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A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy
Blackwell Companions to Philosophy
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4. A Companion to Epistemology, Second EditionEdited by Jonathan Dancy, Ernest Sosa, and Matthias Steup
5. A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy (two-volume set), Second EditionEdited by Robert E. Goodin and Philip Pettit
6. A Companion to Philosophy of MindEdited by Samuel Guttenplan
7. A Companion to Metaphysics, Second EditionEdited by Jaegwon Kim, Ernest Sosa, and Gary S. Rosenkrantz
8. A Companion to Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory, Second EditionEdited by Dennis Patterson
9. A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, Second EditionEdited by Charles Taliaferro, Paul Draper, and Philip L. Quinn
10. A Companion to the Philosophy of LanguageEdited by Bob Hale and Crispin Wright
11. A Companion to World PhilosophiesEdited by Eliot Deutsch and Ron Bontekoe
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21. A Companion to GenethicsEdited by Justine Burley and John Harris
22. A Companion to Philosophical LogicEdited by Dale Jacquette
23. A Companion to Early Modern PhilosophyEdited by Steven Nadler
24. A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle AgesEdited by Jorge J. E. Gracia and Timothy B. Noone
25. A Companion to African-American PhilosophyEdited by Tommy L. Lott and John P. Pittman
26. A Companion to Applied EthicsEdited by R. G. Frey and Christopher Heath Wellman
27. A Companion to the Philosophy of EducationEdited by Randall Curren
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30. A Companion to RationalismEdited by Alan Nelson
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32. A Companion to Ancient PhilosophyEdited by Mary Louise Gill and Pierre Pellegrin
33. A Companion to NietzscheEdited by Keith Ansell Pearson
34. A Companion to SocratesEdited by Sara Ahbel-Rappe and Rachana Kamtekar
35. A Companion to Phenomenology and ExistentialismEdited by Hubert L. Dreyfus and Mark A. Wrathall
36. A Companion to KantEdited by Graham Bird
37. A Companion to PlatoEdited by Hugh H. Benson
38. A Companion to DescartesEdited by Janet Broughton and John Carriero
39. A Companion to the Philosophy of BiologyEdited by Sahotra Sarkar and Anya Plutynski
40. A Companion to HumeEdited by Elizabeth S. Radcliffe
41. A Companion to the Philosophy of History and HistoriographyEdited by Aviezer Tucker
42. A Companion to AristotleEdited by Georgios Anagnostopoulos
43. A Companion to the Philosophy of TechnologyEdited by Jan-Kyrre Berg Olsen, Stig Andur Pedersen, and Vincent F. Hendricks
44. A Companion to Latin American PhilosophyEdited by Susana Nuccetelli, Ofelia Schutte, and Otávio Bueno
45. A Companion to the Philosophy of LiteratureEdited by Garry L. Hagberg and Walter Jost
46. A Companion to the Philosophy of ActionEdited by Timothy O’Connor and Constantine Sandis
47. A Companion to RelativismEdited by Steven D. Hales
48. A Companion to HegelEdited by Stephen Houlgate and Michael Baur
49. A Companion to SchopenhauerEdited by Bart Vandenabeele
50. A Companion to Buddhist PhilosophyEdited by Steven M. Emmanuel
Forthcoming:
A Companion to Rawls, Edited by Jon Mandle and David ReidyA Companion to Foucault, Edited by Chris Falzon, Timothy O’Leary, and Jana SawickiA Companion to Derrida, Edited by Leonard Lawlor and Zeynep DirekA Companion to Locke, Edited by Matthew Stuart
A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy
Edited by
Steven M. Emmanuel
A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication
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A companion to Buddhist philosophy / edited by Steven M. Emmanuel. pages cm – (Blackwell companions to philosophy ; 139) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-470-65877-2 (hardback) 1. Buddhist philosophy. I. Emmanuel, Steven M., editor of compilation. B162.C66 2013 181'.043–dc23 2012036590
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Cover image: Statue of Buddha, Sukhothai, Thailand. Photo © Paul Davis.Cover design by Nicki Averill Design and Illustration.
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Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a partOf me and of my soul, as I of them?
