,
A STUDY OF S'ATI~KAR TNAS
MADHYAMAKALAMKARA
A Thesis
Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies
in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements
For the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the
Department of Far Eastern Studies
by
Kennard Lipman
Saskatoon,
c 1979.
Saskatchewan
Kennard Lipman
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Title of thesis
A Study of
_ _ _" - " ' ; ; ~ ; . M , . - " ; ' ; ; : - ; ; ' = ' ~ ; : ; : " ; : ; ; : : ' ; " ' ; " : ; : ' ~
.
,-
Santar ks~ta's
_
MadhyamakSlamkara
Name of Author
Kennard Lipman
Department or College
Degree
Department of Far Eastern Studies
Doctor of Philosophy
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m~
IV, (91'
Abstract
The aim of this study is to survey the major philosophical themes of Santirak~ita's
Madhyamakalamkara (MAl).
We have isolated these themes into five major issues according to the major Tibetan commentary on this work, the
dEu-rna rgyan gyi rnam-bshad 'jam-dbyangs bla-ma dgyes-pa'i
zhal-lung of Mi-pham rgya-mtsho (1846-1912).
The Introduction surveys the history of the text and
discusses some of the reasons for its neglect among traditional and modern scholars, this being the first major study
and translation of the MAl in a Western language.
The work
is also set against the general background of the development of the Madhyamaka tradition in Tibet.
In the first chapter, the "methodology" of our study
is outlined.
We demonstrate the relevance of modern her-
meneutical theories, particularly those of Hans-Georg
Gadamer, for the concrete practice of text translation.
The importance of the study of modern philosophy is stressed
as a means whereby the translator can come to terms with his
contemporary prejudices.
Phenomenological philosophy is
singled out as a tool for working with the issues of the
MAl.
In the second chapter, the first two major issues are
discussed, arthakriyatva (causal efficacy as the distinguishing characteristic of conventional reality) and svasamvedana
(reflexive, non-referential awareness as the distinguishing
characteristic of the mental).
First, Mi-pham's introduction
to these issues are translated, and then the appropriate
sections of the MAl are likewise presented.
The third chapter follows the same pattern in dealing
with the third major issue,
~
integration of
Santar k~ita's
the Yogacara tradition into his Svatantrika-Madhyamaka philosophy.
A long introduction is provided on the relationship
of the Yogacara and Madhyamaka traditions, and their respective approaches to perception are considered in the light
of a phenomenology of perception.
The fourth chapter focuses on the final two issues,
which concern the specific Svatantrika contribution of the
division of the ultimate truth into discursively-formulated
and non-discursive aspects.
Of special interest is Mi-pham's
extensive commentary on these, which is considered in the
context of the controversies Mi-pham was engaged in over
interpretation of the Madhyamaka in the late 19th century.
Four appendices are attached, including a translation
of the Madhyamakalamkarakarika and Mi-pham's commentary on
Bodhicaryavatara IX,2, which deals with the relationship of
the Prasangikas and the Svatantrikas.
Acknowledgements
I gratefully acknowledge the guidance and patient indulgence shown by my thesis advisor, Dr. H.V. Guenther, in
my years as a graduate student in the Department of Far
Eastern Studies.
I would also like to thank the University
of Saskatchewan for the financial support they have provided
over the years, despite the meager results; as well as the
Department of Religious Studies, University of Calgary, for
hiring me as a Sessional Instructor during my last year of
research.
I would also like to thank all the members of
that Department for making my stay there a fruitful one,
especially Dr. L.S. Kawamura.
I am also grateful to Dr. Masamichi Ichigo, of Kyoto
Sangyo University, Japan, for sending me some introductory
materials to his unpublished Japanese translation and
critical edition of the MAl, which greatly aided in the
identification of verses and quotations in the MAl.
Special thanks are also due to my wife, Huisun, who
helped with the typing and her constantly selfless attitude.
May this work be of some small value to whomever may
chance to read it, although it was primarily written to
clarify my own considerable ignorance.
i
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
p. i
Introduction: 'rhe Text and Its Fate
p. 1
Chapter I: The Method of No Method:
p. 16
What is it to Understand?
Chapter II: Major Issues of the
Madhya~
p. 27
makalamkara: Arthakriyakaritva
and
Svasamvedana
Chapter III: Major Issues of the Madhya-
p. 61
makalamkara: The Cittamatra and its
Madhyamaka Critique
Chapter IV: Major Issues of the Madhya-
p. 100
makalgwkara: How to Jump Over
One's Own Shadow
Appendices:
1. Translation of the Madhyamakalamkarakarika.
p •. 126
2. Topical Outline (sa-bead) of Mi-pham's
p. 147
dBu-ma rgyan rnam-bshad
J. Mi-pham on Bodhicaryavatara IX,2
p. 162
4. Profound Instructions for Understanding
p. 170
the Madhyamika by Mi-pham
p. 175
Bibliography
ii
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION: THE TEXT AND ITS FATE
The story of Santar"k~ita's
sojourn in Tibet is
well-known, but this is so mostly because of its symbolic
content: the failure of
;
Santar k~ita s
exoteric paramita-
yana to impress itself upon the Tibetan "barbarians" and
their land, and the success of Padmasambhava's esoteric
~
Santaraksita's two major works,
•
the encyclopedic textbook of Indian philosophy, the
mantrayana in doing so.
Tattvasgmgraha, and a presentation of his own approach
to Madhyamaka philosophy, the Madhyamakalamkara (along
with his disciple, Kamalasila's panjika on each), spawned almost
no Tibetan commentarial tradition. l The translation of
our text into Tibetan, made in the early period, is often
obscure, but was not revised during the period of "New
Translations" (phyi-'gyur).
Tsong-kha-pa has left us some
incomplete notes (zin-bris) on the dbu-ma rgyan,2 and his
Esung-'bum also contains the rgyal-tshab chos-rjes-la
gsan-pa'i dbu-margyan-gyi brjed-byang, a guide written by
rGyal-tshab according to Tsong-kha-pa's instructions.
Only
in the nineteenth century do we find a rNying-ma-pa scholar
of the ris-med movement, Mi-pham rgya-mtsho (1846-1912),
wri ting an extensive commentary, the dBu-ma rgyan-gyi rnam
shad 'jam-dbyangs bla-ma dgyes-pa'i zhal-lung. 3 Mi-pham
wrote commentaries on all the major
Ind~an
.
........,Mahayana sastras t
presenting a rNying-ma-pa position in this vast field of
1
scholastic exegesis, to an extent never developed before
among the rNying-ma-pas.
It will become clear in the course of our studies why
Mi-pham decided to resurrect the dbu-ma rgyan, as it were.
He was particularly concerned to present what he considered
to be a proper understanding of the relationship of the Svatantrikas to the Prasangikas, which had become dogmatically
rigidified, in his view, over the long course of Prasangika
dominance in Tibet.
The source of this viewpoint, of course,
being Candrakirti's attack on'Bhavaviveka'in the introduction
to the first chapter of his Prasannapada. 4
Mi-pham's dbu-ma
rgyan commentary must be read in the overall context of the
polemics engendered by his commentary on the ninth chapter
of the Bodhicaryavatara, the Shes-rab le'u'i tshig-don go
sla-bar mam-par bshad-pa nor-bu ke-ta-ka. 5
In fact, in the
midst of his commentary on BCA IX,2, one of the prime sources
of controversYi Mi-pham expressly refers his readers to his
commentary on the dbu-ma rgyan, for a more extensive treat-"
ment of the issue regarding the Svatantrika and Prasangika
approaches to the Two Truths. 6
Because of this, we have in-
cluded a translation of sections
of Mi-pham's commentary on
BCA IX,2 in an appendix.?
Here we must make some remarks on the history of the
Madhyamaka in Tibet.
We know, from the ldan-kar catalogue,
that very few of what later came to be known as Prasangika.,
texts were translated in the early period, i.e., only five
2
,
works of Buddhapalita, CandrakIrti, and Santideva, as opposed
to a dozen texts of Bhavaviveka, Sant rak~ita,
and Kamalasila
-
(a dozen works of Nagarjuna and Aryadeva, who antedate any
split, were also translated).8
Ye-shes-sde, in his contem-
poraneous lTa-ba khyad-par, which along with the dbu-ma rgyan
and Bhavaviveka's Tarkajvala, provided the early models for
the Tibetan grub-mtha' genre of literature, divided the
Madhyamaka into two, the Sautrantika-Madhyamaka and the
Yogacara-Madhyamaka. 9
The eleYenth-century rNying-ma-pa
scholar of Madhyamaka and rDzogs-chen, Rong-zom chos-kyi
bzang-po, also knows only this distinction among the Madhyamikas. lO The terms rang-rgyud-pa and thal-'gyur-ba only
come to designate different "schools" around the time of
Bu-ston.
It is interesting to note that
/
and
Santar k~ita
Kamalasila never mention Candrakirti by name, although it
is clear that they were aware of critiques of the svatantra
approach such as Candrakirti made, verses 76-78 of the MAl
being devoted exclusively to such objections.
In his com-
mentary on MAll, Kamalasila does use the terms rang-rgyud-pa
and thal-'gyur-ba, but they refer only to argument forms. 11
The first karika of the Madhyamakalamkara is indeed a
classic example of a Svatantrika syllogism, which is characterized by the fact that its statement of the means of
proof (hetu) is qualified by the term "ultimately," and
that it has no negative example (vipaksa).
The rest of the
work is actually just a defense of this syllogism, which
3
runs as follows (with technical terms for all elements of
the syllogism provided in Sanskrit and Tibetan, with their
commonly-employed English translations):12
THESIS (pratijna, dam-bca')
"These particular existents spoken of by ourselves and others
(locus, paksa, phyogs; or logical subject, dharmin,chos-can)
are without essential existence (probandum, what is to be
proved, sadhya, bsgrub-bya; or paksa-dharma, phyogs-chos),"
REASON (probans, means of proof,
hetu, gtan-tshigs; or sadhana,
sgrub-pa)
"Because they are ultimately neither unitary nor multiple
(~'
satlhana; or logical mark, linga, rtags);"
EXAMPLE (drstanta, dpe)
"Like a mirror-image (positive example, sapaksa, mthun-pa.'i
phyogs)."
The reason (hetu) of this syllogism (minus the qualifier,
"ultimately," of course) is also one of the four (or five)
gtan-tshigs employed by the Prasangikas of Tibet, known as
gcig-du bral, which is to be found in verse fifty of Atisa's
Bodhipathapradlpa.
This text provides the source for the
codification of these argument-forms in Tibet, which are to
be found in verses 48-51. 13
According to Mi-pham, the argu-
ment-form gcig-du bra! aeals with the factuality (ngo-bo) of
the entities under examination, whereas the rdo-rje gzegs-ma
deals with their "cause," while the yod-med skye bral (or
~)
examines entities as results. 14 Thus, both the Svatantrikas and the Prasangikas want to demonstrate that neither unity nor multiplicity can be established regarding any
4
entity or entities.
.
/
Santaraksita introduces and comments on this verse as
follows:
"If one who sets forth independently to establish the
welfare of oneself and others, understands that all
that is
merely through a lack of examination
e~joyed
of particular existents, is ultimately without essential existence like a mirror-image, etc., then the
various emotional and intellectual obscurations will
be eliminated.
Therefore, exert yourself in order to
realize that all the entities taught by scripture and
reasoned inquiry are without essential existence.
In
regard to this, even faithful followers will not be
completely satisfied by scripture without (backing it
up by) inferences which are in conformity with reality
(dngos-po'i stobs-kyis zhugs-pa'i rjes-su dpag-pa,
vastubalapravrttanumana) •
Because of this, I shall ex-
pound above all (according to) a reasoned inquiry ••••
If an essential existence existed, it would not pass
beyond individuality or multiplicity.
These are mu-
tually exclusive; since this always holds (gnas-pa'i
mtshan-nyid yin-pas), it excludes any other possibilit yo
The psychophysical constituents (skandha), pri-
mordial material (prakrti), etc., of ourselves and the
outside~s,
really do not exist, and should be clearly
knovm to be without essential existence.
5
If one thinks
that this syllogism is not proved, do not think so.,,15
Kamalasila adds:
"Is this established by demonstrating unacceptable consequences to an opponent based on his own principles
(thal-bar gyur-pa), or is it established through one's
own acceptance of certain premises (rang-gi rgyud-kyi
sgrub-pa)?
One may think: if it is thought to be the
first, then at that time, the argument is not proved
because others do not accept freedom from individuality
and multiplicity regarding particular existents.
about if it is the second?
How
In that case (one may also
thinkl, it is really not proven, since a real basis
(gzhi) is not accepted by oneself, and since, even in
regard to the opponent, actuality (rang-gi ngo-bo) is
not established.
Thus, regarding the usefulness (of
this syllogism) it is
(by
sa~d
,
Santar k~ita),
'If you
think that this syllogism is not proved, do not think
so' (in order to counter these claims)."l6
Mi-pham in turn explains l ? that one can choose either the
svatantra or prasanga approach depending upon whether one
starts with what is generally accepted (grags) in the world
or not.
In the case of the svatantra form of argument, the
objection is that, since the opponent accepts logical reasons (rtags, linga), it is necessary to prove the reason
"free from individuality and multiplicity" according to the
canons of logic, i.e., the reason must satisfy the three as6
pects of a correct reason.
These are, that it be a property
of the locus, that it be present in a positive example, and
that it be absent in a counter-example.
subject, i.e"
But if the logical
the locus, is not established, then there is
no means for establishing a property of this subject, i.e.,
that which is to be proved.
Thus
/'
Santar k~ita
goes on to
show (in verses 2-60) that the property (paksa-dharma) is
established in the locus (paksa).
In the case of the prasanga, the objection is that the
opponent doesn't directly accept the conclusion, "free from
individuality and multiplicity," but since he does accept
what may be entailed by (khyab-pa, vyapti) his position,
for example, that a single, eternal creator produces many
results, it can be shown that this contradicts the individuality and eternity of the creator, because results are seen
to come about gradually according to causes and conditions. 18
In conclusion, the important point is that the argument,
"free from individuality and multiplicity," is found among
both the Svatantrikas and the Prasangikas, the difference
between the two being one of method.
Later (chapter IV),
when we discuss the two forms of the ultimate truth, discur-
To return to the history of the Prasangikas and the
7
Svatantrikas in Tibet: we have already seen that the Svatantrikas naturally predominated in the early period under
.
the influence of Santaraksita and Kamalasila.
Even - at the
start of the later spread (phyi-dar) of BUddhism,19
the
Svatantrika remained predominant in the form of the teachings of rNog lo-tsa-ba blo-Idan shes-rab, who taught according to
Bhav iveka~s
of Lhasa.
Prajnapradlpa at gSang-phu, just south
The fifth abbot in the succession there was Phywa-
pa chos-kyi senge, whose most famous students were known as
the "Eight Great Lions" (such as gTsang nag-pa brtson-'grus
senge and rMa'bya-ba rtsod-pa'i senge).
The majority of
these students of Phywa-pa, led by gTsang nag-pa and rMa
bya-ba, came to follow the interpretation of the Madhyamakakarika by Candrakirti, while the others, as well as Rong-ston
shes-bya kun-gzigs (1367-1449), continued to follow the
Svatantrika of Kamalasila, along with some rNying-ma-pa
study centers (chos-grva).
Why all this was so awaits fur-
ther detailed study of the period.
It was Pa-tshab lo-tsa-ba, however, who introduced the
Prasangika approach during the later spread when he went to
study with Sajjana (eleventh century) or his disciples.
It
was said he studied there in Kashmir for twenty-three years,
and then translated the Madhyamakakarika, the Madhyamakavatara, and the Catubsataka.
From his students, known as the
"Four Sons of Pa-tshab" (Gangs-pa She'u, gTsang-pa 'bre-sgur,
rMa bya byang-brtson, and Zhang-thang sag-pa ye-shes 'byung
8
gnas),
ca~e
the great majority in Tibet who follow this
trend, such as Sa-skya pandita, Bu-ston rin-chen grub,
Red mda'-ba, Tsong-kha-pa, Padma dkar-po, etc.
It is only
about Tsong-kha-pa's time (1357-1419) that the Prasangikas
assumed the pre-eminence they have maintained to the present
day among Tibetans. 20
All this is good reason for the neglect of the
Madhyamakalamkara among modern scholars.
Only two articles
on the text have appeared in Western languages, both by
Japanese scholars, one a brief table of c'ontents (sa-bead),
the other a summary of much of the kari ~q.21
Another rea-
son for the neglect is that the work survives only in its
Tibetan translation, while no translation is to be found in
.Chinese.
~
Mi-pham's commentary follows
and
Santar k~ita
~Kamalas11a
closely, offering an interlinear commentary on
the karikas and then expanding on and
taries of the Indian masters.
clarif~ ng
the commen-
Mi-pham also engagesJn ex-
tensive discussion of issues of concern to him (particularly at vv. 64, 71-2, 75, and 83), as mentioned above.
Thus,
Mi-pham's commentary is invaluable, although it forces the
reader dealing with it to attempt to fill in the gap of no
less than the whole history of the Madhyamaka in Tibet which
lies between him and its founders.
Mi-pham's commentary
also has a long general intrOduction (ff. 2b-39b) surveying
aspects of Cittamatra and Madhyamaka philosophy, which in9
eludes a section on "The five special positions in the approach (of the dbu-ma rgyan) which are superior to other
Madhyamaka (presentations)," which provides the structure
for our stUdy.22
A final reason for the neglect of the Madhyamakalamkara is the intrinsic difficulty of the text.
In it (and
thus in his Yogacara-Madhyami,ka-Svatantrika approach)
Santrk~i
"
has woven together the three major movements
in Indian Mahayana philosophy: the experiential phenomenology of the Yogacaras, the dialectics of ·the Madhyamikas,
and the epistemology and logic of Dignaga and Dharmakirti.
I think it can safely be said that Buddhist philosophy
after
,
Santar k~ita
in India is a series of footnotes and
technical refinements.
Not that
;
accomplished
this alone, for it was Bhavaviveka and Jnanagarbha 23 who
Santar k~ita
led the way in the Svatantrika endeavor.
Bhavya's Sva-
tantrika has only itself been fragmentarily studied in
articles by Kajiyama, Iida, and Eckel,24 while Candrakirti's
critique is well-known. 25 Chapters of Sant rak~ita's
massive Tattvasamgraha have been mined over and over again by
Indian and Western scholars in their expositions of Buddhist
and Hinduistic philosophies.
The chapter on inference was
translated into German long ago by Kunst 26 , but not quite
so long ago as G, Jha's outdated translation of the whole
work in the Gaekwad Oriental Series. 27
10
Still, any utilization of the Tattvasamgraha remains
hampered if not read in the perspective of the Madhyamakalamkara, where
~
Santar k~ita
has outlined his own approach
to Madhyamaka philosophy, in contrast to the critical intent of the Tattvasgmgraha.
11
Notes to Introduction
1. We have utilized the Peking edition, with corrections
from the Cone, of MadhyamakBlarnkarakarika (#5284) and vrtti
(#5285) by Sant rak~ita,
v.10l, Sa 48b,7-Sa 84b,7; and the
Madhyamakalamkarapanjika (#5286) of KamalasIla, Sa 84b,7Sa 143b,1.
For the Cone, the karika (T.3884), begin on Sa
52b,6; the vrtti on Sa 56b,3: and the pan'jika on Sa 83b,6.
Hereafter MAl.
Verse numbers in the text refer to the MAl.
I can see no reason for mKhas-grub-rjets doubt that
the pafijika is by Kamalasila.
See F.D. Lessing and A. Wayman,
trans., MKhas-grub-rjets Fundamentals of the Buddhist Tantras
(The Hague:
Mouton
&
Co., 1968), pp.: 90-91.
2. Peking ed., v.153, Na 7lb,7-Na 86a,7.
3. We have utilized the edition published by Sonam Kazi
in the Ngagyur Nyingmay Sungrab series, v.7l, as vol.12 of
the Collected Writing of tJam-mgon tJu Mi-pham rgya-mtsho
(Gangtok, 1976), ff.1-359, with corrections from an original
xylograph copied from the cQUection of Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche,
Berkeley, California.
Hereafter UG.
4. See Th. Stcherbatsky, The Conception of Buddhist
Nirvana (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1965), pp.87-122.
5. Collected Writing of tJam-mgon 'Ju Mi-pham rgya-mtsho,
12
vol.13 (Gangtok, 1975), ff.1-95.
6. ibid. p.6.
See below p. 165.
7. See below pp. 162-68.
8. See Yoshiro Imaeda, "Documents Tibetains de TouenHouang Concernant Le Concile du Tibet," 'Journal Asiatigue,
fasc. 1 & 2 (1975), 125-146.
9. ibid. pp.132-3.
10. Rong-zom chos-kyi bzang-po, Selected Writings (gSung
thor-bu) (Leh:
11.
W~l,
IChi-med Rig-'dzin, 1974), ff.J41,J-)44,2.
f.89b,4-5.
·12. MAl, f.48b,8.
The karikas are translated in Appendix 1.
13. For a recent translation, see Alex Wayman, trans.,
Calming the Mind and Descerning the Real, by Tsong-kha-pa
(New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1978), PP.9-14.
14. Mi-pham rgya-mtsho, mKhas-pa'i tshul-la 'jug-pa'i
.§.gQ,
xylograph, n.p. , n.d., f .139a
15. MAl, f.52b,3-8.
See also MAl, vv.76-78.
16. MAl, f.89b,4-7
17. UG, f.85,4ff.
18. Cf. MAl, v.2.
19. For the following historical discussion we have
relied on Kongtrul's Encyclopedia of Indo-Tibetan Culture,
Parts I-III, ed. Lokesh Chandra (New Delhi: International
Academy of Indian Culture, 1970), I, 445-458; and George N.
Roerich, trans., The Blue Annals (Delhi: Motilal Bonarsidass,
1976).
13
20. Ever since Tsong-kha-pa's definitive exposition of
the dGe-Iugs-pa position, there has been a lively debate in
Tibet on the proper interpretation of the Prasangika position, with, for example, Go-rams-pa bsod-nams senge contributing a critique from the Sa-skya-pa, Karma-pa Mi-bskyod rdorje from the bKa'-brgyud-pa, and Mi-pham rgya-mtsho from the
rNyingma-pa.
See below pp. 103-106.
21. Masamichi Ichigo, "A Synopsis of the Madhyamakalamkara
,-
of Santaraksita,"
J. of Indian and Buddhist Studies, XX, No.2
..
(Mar. 1972), 989-995.
Yuichi Kajiyama, ",Later Madhymikas
on Epistemology and Meditation," in Mahayana Buddhist Meditation, ed. Minoru Kiyota (Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press,
1978), pp.114-143.
Dr. Ichigo has prepared a critical edition
of the MAl, as well as a Japanese translation, which have
not yet appeared in print.
22. See below p. 27.
23. Jnanagarbha, Santaraksita's teacher, is the author
•
of the important Satyadvayavibhagakarika and vrtti, to which
S a n t a'r k~ita
has written a pan.iika. The Peking edition only
has the panjika of Sant rak~ita
(#5283).
The Tohoku numbers
for the karika and vrtti are 3881,3882.
24. Yuichi Kajiyama, "Bhavaviveka' s Pra.inapradIpa
(1. Kapi tel) ," Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde Sud- und
Ostasiens, 7(19·63), 37-62 and 8(1964), 100-130; "Bhavaviveka
and the Prasangika School," in The Nava-Nalanda-Mahavihara
Research Publication, vol.l, 1957. Shotaro Iida, "The Nature
14
of Sgmvrti and the Relationship of Paramartha to it in
Svatantrika-Madhyamika," in The Problem of Two Truths in
Buddhism and Vedanta, ed. M.V. Sprung (Dordrecht: Reidel
Pub., 1973), pp. 64-77, Malcolm Eckel, "Bhavaviveka and
early Madhyamika theories of·1anguage," Philosophy East
and West, 28, No.3 (1978), 323-337.
25. See above note 4.
Wayman's partial translation
of the Lam-rim chen-mo includes Tsong-kha-pa's extensive
exegesis of Candrakirti's arguments (see note 13 above).
26. Probleme Der Buddhistischen Logik in Der Darstellung Des Tattvasamgraha, Memoires de la Commission Orientaliste, No.3) (Krakow: Polish Academy of Sciences, 1939).
"" .
. the
27. The Tattvasamgraha of SantarakSlta,
wlth
Commentary of Kamalasi1a, 2 Vo1s. (Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1937).
15
CHAPrER I
CHAPTER I: THE METHOD OF NO METHOD:
WHAT IS IT TO UNDERSTAND?
Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics are
not an attempt to provide a methodology of interpretation.
Rather, they are an attempt to describe, to make explicit,
the nature of understanding as such, to articulate the
understanding which preceeds and makes possible any method.
Nevertheless, they are of great importance to the practice
of interpretation of texts, as David C.
yo~
has recently
demonstrated in his The Critical Circle, in regard to literary works. 1 In this chapter we shall make some preliminary
remarks in this regard concerning the study and translation
of Buddhist texts.
