to Introduction Buddhism Asian Languages and Cultures 60, Spring 2008
Instructor: Dr. William Chu Office hours: Humanities 360; (310)2675852; TR 4:45-6:00 pm, and by appointment The focus and approach of the course Waitlist situation
Grading:
--Midterm examination: 35% --Final examination: 35% --Writing Assignment: 30% --Class/Section Participation: You will not be penalized for choosing not to participate, but your participation would be rewarded. Extra credit of up to 5% will be applied to your final grade at both the professor and T.A.'s discretion (During lectures, names of those who respond to the professor's questions or invitation for discussion will be kept in a record. In addition, the T.A.'s will make recommendations to the professor about notable active participants and moderate participants in the discussion sections. In order to meaningfully participate during both the lecture and the discussion section, you should read all assigned readings before their designated due dates)
Explain the nature of the exams
T.A.'s
Seong-Uk Kim ([e-mail]) Sumi Lee ([e-mail])
Writing Assignment
A paper project of 7-9 pages on the designated topic (see syllabus) should be turned in to your T.A. before or on the day of the final examination Grading criteria: How extensive and relevant are your citations (you only need the required readings, but lecture notes are not acceptable as a source of citation); How clear, accurate, and structured are your arguments and presentations
Required Readings
--Rupert Gethin. The Foundations of Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998 (Available for purchase at the ASUCLA textbook center; this reading assignment is henceforth marked as "Gethin") --Academic Course Reader (Available for purchase at Course Reader Material on the east side of Broxton Ave. (cross street Kinross Ave.) in Westwood Village; this reading assignment is henceforth marked as "Reader") --Online reading (See the section on "Reading Assignments and Important Dates")
Ecampus
Ecampus Course Website: http://ecampus.humnet.ucla.edu/ Slides will be posted before and after lectures A few of the online readings will be posted
Buddhist Epistemology
"Monks, I will preach to you 'everything`,,What,,is 'everything'? Eye and material form, ear and sound, nose and odour, tongue and taste, body and tangibles, mind and concepts. These are called 'everything`,, He who would say, 'I will reject this everything and proclaim another everything', he may certainly have a theory (of his own). But when questioned, he would not be able to answer and would, moreover, be subject to vexation. Why? Because it would not be within the range of experience."--Sabbasutta, Sayutta
The Discourse on 'Everything'
Nikya
One possible interpretation of the Discourse on Everything
Immanentism as opposed to direct realism The mind superimposes "mental constructs" (vikalpa, vijpti, mati, kalpana, updna, saskra, etc.) on reality (suddha-dharma-- "bare phenomena") sensory sensations (rpa, which in this context also includes mental objects) vs. mental labeling (nma)
Pure Sensations vs. Mental Constructs
The only things we experience are fleeting moments of sensory sensations (rpa); but what about the objects we perceive, the ideas, the people, their relations? These are called constructs (nma) Mental constructs: a unified image and perception of continuity that the mind conjures up to represent the otherwise dynamic flux that is the sensory reality. The mind pieces together disparate moments of perceptual images into something that seems more concrete, delimited, and capable of being appropriated to the mind
What does "mental construct" mean?