– Lord Byron
vii
Notes on Contributors xi
Acknowledgments xviii
List of Abbreviations xix
Introduction 1StevenM.Emmanuel
Part I Conceptual Foundations 11
1 The Philosophical Context of Gotama’s Thought 13StephenJ.Laumakis
2 Dukkha, Non-Self, and the Teaching on the Four “Noble Truths” 26PeterHarvey
3 The Conditioned Co-arising of Mental and Bodily Processes within Life and Between Lives 46PeterHarvey
Part II Major Schools of Buddhist Thought 69
4 Theravāda 71AndrewSkilton
5 Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism 86JamesBlumenthal
6 Tibetan Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna 99DouglasDuckworth
7 East Asian Buddhism 110RonaldS.Green
Contents
contents
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Part III Themes in Buddhist Philosophy 127
A. Metaphysics 129
8 Metaphysical Issues in Indian Buddhist Thought 129JanWesterhoff
9 Emptiness in Mahāyāna Buddhism: Interpretations and Comparisons 151DavidBurton
10 Practical Applications of the Perfectionof WisdomSūtra and Madhyamaka in the Kālacakra Tantric Tradition 164VesnaA.Wallace
11 The Huayan Metaphysics of Totality 180AlanFox
12 Forms of Emptiness in Zen 190BretW.Davis
13 Between the Horns of Idealism and Realism: The Middle Way of Madhyamaka 214GrahamPriest
B. Epistemology 223
14 A Survey of Early Buddhist Epistemology 223JohnJ.Holder
15 Reason and Experience in Buddhist Epistemology 241ChristianCoseru
16 The Three Truths in Tiantai Buddhism 256BrookZiporyn
17 “Spiritual Exercise” and Buddhist Epistemologists in India and Tibet 270MatthewT.Kapstein
18 Yogic Perception, Meditation, and Enlightenment: The Epistemological Issues in a Key Debate 290TomJ.F.Tillemans
C. Language and Logic 307
19 Language and Logic in Indian Buddhist Thought 307BrendanS.Gillon
20 Buddhist Philosophy of Logic 320KojiTanaka
21 Candrakīrti on the Limits of Language and Logic 331KarenC.Lang
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22 On the Value of Speaking and Not Speaking: Philosophy of Language in Zen Buddhism 349StevenHeine
23 The Voice of Another: Speech, Responsiveness, and Buddhist Philosophy 366RichardF.Nance
D. Philosophy of Mind 377
24 Mind in Theravāda Buddhism 377MariaHeim
25 Philosophy of Mind in Buddhism 395RichardP.Hayes
26 Cognition, Phenomenal Character, and Intentionality in Tibetan Buddhism 405JonathanStoltz
27 The Non-Self Theory and Problems in Philosophy of Mind 419JoergTuske
E. Ethics and Moral Philosophy 429
28 Ethical Thought in Indian Buddhism 429ChristopherW.Gowans
29 Character, Disposition, and the Qualities of the Arahats as a Means of Communicating Buddhist Philosophy in the Suttas 452SarahShaw
30 Compassion and the Ethics of Violence 466StephenJenkins
31 Buddhist Ethics and Western Moral Philosophy 476WilliamEdelglass
F. Social and Political Philosophy 491
32 The Enlightened Sovereign: Buddhism and Kingship in India and Tibet 491GeorgiosT.Halkias
33 Political Interpretations of the LotusSūtra 512JamesMarkShields
34 Socially Engaged Buddhism: Emerging Patterns of Theory and Practice 524ChristopherS.Queen
35 Comparative Reflections on Buddhist Political Thought: Aśoka, Shambhala and the General Will 536DavidCummiskey
contents
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Part IV Buddhist Meditation 553
36 Buddhist Meditation: Theory and Practice 555CharlesGoodman
37 Seeing Mind, Being Body: Contemplative Practice and Buddhist Epistemology 572AnneCarolynKlein
38 From the Five Aggregates to Phenomenal Consciousness: Towards a Cross-Cultural Cognitive Science 585JakeH.DavisandEvanThompson
Part V Contemporary Issues and Applications 599
39 Buddhism and Environmental Ethics 601SimonP.James
40 Buddhism and Biomedical Issues 613DamienKeown
41 War and Peace in Buddhist Philosophy 631SallieB.King
42 Buddhist Perspectives on Human Rights 651KarmaLeksheTsomo
43 Buddhist Perspectives on Gender Issues 663RitaM.Gross
44 Diversity Matters: Buddhist Reflections on the Meaning of Difference 675PeterD.Hershock
Further Reading 693
Index 696
xi
Notes on Contributors
James Blumenthal is Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department at Oregon State University and founding faculty member at Maitripa College, Portland. He is the author of numerous articles and books on Buddhism, including The Ornament of the Middle Way: A Study of the Madhyamaka Thought of Śāntarakṣita (Snow Lion, 2004), editor of Incompatible Visions: South Asian Religions in History and Culture (University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), and co-author (with Geshe Lhundup Sopa) of Steps on the Path to Enlightenment: A Commentary on Tsongkhapa’s Lamrim Chenmo, Vol. 4: Samatha (Wisdom, 2012). In 2004 he had the honor of translating Nāgārjuna’s “Sixty Stanzas of Reasoning” for His Holiness the Dalai Lama on the occasion of his public lectures on the text in Pasadena, California.