A method insures a field of knowledge as an object of
study,
But in dealing with philosophical, religious, and
literary texts, as Hoy points out, it is quite clear that
there is a difference between the question, "Do you know
the text?" and "Do you understand the text,,?2
is "something more."
Understanding
But what is this elusive "something
more," which is the goal of humanistic study, the maturi ty
which cannot be learned by a method?
As mature individuals,
we are "claimed" by cultural works which are no longer objects, but partners in a dialogue.
Hoy brings out what is
of central importance in this "claim":)
"Moreover, the claim shows itself in that the artwork
16
conditions our very understanding of ourselves, our
time, and our situation. Thus, the artwork is historical not in being a moment in history, but rather
in being a condition for or even a generating force
of subsequent cultural achievements."
There is continuing confusion and/or avoidance in Buddhist
studies (and in the study of Asian religion-philosophy in general) concerning this conflict between phenomenological- hermeneutical-structural 4 and objectivist-historical-descriptive
interpretations of religious and philosophical texts.
This
is by no means, however, a problem confined to the modern scholar~
this tension has been present within the 'traditions' them-
selves.
In regard to Buddhist philosophy, for example, Th.
Stcherbatsky, almost fifty years ago, outlined the various
'schools' of commentators on Dharmaklrti's Pramapavarttika in
his BUc;lqhist ;Itog1c, which he called the "philological," the
"philosophical," and the "religious. ,,5
Al though this terminol-
ogy is inadequate, at least Stcherbatsky saw that there was
something more at stake in different interpretations than 'historiCal devel.opments.·
most part, however,
Modern scholars of Asia,' for the
in blissful ignorance of her-
h~eproce de
meneutiCal problems, in contrast to their colleagues in Hellenic-Semitic studies.
Perhaps it should be remembered that Orientalism itself
arose out of a particular conception of hermeneutics in nineteenth
century Europe.
The 'scientific' study of religion and culture
arose as nineteenth century Europe began to look back on its
own tradition (e.g., the Bible) as something no longer immedi-
17
ately understandable or acceptable, that is, in need of 'interpretation' which could be pursued 'scientifically,' as befitted
the contemporary situation.
Critical scholarship was seen as
necessary to avoid misunderstandings due to historical developments lying between the interpr€ter and the text, such as changes
in word meaning.
In this conception of interpretation, schol-
arship became an attempt to reproduce the 'original' historical situation and the intent of the author through critical
historical-philological methods and a thorough 'suspension' of
the scholar's own 'subjectivity.'
One would be foolish to deny
the knowledge obtained by these methods.
But through this con-
ception of interpretation, i.e., hermeneutics, humanistic study
has become a science and history of human culture.
The ques-
tion that must be asked in the face of this development is: to
what extent can the 'hermeneutical situation' be purged of 'subjectivity' in the name of 'scientific' methodology?
A translator of H.G. Gadamer, who has been foremost in
raising this question, writes, in summary of Gadamer's critique: 6
"Historical understanding, according to this theory,
is the action of subjectivity purged of all prejudices, and it is achieved in direct proportion to the
knower's ability to set aside his own horizons by
means of an effective historical method •••• What
the interpreter negates, then, is his own present
as a vital extension of the past •.•• The role of
the past cannot be restricted merely to supplying
the texts or events that make up the 'objects' of
interpretation. As prejudice and tradition, the
past also defines the ground the interpreter himself occupies when he understands. This fact was
overlooked, however, by the Neo-Kantians, whose
orientation to the sciences presupposed the essentially situationless, non -historical subject of
transcendental philosophy. What Gadamer asks us
18
to see is that the dominant ideal of knowledge and
the alienated, self-sufficient consciousness it involves is itself a powerful prejudice that has controlled philosophy since Descartes. By ignoring
the intrinsic temporality of human being it also
ignores the temporal character of interpretation.
This fate has befallen every hermeneutical theory
that regards understanding as a repetition or duplication of a past intention - as a reproductive
procedure rather than a genuinely productive one
that involves the interpreter's own hermeneutical
situation." (emphasis mine)
To put it simply: modern scholarship, while demanding a strict
historicity of its objects of interpretation, has stopped short
of critical reflection on its own historicity.
Here is pre-
cisely where the study of modern philosophy becomes essential
to the translator dealing with religio-philosophical texts.
All the semmingly innocent (worn-out) terminology that is taken
for granted in most translations of Buddhist texts, such as
'nature,' • substance, • 'essence,' 'own-being,' 'being,' 'existence,' 'reality,' 'emptiness,' 'mind,' 'phenomena,' 'body,'
'matter,' 'realism,' 'idealism,' etc., betray precisely this
lack of critiCal reflection on the interpreter's own situation.
These terms are themselves historical products of the translator's own tradition (or the tradition within which non-Western
scholars working in European languages have chosen to write).
The purpose, then, in studying modern (or ancient) philosophy
is not to interpret a text in the light of some fashionable
contemporary doctrine in search of 'relevance,' or to search
out 'parallels' which are then easily labelled spurious by the
specialists, for this all presupposes we already know the literal 'core' of the text's meaning and then can busy ourselves
19
with 'interpretations.' 7
The purpose o:r:such study should be
primarily to become aware of the prejudices of our own contemporary subjectivity (rather than merely ignore or try to 'suspend' them), so that we may enter into a new horizon of interpretation which allows a genuine dialogue with the work and
the tradition.
Historical, philolgical, or structural expla-
nations are not sufficient for entering into this dialogue,
for what Paul Ricoeur calls "identifying the discourse within
the work, t, discourse being, "a set of sentences in which somebody says something to somebody else about something."a
Else-
where, Ricoeur also states, "To understand a text is to follow
its movement from sense to reference, from what it says to what
it talks about. ,,9
This concern for the subject matter '(Sache) of the text
is a crucial point stressed by Heidegger and Gadamer in their
hermeneutical theories.
Linge, puts it best: 10
Once again, Gadamer's translator, David
"It is precisely in confronting the otherness of the
text - in hearing its challenging viewpoint - and
not in preliminary methodological self-purgations,
that the reader's own prejudices (i.e. his present
horizons) are thrown into relief and thus come to
critiCal self-consciousness •••• The interpreter
must recover and make his own, then, not the personality or the worldview of the author, but the fundamental concern that motivates the text - the question that it seeks to answer and that it poses agMn
and again to its interpreters •••• We understand the
subject matter of the text when we locate its question; in our attempt to gain this question we are,
in our own questioning, continually transcending the
historical horizon of the text and fusing it with our
own horizon, and consequently transforming our horizon.
If
20
In regard to the Madhyamakalamkara, the Ifsubject matters" we shall try to get into view, which remain hidden,
as it were, from an objectivist approach which has not
sought the questions involved because it has not critically reflected on its own horizon in order to meet the horizon of the text, are:
1. What is meant by sakara- and nirakara.jnana?
Is the
problem one of images in perception, as Kajiyama, for example,ll has presented it?
2. What is meant by Cittamatra?
not an "idealism"?
What is it if it is
(How can we answer this question unless
we know the questions both it and idealisms are asking?)
J. What is the difference between the Svatantrikas and
the Prasangikas?
Is it just a technical matter of presenta-
tion of arguments according to the canons of Indian logic?
4. What is meant by svasamvedana?
Does it mean
"self-consciousness" (consciousness of self)?
Certainly these questions demand an historical knowledge of the situatedness of the text.
What conception,
for example, was the notion of svasamvedana developed to
counter?
Out of what earlier Buddhist conceptions did it
develop?
But exclusive reliance on such an objectivist
procedure, designed to insure against the danger of subjectivist, self-fulfilling pre-conceptions which the notion
of a hermeneutic circle seems to imply,12
an infinite regress.
can only lead to
Will the problem be understood when
21
~
it is finally traced back to Sakyamuni or some other 'origin'?
One cannot escape the hermeneutical circle,
~
are
asking the question about svasamvedana through our standpoint in the ongoing history of tradition.
We question the
text, but the text also questions us about the subject matter.
Here is where the Buddhologist faces a very complex
situation, for he or she stands within at least three
traditions, consciously or not: the Buddhist tradition's
understanding of itself, the general Western philosophic
and religious tradition which his or her-language is part
of, and the specific tradition of Western scholarship on
Buddhism.
Two points should be noted here in regard to the hermeneutic situation.
First, not only can one not escape into
objectivism, but there is also no escape into some intuitive,
'direct' understanding of the text, 'the true, authentic
teaching.'
There is, however, genuine transmission of tra-
dition, the on-going task of interpretation performed anew
by those ·claimed" by' the questions of the tradition.
Se-
cond, this conception of hermeneutics outlined here cuts
across the Hedic-emic" distinction.
Both those 'within'
and 'without' a tradition must deal with the prejudices of
their own horizons if they are to 'meet' that of the text
and maintain the vitality of the tradition, if its message
is to be more than an old garb for contemporary prejudices.
Of course, there can be many reasons for interest in
22
a text.
Not all wish to be "claimed" by the questions of
the text, but seek historical, social, or linguistic data.
It is not the place here to discuss the hermeneutical problems of the various fields of historical knowledge, but
what we do wish to point out is that the mere choice of a
text to work on singles it out as 'worthy', as 'canonical'
for one's study.l)
For example, the most careful, meticu-
lous scholar in one school or period of Buddhist philosophy cannot study other (relevant) schools or periods as
carefully, yet he must in the course of his or her work say
something about other periods" and schools.
How does such a
scholar mediate between the conflicting claims that are
made by the tradition?
Perhaps he or she discovers that
one school misrepresents another.
Does this solve the pro-
blem, invalidate the claims, destroy the possibility of
mediation?
Singling out is already interpretation, an
implicit bestowing of value, of 'trust' in the meaningfulness of the text.
The scholar must be clear about his
~r
her own interests if one's prejudices are not to overevaluate one's own subject matter and/or underevaluate others,
no matter how fine one's area of concentration may be.
This problem is particularly important to us regarding
the Madhyamika critiques of the Yogacara.
It is clear that
the later Indian and Tibetan Madhyamikas for the most part
levelled their attacks on later developments among the
Yoga-caras, i.e., the Yogacara-pramaoavada fusion of Dignaga
2)
and Dharmakirti.
Does this then exempt Asanga, Vasnbandhu,
and Sthiramati from their critiques?
To approach this pro-
blem we have proceeded along the lines outlined in this
chapter, i.e., by trying to think the matter of Madhyamaka
and Yogacara approaches to experience through a reflection
on contemporary phenomenology.l4
flIt is a question here not of an empirical history,
which limits itself to the gathering of facts on the
one hand and texts on the other, but rather of an
'intentional history,' as Husserl called it, which in
a given assemblage of texts and works tries to discover their legitimate sense •••• The history of philosophy can never be the simple transcription of what the
philosophers have said or written •••• As a matter of
fact, as soon as one approaches two texts and opposes
them to a third, one begins to interpret and to distinguish what is really proper to the thought of Descartes, let us say, and, on the contrary, what is only
accidental. Thus in Cartesianism, as it is defined by
the texts, we begin to see an intention that the historian has taken the initiative in singling out, and
this choice eVidently depends on his own way of encountering the problems of philosophy.
The history of
philosophy cannot be separated from philosophy.
There
is, of course, a difference between reflection on texts
and toe purely arbitrary. It
24
Notes to Chapter I
1. David C.Hoy, The Critical Circle (Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1978).
2 • Ho y, p. 48 •
3. Hoy, p.47.
4. Paul Ricoeur is an example of a thinker trying to
bring together the phenomenological, hermeneutical, and structuralist trends.
See esp. his Conflict of Interpretations:
Essays in hermeneutics, edt Don Ihde (Evanston: Northwestern
Uhiv. Press, 1974).
S'. Th.Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic, vol.l (-New York:
Dover'Publications, 1962), pp.39-47.
6. David Linge, trans., Philosophical Hermeneutics, by
Hans-Georg Gadamer (Los Angeles: University of California
Pres s, 1976), pp •xiv, xv •
7. For an excellent critique of the 'letter vs. spirit'
dichotomy in the history of translation, see George Steiner,
After Babel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp.
251-78.
8. Paul Ricoeur, "Philosophical hermeneutics and theological hermeneutics," Sciences Religieuses, 5, no.l (Summer
197 S/6), p.22
25
9. Paul Ricoeur, "Human Science and Henneneutical Method,"
in David Carr and Edward Casey, eds., Explorations in Phenomenology (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1973), p.42
10. Linge, trans., p.xxi.
11. See Yuichi Kajiyama, trans., An Introduction to
Buddhist Philosophy, Memoirs of the Faculty of Letters, No.l0
(Kyoto: Kyoto University, 1966); "Controversy between the
sakara- and nirakara-vadins of the yogacara school - some
materials," Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies, 14, no.l
(Dec. 1965), 418-429; and his article cited in note 21, Introduction.
12. See Christopher E.Arthur, "Gadamer and Hirsch: The
Canonical Work and the Interpreter's Intention," Cultural
Henneneutics, 4, 183-196 for a good summary of the problem.
13. Here enters the notorious problem of over- and underevaluation of texts.
See Steiner, pp.296ff.
14. See below chap. III.
15. See Hoy, pp.51-55.
16. M. Merleau-Ponty,
.... .
~
..vIan,
It.
"Phenomenology and the Sciences of
I
1.n J. 0 Neill, ed., Phenomenology, Language, and Socio-
(London: Heinemann, 1974), pp.229,2JO.
26
CHAPTER II
- -
CHAPTER II: MAJOR ISSUES OF THE MADHYAMAKALAMKARA:
ARTHAKRIYAKARITVA AND SVASAMYEDANA
As mentioned in the Introduction, there are five major
issues discussed in the Madhyamakalamkara according to
Mi-pham rgya-mtsho.
He states:
"In this treatise there are five special positions in
its approach which are superior to other Madhyamika
(presentations).
They are:
1. The restriction ('jog-pa) that only particular
existents which are e£ficacious (don-byed nus-pa)
are the ultimateobject of valid means of knowledge;
2. The special claim that the noetic (shes-pa), and
not objects, is reflexively cognitive and
il u~
minating (rang-rig rang-gsal);
J. The claim, as in the Cittamatra, in which the
variety of presences as an object-in-itself
(phyi-don) is present by virtue of one's own
experience (sems);
4. The division of the ultimate into two: discursive
and non-discursive (mam-grangs, mam-grangs-min);
5. The understanding that there is no contradiction
regarding the object of each valid means of knowledge in the situation of setting forth the discursively-formulated ultimate (i.e., that there
27
is necessarily
no contention between the as-
sertionsof each of the two truths)."l
In this chapter we shall consider the first two issues,
which concern the
k~y
accomplishments of the so-called
Buddhist Logicians, i.e., those who dealt with the question of the valid means of knowledge (pramana, tshad-ma).
As is well-known, Dignaga#and Dharmakirti distinguished
the two truths according to the criterion of efficacy;2
the ultimately real was the efficacious svalaksgpa (rang
gi mtshan-nyid), which is not a n:qlathematical point-instant," as Stcherbatsky claimed,)
but the unique object
of knowledge by direct acquaintance (pratyaksa, mngon-sum),
having its own place, time, and characteristic (desa, kala,
akaraJ ~ ,
~,
rnam-pa).4
Stcherbatsky's Kantian bias is important here, for
with the Kantian split between the understanding as pure
activity and sensuous intuition as pure passivity (mediated by the schematizing activity of the imagina.tion) , the
object of
s~nsuo s
intuition becomes a meaningless hyle re-
quiring a higher-order bestowing of meaning.
Edmund
Husserl, although rejecting his own earlier conception of
a sensuous hyle,S
could never really free himself from
this Kantian dualism in his doctrine of "empty" intentions
and their sensuous "fulfillments.,,6
It was the great mer-
it of Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception to have
broke with this aspect of Husserlian intentionality in his
28
dialectic critique of what he termed "Intellectualism"
(the Kantian tradition) and "Empiricism" (British empiricism and its modern psychological counterparts, who
it should be noted, continue to the present day in Cognitive Psychology?).
For Merleau-Ponty, the phenomenon
of perception is a pre-objective gestalt (configuration),
a being-in an intrinsically meaningful (i.e., not in need
of a bestowing of meanings by an intending consciousness,
or through memory-association) perceptual field.
see how the Sautrantika and Cittamatra
t~eories
We shall
of percep-
tion relate to these modern developments, which are of
particular importance because most translators of Buddhist
philosophies, ignorant of these developments, unwittingly
employ the language of British empiricism in their translations.
The conventional truth for the Buddhist logicians is
the object of judgment and inference (anumana, rjes-dpag),
which is a universal (samanyalaksana, spyi'i mtshan-nyid).
These are abstractions (abhava, dngos-med), which have
their origin in negation according to the famous theory
of exclusion (apoha or anyapoha, sel-ba or gzhan-sel), and
can only indirectly refer to the unique svalaksapa.
This,
however, does not entail an ontological dualism; pratyaksa
and anum an a are different means for exploring one reality,
for while the directly..;apprehended object (grahyavisaya,
gzung-yul) of pratyak§a is the svalaksapa, this. phase of
29
perception gives rise to perceptual judgments as its indirect object
(adh~av sa~ visay ,
lhag-par zhen-pa'i yul).
Similarly, the direct object of anumana is the sam n~a,
while its indirect object is the svalaksana. 8 Through
this approach the Buddhist epistemologist is able to avoid the intellectualist-empiricist split regarding perception.
The svalakeana is an ontological plenum, its
essential existence (svabhava, rang-bzhin, rang-gi ngo-bo)
is apprehended as it is by perception;9 judgments can only
abstract from it in terms of general characteristics
through exclusion of other characteristics.
This exclu-
sion is based on pragmatic concerns, i.e. in order to remove doubt or error concerning direct perception. lO Thus,
for example, the relation of whole and part, or universal
and particular, are constituted through judgments based on
the principle of exclusion, and are not particular existents themselves, cognized through perception.
As such,
they are not pure fictions, like a hare's horn, but can
only indirectly refer to the svalaksapa.
It should be remembered here that when Dignaga and
Dharmakirti assert that the svalaksana belongs to the ultimate truth, this is because their inquiry is a tha-snyad
dpyod-pa'i tshad-ma, a logical inquiry through valid means
· h ed convent1.ona
.
11 y. 11
of knowledge establ 1.S
'Th
e .LMa dh yama k a,
on the other hand, employs a don-dam dpyod-nati tshad-ma,
an inquiry on the ultimate level.
30
We shall see below how
Mi-pham is eager to show the non-contradictoriness of the
two (Chapter IV).
Mi-pham presents issue. one as follows:
"1. Although the genuine conventional object of valid
knowledge (gzhal-bya, prameya) is efficacious, the
aspect (cha) of abstraction (dngos-med) is founded
on particular existents in that it is unable to appear under its own power.
Since it is known to be'
an ascription by the intellect through exclusion of
what is other (gzhan-sel, anyapoha), one can accept
that which is established by naive perception, and
by this set forth the whole of the knowable which
is present as an object of naive perception, as impermanent.
Thus, although it is merely boasted that
space, etc. are eternal, when these are established
as a mere ascription as an abstraction, then when
something is a particular existent it must be efficacious.
If it is (such), then since it is found to
be momentary, all particular existents are quickly
established as impermanent.
If one knows how to
identify substantial (rdzas) and postulated (btags)
objects by means of presence and exclusion (snang
se1), there arises a deep understanding of that
which is like the eye and heart of the basic texts
of logic.
The claim that efficacy, which divides
the conventional into the division of the genuine
31
and non-genuine (-ly real), exists in an ultimate
sense, is similar to that of the Sautrantikas, and
even Dharmakirti is known to have said:
tIf I go in-
to an examination of an independently-existing (Object), I rely on the support of the Sautrantikas.,12
Here (in the
Madhyam kal mk~ra),
although an unob-
served, public object is not accepted, it is necessary to make a conventional method of validation concerning the ontic mode of presencing (snang-tshul),
which appears as a variety of presences by virtue of
experience ( ~ ) . " 1 3
The principal-verses of the
relating
Madhyam ka.lamk~ra
to this first issue of efficacy are vv. 64-66, which come
just after
,
Santar k~ita
has established his thesis that all
particular existents are neither unitary nor multiple. An
objection is raised:
"Then is the actuality of the conventional an abstraction (dngos-med)?
If it were, then wouldn't it con-
tradict efficacy which is observed and believed in?
This is demonstrated not to be so (as follows):
The thematized entities (chos-can) which arise
and cease (momentarily) and are enjoyed merely by virtue of not investigating them,
Are that which is efficacious.
Understand that
that (this) is the conventional.//64
The relative-conventional is not a mere conventional
32
expression.
Since the particular existents which
are observed and believed in and which aome about
contextually, cannot withstand a critique, (they
are) the genuinely relative.
When one makes a con-
ventional expression in this way, which is called
an 'ascription', etc., why should this contradict
efficacy?
As it is said:'
'That which comes about contextually is called
openness;
This is a founded designation.' This itself
is the Middle Way. ,,,15
Kamalasila adds:
"Since particular existents which come about contextually are ultimately without essential existence, therefore, they are really like a hare's
horn and are thus called 'empty.'
so.
(This is) not
Therefore, there is no contradiction with
what is seen, etc.
'This is a founded designa-
tion,' refers to the conventional. The terms
'designation' (gdags-pa) and 'founded' (rgyur
byas-pa) are synonymous with the relative.
is their origin.
This
'This itself is the Middle Way'
is spoken of since the
~o
extremes of positive and
negative imputations have been eliminated.,,16
~
Santaraksita
continues on the same theme in the next two
,
verses:
33
"Although (these entities) are enjoyed merely by
virtue of not investigating them,
There arises a similar subsequent result based on
its previous causes.//65
Therefore, if the conventional is without a (real)
causal basis, then, says (the reductionist, its
presence) is not possible.
This is not so.
If the. founding basis is real, then say so (with
reason) .//66
This has already been explained.
Entitative existence
which is efficacious while not withstanding a critique,
is known as the 'genuine conventional.'
such as 'person,' etc., are not.
Mere sounds,
If (something) comes
about based on its own cause which cannot withstand a
critique according to this approach, how could it be
without a cause?
If its cause existed when investiga-
ted by intrinsic awareness and discernment, intelligent people would say so.
'Even a cart does not pass
beyond this reality,' has been explained as applying to
everything (i.e., it is a founded designation)_"l?
The other major contribution of the Buddhist logicians
was their definition of the mental as svasamvedana (rang-rrg),
non-referential, reflexive awareness.
The
~
of svasam-
vedana, the rang of rang-rig do not mean here that consciousness is aware of itself, but that, as S~ntirak9ita
tells us,
this awareness does not depend on another to be aware (gzhan
)4
la mi-ltos-pa),18 that is, cognitiveness is not a causal
result.
In criticizing the view (of the Vaibha.sikas) that
•
the noetic is itself non-intentional, like a clear crystal,
and substantially distinct from its object,
,
Santar k~ita
makes not only reflexivity (non-referentiality) characteristic of the noetic, but also intentionality, i.e., the
noetic "possesses" a noema (sakara, rnam-bcas-pa).
Thus,
direct realism and its counterpart of a wholly referential
awarenesss is shattered.
Following Dignaga and Dharmakirti,19 one can only ~
flectively: ascribe "presence to itself" (rang-gi snang,
svabhasa) to svasamvedana, which makes possible such reflective activity.
To take svasamvedana as "consciousness
of itself" is to make it
Ultimately, it is
ref rential~
a partless whole, a-total situation, although reflectively
we may analyze the cognitive situation into the producer
and the produced, or the means of knowledge (pramana,
tshad-ma), object of knowledge (prameya, gzhal-bya), and
result of knowledge (pramaoa-phala, tshad-ma'i 'bras-bu).
But, as Dignaga informs us,20
the result of the activity
of knowing is not different from the means of knowledge,
and may be referred to as svasamvedana or sakarajnana.
Another important area where Dignaga applies these insights
into the non-referential and intentional nature of the noetic, is the problem of memory. He shows 2l that in the
wholly referentialist view of the nirakarajnana (non-inten-
35
tionality) view of the Vaibhasika and the Hindu realists,
•
one couldn't even have a subsequent knowledge of one's
cognition, and begins to develop a
theory of retentions,
anticipating Husserl's Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness in this respect.
In verses 16-21 of the N~l
-
svasgmvedana and sakarajnana.
.
Santaraksita establishes
But being a Svatantrika-
Madhyamika, this is only part of a dialectical procedure.
The sakara (intentionality) is certainly superior to the
nirakara (non-intentionality), but Sant rak~ita
then turns
(in verses 22-33) to a critique of the different theories
of sakara among the Sautrantikas.
First we shall present
Mi-pham's summary of this second major issue of the text:
"2. Non-referential (reflexive) awareness exists only
conventionally; in its essential existence (rang-gi
ngo-bo) it is not a referential awareness (yul-rig)
which is divided into a noesis (rig-byed) and a
noema (rig-bya).
By demonstrating the position
which accepts non-referential awareness conventionally in its meaning that experience merely comes
about as cognitive and illumining, which excludes
it from the insentient, non-referential awareness
conventionally is non-contradictorily established
without engaging in any of the clamor about the
contradiction of something acting on itself, etc.
