hat wesee {phainomena) an d w hat we can only thin k (no u mena),between opinion and truth. For Parmenides, opinion (drsti)isderived from the senses, which are deceptive and the basis offalse information. Truth is derived from the logos,which ha sfor its object B eing (th at which is and h as no othe r at trib ut es

    1Fo r an exceedingly clear and lucid survey of th e many inconsistenciesin Schopenhauer's philosophy, I must refer to H.M.Wolf,Arthur Scho-penhauer. Hundert Jahre Spater(Bern and Muenehen: Francke Verlag,i960).2H . M.Wolf,op.cit.,pp. 36, 70, 106-7.3About his "miserabilism/* see E. Conze, "The Objective Validityof the Principle of Contradiction fi, Philosophy,X (1935), 216.* Bu t thepantachdreiof Herakleitos fits none too well, because noteverything flows; Nirvdpa, the most important thing of all, beingexcepted.s Good parallels can be found in P. Damiani, "The Glories of Para-dise",referred to above, page 216 note 1.

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    Buddhist Philosophy and its European Parallels 225but to be). Being is, non-being is not; and that which Is cannever no t be, either now or later (as in change). N othing th a tIs can either arise or perish.1

    All monistic systems are remarkably uniform, and they areall equally beset by at least four unavo idab le difficulties. The ymust, first of all, try to guard against the misunderstandingth a t t he One m ight be a da tum w ithin the world, or a p ar t of th econglom eration. B oth Ea st an d W est acute ly felt the difficultiesof finding an adequate verbal expression for the essentiallytranscendent an d elusive reality of the One, an d b oth m ademany attempts to circumvent them by the use of paradoxes,absu rdities, contradictions, tautologies, riddles, nega tions, an dother devices. Secondly, th e m pnists m ust a tte m p t to m aintainth esimplicity of the One by redefining th e meaning of predica -tion in regard to it. In this context, scholastic philosophersexplained that Godiseach of his predicates, whereas crea tureshave the m , and t h a t the predicates of God are no t differentfrom one an oth er, since otherwise he would not be simple.f* Theabsolute essence is no t in one respec t different from w hat i t isin ano the r; w hat it i s , it is in th e tota lity of its be ing ."2Every-thing plural is itself and in addition something else, and onlythe completely free can be itself pure and simple.

    A third problem concerns the relation between the One andBeing.T he old Eleatic school, which flourished between 540 and300 B.C.,3 identifies the tw o. One m ust bea r in m ind, how ever,th a t in doing so it uses a special archaic, pre-Aristotelian typeof logic4which, among o ther things, em ploys " th e principle ofunlimited predication". This means that a predicate is eitherpredicated without limitation of the subject or it is not valid1 " It never w as, and it never will be, since it is, all of it tog ether, onlypresent in the Now, one and indivisible.1' (Diels-Kranz, Fr. 8 [Simpl.Phys. 14.5J.3-6].)2Plotinus,Etmeads,VI. vii. 10.*3 Also the M egarics and A ntisthenes belonged t o it. Pyrrho appearsto hav e star ted with the M egaric position.* S. Ranulf, Der eleatische Satz vom Widerspruch (Kopenhagen:

    Gyldendal, 1924). The archaic charac ter of Parmenides* thinking isalso shown in h is belief th a t Being is a m ass which, as a well-roundedsphere, fills space. Also the well-known works of Prantl, Apelt,Maier, E. Hoffmann (Die Sprache und diearchaischeLogik [Tubingen:J . C. B . Mohr, 1925]), and Cornford are helpful in th is connection.

