ความเห็นผิดกับความเห็นถูก

ขณะที่ผมขับรถกลับบ้าน ผมมักจะเปิดวิทยุธรรมะฟัง คลื่นที่ฟังบ่อยเป็นพิเศษก็ได้แก่ คลื่น 89.25 ของวัดสังฆทาน ซึ่งมีรายการธรรมะดีๆอยู่มากมาย และรับฟังได้ค่อนข้างชัดเมื่อเปรียบกับวิทยุธรรมะ หรือวิทยุชุมชนอื่นๆ ช่วงที่ขับรถกลับเวลาราวๆสี่โมงครึ่งถึงห้าโมงครั่ง สถานีวิทยุจะเปิดรายการ “เสียงหนังสือ” ซึ่งในขณะนี้เป็นการอ่านพระไตรปิฎกทั้งชุด คิดว่าคงอ่านมานานมากพอดู (และคงจะอีกนานต่อไป) ขณะที่ฟังอยู่นั้นกำลังเป็นพระไตรปิฎกเล่มที่ ๙ ซึ่งเป็นพระสูตรในหมวด “สังยุตตนิกาย”

สังยุตตนิกายเป็นกลุ่มพระสูตรที่น่าสนใจมากกลุ่มหนึ่ง ประกอบไปด้วยพระสูตรเล็กๆ สั้นๆ ที่มาเนื้อหาร้อยเรียงกันเป็นหมวดหมู่ (จึงทำให้ได้ชื่อว่า “สังยุตต” หรือมาร้อยเรียงกัน) เนื้อหาส่วนใหญ่จะเกี่ยวกับคำสอนของพระพุทธเจ้าเกี่ยวกับตัวตนและขันธ์ห้า ซึ่งเป็นแก่นคำสอนของพระพุทธศาสนา พระพุทธเจ้าจะตรัสสอนพระสาวกด้วยการให้พิจารณาขันธ์ห้าแต่ละอย่างว่ามีลักษณะอย่างไร และเมื่อมีลักษณะเช่นนั้นแล้ว ก็ควรหรือที่จะยึดถือว่าเป็นตัวเป็นตน ลักษณะทั่วๆไปของคำถามของพระพุทธเจ้าเป็นดังนี้:

พระผู้มีพระภาคตรัสว่า
ดูกรอานนท์ เธอจะสำคัญความข้อนั้นเป็นไฉน รูปเที่ยงหรือไม่เที่ยง?
อา. ไม่เที่ยง พระเจ้าข้า.
พ. ก็สิ่งใดไม่เที่ยง สิ่งนั้นเป็นทุกข์หรือเป็นสุขเล่า?
อา. เป็นทุกข์ พระเจ้าข้า.
พ. ก็สิ่งใดไม่เที่ยง เป็นทุกข์ มีความแปรปรวนเป็นธรรมดา ควรหรือหนอที่จะตามเห็นสิ่งนั้นว่า
นั่นของเรา นั่นเป็นเรา นั่นเป็นตัวตนของเรา?
อา. ไม่ควรเห็นอย่างนั้น พระเจ้าข้า.
พ. เวทนา … สัญญา … สังขาร … วิญญาณ เที่ยงหรือไม่เที่ยง?
อา. ไม่เที่ยง พระเจ้าข้า.
พ. ก็สิ่งใดไม่เที่ยง สิ่งนั้นเป็นทุกข์หรือเป็นสุขเล่า?
อา. เป็นทุกข์ พระเจ้าข้า.
พ. ก็สิ่งใดไม่เที่ยง เป็นทุกข์ มีความแปรปรวนเป็นธรรมดา ควรหรือหนอที่จะตามเห็นสิ่งนั้นว่า นั่นของเรา นั่นเป็นเรา นั่นเป็นตัวตนของเรา?
อา. ไม่ควรเห็นอย่างนั้น พระเจ้าข้า.

บทที่ยกมานี้มาจาก “อานนทสูตร” มีเนื้อหาเกี่ยวกับคำสอนของพระพุทธเจ้าแก่พระอานนท์ เมื่อพระอานนท์ทุลขอคำสอนที่จะนำไปปฏิบัติเพียงคนเดียวเพื่อให้บรรลุธรรม ซึ่งพระพุทธเจ้าก็ได้ประทานคำสอนที่ปรากฏอยู่ ซึ่งคำสอนลักษณะนี้ปรากฏอยู่แทบจะทุกสูตรในสังยุตตนิกายนี้ จะมีต่างกันบ้างก็เพียงรายละเอียดปลีกย่อยในแต่ละสูตรเท่านั้น คือทรงให้พิจารณาว่า “รูปเที่ยงหรือไม่เที่ยง?” “เวทนาเที่ยงหรือไม่เที่ยง?” แล้วก็ไปเรื่อยๆจนครบขันธ์ทั้งห้า เมื่อพอว่าขันธ์ห้าต่างก็ไม่เที่ยงหมดแล้ว ก็ทรงถามว่าควรหรือที่เราไปยึดว่าขันธ์ห้าเป็นตัวเราหรือของๆเรา เพราะเมื่อมันไม่เที่ยง ก็ย่อมไม่ใช่อะไรที่เราจะไปยึดถือให้เป็นอย่างโน้นอย่างนี้ได้