The analogies of "stink lines" and "apple in hand" The mind could not easily latch itself on to the reality which is always in a state of flux. So it takes abstraction. The role of useful fiction
Raw sensations and mental constructs
"Now, in the course of ordinary conscious perceptual experience, the eye for example detects color and shape. But the attention then shifts from this raw sensory awareness to a mental formation corresponding to that sensory information so quickly that we are not even aware of it. Instead of the sensory data of color and shape, we perceive the mental formation, e.g. a blue car. Sensory information is quite ephemeral compared to mental formations, which are by comparison quite stable, and it is above all the perception of mental formations that creates continuity of conscious experience."--Culadasa
Problems of Mental Constructs
Using a tree leaf as analogy: The problems of 1. Delimitation of boundary; 2. Failure to capture immediacy; 3. The constructed nature of the observed object Using the atomic model as analogy
Problems of Mental Constructs (continued) "Entity...is almost always mistakenly assumed to be
intuitively obvious. In general, an entity (a unit, a wholeness) does not have a sharp boundary. An implicit or virtual border is created by the pattern of relationships among elements ,,belonging to each other in some sense...entiticity is a matter of convention as well as a matter of degree...[because] it depends on our purposes" how we set the criterion. "Problems arise when we forget that what we are treating as an entity is only more or less an entit, of limited duration, and only by agreement for the present purposes...Humans have a great passion for entifying; we frequently turn verbs and adjectives into nouns, and turn processes and relations into things."-- David Galin (2003)
From Mental Constructs to Views
Mental constructs themselves are not the problem; they are necessary for functioning The problem lies in the reification of mental constructs into "views" (d i)
"Right View" as "No View"
This does not mean that Buddhism has no position, just not a reified one "Vaccha: ,,has Gotama any theory/view of his own? Buddha: ,,The Tathgata...is free from all theories/views; but this...the Tathgata does know: the nature of [the five aggregates], and how [the five aggregates] arises, and how [the five aggregates] perishes...Therefore say I that the Tathgata has attained deliverance and is free from attachment, inasmuch as all imaginings, or agitations, or false notions concerning the self or anything pertaining to a self have perished...relinquished."--Majjhima Nikya I
A review of what has been covered so far
The following diagram captures what the Buddhists called "mental proliferations" (prapnca) Flux of ineffable sensory data in the present moment -->cognitive models -->views (craving and aversion only directed to reified objects) -->grasping generated by views -->suffering
Presuppositions in Early Buddhist Meditation System
Conceptual thought (kalpan) is said to be an act of knowing that is intervened by an image (arthsmnya) Yathbhtadarana--"seeing things the way they really are" One of the goals of the Buddhist meditation paradigm is to get to the preconceptual stage of experience; sensory experience proliferates into complex form, and meditation is to develop precise attention so that the initial trigger and the process of that proliferation are observed
Immanentism as a Response to Views
The views of theism and atheism, idealism and materialism, monism and pluralism, eternalism and nihilism, mysticism and rationalism, and radical agnosticism...etc. of ancient India
Example of a theistic view
"[The self-existent God] desiring to produce beings of many kinds from his own body, first with a thought created the waters placed and his seed in them. That [seed] became a golden egg, in brillancy equal to the sun; in the [egg] he himself was born as Brahman, the progenitor of the whole world...[This] cause is indiscernible, eternal, and both real and unreal...The divine one resided in that egg during a whole year, then he himself by his thought divided it into two halves; and out of those two halves he formed heaven and earth, between them the middle sphere, the eight points of the horizon, and the eternal abode of the waters"-- the Law Book of Manu
Example of an atheistic view
"Some foolish men declare that Creator made the world. The doctrine that the world was created is ill-advised...If you say that he created to no purpose, because it was his nature to do so, then God is pointless. If he created in some kind of sport, it was the sport of a foolish child, leading to trouble. If he created because of the karma of living beings, he is not the Almighty Lord, but subordinate to something else, [namely, karma]...If out of love for living things and need of them he made the world, why did he not make creation wholly blissful, free from misfortune? If he were transcendent he would not create, for he would be free. Thus the doctrine that the world was created by God makes no sense at all. And God commits great sin in slaying the children whom he himself created. If you say that he slays only to destroy evil beings, why did he create such beings in the first place?...Good men should combat the believer in divine creation, maddened by an evil doctrine. Know that the world is uncreated, as time itself is, without beginning and end..."-Mahapurana
The Buddha's response to theismatheism
