The Spread and Development of Later Buddhism MBI 105
Lesson 6
The Heterodox Stream
We have seen that gradually the Theravadin schools of the Vaibhasikas and Sautrantikas, both realists, became the main Buddhist orthodox representatives. Both held that there is a self-existent universe in space and time, where mind holds a place on equal terms with other finite things. Thus the unknowable and indivisible has mind as a tangible component. But two major Heterodox schools also developed with ideas which were the antithesis of these. They were the Madhyamika and the Yogacara.
Lessson 6 Madhyamika and Yogacara
Madhyamika (Sunyatavada)
Madhyamika thought was rooted firmly in the Mahayana sutras known as the Prajnaparamita (perfection of wisdom) which traces back to Nagarjuna who was probably a pupil of Asvagosa, AD 100. It is said that Nagarjuna discovered these important texts hidden in the realm of the Nagas. We can see its importance when we see the number of important masters whose ideas have been carried forward Aryadeva, Buddhapalita, Bhavya, Chandrakirti, Shantideva and Prajnakaramati are but a few.
The Prajnaparamita sutras are varied in length and range from the one hundred thousand verses of Shatasahasrika Prajnaparamita to the short but expressive Heart Sutra and the Vajrachchedika (Diamond Cutter Sutra). All share the same theme which states that all elements of existence are Sunyata or void. It assaulted the current extremes regarding the ideas of existence which we have seen and the identification of emptiness with dependent origination.
So clear is the theme to those who can apprehend it without the presence of cognitive intellect that few words can convey it. The sixth patriarch of Chan, Hui Neng (638-713), only needed to hear just one stanza to capture that essence and was awakened in an instant.
Now do not confuse this with the vacuity (sunyata) or emptiness, which is the comprehension of true absence of characteristics in perception.
Sunyata is unqualified reality an undifferentiated mass without limits. It is Sunyata-sunyata, the Voidness of the Vacuity and it is not “nothing” nor is it “something”.
The Bodhisattva, according to this group, sees the plenitude of that Void as well as the emptiness of the phenomenal world, and so he labours in joy for the redemption of those who suffer from abject ignorance. This then becomes the Essence of the Bodhisattva Realization. But is the experience of the emptiness of the phenomenol world in itself sufficient to generate the essence of a Bodhisattva.
For the Madhyamikas, the Bodhisattva ideal developed and was considered as supreme wisdom and we can say that the experience of Sunyata reveals that true wisdom. Thus the Bodhisattva state is in some way revealed by Awakening.
What of the The Arahat and the Pratyekabuddha? Why is the Bodhisattva essence not generated by them. Is it because they are considered to be too preoccupied with their own redemption and realization. They are indeed elevated beyond any conventional description, but yet they do not fully realize or freely embody this highest truth. The experience then of Sunyata is essencial for the realization of the Bodhisattva essence.
Sunyata or the void we will see is shared by both Samsara and Nirvana, for Samsara is void of real existence. We can declare then that the primordial state truly encountered is Samsara properly experienced and comprehended. But how can understanding and experience of the primordial state reveal the human creatures natural Bodhisattva state? That is a question that we can answer after completing our review of the Heteradox views.
Nagarjuna, was a philosopher and dialectician of the late second century A.D. He developed a rigorous dialectical logic which he used to reduce every philosophical standpoint to the point where there was only contradiction remaining.
His idea was not to show his dialectical expertise, but to liberate the mind from its tendencies to cling to intellectual formulations of truth, because any truth short of Sunyata, the voidness of reality, is really misleading. While intellectual formulations cannot be totally dismissed as they are after all the only aid one has in discourse and even thinking it must always be remembered that at best words, phrases and ideas are only tools that are neither accurate nor complete in themselves.
Madhyamika or Sunyatavada growth was a reaction against the scholastic interpretation of the original message of the Buddha, revealed in the highly ordered and stylized intellectual treatises of the Abhidharmikas, especially that of the Vaibhasika Sarvastivadins. The three revolutionary treatise the "Middle Treatise," the "Twelve Gates Treatise," and the "Hundred Treatise are those in which all non-Buddhist and Abhidharmika views are refuted.
The Madhyamikas ideas developed as a negative critical system, formulating the metaphysical background of the Mahayana Sutras which had been discovered. But this Madhyamika system was not new. It was an ancient system which can be traced right back to Buddha and it infers the final inexplicability of subject and object.