David Burton is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Canterbury Christ Church University in the UK. Along with a number of articles, he has published two books: Buddhism, Knowledge and Liberation: A Philosophical Study (Ashgate, 2004) and Emptiness Appraised: A Critical Study of Nāgārjuna’s Philosophy (RoutledgeCurzon, 1999).
Christian Coseru is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the College of Charleston, South Carolina. He is the author of several articles on Buddhist philosophy and a book, Perceiving Reality: Consciousness, Intentionality, and Cognition in Buddhist Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2012).
David Cummiskey is Professor of Philosophy at Bates College, Lewiston, Maine. He is the author of Kantian Consequentialism (Oxford University Press, 1996), and his recent articles include “Competing Conceptions of the Self in Kantian and Buddhist Moral Theories,” in Cultivating Personhood: Kant and Asian Philosophy (Walter de Gruyter, 2010), “The Law of Peoples,” in The Morality and Global Justice Reader (Westview Press, 2011), and “Dignity, Contractualism, and Consequentialism,” in Utilitas, 20/4 (2008).
Bret W. Davis is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University Maryland. Among his books are Heidegger and the Will: On the Way to Gelassenheit (Northwestern University Press, 2007); co-edited with Brian Schroeder and Jason M. Wirth, Japanese and Continental Philosophy: Conversations with the Kyoto School (Indiana University Press,
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2011); and co-edited with Fujita Masakatsu, Sekai no naka no Nihon no tetsugaku (Japa-nese Philosophy in the World) (Showado, 2005). He has also published numerous articles in English and in Japanese on continental and comparative philosophy, on the Kyoto School, and on Zen.
Jake H. Davis is a doctoral student in philosophy and cognitive science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, visiting faculty at the Barre Center for Bud-dhist Studies, Massachusetts, and a visiting scholar in psychiatry at Brown University. He trained in Buddhist theory and meditative practice under the meditation master Sayadaw U Pandita of Burma and served for a decade as an interpreter between Burmese and English for meditation retreats in Burma and abroad.
Douglas Duckworth is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Humanities at East Tennessee State University. He is the author of Mipam on Buddha-Nature: The Ground of the Nyingma Tradition (SUNY Press, 2008) and Jamgön Mipam: His Life and Teachings (Shambhala, 2011). He also translated Bötrül’s Distinguishing the Views and Philosophies: Illuminating Emptiness in a Twentieth-Century Tibetan Buddhist Classic (SUNY Press, 2011).
William Edelglass is Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies at Marlboro College, Vermont. Previously he taught at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Dhar-amsala, India. He has published widely in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, environmental philosophy, and contemporary continental philosophy. He is co-editor of the journal Environmental Philosophy and of Facing Nature: Levinas and Environmental Philosophy (Duquesne University Press, 2012), Buddhist Philosophy: Essential Readings (Oxford University Press, 2009), and The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy (2010).
Alan Fox is Professor of Asian and Comparative Philosophy and Religion in the Philosophy Department at the University of Delaware. He has published on Chinese Buddhism and philosophical Daoism. His publications include “Self-Reflection in the Sanlun Tradition: Madhyamika as the Deconstructive Conscience of Buddhism,” in the Journal of Chinese Philosophy (March 1992), “Process Ecology and ‘Ideal Dao,’” in the Journal of Chinese Philosophy (March 2005), and “Dushun’s Huayan Fajie Guan Men (Meditative Approaches to the Huayana Dharmadātu),” in Buddhist Philosophy: Essen-tial Readings (Oxford University Press, 2009).
Brendan S. Gillon is Professor of Linguistics at McGill University. He has research interests in the history of logic and metaphysics in India, Sanskrit linguistics, and natural language semantics, and has published extensively in all of these areas. He is editor of Logic in Earliest Classical India (Motilal Banarsidass, 2010) and co-editor of Semantics: A Reader (Oxford University Press, 2004). In collaboration with Richard Hayes, he has translated the first 38 verses and their prose commentary of Dhar-makīrti’s Svarthanumana chapter of the Pramanavarttika.
Charles Goodman is Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department and the Department of Asian and Asian-American Studies at Binghamton University. He is the author of several published articles on Buddhist philosophy and of the book Consequences of Compassion: An Interpretation and Defense of Buddhist Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2009).
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Christopher W. Gowans is Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University. He is the editor of Moral Disagreements (Routledge, 2000) and Moral Dilemmas (Oxford University Press, 1989) and the author of Philosophy of the Buddha (Routledge, 2003).
Ronald S. Green is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Reli-gious Studies at Coastal Carolina University, South Carolina. He is an editor of a book series on religions and social engagement which includes Buddhist Roles in Peacemaking: How Buddhism can Contribute to Sustainable Peace (Blue Pine Books, 2009). His research focuses on East Asian developments of Yogācāra and tantric Buddhist philosophy.