By this,presence has been established as experience
36
(sems), and the conventionality of the experience
of objects is non-contradictorily established.
If
one has affirmed this, since the experience of an
object-in-itself, etc., is not established because
there is no relation (between the sentient and the
insentient), one has destroyed all claims of naive
perception (tshur-mthong).
Therefore, non-referen-
tial awareness is the single, essential point of all
Santrk~i
conventional logical inquiry.,,22
,
states as follows:
"Now we shall concretely demonstrate the dualist and
and non-dualist methods of explanation by our O\Affi
schools and others. 2 ) The approach of the dualists
is to claim that, while the duality of the apprehending and the apprehendable genuinely exists, perception is like a clear crystal and cannot be said to
grasp
a noema of an (intended) object.
We shall
make an examination of these (claims).
Perception comes about (characteristically) contrary to that which is insentient.
That which is essentially not insentient is the
reflexivity of the noetic.//16
The position in which perception is without an (intended) noema (according to) the approach of the
dualists (involves the following): since understanding is only (to be found) in cognitiveness and in
37
oneself, and since perc'eption doesn't encounter the
presence of an object, the very being (bdag-nyid) of
experience of an object which is separate from oneself would be impossible.
The positing of this (ex-
periencing) as non-referential awareness (is done)
because its very being is naturally illumining, and
is the contrary of that which is without awareness,
such as a cart.
being cognitive.
This is its essential existence in
Since (this) cognizing, in the case
of something blue, doesn't depend upon another, this
is the meaning of 'is not insentient.'
This is cal-
led 'non-referential awareness.'
Since one cannot accept that that which is partless and unitary is three-fold,
The reflexivity of this (noesis) is not itself a
particular existent which is divided into an
agent and an object of activity.III?
As it is said, the ability to set up an object's
respective noema is the cause (of perception).
This
is what is to be cognized, and perception which ascertains the factuality of the object is what is to
be produced.
Non-referential awareness, which is
spoken of as the 'cognizer' according to the approach
in which' a' noesis possesses a perceptual noema, cannot
thus be accepted, since' from a perception which in its
very being is partless, a tri-partite division into
38
activity of cognition, cognizer, and what is to be
cognized; or activity of production, producer, and
what is to be produced, is not tenable.
Since, when one has turned away from what has previously originated, it is non-existent, it is without ability (to set up a perception); yet when it is
able, its factuality which is claimed to be the producer (of the perception), is also completely established as what is claimed to be produced (by the perception) which is not different from it it.
Thus,
activity in its very being is contradicted.
There-
fore, the activity of illumining, whose very being
is intrinsically illuminating without being dependent
on another, is called 'the non-referentiality of perception. '
Therefore, because this is the essential existence
of the noetic, it is the very being of the
noetic.
How can that which is other (than the noetic) which
has the essential existence of an object, become
known by this (partless) noesis (since there
would be no relation between them)?!!18
For example, since its very fact of being is illumining,
one claims it as illuminating in regard to its essentially illuminating function.
In the same way, percep-
tion also, since its very.being is'experience, is
39
claimed as non-referential (reflexive) awareness.
Since perception is characterized by cognition of
individual objects, this is also its essential existence (ngo-bo nyid) 'of determining (yongs-su dpyod-pa)
the object 24 • If one claims, therefore, that just as
(perception experiences) itself, it also experiences
the object, this is not
co~rect.
If the essential existence of this (noesis) does
not exist in what is other (i.e., objects), how
could this (noesis) know another (object in the
same way it-·is reflexively) noetic,
Since it is claimed (by you) that the knower and
the known are separate entities.//19
The fact known as 'determination' is specific to the
noetic; since it is like the pleasurableness of pleasure,
etc., how could this be a similarity to what is other?
(One may think:) by virtue of a relation (between the
noetic and its object) one will experience 'this which
is so-and-so.'
But the mere coming about from some-
thing does not establish experience of the object,
since that would lead to the consequence that the eye,
etc., (would also be experienced).2 5
If the object were to become essentially determination, and if perception is also essentially this,
then since the object of the noetic is in fact determination, there would be no difference {between the
40
two) in the very fact of experience.
If the noetic is also to be referential (don-rig),
in the approach of those whose thinking has been
vitiated by the poison of obsession with an object
in-itself, this is impossible, since (according to
this approach) the object and the noetic are two
different things.
(we investigate) the view
~"Jhen
of those who claim that there is no non-referential
(reflexive) awareness of the noesis and the noema,
(we find) that there would be no awareness of the
two, and 'the object' and 'the noetic' would not be
established.
If the nO'etic is (intrinsically) illu-
mining, then -(this) illumination cannot become illumining.
(Otherwise) since (this) illumination is
not (intrinsically) illumining, then, just as in the
case of an object which is claimed as a direct acquaintance of another person, even an object claimed (to be
directly experienced by oneself) would not be directly experienced, since there would be no reason for
the relation (of noesis and object).
Moreover, this position in which, the noesis is without
a noema is shown to be very inferior to the position
in which the noesis possesses a noema, since there is
no relatien (of noesis and object in the former).
In the case of those who say that the noesis possesses a noema although these two are really
41
separate,
Since (the intended object and the noema) are like
(an object and its) mirror-image, (the intended
object) is merely postulated as a felt experience.//20
The reflection which is the very being of the noetic
set forth by this (position, i.e., sakarajnanavada),
this very awareness is referential (don-shes).
On
account of this, the experience of the reflection as
resulting from the object, is labelled 'experience of
the object •• 26
In the case of those who do not claim perception
to be 'colored'. by the noema of the (intended)
object,
There wouldn't even exist the (noetic) aspect
which cognizes the (intended) object.//21
Because it is essentially insentient, a particular
existent which is the object of awareness is far from
being the object (of perception).
Since (the nirakara-
jnanavada) don't even accept a reflection as the cause
of relation (between noesis and object), even postulation (of an object) is impossible.
If this is so,
then (the theory in which) a noesis possesses a noema
is correct.
But, this is not so.,,27
As mentioned above, the establishment of svasamvedana
(non-referential, reflexive awareness) is also the establishment of sakarajnana (the intentionality of conscious42
ness), which
,
Santar k~ita
has just demonstrated.
The re-
suI t is a kind of phenomenalism', as H. V. Guenther has
brought out by employing the terminology of C.D. Broad's
Sensum Theory in translating texts on the Sautrantika
theory of perception. 28 • That is, the Sautrantikas, having
freed themselves from direct realism, are still caught up
in the problem of the 'real' relation between the objective
constituent or sensum, and the epistemological-cum-ontological (i.e., physical) object which is said to "deliver up"
(gtad-pa) the sensum as the "emi tting re,gion."
Phenomeno-
logy and the Yogacara Buddhists understand that this is not
a 'real', physical relation, and even the Sautrantikas admit that an ontological object can only be inferred, like
the real object in the case of a mirror-reflection. 29
Husserl, this relation is a problem of constitution.
For
Sakara-
jnana indicates that, from the start, we deal with meanings
in experience, and not mere stimuli that must be filtered
and/or associated to become meaningful.
Husserl has said:
"The noema is nothing but a generalization of the notion of
meaning to the total realm of acts.,,3 0 The noema is the
intended-as-such, the judged-as-such, the perceived-as-such,
as distinguished from what is judged about, etc., i.e., the
intentional object: 31
"For Husserl, th'en, the perceptual noema, like the
intentional essence of a perceptual act, is a meaning by virtue of which we refer to perceptual objects."
Husserl continued with this conception, although fraught
4)
with ambiguities, right
to his last work, The Crisis of European Sciences, where he states: 32
thro~gh
"But everywhere he (the psychologist) finds not only
intentions but also, contained in them as correlates,
the 'intentional objects' -- in an essential and completely peculiar way of 'being contained.' They are
not integral (reelle) parts of the intention but are
something meant in it, its particular meaning, •.. "
Husserl.elucidates somewhat the "peculiar way" the intentional object is "contained" in the intention in the following
pas ge:~3
" •.• we pursue the synthesis through which the manifold appearances bear within themselves 'that which
is' as their 'object pole.' The latter is in the
appearances not as a component part (reell) but intentionally, as that of which each, in its own way,
is an appearance. In terms of intentionality, anything straightforwardly experienced as a 'this-here',
as a thing, is an index of its manners of appearing, ..• "
Finally, like the Sautrantikas and the Yogacaras, Husserl
also states: 34
"'The' thing itself is actually that which no one experiences as really seen, since it is always in motion, always, and for everyone, a unity for consciousness of the openly endless multiplicity of changing
experiences and experienced things, one's own and
those of others."
That the perceptual object can be for Husserl a "unity for
consciousness" rests on this ambiguous notion of the noema.
Is there an "intended-as-such" or a "perceived-as-such"
through which we can refer, or which we may want to identify with the object-as-intended or referred-to, as Aron
Gurwitsch attempted to do in his phenomenology of perception?35
What is given and what is taken in perception?
H. Dreyfus has shown that Gurwitsch, in his uneasiness with
44
Husserl's emphasis on what is taken in perception, has gone
to the other extreme of emphasizing what is given, in interpreting the noema as a perceptual gestalt. 36 But the ambiguity of the Husserlian noema cannot be solved, but only
dissolved, as we shall see in the Madhyamika analysis.
As
Merleau-Ponty has shown, the perceived-as-such is inherently ambiguous; it is both present and absent.
The structure
of objectivity which is constituted by the Husserlian duality of noema and ideal intentional object, is such for the
timeless Transcendental Ego.
But temporality shatters this
absolute objectivity: "The ideal of objective thought is
both based on and ruined by temporality."3?
Husserl bril-
liantly saw this first aspect of temporality, but not the
second (ruination).
The 0Eenness of things is not that
they are a limitless series of EersEectives, but the fact
that they cannot be reduced, in their 'transcendence', even
to such an open, 'variational' essence.
states: 38
As Merleau-Ponty
"The thing and the world exist only in so far as
they are experienced by me or by subjects like
me, since they are both the concatenation of our
perspectives, yet they transcend all perspectives
because this chain is temporal and incomplete."
We shall return to this central problem when we discuss the
Yogacara, who are quite similar to the Sautrantikas, except
that they can dispense with the notion of an independently
existing object which is responsible for "transmitting" a
perceptual noema.
But they do not escape the problem of
the noema, and
,
will explicitly refer to the
S~tar k~ita
following arguments against the Sautrantikas when critiquing
the Cittamatra. J9
,
Santrk~i
now continues with a critique of the no-
tion of the noema among the Sautrantikas, the first of
their theories being known as the "non-duality of the multiple.,,40
According to Mi-pham, this theory holds that the
object 'has' many perceptual noemata, but only gives rise
to a single noesis, e.g., blue, or that a variegated object
transmits many noemata but there is only a single visual
perception of variegatedness, i.e., there are many noemata
but a single noesis.
multiple.,,4l
Hence the name, "non-duality of the
Santaraksita continues:
•
"In regard to this (i.e., sakara),
Since there' is no difference between the unitary
noesis (and its noema, according to this view),
there wouldn't be a multiplicity of perceptual
noemata.
Therefore, one couldn't posit that there would be
noeses (intending) intended objects by virtue
of this multiplicity.//22
The perception which views a painting, etc., comes about
undoubtedly with as many specific perceptual noemata as
there are specific regions of blue, gold, etc.
If this
is so, the noetic would not be in harmony with this.
This variety of perceptual noemata is logically unten46
able, since they would not be separate from the unitary
perception, being the very factuality of the noesis.
Therefore, in this case one couldn't establish a
variety of perceptual noemata as the cause of the
awareness of a variety of intended objects, such as
'this is blue, this is gold.'
Now, one may maintain that one can certainly claim that
there exists a variety of perceptual noemata which are
clearly perceived.
If this is so,
Since perception would not be differentiable from
the perceptual noemata (according to you, then
since noemata are multiple, the noesis) would no
longer be a unity.
If this is not so, how could these two (noesis and
noema) be called a 'unity. '//23
If percept'ion is 'bodily' not different from the many
perceptual noemata, then it would be as multiple as
these various perceptual noemata.
If, while percep-
tion is in actuality only unitary, perceptual noemata
are roul tiple, then since there is a cont.radiction, the
non-difference of perceptual noema and perception is
contradictory.
One may claim (the following):42
The noeses (intending) white, etc., come about
gradually (in perceiving a multi-colored
object),
But since they come about in quick succession,
47
stupid people think of them as perceived
simultaneously.//24
One says: in the case of piercing a hundred petals of
a lotus flower, since this occurs very quickly although
it is really gradual, it (appears to happen) all at
once, just as in seeing a whirling fire-brand.
This
seeing is spoken of on account of its quick whirling.
If this is so, then
Since the intellectual apprehensions of the sound
la-ta, etc., come about in quick succession,
Even in this case, (apprehensions) should come
about simultaneously: why doesn't it happen
like this?//25
(In this case,) even the intellect (which apprehends)
the objects which are the letters 'la-ta, ta-Ia, sa-ra
ra-sa,' etc., would similarly arise in quick succession,
and therefore, because of this arising in quick succession, as in the (example) of the painting, etc.,
why doesn't one apprehend them (i.e., the letters)
simultaneously?
A result similar to its cause, which
yet is different, is untenable since it would not be
a cause. 43
Even purely intellectual apprehensions could't be
known to come about in succession (in this case).
Since they do not remain for any length of time,
all of these apprehensions would be indistin48
guishable in their rapid succession.//26
Since, at the time of attending to, discursively examining, etc., visual perception, etc., which are of a different type (of mental activity) can arise uninterruptedly
and without being confused (with other types of acts),
why, since these (acts) clearly arise in rapid succession, are they not apprehended all at once?
In this
first case, 'since they arise rapidly on account of this,'
is not an adequate reply •.
Even according to the oppo-
nent, the mental activities which pass away very quiCkly, are said, 'not to remain for any length of time.'
Therefore, in regard to all the objects (of apprehension), although they wouldn't be gradually apprehended,
The seeming variety of perceptual noemata would appear
as apprehended simultaneously.//27
Therefore, since there would be no differentiation of
rapid succession, just as in the case of the differentiation of noemata apprehended regarding all objects, it
would be difficult to counter (the objection) that there
would be no gradual (succession).
Dissimilar results
which are similar to all (their) causes are untenable,
and would just not be causes, as explained before.
The
example of seeing the whirling fire-brand is thus not
correct.
Also, in the case of the whirling fire-brand, (although)
there arises the error of it appearing simultaneously
50
is all at once, then since there is a logical contradiction, it is logical that it is not simultaneous.
Those possessed of the eye of discernment which is
very finely focused, determine it as gradual.
That
which pierces many (things) by a single action is a
gradual (process), like a copper-plate, etc.
Also
this piercing many lotus petals by a single action
of a person, is inferred.
Suitable (i.e., of the
same type) noeses equal in number to their noemata
come about together in (seeing) the surface of a
·d) 44
. t·1ng, (·t·
pa1n
1 1S sa1.
W
I d emons t ra t e th e
e shal
approach of those who think that different types of
noeses of form, sound, etc., are like this.
At the time of seeing a single painting, we (call
it a) whole,
In claiming that many intentions corresponding to
their (objects) come about together.IIJl
Then,
If this is so, although a noesis (intends) a single
perceptual noema of white, etc,
Since (the perceptual noema) has various (parts)
such as upper, middle, and edge, it would become
various possible objects.IIJ2
In the same way as many perceptual noemata such as
blue, white, etc., even a (single perceptual noema
of) white, etc. which is claimed as unitary, would
51
be many perceptual noemata of upper, near, and far
sides.
Further, the noetic itself (corresponding)
to this would become multiple.
If one claims (the
noema) would be multiple, (the opponent claims) they
would be unitary, and one could apprehend a partless
atom as an object.
The division into parts of this
obj ect (i. e., the atomistic white, etc.) is not able
to be determined even by those of very acute discernment.
(Now,) the statement that this view also is
not experienced:
An atomistic white, etc., that is partless and
unitary:
A noesis for which this is present is not experienced by oneself.//33,,45
Let us try to sum up the critique 'of the Sautrantikas.
The Sautrantikas, while recognizing that the 'transcendent'
object is never directly experienced, in critiquing wholly
referential awareness (nirakara)" and recognizing that awareness is not a causal product ,which
upon another to
dep ~d
be "illuminated" (svas8ll1vedana), encounter in their sakaraperception doctrine similar problems to those of the Husserlian doctrine of intentionality.
As Husserl saw, only the act is im-
manent, the meanings (noema) it deals with are
ly,
the i d e ~ l i
--- .
of the Husserllan noemacreates
ty
a phenomenology
not.·U_~fo.rtunate-
-
o~
.
pro.b~emsfor
--
•
~
Are these noemata the mean..§.
perception.
whereby we are directed towards objects, or the
52
objects~them-
selves
~
perceived?
The Sautrantikas realized that the
means of knowledge (pramana) can only be conceptually distinguished from the result of knowledge (pramana-phala),
the means being the akara.
Thus, they got into the same
kinds of problems Gurwitsch faced in trying to identify
the Husserlian noema (as means) with a perceptual noema.
Both are unable to deal essentially with the difference
between perception and imagination. 46 The Sautrantikas
appeal to an 'external object' as an object of knowledge
(prameya) which is different from the means of knowledge;
yet it is somehow 'similar' ('dra-ba, sarUpya) to the perceptual noema, although not directly "experienced.
The
phenomena of perception has been missed, as Merleau-Ponty
would say.
Consider this statement by Gurwitsch about the
perceptual noema: 47
"When an object is perceived, there is, on the one
hand, the act with its elements, whatever they may
be: the act as a real event in psychical life, happening at a certain moment of phenomenal time, appearing, lasting, disappearing, and when it has
disappeared, never returning. On the other hand,
there is what, in this concrete act, stands before
the perceiving subject's mind •••• What has been
described ••• is the noema of perception - namely, the
object just (exactly so and so) as the perceiving
subject is aware of it, as he intends it in this
concrete experienced mental state."
Is perception experiencing a mental state, or just having
something before one's mind?
The theory becomes a theory
of perceptual judgments and anticipations only.48
The fundamental problem here is ontological, as
Heidegger and the Madhyamaka Buddhists saw, each in their
.53
own way.
Heidegger said in recalling the questioning which
led him to the "question of Being" and the writing of Being
and Time: 49
"Whence and how is it determined what
ienced as 'the things themselves' in
with the principle of phenomenology?
sciousness and its objectivity or is
of beings in its unconcealedness and
must be experaccordance
Is it conit the Being
concealment."
A commentator on Heidegger explains: 50
"If we take sense and reference as jointly necessary
conditions of full meaning, the problem might be
stated simply: How are they joined? By arbitrary
convention, in the nature of things, or in some
other way? ••• 'How is this relation between an
ideal entity and a real present-at-hand entity to
be grasped ontologically? ••• the dilemma, Heidegger
maintains, may be resolved by understanding truth
not as a relation between real and ideal entities or for that matter between merely ideal entities but rather as the activity in which entities 'come
to light' or are discovered in and by a kind of being not properly understood as a substantial entity."
Notes to Chapter II
1.
YQ, f.51,2-4
2. See Pram[oavarttika-karika, ed. Yusho Miyasaka,
in Acta Indologica, II (1971/2), chap. III, vv.1,3.
(We shall
use the standard numbering of the chapters, in which the pratyaksapariccheda is the third.)
Hereafter PV.
3. Th. Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic, I, pp.106ff.
4. See Kajiyama, An Introduction, p.56
5. See Aron Gurwitsch, "Phenomenology of Thematics and
of the Pure Ego: Studies of the Relation between Gestalt
Theory
and Phenomenology," in his Studies in Phenomenology
and Psychology (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1966),
pp.253-8.
6. See Hubert Dreyfus, "The Perceptual Noema: Gurwi tsch' s
Crucial Contribution," in Lester Embree, ed., Life-World and
Consciousness (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1972),
pp. 135-170, for a lucid presentation of this problem.
7. For an excellent survey of c·ontemporary Cognitive
Psychology, including a critique of the currently popular
information-processing models, see Ulrich Neisser, Cognition
and Reality (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1976).
Merleau-Ponty's
critiques in the Phenomenology of Perception of "Intellec55
tUalism" and "Empiricism" remain as timely today as when they
were written 30 years ago.
8. See Dharmottara's commentary on Nyayabindu r,12 in
Stcherbatsky, II, p.34; and Kajiyama, An Introduction, pp.58-9.
9. See PV I, 43.
10. See PV 1,45.
H.V. Guenther has brilliantly
summed
up the apoha theory's resolution of the problem of universals:
"the 'horseness' is not .Qf the 'horse' but the horse which is
'horsy' in relation to other things, which then are technically termed chos-can (Skt. dharmin )." ("Tantra and Revelation," in H.V. Guenther, Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective (Emeryville, Calif.: Dharma Press, 1977), p.211 n.).
11. For a clear presentation of the different tshad-ma
see mDo-sngags bstan-pa'i nyi-ma, ITa-grub shan-'byed gnad-kyi
sgron-me yi tshig-don rnam-bshad 'jam-dbyangs dgongs-brgyan,
f.23a,6-29a,1
12. I could not locate this quotation in any of Dharmakirti's
works.
It seems to merely be a statement reflecting the fact
that Dharmakirti, following Dignaga, interpreted his theories
both according to the Sautrantika and the Yogacara.
13. UG, f.51,4-52,3
14. For Mi-pham's topical outline (sa-bead) of the whole
MAl, see appendix 2.
15. Mulamadhyamakakarika, XXIV, 18.
This celebrated
verse contains the difficult phrase sa prajnaptirupadaya,
Madhyam ka~ stra
of Nagarjuna, ed. P.L. Vaidya (Darbhanga:
56
Mithila Institute, 1960), p.219.
The usual Tibetan transla-
tion is de-ni brten-nas gdags-pa ste (Candrakirti Prasannapada
Madhyamakavrtti, trans.
Jacques May (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneve,
1959), p.440, who notes also rgyur bcas for brten-nas).
/-
San-
tarak 9 ita (MAl, Sa 68b,S) has: de-ni rgyur-byas gdags-pa ste,
while Kamalasila ~ ,
gdags-pa.
Sa 121b,3) has: de-ni rgyur-byas ming
May's translation (p.237) and footnote (n.840) are
misleading;~nyat
is not a metaphorical designation for the
absolute reality, as May would have it.
to contextual origination (which is I~unya),
designation.
The
~
(de) refers
which is a founded
For example, the famous chariot example, except
here the parts of the chariot are equally founded designations.
See our discussion below, p.78ff.
May gives the same transla-
tion with a clearer discussion twenty years later in an article in Journal of Indian PhilosophY,,6no.3 (Nov. 1978), 240-1.
16. MAl, Sa 121b,2-4
17. MAl, Sa 69a,5-69b,1
18. MAl, Sa 56b, 6. Cf. Tattvasamgraha, 2012.
See
below p. 38.
19. Pramapasamuccaya, 1,10 (Hereafter PS); PV III,
354-367.
20. PS I, 8cd,9a.
22. UG, f.52,3-5.
21. PS I 11-12.
23. Kamalasila explains that "non-dualists" refers to
those who hold that the shes-pa alone exists (Sa 97a,1).
24. Yongs-su dpyod-pa
= yongs-su
57
gcod-pa, pariccheda.
See Stcherbatsky, Vol.l, p. 412, and Vol. 2, p. 367 •
On
rnam-gcod and yongs-gcod, cf. PV I,48-49, 131-34; UG,
229,3ff.
25. Cf.
TS
2007; PV 111,333.
Merleau-Ponty states:
"If one tried, according to the realistic ap.proach, to make perception into some coincidence with the thing, it would no longer be
possible to understand what the perceptual
event was, how the subject managed to assimilate the thing, how after coinciding with
the thing he was able to consign it to his
own history, since ~
hypothesi he would have
nothing of it in his possession."
Phenomenology of Perception (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1962), p.325.
26. Cf. PV 111,209, 247-48.
Kamalasila adds:
"on account of ascribing the result to the cause" (Sa
99a,3), i.e., the noetic which is the cause is label-
A transcendent,
led as the res\llt, the "reflection."
intended' object is never experienced but only postulated (see UG, f.74a,6-75a,1).
Yet, there must, ac-
cording to the Sautrantikas, be some transcendent cause,
which is like an object in relation to the reflection
(rnam-pa) in experience (the surface of the mirror,
the immanent act (shes-pa).
The 'reflection' seems
to partake of immanence in being contained in the act,
as well as being intentional in that it points beyond
itself, has (or rather is) a meaning.
This 'reflection'
metaphor, it seems to me, should not be taken as a
physiological model of perception.
58
Cf. the quotation
from Merleau-Ponty on the "intentionality of sensation",
below p. 75.
27. MAl, Sa 56b,2-57b,7.
28. See H.V. Guenther, Buddhist Philosophy in Theory
and Practice (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1972), chapter 3.
29. See above p. 42.
30. Quoted in Dreyfus, "The Perceptual Noema," p.158
31. ibid. p.155.
32. Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and
Transcendental Phenomenology, trans. by David Carr (Evanston:
Northwestern Univ. Press, 1970), p.242.