One must remember that the theory of the phenomenal nature of the world follows from the doctrine of dependent origination (pratityasamutpada), All apparently perceived phenomenon are simply a chain of dharmas following one another in unbroken succession. Even the human creature himself is nothing but a collection of dharmas, successive ideas that cumulate in the impression of continuing existence. Every sensation, emotion, perception, volition or moment of consciousness is a dependent dharma. Nothing exists independently.
From this base the prevailing ideas of Buddha’s Dependent origination were returned to what had clearly been Buddha’s vision. Buddhism as it had developed saw dependent arising as the mutual conditioning of interrelated elements and events. These elements and events were seen as being mutually conditioned but the essence of the idea was lost, for they still considered the elements still real in themselves.
REBIRTH OF DEPENDENT ORIGINATION
Nagarjuna’s ideas gave a revitalized view of dependent arising. It was stated clearly that if mutually conditioned, elements and events can not be real, there can be no ceasing and arising. The correct view then is that there is non-ceasing and non-arising. In other words nothing can cease and nothing can arise.
We can see also other implications for there must be "non- annihilation and non-permanence" and "non-appearance and non- disappearance."
This becomes clear because since there is no existence outside of the mind then there can have been no origination and thus there can be no annihilation. Nor can anything be permanent for this requires that they have a self-nature, and if nothing is real there can be no self nature..
What then is meant by this strange apparently unsustainable terminology. If there is no origin nor annihilation there can only be illusion…Now that was precisely his point.. Dependent origination really means that there was and is in the tainted mind a co dependence of illusions.
The destruction of the cycle is not really destruction or annihilation of any element, but the elimination of the illusions…when one illusionary element falls then all fall.
RELATIONS
Now the Madhyamikas did not dismiss all dharmas or any series as being unreal, although they did look upon them as phenomenal and momentary. It was the relations between Dharmas that made up the impressions of the world.
SELF NATURE
You will note that we declared that there was no self nature. The self-nature of a thing is its "identity" which is that which makes it unique, autonomous, and differentiable from any and every other thing. Furthermore, this identity is required to be stable over time or its use would be useless. Thus Identity must have two qualities:
It must be perceivable as stable
It must be enduring
The Buddha's theory of dependent arising, is totally incompatible with such an identity. Clearly then there can be no self nature (svabhava) for that too must be illusion. When we speak today then of rediscovering one’s own true nature, how can we reconcile it with the no-self nature idea?
This true nature cannot really exist. It only exists relatively when we generate the idea of a corrupted alaya state. Since the Alaya state is also just terminology, thus both the corrupting Identity and alaya are false and are both illusion. The true nature is the absence of the illusions of dependent origination. In the absence of illusion all is simply as it is, unseparated from the unity which is vacio. It is not easy to capture this idea, because the words themselves camouflage the truth.
When we say that the human creature has a human nature, a tree a tree nature and a tiger a tiger nature we are really simply declaring that an illusion is present and all functions correctly within the framework of the unity of the primordial state, seen from where we stand as a discriminating identity. When there is identity there is the illusion of constancy over time thus the natures are seen, are real in a relative sense, but really only useful illusion.
SUNYATA
Indeed, Nagarjuna showed that the whole world of experience was a network of unintelligible relations. Matter and antimatter, space and time, cause and substance, motion and rest, are all a basic fabric of an impermanent and unsubstantial vision. Suffering and happiness are due to our dual mind. Thus all was shown to be unreal without individual existence, which must include clearly, Buddha himself, Samsara, Nirvana, and even Sunyata.
This idea of emptiness was not a new idea, but it was by many Buda Dharma opponents considered a nihilistic ideal. Nagarjuna rescued the idea of Sunyata from constant misinterpratation. In his Mulamadhyamika Sastra, he states, "I am not a nihilist. By rejecting both being and non-being, I illuminate the path in nirvana."
After his death, about 300 A.D., his ideas bore fruit in the interpretation of Sandhinirmocana Sutra, the first scripture of the Consciousness Only school. In the centuries that followed, three great Buddhist thinkers appeared who fully developed and firmly established the Yogacara Consciousness Only philosophy: Maitreya, Asanga, and Vasubhandu.
The central concept of the Consciousness Only philosophy, is the alaya consciousness, described in the earlier Sandhinirmocana Sutra as "the undefiled and ethically indeterminate consciousness that contains all seeds."
