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Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c21.s2: 2. Idealism and the Void

Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c21.s2

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2. Idealism and the Void

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The Vijñānavāda does not deny the doctrine of the void (çūnyatā) of the Madhyamaka, but it is unable to accept the view that illusion can exist by itself and in itself without any support; there must be, to explain illusion, a thought which suffers from illusion. Moreover, the conception of the void essentially connotes a receptacle without any content,² and this is afforded by the conception of void thought, devoid of any characteristic, and free from the distinction of subject, object, and knowledge. Moreover, this conception of reality has, it is urged, the full approval of the Buddha who was essentially an idealist, and, if this assertion can hardly be accepted in the light of the facts, at any rate the new school can fairly claim that it is continuation in a sense of the doctrine of the thought series which the Sautrāntika developed to replace the older and more vague speculations as to the nature of the substitute for the self.

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² BSB. I. iv.

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External reality cannot possibly exist;³ if it did it could not possibly be known, and it is obviously absurd to assert the existence of something of which it is certain that we can have no knowledge. We must recognize that we have in the world as it appears to us the result of mental construction; a perception involves an apparent datum,⁴ but all that is known is essentially the network of mental construction which is imposed on this datum, and we cannot speak of the datum as anything external; without the mental construction it is simply nothing; it is, perhaps we may hold, the fact of the arising in consciousness as a result of past experience of a new content, which thus appears to be given, and not to be our own creation, but which on ultimate analysis is essentially the product of thought. There is no real external water, but our sense construction of smoothness produces this impression; similarly sense constructions of heat and movement produce our belief in external fire and wind. There is apparently an external chain of causation e. g. from seed to plant, but this is due only to our habit of projection of reality; we apply names and ideas (*nāmasamjñāvyavahāra*), and by this means we are the real sources of the apparent causal development conceived as without us.¹

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³ See below, ch. xv, § 3; Wassilieff, Bouddhisme, pp. 307 f. The priority of Çūnyavāda to Vijñānavāda is logical and natural; it accords with all we know of the history of the schools unless the Mahāyānaçraddhotpāda is Açvaghoṣa's, and cannot be overthrown by arguments such as those of A. Guha, Jīvātman in the Brahma-Sūtras, pp. 39 ff.

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⁴ Cf. the distinction of consciousness as khyāti-, and vastuprativikalpa, Laṅk., pp. 21 f., 44; BSB. I. iv.

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¹ Cf. Laṅk., p. 85; on our speech constructions, 87; MSA. vi.

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But we must not think that internal reality is any more absolutely real—at any rate on the orthodox view—than external reality. The apparent distinction of subject, object, and knowledge is not real. Thought cannot know itself any more than anything else, or there would be duality, and it would not be pure thought. The internal chain of causality, therefore, must not be regarded as anything real. It is merely the result of the infection of the purity of thought. This infection is the source of the illusion of subject, object, and knowledge, but its origin we cannot trace; there is no beginning in time to the process of illusion. The infection of our thought produces in us the holding of belief in eternity, in happiness, and induces us to action, good or bad, and these acts and thoughts leave within us the tendencies which produce again the same wrong views and acts, and continue for ever, unless enlightenment is attained, the process of illusion.²

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² Ibid., pp. 100 ff., 44; MSA. xi. 38; xxi. 54; xi. 14 ff.

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We have here in effect the series of the Sautrāntikas, but there is developed a contrast between the originating or receptacle intelligence (*ālayavijñāna*), and the individual intellectual experiences of the process (*pravṛtti-vijñāna*), which clearly opens the way to a different conception of the final character of reality. On the strictly orthodox view³ the receptacle thought may be held to be nothing but a collective expression for the whole series of particular thoughts, or to put it in another light the receptacle intelligence at any moment consists of the actual particular intellectual action together with all the potencies latent in it, for, as with the Sautrāntikas, the intellectual moment is charged with impressions of the whole of the experience of the apparent individual from time immemorial. This view may be supported by the doctrine that the receptacle intelligence has no origination, duration, or destruction, which is an apt enough description of what is merely a collective expression, and does not denote any special concrete reality. The same impression may be derived from the comparison of the relation of the particular intellectual moments with the waves of the sea of the receptacle intellect. Intelligence appears under diverse aspects; as Citta it accumulates action, as mind it synthesizes, as Vijñāna it forms judgements, as sense it has consciousness of objects.¹ But this idea admits also of allowing a greater measure of reality and universality to the receptacle intellect;² we may treat it as parallel with the Vedantic absolute, and regard its infection and its development as parallel to that of the absolute under the influence of nescience. Or from another point of view we may hold that the flux of intellectual moments does not actually infect the receptacle intelligence, but is comparable to an image reflected in a mirror which remains untouched by it, or to a sound echoed by the rocks which suffer themselves no change. Thus the receptacle intelligence would be akin to the person (puruṣa) of the Sāṃkhya.

