Question on Schools of Buddhism and emptiness

[Paññāsikhara]

Full disclosure: My PhD is on sunyata in the Prajnaparamita, following it's development through early and mainstream Nikayan Buddhism.

What do you think of whatizname's little orange book on emptiness in the Agamas?

I think he did a so-so job of summarizing what Yinshun wrote back in 1984. But unlike Yinshun, I think that he made a bit of a mistake by including material from the Ekottaragama and parts of the Samyuktagama which have no equivalents in Pali, without any sort of philological comment. Hopefully (he said) chapter one of my dissertation will do a better job.

[Paññāsikhara]

Greetings bhante,

Not sure if this is of any use or interest, but I read this once and it seemed interesting enough...

Proto-Maadhyamika in the Paali canon
By Luis O. Gomez
Philosophy East and West
26:2 April 1976
p. 137-165

http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/gomez.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Metta,
Retro.

It's not a bad article at all, that one. I like that Gomez sees the problem (eg. see his criticisms of McCagney), but unfortunately, by only taking the Pali material into account, he is still unable to paint a more complete picture of pre-Madhyamaka (ie. Nikaya, Agama, Sastra) positions on sunyata. It's the same old problem that has plagued English language scholarship in this area for, well, about a century. ie. "If it isn't in the Pali, then it must be Mahayana." Oh, sheesh!

[retrofuturist]

Greetings bhante,

Hopefully (he said) chapter one of my dissertation will do a better job.

It seems like you might have a few eager reviewers, should that be of any use.

Maitri*,
Retro.

* (that's not in Pali, so it must be Mahayana )

[Paññāsikhara]

Pretty much all the early Buddhist schools featured sunnata / sunyata as an important part of their teachings.

In particular, the Sarvastivadins (before they were actually known as such) referred to themselves as the "sunyavadins" when they argued against the Pudgalavadins' theory of the "pudgala". They feature sunyata as one of the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths (four each). Along with anatman, these two were the only aspects that were applicable to all four truths. (The others like anitya being not applicable to the truth of cessation for instance.) It also featured heavily in their three samadhis system. They also have a few sutras that use "sunyata" as synonymous with dependent origination, such as the "mahasunyata-paryaya" and "paramartha-sunyata-paryaya". Neither of these sutras are found in Pali. However, they played an important role for several others schools, it seems. (eg. Sautrantika, and the *Satyasiddhi.)

Whenever the Mahasamghika sutras use "sunyata", it is often part of a set like this: The four immeasurables, loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity; then the three samadhis, emptiness, nothingness and the signless. (This latter form of the three samadhis may be older than the form emptiness, intentionless, signless.) There are suggestions that in fact the four immeasurables are used as the samatha basis for entrance into the three samadhis. ie. cultivate loving kindness up to deep dhyana, then turn to contemplation of not self. This pattern is similar to the sutra on Purification of Almsfood, and the Sunakkhata sutta. (From memory!)

The *Satyasiddhi Sastra also heavily features sunyata. However, it has more of a Mahasamghika turn to it. It is used not just as "empty of self", but a generic "empty of ..." So, they used it a lot as a synonym for nirodha / nirvana, the absence of (empty of) defilements, and / or absence of deluded conceptualization.

Whatever the case, I am not sure what you mean by "trappings" of Mahayana. If you like the idea, just use the idea. No need to take other parts like the bodhisattva-theory or whatever. They can work independently, so to speak.

In recent decades, scholars like Warder and Kalupahana have argued that Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamaka Karika is based on the Agamas, and not necessarily Mahayana at all. Actually, Yinshun already said this decades before that! It's entire content is consistent with readings of the Agamas, though not necessarily the Theravada interpretation. But after all, the Theravada was just one school. Other schools had their own take. In particular, Nagarjuna's association of sunyata with dependent origination and the middle way is perfectly in accord with those Sautrantika sutras mentioned above. Perhaps the Theravadins lost these texts at some point. Hard to say.

You'll just have to look beyond the usual stuff that is found in Pali sources, and possibly beyond Sanskrit sources, too.