But this Conscious Only ideal which may be the truth still requires day to day e illusions for without them the elevated human life force would be extinguished.
Madhyamika teachers therefore introduced two kinds of truth which are readily available : paramartha and samvrti.
Paramartha is the real and highest truth which transcends intellect (buddhi), while samvrti is a truth attached to cognitive intellect which is thus relative but useful as our major tool with discrimitive naming and form which masks completely the real nature of all things.
From this base, which rose with Buddha and his teachings and were understood by those who were awakened to the truth, there were two paths developed. The path of the Arahat with the potential dissolving of Identity and suffering as a fruit and the path of Awakening in which the truth is known through the dissolving of the Dual Mind.
In Buddha dharma it is evident that all must understand that these two paths are indeed available for those prepared to embark on the voyage. Thus there are two truths and two paths.
You will note then that an Identity, a false view of an existing self is normally generated, but this concept cannot exist without the presence of a non-self. Both are then in essence completely false. Thus the erroneous concept of both self and non self may be considered as laid upon Alaya vijnana, the continuous store-consciousness, which is overlaid with the notions of the self and non self. This mutual superimposition of self and non self is called Nescience.
It is this base which is essentially false which allows the illusory concepts of known, knower and knowing. The question really is then how right knowledge, the absence of Ignorance can have as an object that which depends upon this nescience?
We enter the area of paradox where the elimination of the false is dependent upon using that falsehood… The fruits of ignorance then, knower, known and knowing must be used to destroy itself.
Second Stage
We can consider the second stage of Madhyamika to begin with Buddhapalita at the beginninhg of the fifth century (C.E.) He founded the sub school Prasangita sustaining strongly the central idea of nagarjuna and Aryadeva (the reduction to the absurd). Bhavya, of the same sub school criticized the position because he believed that Buddhism required more than an intellectual refutation of opposition to sunyata. Thus he founded Svatantrika which presented arguments to support the Sunyata concept.
When Madhyamaka was introduced in China at this time it was Taoism which held sway. There was in a psychological sense no conflict between the Sunyata idea and Tao and when Buddhism was explained to the Chinese using, the method of matching meanings (ge yi), the integration received a positive reception.
In china Jizang (549-623) was important in the third phase of Madhyamika development. This third phase of development was stimulated by the general acceptance of the Sattyasiddhi Shastra of Hrivaman which was presented in the previous centuries. Therefore the Chinese context of Sunyata was different than that of the Indian context which arose around the figures of Chandrakirti y Shantideva . Both supported the prasanga concepts of Buddhapalita while in China Chinese Madhyamaka, on the one hand dealing with the peculiar Taoist Chinese context was also involved the Sarvastivada ideological struggle.
The fourth and last phase rose with the great figures of Shantarkshita (705 762 CE) and Kamalashila (713 763 CE) who adopted un eclectic position which unified the doctrine of the Madhyamaka with important elements of the Yogacara school.
Yogacara
The school is called Yogacara because it believes that truth (bodhi) manifested by the Buddhas is attainable only by those who practice Yoga (meditation).
Asanga
Asanga,whose master was Maitreya, was the founder of the Yogacara idealist school, in the fourth/third cent C.E contended that mind is self-creative and all producing. It is he declared the ultimate principle, and even the ultimate type of reality. In his many writings he taught that the stream of the consciousness could be purified, transforming our consciousness into awakening.
Vasubandhu
His brother Vasubandhu was the most prolific writer and it is he who generated and completed the philosophy of Consciousness Only. His main doctrinal advance, however, was to distinguish the sense of self from the basic consciousness storehouse.
Asanga and his brother Vasubandhu were originally followers of the Sautrantikas and their idealist position produced the view that the external objective world is only a manifestation of internal consciousness. They thus deny the existence of all except Vijnana or consciousness, declaring that all that we are , is the result of what our mind creates, transformation of consciousness (vijnanaparinama), a great but useful ilusion.
Individuality, our identity, remains with us because that Identity is a part of the same dual thought which gives each apparent collection of Dharmas existence within consciousness Thus the enemies are Dual thought and Identity.
Since Buddha Dharma is not a philosophical based system it is important that the enemy be conquered and the yogacaras consider that it is meditation (Yoga) which is the tool that assists in the breaking of the clinging to that duality. Discursive thought, useful as it may be at best only gives the human creature dependent or empirical knowledge. The metaphysical truth requires meditative discipline. When the mind is clear of all prejudice or illusion, it reflects the truth of the pure mind.