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³ Cf. MSA. i. 18; vi. 10; xi. 32, 44, 49; SDS., p.15; Mvy. 103; Bhāmatī, p. 353; NVT., pp. 144, 145; Wassilieff, *Bouddhisme*, pp. 287 ff.; *pravṛttivijñānataraṅga, anyonyahetuka udadhitaraṅga iva*, Laṅk., pp. 45, 50, 126; TRD.,

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¹ Laṅk., pp. 50 ff. (misrendered in Dasgupta, Ind. Phil. i. 146).

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² Cf. Lévi, ii. 20, 16, n. 2, who makes it not the affirmation of self, a function of mind, but that which renders possible the activity of mind by giving it a centre of organization, the underlying reality. Cf. Suzuki's comparison (MB., p. 132) with the 'ego of transcendental apprehension', and Vasubandhu's Viṃçakakārikā; TDC., p. 65.

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These tendencies, however, are opposed, it appears, to the fundamental conceptions of the school which embraces the conception of the void as the ultimate truth. It is essential to realize that all our determinations by name or conception are unreal; examine appearances and there is no substance to be found; the

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p. 47; Muséon, v. (1904), 375 ff.; MA. vi. 46; Jacobi, JAOS. xxxi. 2; PGAB., p. 118.

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idea of matter or of extension will not bear examination; the atoms¹ of the Vaiçeṣika or the Sautrāntikas are absurd; they have six sides, since they face six contiguous atoms, and are therefore not truly indivisible; moreover, either contiguity or distance between the atoms is unthinkable. The relation of whole and part is absurd also, and any attempt to carry it out simply leads into difficulties; without parts there can be no whole, but it is impossible to describe any manner in which the whole can really be related to the parts, so that the entire conception must be laid aside. Nor must we think that even in negation we have truth; negations are equally appearances; the ultimate truth is one in which being and not being are one and the same (*bhāvābhāva-samānatā*)². The mind, indeed, ever tends to take things either as existing as this or the other (*ekatvānyatva*), as both or not both, as existing or not existing, or as eternal or transient, but all four modes of viewing things are incorrect. The true view is to regard things as void, and this can be done from various aspects. Thus we may remember that things are always interdependent, that they thus cannot have any nature of their own, and cannot be determined in terms of anything else, since, as they have no nature of their own, a reference to another nature does not serve as a determinant. Moreover, they can have no positive essence, since they spring up from a condition of natural non-existence. Or again, they are of an unknown type of non-existence (*apracarita-çūnyatā*), seeing that all the aggregates disappear in Nirvāṇa. Yet they appear phenomenally as connected, though void (*pracarita-çūnyatā*), since, while the aggregates have no real existence nor relations to others, they appear as if causally connected with other aggregates. Again, it is impossible to describe anything as having any definite character; their voidness is being inexpressible (*nirabhilāpya-çūnyatā*). There is no possibility of knowledge of things such as is brought by the effect of the obscuration of thought by defects which produce the illusion of experience. Further, things are void, since we assert their existence in time and place where they are not found (*itaretara-çūnyatā*). But in all cases we find ourselves confronted with the emptiness of our conceptions.

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¹ BCA. ix. 87; Viṃçaka, 12-14; MKV., p. 93; cf. Ui, VP., pp. 72 f.

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² MSA. xi. 41.

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What then is left in the universe, when the work of negation of reality and negation alike is completed? Nothing but a mere suchness or thusness (*tathatā*),¹ or voidness without origination or essence,² to which also the style is given of womb or source of the Tathāgata (*tathāgata-garbha*). We are, however, expressly warned by the *Laṅkāvatāra*³ against the heresy of deeming that this conception is parallel to the Brahman or absolute of the Vedānta. On the contrary, the term expresses merely the nature of all phenomena as without essence of any kind, and as free from all characteristics. But the term Tathāgatagarbha is admitted to be a concession to meet the feeling of those who regard the idea of unsubstantiality as open to objection; the Vijñānavāda in effect, like the Buddha himself, is prepared to temper its teaching to some measure to the minds of those to be instructed.

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¹ Laṅk., p. 70; MSA. ix. 5, 22, 57; xi. 41; xviii. 37; xix. 44-6.

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² Laṅk., p. 78.

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³ Laṅk., pp. 80 f. We see here the inruption of Vedānta influences; cf. JRAS. 1908, pp. 892 f.

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In any case, however, the precise solution of the metaphysical question is not of prime importance for a doctrine of salvation, as the Mahāyāna is as emphatically as the Hīnayāna; the essential thing is to concentrate on the triple meditation which purifies the thought, and tears away the veil of illusion. It is essential to recognize that the self or the external world is a mere imagination; to realize instead the fundamental truth of thought without any characteristic whatever: and to abstain from any desire with regard to this transcendent reality.

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The Nirvāṇa or release which is attained differs from that of the Hīnayāna because it rests on the realization of the nothingness and incomprehensibility of all phenomena, while the Śrāvakas are satisfied to know the momentary and painful character of all being. In this release all the impressions (*vāsanās*) which would normally manifest themselves in further thoughts and deeds are wiped out, and the mind ceases to act. This is not death, for there is no rebirth; it is not destruction, for destruction applies only to what is compound (*saṃskṛta*).¹ But how can this illusion cease? The Vijñānavāda, however, much as it denies it, seems to fall into the error charged against it by the Madhyamaka of allowing an unintelligible destruction of a real entity, namely the course of illusioned thought.