33. ibid.
pp.170-1.
34. ibid. p.164.
35. Dreyfus, "The Perceptual Noema," p.155.
36. ibid. p.167.
37. Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception, p.333.
38. ibid.
39. See below pp. 85ff.
40. See Guenther, Buddhist Philosophy, pp.105,106,119,
120.
41. See UG, f.150,6. Cf. PV III,221.
This seems to be
the theory that Dharmakirti favors conventionally.
42. This begins the examination of the "two-halves of
an egg" theory.
thesis'.
It is a critique of perception as a 'syn-
Cf. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception,
p.325, and Neisser, Cognitive Psychology, pp.18ff., for a
59
critique of it in modern guIse as "information-processing."
See also Dharmakirti's critique, PV 111,198-200.
43. "Result" here means simultaneity, and tlcause" rapid'
suce~on.
.
S
ee MAl 99b,7ff. for
Kam las~la's
,~
commentary.
44. Here begins the examination of the theory of "an
equal number of noeses and noemata."
Cf. Guenther, Buddhist
Philosophy, pp.105,106,118-20.
45. MAl, Sa 57b,7-59a,8.
46. Cf. Guenther, Buddhist Philosophy, p.86.
47. Gurwitsch, Studies, p.132
48. On anticipations in perception, see Neisser, p.130ff.
50. David E. Starr, Entity and Existence (New York:
Burt Franklin, 1975), pp.22,113,115.
60
CHAPrER III
- -
CHAPTER III: MAJOR ISSUES OF THE MADHYAMAKALAl¥IKARA:
IrHE CITTAMATRA AND
rrs
MADHYAMAKA CRITIQUE
According to Mi-pham, the third major issue of the
Madhyamakalamkara is:
"The claim, as in the Cittamatra, in which the
variety of presences as an object-in-itself
(phyi-don) is present by virtue of one's own
experience ( ~ ) .
,,1
He explains this as follows:
"By accepting the variety of presences as the magical play (rnam-'phrul) of experience, one knows the
ultimate descriptive mode of being (yin-lugs) of
the conventional and obtains a trusi~g
conviction
(yid-ches) about the way in which one is involved
in and disengaged from sarnsara.
Regarding this, in
respect of the presence of Being (gnas-lugs) which
is free from all discursiveness, characteristics,
and objectification, even the statement, 'Presence
is experience,' is not established.
While this is
the ultimate which is beyond the conventional, when
one remains in the range of conventional presence,
since the existence of an object-in-itself is contradicted by reasoning and 'experience only' is established by reasoning, if one asserts a conventional
which does not go beyond the level of naive perception (tshur-mthong), there is no going beyond that.
61
If one investigates the entities merely posited by
virtue of conceptualization, although they are not
at all established, there is no cessation of infallible presencing by means of one's experience.
This
is established through the power of a mere presence
for-oneself or experiential presence.
If one goes
beyond that, although it is the level of the ultimate which is beyond the conventional, one should
know that a conventional position which is higher
than that is impossible.
Ther fo~e,
Dharmakirti
also (said) that the essential point which clarifies
establishment of the conventional, the intended
meaning which sees the existential mode of Being
of particular existents just as they are with the
eye of the originary awareness of Buddhahood, is just
this.
If this is so, conventional means of know-
ledge and the ultimate are harmonized and demonstrated: this is the distinguishing feature of this
treatise-.
Thus, if one understands presence as the
play of experience itself, (this is) the way to obtain certainty regarding involvement in and disengagement from sgmsara.
By virtue of the sedimenting (bzhag) of various
erroneous habituating tendencies in experience, in
the uninterrupted stream of projective existence a
variety of presences are present like in a dream.
62
Because there is no other cause apart from experience
for this, experience which has come under the power
of emotionality enters into the realm of projective
existence and even the" hand of the Tathagata cannot
put a stop to it.,,2
Elsewhere in his introduction to the Madhyamakalamkara,
Mi-pham sums up the Cittamatra-Madhyamaka relation in this
way:
"Since the very fact of the relative (gzhan-dbang) as
the ground of the conceptual (kun-btags) is not established in truth, one should be aware of the refutation by Candrakirti and others.)
All of these
arguments which refute the horizonal awareness (kungzhi mam-shes) and reflexive awareness, although
they apply to the acceptance of reflexive awareness
as established in truth by the Cittamatra, one should
know that they do not apply to all aspects of the
method which affirms the horizonal awareness and reflexive awareness merely conventionally.
For exam-
ple, the resoning which refutes the establishment in
truth of all cause and result, as well as psychophysical constituents, components of experience, and sense
fields, does not contradict the acceptance of cause
and result
and the establishment of the psychophysi-
cal constituents and experiential components merely
conventionally by the Madhyamikas.
6)
One should know
that the atman as an eternal substance, etc., of the
Tirthikas is impossible even conventionally.
In
brief, if (something) is established as existing on
the level of conventional valid means of knowledge,
conventionally who is able to refute it, while if
there is a contradiction according to conventional
valid means, who is able to establish its existence
conventionally?
If (something) is found to be non-
existent through a logical inquiry from the ultimate
(point of view), then who is able to establish that
it exists ultimately?
This is the reality (chos-nyid)
of all particular existents. ,,4
The key passage here involves the application of the Madhyamaka technical term "existence in truth" (bden-grub) to the
Cittamatra theories.
It is always a difficult problem when
one philosophical approach criticizes another using its own
terms.
How can we mediate these claims?
As mentioned in
chapter 1,5 we shall try to do this through a reflection on
contemporary phenomenology.
Don 1hde, in his Experimental Phenomenology, has hit
on a brilliant means of introduction to the complexities of
the phenomenological method initiated by Edmund Husserl,
through an investigation of multi-stable phenomena (e.g.,
the Necker cube) along phenomenological, as opposed to conventional psychological lines.
This approach involves a
deconstruction of the phenomena, which is made possible by
64
,.
the epoche or "suspension of belief in accepted reality
claims.,,6
As Ihde states,?
"Deconstruction accurs by means of variational
method, whichpossibilizes all phenomena in
seeking their structures. In this context,
epoche includes suspension of belief in any
causes of the visual effects and positively
focuses upon what is and may be seen."
It is important to note here that the epoche does not establish a pre-suppositionless viewpoint or a disinterested
spectator, as is often thought,8 rather it "is needed to
open the possibilities of the seen to their topographical
features.,,9
That is, the enoche is the beginning of the
de-struction of the sedimented (habituating) passivity of
ordinary perception in the "natural attitude."
not reveal a fundamental stratum of reality in a
It does
'pur~
description,' but is the basis for "the attainment" of a
new and open noetic cont"ext. ,,10
It is a matter of educating
ourselves to see more, just as a bird-watcher (the example
is Ihde's) learns to 'see' the markings of different species
of birds not 'seen' by the naive viewer.
term 'see' is given a precise meaning:+ 1
Here the ambiguous
"The educated viewer does not create these markings
(of the birds), because they are there to be discovered, but -- in phenomenological language -- he
constitutes them. He recognizes and fulfills his
perceptual intention and so sees the markings as
meaningful."
Although utilizing the dubious Husserlian language of
perceptual intention and fulfillment which we have had
occasion to criticize above, Ihde tries to steer a middle
65
course between Husserl and his 'existentialist ' critics.•
The important point of concern to us here is that perception is an active process, an activity of knowing (the
~irak rajna vad
being a classic example of passivity),
which has often been noted in the modern West, especially
since the advent of Gestalt psychology.
Phenomenologists
of perception, such as Gurwitsch and Merleau-Ponty, have
in effect tried to work out an adequate philosophy of the
perceptual Gestalt.
It should be noted here that a rejec-
tion of the passivity of perception
it into a judgment
doe~
not entail making
the extreme of "Intellectualism."
Rudolf Arnheim, in his well-known study of art and psychology in the Gestaltist tradition, Art and Visual Perception,
'states: 12
" •.. in looking at an Object, we reach out for it.
With an invisible finger we move through the space
around us, go out to the distant places where things
are found, touch them, catch them, scan their surfaces, trace their borders, explore their texture.
Perceiving shapes is an eminently active occupation."
Yet, paradoxically it seems, we must struggle to recover
what is already ours: the creative activity of perception.
Phenomenology is no longer description, but prescription,
as we shall see.
Sedimented, habitual ways of perceiving limit the possibilities of the 'object' to a static 'essence' (svabhava),
i.e., "an eXhaustively specifiable and unvarying mode of
being.,,13
For example, for most people (and the psycholo-
gists who test them), the Necker cube has two possibilities,
66
either as a forward-downward-facing cube or a forward-upward-facing cube.
But this is merely due to the laziness
of conventionalized viewing.
There are other equally
'essential' possibilities of the topographical form
known as the Necker cube, i.e., other ways to 'see' (gestalt) it without doing violence to the form.
three other possibilities.
Ihde reveals
This is what is meant by open-
ing the form to its topographical structure.
Any of these
possibilities (noema) is correlated with a way of looking
(noesis).
But this does not mean that perception isa
series of thin, transparent presences, as we have remarked
before. Ihde states: 14
"vJhat is important to note in this account is the
co-presence within experience of both a profile
and latently meant absence which, together, constitute the Presence of a thing. To forget or ignore the latent or meant aspect of the Presence of
the thing -reduces the appearance of the world to a
facade, lacking weightiness and opacity. Phenomenologists also claim that what makes any object 'transcendent,' having genuine otherness, is locatable in
this play of presence and absence-in-presence in our
perception of things. But note that transcendence
is constituted within experience, .•. "
Both the Cittamatra and Madhyamaka trends within Mahayana Buddhism claim to be exegesis on the Prajnaparamitasutras, whose message may be epitomized as,
openness and openness is presence.'
'Presence is
The Necker cube exam-
ple, phenomenologically considered, provides us with an
excellent tool
for showing their two different approaches
to this statement.
The Cittamatra emphasizes the inseparability of noesis
67
('dzin-pa, grahaka) and noema (gzung-ba, grahya), in order
to establish that there is no object-in-itself but "only
experience" (sems-tsam, ci ttamatra) •
This dualistic mode
of presencing into an object-in-itself and a subject-foritself is occasioned by the maturation (smin-pa) or activation (sad-pa) of habituating tendencies (bag-chags, vasana),
which we may refer to as 'schemata' in regard to perception. 15
This dualism is analyzed into a tri-partite structure in
Mahayanasutralamkara XI, 40 and Madhyantavibhagg III, 22
as follows: 16
world-as-horizon
(~;
pada)
pratistha,
objects within horizon (don,
longs-spyod; bhoga, artha)
body as focal-point of experience
(Ius; deha)
NOEMA
ego-act (emotively-toned)
(yid, manas or nyon-yid,
kli sta-manas)
thematization (rnam-rtog,
vikalpa)
sense perception ('dzin,
udgraha or rnam-shes,
vi,inana)
NOESIS
These presences characterize the contextuality of experience
(gzhan-dbang, paratantra) as a duality.
The habituating
tendencies which constitute this experience, collectively
as a 'stream' or 'stratum' (cf. Husserl: substrate of habitualities) are known as foundational-horizonal perception
(kun-gzhi rnam-shes, alaya-vi';nana), an indistinct awareness
of being-in-the-world, including the appropriation of these
habitualities (sa-bon, bija) and the body as one's own.
These are technically known as the referents (dmigs-pa,
alambana) of the horizonal awareness. 17 Contextuality is
the basis for straying into a world of fictions (the in-it-
68
self and for-itself) (kun-btags, parikalpita) or divesting
oneself of these fictions and recognizing the real in. its
initial purity (yongs-grub, parinispanna).
The interpre-
tation of contextuality is the crucial issue in assessing
Madhyamaka critiques of the Cittamatra.
For the Cittamatra,
the parikalpita is non-existent (Mahayanasamgraha, II,26)18
in being a mere name for the reality (bdag) on the paratantra level to which it refers (MS II, 24).
The paratantra
is the basis for the dualistic presencing of the parikalpita
(snang-gzhi; cf.
is used).
~
II, 2, where the term snang-ba'i gnas
The paratantra is said to be like a dream, an
apparition, etc.
Trimsika 24 explains the reason for this:
the contextual is without actual origination (utpattinihsvabhavata, skye-ba ngo-bo-nyid med-pa). because it does not
come about by itself but is dependent upon others, i.e.,
context. 19 This contextuality is none other than the
maturation of sedimented and habituating noetic-noematic
contexts, i.e., the activity of the alaya-vijnana, being
(cognitive)-in-the-world.
To return to the Necker cube example, gestalts of the
form in any of its possibilities, such as a cube, are not
private sense-data nor are they passive views of a single
'object'.
Rather, active ways of looking intend or struc-
ture the form in different ways, but one could equally say
that the seen actualizes the seer.
In Ihde's language,
the order of perception and the sedimentation of beliefs
are inseparable, but we may focus on either through his two
·strategies," the transcendental and the hermeneutic. 20
Notice: the sedimented order is on the noetic and the noematic
sides.
Here is where Husserl's transcendental strategy of
intentions and fulfillments is weak: by fulfilling one's intentions isn't one just substituting one form of habituation
for another?
Admittedly, phenomenological viewing opens up
the phenomena more than naive viewing does.
That is, one
doesn't escape from contextuality though the epoche but realizes its openness by freeing oneself from habituation to a
non-contextual subject and object, as the Yogacara would say.
One realizes that the object is not just 'there' but is constituted.
That is, what do we mean by objectivity, how does
it arise within experience?
The possibilities of the Necker
cube are not mere appearances of some-thing, which must be
known in order to verify them.
I cannot see the 'cube' as
an ostrich, although I can see it as a strangely cut gem if
I follow Idhe' s "strategies." 21 I can learn to adju st my
"noetic focus" to see the different possibilities ('If you do
so and so, you will see such and such.'), but there are no intersubjective instructions for seeing the 'cube' as an ostrich.
This problem of 'appearance' has been a great stumbling
block in the way of the analytic/linguistic tradit on~
under-
standing of phenomenology (and their tendency, if they consider
it at all, to see it as a kind of phenomenalism).
For example,
in his book Sensation and Perception, D. tN. Hamlyn expresses his
70
central critique of phenomenology (with specific reference to
Merleau-Ponty) as follows: 22
"An investigation of this pre-objective world
would be an investigation of the categories
applicable to perceptual consciousness ~rior
(logically and perhaps temporally prior) to
the construction of an objective world.
Merleau-Ponty has much of interest to say about
this. But the question may still be asked whether he has any right to assume that the necessary 'bracketing-off' has been complete. May his
account not be after all another account of how
things appear to us under very special conditions? As befits a 'descriptive psychology',
phenomenology may largely be looked upon as an
attempt to describe how things appear under different conditions. But once it is assumed that
a pure experience can be discovered, the use of
words like 'appears' becomes inappropriate. In
saying that we are studying how things appear to
us, we presuppose the notion of things and how
they really are (for we use the word 'appears'
very largely to make a contrast with how things
really are). It is difficult in consequence to
see how a description of appearances can be a
description of pure experience.
In this respect Phenomenology finds itself in
the same dilemma as Ayer. Either we can look on
the experience as basic or we can define it in
tenns of appearances but not both."
Such critiques of phenomenology are very helpful, for they
push it on to better self-understanding, i.e., that phenomenology at a certain point ceases to be description and becomes
prescriptive. 23
Merleau-Ponty himself realized that, "The
most important lesson which the reduction teaches us is the
impossibility of a complete reduction.,,24
Phenomenology is
not pure presuppositionless description of the perceived-intended-as-such, but the opening of phenomena as illustrated
in the Necker cube example.
The "very special conditions"
of phenomenological seeing are not just another habituated,
71
naive way of seeing.
Hume does not have as much right to
say he is describing phenomena as Husserl. 25 The "pure ex-
perience" of phenomenology is the open noetic-noematic complex which discovers presences and not mere apprarances.
Hamlyn's appeal to the proper usage of the word 'appears' is
based on naive (pre-reduction) presuppositions.
Phenomenology
cuts through Wittgenstein's 'seeing/ seeing-as' dichotomy.26
We have shown how the "notion of things and how they really
are" is constituted within experience.
For reasons such as
these misunderstandings of 'appearance' we have avoided this
term as a translation of snang-ba (abhasa) in the Yogacara or
Madhyamaka context, preferring "presence".
It is unfortunate
one speaks of phenomenological description. where explication
would be the better term.
Phenomenology is not description
of ordinary experience so much as prescription for that experience as transformed by radical reflection or explication.
That is, reflection modifies
the reflected-on by opening it
up and situating it. such as to make pre-suppositionless description
Santrk~i
,
impos ible~
Ultimately, there is nothing to describe,
would say.
Or Merleau-Ponty: "nothing exists ..•
everything is temporalized".2 7
But in order to understand
this one must try to radically reflect, to undertake the
reduction.
Once one is on one's way. experience, the dialec-
tic of reflection and reflected-on, or as Merleau-Ponty put
it, "the communication of a finite subject with an
opaque
being from which it emerges but to which it remains committed,,,28
72
widens and deepens.
As the old-saying goes, "You can lead a
horse to water but you can't make him drink," as two critics
of Merleau-Ponty have noted: 29
"But there is no way of proving a priori that a
phenomenological description of perception will
provide an account of the genesis of experience.
Those who refuse to undertake the experiment
will remain forever unconvinced. This Mer1eauPonty readily admits. 'In this sense (phenomenological) reflection is a system of thought as
self-enclosed as madness.' 'But', he maintains,
'this change of standpoint is justified in the
outcome by the abundance of phenomena which it
makes comprehensible'
The goal of this so-called
'descripti~n',
which is rather
a deconstruction, is to deconstruct until there is nothing
left to deconstruct, or rather, to realize that there has
never been anything to deconstruct, the world not being a
construction or constitution of 'transcendental' experience.
A subtle constructivism remains within the Yogacara
phenomenology, and this is bound up with their theory of
the three constitutive principles of reality (ngo-bo nyid
E~,
trisvabhava), whose crucial focus is the contextual
(paratantra).
There is a crucial ambiguity here which forms
the basis for the later developments of the sakarajnanavada
and nirakarajnanavada.
Does presence (snang-ba, abhasa) or
the perceptual noema (rnam-pa, akara) belong to the parika1pita or the paratantra?
In Husser1ian language: "is the per-
ceptual sense (Wahrnehmungssinn) to be understood as the
interpretive sense (Auffassungsinn) or as the intuitive
sense (Anschauungssinn)?,,3 0 If the noema belongs to the
73
parikalpita, then this is the position of the nirakarajnana1:ada or alIkajnanavada (rnam-rdzun-pa),31 which is examined
by
,-
on vv. 52-60.
Santar k~ita
If presence belongs to the
paratantra, then this is the position of the sakarajnanavada (among the Yogacara, which should not be confused with
the sakara among the Sautrantikas, discussed by Sant rak~ita
above, vv. 22-34), which is examined by Santar k~ita
46-51. 32
~
in vv.
The earlier (classical) Yogacara (of Asanga, Vasubandhu,
and Sthiramati) avoided this problem by stating that the
vasanas as cause and effect were simultaneous, the structuring (sedimenting) arises and ceases together with the structured (sedimented), like the odor of a flower perfuming
sesame seeds.)3
Or, they held that the relation between
the parikalpita and the paratantra is one of 'both ••• and' or
'neither ••• nor', as Ruegg has pointed out in analyzing the
. 34
Madhyantav~bhag :
"On the ontological level, the Vijnanavadin spe~ks
both of sattva 'existence' with respect to abhutaparikalpita and sunyata, and of asattva 'n0nexistence' with respect to duality (MY I,3), ••• "
and,
35
" ••• if abhutaparikalpita is then neither as it
appears, i.e. as affected by duality - ~
altogether non-existent - because it is the condition for error and for release - this is to
be understood in tems of the theory of the three
natures (svabhava) of the Yogacara. That is,
abhutaparikalpa as paratantrasvabhava exists as
SUCh: where as it is not as it appears when affected by the subject!objectduality of the parikalpitasvabhava, once freed from the latter it
is the perfect nature of the parini§pannasva74
-
,..
bhava (MVBh 1.6).'"
-,'"
Why this ambiguity (see above p.7;)?
Because, as we have
indicated already, the perceived-as-such is never complete
and implicates the rest of the phenomenal field.
ject' is always
The 'ob-
but never determinate.
determin~
The in-
tentionality of perception is not a transparent positing of
meaning by a consciousness.
As Merleau-Ponty says of 'In-
tellectualism,:3 6
"The object is made determinate as an identifiable
being only through a whole open series of possible
experiences, and exists only for a subject who carries out this identification. Being is exclusively for someone who is able to step back from it
and thus stand wholly outside being. In this way
the mind becomes the subject of perception and
the notion of 'significance' becomes inconceivablet~':
And then he says of the intentionality of sensation: 3?
"The sensation. of blue . is not the knowledge or
positing of a certain identifiable Quale throughout all the experiences of it which I have, as
the geometer's circle is the same in Paris and
Tokyo. It is in all probability intentional,
which means that it does not rest in itself as
does a thing, but that it is directed and has
significance beyond itself. But what it aims at
is recognized only blindly, through my body's
familiarity with it. It is not constituted in
the full light of day, it is reconstituted or
taken up once more by a knowledge which remains
latent, leaving it with its opacity and its thisness."
The ambiguities of the Yogacara-phenomenology
only to get richer.
se ~
Is there perhaps another way to attack
the problem, to deal with the contextuality of experience?
Tsong-kha-pa, in tb.ecours'e of
commenting on the
long section of the sixth chapter of the Madhyamakavatara
75
in which Candrakirti has critiqued the Yogacara, states: 38
ttRegarding the Madhyamaka and Cittamatra approaches, there is no difference as to making
tnese presences as internal and external entities the basis for the obsessiveness (mngon
par zhen-pa) of sentient beings. Indeed they
are also similar on account of reversing the
obsession with this basis showing these (en~
tities) as open (~yn a),
yet they are not the
same in regard to what they consider to be)
the manner of this obsession (zhen-tshul).
For the Cittamatra, dualistic presence as inner and outer, noesis and noema, as a seeming
presence (snang-ba ltar) , is obsession with
the noesis and noema as separate substances
(rdzas). Having taken hold of presence as a
subject matter (chos-can) in its contextuality
as an antidote to this (obsessiveness), since
they refute the existence of noesis and noema
as separate substances,the (fault) that the
basis of negation (dga -~zhi)
is that which
is to be negated (dgag-bya), is refuted.
In the Madhyamaka perspective, the manner of
obsession is the obsession with presence. which
has not'-been posited by con"Ventional intellect, as
being established in truth. Having taken ho~d
of this presence as subject matter as an antidote to this (obsessiveness), (since) they
refute (by demonstrating) 'the non-existence
in-truth of such (an entity),' the (fault)
that the basis of negation is that which is
to be negated, is refuted. tt
We have already seen how the Cittamatra uses contextuality to show that this very contextuality is devoid of
(sunya) the duality of noesis and noema.
But what does he
mean by "obsession with presence, which has not beenpo·si-ted
-conventional intellect,as being established in truth tt as the
mode of obsession the Madhyamakas are refuting?
To return again to our example, the Madhyamaka offers
what I would call a more radical de-construction of multistable phenomena.
We have seen that each variation is a
76
by
gestalt.
The Cittamatra have shown how a gestalt does not
come into being apart from its sedimented contextuality.
is never ob-ject.
It
But what is the internal structure of a
Gestalt-as-noema itself?
A gestalt has a "dynamic", "hidden
structure", to use Arnheim' s terms, who also states: "Visual
perception consists in the experiencing of visual forces."J9
These forces seem occult and subjective to the psycho-physiologist still under the spell of the "stimulus error" and the
"constancy hypothesis", those psychological counterparts of
the atomism of British Empiricism. 40 These "forces" are the
expression of the famous gestalt part-whole complex.
.
41
is a "whole-part":
A part
"What a person or animal perceives is not only
an arrangement of objects, of colors and shapes,
of movements and sizes. It is, perhaps first
of all, an interplay of directed tensions.
These tensions are not something the observer
adds, for reasons of his own, to static images
•••• Notice further that if the disk is seen
as striving toward the center of the square,
it is being attracted by something not physically present in the picture. The center point
is not identified by any marking in figure 1;
as invisible as the North
Pole or the Equator, it
is nonetheless a part of
the perceived pattern, an
•
invisible focus of power,
established at a considerable distance by the outline of the square. It
is 'induced', as one efigure 1
lectric current can be
induced by another. There are, then, more things in
the field of vision than those that strike the retina
of the eye ••• Such perceptual inductions differ from
logical inferences. Inferences are thought operations
that add something to the given visual facts by interpret ing them.
It
77
These "perceptual forces" and "tensions" make multistable phenomena possible.
A given variation is actualized,
say a forward-downward-facing cube, when point A is seen for-
B
ward and down (as part of a forward-downward-facing cube).
It
is difficult to focus on A in
the rear of a forward-upwardfacing cube, but B can easily
be seen as forward and up as part of such a cube.
A and B
have completely different significances in these cases, defferent meanings (which are not intellectual judgments) as
"part-wholes" in different variational structures.