Rita M. Gross, before her retirement, was for twenty-five years Professor of Compara-tive Studies in Religion at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. She is a well-known Dharma teacher and the author of many books and articles. Her best-known books are Buddhism after Patriarchy (SUNY Press, 1993), Feminism and Religion: An Introduction (Beacon Press, 1996), and A Garland of Feminist Reflections: Forty Years of Religious Exploration (University of California Press, 2009). She was co-editor of Buddhist–Chris-tian Studies for ten years and has been active in inter-religious discussion.
Georgios T. Halkias is Research Fellow and Coordinator of Religions of Central Asia at the Centre of Religious Studies at the Ruhr University in Bochum and a Fellow at the Oxford Centre of Buddhist Studies. Among his publications are Luminous Bliss: A Reli-gious History of Pure Land Literature in Tibet (University of Hawai‘i Press) and a number of articles on Tibetan and Central Asian Buddhism and history and interdisciplinary studies in religion.
Peter Harvey is Emeritus Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Sunderland in the UK. His research focuses on early Buddhist thought and practices and Buddhist ethics. He is the editor of Buddhist Studies Review and the author of An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices (Cambridge University Press, 1990, 2nd edn 2012), The Selfless Mind: Personality, Consciousness and Nirvana in Early Buddhism (Curzon Press, 1995), and An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics: Foundations, Values and Practices (Cambridge University Press, 2000). He is currently working on Spiritual Nobility in Early Buddhism: Noble Path, Noble Persons, and the Four True Realities that They See.
Richard P. Hayes is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of New Mexico. He earned his doctorate in Sanskrit and Indian studies at the University of Toronto. He has taught in the departments of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Toronto and McGill University and as Numata guest professor of Buddhism at Leiden University.
Maria Heim is Associate Professor of Buddhist Studies at Amherst College, Massa-chusetts. She holds a BA from Reed College and a PhD in Sanskrit and Indian studies from Harvard University. She works on South Asian Buddhism, particularly on Theravāda, and is currently focusing on the thought of Buddhaghosa. She is interested in moral psychology and is completing a book on Theravāda understandings of agency and intention in the different canonical and commentarial genres of the Pāli literature.
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Steven Heine is Professor of Religious Studies and History as well as Associate Director of the School of International and Public Affairs and Director of Asian Studies at Florida International University. His research specialty is the origins and development of Zen Buddhism, especially the life and teachings of Dōgen, founder of the Sōtō sect. He has published two dozen books, including The Zen Poetry of Dōgen (Tuttle, 1997) and, with Oxford University Press, Opening a Mountain (2002), Did Dōgen Go to China? (2006), Zen Masters (2010), and Dōgen: Textual and Historical Studies (2012).
Peter D. Hershock is Director of the Asian Studies Development Program at the East–West Center in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. His research has focused mainly on using Buddhist conceptual resources to address contemporary issues. Among his books are Liberating Intimacy: Enlightenment and Social Virtuosity in Ch’an Buddhism (SUNY Press, 1996), Reinventing the Wheel: A Buddhist Response to the Information Age (SUNY Press, 1999), Chan Buddhism (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2005), Buddhism in the Public Sphere: Reorienting Global Interdependence (Routledge, 2006), and Valuing Diver-sity: Buddhist Reflection on Realizing a More Equitable Global Future (SUNY Press, 2012).
John J. Holder is Associate Professor of Philosophy at St. Norbert College, Wisconsin. He is the author of Early Buddhist Discourses (Hackett, 2006), a volume containing English translations of Pāli discourses that are essential for the study of early Buddhist philosophy. He has also published articles on early Buddhist epistemology, ethics, and social theory. His research focus is on comparative philosophy, specifically comparing early Buddhism and classical American pragmatism with the aim of developing a natu-ralistic theory of aesthetics and religious meaning.
Simon P. James is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Durham University in the UK. He is the author of Zen Buddhism and Environmental Ethics (Ashgate, 2004), The Presence of Nature: A Study in Phenomenology and Environmental Philosophy (Palgrave, 2009), and (with David E. Cooper) Buddhism, Virtue and Environment (Ashgate, 2005).
Stephen Jenkins is Professor of Religious Studies at Humboldt State University. His research is focused on Buddhist concepts of compassion, their philosophical grounding, and their ethical implications. His current work explores these themes in justifications of warfare, penal codes, compassionate killing, tantric sādhanas for killing, and the Aśokan edicts.