The yogacara model presents two kinds of consciousness (vijnana):
1. Alaya vijnana the continuous store-consciousness, mentioned with regard Madhyamakas, which is overlaid with the notion of the self (ahamaspadam)
2. Pravrtti vijnana which are the variable experiences in our common life, the characteristics of apparent percepcion.
Alaya consciousness has not a stable and steady nor permanent nature but it appears to be so owing to the continuity (santana) of the basic consciousness at each moment.
Human perceptions then which are a continued succession of consciousnesses are formed by the Alaya impregnated notion of self into “that which is known”, “a knower” and “consciousness of knowing.”
"The Alaya-vijnana is then a continuous series of dharmas and in modern psychology is actually termed a stream of consciousness which is constantly changing.
TWO SCHOOLS YOGA CARA
There arose two schools of Yogacaras:
One suggesting that cognition has form in which it appears to represent an external object (sakaravada).
The second suggesting is that cognition has no form whatsoever (nirakaravada).
(1) The first school argues that there can be is no other means of cognising objects except through cognition which must have some form. In this way internal form cognition serves the purpose of external phenomenon. They claim too that with the absence of any form in a cognition, external things, if any, cannot be established.
(2) The second school declares that cognition is devoid of any form but has a self-illuminating nature. In reality, mind is free from any imprint of a supposed external object. In other words it is the mind which generates the illusions based upon internal factors not external real characteristics.
The former is easy to understand and to accept and the second which though it may well be correct is difficult to grasp and still requires traditional acceptance of subject and object, without which every day life becomes an absurdity. In other words one has to accept the relative truth, the tool of illusion, while clearly knowing it to be false. This position is not different than the Madhyamaka position.
Now while all these theories and ideas sound phiosophoical in nature we must remember that it was not the philosophical ideas which led to the discovery of sunyata. The ideas are just endeavours to explain with intellect what had already been experienced directly.
Madhyamika and Yogacara
While the Yogacaras do not admit any non-mental reality and explain every thing on the base of Cognition (MIND ONLY) the Madhyamikas discard vijnana also and declare (NO MIND). In other words mind itself is an illusion generated by itself.
But schools do not sudden spring up in a moment they arise through a gradual process often not really discernable. The reason for this is that there was at this time no clear divison. Idealists and realists mixed together, studied together and meditated and lived together. Each was free to tread his own path.
It is for this reason that we can almost see a gradual progression from the two realist schools to Madhyamika to Yogacara. Yet while we can see a gradual progression there was also as we saw a reversion to early principles overlooked as Budism advanced, by the Madhyamika and the pre-Dinnaga Yogacara writers.
Sautrantika and Yogacara
Look for a moment at the subtlety of thought beween these two groups, one realist and the other idealist. The Sautrantika accept that it is only the representation (vijnapti) of an object which is perceived, while the Yogacara refuses to consider the validity of external objects as causes (nimitta) given that an external object is never (directly) perceived.
This may appear a small and subtle difference, but it led Buddhism from practices which indeed lead one to become an arahat, a `destroyer of defilements' (prahinaklesa) to the possibility by meditations to the realisation of the supreme goal of yogic attainment (nirodha-samapatti), an untainted stream of consciousness (nirmala santati). This untainted stream being the primordial state.
PURIFICATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
The idea of the purification of consciousness (asraya-paravrtti), became an important theme in the subsequent development of the Yogacara ideals.
Early ideas considered the meditation operation as the destruction of the phenomenal store-consciousness (alayavijnana), considing it as the depository of karmic seeds (bija). But Yogacara ideas were fluid and flexible and the interpretations which developed by those like Paramartha envisaged this transformation as an eradication of the defilements laid upon the storehouse, which left behind an essentially undefiled consciousness (amala-vijnana) which had never actually been changed by the blemishes of Duality and Identity.
This “pure mind” notion is not far distant fom the original basic idea and it appears that Budhism had indeed returned home in an enriched fashion. This idea was actually proposed by Asanga in Mahayana-samgraha
Asanga describes the alayavijnana as the root of defilements (samklesamula) which ceases through the cultivation of wholesome dharmas. But is there then a real storehouse, a mind base. Vasubandhu suggested that the alayavijnana is nothing more really than a collective term for the assembly seeds themselves.