การไม่ยึดถือแบบที่ว่านี้แหละ ที่พระพุทธเจ้าทรงย้ำในพระสูตรจำนวนมากในสังยุตตนิกายนี้ว่า เป็นหนทางสู่การพ้นทุกข์อย่างแท้จริง ที่สำคัญก็คือว่า การพิจารณาขันธ์ห้านี้ใช้ได้กับการพิจารณาความคิดเห็นต่างๆว่าถูกต้องหรือไม่ได้ทั้งหมด มีกลุ่มพระสูตรหนึ่งซึ่งอยู่ในหมวด “โสดาปัตติวรรค” ซึ่งอยู่ใน “ทิฏฐิสังยุตต์” ซึ่งมีเนื้อหาเกี่ยวกับความเป็นไปได้ทั้งหมดของการที่สัตว์โลกเมื่อตายไปแล้วจะเกิด หรือจะไม่ไปเกิด (หรือเป็นเช่นนั้นทั้งคู่ หรือไม่เป็นเช่นนั้นทั้งคู่) พระสูตรทั้งสี่นี้ได้แก่ ๑. “โหตุตถาคตสูตร” ซึ่งก็สรุปว่าหากมีความคิดเห็นที่ถูกต้องว่า รูปไม่เที่ยง เวทนาไม่เที่ยง ก็สามารถแก้ความเห็นผิดเรื่องสัตว์โลกตายแล้วไปเกิดหรือไม่ ๒. “นโหตุตถาคตสูตร” ซึ่งก็เสนอทิฏฐิว่า สัตว์โลกตายแล้วไม่ไปเกิด แต่พระพุทธเจ้ากับให้พิจารณาเรื่องรูปเที่ยงหรือไม่เที่ยง เวทนาเที่ยงหรือไม่เที่ยง ฯลฯ นอกจากนี้ก็มี ๓. “โหติจนโหติตถาคตสูตร” ซึ่งเสนอทิฏฐิว่า สัตว์โลกทั้งตายแล้วไปเกิด และตายแล้วไม่ไปเกิด” ส่วน ๔. ได้แก่ “เนวโหตินนโหติตถาคตสูตร” ซึ่งหมายถึงการที่สัตว์โลกตายแล้วไปเกิดก็ไม่ใช่ สัตว์โลกตายแล้วไม่ไปเกิดก็ไม่ใช่ ในทั้งสี่พระสูตรนี้ท่าทีที่พระพุทธเจ้าทรงสอนก็คือว่า ทรงสอนให้พระภิกษุไม่รับแม้ข้อใดข้อหนึ่งในสี่ทางเหล่านี้ แต่หากทรงให้พิจารณาทางเลือกต่างๆอย่างถี่ถ้วนว่าเป็น “ทิฏฐิ” หรือความเห็นที่ควรเชื่อได้หรือไม่ วิธีการก็คือให้พิจารณาเรื่องขันธืห้าว่า “รูปเที่ยงหรือไม่เที่ยง” ดังที่ได้กล่าวไปแล้ว เมื่อพิจารณาเช่นนี้คำถามสำคัญก็คือว่า เมื่ขันธ์ห้าไม่เที่ยงเช่นนี้ ก็ยังจะมีอะไรที่ให้มีทิฏฐิได้ว่า เมื่อสัตว์ตายไปแล้วจะไปเกิด จะไม่ไปเกิด จะทั้งไปเกิดและไม่ไปเกิด หรือจะไปเกิดก็ไม่ใช่ จะไม่ไปเกิดก็ไม่ใช่?

คำตอบที่พระพุทธเจ้าทรงสอนให้เราเข้าใจก็คือว่า การมีความเห็นว่าอย่างใดอย่างหนึ่งในสี่อย่างนี้ ไม่ใช่ความเห็นที่ถูกต้องทั้งสิ้น ความเห็นที่ถูกต้องก็คือการพิจารณาว่าขันธ์ห้าไม่เที่ยง ไม่ใช่อัตตาตัวตน ไม่มีสาระอะไรที่จะไปเห็นหลักให้แก่ความเห็นเรื่องต่างๆเช่นเรื่องสัตว์ตายแล้วจะไปเกิดหรือไม่ได้ ทีนี้คำถามก็คือว่า แล้วการพิจารณาว่าขันธ์ห้าไม่เที่ยงเกี่ยวอย่างไรกับการไม่มีทิฏฐิเรื่องเหล่านี้? คำตอบก็คือว่า การพิจารณาว่าขันธ์ห้าไม่เที่ยง (เช่นที่พระพุทธเจ้าตรัสถามว่า “รูปเที่ยงหรือไม่เที่ยง?” ฯลฯ และ “ก็สิ่งใดไม่เที่ยง เป็นทุกข์ มีความแปรปรวนเป็นธรรมดา ควรหรือหนอที่จะตามเห็นสิ่งนั้นว่า นั่นของเรา นั่นเป็นเรา นั่นเป็นตัวตนของเรา?”) ทำให้เรเข้าใจสรรพสิ่งทั้งหลายทั้งปวงล้วนไม่อยู่สถานะที่จะเป็นบาทฐาน หรือเป็นอะไรที่เราจะยึดมั่นให้เกิดความเห็นหรือทิฏฐิต่างๆได้เลย