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¹ Laṅk., p. 100.

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According to the *Laṅkāvatāra* the attainment of the highest knowledge may be accomplished by Bodhisattvas through the realization that things are nothing but mental creations; that there is no origination, existence or destruction of things; that external things can be said to exist or not exist only in the sense of a mirage, being produced by mental impressions from of old, and through the true apprehension of things in their ultimate nature. To aid in the attainment of this end a special series of meditations (*dhyāna*) is prescribed, which are obviously intended to take the place of the inferior meditations of the Hīnayāna. The first is that of the Śrāvakas and solitary Buddhas; it dwells on the doctrines of the non-existence of the soul and the transitory, miserable, and impure character of the world, ending in the suppression of ideation. This practice for beginners (*bālopacārika*) is followed by the searching investigation of things (*artha-pravicaya*), which reveals not only that there is no self, but that the doctrine of the self and other heretical views cannot be said really to have any existence, and that the world of appearance is truly unreal. In the third meditation it is realized that the thought that there is no self and no appearance is itself an outcome of delusion, and the mind then falls back on the conception of suchness (*tathatā-lambana*), while in the fourth meditation the mind achieves the complete and perfect appreciation of the nothingness and the incomprehensibility of all phenomena.

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The Vijñānavāda, of course, did not satisfy the Madhyamaka, and two of the criticisms are of interest. It is impossible, it is argued,² to evade the heresies of existence and non-existence by the device of admitting the bare reality (*vastu-mātra*) of thought and its derivatives, the subject of defilement and purification which is relative or dependent (*paratantra*) reality—thus negating non-existence—and denying their possession of a peculiar nature of their own, which is imaginary (parikalpita)—thus evading the heresy of existence. The theory in fact falls into both heresies, since it denies imaginary existence and affirms relative reality. Moreover, the Madhyamaka views all relative reality as being qua caused without any existence of its own.

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² MKV., pp. 274 f.

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A second point of criticism is the assumption of the power of consciousness to know itself (svasaṃvitti, svasaṃvedanā), which the Vijñānavādins assert, and which is obviously essential to their view. The direct objection is the contradiction in the idea of anything acting on itself, as shown by the case of the edge of a knife which does not cut itself or the finger tip which cannot touch itself.¹ Indirectly² the argument of the Vijñānavāda, derived from comparison with a lamp which lights up itself as well as the object, is refuted by the refutation of the general doctrine of origination (utpāda), where the case of the lamp is disposed of. There is no darkness either in the lamp itself nor in the place where it is; therefore there can be no question of the lamp illuminating either itself or anything else. Nor is it any use to argue that the light destroys the darkness by coming into being, for when there is light there is no darkness; on the other hand if the light destroys the darkness without coming into contact, then it should destroy all the darkness in the universe. Moreover, the senses cannot experience themselves; the eye cannot see itself and so forth.³

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¹ Cf. Laṅk., pp. 51, 59; MKV., pp. 62, 63, 114; BCAP. ix. 18.

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² MK. vii. 9 ff.; BCA. ix. 18 ff.

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³ MK. iii. 2.

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Nor is there any force in the contention⁴ that self-consciousness is necessary to explain memory, since how else can we remember a thought? The answer is that, when an object has been perceived, there arises memory of it, and by association also of the perception of which it was the object. Equally impossible is it to strengthen the case by the power possessed in certain cases of magic to perceive the thought of another; by the use of certain unguents one can see a buried treasure, but another’s consciousness is, like it, essentially something different from one’s own consciousness. The further contention—that of Dignāga—that, if consciousness cannot know itself, it equally cannot know any object, and all experience is thus impossible, is denied; the Vijñānavāda by its effort to establish a relation between the true reality, void consciousness, and experience falls into hopeless difficulties; the Madhyamaka admits perception, inference, and authority as sources of experience,¹ but it asserts that on a critical examination the whole fabric of experience proves incapable of being sustained. Consciousness and its object cannot be identical, else there would be no subject and object; they cannot be different, since *ex hypothesi* there exists only consciousness; they cannot be both or neither, for these views are contradictory; in truth an unreal object is seen, an unreal consciousness sees. It is idle to argue that the unreal world of experience (*saṃsāra*) must have a foundation in the reality of void thought; the relation between unreal and real is unintelligible; the unreal cannot be stirred to activity by the real. It is equally wrong to talk of void consciousness, if there exist in it tendencies to create the distinction of subject and object.

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⁴ BCA. ix. 24 ff.

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¹ Cf. MKV., pp. 71 ff.

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The Vijñānavāda then makes an objection to the Madhyamaka position; granted that consciousness is unreal, how does the Madhyamaka arrive at the cessation of illusion and passion? the magician falls in love with the phantom of his creation. The answer is that the magician has not deprived himself of the tendency to regard things as existent; his knowledge of the unreality of his creation is inefficacious to destroy the natural emergence of passion. But, if one contemplates the void, one rids oneself first of the delusion of existence, and thereafter even of the delusion of non-existence and the end is reached.

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