What we perceive then may be considered as the seeds. But the world that we perceive is not simply `imagined' since we can neither wish it away arbitrarily nor transform it into something else at the slightest whim. So the seeds are not merely conjured up from imagination.
For the Yogacarin the world that we experience, these seeds are product of our past karmic actions and our present reactions. Furthermore it is these present reactions which lay down their own seeds which in the future confront us in a similar manner.
The world then is not `real' in the sense of containing objective and independent entities (parikalpita), but it has an apparent reality through the flow of perceptions (paratantrastita) which are dependent upon past actions.
These sensory impressions is ultimately dependent upon the defiled nature of the mind (klista manas), the presence of identity at the levels of sensation and emotion and Identity and duality at the level of Perception.. As a result of this we attribute independent existence (parikalpita-svabhava) to these impressions which are correlates of experience.
Actually this idea of the yogacarins is perhaps closer to the true physiological process than we might imagine, for our perceptions are actually impressions of the readiness to respond to any apparent irritation or stimulus…Thus we know nothing of the apparent outer world which generated the irritation of our sensoray bases.
But it must be clear that there was for the Yogacarins `something' internally present which constitutes the `raw material' of our experience, although is merely a fruition of actions which followed anterior traces.. From our point of view there is then alo “something” which brings about the irritation of the sensory units. But presented in another way it is better to say that “something” externo provokes responses of irritation which depend upon the characteristics of the sensory organs.
For the Yogacara school, the sensory apprehension cannot be divorced from one's consciousness of it. Thus consciousness is to be conscious of ones own disposition for action based on past action. Thus ones preparation for action signals the presence of an external agitator and gives form and name in an Awakened mind and form, name and Identity to a mind of Duality.
One can then only talk of apprehending a sensory object only after one has become conscious of it.
Now what does this really mean for Buddhism. It means that if we can burst through the barrier of “existing” and perceive an impression of the agitation before the mind touches it then we can see the falsity of all perception. Theory then is substantiated for us although originally it was the direct experience of breaking through this existence into the primordial tru experience of the aggiation then led to the theorization and explanations.
Thus “citta” mind is a term which is much more complex than the mundane impression created bybthe word. It includes a sensory awareness of sensory objects, the organising faculty, the acion readinesses, the affective distortion of that process by the defiled mind (klista manas) as well as the subliminal action seeds (samskaras) laid down and the collective mass known as the alayavijnana.
We then run into a paradox. Through the perception that there is mind-only (citta-matra), there arises the non-perception of knowable things, but through the non-perception of arises the appearance of mind which is also false. Thus in a very subtle way the illusion of mind creates itself.
GOOD AND EVIL
According to the teachings of Consciousness Only, matter and what we think of as spiritual energy are both nothing more than the manifestations of an external primal existence converted in agitation of our sensors, which we can consider as the life force.
Most religions make a clear distinction between good and evil, but if one extends the Consciousness Only philosophy to its logical position, Good and Evil do not exist. But we can consciously recognise three categories: that which is natural laid down upon the Alaya consciousness, that which is not natural, duality based and laid down as an intrusion upon the Alaya consciousness and finally neutral events which are set in motion by the natural system without traces being lain upon consciousness.
But the unknowable world, generator of the irritation has no consciouness. It neither consciously through volition creates irritation (except of course in the perceptual illusory form as a fellow human creature). The Awakening then which “sees” this unknowable infinite dharma does not perceive a vague state which is neither this nor that. Nor is it a middle position between real and unreal. It is simply the natural phenomenon, the basic state of all things, eternal, infinite, ever changing, chaotic, without existence, or meaning. Yet in itself it is none of these things for they are ideas, merely constructs of a mind that can go no further than itself even with an Awakening.
There is then the unknowable, presumably without limits, constantly in change, chaotic, without independent existence, with consatant internal conflict and without meaning or conscious direction. All these terms of course are just tools, for the unknowable is simply what it is.
There is also Consciousness but no mind if we except the modern Buddhist thesis of “Only Consciousness”.
But there is also that interface which we have called Irritation which appears to be at first glance the roots of both Alaa consciousness and the corruption of consciousness. It is then from this point that we will proceed.
Exercise 6
Explain in your own words “Mind Only” and “No Mind” and then what your understanding of “Consciousness Only” is.