Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c24.s6: 6. The Doctrine of the Act and the Causal Series
Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c24.s6
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6. The Doctrine of the Act and the Causal Series
c24.s6.1
How far is it possible to reconcile the new doctrine with the metaphysical views of the Mahāyāna schools? The question is difficult, and not the less so because it is one which these schools themselves do not clearly pose or perhaps realize; in this, as always, Buddhist philosophy is content with partial enunciations and makes no effort to systematize its conceptions and reduce them to a coherent whole, even within the limits possible.
c24.s6.2
From the point of view of the Vijñānavāda there seems no chance of permitting either divine intervention or the transfer of merit; it denies the external world; it admits only the existence of thought series, self-determining, and the whole apparatus of salvation cannot be accorded any real basis. The case is not so simple with the Madhyamaka, which accepts the double form of the chain of causation, internal and external, though it denies either any absolute reality. It is true that, though the intervention of external objects thus becomes possible and in a sense real, as real as the intellectual elements, strictly speaking the material universe ought to provide its material forms for the carrying into effect of the fruition of earlier actions; the eye should give vision for enjoyment or misery to a being who has merited such recompense, just as the embryo is formed in the womb to receive such and such a consciousness.² Such a scheme, it is plain, excludes rigidly the freedom of the will, or any solidarity between men or super-men; there exist, we admit, numerous series, some alive, some without life, each causally determined, but without true interaction of any sort or kind.
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² Poussin, JA. 1903, ii. 442 ff. His view that the Pali Abhidhamma recognizes this doctrine is clearly invalid in view of KV. xvii. 3, for xvi. 3 is limited in application, dealing only with a form of transfer doctrine, not
c24.s6.4
But it does not seem that the Mahāyāna was content to rest in this position, though there is no formal abandonment of it.¹ We find, however, the chain of causation styled incomprehensible (acintya); compassion produces the knowledge of the true reality, despite the utter disparity of cause and effect; consciousness perceives an external object simultaneously.² Moreover, the problem of release is insoluble also; it appears that the thought of enlightenment contends with the sins of man,³ and that ultimately an innate tendency of the mind, without any effort being required, causes the balance to incline to the desired result. Is it not, then, possible that the mind whose resolves can mould nature should be able to affect other minds by the power of its will or desire? The formal application of one’s merit in the formula of truth (satya-vacana) avails to reanimate the dead; can it not equally create a good thought in the mind of another? Avalokita, we know, has consecrated his name for the comfort of all who invoke it,⁴ and, as Çāntideva tells us, ‘the Omniscient alone knoweth the incomprehensible path of action, in that he doth lead to release men even when they have abandoned thought of enlightenment.’⁵ There is room here for solidarity as well as liberty, but the Mahāyāna is too immeshed in its own negations to lead us to any effective development.
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¹ Poussin, JA. 1903, ii. 394, n. 2, 447 ff.
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² BCA. ix. 4; BCA. ix. 100. In the Nyāya Īçvara is incomprehensible, BCA. ix. 127, and so is the Buddha’s law and the happiness of his life; Ç., pp. 260, 213.
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³ BCA. iv. 11; cit. in Bhāmatī, p. 25; JBRAS. xviii. 343.
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⁴ BCA. viii. 118.
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⁵ BCA. iv. 27.
Linked texts (2)
- Kathāvatthu — Moggaliputta Tissa, Pāli
- Bodhicaryāvatāra — Śāntideva, Sanskrit