นักปรัชญามักคิดกันว่า ตนเองอยากจะเข้าใจความจริง อยากรู้ว่าจริงๆแล้วโลกเป็นอย่างไร จริงๆแล้วสัตว์ตายแล้วไปเกิดหรือไม่ไปเกิด จิตกับกาย (หรือพูดแบบภาษาในพระไตรปิฎกว่า ชีวะกับสรีระ) เป็นหนึ่งเดียวกัน หรือแยกกันเป็นคนละสิ่ง โลกมีที่สิ้นสุดหรือไม่ ฯลฯ พระสูตรต่างๆในสังยุตตนิกายนี้มุ่งที่จะชี้ให้เราเห็นถึงข้อผิดพลาดในการมีความคิดเห็นเหล่านี้ ประเด็นก็คือ ไม่ว่าเราจะคิดเกี่ยวกับเรื่องเหล่านี้ว่าอย่างไร (เช่นคิดว่าโลกเที่ยง หรือโลกไม่เที่ยง หรือโลกทั้งเที่ยงและไม่เที่ยง หรือโลกจะเที่ยงก็ไม่ใช่ จะไม่เที่ยงก็ไม่ใช่) ก็มารากฐานมาจากการยึดมั่นในการปรุงแต่ง คิดไปว่าภาษากำหนดความจริงให้แก่เราทั้งสิ้น การพิจารณาขันธ์ห้าที่พระพุทธเจ้าทรงเริ่มจากการถามว่า “รูปเที่ยงหรือไม่เที่ยง” นั้น ซึ่งมีคำตอบจากพระภิกษุที่ฟังคำสอนอยู่ที่บอกว่า “ไม่เที่ยงพระเจ้าข้า” (หรือในกรณีแบบเดียวกันในเรื่องสัตว์ตายแล้วไปเกิดหรือไม่ไปเกิด) นั้น หากไม่ได้พิจารณาอย่างละเอียดก็อาจจะพาให้คิดไปได้ว่า พระพุทธเจ้าทรงสอนว่ารูปไม่เที่ยง แต่นั่นเป็นความเข้าใจในระดับผิวเผินเบื้องต้นเท่านั้น อันที่จริง พระพุทธเจ้าทรงสอนว่า การคิดว่ารูปเที่ยง หรือรูปไม่เที่ยง หรือรูปทั้งเที่ยงและไม่เที่ยง หรือรูปจะเที่ยงก็ไม่ใช่ จะไม่เที่ยงก็ไม่ใช่ ล้วนเป็น “มิจฉาทิฏฐิ” ทั้งสิ้น เพราะมีจุดตั้งต้นมาจากการคิดว่ามีสิ่งที่เรียกว่า “รูป” ที่จะให้กำหนดได้ว่าเที่ยงหรือไม่เที่ยงตั้งแต่ต้น เนื่องจากการกำหนดว่ามี “รูป” นั้นเป็นการปรุงแต่ง คือกำหนดให้มีคำว่า “รูป” มาใช้ในความหมายว่าอย่างนั้นๆชื่อว่า “รูป” ทั้งๆที่จริงๆแล้วความเป็นจริงไม่ได้แบ่งออกเป็นรูปตั้งแต่ต้น ก็ทำให้เกิดความเข้าใจผิดพลาด เกิดเป็น “ทิฏฐิ” หนึ่งในสี่อย่างนี้ขึ้นมา

ประเด็นเรื่อง โลกไม่เที่ยงนี้มีใน “อสัสสตทิฏฐิสูตร” ซึ่งมีเนื้อหาว่าการพิจารณาว่ารูปไม่เที่ยง ฯลฯ นั้นทำให้ถอนทิฏฐิที่ว่า “โลกไม่เที่ยง” ออกได้ ปัญหาก็คือว่า เหตุใดการคิดว่ารูปไม่เที่ยงเป็นผลให้เข้าใจว่าการคิดว่า “โลกไม่เที่ยง” เป็นความเห็นที่ไม่ถูกต้อง? หากจะคิดว่ารูปกับโลกเป็นคนละอย่างกันก็ไม่น่าจะเป็นเช่นนั้น เพราะการบอกว่าโลกไม่เที่ยงนั้นหมายความรวมเอาทุกอย่าง คือความเห็นนี้บอกว่า ไม่มีอะไรที่เที่ยงเลย รวมทั้งรูปด้วยเพราะรูปเป็นส่วนหนึ่งของโลก อย่างไรก็ตามสิ่งที่พระพุทธเจ้าทรงสอนไม่ใช่ว่า รูปกับโลกเป็นคนละอย่างโดยที่รูปนั้นไท้เที่ยงแต่โลกไม่เที่ยง (หรือเที่ยง หรือ … ) แต่อยู่ที่ว่า การปรุงแต่งให้เกิดมีอะไรขึ้นก็ตาม เช่น “โลก” หรือ​ “รูป” ยังผลให้เกิดทิฏฐิเหล่านี้ขึ้น และเป็นเหตุแห่งความทุกข์ทั้งสิ้น

เรื่องนี้ค่อนข้างยาก แต่ก็คงไม่เกินความสามารถของเราที่จะเข้าใจ พระพุทธเจ้าทรงแนะนำให้เราเอาข้อธรรมข้อนี้ไปพินิจพิจารณาอย่างละเอียดด้วยการปลีกวิเวก ทุ่มเวลาแรงกายแรงใจในการพิจารณาอย่างเต็มที่ เราศิษย์ของพระพุทธเจ้าก็ควรจะพยายามทำตาม

Filed under: Buddhism , analysis, ทิฏฐิ, ปรัชญา, พระพุทธศาสนา, Buddhism, canon, commentary, Tripitaka

Cognitive Neuroscience of Mindfulness Meditation

Here is a video from YouTube about mindfulness meditation. Looks like science and Buddhism have become friends in one way or another.

Here is the abstract of the talk by Philippe Goldin

Mindfulness meditation, one type of meditation technique, has been shown to enhance emotional awareness and psychological flexibility as well as induce well-being and emotional balance. Scientists have also begun to examine how meditation may influence brain functions. This talk will examine the effect of mindfulness meditation practice on the brain systems in which psychological functions such as attention, emotional reactivity, emotion regulation, and self-view are instantiated. We will also discuss how different forms of meditation practices are being studied using neuroscientific technologies and are being integrated into clinical practice to address symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress.