Matthew T. Kapstein is currently Director of Tibetan Studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris and Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. His publications include The Tibetan Assim-ilation of Buddhism: Conversion, Contestation, and Memory (Oxford University Press, 2000), Reason’s Traces: Identity and Interpretation in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist Thought (Wisdom, 2001), The Tibetans (Blackwell, 2006), and, in the Clay Sanskrit Series, The Rise of Wisdom Moon (New York University Press, 2009).
Damien Keown is Emeritus Professor of Buddhist Ethics at Goldsmiths College, Uni-versity of London. His main research interests are theoretical and applied aspects of Buddhist ethics, with particular reference to contemporary issues. He is the author of many books and articles, among them The Nature of Buddhist Ethics (Palgrave, 2001), Buddhism and Bioethics (Palgrave, 2001), Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction
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(Oxford University Press, 2000), Buddhist Ethics: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2006), and the Oxford Dictionary of Buddhism (2003). In 1994 he founded the Journal of Buddhist Ethics with Charles S. Prebish, with whom he also co-founded the Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism Series, and co-edited the Routledge Encyclopedia of Buddhism.
Sallie B. King is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at James Madison University, Virginia. She is the author of Buddha Nature (SUNY Press, 1991), Journey in Search of the Way: The Spiritual Autobiography of Satomi Myodo (SUNY Press, 1993), Being Benevo-lence: The Social Ethics of Engaged Buddhism (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2005), and Socially Engaged Buddhism (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009). She is co-editor (with Christopher S. Queen) of Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia (SUNY Press, 1996) and (with Paul O. Ingram) of The Sound of Liberating Truth: Bud-dhist–Christian Dialogues in Honor of Frederick J. Streng (Curzon Press, 1999).
Anne Carolyn Klein is Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University and a founding director and resident teacher of the Dawn Mountain Center, Houston. Her work centers on the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and its Indian roots, with a special interest in the interplay between intellectual understanding and contemplative practice. She is the author or translator of six books, notably Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse: A Story of Transmission (Snow Lion, 2010) and the recently republished Meeting the Great Bliss Queen (Snow Lion, 2008).
Karen C. Lang is Professor of Indian Religions in the Department of Religious Studies and two-time Director of the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Virginia. Her publications include Four Illusions: Candrakīrti’s Advice for Travelers on the Bodhisattva Path (Oxford University Press, 2003) and Āryadeva’s Catuḥśataka: On the Bodhisattva’s Cultivation of Merit and Knowledge (Akademisk Forlag, 1986), as well as numerous articles on Buddhist philosophy and literature. She has been a member of the team that produced the first English translation of Tsongkhapa’s The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment. Her primary research and transla-tion interests focus on the work of the seventh-century Indian Buddhist philosopher Candrakīrti.
Stephen J. Laumakis is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Aquinas Scholars Honors Program at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. Among his publications are articles in East–West Connections: Review of Asian Studies, the Modern Schoolman, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, and a book, An Introduction to Bud-dhist Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2008).
Richard F. Nance is Assistant Professor of South Asian Buddhism in the Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University. He has published work in the Journal of Indian Philosophy, Religion Compass, and the Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, and is the author of Speaking for Buddhas: Scriptural Commentary in Indian Bud-dhism (Columbia University Press, 2012).
Graham Priest is Boyce Gibson Professor of Philosophy at the University of Mel-bourne, Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and Arché Professorial Fellow at the University of St. Andrews. His books include
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In Contradiction (Nijhoff, 1987), Beyond the Limits of Thought (Clarendon Press, 2002), Towards Non-Being (Clarendon Press, 2005), Doubt Truth to be a Liar (Clarendon Press, 2006), and Introduction to Non-Classical Logic (Cambridge University Press, 2008).
Christopher S. Queen is Lecturer on Buddhism and World Religions at Harvard Uni-versity. Among his publications are Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia (with Sallie King; SUNY Press, 1996); American Buddhism: Methods and Findings in Recent Scholarship (with Duncan Williams; Curzon Press, 1999); Engaged Buddhism in the West (Wisdom 2000); and Action Dharma: New Studies in Engaged Buddhism (with Charles Prebish and Damien Keown; RoutledgeCurzon, 2003).
Sarah Shaw has membership of the Faculty of Oriental Studies and Wolfson College, Oxford University, and is an honorary fellow of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies. She is the author of a number of books on Buddhist meditation and narrative, including Buddhist Meditation: An Anthology of Texts from the Pali Canon (Routledge, 2006) and Introduction to Buddhist Meditation (Routledge, 2008). She is also co-editor (with Linda Covill and Ulrike Roesler) of Lives Lived, Lives Imagined: Biographies of Awakening (Wisdom, 2010).
