japlady@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Rebecca Radnor) (05/09/91)
Dear Mr. Wheeler,
In response to your most recent postings concerning Vedanta
and Madhyamika, etc (I'm new to this system so I'm not sure which were
postings and which were mail to me. In any case, I feel that the important
issues brought out by your comments should be 'aired' publicly.), I wonder
if we should begin by distinguishing between matters of existence and
matters of comparative religion/philosophy, which is an academic issue.
Matters of existence, or if you like, questions about ')selection of
certain doctrines, and 2)the reason why we selected these bits. The process
of selecting some and discarding others implies we already know what the
truth is. If this is the case why all the comparing? the more pressing
question is how it is possible to construct an all-ecompassing--i.e., an
infinite-- perspective from finite elements? The more we add the more we
see there is more to add.
As for the why of all this: Why do we feel compelled to gather pieces
of information for the purpose of finding 'truth'? If we are really
concerned with understanding our 'life' shouldn't we begin here? I vaguely
remember your uncomfortableness with Krishnamurti's terminology so let's do
away with "conditioning", "listening", and so on. How about the more
traditional Buddhist nomenclature? The Buddha is supposed to have said
that life is suffering (duhkha; I will use sanskrit trans. instead of the
pali) and I think we can agree since this word also implies anxiety, fear,
discomfort, not just physical agony. The cause of this 1st noble truth is
the 2nd, thirst or grasping (trshna). In order to uproot duhkha one must
bring grasping to an end (nirodha) th 3rd N.T. And the remedy is the 8-fold
path (marga). If we may begin with 'suffering'; this indicates our actual
state of being, no theories. We constantly feel pushed and pulled in all
directions, responding with nervousness, anger, etc. One who is concerned
with the human condition will whant to understand the nature of this life
we lead, and not with the gathering of info. about ultimates or whatnot.
The question is what brings about this 'thirst'? And included in all this
is our need to formulate systems of truthso we may ground ourselves in this
uncertain world of ours. Can we see that this grasping of words is part of
the problem? Not having security, I wish to attain it somehow. And while
we're busy looking we never come to see the nature of our grasping. The
Buddists have a very simple yet profound analysis of our psycho/physical
being; the five aggregates (skhandas); matter/form (rupa) indicating the
matterial form of our bodies and th things around us, feeling (vedana) that
is our responce to stimuli--either pleasurable, painful, or neither--,
perception (samjna) meaning our recognition of any phenomena, mental
volition (samskara) which indicates our volitional tendencies due to memory
traces, and consciousness (vijnana) which is simply our being cinscious of
something. Using the paradigm we can see how suffering arises. Material
form is necessary since it is the meeting between a perceptual instrument
(e.g. the eye) and a percieved object (e.g., shape and color). Feeling
occurs as a reaction of repulsion (e.g. pain fron touching a hot object),
or desire (I'm sure you can think of your own example), or a neutral one.
This reaction is in part induced by recognition of an object, for instance,
the recognition of your girlfriend's face. Mental volition comes into play
when you remember the great sex you had with her last night, and 'intend'
the same experience tonight. Consciousness is simply the being conscious
of something. All this is involved with the idea of karma--i.e.
Krishnamurti's "conditioning"-- I have a pleasurable experience, there is
remembering and based on this memory I want more. This 'I' that craves for
sexual experiences, metaphysical certainty, etc. is the 'stream' of the
aggregates that 'continues' if we do not understand the process of memory,
volition, craving. Do you see the danger? Do you see the central role the
the aggregates play, specifically MENTAL VOLITION, in most of our problems,
including prejudice, psychological projection? For example, if I am mugged
by a person of a certain color, do I begin to see all people of that ethnic
group as dangerous? If my wife looks at another man am I jealous? Her
"devotion" to me provided some comfort, security, and now that's
threatened. This need for 'stability' causes us so much of our pain,
frustration, anger, and seeing the problems our gross pleasures cause we
turn to the 'higher' ones such as our search for 'truth'.