Full disclosure: My PhD is on sunyata in the Prajnaparamita, following it's development through early and mainstream Nikayan Buddhism.

Thank you Bhante for taking the time to answer my questions. First by "trappings" I meant no slight to the Mahayana. I simply see some of the teachings, albeit from my limited knowledge of them, as later add-ons and I, personally, have a heard time understanding how they would work (i.e. the Bodhisattva vows, etc.). I do however find a great deal of benefit for my practice in seeing the empty and interconnected, dependent nature of all phenomenon whether that is outside the mind or inside it. I'm seeing all phenomenon functioning the same regardless and as such they almost appear to be one in the same, dependent on conditions and void of any inherent, independent nature. Maybe this is leading somewhere, maybe not but it is a recurring observation in my meditation. So that was the basis of my question.

Well, it has been said by many a greater practitioner than myself, that one could be a Madhyamaka in doctrine without Mahayana motivation, or a Theravadin in doctrine with Maha(bodhi)yana motivation. I prefer to make some distinction between "doctrine" (vada) side of things, and the "vehicle" (yana). So, don't have any problem with what you are stating here. No offense taken.

From what I can see you listed a number of other schools and thinkers by which I might pursue some more study. I've done some brief searching on the web to see if I could find any more information on these early suttas but I have found very little. What do you think about "The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika." ? From what you wrote it seems that this might be in line with what I am trying to put into words.

The non-Pali sutras I mention are in the Chinese Agamas. You can look for Choong Mun-Keat's book "The Notion of Emptiness in Early Buddhism" (it's the one Tilt has mentioned above). Or, you can email me, and I'll send you a big draft translation from Yinshun (better value!)

As far as Nagarjuna goes, well the question is this: If you read sources that come from the position that the Mulamadhyamaka Karika is a Mahayana work, then you often get a big chunk of Candrakirti in there as hermeneutic. eg. that book by Garfield - very Tibetan Gelug-pa if ever there was one, and also anything else that comes from the Tibetan traditions; If you read sources that come from the position that the MMK text is not Mahayana, then often the scholar in question is still just comparing it to the Pali texts, but not much stuff in the Agamas of other schools. eg. Kalupahana, Warder.

That's why I read Yinshun!

So, I wouldn't recommend Garfield's book from what you are trying to do. However, if you can get your hands on a (rather expensive) copy of Booking's translation of Kumarajiva's Chinese translation of the MMK (plus the earliest commentary we have, by several centuries), "Nagarjuna in China, A Translation of the Middle Treatise", then that is recommended by far. Kalupahana, granted, does appreciate this text as the oldest source and commentary, but in the end, he doesn't really use it. He then gets a bit tangled up in some very Pali Sutta based positions, as he tried to show all the Abhidhamma people to the target of Nagarjuna, but kind of get's confused a lot by what the Sarvastivada and Sautrantika are actually saying. Booking just translates the text, along with the old commentary. Kumarajiva, who was the translator for the Chinese, is probably one of the best of the old Madhyamakas, older than Candrakirti by a long shot. He was also formerly a Sarvastivadin type (in the broad sense, not orthodox Vaibhasika), and so he really knew what he was translating. Same too for the Upadesa commentary to the Prajnaparamita, but that is explicitly Mahayana, so I'll leave it out here.

I realize at this point I'm conceptualizing and much, much more work needs to be done. But at some point isn't a working understanding of these concepts required in order to realize phenomenon's true nature through meditation?

hearing, contemplation, cultivation. That's the order of the development of insight.
You need to use concepts to understand what you are actually going to do. But, whilst doing it, then leave out the excessive mentation and conceptualization. The early traditions mainly reject "conceptualization" in the form of conceptualizing "I", "mine" and "my soul". But, other forms of basic concept are less of a problem.

At any rate, thanks to everyone again for taking the time to answer my questions.


adosa

[tiltbillings]

Full disclosure: My PhD is on sunyata in the Prajnaparamita, following it's development through early and mainstream Nikayan Buddhism.

What do you think of whatizname's little orange book on emptiness in the Agamas?