Speaker: Philippe Goldin
Philippe is a research scientist and heads the Clinically Applied Affective Neuroscience group in the Department of Psychology at Stanford University.
He spent 6 years in India and Nepal studying various languages, Buddhist philosophy and debate at Namgyal Monastery and the Dialectic Monastic Institute, and serving as an interpreter for various Tibetan Buddhist lamas. He then returned to the U.S. to complete a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Rutgers University. His NIH-funded clinical research focuses on (a) functional neuroimaging investigations of cognitive-affective mechanisms in adults with anxiety disorders, (b) comparing the effects of mindfulness meditation and cognitive-behavioral therapy on brain-behavior correlates of emotional reactivity and regulation, and (c) training children in family and elementary school settings in mindfulness skills to reduce anxiety and enhance compassion, self-esteem and quality of family interactions.

 

 

Filed under: lecture , Buddhism, cognitive science, mindfulness, neuroscience, psychology, science

Can a Buddhist be a Skeptic?

Georges Dreyfus came to Chulalongkorn University again for the third time, and this time he gave a public talk on “Can a Buddhist be a Skeptic?” The talk was really interesting and touched upon some of the very difficult issues in Buddhist philosophy. He started by recounting the tenet found in the Madhyamika system, especially as propounded by Nagarjuna. According to the Madhayamika, a thing does not have its own ‘inherent characteristic,’ which defines what it is to be that thing and none other. Thus Madhyamika is contrasted with a branch of Indian philosophy that asserts that there is an inherent characteristic in everything that makes it the caase that that thing is what it is. One might compare this to the Aristotelian essence — whatever that gives a thing its defining characteristic. Thus a chair, according to this view, is a chair because it possesses something called ‘chairness.’ By virtue of possessing the chairness a chair is a chair and not, say, a table.

For Nagarjuna that is unacceptable. In his Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way (Mulamadhyamakakarika), he presents a barrage of arguments intending to show that no thing whatsoever possesses this inherent characteristic. However, that does not mean that a thing can be anything else. It means rather than a thing is what it is, for example a chair, only through its being related to other things and through its being an extension or instances of concepts. In short, a thing is what it is simply because it is recognized that way. A chair is a chair because people sit on it and call it a ‘chair.’

A consequence of this is that, ultimately speaking, for Nagarjuna it does not make sense to say of any thing that it exists. On the other hand it also does not make sense to say that it does not exist. The chair in a sense does not exist because it lacks any inherent characteristic (the Sanskrit term for this is svabhava). However, to say that it does not exist does not make sense either because the chair is there. Nagarjuna goes on to say that it does not make sense to say that it both exists and does not exist, because to say that would presuppose that there is something the existence and non-existence of which is being asserted. Furthermore, to say that a thing neither exists nor does not exist does not make much sense either for the same reason.

This is known as the tetralemma. The idea is to exhause any and all possibility of saying anything about any object whatsoever. If it does not make sense to say anything in the four sides of the tetralemma, then it is clear that it does not make sense to say anything of anything at all. For example, Nagarjuna says somewhere in the Fundamental Verses that it cannot be said that the Tathagata (the Thus-gone, hence the Buddha) exists, does not exist, both exists and does not exist, and neither exists nor does not exist.

The  tetralemma has been a subject of intense interpretation. Dreyfus cited an example of a relatively obscure Tibetan translator and philosopher, Patrap Nyima Drak (I have to look up whether this is correct), who asserted that what the tetralemma says is true literally. Other scholars, such as Chandrakirti himself and Tsong Khapa, shied away from asserting baldly that the tetralemma is true literally. For them to do so is very close to being irrational, for it means that one can’t say anything of anything at all. If that is so, then why is one saying anything at all? Why don’t keep quiet all the time?

Dreyfus said that for Patrap, he held that no statement could be held and believed, because ultimately speaking any statement at all falls into one leg of the tetralemma and is thus untenable. So Dreyfus compared his position to that of ancient skepticism, also known as Pyrrhonism. According to Pyrrhonism it is not rational to hold any belief. All statements are ’suspended’ because no statement ever acquires enough evidence to support it.

Nagarjuna himself also could be interpreted as supporting this view in a way, since he says at the very last stanza of the Fundamental Verses that in the end the goal of the Buddhist philosophy is to “relinquish all views.” So in a way this is not a philosophy at all, if you hold that philosophy is nothing but putting out words and more words. Since nothing can be asserted in any way of anything, then according to Patrap the only course left is to suspend any and all judgments. (But is this philosophy?)

So this comes to Dreyfus’s own question at the beginning. Can a Buddhist be a skeptic? Yes, because at least one Buddhist, Patrap Nyima Drak, was a skeptic. But is this a valid position to hold in Buddhist philosophy? It can be useful as a guide for practicing, and of course in Buddhism this is in the end what counts.

This leads to a very difficult problem for Buddhism. On the one hand, if you can’t defend any position at all, then how can you show that any of the teachings of the Buddha is true? How can one teach Buddhism to anybody? There ae a number of Buddhist teachings thatmany Buddhists take to be true, such as the law of karma, the Four Noble Truths, and so on. If a Buddhist can be a skeptic, then how can one come to believe the law of karma or the Four Noble Truths, which are the central teaching of Buddhism?

However, the advantage of Patrap’s standpoint (paradoxical again because the skeptic has no standpoint) is that it leads us to non-attachment even of doctrines and teachings. We realize that in the end these are only words and language, and being attached to them would only lead to suffering and further wandering in samsara, even though these words are the Buddha’s. The key is to ‘relinquish all views.’

So what gives? We have to wean ourselves from the belief that there is one true, correct version of things that we can arrive at. Language does not represent reality as it really is. Language is only a tool. The tetralemma shows that no matter how much we try, language still deceives us. The point is to get at reality without language. So practice is important, but philosophy and teaching the Dharma is important too. Otherwise how can we ever come to understand all this?