Intentions
are "fulfilled" not as 'ideal' variations of positings by a
transparent consciousness, but, as Merleau Ponty states,42
Ita sensible datum which is on the point of being
felt sets a kind of muddled problem for my body
to solve. I must find the attitude which will
provide it with the means of becoming determinate,
••• I must find the reply to a question which is
obscurely expressed."
But what makes such gestalts possible?
The Gestalt
psychologists, as natural scientists, looked to the structure
of the nervous system, phenomenologists to noetic-noematic
correlations.
But this phenomenon can be opened up further.
Here is where the Madhyamaka critique enters.
lation between the whole and the part?
~
produce the whole?
What is the re-
Does seeing the part
Which comes first, or are they simultaneous?
do they depend on each other?· How are they contextual?
The Yogacara accepts that they are; contextuality exists, but
78
-no.
,etar~pes
individual existence comes into. being (utpattinih-
svabhava).
The part-whole relation is just one of many re-
lations referred to by the Madhyamaka as upadaya prajnapti
(brten-nas btags-pa),4 3 idampratyayatamatra (rkyen-nyid 'di-pa
tsam) , parasparapeksiklsiddhi (phan-tshun bltos-pa'i grub_pa).44
This is indeed the Madhyamaka interpretation of prat!tya-sam-
,-
utp~da
-
as sunyata.
In his commentary on Mnlamadhyamakakarika
VIII, 13c-d, Candrakirti gives us a list of such relations:
act and agent, appropriated and appropriator, producer and
produced, mover and movement, seer and seen, characteristic
and characterized, originator and originated, part and whole
(literally, "part-possessor"), substance and quality, and
means of knowledge and object of knowledge. 45 These are not
merely intellectual constructions but have their source in
experience which the Madhyamaka calls prapanca (spros-pa),
discursiveness, linguistic proliferation (which is intimately
related to vikalpa (rnam-rtog), dichotomous conceptualization,
thematiz on).~6
Not to understand relation in this way
is what Tsong-kha-pa called "obsession with
pres nc~which
hasn't
been posited by conventional intellect,-as being established in
truth. ,,47
It is not established in truth, is not worthy of
the name "existence" in the Madhyamaka understanding, but is
a mere appropriation of one to the other, which may become a
mutual conspiracy, if we may use such language, if not properly understood.
This "dependent origination" is not cau-
sality or even conditionality (the conditions (pratyaya, rkyen),
79
having been refuted by Nagarjuna in
~
I).
Our common-sense and usual natural scientific notions
of causality are deeply rooted in the experience of 'making
things happen.'
Much of Husserl's problems that we have seen
with intentionality and its 'object' stem from such an 'agency'
perspective: I can, I "hold sway.,,48
I can also raise my arm.
I can push this away.
In the second case, the problem is
compounded by trying to subsume the mental and physical under
this notion of causality.
But in both cases, the question
remains (which these causal notions don't address): what 'gives'
my arm to what it pushes, what 'gives' my intention to the
movement of my arm.
How do they belong together?49
(With
the Yogacara we have inquired into the role of habituating
tendencies in making the contextual 'relate'.)
Not, how are
they coordinated or correlated, but how do they co-respond?
How are they appropriated and appropriate to one another?
To inquire into how even two sub-atomic particles "belong
together" in a causal relation is to inquire into the deepest
questions of physics - what is the order of their relation,
i.e. the orders of time, space, motion, measurement. (The
• over-coming' of Newtonian physics by relativity and quantum
mechanics has still not received satisfactory philosophical
interpretation.) An object I move must 'belong' to my movement in the 'order' of mover and moved.
Although my arm
which I move is not just an object, it is also a part of this
'order' of mover and moved.
Mover and moved are a field of
80
action, in moving my arm this field is the expressive space
of gesture.
The physicist's measuring device is a gesture in
the field of the space constituted by the methodology of his
science.
This does not make it 'merely subjective' any more
than the symbolism of bodily gesture is 'merely subjective' •
•
That is, the gesture is solicited, but this solicitation is
already interpreted (appropriated) through the hermenentical
'as' of understanding,5 0 whether everyday or scientific. Aesthetic theories centered on 'expression' neglect the solicitation with which expression "belongs together", just like theories
of scientific descovery which emphasize psychological factors,
neglecting the hermeneutical situation of the scientist in
his tradition. 51
Further, in this belonging together in or
through a field all dualities (prapanca, prajnapti) are the
Same (mnyam-nyid, samata) in the openness of the field, but
this is to anticipate the Madhyamaka 'conclusion'.
The part and the whole belong together through a field
called space, which is not an empty container, but, from the
earliest times in Buddhism was defined as having the function
of "opening up a place," "making room" (go-'byed) for events. 52
;
Santideva, in the Prasangika context, has provided us with a
radical deconstruction of the body as a part-whole gestalt
in Bodhicaryavatara IX, 78-87, in his presentation of Kayasmrtyqpasthana (Ius dran-panye-bar
tion of attentiveness to the bOdy.53
bzhag-pa)~,
the applicaIf the body (as whole)
is composed of parts, is the body contained in each of its
81
parts?
If so, this would lead to the absurd consequence of
as many bodies as parts.
No, my body is partially contained
in its parts, that's what it means to
a part apart
body?'
a part.
~
But what is
from this circular definition as, 'a part of the
A part, for its own sake (if you try to give it some
independent, 'absolute' status), may be continually divided
and so never become a solid basis to be built up into a body.
Only the part-whole gestalt holds it, but this relation is
untenable.
The body is not a part-whole relation, but is
open like space, or rather the opening for the space of motility and gesture.
,#-
Santar k~ita,
as mentioned above,
proce~ds
dialecti-
cally, accepting superior conventional theories, and then
going on to critique them 'from the ultimate point of view.'
After showing the superiority of the sakara over the nirakara,
he proceeded to critique the sakara of the Sautrantikas (cf.
the previous chapter).
Now he proceeds, at first to show the
superiority of the Cittamatra to the Sautrantika, after which
he examines whether the sakara and nirakara of the Cittamatra
(as mentioned above, p.73), that is, whether the perceptual
noema, can withstand the critique of "neither unitary nor
multiple."
dKon-mchog 'Jigs-med dbang-po explains the two
varieties as follows: 54
"However, while both parties, whether they considersensa to be veridical or delusive, agree
that when the eye perceives a patch of blue there
is an appearance of blue and this seems to be an '
external object, those who claim sensa to be
veridical attribute their appearance as an ex82
ternal object to the working of un-knowing, but
not so the appearance of blue as blue and the
appearance of blue as the epistemological object
of the perceptual situation. Therefore, among
the mentalists those who claim the epistmological object of the perceptual situation to have
literally all the qualities it seems to display
have the mark of considering sensa to be true,
while those who do not do so have the mark of
considering sensa to be delusive. "
The sakara, as in the case of the Sautrantikas, are divided
into the three theories of "two halves of an egg" (vv. 46-8),
"an equal number of noeses and noemata" (v.49), and "the nonduality of the multiple" (vv. 50-1).
As mentioned above, the
only difference between the Sautrantika and Yogacara theories
of perception is that the Yogacaras can dispense with the hypothetical "external object".
Hence Santaraksita's arguments
•
parallel those against the Sautrantika theories.
Thus, through
the "neither unitary nor multiple" critique, the perceivedas-such, the ambiguity of the Husserlian-Yogacara noema is
radically de-constructed.
Sant rak~ita
begins with a statement of the general
Cittamatra approach:
"Those intelligent, good people who rely on the approach of the insider's system of 'Experience-only',
(say) that perception comes about dependent on the
complete maturation of suitable habitualities.
In
regard to this approach of those who say, 'As soon
as (an entity) arises, it is destroyed, and, in reality, there is no experiencer nor that which is
experienced,' we summarize (as follows) :
83
The noemata which magically appear by the maturation
of habituating tendencies since beginningless
time,
Although present, through error are like an apparition.//44
The ultimate particles of the sensory fields of form,
etc., substance, qualities, etc., which are spoken
of by the followers of view-points superior and,inferior, are logically untenable because they are
without the defining characteristic of experiencer
and experience, and are like a city of clouds, a circle of fire, a magical creation, a dream, an apparition, and the reflection of the moon in water.
Even
these perceptual noemata which are present to the
noetic which claims (its) intentional object (dmigs~)
to be veridical, are present by virtue of the
complete maturation of the habituating tendencies
for obsession with particular existents having their
origination in beginningless existence.
This (approach) is a good one, yet (the question
remains) are these particular existents real or
not.
One must still inquire into the acceptance of what
is merely experienced but not investigated.//45
One should know that this approach is very clear from
both scripture and reasoning, and since it is also
84
an antidote to the noxious obsession with limitless
intentional objects, it is very good.
The logical
inquiry explained before, which showed the untenability of the characteristics of experiencer and
experience and negated the existence of ultimate particles, etc., is made very clear by this approach ••••
Knowledgeable people, relying on this approach, remove the wrong-headed notions involved with the distinctions of apprehending (noesis) and apprehendable
(noema), and self and what belongs to self.
Yet, there should be a little (further) investigation
of this.
Are these perceptual noemata genuinely real
(de-kho-na nyid) or not?
That which is enjoyed mere-
ly without investigating it, like a reflection, etc. what follows from this?
If, ultimately (perception exists), perceptions
(corresponding to many noemata) would be multiple.
And further,
These (perceptual noemata) would become unitary
(since perception is unitary); Because these two
(unitariness and multiplicity) are contradictory,
(perception and noema) would certainly be separate.//46
Because a genuinely existing perceptual noema is
not separate (from a noesis), then just like the
perceptual noemata, the perception would become a
85
multiplicity.
Further, because perception is a uni-
-tary (act) and not separate (from the noema), then
it would be difficult to refute (the consequence)
that the perceptual noemata, just like the perception, would become unitary.
Because of this contra-
diction, ultimately, perception and the perceptual
noema would (have to) be separate.
To explain another fault:
If you claim that these (perceptual noemata) are not
mUltiple, then, because of the unity of
movement and non-movement, etc.,
There would be the absurd consequence that all
would move, etc.
It is difficult to answer
(this objection).//47
It is taught that this very -<perception) is "undivided."
Therefore, if a single perceptual noema is taken as
movement, etc., or as yellow, etc., then the remaining
ones would- all become like this.
If this is not --so,
then there would undoubtedly be multiplicity.
This consequence is now shown to be similar (to the
case of the approach) in which one asserts a noesis
which possesses a noema while (also accepting) independently-existing objects.
If, as in the case of those (who claim) an object-in-itself, (here in the Cittamatra) perceptual noemata are inseparable (from noeses),
86
Then, irrefutably everything would become one.1148,,55
Verse 49 merely refers to the arguments of vv.31-34 regarding the theory of "An equal number of noeses and noemata":
"But if perception were admitted (by you) to be
equal in number to its corresponding noemata,
Then it would be difficult for you to avoid the
critique which 'was made similarly regarding
ultimate particles.1149 u56
Verses 50-51 similarly hark back to their counterparts in
verses 22-23 among the Sautrantikas ("The non-duality of
the mUltiple"):
"If, although (noemata) are various, (the noetic)
is unitary, is this not the approach (of the
Jains called) Digambaras?
A multiplicity is not unitary, like several gems,
etc.llso
If a variety (of noemata) are unitary, then how
could there be this multiplicity
Of appearance as various, such as obscured and
not obscured?IIS1,,57
Attention now turns to those who hold noemata to be inherently delusive (allkakaravada, rnam-rdzun-pa), i.e.,
the noetic is ultimately without noemata (nirakarajnanavada,
rnam-med-pa).S8
First Sant rak~ita
presents the purvapaksa:
"But if in actuality, there didn't exist these
perceptual noemata of this (noesis),
87
Then ultimately they would appear through error
for the perception which is without a perceptual
noema.//52
Perception is ultimately like a clear crystal.
Since
it doesn't become transformed into specific noemata of
blue, etc., noemata appear, in such a case, by virtue
of the maturation of errant habitualities since beginningless time.
It is like the appearance of horses
and elephants, etc. from a piece of clay before the
eyes of people who have been deceived by mantras, etc.
If (these noemata) do not exist, how are they
experienced clearly?
Such a perceptual noesis which is separate from
its (noema) is not (possible).//53
How could one not accept that even these ultimately
non-existent (noemata) are clearly perceived?
We say:
Wherein a particular existant does not exist,
therein the knowledge of that (non-existence)
does not exist.
Just like happiness in unhappiness, and nonwhite in white.//54
If one says regarding this: there is no opportunity for
doubt regarding the non-instance of a negative example,
if there exists a contradiction to the means of proof
and a rejection of what is to be proven.
We reply:
A perceptual noema cannot be accepted as a con88
crete object of a noesis,
Since it is (according to you) separate from
the very being of the noesis, like a flower
in the sky.//55
Perception is that which is not of the nature of insentience; if a (perceptual noema) is the object of a
designation which is not ascribed (as being of the nature of perception), then such a noema, such as blue,
would be impossible, like a flower in the sky, since
it is different from the nature of perception.
Since that which does not exist is without the
ability (to give rise to perception), even a
mere postulation would be impossible, like a
hare's horn.
Since there is no (such perceptual noema) there
can be no ability to produce a noesis (intending) a real presenceol/56
A perceptual noema which is powerless to give rise to
a self-evident perception is an impossible object even
postulationally., A non-existent horse's horn could
not produce a self-evident perception or become a basis
for a postulation.
We shall make another examination.
(Regarding) this noema,
On account of what would a (noema) exist and
its apodictic experience (be present)?
could there be a relation with a noesis?
89
How
(Since) there is no real (noema, there is no
relation to) a real noesis, and (the noema)
doesn't come about from this (noesis).//57
This (noema) is not the noetic, since, (if it were, then)
just like the noetic there would be the fault of it existing (genuinely, contrary to your claim); or there
would be the fault of the perception not existing (if
it were like)
the noema.
That which is non-existent
doesn't even come about from the noetic, since there is
nothing to be produced.
If it comes about from this
(noetic), then, because (they) would exist earlier and
later, there would be the fault of not being perceived
simultaneously.
(As to) a noema which is observed at
the sametime as a noesis:
If there is no cause (for the noema), how could
it come about at various times?
(A perceptual noema) which is caused, for what
reason would it be excluded from contextuality?//58
Since the noema is non-existent it is without a cause.
If it is without a cause it is impossible for it to come
about at various times, since it doesn't depend (on anything).
If one claims that it is caused, saying that
this error comes about, then (regarding) what one has
just accepted as existing, we are able to answer that
it would become contextual and wouldn't come about
without (a cause).
Relativity which comes about con-
90
textually means not to be independent.
There is no
existence apart from origination from conditions.
To
state another error if one claims there is no noema:
When there is no (perceptual noema) still (one
claims) a perceptual act will be (experienced)
without a perceptual noema
But a noesis which is like a clear crystal is
not to be experienced'.//59
A visual perception, etc., posited as being free from
a noema such as blue, which is like a uncolored crystal, is not to be observed.
If there are no external
or internal noemata one would perceive only this.
The (arguments based on) illusions caused by jaundice,
etc, become untenable since they can be doubted and
contested.
If one claims that this (noema) is known
by virtue of error, how is that (noema) dependent on error?
If it (comes about) through the power of error,
this (noema) is thencontextual.//60
For example, one whose eyes are afflicted by jaundice,
cognizes a perceptual noema of yellow on a shell although it
doesn't exist.
In the same way, by virtue
of the erroneous habituating tendencies, perceptual
noemata such as yellow, while non-existent, are claimed
as manifestly true.
One should think in regard to this,
91
'How is this (noema) dependent on the erroneous habituating tendencies?'
If it is a relation characterized
by origination, then (the noema) is contextual since it
comes about dependently.
If the very being of the re-
sult of the habituating tendencies is related by identity to error, then like error, it would be difficult
to avoid it becoming contextual.
Because of this (i.e., there being no relation), it is
answered: "For example, in a fearful desert, a small
distance appears great," etc.,59 are stated because
there is presence, although there is no noema, for intelligent people who are powerless because of obsession
with an object in-itself ••••
Because there has been no relation established between
the perceptual noema, such as blue, and habituating tendencies and error, then, having overcome
the latter,
even at the time of purity, all the perceptual noemata
wouldn't he overcome.
ing
If there is no relation, then by overcom...
one, there would be no certainty of overcoming the
other, like a horse and a cow. ,,60
KamalasIla adds:
"Does error refer to the habituating tendencies or to
the noetic which possesses the error which has come
about?
ship
In the first case, since there is no relationbetween the perceptual noema and the habituating
tendencies, it doesn't make sense to say that perceptual
92
noemata are experienced by the power of habituating
tendencies ••••
I.n the second case,
if the error-possessing noetic and
the perceptual noemata are related, yet are only characterized by the (relation of) identity, since (error) is
experienced at the same time as the noetic, (this relation) could not be characterized by origination.
Two
simultaneous events cannot be characterized as cause
and effect.
Therefore, regarding 'the very being of the
result of habituating tendencies,' etc., since, just
like error, they are not different from the noetic, it
is difficult to avoid the consequence of contextuality •.,61
93
Notes to Chapter III
1. See above p. 27.
2. UG, f.52,5-53,6.
3. This refers to Prasangika critiques of the Cittamatra
by Candrakirti in the sixth chapter of the Madhyamakavatara,
fI'
and by Santideva in the ninth chapter of
~he
Bodhicaryavatara.
4. UG, f.45,1-5. Mi-pham also states in his commentary
on the Dharmadharmatavibhaga:
"So, if this presence as a noema by its very mode of
being is established as not existing apart from a
noesis, it is established that this presence as a
noesis also does not exist. On account of this, although the noesis is established dependent upon the
noema, it is never found separately. Thus, cognitiveness (rig-pa) in which there is no object nor subject
and which is free from all the aspects of the duality
of noesis and noema, naturally lucent and just inexpressible, is the completely established (yongs-grub)
which is devoid of the two forms of ontological status.
If this non-dividedness and as-it-is-ness is nec s~
sarily realized even by the Cittamatra, then it is
even more the case for the Madhyamaka. According to
the Cittamatra, the essential existence of this is the
complete meaning of the sixteen (facets) of Openness,
which they assert as freedom from discursiveness because it is inexpressible and inconceivable as any
noesis or noema, internal or external, etc. Now, it
is just this residue (lhag-mar lus-pa) of a very subtle philosophical position which posits the very fact
of this inexpressible noetic (shes-pa) as established
in truth, which should be refuted by a reasoned inquiry. As to this noetic in which there is no noe$is
or noema, if one claims one's own experience ( ~ )
which has been unified with openness which doesn't
exist in truth, as sheer lucency, pure from the very
beginning, (this) is the true Middle."
(Chos dang chos-nyid mam-par 'byed-pa'i tshig-le'ur byas-pa'i
'grel-pa ye-shes snang-ba rnam- 'byed,~
in Collected Writings
of 'Jam-mgon 'Ju Mi-pham rgya-mtsho, Vol. 3J(Gangtok, 1976),
f.626,1-627,1.)
Any mention, however, of a "non-dual noetic
(shes-pa)" is absent from classical Yogacara literature.
The
Madhyantavibhagatika of Sthiramati speaks of an advayajnana
(ed. Yamaguchi, Suzuki Research Reprint Series, No.7, p.133.3),
but this refers to the .parinispanna and is translated into
Tibetan as gnyis-su med-pa' i ye-shes (Pek,ing ed., Vol.l09,
166,4,5).
Once again, the Madhyamikas seem to be referring
to the later Cittamatra of the Logicians.
Perhaps the source
of this "non-dual noetic" is PV 111,212, where Dharmakirti
says: "jnanasyabhedino bhedapratibhaso hy upaplaval), " which
is rendered into Tibetan as: tltha dad med can shes pa yil
tha dad snang ba bslad pa nyid" (ed. Miyasaka, p.69).
5. See above p. 24.
6. Don Ihde, Experimental Phenomenology (New York: G.P.
Putnam's Sons, 1977), p.69.
7. ibid.
8. Husserl speaks of the "disinterested spectator" in
The Crisis, for example, p.235.
9 • Ihd e, p •79 •
10. ibid.
11. ibid. p.81.
12. Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception, new ed.
95
(Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1974), p.43.
13. This felicitous phrase is to be found in David
BOhm, Causality and Chance in Modern Physics (Philadelphia:
Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1971),
p.1S;.
14. Ihde, p.63.
lS. Cf. Neisser, chap. 4.
16. Mahayanasutralgmkara, ed. S. Levi (Paris: Champion,
1907), p.64; Madhyantavibhaga-bhasya, ed. G.M. Nagao (Tokyo:
Suzuki Research Foundation, 1964), p.48.
17. See Trimsika 3, Vijnaptimatratasiddhi - Trimsika,
ed. S. Levi (Paris: Champion, 1925), pp. 19-21.
Merleau-Ponty
expresses beautifully the idea of an alaya-vijnana as follows
(Merleau-Ponty, p.320):
"But in reality all things are concretions of a setting,
and any explicit perception of a thing survives in virtue of a previous communication with.a certain atmosphere."
18. Mahayanasamgraha, ed. E. Lamotte, Publications de
L'Institute Orientaliste de Louvain, No.8 (Louvain: Universite de Louvain, 1973).
19. Trimsika 24.
20. Ihde, pp.88-90.
21. ibid. p.97f.
22. D.W. Hamlyn, Sensations and Perception (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961), pp.183-4.
23. I wish to thank Dr. David Levin for opening up this
possibility of phenomenology to me in a course he gave at the
Nyingma Institute, Berkeley, Calif., Summer 1978.
96
97
41. Arnheim, pp.11-12.
Note the importance of the part-
whole relation in Gurwitsch's theory of the perceptual noema;
see his Studies, pp.346-7.
42. Merleau-Ponty, p.214.
43. See above chap. II, note 15.
44. See May, Prasannapada, pp.15J-4, etc.
45. ibid. ,p.155, 380.
46. See Madhyamakakarika, XVIII,5.
47. See above p.76.
48. See, for example, Crisis, p.212.
49. Cf. Martin Heidegger, Identity and Difference, trans.
J. Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), p.29ff.
50. See Martin Heideger, Being and Time, trans. J.
Macquarrie and E. Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), p.
189.
51. See T. Kisiel, "The Logic of Scientific Discovery,"
in D. Carr and
E~
Casey, Explorations in Phenomenology (The
,Hague: Nijhoff, 1973).
52. Cf. Mi-pham, mKhas-'jug, f.12a,5; Abhidharmakosa
I,5dJ Vyakhya of Yasomitra, ed. U. Wogihara (Tokyo: Sankibo,
.
1971), p.15,7: "avakas.am
dadatiti akasam.
tt
53. Peking ed., Vol. 99, 259,4,1-5,1.
54. H.V. Guenther, trans., Buddhist Philosophy, pp.l04105.
55. MAl, Sa 61a,7-62a,8.
56. MAl, Sa 62b,7.
57. MAl, Sa 63a5; 6Ja,8.
98
58. Cf. the critique of the mam-rdzun-pa in BCA IX,26-29.
59 •
PV
III, 356c-d.
60. MAl, Sa 63b,2-65a,4.
61. MAl, Sa 112b,7-113a,4.
99
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV: MAJOR ISSUES OF THE MADHYAMAKALAMKARA:
HOW
'r 0
JUMP OVER ONE'S OWN SHADOW
According to Mi-pham, major issues four and five are:
"4. The division of the ultimate into two: discursive
and non-discursive;
5. The understanding that there is no contradiction
regarding the object of each valid means of knowledge in the situation of setting forth the discursively-formulated ultimate
(i~e.,
that there
is necessarily no contention between the assertions of each of the two truths)."l
The first three issues have dealt with the text's specific
conception of conventional truth, while issues four and
five deal with the ultimate truth and its relation to the
conventional.
In his discussion of the Svatantrika division
of the ultimate truth into two, Mi-pham focuses on the pro,blem of sunyata
as a non-implicative negation (med-dgag,
-
prasajya-pratisedha), and the universal' Madhyamaka concern
not to remain in the more subtle position of negation (i.e.,
more subtle than affirmation) and thereby hypostatize
-
~sunyata.
-
Mi-pham quotes the famous texts of Nagarjuna and
~Santideva
on this matter. 2
This is the problem of how to
jump over one's own shadow, the shadow of negation.
It
is
reltively easy to negate the essential existence of entities,
and it can even become an intellectual game.
100
Two points should be noted here in regard to this issue
of negation in the Madhyamaka.
First, affirmation and nega-
tion are not mere devices for propositional affirmation and
denial.
The Madhyamika is concerned with their ontological
significance, with their phenomenological genesis within
experience.
For affirmation is rooted in the idea of Being
as a permanent "presence-at-hand", in the "obsessive concern
with particular existents since beginningless time.")
Nega-
tion is bound up with the experience of the absence of this
.
.