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    226 Thirty Years of Buddhist Studiesa t all. Th is logic only knows state m en ts of th e type "A ll A a reall B1*, which predicate th e en tire P of t h e e ntire S, w ithou tany qualification as to time, part, or respect, without any dis-tinction being m ade between t ot al and pa rtial ide ntity of S andP , or between their partial and total difference. The Eleaticsalso "assumed that one speaks only in one sense(monachos)of*one*a nd*being ' ."*T he victo ry of Aristotelian logic chang edall that. Plotinus describes the One expressly as "beyondbeing"; for Meister Eckhart , who said that "in the Kingdomof H eave n a ll is in all, all is one, and all is ours " Pure Be ing, asth e mo st general, becomes the richest of all te rm s; 2and H egel,again, tre a ts " being " a s th e initial and m inimal definition of th eA bsolute, which is later enriched by m an y further " attributes.1*TheTheologia Germanica says th a t " h e who finds satisfactionin God, his satisfaction is th e O ne, an d is all in th e O ne. A nd h eto whom the One is not all and all not the One,and to whomsomething and nothing are not one and the same,cann ot find sat-isfaction in G od." The Budd hist n on-du al One was in the sameway b y m an y devices transferred bey ond all logical categories.And, fourthly, monists must come to some decision on thestatus of appearance.I t m ay well be th at no t al l of them hav e,like most Buddhists, regarded multiple and manifold appear-ance as a mere illusion, and it is probably true that "there isnever any suggestion in Plotinus that all things except theOne are illusions or fleeting app earance s.1 '4B u t th is is a distinc-tion w itho ut m uch of a difference, because also in th e P lotiniansystem the sensory and material world has an extremely lowdegree of rea lity , an d is afflicted by a great loss of th e originalreality, near its point of extinction. In the same way, in theHegelian system the natural world is a state of estrangementfrom th e Ab solute Spirit. In M. E c k h a r t, " all creatures, insofaras th ey are creatures, as the y are in them selves (quod sunt in et

    1A ristotle,Physics,185*33. In many passages (Metaphysics,Gamma2,4, 1, Z 1, K 3), Aristotle points ou t th a t Being is saidpollachos (inm any senses).%See R . O tto, Mysticism East and West (London: Macmillan andCompany, 1932), pp . 21 -6.3P p . 2045. Ita lics mine.* A. H . Armstrong,Plotinus(London: G. Allen&Unw in L td., 1953),p.41.For th e ambiguities in Plotinus' own thoug ht, com pare Armstrong,p. 21 with p . 29.

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    Buddhist Philosophy and its European Parallels 227per$e),are not even an illusion, b u t th ey are a pu re n oth in g."1A nd , for Spinoza, " a tem po ral existence insofar as it is pu relytemporal is the same as non-existence, and is perishing inproportion to its fragmentariness and exclusiveness; existencein every rang e insofar as it gains content m oves alread y tow ardsan ideal of perfection which is one with eternityitself.1'2The background of all "monistic" views3is a religious con-tempt for the world of ordinary experience, for that wl|ich isno t One or not H e who Is. T h at world is held to be unsatisfac-torypartly emotionally as a source of suffering, and partlylogically as self-contradictory, and as therefore either simplynon-existing4or unable to abide in the state in which it is. Inthis way monism is ap t to beget th edialecticsout ofitself,as inZeno, Hegel, and Bradley, to name only a few. In the case ofZeno of E lea(ea.460 B.C.) whom A risto tle caEed th e founder ofthe dialect ics , the "paradoxes" (aporiai)he devised aimed a tdefending by indirect proofs the view of Parm enides, which heldlocal m ovem ent t o be impossible in th e ultim ate re ality of th etru e world of being. All Zeno did was to show th a t, on assumingmovement, the consequences which follow are contradictoryand untenable,5 and that, therefore, the information derivedfrom sense-data is patently false, since self-contradictions arethe marks of false appearance.

    1For useful quotations see R. Otto,op. cit.tpp. 91-6.2According to Harold F . H allett, Aeternitas (Oxford: ClarendonPress,1930), p. 45.3 It may be objected that the comparison of all this with Buddhismapplies more to the "monistic11 Mahayana than to the "pluralistic"Hinayana theories. But the difference should not be overstressecl. Asthe Theravada had a latent idealism and an implicit bias toward amentalistic interpretation of physical reality (fitienne Lamotte,U enseignewmntde Vimalakirti, Bibliotheque du Mus^on, Vol. 51[Louvain: Institut Orientaliste, Universiti Catholique de Louvain,1962],pp. 52-60), so it teaches also the oneDhammaside by side withthe multipledhatnmas(see Buddhaghosa onekam hisaccam,na duilyamatthi,in Visuddhimagga ofBuddhaghosacariya,H. C. Warren, ec.; rev.by Dh . Kosambi. Harvard Oriental Series, Vol. 41 (Cambridge: Harv ardUniversity Press, 1950), pp . 422, 421.4 A purely intellectual contradiction reduces thought to nothing. Itresults in nonsense. He who thinks a contradiction thinks nothing a t all.s Or, in other words, th a t his Py thagorean opponents cannot assert thereality of movement without coming into conflict with their own pre-mises.These opponents assumed th a t a line consists of indivisible points in