You can listen to Dreyfus’ talk right here on the podcast of the Center for Ethics of Science and Technology and the Thousand Stars Foundation.

 

Filed under: Mahayana, Uncategorized , Buddhism, epistemology, Georges Dreyfus, logic, metaphysics, Middle Way, Nagarjuna, philosophy, proposition, skepticism, tetralemma

About “The Inner Jihad”

I just read a very interesting article on “The True Jihad” on  the Enlightennext.org website, and here is my response. Please read the article first before reading this comment:

Key to this article is that view that the inner jihad – inner spiritual battle against evil – demands the existence of the enemy, namely the ego. Thus the current mindset that tries to look away from evil, thinking that the evil should be brought to the fold and not be discriminated against, is a total humbug. We need an evil, so that author says, in order for our struggle to be meaningful. If we lost sense of the evil, then the evil will have done away with us all.

That’s quite a nice point. But it enters into some kind of paradox that is very hard to get out of. Bear in mind that we are talking about inner spiritual battle here, the kind that Jesus went through when he was tempted by Satan, when the Buddha was tempted by Mara, and so on. And the Islamic tradition certainly has it right on the spot when it identifies that the enemy of the spiritual battle is our own selves. In the end the largest and most meaningful spiritual battle is one raging inside our minds, when we can overcome our own tendency to the ordinary ways of living and thinking, which is no different from blind people rushing about from one place to another hitting into things. Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed taught that this is only because we fall prey to our own egos; their hold on us is so strong that it takes utterly strong effort to see through.

The paradox, however, arises when the author insists that the egos are real. He is correct when he says that if we don’t take our egos seriously, or if we want to “include” the egos so that they, too, could be liberated, then the whole spiritual edifice breaks down and we will continue running around as blindly as before. But then in the zest to defeat the ego we have to be very careful not to fall prey to it yet again. So the longer the ego is needed, the further still from the eventual goal of spiritual battle we will be. In our enthusiasm to kill our egos we seem to have brought back those very same egos through the back door without our knowing through our very enthusiasm. If we are intent on destroying the ego with hatred, then not only will we not accomplish anything, we will suffer from self hatred, which is completely as bad as any form of hatred if not more. The longer we are convinced that the ego is there, existing substantially, then we cannot defeat it. We might believe we have crushed it by brute force, or sheer will power, but then the ego is a very wily enemy, one which has a way to catch us unaware at any time. So it seems that if there is no ego, then no spiritual battle is meaningful, but if there is an ego, then fighting against it just brings it back.

So what do we do? That question lies at the very heart of the spiritual battle. We realize that the so-called “ego” is ultimately speaking just a creation of our own mind. This is not the same as not engaging in the spiritual battle. The slothful who does not practice has no way of spiritual advancement because he does not make any attempt to see. For him things are just right the way they are. They are completely under the spell of their egos. But the truly spiritual also realizes that reifying the ego creates the same problem. So the way out is first to identify the enemy, which is the sense of “I” or “mine” that has gripped us for so long and is the source of all our problems. Then we see that this “I”, this ego, is no more than an illusion. At first the illusion appears real because it is the face that it is perceived to be this way that is the source of the problems, then the only way to get rid of the problems is to realize that the ego is only an illusion, and has been so all along.

Filed under: Buddhism , Buddhism, Christianity, enlightenment, evil, Islam, Jihad, Mara, Satan

Buddhism and Mathematics

One of the many topics that was raised during the talk on the Thai translation of Matthieu Ricard’s and Trinh Xuan Thuan’s book concerned the relation between Buddhist thought and mathematics. There have of course been quite a lot of talks about how Buddhism and science are related, but not much at all on Buddhism and mathematics. So that was a welcome change. Unfortunately we did not spend much time on this fascinating topic.

It was credit to Ricard and Thuan that they spend one entire chapter on this topic. The idea is how mathematics is related to reality and what the Buddhists think of that. The eleventh chapter of the book is entitled “The Grammar of the Universe” or something like that. What is interesting is how mathematics is an accurate description of reality at all. Which comes first, mathematics or the world?

On the one hand, this is a very simple point. We all know that two plus two equals four. So you have two things, add another two, and count the result, which is of course four. But the premise of mathematics is that you cannot get mathematics (or logic for that matter) out of empirical observation. You just cannot form a general statement “2 + 2 = 4″ from just observing two things and another two things. The reason is that you have somehow to know before hand that two plus two equals four in order for you to be able to get the conclusion that these two things and these other two make four! This is Kant’s main argumentative strategy in his entire critical philosophy. And for Kant mathematics is a prime example of what he calls “synthetic a priori” judgments, e.g., judgments that are true by virtue of their correspondence with some outside measuring point but which is known entirely through thinking alone.

We are not actually discussing Kant here; the point is that if the truth of mathematics does not come from observation, then it must come from inside. Ricard and Thuan discussed that perhaps this situation implies that there is some universal and all powerful mind whose thinking made all mathematical statements true (all the true ones, of course). It is this big mind that guarantees that two plus two equals four, that the sum of the squares on the side of the two legs of a right angle triangle is equal to that on the hypotenuse, that the law of modus ponens (‘p’ and ‘if p then q’ always implies ‘q’), and so on.

So this big mind might refer to God. So here the discussion went on to see what the Buddhists think about this. I don’t quite remember what Ricard, the Buddhist representative in the book, made of this, so I am going to present my own thought. I also did this during the talk last Saturday, but time was so limited then.

