Tag Archives: pratityasamutpada

The Emptiness of Phenomena is not Nonexistence (Garfield)

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The Emptiness of Phenomena is not Nonexistence (from Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika, by Jay L. Garfield, in Buddhist Philosophy, Essential Readings, edited by William Edelglass and Jay L. Garfield, Oxford and New York 2009)

That all phenomena are dependently originated is the heart of Buddhist ontological theory. In the Mahayana tradition, this dependency is spelled out in three ways: all phenomena are dependent for their existence on complex networks of causes and conditions; a dollar bill, for instance, is dependent on the printing press that printed it, the miners who extracted the ore out of which the metal for the press was smelted, the trees that were pulped for the paper, the United States Treasury, and so on. All wholes are dependent on their parts, and parts on the wholes they help make up. The dollar bill depends for its existence on the particles of paper and ink that constiture it but also, for its existence as a dollar bill, on the entire economic system in which it figures. Finally, all phenomena are dependent for their identities on conceptual imputation. The dollar bill is only a dollar bill, as opposed to a bookmark, because the United States Treasury so designates it. To exist, according to Buddhist metaphysics [sic], simply is to exist dependently in these senses, and hence to be merely conventionally existent.

To exist dependently is, importantly, to be empty of essence. For a Madhyamika, like Nagarjuna, this emptiness of essence is the final mode of existence of any phenomenon, its ultimate truth. For to have an essence is to exist independently, to have one’s identity and to exist not in virtue of extrinsic relations, but simply in virtue of intrisic properties. Because all phenomena are interdependent, all are empty in this sense. Just as the conventional truth about phenomena is made up by their interdependence, their ultimate truth is their emptiness. These are the two truths that Nagarjuna adumbrates throughout his corpus.

It follows immediately that the emptiness of all phenomena that Nagarjuna defends is not nonexistence: to be empty of essence is not to be empty of existence. Instead, to exist is to be empty. It also follows that emptiness is not a deeper truth hidden behind a veil of illusion. The emptiness of any phenomenon is dependent of the existence of that phenomenon, and on its [inter]dependence, which is that in which its essenceless consists. Emptiness is itself dependent, and hence [also] empty. This doctrine of the emptiness of emptiness, and of the identity of interdependence, or conventional truth, and emptiness, or ultimate truth, is Nagarjuna’s deepest philosophical achievement. The two truths are different from one another in that the ultimate is the object of enlightened knowledge and liberating, while the conventional is apprehended by ordinary people through mundane cognitive processes. Nonetheless, they are in a deep sense identical. To be empty of essence is simply to exist only conventionally. The conditions of conventional existence are interdependence and impermanence, which, as we have seen, for Nagarjuna, entail essencelessness.

The Origins of the Madhyamaka Philosophy (Della Santina)

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The Origins of the Madhyamaka Philosophy (from Madhyamaka Schools in India – A Study of the Madhyamaka Philosophy and of the Division of the System into the Prasangika and Svatantrika Schools, by Peter Della Santina, 1986, Delhi 1995)

We have suggested that the Madhyamaka philosophy is founded upon an interpretation of the fundamental Buddhist doctrine of interdependent origination. While the Abhidharmika schools, the Vaibhasikas and the Sautrantikas understood the doctrine of interdependent origination propounded by the Buddha Shakyamuni to mean the temporal succession of momentary and discrete existences which were in themselves real, the Madhyamika interpreted the doctrine of interdependent origination to signify the universal relativity and unreality of all phenomena. According to the Madhyamika, the doctrine of interdependent origination is meant to indicate the dependence of all entities upon other entities. This is equivalent to their lack of self-existence (svabhava) and emptiness (shunyata).

The interpretation advocated by the Madhyamika is in complete agreement with some of the utterances of the Buddha recorded in the Pali canon. The following passage from the Majjhima Nikaya may be offered as evidence of this fact. The Buddha declared that form, feeling and the like are illusory, mere bubbles: “Dependent on the oil and the wick does light in the lamp burn; it is neither in the one nor in the other, nor anything in itself; phenomena are, likewise, nothing in themselves. All things are unreal, they are deceptions; Nibbana is the only truth.”

In the Shunyatasaptati Nagarjuna writes: “Since the own-being of all entities is not in (the individual) causes and conditions, nor in the aggregation of causes and conditions, nor in any entity whatsoever, i.e. not in all (of these), therefore all entities are empty in their own being.” In the Ratnavali it is also stated: “When this exists that arises, like short when there is long. When this is produced, so is that, like light from a flame. When there is long there must be short; they exist not through their own nature, just as without a flame light too does not arise.” Again Nagarjuna points out that the Buddha declared that elements are deceptive and unreal. Therefore he says: “The Buddha simply expounded the significance of emptiness (shunyata).” He has also said in the Shunyatasaptati that whatever originates dependently as well as that upon which it depends for its origination does not exist. Nagarjuna precisely indicates the standpoint of the Madhyamika in the following stanza found in the Mulamadhyamakakarika: “We declare that whatever is interdependently originated is emptiness (shunyata). It is a conceptual designation of the relativity of existence and is indeed the middle path.” “No element can exist,” he writes, “which does not participate in interdependence. Therefore no element which is not of the nature of emptiness can exist.”