4
presence. A commentator on Heidegger brings th1S out:
"Self-awareness and consciousness of the articulable
structures of third personal being must arise simultaneously in the negating discrimination of presence
and absence: 'here, not there; then, not now.' This
occurs originally, as the reactive interplay of sensory flux and autonomic psychomotor response is at
least partially superseded and transformed into the
intentionally active interplay of projective-anticipatory performance and re-cognition of consequent
and subsequent phenomena as presenting or withholding
something proposed or expected •••• Negation, then, is
only secondarily a formal-logical operation or syncategorematic particle; primarily it is the simultaneousdiscovery of the absence of the intended and of
the difference between the intending being and what
it intends."
This brings us to the second point, which is closely allied
to the first.
How are we to negate this beginningless ob-
session with the ontic, yet not be left with a mere absence,
but be released into the openness of Being (~n yat~)?
The
point stressed by Mi-pham is that the jumping over the shadow of negation is the entry into (the letting oneself into)
the unity (zung-'jug) of the two truths.
101
This point is the
basis for Mi-pham's understanding of the relation of the
Svatantrikas to the Prasangikas.
The Svatantrika is the
approach of the beginner who negates particular existents,
"from th.e ultimate point of view," which experientially represents the discernment (prajna) of the post-meditative
phase (rjes-thob) of Madhyamika cultivation.
This is ar-
ticulated in the discursively-formulated ultimate.
That
is, the Svatantrika bases himself on the initial separation
of the two truths, opening up this distinction, setting forth
the sphere of each.
As for the Prasangika, Mi-pham states: 5
"This aspect of adhering to the separation of the two
truths is the special object of negation of the Prasangikas ••• Therefore, as long as one still is involved with apprehending activity ('dzin-pa) and has not
brought into one-valuedness (ro-gcig-tu ma-gyur) the
two truths, one has still not gone beyond the sphere
of operation of the dichotomizing intellect •••• Because of this the Prasangikas from the very start set
forth the non-discursive (spros-bral) unity of the
two truths."
(emphasis mine)
This conception of the
for Mi-pham.
has important consequences
~ras ngikas
Not only does it experientially represent the
originary awareness (jnana) of the phase of meditative composure (mnyam-bzhag) of Madhyamika cultivation and an advance over the beginner's approach, but it offers the possibility of a more 'rapid' approach.
Mi-pham states in his
mKhas-' jug: 6
"The Madhyamikas, who are those who deny essential
existence, claim that since all entities, such as
the psycho-physical constituents, are present without their essential existence being established,
they are open. (They) non-implicatively negate any
102
establishing of (entities) which can withstand a
critique by a-logical inquiry from the ultimate
standpoint. Presence in contextual origination
and such an openness, which are present as a single non-contradictory reality, are the very Being
of particUlar existents. (This) is the perspective of Nagarjuna, the Great Madhyamaka, the unity
of presence and openness. While this is the final
intent of the Buddhas, there are different internal
divsions within this perspective, such as the manner of affirming the conventional and the gradual
and all-at-once approaches to understanding (this
final intent)." ,This last sentence refers to the division into Prasangikas
and Svatantrikas, and the commentator, mKhan-po nus-ldan,
informs us that "gradual" refers to the Svatantrikas, and
"all-at-once" to the Prasangikas. 7
This distinction of
"gradual" and "all-at-once" should not be confused with
the "gradual vs. sudden Enlightenment" controversy of early
Tibet, but refers to the possibility of negating all four
extremes of the catuskoti all at once.
Here Mi-pham appears
to heark back to Go-rams-pa bsod-nams senge (1429-89), the
Sa-skya-pa master who polemicized against Tsong-kha-pa's
formulation of the dbu-ma'i Ita-ba. 8 But one should also
note here Mi-pham's rNying-ma-pa background in the rDzogschen, whose philosophy epitomizes an 'all-at-once' approach
in its doctrines of "initial purity" (ka-dag), etc.
Mi-pham
explicitly sets forth this connection between the prasangika
and the rDzogs-chen in the introduction to the dbu-ma rgyan: 9
"The intent of Candrakirti (is) the profound perspective in which the deceptiveness of conventionality
subsides in the continuum of Being (dbyings-su yal-ba),
because all presence is pure in exactly its own place
(rang-sar). (This) is similar to the setting forth
103
of the initially pure in the works of the rDzogschen.
II
All of this, however, should not lead one to conclude
the inferiority of the Svatantrika approach.
trika does go on from the
The Svatanultimate
discursively-formu~ated
of the beginner to the non-discursive ultimate which is no
different from that of the Prasangika.
For just as the
conventional and the ultimate, the phases of meditative
composure and post-concentration, etc., are a unity, so
are the Prasangika and Svatantrika in their ultimate intent: 10
"
"Since he (Santaraksita)
follows the tradition which
explains the discursively-formulated ultimate, .
which accepts independently-formulated syllogisms
and the existence of particular existents conventionally, he is counted as an acarya of the Svatantrikas. Do not think that this is inferior to
the Prasangika perspective. (This is so) because,
having made such a division in the general Mahayana
way which is the unity of these two approaches,
there is no difference whatsoever in the essential
harmony in the no ~abid ng
continuum which is the
unity of the two truths."
As mentioned in the Introduction, Mi-pham was concerned to
present this kind of understanding of the relation of the
two approaches, which from his point of view had become
eroded by centuries of Prasangika dominance, particularly
that of the dGe-lugs-pa. 11 -Of importance here is the matter
of the dgag-bya, that which is to be negated by the Prasangika's non-implicative negation, referred to in Mi-pham's
commentary on verses 71-72a-b of the MAI. 12
be negated is the essential existence
104
(svabh va~
What is to
rang-bzhin)
or existence ·in truth (bden-grub) of particular existents,
not particular existents 'per se.'
This distinction was
made in order to avoid the extreme of annihilationism;
was it not the concept of svabhava that Nagarjuna was
attacking throughout the Mulamadhyamakakarika?13
A most
concise critique of this approach is found in the ITa-grub
shan-'byed of mDo-sngags bstan-pa'i nyi-ma (sPo-ba sprul
sku, 1900-?), a disciple of Kun-bzang dpal-Idan, who was
a leading disciple of Mi-pham.
'The ITa-grub shan-' byed is
a discussion of difficult philosophical points from the
rNying-ma-pa perspective, based on the teachings of Mi-pham
(as mentioned above, Mi-pham gave the rNying-ma-pa a voice,
as it were, in the scholastic commentarial tradition).
14
mDo-sngags states:
"Even at the level of a critique from the ultimate
point of view, it is said that 'a pot is not devoid of a pot but is devoid of truth-status as a
pot (bum-pa bum-pas mi-stong bum-pa bden-pas stong),'
and it is also said that 'one must refute the truth
status which is founded on this (pot) while not refuting the pot as that which is under consideration
(chos-can).' By this method, even the ultimate
which is the object of valid knowledge (becomes) a
mere discursively-formulated ultimate as a negative
abstraction (dngos-med) similar to the explanation
of the Svatantrikas. One is in no way able to establish the non-discursive ultimate, the great sameness
of presence and openness which is spoken of as 'unconditioned, sheer lucency, non-discursiveness, profound calm.'" _
In other words, this approach threatens to reduce the Madhyamaka to a "conceptual analysis," and indeed a great deal of
contemporary scholarship has arisen interpreting Nagarjuna
in terms of analytic and ordinary language philosophy.15
105
But the distinction between a thing and its 'nature'
(~
bhava) is a purely conceptual one; mDo-sngags, however,
points out that this appraach is similar to that of the
Svatantrikas, and hence is a valuable one- for the beginner.
Mi-pham extensively discusses issues four and five as
follows:
"4. The division into the two aspects of the ultimate,
discursive and non-discursive:
the division into a
discursively-formulated and non-discursive ultimate
is a good procedure which makes (this approach) very
superior.
That is, if one did not, only in the be-
ginning, teach (the ultimate) as non-existence in
truth, there would be no means for removing the errant appropriation of particular existents which has
been habituated to since beginningless time.
But if
one teaches merely this as the ultimate, people of
little intelligence, thinking that the presence of
Being is a mere negation which negates what is to be
negated, will generate the philosophical view which
is unable to cure obsession with sunyata.
In this
obsessive approach there are two forms of obsession
with regard to ~unyat :
as a particular existent and
as a negative abstraction (dngos-med).
f.56
But if one
just says, 'It is not suitable to be involved with
any extreme whatsoever,' one throws out the certainty of understanding (nges-shes) which gives rise to,
106
through logical investigation, the source of the
, elixir of the profound openness which is the antidote to the multifarious epidemic of projective
existence.
If one says, 'It is not proper to har-
bor anything in one's mind (yid-Ia byas),' one has
entered into the darkest darkness in which there is
no mindful inspection (dran-pa).
In such cases it
is difficult to experience, or to think about and
see, this profound teaching (dharma).
As the Madhya-
makasastra states: 16
'If sunyata if wrongly envisaged it will destroy
those of little intelligence, just like a snake
. wrongly handled or a mantra wrongly employed.
Therefore, the mind (thugs) of the Sage was dissuaded from teaching his message (chos), having
realized the difficulty that those of weak (intellect) would have in fathoming this profound
message. '
Therefore, having first destroyed obsession with
particular existents by this discursively-formulated
ultimate,
subseq~ently,
through the teaching of the
non-discursive ultimate, one removes the aspect of
obsession with this (conception of sunyata in the discursively-formulated ultimate) as a negative abstraction.
In brief, in not adhering to any distinctions
whatsoever, such as the truth-status of any of the
four extremes of existence, non-existence, both, and
neither, it is necessary to apprehend quickly the profound significance, which is to make an individual experience of (so-so rang-gis rig-par bya-ba)
107
the
great non-discursiveness which destroys these objectifications.
One should know these approaches
as Santideva has said: l ?
'By accustoming oneself to the ingrained tendency of openness, one will eliminate the
tendency of particular existents. Eventually
even accustoming oneself to 'There is nothing
whatsoever' will be eliminated.
When one cannot represent a particular existent to be investigated as 'that which is nonexistent,' then how can non-existence (as an
abstraction), being without-a support, remain
before the intellect.
When neither particular existents nor their
negation (as an abstraction) remain before
the intellect, then, since there is no other
possibility, (discursiveness) is pacified,
there being nothing objectifiable.'
Now, since it is impossible to think of another
(alternative) apart from the four extremes, when one
has negated the four extremes, one may think: what
difference is there with the approach of the HvaShang of not harboring anything in mind (yid-Ia mi
byed-pa)?
(The reply is:) in the case of the Hva-
Shang, etc., rejecting all obsession with particular
existents and not observing any objectified characteristics whatsoever, is not (true) non-categorization
(yid-Ia mi-byed-pa).
How can a mere negation of all
movement in the mind eliminate all extremes?
In that
there is no basis for eliminating even the extreme of
existence, (true) non-categorization is not like this.
One should understand (this) according to the method
of instruction which is not mixed up with the five
108
worldly forms of non-categorization, and so forth,
as the Dharmadharmatavibhaga states: 18
rNon-categorization, transcendence, pseudoquiescence, non-conceptualization, and adhering to an indication of the real, are
the five aspects whose elimination characterizes (non-conceptualizing originary
awareness) • •
Although it acts as an antidote to obsession with existence when one accustoms oneself to the stance of
non-existence through a logical critique, since one
has not given up objectifying non-existence (as an
abstraction), how can this be the genuine originary
awareness which thoroughly understands openness and
non-discursiveness?
Some say that adherence to non-
implicative negation (med-dgag) which negates existence in truth is called the viewpoint of annihilationism, just as in the case of adherence to particular existents. 19
But, since the viewpoint of annihi-
lationism is known as the dismissal of cause and resuIt, how could this (adherence to non-implicative
negation) be the annihilationist perspective?
Since
it is in accord with the standpoint which is an antidote to adherence to existence in truth, then just
like impermanence and unpleasantness, etc., it is
indeed to be cultivated by beginners.
But if one
compares it to the reality of non-conceptualizing
originary awareness, the Great Middle which is free
from all positing and viewpoints, it is very inferior,
109
since it is a viewpoint of negation which is essentially characterized by conceptualization.
f.58
Further, although mere negation which negates
what is to be negated in the case of the beginner,
is able to appear as an object for the intellect,
for a person who has gone to the essential point of
the Madhyamaka critique through properly distinguishing between a mere negation and absence of essential
existence (rang-bzhin med), the specific stance of
certainty in understanding the indivisibility in
reality of contextual origination and absence of
essential existence is.indeed the antidote which removes the two extremes of eternalism and annihilationism which are like an abyss.
As long as one has the
standpoint of affirmation and negation, then it is not
that which is free from the four extremes, the discursiveness of conceptualization.
By settling (mnyam-Rar
bzhag-pas), through originary awareness, into the
dharmadhatu which has been elicited by the certainty
of understanding which determines by reasoning that
there is no abiding in any of. the four extremes, one
is able to exclude all the extremes of discursiveness.
From this comes confidence in the calm reality of
non-categorization, which is explained in the Pra.ina-.
Raramita (literature) as the ultimate limit (yang-dag
mtha ' ) in which there is nothing to be gained and
110
which cuts off imputations.
As to the ultimate presence of Being which is
the concern of meditative composure (mnyam-bzhag),
since there is no standpoint of the four extremes
(in it) and it is not an object of thought or language, one can't even make a claim about it.
Yet,
while a standpoint exists, (mere) non-affirmation
is a viewpoint which is deceitful and dishonest.
Although the mere (fact of) non-affirmation in
these two (i.e., in the case of genuine realization
and in the case of those who merely make no claims)
are similar, in reality there is a distinction between truth and falsehood.
It is like not accepting
that one who is not a thief steals, as opposed to
not accepting that a thief steals.
Further, by the subsequent certainty regarding
the skillfulness which understands this very meaning
which is the concern of meditative composure, one
f.59
utilizes linguistic symbols.
When one makes state-
ments through utilizing names such as unoriginated,
without essential existence, openness, free from discursiveness, unobjectifiable, free from extremes, etc.,
•.• in reality, these words are taught for the sake of
removing all the spheres of operation of objectification and assertion.
For example, the words which af-
firm, 'Since I have no thesis,' and, •The originary
111
awareness of a Buddha is not an object of speech or
thought,' are spoken for the sake of refuting that
there exists a thesis, or that (originary awareness)
is an object of speech or thought.
This being so,
as in the case where (someone) looks at the finger
and not at the moon when one points out the moon by
a finger, stupid people obsessed with words, think,
on account of (expressions such as) 'expressing the
unexpressible, thinking the unthinkable, and affirming non-affirmation,' that these words are contradictory, as in the case of the Carvakas who asserted
that inference was not a valid means of knowledge.
This is very wrong.
And just as this is extremely
incorrect, in this case also it is very important to
understand the single important point in which no
contradiction is to be found, of making a conventional expression which points out the meaning which is
inexpressible and asserting by words which are apprehended with certainty, the meaning of non-assertion.
So, by words such as unoriginated, one demonstrates
that the various spheres of objectifying activity are
'open' (stong), and since one has countered obsession
to these entities which are •open' as something (objectifiable) , non-objectification is unquestionably
f.60,5
demonstrated ••.. Therefore, how could the profound
Prajnaparamita in which no objectifying standpoint
112
whatsoever exists, be similar to the Hva-Shang?
Freedom from the discursiveness of the four extremes
does not fall under the positions of existence and
non-existence, and although orie is not able to point
it out as it is by
..and concepts apart from the
w6~ds
sphere of operation of each one's consciousness, in
words which point to it, it is known as 'The Middle
which is the unity of the two truths, or the indivisibility of presence and openness. ' ••••
f.61,3
One should generate certainty. in the path of
reasoning which unites the two truths, the method
which understands unerringly the essential point of
this teaching.
First, (one should) set forth all
presences as open, and then develop a trusting conviction in the manner in which openness is present as
contextual origination.
Then, having relied on the
method which unites openness and contextual originationin which presence is openness and openness is
presence, make an experience of, through the method
of non-experience, this releasement from discursiveness, i.e., utter Sameness (mnyam-pa nyid).
In this,
the releasement from all extremes through what is
spoken of as the (divisions of sunyata 20 ), such as
the openness of openness (which is spoken of) in order to negate obsession with a negative abstraction
which is thereby refuted
113
and external openness (which
is spoken of) in order to refute obsession with (the
extreme of) existence, is the non-discursively formulated ultimate.
In regard to this, the Svatantrikas
at first for a while adhere to the discursively-formulated ultimate through the power of the intellect.
Because one has been deceived in projective existence
by this apprehension of particular existents whose
object is not genuine, ultimately, the subjective
mode of apprehension of a non-implicative negation
which thinks, 'There is no establishment of essential
existence whatsoever,' is taken as of great value ••••
f.62,6
This aspect of adhering to the separation of the
two truths is the special object of refutation of the
Prasangikas •... Therefore, as long as one still has
apprehending acts and has not brought into one-valuedness the two truths, one has still not gone beyond the
sphere of operation of the dichotomizing intellect.
Because of this one has not obtained the non-dichotomizing originary awareness, the real Prajnaparamita
which is free from the two forms of imputation (i.e.,
positive and negative).
Because of this the Prasangi-
kas from the very beginning set forth non-discursively
the unity of the two truths.
Since they have refuted
by reasoning that aspect of adherence (to the separation of the two truths) which thinks that there exists
an establishment (of entities) by defining characteris114
four extremes.
Because of this, the final presence of
Being, the great openness which is free from all affirmations and objectifications of the subjective intellect, is spoken of in regard to its accord with originary awareness, the noble meditative composure.
But
in the post-concentration phase (rjes-thob) it is very
important to accept that all aspects of the path and
the goal are set forth unerringly according to how
they are validated by the valid means of knowledge
for the two truths •.•.
f.64,l
In this treatise of the scholar
(Santar k~ita),
,
at first, having established the two methods by which
stainless discernment (prajna) separately dimarcates
the two truths, then, finally, having eliminated even
adherence to the separateness of the two truths in the
115
great non-discursive ultimate, -and by'haviIlg set
forth freedom from all assertions in accord with
non-dichotomizing originary awareness (in the phase
of) meditative composure, the ultimate intent of
these two traditions (gzhung) is the same without
distinction •••• Therefore, ascertaining completely
(rtsal-du bton-nas) the discursively-formulated
ultimate which involves assertions, characterizes
the Svatantrikas, while ascertaining completely the
non-discursive ultimate which is free from assertions,
should be known (to characterize) the Prasangikas •••
f.6.5,2
Thus, in this Ornament of the Madhyamaka of the
great scholar, by combining the meaning of the Svatantrikas and the Prasangikas, it is an ornament :to
the whole Madhyamaka.
Therefore, one should know
that the Svatantrikas and the
Pras ngi~as
are the way
to completely ascertain originary awareness which is
the one-valuedness of the two truths in the phase of
meditative composure and discerning awareness which
discriminates the two truths separately in the postcomposure phase .••.
.5. That there is necessarily no contention between
the assertions of each of the two truths: since the
originary awareness of meditative composure is free
from speech and its intentionality (smra bsam brjod-pa
dang bral-ba), it is beyond the objects of language
116
and conception.
One is unable to comprehend such an
originary awareness as long as one has not properly
given rise to the stainless discernment which is the
means of discerning the two truths.
Yet,while
the Noble Ones have comprehended (this originary
awareness), in the post-concentration phase, although
all the aspects of affirmation and negation, such as
exists, doesn't exist, is, is not, have not passed
beyond the sphere of operation of language and conception, they can (still) speak in' advising others,
instructing, debating, etc.
Because they speak hav-
ing investigated with discernment which discriminates
entities unerringly without mixing
things up, i.e.,
'such is existent, such is non-existent,' they are
able to demarcate unerringly the genuine conventional
which establishes by reasoning, without exception.
the affirmation and negation regarding all of the path
and the goal, and the cause and result of action.
f.68
And,
having based themselves on obtaining the eye of analytical discernment which discriminates, without exception, the aspects of the knowable, they become empowered with the eye of originary awareness which directly
sees the reality of utter Sameness which is free from
all discursiveness.
Moreover, having come under the sway of the knowledge which validates ('jal-ba) the non-discursive
117
ultimate which is free from the discursiveness of the
four extremes, the utter Sameness of presence and
openness, they have refuted the establishment of
of the relative through a defining characteristic
even conventionally, since this only involves divisive conceptualization which adheres to the separateness of the two truths.
Yet, if one remains within
the mere negation of the discursively-formulated ultimate, one will never be able to refute the establishment of the relative through a' defining characteristic, which is the meaning obtained by conventional means of knowledge.
But having made a refu-
tation (of the conventional), if one cultivates a
mere negation, one falls into partiality concerning
the two truths, and because one engages in negative
imputation regarding the aspect of presence, it is
similar to the method and basic texts of the bsam
gtan dad-pa bdun,21 a cultivation in which even the
relative is non-existent, like the Carvakas.
Having
this in mind, the Yid-bzhin rin-po-che'i mdzod also
states: 22
nihilistic nothing which doesn't understand
this approach although it mouths the words,
'free from the extremes of existence and nonexistence,' (is just) a worldy view which does
not understand the basis for freedom. Since
one becomes an outsider from this teaching, one
should smear oneself with ashes like the Carvakas. '
fA
118
The method of giving rise to freedom from discursiveness of the four extremes in one's existence
by stainless genuine reasoning, in the situation of
the gradual understanding of the beginner, (is as
follows): at first one rejects involvement with objectification (zhen-yul), which apprehends the existence of particular existents in regard to all conditionedand unconditioned entities.
Subsequently,
having refuted involvement with objectification regarding the remaining three (extremes) of non-existence, etc., by suitably cultivating the special
certainty which does not abide in the objects of
involvement of each of the extremes, one will obtain
r.69
the luminous presence of the dharmadhatu, having refuted all at once all the extremes of discursiveness
without (going through them) in turn.
bsod-nams senge said: 23
As Kun-mkhyen
'Although intelligent ordinary people who investigate the presence of Being, can't refute
the four extremes of discursiveness all at once,
having refuted the four in turn, when they enter
the Path of Seeing having cultivated properly,
(they will) produce the perspective which conventionally speaking sees the dharmadhatu. '" 24
Sant r k~ita
and Kamalasila do not use the terms "dis-
cursively-formulated ultimate" and "non-discursive ultimate"
(rnam-grangs pa'i don-dam, rnam-grangs ma-yin-pa'i don-dam),
which had been introduced by Bhavaviveka, who himself did
not regularly employ these terms when making this division
119
of the ultimate truth. 25
Santrk~i's
,
presentation in
verses 69-72 and Mi-pham's extensive discussion of this
theme, are merely restatements, according to the needs
and language of their times, of the famous verses of
Nagarjuna (quoted by
,
Santar k~ita
in his auto-commentary
on verse 72): 26
"If a particular existent were established, then
a negative abstraction could be established,
Since people call what is other than a particular
existent an abstraction.
Those who perceive essential existence, conditioned
existence, particular existents, and abstractions,
Do not truly perceive the Bud ha~s
teaching."
~
S~tar ksita
•
states:
"Therefore, ultimately no particular existent can
be established.
On account of this the Tathagatas have said that
all entities do not come into being.//69
Ultimate~y
one cannot accept even the subtlest particu-
lar existent as completely established, since by this
method we have demonstrated freedom
unitariness and mul tiplicity.
f~om
essential
Irherefore, ul timately,
how can that which originates, abides, decays, as well
as any other entity based on this, exist? ... 27 Although non-origination, etc., are included in the genuine conventional,
Since it is in accord with the ultimate reality,
it is called 'ultimate reality.'
In the ultimate sense, the (genuine ultimate) is
120
freedom from the whole mass of linguistic
proliferation.//?O
The ultimate has eliminated the whole net of
lingu~s
tic proliferation, such as ~unya
origina-
and a~unya,
tion and non-origination, particular existent and
(negative) abstraction.
Since non-origination, etc.
is in accord with understanding'this (ultimate truth),
it is designated, 'ultimate.'
(As it is said:)28
'Without the ladder of that which is ultimately
valid conventionally,
It would be impossible to know how to proceed
to the upper story of the ultimate.'
Why?
To show directly the ultimate:
Since there is no origination, etc., non-origination, etc., are impossible.
On account of the refutation of the factuality of
these, (even) linguistic expressions for these
are impossible.//?l
'rhere doesn't exist a proper application of a
negation to a non-existent object.
In that it relies on divisive conceptualization,
(this negation) partakes of the conventional
and not the ultimate.//?2
If origination, etc. are non-existent, one can't accept the application of linguistic expressions (to
them).
Therefore, on account of this refutation in
which the object doesn't exist, because origination
121
does not exist, non-origination, etc. are impossible.
Although a defining characteristic is not an object
of these expressions, dichotomous conceptualization
which has come about from habituating tendencies
since beginningless time, appropriates (them) as an
apparent object ••.• Since it is based on the conceptual~zing
intellect which is called 'conventional,'
non-origination, etc., are conventional and not ultimate, like the term 'tree,' etc.,,29
122
Notes to Chapter IV
1. See above p. 27.
2. See below pp. 107, 108.
3. See below pp. 106, 163.
4. Starr, p. 207.
5. See below p. 114.
6. Mi-pham, mKhas-'jug, f.134a.
7. mKhan-po nus-ldan, mKhas pa'i tshul-la
sgo'i
'jug~pa'i
mchan-'grel legs-bshad snang-ba'i 'od-zer (Delhi: Lama Jurme
Drakpa, 1974), f.591,5.