I think the main difference between the theistic religions like Christianity and Islam and non-theistic one like Buddhism might not appear as large as one might think. Buddhism would have no problem recognizing the Big Mind alluded to above, so long as that refers, not to some external being, but in fact to our own minds. It is us who create mathematics and it is ultimately speaking our own minds, working together collectively, that create the world such that it is true of mathematics. In other words, we could also say that we human beings are gods unto ourselves. There is a Big Mind that creates reality corresponding to math, yes, but that Mind is not apart from us.

Whether this is shocking or not depends on your view on theism. If you believe that humans are apart from God, then you’d find this shocking. However, this is entirely correspondent with the Buddhist attitude that salvation is ultimately the person’s own responsibility and lies entirely within the person’s power to achieve. The Buddha is only a teacher. You don’t need to follow his teaching. The Buddha has no power to drag you to Liberation. No being does. You have to do it yourself.

Coming down from theological discussion and back down to earth, we see that the idea that it is human mind itself that creates mathematics to which reality belongs makes quite a lot of sense. We form mathematics and we perceive the world according to the same conceptual structure that formed the math in the first place, so no wonder the world corresponds to it. However, even thought mathematics looks very certain, it does not describe what reality is like ultimately speaking. This is because all mathematics depends on concepts and language (so is logic), and once you have concepts, you have to divide reality into separate chunks. So at best mathematics is a model or a map, and no map can become identical to the reality it is the map of. This refers to the doctrine of Emptiness or sunyata. We can say that math can always approach that, but never reach it, because if it does, then it would cease to be the math that it is.

Filed under: science , Buddhism, empitness, emptiness, fabrication, Kant, logic, mathematics, matter, mind, Nagarjuna, philosophy, religion, Sunyata

The Quantum and the Lotus

My next talk will be at Thammasat University this Saturday. It is on the new translation of the book The Quantum and the Lotus, which has just been completed by Suan Ngern Mee Ma Press. The book is an extended conversation between Matthieu Ricard and Trinh Xuan Thuan. The former is a former molecular biologist who turned to become a Tibetan Buddhist monk, and the latter was born in a Buddhist culture and became a well known astrophysicist working in the US.

So we have a symmetrical contrast — a French scientist who became a monk and a Vietnamese who became a scientist. The symmetry would have been more perfect if Thuan had been a monk first and then disrobed. But that is not too necessary. The idea of the book is a dialog on various topics between Buddhism, represented by Ricard, and science, represented in Thuan. This in itself is a welcoming reversal to the perhaps stereotypical perception that science belongs to the West and Buddhism to the East.

The book started with a background of both Ricard and Thuan — how both became what they are right now, and it gave an account of the two’s long conversation together when they met in a conference, an event which led to the present book. The chapters deal with topics which are of interest to both Buddhists and the scientists, such as, the structure of matter, the beginning and the end of the universe, mind, consciousness, mathematics, whether real knowledge and truth can be obtained through either Buddhism or science, and so on.

The first chapter opened with a general account of the orientation of both Buddhism and science. What are the purposes or the objectives of both enterprises? Science, of course, aims at finding truth about the natural phenomena, theories that would explain how the phenomena came about and how they are to be understood. Buddhism, according to Ricard, aims at the same goal. Buddhism has an interest in knowing what the truth is like, because then the practitioner would gain an insight which will lead him or her to attain the Final Goal, that of liberation from all sufferings.

And here is the main difference between science and Buddhism lies. Science appears to want to know how things are just for the sake of it, or at least that is the version usually put to us by scientists, who claim that the purpose of basic, in contrast to applied, science, is just to know the truth without using the acquired knowledge for some other purposes. This account of the distinction between basic and applied science is very much contested, because even the so-called basic science is fraught with interests which are immediate and social, but that would take us further from the present point of this essay, so more on this later. The point here is that the version of the real distinction between basic and applied science here appears to contrast with Buddhism. For Buddhism it is not enough just to learn how things are just for the sake of it. Buddhists would say that that is an example of lobha, or desire, in this case desire for more and more knowledge. If this is so, then the desire for more knowledge would lead us further away from the Final Goal. So if science is viewed in this way, then the objectives of both seem to lead each in opposite directions.

The Thai version

That does not seem to be what Ricard has in mind in his dialog with his physicist counterpart. According to Ricard, Buddhism has an interest in finding truth about the natural phenomena, and he apparently believes that only through getting at this truth is the Goal possible. However, if such is really the case, then it becomes difficult to understand how the Goal has actually been achieved by countless practitioners of Buddhism throughout the ages. This is because even now such truth about the natural phenomena has not been fully achieved. Scientists are still debating among themselves and are frankly acknowledging that there is a lot that we do not yet know about our natural world. What, for example, is Dark Matter or Dark Energy? Right now there is no satisfactory account. Are there really parallel universes or ‘multiverses’ where our own is just one among countlessly many?

According to Ricard, one would have to learn about how things really are before one has a chance to gain Realization. After quoting the Buddha in one of the sutras when he told his students that his teachings were only a handful when compared to the whole of knowable things, which were as many as all the leaves in the forest, Ricard says:

But experience shows that it is necessary to understand correctly the nature of the exterior world and of the ego, or what we term ‘reality,’ if we want to eliminate ignorance. That is why the Buddha made this the central theme of his teaching. (The Quantum and the Lotus, Random House 2001, pp. 12-13.)

The problem here is how much of this ‘correct understanding’ would suffice. The Buddha’s parable of the leaves in his hand and the leaves in the forest shows that we can make do with the small amount we have and achieve the Goal. This would be all we need if what we really want is to achieve the Goal and nothing else. Science, on the other hand, seems to want more and more. You can’t stop at the level where you smash atoms to bits; you have to smash the bits further and get even smaller bits. You can’t stop at seeing this far out in space; you have see even further and further. But do the ever smaller bits belong to the leaves in the Buddha’s hands or out there in the forest?