The Doctrine of Pratitya-samutpada (Narain)

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The doctrine of pratitya-samutpada (from The Madhyamika Mind, by Prof. Harsh Narain, Delhi 1997)

The doctrine of universal relativity (pratitya-samutpada) is the stepping stone to the doctrine of sunyata. The knowledge of the former at once leads to the knowledge of the latter. Their relation is so intimate that Nagarjuna has no hesitation in identifying the two. He observes, “What is relativity we call sunyata. It [sunyata] is relative being (upadaya prajñapti). It is the middle path”. This proposition is pregnant with implications. The Madhyamika turned pratitya-samutpada, literally and originally conditioned/dependent origination, into pratitya-samutpada as dependent or relative being, as relativity. He had better replace the term with pratitya-samutpapada. In this sense, however, he expresses pratitya-samutpada otherwise as upadaya-prañapti (relative appearance, relative being, relativity). In fact, pratitya-samutpada, which emerged in the Pali canon as a theory of causation, became at the Madhyamika´s hands tantamount to a veritable denial of causation. Indeed, Nagarjuna´s verdict is that what has come into being through causes and conditions has in fact not come into being at all, and, since it has not come into being, it is sunya, void, pure and simple. It is significant that Candrakirti interprets pratitya-samutpada to mean ´non-origination by nature´ (svabhavenanutpadah).

Nagarjuna’s suggestion is that his denial of the world does not imply belief in another order of reality like the Absolute, immanent in or transcendent to phenomena. It is quite in conformity to the spirit of the Prajñaparamita texts, which refuse to set sunyata over against the dharmas and to acknowledge positive knowledge of any such reality in the highest wisdom conceived by them. Nagarjuna himself expresses the view that sunyata is nothing other than existents and that there is no existent without sunyata. Advayavajra follows suit. Prajñakaramati expresses himself categorically against the attempt to install sunyata over against the realm of being: “Sunyata is not different from being, for being itself is of the nature of that; otherwise, in the event of sunyata’s being different from being, there would be no essencelessness of the dharmas.”

Hua-yen is difficult to summarize (Cook)

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Hua-yen is difficult to summarize (from Fa-tsang’s Brief Commentary, by Francis H. Cook, in Mahayana Buddhist Meditation, edited by Minoru Kiyota, 1978, Delhi 1991)

Hua-yen totalism is difficult to summarize briefly. The concrete world “out there” is a perfect fusion of the phenomenal shih and absolute li, of form se and emptiness k’ung. To say that something is empty is to say that it lacks any kind of self-existence (svabhava), and while the external world appears to be divided into many separate entities, each with a distinct form and function, all are alike empty of any substance or essence which would make them truly distinct and independent. Thus, to speak of the static relationship between things, things can be said to be essentially identical, i.e. empty of self-existence. However, this emptiness is never found apart from concrete reality, apart from “form”, to use the sutra terminology; emptiness is expressed in forms, and these forms are seen as exerting causal influences on each other. Thus to speak of their dynamic relationship, things can be said to be interdependent. Now, while it may seem strange to speak of a cosmos in which all things are identical and interdependent, these two relationships are nothing but other ways of saying that everything is empty, sarvam shunyam.

The result of this sort of analysis of the mode of being of the dharmadhatu is a de-emphasis of the differences between things and an emphasis on seeing being in its totality. Distinctions are submerged, hierarchies disappear, past, present, and future merge, and in this vast organism of interdependent parts, any part acts simultaneously as cause and effect. There is, then, a very intimate relationship between any one individual and all other individuals (or the totality). Because each and all other individuals are lacking in self-existence and have their being purely through intercausality, the whole is dependent on the part, because without the part, there can be no whole. (It must be remembered that each part has this relationship to the whole simultaneously.) At the same time, however, the part has not existence and no meaning outside the context of the totality, because is is a part of the whole. Thus, the part creates the whole and the whole creates the part, in a view of existence which Hua-yen calls fa-chieh yuan-ch’i or the interdependent origination of the cosmos (in Sanskrit dharmadhatu pratityasamutpada). Along with this interdependence, there is a relationship of essential identity among the parts of the whole.

The final consequence of this view of being is a doctrine of the completely free interfusion, or interpenetration, of the parts in the whole, and this is the distinctively Hua-yen doctrine of shih shih wu-ai, the non-impediment of a thing with any other thing. For instance, though the present is the present, because of the principle of interdependence (emptiness), the present includes past and future, which remain past and future. Or, to give another example, the practices of the boddhisattva can rightly be seen as the cause of Buddhahood-effect, but because of emptiness, they can be seen as result, because they too, in their emptiness, are merely manifestations of the Buddha [the whole]. If, as Hua-yen claims, the dharmadhatu is the body of Vairocana, where can I not find the Buddha? Everything, in fact, in the Hua-yen cosmos is worthy of respect and honor, because everything manifests the totality of being and reality.