James Mark Shields is Assistant Professor of Comparative Humanities and Asian Thought at Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and Research Associate at the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies, Harvard University. He is the author of Critical Buddhism: Engaging with Modern Japanese Buddhist Thought (Ashgate, 2011) and co-editor (with Victor Sōgen Hori and Richard P. Hayes) of Teaching Buddhism in the West: From the Wheel to the Web (Routledge, 2003). He is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Warp and Woof: Modernism and Progressivism in Japanese Buddhism, 1886–1936.
Andrew Skilton is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Theology and Reli-gious Studies at King’s College London and Spalding Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge. His research focuses on textual sources from Indian and South-East Asian Buddhism in Sanskrit and Pāli.
Jonathan Stoltz is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. He has authored papers on Buddhist epistemology in numerous journals, including Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophy East and West, and the Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies. He is currently writing a book on phi-losophy of mind in twelfth-century Tibetan Buddhism.
Koji Tanaka is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. A specialist in logic and Buddhist philosophy, he contributed “A Dharmakirtian Critique of Nagarjunians” to Pointing at the Moon (Oxford University Press, 2009) and is a co-author of Moonshadows: Conventional Truth in Buddhist Philoso-phy (Oxford University Press, 2011).
Evan Thompson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind (Harvard Uni-versity Press, 2007), co-author of The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human
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Experience (MIT Press, 1991), and co-editor of Self, No Self? Perspectives from Analytical, Phenomenological, and Indian Traditions (Oxford University Press, 2010).
Tom J. F. Tillemans is Emeritus Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. He is the author of many books and articles on Buddhism and currently serves as editor in chief of the “84000” (see http://84000.co), a long-term project to translate Buddhist canonical literature.
Joerg Tuske is Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department at Salisbury Univer-sity in Maryland. His main interest lies in Sanskrit philosophy, especially in the debate about the ātman. His publications include “Teaching by Example: An Interpretation of the Role of Upamana in Early Nyaya Philosophy,” in Asian Philosophy (2008), and “Dignaga and the Raven Paradox,” in the Journal of Indian Philosophy (1998).
Karma Lekshe Tsomo is Associate Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Diego, where she teaches courses on Bud-dhism, world religions, comparative religious ethics, and death and afterlife. She studied Buddhism in Dharamsala, India, for 15 years and received a doctorate in comparative philosophy from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, with research on death and iden-tity in China and Tibet. Her publications include Sisters in Solitude: Two Traditions of Buddhist Monastic Ethics for Women (SUNY Press, 1996), Into the Jaws of Yama, Lord of Death: Buddhism, Bioethics, and Death (SUNY Press, 2006), and a number of edited volumes on women in Buddhism.
Vesna A. Wallace is Professor of Buddhist Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her areas of research are Indian Buddhism and Mongolian Buddhism. She has published three books related to the Kālacakratantra and a series of articles on the Kālacakra tantric tradition and Mongo-lian Buddhism.
Jan Westerhoff is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Durham and Research Associate in the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is the author of numerous articles and books on Buddhism, including The Dispeller of Dis-putes: Nāgārjuna’s Vigrahavyāvartanī (Oxford University Press, 2010) and Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka: A Philosophical Investigation (Oxford University Press, 2009).
Brook Ziporyn is Professor of Chinese Philosophy, Religion, and Comparative Thought at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago and Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore. His published books include Evil and/or/as the Good: Omni-centrism, Intersubjectivity, and Value Paradox in Tiantai Buddhist Thought (Harvard University Press, 2000), The Penumbra Unbound: The Neo-Taoist Philosophy of Guo Xiang (SUNY Press, 2003), Being and Ambiguity: Philosophical Experiments with Tiantai Bud-dhism (Open Court, 2004) and Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings with Selections from Traditional Commentaries (Hackett, 2009).
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Acknowledgments
A volume such as this is only possible because of the efforts of many talented people. I would therefore like to express my sincere gratitude to the contributors, with whom it has been both an honor and a great pleasure to collaborate on this project. I would also like to thank Caroline Richmond for her careful editorial work in preparing the final manuscript for publication, and Sue Leigh for her patient diligence in seeing the volume through the final stages of production.
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List of Abbreviations
Bibliographical
AKB Vasubandhu, Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣyam. Trans. L. M. Pruden from Louis de La Valleé Poussin’s French translation of Abhidharmakośabhāṣyam. 4 vols. Berke-ley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1991.
AN Aṅguttara Nikāya: The Book of the Gradual Sayings. Trans. F. L. Woodward and E. M. Hare. 5 vols. London: PTS, 1932–6; The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha. Trans. Bhikkhu Bodhi. Boston: Wisdom, 2012.
BW Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon. Boston: Wisdom, 2005.
CŚ Āryadeva’s Catuḥśataka: On the Bodhisattva’s Cultivation of Merit and Knowledge. Trans. Karen Lang. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1986.