It is true in a way that Buddhism has an interest in knowing the reality. Ricard’s examples of knowing the real nature of the ego and the “empty” characteristic of everything are good ones. But in Buddhism it does ultimately speaking not matter whether what you get is the real truth any way, so long as you sincerely believe it is. This is very difficult for non-Buddhists and especially scientists to understand, because they typically would think that our own thinking or conception of things is one thing, and what is out there objectively is another. But that is not the case in Buddhism. You will achieve Liberation if you sincerely believe that the ego is just a mental or conceptual construction and that reality is empty of inherent characteristics. What things really are outside of our conception or perception is not so important. They can be anything they like. They don’t matter at all.

One of the main practices in Tantric Buddhism is to visualize that the place that we are in right now is the Buddha’s realm full of jewels and the like. Every sound that we hear is mantra; every sight that of an enlightened being; the air we breathe is the air of Enlightenment, and so on. Here what scientists or empiricists usually take to be the “truth” has no place. In full visualization, in the eyes of an enlightened one, a “truth” is just that, a bubble in the water.

Filed under: science , Buddhism, emptiness, lotus, Matthieu Ricard, quantum, science, Thai, translation, Trinh Xuan Thuan

How Do You Know Someone has Attained Nirvana?

This is a really big question, something that I think has persisted in the minds of Buddhists, both in the East and the West. The goal of the teaching is of course nirvana, and we are instructed to get teachings from those who have realized them. But how do we know? How can we tell whether those who are giving us the teachings and explanations of the Words of the Buddha have actually internalized them and made them part of their lives?

There is a story (and just as almost everything I know, this one is also from Deshung Rinpoche). A very learned monk was on his way to receive an honorary position at a temple. He was deeply read in all the sutras and could expound the teachings really well. However, he had not fully realized the teachings; that is, he had not become identical with the subject matter of what he was teaching. While he was traveling he met a poor peasant, and, out of kindness, he gave the peasant a tidbit of the Buddha’s teaching and told him always to keep it in mind and to practice it well. Then he left the peasant and continued his journey. He got to the temple which was his destination and stayed there as a respected abbot for many, many years. Meanwhile the poor peasant became deeply faithful in the teaching he got from the learned monk and became a monk himself.

Years passed. One day while he was at the temple the monk who used to be the poor peasant whom he had taught for a short while came to see him. From the look and the understandings shown through the outlook of the visiting monk, the learned abbot knew that he had really attained the Goal. He became surprised when he learned that the visiting monk was in fact the poor peasant whom he had given a short teaching while he was on the way to accept the position here. The learned monk said to himself, “I had studied all the texts. I had memorized a huge amount of the Buddha’s teachings and had taught countless number of students. Yet I had not attained the result myself. This monk who got just a short teaching from me instead had achieved it.”

So he became really subdued and asked the visiting monk for a teaching. Thus the teacher became student and vice versa. The visiting monk told him to be mindful and to practice the teaching well with no distractions. The learned abbot then followed that instruction and finally obtained Realization.

The message of the story is that it does not quite matter whom you get the teachings from. You could even get teachings from a radio or, in today’s age, from the Net, but if it is a genuine teaching and if you are persistent in practicing it, you will eventually be Realized. The point is not the actual identity of your teacher. The point is that you have unwavering faith in the teaching and in your belief that you are getting the teaching from an Enlightened One. What really matters is your mind.

So how does this story answer the topical question of this post? Maybe the story is not directly to the point. But perhaps that is the point. Sometimes we don’t really need to know that the one we are studying with is Realized or not. That would distract us from really practicing and being really mindful. It does not quite matter whether our flesh and blood teacher is Realized or not, that is in fact a matter for the teacher himself or herself to practice on his or her own. But for us students we need to look inside our own minds and practice from the insides of our hearts.

Filed under: Buddhism , attainment, Bodhisattva, Buddha, Buddhism, Deshung Rinpoche, freedom, liberation, nibbana, Nirvana

Nirvana, Parinirvana, Enlightenment, Buddhahood

A follower of mine on Twitter asked what are the differences between ‘nirvana,’ ‘parinirvana,’ and ‘Enlightenment.’ This is a very good question, but to answer it in Twitter is like walking with the feet tied together, so I have to answer this in more detail here. I have already gave an answer in Twitter, but my tweets there are necessarily too short. This might not be clear enough, especially for those who are new to Buddhism.

Nirvana is the goal of Buddhist practice. This is why people became a Buddhist in the first place, and it is the goal that the Buddha taught everybody to pursue since he began his teaching career soon after he had attained Enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. Etymolotically, ‘nirvana’ means ‘extinguished,’ like when a fire is extinguished, in Sanskrit one would say the fire is ‘nirvana.’ This sense of ‘being put out’ then is transferred to refer to the state where the suffering is ‘put out’. There is no more suffering. Thus, one gains total liberation from samsara.

‘Parinirvana’ literally means ‘being put out all around;’ that is, it is all extinguished. In this sense it means the same as nirvana, only that there is the emphasis on being totally extinguished. However, it is more commonly used to refer to the dissolution of the body of one who has already entered nirvana. So when one has entered nirvana while one is alive, his ego attachment is completely dead, and when that one finally ‘dies,’ it is said that he enters ‘parinirvana.’ In Theravada tradition this is only used for the Buddha.