I think he did a so-so job of summarizing what Yinshun wrote back in 1984. But unlike Yinshun, I think that he made a bit of a mistake by including material from the Ekottaragama and parts of the Samyuktagama which have no equivalents in Pali, without any sort of philological comment. Hopefully (he said) chapter one of my dissertation will do a better job.

And we hope dearly that you will not have your thesis published by Routledge or some other scholarly press that will charge an arm and a leg for the book version, keeping it locked at that price for years before us average scmucks can get it at a cheaper price.

[ground]

I realize at this point I'm conceptualizing and much, much more work needs to be done. But at some point isn't a working understanding of these concepts required in order to realize phenomenon's true nature through meditation?

There are different views about that. However those that outrightly reject conceptuality in this context are not very consistent. Why? Because even they do not rejected to teach - often metaphorically or in poetic style - about the futility of conceptuality as a means. But even these uncommon "instructions" are conceptual messages conveyed by one who is conceptualizing and are to be understood by another by means of apprehending these concepts which again implies conceptuality on the listeners side. So it seems that the meaning of "conceptualizing" is very indefinite in the context of considering the pros and cons of "conceptualizing" in the context of the means to get to "directly see" emptiness.
To me it seems that the type of conceptuality which is "counterproductive" is involved in analysing the object (of mind) "emptiness 'as such' " driven by the motivation to mentally grasp what cannot be grasped but only "experienced" (i.e. "directly seen") simply because it - like all other phenomena - does not exist independently of subject and phenomenon (which is empty - which again is not independent of subject and further phenomena - which again are .... {infinite regression}). Thus conceptuality appears to be not only a valid but also an inevitable means in the sense of "path towards" "directly seeing" emptiness.

Kind regards

[rowyourboat]

The way to propel the mind towards nibbana is to keep on seeing anicca with a sense of unsatisfactoriness (rather than merely watching anicca and oh let me go have a cup of tea after that ). When this is applies to all the 6 sense doors the world is caught-enveloped in your practice. The mind then rejects-pushes away (not develop aversion) the world little by litte. Then at one point it pushes away all sensory phenomena (read conditioned phenomena)- this is nibbana. This is true emptiness. The path is through developing revulsion leading to dispassion leading to cessation. It is not easy, but it the only way to get there.

So the important thing to know about emptiness is that it is the byproduct of the practice, rather than a practice. THe mind knows how to reach it- you dont need to teach it- infact I suspect all the contortions of views around emptiness might contaminate the process. Emptiness as an object might take you to the sphere of emptiness and not nibbana.

with metta

[ground]

So the important thing to know about emptiness is that it is the byproduct of the practice, rather than a practice.

Different strokes for different folks.

Emptiness as an object might take you to the sphere of emptiness and not nibbana.

Emptiness being a non-affirming negation may show you the "real" "truth" of "nibbana" (and "samsara").

Kind regards

[ground]

Emptiness being a non-affirming negation ...

What is negation?

The success of negative behaviour is only owing to a negative cognition of the form decribed above, because when a real object is present (it is perceived and it) becomes superfluous (to imagine its presence), because otherwise, (sc. if the absent thing has not been imagined as present, its absence, and the entailed successful actions, cannot follow with logical necessity), because when entities do not conform to the conditions of cognizability, when they are inaccessible in space and time and (invisible) by nature, since all human experience is then excluded, apodictic negative judgements are not possible.
Negative behaviour is successful when a present or past negative experience of an observer has happened, provided the memory of this fact has not been obliterated.
It is exclusively on the basis of such (negation) that absence can be ascertained with (logical necessity).

Dharmakirti

"Negative behaviour" here does not imply "moral/ethics" but non-directedness/non-intentionality of activity towards an object that has been negated.

[ground]

Since the quote above mentions "imagination" it is crucial to get the import of "imagination" which actually has been partially covered in this thread (in some places there):
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=3404" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This then may reveal that "logic" ("logical necessity" above) is necessarily conjoined with "introspection" in this context.
Thus "non-affirming negation" in the context of "emptiness" is an instance of logical necessity conjoined with introspection.

There may be other interpretations of "emptiness" than that. I have no idea about the results entailed by different understandings.

Kind regards