Dhp. Dhammapada: The Word of the Doctrine. Trans. K. R. Norman. London: PTS, 1997; The Dhammapada. Trans. V. Roebuck. London: Penguin, 2010.
Dhs. Dhammasangani: A Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics. Trans. C. A. F. Rhys Davids. Third edn. London and Boston: PTS, 1974.
Dhs-a Aṭṭhasālinī: Commentary on the Dhammasangaṇī. The Expositor. Trans. Pe Maung Tin. 2 vols. London: PTS, 1920–1.
DN Dīgha Nikāya: Dialogues of the Buddha. Trans. T. W. Rhys Davids and C. A. F. Rhys Davids. 3 vols. London: PTS, 1899–1921; Long Discourses of the Buddha. Trans. M. Walshe. Second rev. edn. Boston: Wisdom, 1996.
DN-a Dīgha Nikāya Aṭṭhakathā (Sumaṅgalavilāsinī). Commentary on DN.It. The Itivuttaka. Trans. P. Masefield. London: PTS, 2000.J The Jātaka, or, Stories of the Buddha’s Former Births. Ed. E. B. Cowell. 7 vols.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1895–1907; London PTS, 1972 [ Jātakas cited by number].
MĀ Introduction to the Middle Way: Candrakīrti’s Madhyamakāvatāra. Trans. Pad-makara Translation Group. Boston and London: Shambhala, 2004.
Miln. Milindapañha: Milinda’s Questions. Trans. I. B. Horner. 2 vols. London: PTS, 1963–4.
list of abbreviations
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MMK The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way. Trans. and Commentary Jay L. Garfield. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
MN Majjhima Nikāya: The Collection of the Middle Length Sayings. Trans. I. B. Horner. 3 vols. London: PTS, 1954–9; The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha. Trans. Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi. Boston: Wisdom, 1995.
MN-a Majjhima Nikāya Aṭṭhakathā (Papañcasūdanī). Commentary on MN.Patis. Paṭisambhidā-magga: The Path of Discrimination. Trans. Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli.
London: PTS, 1982.PP Mūlamadhyamakakārikās de Nāgārjuna avec la Prasannapadā Commentaire de
Candrakīrti. Trans. Louis de La Vallée Poussin. Osnabrück: Biblio Verlag, 1970 [reprint].
SB Rupert Gethin, Sayings of the Buddha: A Selection of Suttas from the Pali Nikāyas. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
SN Saṃyutta Nikāya: The Book of the Kindred Sayings. Trans. C. A. F. Rhys Davids and F. L. Woodward. London: PTS, 1917–30; The Connected Discourses of the Buddha. Trans. Bhikkhu Bodhi. Boston: Wisdom, 2005.
Sn Sutta-nipāta: The Group of Discourses. Trans. K. R. Norman. Second edn. London: PTS, 2001.
T Taishō shinshū daizōkyō: The Taishō Tripiṭaka. Ed. Takakusu Juniro et al. Tokyo: Taishō issaikyō kankō-kai, 1914–32. [Taishō is a definitive version of the Chinese Buddhist canon standardized in Japan during the Taishō period.] Online edn: Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association (CBETA), www.cbeta.org/.
Thag. Thera-gāthā: Elders’ Verses. Trans. K. R. Norman. Vol. 1. London: PTS, 1969.TS The Tattva-saṃgraha of Śāntarakṣita with the Commentary (Pañjikā) of Kamalaśīla.
Trans. Ganganatha Jha. Vols. 1–2. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1986.Ud. The Udāna. Trans. P. Masefield. London: PTS, 1994.Vibh. Vibhaṅga: The Book of Analysis. Trans. U. Thittila. London: PTS, 1969.Vibh-a Commentary on Vibhaṅga: Dispeller of Delusion. Trans. Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli. 2
vols. London: PTS, 1996.Vin. Vinaya Piṭaka: The Book of the Discipline. Trans. I. B. Horner. 6 vols. London:
PTS, 1938–66.Vism. Buddhaghosa, Visuddhimagga: The Path of Purification: Vuisuddhimagga. Trans.
Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli. Onalaska, WA: BPS Pariyatti, 1999.
General
Ch. ChineseGk GreekJp. JapaneseK. KoreanP. PāliPTS Pali Text SocietySkt SanskritTb. Tibetan
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The task of producing a comprehensive, single-volume treatment of Buddhist philoso-phy presents certain editorial challenges, not the least of which is the problem of how to do justice to the sheer breadth and diversity of a tradition that spans some two and a half millennia. The following introductory remarks are intended to shed some light on the considerations that shaped the structure and content of this volume.