8. See below note 23.
9. UG, f. 46 , 3- 4.
10. ibid. f.46,1-3.
11. For Tsong-kha-pa's position, see above Introduction,
note 25.
12. UG, f.262,5ff.
13. For a presentation of this understanding of the
~,
see Ives Waldo, "Nagarjuna and analytic philosophy," PEW, 25,
no.3 (1975), 281-90.
14. lira-grub shan-' byed gnad-kyi sgron-me yi tshig-don
rnam-bshad 'jam-dbyangs dgongs-brgyan, xylograph, n.p., n.d.,
f.24a.
12]
15. See, for example, note 13 above, and Chris Gudmunsen,
Wittgenstein and Buddhism (London: Macmillan, 1977).
16. fmMK, XXIV,11-12.
17. BeA, IX,32-4.
18. "The
and the
Dharm dharm t~vibhang
Dharmadharmat~
vibhanga-vrtti," ed. J. Nozawa, in Studies in Indology and
Buddhology Presented in Honor of Prof. Susumu Yamaguchi on
the Occasion of his 60th Birthday (Kyoto: Hozokan, 1955), pp.
37-8.
Cf. MS VIII,2.
19. Here Mi-pham appears to be defending Tsong-kha-pa
against some of his harsher critics, such as Go-ram-pa,
who relegated Tsong-kha-pa to a "Nihilistic Madhyamaka" in
his lTa-ba'ishan-'byed theg-mchog gnad-kyi zla-zer, in
the Sa-skya bka'-'bum, ed. bSod-nams rgya-mtsho (Tokyo:
Toyo Bunko, 1976), Vol. 13, pp.1-24.
20.
On the divisions of S'finyata, see Lamotte's exhaus-
tive study in his Le Traite de la Grande Vertu de Sagesse,
rome IV, Publications de Ltlnstitute Orientaliste de Louvain,
No.12 (Louvain: Universite de Louvain, 1976), pp.1995-2151.
21.
I
have not been able to identify these texts.
22.
Klong-chen rab-'byams-pa, Theg-pa chen-po'i man
ngag-gi bstan-bcos yid-bzhin rin-po-che'i mdzod-kyi 'grel-pa
pad-rna dkar-po, ed. Dodrup Chen Rinpoche (Gangtok, n.d.), f.
811.
2}. Go-ram-pa, ITa-ba'i shan-'byed, f.46b.
Mi-pham
also appears to paraphrase this work several places in his
124
writings.
See below Appendix ), note 8.
24. UG, f.55,4-69,2.
25. Cf., for example Tarka';vala., Peking ed., Vol.96,
27,5,6-8.
26. MMK, XY,5-6.
•
27. Kamalasila adds (Sa 126a, 7) :
"If one asks: since origination, etc. are conceptual
constructs (kun-tu btags-pa), the origination, etc.
of particular existents is not accepted; then how is
it that the Bhagavan, in statements such as, 'Nonorigination is true,' stated that~no -orig nation
is
the very truth (bden-pa nyid)? (Santar k~ita)
replies,
"Althought non-origination, etc.''',
The first half of verse 70 is an explanation of the term,
paramartha (don-dam).
28. Tarkajvala 111,12.
See below p. 164.
29. MAl, Sa 70a,4-72a,1.
125
APPENDICES
Appendix 1
-
-
-
The Madhyamakalamkarakarika
of
~-
Santar k~ ta
.
1. These particular existents spoken of by ourselves and others
are without essential existence,
Because they are ultimately neither unitary nor multiple,
Like a mirror-image.
2. Since results are gradually produced, those entities which
are said to be (an) eternal (cause) are not of a unitary
nature.
If results are each (produced) gradually (by various causes),
the eternality of these (entities) would be destroyed.
3. Even according to the approach of those who speak of the unconditioned as an object of knowledge for a cognition
which arises out of meditation, it is not a unitary
(entity),
Because these (unconditioned entities) would be related to
a cognition which has phases (of before and after).
4. If'the essential existence (of an unconditioned entity)
known by a previous cognition, were (also known by) a
succeeding (cognition),
Then, just as a previous cognition could become subsequent,
a subsequent (cognition) could become previous (because
their object is unconditioned).
126
5. If the essential existence of this (unconditioned entity)
does not come about in the former and later phases (of
cognition)
Then
t
unconditioned, like cognItion, should be understood
~he
to be momentary.
6. If by virj;ue of the previous moment (of the unconditioned,
the subsequent moments) would Come about,
It wouldn't be unconditioned, just like mind and mental
events.
7. If you claim that these momentary (unconditioned objects)
come about by virtue of themselves,
Then. since they are not dependent on another. they will
always be either existent or non-existent.
8. Why do you postulate these (eternal objects) as existing
when they are not efficacious?
What's the use of a man seeking sexual gratification, asking
whether a frigid woman is good-looking or not? 1
9. Since
i~
is not possible to demon$trate a personhood which
is not the
mo entary~sycho-physical
constituents),
One should know clearly that it i$ neither unitary nor
multiple.
127
10. How can these pervasive entities be a unitary whole, since
they are related to (objects) with various aspects?
Since particular existents can be covered or not covered,
etc., macroscopic entities are not
an undivided
whole.
11. (Ultimate particles) can be joined (to each other), arranged
around each other (without being joined), or placed next
to each other without interval.
The central particle essentially (must) face another particle (in some direction). 2
12. If it is claimed that the other particles facing (it) are
just like this (unidirectional particle),
Then, in such a case, in what way could (the particles of)
water,' earth, etc., be built up? 3
13. If the side (of a central particle) which faces other particles is claimed to be (something) other,
Then, how would such an ultimate particle be a partless,
unitary whole. 4
14. Since it is established that ultimate particles are without
essential existence,
Then, all (the entities according to) ourselves and others,
such as the eye and substance, are obviously without
essential existence.
128
15. The essential existence of this (ultimate particle), what
is built up from this, its qualities, its activity, and
even its universality and particularity,
Are (claimed to be) combinations of these (ultimate particles).
16. Perception comes about (characteristially) contrary to
that which is insentient.
That which is essentially not insentient is the reflexivity
of the noetic. 5
17. Since one cannot accept that that which is partless and
unitary is three-fold,
The reflexivity of this (noesis) is not itself a particular
existent which is divided into an agent and an object
of activity.6
18. Therefore, because this is the essential existence of the
noetic, it is the very being of the noetic.
How can that which is other (than the noetic) which has
the essential existence of an object, become known by
this (partless) noesis (since there would be no relation
between them)??
19. If the essential existence of this (noesis) does not
exist in what is other (i.e., objects), how could this
129
(noesis) know another (object in the same way it is
reflexively) noetic,
Since it is claimed (by you) that the knower and the known
are separate entities. 8
20. In the case of (those who say) that the noesis possesses
a perceptual noema although these two are really separate,
Since (the intended object and the perceptual noema) are
like (an object and its) mirror image, (the intended
object) is merely postulated as a·felt experience. 9
l
21. In the case of those who do not claim perception to be
"colored" by the perceptual noema of the intended object,
There wouldn't even exist the (noetic) aspect which cognizes
the intended object. 10
22. Since there is no difference between the unitary noesis
(and its noema, according to this view), there wouldn't
be a multiplicity of perceptual noemata.
Therefore, one couldn't posit that there would be noeses
(intending) intended objects by virtue of this multiplicity.l1
23. Since perception would not be differentiable from the
perceptual noemata (according to you, since noemata
are multiple, the noesis) would no longer be a unity.
130
If this is not so, how could these two (noesis and noema)
be called a Ifunity. If 1 2
24. The noeses (intending) white, etc., come about gradually
(in perceiving a multi-colored object),
But since they come about in quick succession, stupid
people think of them as perceived simultaneously.
25. Since the intellectual apprehensions of the sound la-ta,
etc., come about in quick succession,
Even in this case, (apprehensions) should come about
simultaneously; why doesn't it happen like this? 13
26. Even purely intellectual apprehensions couldn't be known
to come about in succession (in this case).
Since they do not remain for any length of time, all of
these apprehensions would be indistinguishable in their
rapid succession. 14
27. Therefore, in regard to all the objects (of apprehension),
although they wouldn't be gradually apprehended,
The seeming variety of perceptual noemata would appear as
apprehended simultaneously.
15
28. Also, in the case of the whirling fire-brand, (although)
there arises the error of it appearing simultaneousJ-y
131
as a circle,
Since, when seen, it is present quite clearly, there are
no intervals (of earlier and later moments to be con- .
nected) by sight. 16
•
29. That is, the connecting of intervals would be done by memory-retention and not vision,
Since the latter cannot apprehend a past object. 17
30. That which is the object of this (memory-retention) would
not be clearly (perceived) since it is past.
For this reason, this presence as a circle (in the case of
the whirling fire-brand) would not be clearly (perceived). 18
31. At the time of seeing a single painting, we (call it a)
whole,
In claiming that many intentions corresponding to their
(objects) come about together.
32. If this is so, although a noesis (intends) a single perceptual noema of white, etc,
Since (the perceptual noema) has various (parts) such as
upper, middle, and edge, it would become various possible objects.
33. An atomistic white, etc., that is partless and unitary:
132
A noesis for which this is present is not experienced by
oneself.
34. The five perceptual functions have (each their) perceptual
noemata cognized as
ag regates~f
ultimate particles).
The cognition of mind and mental events is taken as the
sixth.
35. Even in the basic texts of the outsiders, perception doesn't
appear as a unitary whole,
Since it is apprehended as substance, etc., which is composed of qualities, etc.
36. Like the essence of a brilliant jewel, (so are) all particular existents (one in their essence, according to the
the Jains and
Mim~sak s)
But even according to this view, the mind which apprehends
these (objects) cannot be understood to appear as unitary.
37. Even in the system of (the Lokayatas) who claim that all
the sensory modalities and their objects are conglomerations of earth, etc.,
There is no harmonious organization into a unitary particular existent.
38. Even in the position (of the
133
S~khya)
in which sound, etc.
are in their nature sattva, etc.
The noetic which possesses a single object makes no sense,
since the apparent object has a triple nature.
39. While the nature of a particuar existent has three aspects,
if the (perception of it) appears as a unity,
And if the apparent (aspect) is different from this (object),
how can you claim this (perception) apprehends this
object?
40. Although there are no external objects, there are a variety
of appearances (before a consciousness which is) eternal
(according to the Vedanta).
(In this case,) it is very 'difficult to harmonize the aspect of gradual origination with the aspect of unitariness.
41. The noeses (which intend) space, etc., are present as mere
names.
Since they are made up of many letters, it is clear they
are multiple.
42. Although one takes a perception which appears without
various (intended
as existing,
object~
Still it cannot be taken (as being) really (unitary),
since the characteristic (of unitariness) is seen to
134
be contradictory.
43. Therefore, the perception of what is present in its variety,
which remains at all times,
Makes no sense as essentially unitary (although with) seemingly multiple noemata.
44. The noemata which magically appear by the maturation of
habituating tendencies since beginningless time,
Although present, through error are like an apparition.
45. This (approach) is a good one, yet (the question remains)
are these particular existents real or not.
One must still inquire into the acceptance of what is
merely experienced but not investigated.
46. If, ultimately (perception exists), perceptions (corresponding to many noemata) would be multiple.
And further,
These (perceptual noemata) would become unitary (since
perception is unitary); because these two (unitariness
and mUltiplicity) are contradictory, (perception and
noema) would certainly be separate.
47. If (you claim) that these (perceptual noemata) aren't multiple,
then, because of the unity of movement and non-movement,
etc.,
135
There would be the absurd consequence that all would move,
etc.
It is difficult to answer (this objection).
48. If, as in the case of (those who claim)
n object-in-itself,
(here in the Cittamatra) perceptual noemata are inseparable (from perceptual noeses);
Then, irrefutably everything would become one.
49. But if perception were admitted (tiyyou) to be equal in number to its corresponding perceptual noemata,
Irhen it would be difficult for you to avoid the critique
which was made similarly regarding ultimate particles.
50. If, although (noemata) are various, (the noetic) is unitary,
is this not the approach (of the Jains called) Digambaras.
A multiplicity is not unitary, like several gems, etc.
51. If a variety (of noemata) are unitary, then how could there
be this multiplicity
Of appearance as various, such as obscured and not obscured?
52. But if in actuality, there didn't exist these perceptual
noemata of this (noesis),
Then ultimately they would appear through error for the
perception which is without a perceptual noema.
136
53. If (these noemata) do not exist, how are they experienced
clearly?
Such a perceptual noesis which is separate from its (noema)
is not (possible).
54. Wherein a particular existent. does not exist, therein the
knowledge of that (non-existence) does not exist.
Just like happiness in unhappiness, and non-white in white.
55. A perceptual noema cannot be accepted as a concrete object
of a noesiB,
Since it is (according to you) separate from the very
being of the noesis, like a flower in the sky.
56. Since that which does not exist is without the ability
(to give rise to perception), even a mere postulation
would be impossible, like a hare's horn.
Since there is no (such perceptual noema) there can be no
ability to produce a noesis (intending) a real presence.
57. On acount of what would a (noema) exist and its apodictic
experience (be present)?
How could there be a relation
with a noesis?
(Since) there is no real (noema, there is no relation to)
a real noesis, and (the noema) doesn't come about from
this (noesis).
137
58. If there is no cause (for the noema), how could it come
about at various times?
(A perceptual noema) which is caused, for what reason
would it be excluded from contextuality?
59. When there is no (perceptual noema) still
(one claims) a
perceptual act will be (experienced) without a perceptual
noema -But a noesis which is like a clear crystal is not to be
experienced.
60. If one claims that this (noema) is known by virtue
of error, how is that (noema) dependent on error?
If it (comes about) through the power of error, this (noema)
is then contextual.
61. (When) we investigate each particular existent, these are
(found) not to be unitary.
That in which there is no unity, there is also no multiplicity.
62. A particular existent which does not belong to unity or
multiplicity is impossible,
Since these two are co-implicates.
63. Therefore, these particular existents have the defining
138
characteristic of the conventional only.
If one claims that these have an ultimate status, how could
they (be refuted) by us?
64. The thematized entities which arise and cease (momentarily)
and are enjoyed merely by virtue of not investigating
them
Are that which is efficacious.
Understand that (this) is
the conventional.
66. Therefore, if the conventional is without a (true) causal
basis, then says (the reductionist, its presence) is
not possible.
This is not so.
If the appropriated basis is real, then say so (with reason).
67. Since this (method of demonstrating) the essential existence
of all particular existents following a reasoned inquiry,
Removes the contentions of others, wrong-headed ppponents
have nowhere to stand.
68. Those who do not accept existence, non-existence, (both and
139
neither) existence and non-existence
Cannot be attacked at all, even by those eager for (disputation) •
69. Therefore, ultimately no particular existent can be established.
On account of this the Tathagatas have said that all entities do not come into being.
70. Since it is in accord with the ultimate reality, it is
called "ul timate reality."
In the ultimate sense, the (genuine ultimate) is freedom
from the whole mass of linguistic proliferation.
71. Since there is no origination, etc., non-origination, etc.
are impossible.
On account of the refutation of the factuality of these,
(even) linguistic expressions for these are impossible.
72. There doesntt exist a proper application of a negation to
a non-existent object.
In that it relies on divisive conceptualization, (this
negation) partakes of the conventional and not the
ultimate.
73. Now, since one thoroughly comprehends this (entity, such
140
as a pot) because its essential existence is immediately
apprehended,
Then how could even ignorant people not understand the mode
of being of particular existents?
74. This is not so.
Since one's stream of existence has come
under the sway of imputing particular existents so
heavily since beginningless time,
Those who are attached to life will not realize (the truth)
of these particular existents) directly.
75. While this (truth) is understood by those who make sound
inferences through the (method of) reasoning which understands (this truth) and eliminates imputation,
Those endowed with yogic insight clearly (see this) directly.
76-78. The existence of (the conventions of) means of proof
and what is to be proven regarding particular existents, which are well-known to ordinary woman and
children
As well as to learned people who have rejected the diverse thematized entities which have been put forward
by the basic texts (of the philosophical systems),
Are (to be) understood correctly without exception.
If this were not so, how could a reply, where a common
141
82. Therefore, eternalistic and annihilationistic views are
for removed from this Madhyamaka approach.
Change and
suc es~ion
(are preserved) as in the case of
142
seed, shoot, and branch.,
83. Those who know that entities are without an ultimate status,
by accustoming themselves to this absence of essential
existence,
Will eliminate, without confusion, conflicting emotionality
which arises from wrong-headed notions.
84. Since the particular existents which are cause and result
are not to be discounted conventionally,
Pervasive emotionality and its purification, etc., can be
affirmed without contention.
85. Thus, by affirming the entities which are cause and result,
In this approach the stainless accumulation of merits also
is possible.
86. From pure causes come pure results,
Just as the pure facets of ethical conduct, etc., come
about from a proper perspective.
87. In the same way from impure causes come impure results,
Just as negative behavior, etc., comes about by virtue of
an improper perspective.
88. Sirce (in the case of the existence of an objectified par-
ticular existent,) there exists a fallacy according to
reason,
Like the perception of a mirage, it is a completely false
fabrication.
89. Therefore, all the accomplishments of the transcending
functions which come about by virtue of this (perspective which still apprehends particular existents),
Just like (the apprehension) ofcr' and 'mine' which arisesfrom
a perverted (perspective), are of little power.
90. A tremendous result comes about from non-objectification
into particular existents,
Since it comes about from a cause which is developing,
just like ·a shoot from a fertile seed.
91. Although the transformations of causes and result are only
the noetic,
That which is self validating is the noetic.
92. Having based oneself on "Experience-only," one should
know that an object-in-itself does not exist.
And having based oneself on the method (of this text), one
should know that even this (experienc in.g) is without
ultimate status.
144
93. Those who take hold of theragns of logical inquiry, having
mounted the chariot (of the unity) of these two approaches,
By this take hold of the Mahayana itself which is their
intent.
94.
Vi~ u
~
and Siva have not perceived it, and even those who
have become the highest in the world,
Have not perceived a cause which is immeasurable.
95. This pure ambrosia which is genuine,. is not an enjoyment
of others
Who are apart from the Tathagatas who possess its cause
which is pure spiritual responsiveness.
96. Therefore, in regard to those who adhere to wrong-headed
teachings,
Those who have entered the way of the (Tathagatas) should
give rise to compassion.
97. Seeing how there is no compassion in other teachings,
those who are possessed of the wealth of intelligence,
Should give rise to devotion to the Protector (Buddha).
Notes to Appendix 1
1. =PV I,211, except MAl has de 'dod instead of don
gnyer.
2. =Tattvasamgraha 1989, ed. D. Shastri (Benares, 1968).
3. =TS 1990
4. =TS 1991
5. =TS 1999
6. =TS 2000.
7. =TS 2001.
8. =TS 2002.
9. =lrs 2004.
10. =TS 2005·
11. =TS 2036.
12. =TS 2037.
13. =TS 1250.
14. =TS 1251, =PV III,138c-d.
15. =TS 1252.
16. =TS 1253.
17. ='rs 1254.
18. =TS 1255.
146
Appendix 2
Topical
O~tline
(sa-bead) of the
dbu-ma rgyan rnam-bshad of Mi-pham
1. Introduction to what is to be explained (2b,S)
2. The meaning of the text to be explained (39b,4)
2.1 The body of the text (39b,4)
2.11 The meaning of the title (39b,5)
2.12 The translator's salutation (41b,4)
2.13 The meaning of the text (42a,1)
2.131 Setting forth the meaning of the Two Truths (which
constitute) the knowable (42a,2)
2.1311 Grasping the method (of applying) the Two Truths (42a,2)
2.13111 Demonstrating that ultimately particular existents
are non-existent (42a,3)
2.131111 Setting up the basic argument (42a,3) V.l
2.1311111 Examination of the property-possessor (the subject)
(42b,2)
2.1311112 Examination of the (means of) proof (43a,S)
2.13111121 Examination of the (means of) proof of the Svatantrikas and the Prasangikas (43a,6)
2.13111122 Examination of means of proof based on reality and
convention (44a,3)
2.13111123 Examination of implicative and non-implicative
negation (44b,4)
2.1311113 Explanation of the example (4Sa,3)
2.131112 Proof of the way in which the basic argument has been
set up (47b,1)
2.1311121 Proof of the property to be proven (47b,1)
2.13111211 Proof that there is no unitariness in truth (47b,2)
2.131112111 Refutation of unitariness of pervasive entities
(47b,2)
2.1311121111 Refutation of unitariness in truth of particular
pervasive entities (47b,3)
2.13111211111 Refutation of unitariness in truth of an eternal
entity (47b,3)
2.131112111111 Refutation of eternal entities postulated by
other systems (47b,2) V.2
2.131112111112 Refutation of eternal entities postulated by
our systems (50a, 3)
2.1311121111121 Demonstration of the reasoning which refutes,
in brief (50a,4)
~
2.1311121111122 Extensive explanation of this (51a,4)
2.13111211111221 Non-acceptance of a subsequent object of a
previous cognition (51a,5) v.4
2.13111211111222 Refutation by non-acceptance if it is not
subsequent (55b,4)
2.131112111112221 The consequence that an unconditioned object
would be momentary (55b,5)
~
2.131112111112222 Demonstration that there is a contradiction
if this is accepted (56a,2)
2.1311121111122221 The consequence that it would be conditioned
if it were dependent (56a,2) v.6
148
2.1]11121111122222 The consequence that it would be eternally
existent or non-existent if it were not dependent (56a,S)
~
2.131112111113 Summary of the refutation of an eternal entity
(S7a, 3) V. 8
2.13111211112 Refutation of the unitariness in truth of the
person (58b,4)
~
2.1]11121112 Refutation in general of the unitariness in truth
of pervasive entities (61a,2) V.10a-b
2.131112112 Refutation of the unitariness in truth of non-pervasive entities (62a,2)
2.1311121121 Refutation of the unitariness in truth of an independently existing object
~2a,2)
2.13111211211 Refutation of the unitariness in truth of macroscopic objects (62a,3) V.l0c-d
2.13111211212 Refutation of the unitariness in truth of ultimate particles (62b,4)
2.131112112121 Demonstration of the reasoning which refutes
ultimate particles (62b,4)
2.1311121121211 Statement of the initial claim (62b,S) V.l1a-b
2.1311121121212 Refutation of this (64a,6)
2.13111211212121 If it is partless the macroscopic is not
established (64a,6) V.l1c-d, 12
2.13111211212122 If it has (parts) the ultimate particle is
not established (6Sa,S) V.13
2.131112112122 Having refuted ultimate particles, demonstra-
tion that all particular existents have been
refuted (65b,2)
2.1311121121221 Setting up the argument (65b,3) V.14
2.1311121121222 Proving the pervasion (65b,5)
~
2.1311121122 Refutation of the unitariness in truth of the
noetic (67a,2)
2.13111211221 Refutation of the unitariness in truth of the
noetic in the systems which claim independently
existing objects (67a,3)
2.131112112211 Refutation of each of their specific claims
(67a,3)
2.1311121122111 Refutation of our two realistic systems (67a,4)
2.13111211221111 Refutation of the
Vaibha~ikas
(who claim
a noesis) without a noema (67a,4)
2.131112112211111 Proof that reflexive awareness is acceptable
(67a,5)
2.1311121122111111 Grasping the very fact of reflexive
awareness (67a,5) v.16
2.1311121122111112 Showing. that one should accept that this is
reflexive awareness (71b,3) V.l?, 18a-b
2.131112112211112 Proving that non-reflexive, referential
awareness of objects is unacceptable (73a,3)
V.18c-d, 19
2.131112112211113 Demonstration that the system in which there
is no noema is unacceptable (74a,4)
2.1311121122111131 The acceptance, merely conventionally, of
150
referential awareness of objects in (the
system) with a noema (74a,5) V.20
2.1311121122111132 Demonstration that (the system) in which
there is no noema is very inferior because
in it even conventionally referential awareness of obj ects is unacceptable (74b,1) V. 21
2.13111211221112 Refutation of the system of the Sautrantikas
(who claim a noesis) together with a noema
(75a,1)
2.131112112211121 "The non-duality of the multiple" (75a,1)
2.1311121122111211 The consequence that the noema would be
unitary like the noesis (75a,2) V.22
2.1311121122111212 The consequence that the noesis would be
multiple like the noemata (75b,3) V.23a-b
2.1311121122111213 If this is not so, the refutation by the
consequence that noesis and noema would be
separate (75b,4) V.23c-d
2.131112112211122 Refutation of the approach (called) "Two
halves of an egg" (76a,1)
2.1311121122111221 Statement of the claim (76a,l) V.24
2.1311121122111222 Refutation of this (76b,2)
2.13111211221112221 Refutation of the meaning (76b,2)
2.131112112211122211 Uncertainty of intellectual apprehension
of letters (76b,3) V.25
2.131112112211122212 Uncertainty of understanding objects
of discursive thought (77a,3) v.26
151
2.131112112211122213 Uncertainty of all intellectual apprehensions (77b,1)
~
2.13111211221112222 Refutation of the example (77b,S)
2.131112112211122221 Setting up the argument (77b,5) V.28
2.131112112211122222 Proving the pervasion (78a,3)
2.1311121122111222221 Contradiction between the object of
sight and memory (78a,3) V.29
2.1311121122111222222 If there are intervals a clear presence
is untenable (78a,5) V.30
2.131112112211123 Refutation of the system known as "An equal
number of noeses and noemata" (78b,4)
2.1311121122111231 Statement of the claim (78b,S)
~
2.1311121122111232 Refutation of this (79a,5)
2.13111211221112321 Proof that all apprehensions would possess
many noemata (79a, S) V.32
2.13111211221112322 Impossibility of the unitariness in truth
of that which is partless (79b,1)
2.131112112211123221 (Showing) that there is no unitary objective reference if one investigates an insentient objective referent (79b,2)
V.33
2.131112112211123222 (Showing) its non-existence if one investigates objectifying intellect (79b,6)
V.34
2.1311121122112 Refutation of the systems of the outsiders
(80a,4)
152
2.13111211221121 Demonstration in general of the refutation
of the
Vai~esikas,
etc. (80a,S) V.35
•
2.13111211221122 Refutation of the claims of each(82a,2)
2.131112112211221 Refutation of the Jaina and Mimamsa
•
systems (82a,2) V.36
2.131112112211222 Refutation of the Lokayata system (84b,3)
Y..Jl
2.131112112211223 Refutation of the
S~khya
system (85b,2)
2.1311121122112231 The statement of the refutation (85b,3) '.' ..
2.1311121122112232 Refutation of the response which wrongly
rejected (the above refutation) (86b,5)
L.J2.