Nontheistic; having no metaphysical stake in unverifiable issues; seeing that neither is spiritually relevant Cessation of suffering is not demonstrable with faith alone nor with metaphysical commitment Believing in the contents of "conceiving" (mati) leads to "conflicts" Empirical observation of causality and conditioned processes
The Buddha's response to idealism-materialism, and monismpluralism
What about idealism-materialism as views? What is idealism? What is materialism? Unlike certain strands of later Buddhism, early Buddhism was not a form of idealism; Buddhist focus on phenomenology What about monism and pluralism Unlike certain strands of later Buddhism, early Buddhism was not a form of monism
The Buddha's response to mysticism-rationalism
What is rationalism (tarka)? Critique of the rationalists (takk): inferential logic not always reliable; "Herein...a certain teacher is a reasoner and investigator, he teaches a doctrine which is self-evident and is a product of reasoning and the pursuit of speculation. But in the case of a person who reasons and speculates, his reasoning may be good or bad, true or false." Example of failed induction
The Buddha's response to mysticism-rationalism (continued)
What is mysticism? Critique of mysticism: the story of "Refulgent Glory" in the Majjhima-Nikya; reduction of mystical claims to analyzable experiential events Some mystics see the "loss of self...as a merging with a void or some oceanic condition. Again such experiences are valued aspects of one-pointed concentration in meditation but they do not constitute enlightenment. At worst the practitioner becomes addicted to specific states which are sought again and again."--Mark Epstein
The Buddha's Response to Radical Agnosticism
Buddhism not concerned with whether reality is illusory or real; the subjective experience is phenomenologically valid and pertains to happiness/suffering Radical agnosticism is logically self-defeating
Summary of Early Buddhist Response to Views, from the Discourse of Everything
Unenlightened people take various objects of views as "truth." These are listed by the Buddha: "earth, Water, fire, wind, beings, (atheistic identification) gods, Pajapati, Brahma, luminous gods, gods of refulgent glory, gods of abundant fruit, the Great Being (theistic identification), the dimension of the infinitude of space, the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness, the dimension of nothingness, the dimension of neither-perception- nor-non-percepti on (mystical states), objects that are seen, heard, sensed, cognized, (direct realists) singleness, multiplicity, the All (rational inferences), Nibbana (why is this included in the list?)
Summary of Early Buddhist Response to Views (continued)
In the Cula-malunkya Sutta, a monk named Malunkya-putta expressed his discontent of the Buddhas failure to answer major metaphysical questions such as: is the universe infinite or finite? Is the universe with or without beginning and end? Is the soul/life principle different from or identical to the flesh? Absence of cosmic narrative; all cosmic narratives are based on "mental proliferations"; questions are based on false assumptions
Contrast with Hinduism
Hinduism describes three "ultimate religious goals" and "human desires": eternal existence, eternal happiness, omniscience (sarvaa) Well focus on the omniscience (as in regard to views) for now; the Buddhas critique of omniscience; suffering does not end with temporary satisfaction of metaphysical curiosity
So, is Buddhist soteriology a view in itself?
So, is Buddhist soteriology a view in itself?
Yes, but it is a useful fiction; the difference between a heuristic device and a propositional truth (such as Jesus is the literal Son of God) The Raft parable: "Is the raft still serving its purpose once the river is crossed and the sojourner continues to carry it on his back, unwilling to let it go?"; the Buddha as a physician rather than a philosopher Buddhism styles itself as the only tradition that rises above views
"Views" are manifestations of "ignorance" (avidy)
Bondage is not due to karma, God, or other external factors Liberation as connected to "right knowledge"; faith in a grand cosmology ineffectual The state of lacking right knowledge is called "ignorance/nescience"; not the ignorance about propositional truths. It is an ingrained cognitive error about the fundamental nature of reality; leading to maladaptive ways of living
What does the aforementioned have to do with Buddhist practice?
Views and attachments seen as ultimate causes for bondage Views are eradicated by wisdom/insight, the seeing of "things as they are"; Without "views/ignorance" as fuels, attachments cannot continue Meditation is a way to develop the vision of "things as they are"
How to see "things as they are"?
"In what is seen there should be only the seen; in what is heard, only the heard; in what is sensed (as smell, taste, or touch), only the sensed; in what is cognized (by thought), only the cognized."--Udna I, 10
How to see "things as they are"? (continued)
To transcend from views and understand the radically empirical nature of reality, one needs to cultivate "bare attention, " which is "the clear and single-minded awareness of what actually happens to us and in us, at the successive moments of perception. It is called ,,bare, because it attends just to the bare facts of a perception as presented through...the senses or through the mind...When attending to that sixfold sense impression, attention or mindfulness is kept to a bare registering of the facts observed, without reacting to them by deed, speech or by mental comment which may be one of self-reference, judgement [sic] or refection."-- Nynaponika Bikkhu (the Heart of Buddhist Meditation)