Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c9.s3.25

c9.s3.25

The view of intuition as the source of true knowledge, and at the same time a decisive cause of emancipation from rebirth is characteristic of Buddhism as of the Upaniṣads, and explains why in neither do we find any serious contribution to epistemology. The Buddha, like the sage of the Upaniṣad, sees things as they truly are (yathābhūtaṃ) by a mystic potency, which is quite other than reasoning of the discursive type. The truth of his insight is assured by it alone, for it is obviously incapable of verification in any empirical manner. But the Canon does not treat intuition (paññā) as being wholly distinct from, and unconnected with, discursive knowledge; not only does the term continue to be used for the lower forms of knowledge, but stress² is laid on the fact that intuition is intimately connected with intelligence (viññāṇa), perception (saññā), and feeling, or, as it is elsewhere put, it is allied to deliberate and searching mental appreciation (yoniso manasikāra). But from intelligence intuition differs by reason that the former is to be understood, the latter to be cultivated and developed; in other words, by means of exercises of concentration, which form an essential part of the way of salvation, a high degree of intuitive power is to be attained, surpassing any mere understanding, a condition styled also complete knowledge (pariññā) and elimination (pahāna), the latter characteristic emphasizing the elimination of empirical factors of any kind. It may then be regarded as ‘that effort of intellectual sympathy by which the mind can place itself within the mobile reality of things’ in Bergsonian phraseology.