2.131112112211224 Refutation of the Vedanta system (87a,5)
v.40
2.131112112212 Summary demonstrating the impossibilty of noetic
which is truly unitary, common (to these systems)
(90b,3)
2.1311121122121 Refutation of adhering to unitariness regarding
an independently
e~isting
object (90b,3) V.41
2.1311121122122 Refutation of unitariness in truth regarding
the noetic (91a,4) V.42
2.1311121122123 Summary of the meaning of these two (91b,2)
2.13111211222 Refutation of the unitariness in truth of the
noetic in the system of the Vijnaptimatra who
153
do not accept independently existing objects
(91b,4)
2.131112112221 Statement of the initial claim (91b,S) v.44
2.131112112222 Investigation of this approach (93b,2)
2.1311121122221 Investigation of its faults and benefits
(93b,3) V.45
2.1311121122222 Refutation of the faulty aspect of the establishment in truth of perception (93b,6)
2.13111211222221 Refutation of the system in which the noema
exists in truth (94a,1)
2.131112112222211 "The two halves of an egg" (94a,1)
2.1311121122222111 Showing the contradiction (94a,l) V.46
2.1311121122222112 Explaining how one is unable to reject
this contradiction (95a,2)
2.13111211222221121 Setting forth the consequence (95a,2)
v.47
2.13111211222221122 Showing that this fault is similar to that
of those who (claim a noesis) together
with a noema while accepting independently
existing objects
(95b~2)
v.48
2.131112112222212 Refutation of the system of "An equal number
of noeses and noeroata" (96a,2) v.49
2.131112112222213 Refutation of the system of "The non-duality
of the roul tiple" (97a, 1)
2.1311121122222131 Setting forth the :thesis of rejection (97a,2)
~
154
2.1311121122222132 Proof of the acceptability of this (97b,3)
~
2.13111211222222 Refutation of the system of (those who claim)
the noema is false (98a,1)
2.131112112222221 Statement of the claim (98a,2)
~
2.131112112222222 Its refutation (98a,6)
2.1311121122222221 Refutation in brief (98a,6)
~
2.1311121122222222 Extensive explanation of its meaning (99b,6)
2.13111211222222221 Unacceptability the non-existence of a
noema (99b,6)
2.131112112222222211 Unacceptability if one investigates the
object of the noesis (100a,1)
2.1311121122222222111 In general (100a,1) V.54
2.1311121122222222112 Specifically (100a,3)
2.13111211222222221121 Unacceptability of a noesis in reality
(100a,4) L...2.2
2.13111211222222221122 Unacceptability of a noesis even merely
postulationally (100b,3) V.56
2.131112112222222212 Unacceptability if one investigates
their relation (101a,2)
~
2.131112112222222213 Unacceptability if one investigates
the "cause" (102a,5)
~
2.13111211222222222 Unacceptability of only a noetic act
(102b,3)
~
2.1311121122222223 Refutation of the response which wrongly
rejected (the above) (103a,5) v.60
155
2.13111212 Proof that there is no multiplicity in truth (106a,4)
V.61
2.1311122 Proof of the pervasion (107b,1) V.62
2.13112 Demonstration of the existence of particular existents
conventionally (108b,l)
2.131121 Grasping the conventional which is a mere presence
devoid of existence in truth (108b,2)
~
2.131122 Explanation and division of its essential existence
(111a,3)'
2.1311221 The infallible existence of mere presence (l11a,3)
2.13112211 The manner of presencing (l11a,4) v.64
2.131122111 The reasoning which proves momentariness (111b,4)
2.1311221111 Non-dependence (Of the case of cessation of a
momentary entity on another) (111b,5)
2.1311221112 Contradictoriness (of non-momentary entities)
(113a,6)
2.131122112 Efficacy (114a,1)
2.13112212 The way in which (entities) are present by virtue
of their "cause" (121a,3) .L..Q.5.
2.1311222 Demonstrating
certainty that a ground of presencing
is devoid of truth status (125a,2) v.66
2.1312 Eliminating objections to grasping the way in which
the Two Truths (operate) (126a,2)
2.13121 A brief demonstration of the way in which there can be
no contention (with this approach) (126a,2)
2.131211 The ability to crush opponents (126a,3) v.67
156
2.131212 The way in which one cannot be attacked by others
(126b,1) v.68
2.13122 Extensive explanation (126b,6)
2.131221 Eliminating objections regarding the ultimate (127a,1)
2.1312211 The way in which there are no assertions in the ultimate which is free from the linguistic proliferations
in the four extremes (127a,1)
2.13122111 Explanation of the discursively-formulated ultimate
in which assertions are made (127a,2)
2.131221111 The way this is established by reasoning and textual authority (127a,2)
~
2.131221112 Meaning of the term (£aramartha) (127b,6) V.70a-b
2.13122112 Explanation of the non-discursive ultimate which
is free from all assertions (128b,3)
2.131221121 Demonstration in. brief (128b,4) V.70c-d
2.131221122 Extensive explanation (128b,6)
2.1312211221 Showing that the ultimate is beyond the object
of words and concepts (129a,1) V.71,72a-b
2.1312211222 Showing that words and concepts are the realm of
the conventional (135b,2) V.72c-d
2.1312212 Eliminating objections to this (136a,6)
2.13122121 If the essential existence (of entities) is open
there is the consequence that it would be directly
understood by all (136b,1)
2.131221211 The objection (136b,2)
~
2.131221212 The response (136b,5) V.74
157
2.13122122 The consequence that the proof would be meaningless in not being understood by anyone if (entities)
although open, were not present (137a,6)
~
2.131221221 Yogic direct awareness which clearly understands
the non-existence of an ontological principle
(139a, 4)
2.1312212211 Actuality (139a,4)
2.1312212212 Divisions (139a,S)
2.1312212213 Meaning of the term (139b,3)
2.1312212214 Elimination of objections (140a,2)
2.13122122141 In general (140a,2)
2.131221221411 Objection to the "cause" (140a,2)
2.1312212214111 Objection to the actuality (140a,.3)
2.1312212214112 Objection to the divisions (140a,6)
2.131221221412 Objection to the result (14ia,2)
2.1312212214121 Rejection (141a,3)
2.1312212214122 Objection to the intrinsic awareness which
understands (141a,5)
2.14122122142 Specifically, objection to intrinsic awareness
which is felt knowledge, the supreme king of all
forms of direct yogic awareness (141b,3)
2.141221221421 Objection to the "cause" (141b,4)
2.131221221422 Objection to the result (142a,.3)
2.13122123 Objection that the conventions of the means of
proof and what is to be proven would be impossible
because the property of the logical subject, etc.
158
would not be established if there were no essential
existence (144b,1)
2.131221231 The reply (144b,2) V.76,77a-b
2.131221232 Demonstrating unacceptability if this is not so
(145a,3) V.77c-d
2.131222 Eliminating objections to the conventional (145b,2)
2.1312221 Acceptance in general of means of proof and what is
to be proven (145b,3) V.78
2.1312222 Specific explanation of the way in which one accepts
the establishment of the co-relation of "cause" and
result as previous and subsequent (147a,2)
2.13122221 Brief demonstration of the thesis (147a,2)
~
2.13122222 Extensive proof by reasoning (147b,2)
2.131222221 Refutation of non-acceptance (147b,2) V.80,81a-b
2.131222222 Proving acceptability (of the thesis) (148a,5)
V.81c-d
2.13122'23 Summary by way of praising freedom from eternalism
and annihilationism (149b,3)
~
2.1313 The benefit of understanding the way in which the two
truths are to be grasped (151a,2)
2.13131 The benefit of understanding no essential existence
as the ultimate (151a,2) V.83
2.13132 The benefit of efficacious presence as the conventional
(161a,6) V.84
2.13133 The benefit of accustoming oneself to the unity of
these two (162a,6)
159
2.131331 Brief demonstration that pure merits can arise
1..&.5.
(162b,1)
2.131332 Extensive explanation of this (163a,3)
2.1313321 General explanation of the example of positive and
negative outcomes of "cause" and result (16Ja,4)
V.86-87
2.1313322 Specific explanation of the "cause" and result occasioned and not occasioned by a pure perspective
(163b,3) V.88-90
2.132 Summary which praises such a method of (grasping) the two
truths (16.5a,1)
2.1321 Setting forth the two approaches (16.5a,1)
2.13211 Setting forth the conventional just as it is (165a,2)
~
2.13212 Setting forth the path by uniting the two approaches
(165b,6)
~
2.1322 Praise of this (166a,5)
2.13221 Brief demonstration (166a,5)
~
2.13222 Extensive explanation (168a,2)
2.132221 Qualities of this extra-ordinary (approach) (168a,3)
V.94-95
2.1J2222 The benefit of giving rise to other positive qualities
based on this (172a,5)
2.1322221 rrhe benefit of giving rise to compassion for sentient
beings
(172a,6)
~
2.1322222 The benefit of giving rise to devotion to the teacher
160
(173b,3)
~
2.14 Conclusion (175a,4)
2.141 Colophon of the acarya (175a,4)
2.142 Colophon:
the translators (175b,1)
2.2 Final remarks by Mi-pham (175b,6)
(Mi-pham's reply to the criticisms of rDo-grub dom-chos
begins 18Gb,1.
This is not noted in the table of contents for
Vol.nga of his gsung-'bum as reproduced by Sonam Kazi.)
161
Appendix 3
Mi-pham on Bodhicaryavatara IX, 2 1
All of these entities which are summed up by the process
of refinement are claimed to reside within the two 'tru ths'
of the ultimate, i.e., openness, non-thematic meaningfulness
(chos-nyid) just as it is, and the conventional, i.e., thematized beings (chos-can) in their manifoldness which are a mere
ontic presence.
As the Pitaputrasamagamanasutra states:
'These two 'truths' which are known in the world,
you know for yourself without hearing them from
another. They are the conventional and ultimate
'truths'; there is no third.'
While the conventional is the ontic mode of presence (snang
tshul) which is like a hair before the eyes, a dream, an apparition, a presence before one although not existing in actuality as somethihg having come into existence, etc.; if one
examines this presence as to its essential existence, the existential mode of Being
(of this presence) whicp
(~-tshuI)
is devoid of coming into being, etc., is the ultimate.
The
Madhyamakavatara
states: 2
'All particular existents partake of two modes of
being, obtained by seeing them truly or erroneously.
The domain of true seeing is the ultimate itself,
and erroneous seeing is known as the conventional
truth. '
Therefore, if these two truths are furthermore (held to be)
conventionally one and ultimately separate, one should know,
just as it is spoken of in the SamdhinirmocanasUtra,3 that
four faults (arising from this conception) are to be countered
in four ways.
162
Now as to the ultimate, since 'to be devoid of,' which
is a mere explicit negation, i.e., there is no coming into
being, no abiding, etc., which has negated coming into being,
abiding, etc., is merely the gate
~f
entry into releasement
from the four extremes, i. e., Great Openness , it is designated
'the discursively formulated ultimate' or 'the approximately
ultimate (mthun-pa'i don-dam).' The Madhyamakalamkara states:
4
'Since it is in accord with the ultimate, it is
called "ultimate."
Since those who have been habituated to an obsessive concern
with particular existents since beginningless time have no
opportunity to give birth to pristine cognitiveness which is
free from the four extremes, first, it is necessary (for them)
to activate appreciative discernment, which is a mental event
that discerns all particular existents as being just non-existent ultimately.
Therefore, in all the basic texts of the
Svatantrikas, all the aspects of explicit negation of form
and so on (taught) in the sutras and ~ stras,
having been ex-
plained as being of discursive meaning, (i.e.) just the nonexistence which refutes ontically ultimate existence (bden
grub); apart from this one needn't assert again a negation as
the ultimate meaning, the presence of Being
(~-lugs).
the Madhyamakala.zpkara states:5
'Since coming into being, etc., are impossible,
no coming into being, etc., are impossible.'
- );6
And the Satyadvaya ( '.
vl.bhaga
'Ultimately, it is clear there is no negation.'
163
As
And so, at the time of setting forth the incidental path
(gnas-skabs lam), since it is not necessary to negate presence
which seems to come into being conventionally although ultimately there is no coming into being, entities are established
by conventional logical means as upholding their essential properties (rang-gi mtshan-nyid) conventionally.
And since this
seeming presence is not established ultimately, that which is
to be refuted relates specifically to the ultimate, and thus
we. make the explanation, 'while ultimately non-existent, conventionally infallibly existent.'
Therefore, such a lack of
meditative composure, in that the two truths are separate, is
what delights the mind of the
?
begin e~u
As Acarya Bhavaviveka
said:
'Without the ladder of that which is ultimately
valid conventionally,
It would be impossible to know how to proceed to
the upper story of the ultimate.'
Now, in the realm of the ultimate, the presence of
Being, the distinction between the two characteristics of existence and non-existence, (as in the phrase) 'ultimately non-existing, while conventionally existing,' does not hold.
Since
form, etc., which is present itself is open, and likewise
since that which is open is itself presence as form, etc., the
field of Being (chos-dbyings) which is the unity of openness
and presence, (is) free from the two forms of imputation.
As
long as one has not directly experienced this, since it is not
the real appreciative discernment as a transcending function,
~cary s
Candrakirti and Santideva, etc., ascertain completely
(rtsal-du 'don-pa) intrinsic awareness itself as an individual
164
experience, pristine cognitiveness which is free from the four
extremes from the very start.
Therefore, since even conven-
tionally the establishing (of entities) by means of their essential properites has been refuted, the separation of the two
truths is refuted.
Since
and openness (here) become
pres~nce
unified, by (this) essential point
(~)
which has gone be-
yond all affirmations of a biased view which may subsequently
remain in regard to the existential mode of Being in its ultimacy, they expel, by demonstrating consequences unacceptable
to an opponent yet based on his own principles (thal-'gyur),
all the ,one-sided (affirmations of) existence and nQn-existence.
Therefore, they are given the name 'Prasangikas.'
Ex-
cellent scholars such as Bu-ston only made this distinction
between Svatantrikas and Prasangikas in Tibet; in India it did
not arise.
Ultimately, although there is no distinction what-
soever, there is a distinction based on the method of explanation in the basic texts.
the error
For example, Bhavaviveka ascribes
of not applying the qualification,
'(from the)
ultimate (point of view),' to what was to be refuted, to the
work of BUddhapalita, and Candrakirti refuted (this criticism).
Therefore, although there is no difference whatsoever in regard to the main point which is the ultimate intent of these
two great approaches of the Svatantrikas and Prasangikas, the
complete ascertainment of the discursively-formulated and non
discursive ultimate (truth) is merely a method of explanation.
One should look into (my) Explanation of the Madhyamakalamkara
165
for an extensive (discussion of this).
Here in the Prasangikas, since they ascertain completely
the Great Madhyamaka which is free from linguistic proliferation (spros-pa), the unity (of presence and openness), one
should know that there is no distinction into the two forms
of ultimate (truth), the discursive and the non-discursive
according to their method.
Some people say that the noble
pristine cognitiveness is the real non-discursive ultimate,
and that this is free from all the prolificacy of language,
while all the cultivation of openness by ordinary people is
a cultivation as a mere explicit negation, which is the approximately ultimate.
Here, where openness is taught, negation of
form, etc., is only a non-implicative negation.
Since, ulti-
mately, implicative negation also is not in accord with the
meaning of openness
in so far as it is still involved with
particular existents; it is just the same with non-implicative negation.
Since, by presence in infallible interdepend-
ent orignination, presence and openness are unified, it is
necessary to destroy'any holding to affirmation or negation.
As it is said:
'If one knows that all entities are open, then
that which is based on action and its result is
more wondrous than wondrous, more miraculous than
miraculous. •
166
cording,to the Mantric path, it is not that of the sutras,
(we reply) that there are no distinctions in the field of
Being apart from the differences in method of those who specialize in efficacious methods and those who cultivate by
an intellectual examination this unity which is beyond the
four extremes.
'~;Now,'·f(a.~:-ri st)
one can't eliminate all
at once the four extremes by means of the contemplative inquiry of an ordinary person which inquires into the presence
of Being. 9
But, having refuted the four (extremes) in turn,
if you haven't brought about an insight into the unitary field
of Being which is non-objectifiable, then, just as
a stalk
is the result of a barley seed, because even the noble pristine
cognitiveness won't come about in the absence of a cause, why
would anyone not cultivate it even at the (stage) of the preparatory and applicatory (paths)?
Therefore, the ultimate,
the existential mode of Being of particular existents, is not
in the sphere of (representational) thinking, since it is free
from all the extremes of existence, non-existence, both, and
neither.
(Representational) thinking and language are the con-
ventional (truth), since they are not ultimate.
Objectifica-
tions and intentions by thought of 'this and that,' and what
is articulated by the words •this and that,' these entities
which come under the sphere of speech and intending mind, if
investigated, never will withstand a critique, in that they
are open like an apparition, since they are devoid of the characteristics (they are represented to have).
167
Therefore, it is said by the Buddha in a sutra:
'Devaputra, if the ultimate truth were in the
sphere of activity of body, speech, and thought,
it would not come under the rubric of ultimate,
but under that of the conventional. Devaputra,
the ultimate truth is beyo'nd all designation,
truly it neither comes into being nor ceases,
and is free from (the dualities of) knowing and
the knowable, that which designates and that
which is designated. To go beyond (even) the
object of pristine cognitiveness which is sensitive
to all the finest aspects (of reality), is the
ul timate truth.'
Also, the Madhyamakalamkara states: 10
"Ultimately, this is freedom from the host of
proliferations of language. If one bases oneself on conceptualization, it is the conventional and not the real."
In regard to this, here (in this treatise), the explanation
that non-thematic meaningfulness (chos-nyid) is not an object
of knowledge (is as follows): since non-thematic meaningfulness
is beyond all linguistic proliferation, it is not to be objectified by representational thinking.
In that it cannot be es-
tablished as any characteristic whatsoever and doesn't become
a subject or an object, ultimately, how can one call it something knowable?
As it is said: 11
'Sentient beings merely use the expression, '(I)
see space,' but how can one see space? One should
examine the matter and in this way see (all) entities, as it was taught by the Tathagata. He is
not able to indicate (this) seeing by another example. '
168
Notes to Appendix )
1. For the edition of the text used, see Introduction,
note 5.
The text begins on f.4,1.
2. Madhyamakavatara VI,2), Poussin ed. (St. Petersburg:
Royal Academy of Sciences, 1912), Biblioteca Buddhica IX, p.
102.
3. Samdhinirmocanasutra 111,3.
4. MAl v.70a-b.
5. MAl v.71a-b.
6. Satyadvayavibhaga 9d.
7. Madhyamakahrdaya-tarkajvala. 111,1 i.
8. Pancakrama VI,13.
9. Cf. Go-ram-pa, ITa-ba'i shan-'byed, f.39b,3.
10. MAl, v.70c-d, 72c-d.
11. See H.V. Guenther, trans., The Jewel Ornament of
Liberation (London: Rider & Co., 1959), p.259.
169
Appendix 4
Profound Instructions for Understanding the Madhyam. ka 1
I. The previous understanding
When, as a result of the previous process of inquiry
and refinement, you have brought about certainty in regard
to the crucial point, the non-existence of the personality
as an abiding Self, then, in the same way as you have made
an analytical investigation based on the five psycho-physical constituents of a previously unexamined 'I', analytically investigate all that is, the five psycho-physical
constituents and the unconditioned, (knowing) 'this is
this, this is this.'
II. The Ultimate 'Truth' which can be logically formulated
(rnam-grangs-pa'i don-dam)
Although they are apprehended as various entities,
if you pursue the investigation you won't find any actual
referent (btag-don) for what has been investigated.
You
won't find, even microscopically, the two ultimate indivisibles (particles and momentary mental acts), which cometo-presence in contextual dependence: particular entities
come about contextually and abstractions are postulated
contextually.
When whatever previously unexamined par-
ticular entity or abstraction is taken up and investigated
as 'this' and 'that', know it to be a presence without
being anything, without a root or foundation, like an
170
•
apparition, a dream, a reflection of the moon in water,
an echo, a city in the sky, a double image, a mirage, etc.
It is a presence while being open, and an openness while
being
pres n~.
This meditation on presence and openness
as an apparition, is (what is meant by) the Ultimate 'Truth'
which can be logically formulated.
III. The Ultimate 'Truth' which cannot be logically formulated
You who have this certainty of understanding, although indeed it is the stainless discernment which regards (everything) which arises during post-meditative
experience as an apparition, are still not free from the
objective references (dmigs-pa) which constitute the noematic pole (gzung-ba'i dmigs): "neither have you destroyed
the noesis ('dzin-pa'i rnam-pa).
Since you have not passed
beyond conceptualizing, you don't see the real (chos-nyid)
which is free from discursiveness (spros-bral).
If, when
such a certainty of understanding arises - although
through an analytical investigation you apprehend (everything) as a mere apparition and there is indeed a noema
- because the existence of this noema cannot be established, and thus the noesis cannot be found, you have begun to settle in the uninterrupted creativity (lhug-pa'i
gshis) which cannot be appropriated.
When you are thus composed (in this creativity
which cannot be appropriated), although all internal and
171
external presences continue uninterrupted, because (of
the fact that) from the very outset whatever is postulated
as an entity neither arises nor ceases, (these presences)
abide in (a mode of) non-referential identity (mnyam) in
the continuum of the Sameness of Being (mynam-nyid kyi
dbyings).
In this self-manifesting meaningfulness (don
gyi rang-babs), beyond the realm of discourse and free
from the ascriptions of existence and non-existence, there
arises apodictic experience (the-tshoms med-pa'i nyams
myong).
It is just this non-thematic meaningfulness
(chos-nyid) Gf all entities (chos) which is the Ultimate
'Truth' which cannot be logically formulated; (it is)
conceptless pristine cognitiveness, a meditative composure as an intrinsic awareness which is specific.
(The
practice of) accustoming yourself to the range of this
experience is (called) the yoga of the Great Madhyamika;
(it is to be understood as) the presence of Being, the
indivisibility of the two 'Truths' and the unity of contextual dependence and openness.
IV. The Method of Practice
If you want to quickly experience this non-dual
pristine cognitiveness which is beyond the range of the
mind, cultivate the oral instructions of the Mantrayana,
for this (cultivation) is the consummate profound point
(zab grad mthar-thug) of the Madhyamika meditative stages.
172
Alternatively, having first inquired into and refined
(your experience), you can then develop your experience
in stages.
Then, having travelled the path with the un-
derstanding of the apparitionalness of presence and openness, you will become free in the Sameness of Being, (which
is) the continuum of discernment as a transcending function
that does not (engage in) affirmation or negation.
In the sutras it is stated that intellectual understanding is like this: if someone who is tormented by
thirst just knows that there is water around, this doesn't
quench his thirst. But if he drinks, then his thirst is
quenched.
Thus, the thirsting after merely intellectual
understanding will only exhaust you in (the acquiring of)
a lot of 'learning' (rig-pa).
If you have cultivated step
by-step, there is no need to (ineffectually) change from
(one study to another) - you will quickly obtain profound
compliance (zab-mo'ibzod-pa) (to Being).
173
Notes to Appendix 4
1.
The text is to be found at the back of Tibetan
Nyingma Meditation Center, Calm and Clear (Emeryville &
Dhanna Press, 1973).
The translation contained therein
completely obscures -the division into the two forms of
ultimate truth.
174
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&