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    228 Thirty Years ofBuddhist StudiesZeno's dialectics has had many successors. Among them,Bradley seems nearer to the Madhyamikas than either Hegelor Marx. Both Hegel and Marx make two assumptions whichmust irritate Buddhists. The first is the insistence on humanhistory,1 which Buddhists hold to be utterly pointless. Thesecond is the constant introduction of the tripartite scheme ofthesis,antithesis, and synthesis, which postulates a relentless"progress" from one state to the other, culminating in thetyranny of the Prussian state or of the U.S.S.R. On the other

    hand, Bradley is, I believe, next to Schopenhauer, the nearestrepresentative in modern Europe of at least one side of Buddhistthought. Even the procedure ofAppearanceand Realityis thesame as that of theMddhyamikakdrikd, in that one currentlyaccepted category after the other is taken up and shown to beself-contradictory and untenable. Nor can I agree with Pro-fessor Murti's2claim that they differ greatly "in their notionof the Real and its relation to appearance ". In fact, they bothtreat the Real as ineffable, and "at once transcendent andimmanent".3 If Bradley takes care not to exclude entirely theappearance from the Real, and seeks somehow to identify thetwo,4then this is not a " ra ther inconsistent contention",5butthe exact equivalent of the Madhyamika position ("Form isemptiness", etc.). Both these books are essentially polemicaltreatises and their message seems to be identical.juxtaposition, and the counter-arguments of Hobbes (FFORKS, I . n o ) ,Bergson, and Aristotle take no notice of the historical situation. Thecontradictions involved can be seen succinctly in Hegel, History ofPhilosophy,Haldane, tra ns., 1892,1.2734; cf.Logic,I . 1913,II . 143,sq.; F . Engels,H errn Eugen Duhrings Um wdlzung der W issenschaft,3rded. (S tu ttg ar t: J . H . W . Dietz, 1894), 120; E . Conze,Philosophy (seepage224 note 3), p . 215,1 Hegel said that "comprehended history forms both the memorialand the calvary of the absolute Spirit that w ithout which it would beLifeless ( ) Solitude." H e seems to have a strange view of "life*', a scomposed of a long series of senseless oppressions and massacresperpe trated in the name of some fatuous " id e a l" or other.1The Central Philosophy of Buddh ism (London: George Allen &Unw in L td., 1955), p . 308.3 M urti,ibid.,p . 310.Appearance and R eality: A Metaphysical Study (9th impression,corrected, O xford: Oxford Unive rsity Press, 1930), p . 404.s M urti, op.cii.,p . 309.

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    SPURIOUS PARALLELS TOBUDDHIS T P HIL OS OP HYAfter an examination of the genuine parallels betweenj t \ Eu rop ean an d Bud dh ist philosophy, we shall now considera few of the more widely advocated spurious parallels. Theyoften originate from a wish to find affinities with philosophers

    recognized and admired by the exponents of current academicphilosophy, and intend to make Buddhist thinkers interestingan d respectable by current |W estern stan da rds, Since thisapp roach is no t only objectively unsoun d, bu t ha s also failed inits purpose to intere st W estern philosophers in the philosophiesof the East, the time has now come to abandon it. Modernacademic philosophers normally have no interest in w ha t Bu dd-hists care for, and vice versa.A philosophical doctrine can be viewed from at least fourpo ints of view: I . As th eformulation of certain propositions. 2.In term s of th emotivationwhich induced the ir au tho r to believethem to be true , his m otives being connected with th epurposehe had in m ind. 3. In term s of theargum entationthroug h whichhe tries to establish their t rut h the reasons which he adducesbeing rarely tho se which actually impelled him . 4. In term s ofth econtextin which th e statem ents are m ade , a con text which isdetermined by the philosopher's predecessors and contempor-aries, and by his social, cultural, and religious background.W hen we compare Bu ddhist and E uropean thoug ht, i t happ ensqu ite often th a t th e formulations agree, whereas considerationsof their context, of the motives behind them, and of the con-clusions drawn from them suggest wide discrepancies. Verbalcoincidences frequently mask fundamental divergences in theconcepts underlying them. For pages upon pages ShinranShonin and Martin Luther in almost the same words expoundthe primacy of "faith," and yet in fact their two systems dis-agree in almost every other resp ect. lBerkeley's denial of m at te r

    1 See H . Bu tsehkus, Luther's Religion und ihre Entsprechung imjapanischen Amida-Buddhismus (Elmsdetten; Verlags-Anstalt Heinr.