So rather than trying to find the one universal answer to life, can we
begin with our present situation? This means when we're angry we 'feel'
the anger both in our 'minds'--the images related to this reaction-- and
bodies-- the tension and contraction felt. And as we look deeper we see the
interconnection between body/mind. When we become aware, then we can
'clear'our minds, i.e. uproot some of the garbage that keeps us suffering.
I appologize for this long winded reply, but so much of our
misunderstandings are caused by not knowing the context of what the other
is saying.
So, to further clarify things, the above statement does not mean we
should stop doing comparative philosophy, but understand the boundaries of
this endeavor. In other words, if you engage in studying doctrines
understand that 1) this is an academic or intellectual affair, and 2) one
must be aware of the presuppositions brought to this study. By
academic/intellectual, I mean we are now gathering information about the
worldviews held by a particular culture at a particular time. With out
this awreness we are liable (or will) project our own culturally biased
perspective on the subject matter we're studying. Case in point; your
analysis that equated the doctrines of vedanta, madhyamika, and zen. The
whole schema you provided did not take into account the context, ie, the
particular questions that these doctrines tried to answer. Of course you
can say they were trying to find truth but that does not clarify anything.
For instance you equate atman w/ self and buddha w/ mind, implying that the
differences are merely semantic and that all these words refer to some
underlying reality. Where did you get this notion of an absolute mind
underneath our everyday minds? This is really a western biased view w/
some connection to the notion of an unconscious (i.e. Freud). If we have
an individualistic perspective there results some need to find an
unchanging foundation for our mundane experience of transiency.
As for assuming statements like "your own mind is buddha" mean some
absolute like brahman, do you know the concept of upaya, or skillfull
means? This indicates that any teaching must be applicable to the state of
the pupil. This is also the reason why one of the major tenets of Mahayana
is to try to perceive the 'spirit' of the teaching not the literal meaning.
Citing text after text with examples of how phrases indicate an absolute
self takes these words out of context and distorts meaning. Also, most
english translations already distort the sense of the text (if you do much
translating you'll understand that there is no such thing as a one-to-one
correspondence between words of different languages. There really is no
english equivalent for sunyata, pratityasamutpada, hsin, tao. That is why
M. Sprung in his trans. of Candrakirti's Prasannapada keeps writing in
ftnt's how the english is not capturing the sense of many passages.). This
being the case, how can someone jump from culture to cultre, not only
spacially but chronologically and claim some of the key concepts all mean
the same thing?
There is also the question of genre. Indian buddhist literature is
divided into 'types' and one major distinction is between religious lit.
and philosophical ones. That's why Nagarjuna can sometimes write about a
'positive' aspect of reality while in his philosophical writings he posits
nothing. I believe the Tibetan tradition recognizes this, if not practices
it, so its not surprising that T. buddhist poetry talks about a 'One Mind"
as the source of all things. Keep in mind Tsong Khapa (I assume you know him)
also equates dependent co-arising with emptiness, thus he does not posit an
entity.
In short, if we pursue the study of other religious systems the first
requirement is not to project culturally biased categories upon them.
O.K. last point. You made some comment about my "zen practice". First
of all your posting specifically asked for a 'practitioner' of either zen
or vedanta. I merely wanted to to inform you of this. Also, why do you
assume I or other sitters are trying to attain something? I sit to sit; no
problem. If you don't just don't. Why the fuss over sitting or not? To say
one should or shouldn't is again duallistic (or better yet, academic).
J.C.c/o Japlady
immpossible but unnecessary. If we construct a world v
iew from bits and
pieces of the 'traditions' we run into the problem of 1) selection, and 2)
the reason we selected these bits. If we already know which doctrines to
accept as ultimate this implies we already know what truth is. This being
the case why keep looking and comparing? The more pressing question is how
it is possible to construct an all-encompasing view--i.e., infinite-- by
putting together finite bits of doctrine? Is a really