‘Enlightenment’ is the state where one gains complete Knowledge. This is what the Buddha achieved under the Bodhi tree that enabled him to become a Buddha. A ‘Buddha’ means ‘one who is awakened.’ Those of us in samsara are not awakened because we live in the dreamworld of thought construction and conceptual fabrication, believing that they are real. So we believe that our egos, our “I’s” are real and so on. The Buddha, on the other hand, realizes that this is an illusion, and in reality there is nothing but pure state of naken, unadorned, expansive being. This is what an enlightened being knows. In Pali one says, sammasambodhi, meaning perfect, complete Knowledge (actually I have to put in the diacritical marks on the Pali or Sanskrit terms, but it takes time to do that and I don’t think it’s really necessary here as we are focusing more on the meaning.) ‘Knowledge’ here, by the way, does not refer to one’s ordinary, commonplace knowledge that relies on concepts, but the complete knowledge obtainable only when one lets go of all concepts. Thus ‘Knowledge’ with the capital ‘K’ refers to the state of complete knowledge, or the Buddha’s state of Enlightenment, and ‘knowledge’ with a small ‘k’ to refer to ordinary, conceptual knowledge.

Since all sufferings are caused by not realizing this truth, the state of complete Knowledge here is their direct antidote. So one who is enlightened naturally is free from any and all sufferings. So in a sense Enlightenment and nirvana mean the same in that they refer to the same situation. But literally they mean differently.

Now, there is still another distinction between those who have attained nirvana and have totally abandoned samsara, and those who, though they have attained nirvana but chose instead to remain in samsara to help beings. This is a key idea in Mahayana Buddhism. In Theravada, the goal of practice is to eliminate all causes of suffering and entered nirvana, becoming an ‘arahat.’ In Mahayana, on the other hand, that goal is commendable, but it is not the complete or ultimate goal of one’s practice. The aim of a Mahayana practitioner is not just to liberate oneself from samsara, but to be able to help all sentient beings to attain nirvana also. Thus the goal of the Mahayana practitioner is to become a Bodhisattva, or one who has the aspiration to attain Buddhahood, that is to become a fully enlightened Buddha, in order to be able to help beings.

So this is all for now. I’ll write more about all these in later posts. Those who would like to know more might want to read my earlier post on Nirvana and Samsara.

Filed under: Bodhisattva , Buddha, Buddhahood, Buddhism, enlightenment, Mahayana, Nirvana, Theravada

Heart Sutra in Sanskrit

I found this engaging video containing the chant in Chinese style of the Heart Sutra, or Prajña-paramita Hrdaya Sutra, in its entirely (which is quite short). Listen while you meditate on Emptiness:

Please click here for the text and translation in English.

Filed under: music , Buddhism, emptiness, Heart Sutra, Mahayana, prajnaparamita, Sunyata

Why Do We Practice?

One of the main topics during my talk yesterday was around the question why we came to Buddhism and became a practitioner in the first place. This is important because it points to our motivation in taking up the practice. What are our motivations?

For Thai people, this question may a bit sound strange. Since most of Thais are born into the Buddhist world, there does not seem to be a question of the motivation in coming to Buddhism. The religion pervades all aspects of the culture, so in a way one actually “comes” to Buddhism once one is born into a Buddhist Thai family.

This does not mean, however, that every child born in such a family immediately knows what there is to be known about Buddhism. Otherwise everybody would then become an arahat, and there would be no need to engage in the practice or to teach the Dharma. Furthermore, most Thais nowadays are caught up with works and daily living that they somehow ignore Buddhism. They come to get in touch with it only through rituals and ceremonies like making merits when they got a new house, a new position, or when they go to funerals. Rituals gradually lose their meanings.

This is why there is the growing phenomenon of Thai people coming “back” to Buddhism. I say “back” because Buddhism is pervasive as I have said, but somehow they have lost touch with it and due to some emerging circumstances they are realizing the value of Buddhism in their lives.

Many come to Buddhism this way because they suffer. Either they lost their loved ones, or have problems with their jobs, and so on. They believe that the Buddha’s teachings can provide a relief and a cure for their ills. This is perhaps the main motivation.

This is a good beginning. One has to realize the value of something before embarking upon it. Practicing Buddhism is a serious thing to do. One has to dedicate one’s whole life to it. It is not something that can gratify you in a short time. Nyima Dakpa Rinpoche once said that Buddhism had one big disadvantage over the other pain or suffering relievers such as Prazac or surfing the Net in that these provide instant gratification or relief. But it is short term, whereas if one succeeds in following the Buddha’s guidelines, then one achieves real, lasting relief, not only for this present life, of course, but forever.

The motivation for relieving one’s suffering, while a good beginning, is not nearly enough, however. Those who come to Buddhism because they have personal problems usually don’t go very far in their practice, simply because they are not really committed in devoting their lives into the practice. They want easy fixes, not unlike Prozac, something you pop up and voila, the pain is gone. But as we have seen Buddhism does not work like that.

This may be due to the fact that people are different. One kind of teaching is suitable to one kind of persons, but not others. But in any case in order to get anything substantial from the Buddha’s teaching, one has to go all the way. There may be some small benefits here and there if one practices only a little (even a little practice is better than no practice at all), but the real benefit is possible. And this is something most people do not realize.

Thais are brought up to believe that the lasting happiness, nirvana, is far away, forever out of their reach. So they are content with lesser aims. But when the lesser aims fail (which they very often do), they become disillusioned with the Buddha’s teachings. This is a pity, for the lasting happiness is there within their grasp. They just have to take a bit more effort.

So the reason why we practice is that we would like to attain the goal that the Buddha talked about and spent his entire working life teaching us to attain. No other aim, such as going to heaven, is not ultimately satisfactory. The point is that once one really understands some aspect of the teaching at the beginning, one is well on the Path toward the eventual Liberation. One just needs to continue further.

And of course there is the further goal of attaining Buddhahood for the benefits of beings. But more on that later…

Filed under: Thailand , Buddha, Buddhism, culture, gratification, Happiness, motivation, pain, practice, practitioner, suffering, Thailand