The Buddha and Buddhist Philosophy
Buddhism is a living tradition that traces its origins to the life and teachings of Siddhat-tha Gotama (Skt Siddhārtha Gautama), the historical Buddha. However, not much is known with any certainty about the life of the founder. While his dates are convention-ally given as 566–486 BCE, many scholars now believe it is more likely that the Buddha died sometime between 368 and 404 BCE.1
The earliest accounts of the Buddha’s life are fragmentary and, though more com-plete biographical narratives begin to appear around the first century CE, these versions of the story are highly embellished and in some cases offer conflicting accounts of events. While these texts are of enormous importance to Buddhist tradition, they present challenges for the historian who is interested in separating myth from fact. That said, the picture we have of the historical Buddha is a composite based on what scholars have inferred from a combination of early Buddhist sources, archeological evidence, and general historical information about the culture and traditions of Indian society of the period.2
Another salient fact for us is that the Buddha did not commit any of his teachings to writing. According to tradition, 500 arahats (awakened disciples) assembled at Rājagaha several months after the Buddha’s death to recite the teachings as they had been heard. These were divided into two collections: the first containing rules for
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STEVEN M. EMMANUEL
A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy, First Edition. Edited by Steven M. Emmanuel.© 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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monastic conduct (vinaya-piṭaka); the second containing discourses delivered by the Buddha and his close disciples (sutta-piṭaka). Over time a third collection of “higher teachings” developed (abhidhamma-piṭaka). These contained detailed lists and exposi-tions of concepts found in the discourses and were aimed at giving a more precise philosophical formulation of the Buddha’s teachings.
As Buddhism gradually spread across the Indian subcontinent, versions of these teachings were orally preserved in various schools. Only much later were they written down in collections of scriptural texts.
The history of the formation of the Buddhist scriptural canon remains largely obscure to modern scholarship. The “Pāli canon” of the Theravāda school was one of the earliest to be written down. According to Theravāda tradition, this occurred in Sri Lanka in the latter half of the first century BCE. Other early schools produced canons in various Middle Indian dialects (Gethin 1998, 41–2). Important elements of these canons have been preserved in Sanskrit and in Chinese translation. However, the Pāli canon is the only one to have survived intact in its original Indian language. These texts, commonly referred to as the Tipiṭaka, form the scriptural basis of the southern tradition of Buddhism.
As Buddhist thought spread to China (beginning in the first century CE) and then to Tibet (beginning in the seventh century CE) it continued to be translated and interpreted through other cultural lenses and, to greater and lesser degrees, shaped by its encoun-ters with other systems of thought. These encounters produced many new expressions of Buddhism, which differed from one another on philosophical points as well as matters of practice. Textual sources for the eastern and northern traditions of Bud-dhism are contained in Chinese and Tibetan canons respectively. While both of these collections contain translations of materials that have counterparts in the Pāli canon, they also contain a unique body of literature known as the Mahāyāna scriptures, which reflect important shifts in thinking that had begun already within the early Indian Buddhist community.
As the name Mahāyāna (“greater vehicle”) implies, these scriptures purport to describe a superior path, according to which the ultimate aim of spiritual practice is not the fulfillment of one’s own nirvanic aspirations, which Mahāyānists associated with the enlightenment realized by the arahat, but the complete and perfect awakening attained by the Buddha himself. This path is illustrated in Mahāyāna writings by the bodhisattva, who vows to work for the liberation of all beings. Some of these writings, known as the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras (“Perfection of Wisdom Sūtras”), point to a more profound wisdom that can be attained through deep contemplation on the “emptiness” of all things.
In addition to the Mahāyāna scriptures, the Tibetan canon includes a distinctive body of tantric writings of Indian origin.3 These esoteric teachings set out practical methods for realizing the supreme goal described in the Mahāyāna scriptures – for example, yogic practices, rituals, meditations using sacred mantras, and visualizations. As such, Tantric Buddhism is commonly understood to represent a third path of prac-tice referred to as Vajrayāna.
Western scholarship has traditionally regarded the earliest portions of the Pāli canon as the most authoritative and reliable source for understanding early Buddhism.4 The justification for this relies greatly on the Theravādin account of its provenance,
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which traces the canon back to a recension of the scriptures brought to Sri Lanka around 250 BCE, thereby securing its claim to being a faithful representation of the word of the Buddha. However, the supposed primacy of the Theravāda canon has been the object of much critical scrutiny in recent years. Scholars have challenged what they regard as unwarranted assumptions about the monolithic character of Theravāda tra-dition, as well as the presumed reliability of the canon as a source for understanding what Buddhists in earlier times actually believed and practiced (see Blackburn 2001 and Schopen 1997). There is considerable doubt surrounding the supposition that the Pāli texts, as we now have them, are a verbatim transcription of an oral version dating to the middle of the third century BCE. The content of surviving fragments from other early canons, though quite similar to the Pāli texts, is sufficiently different to suggest an ongoing process of composition and redaction. Many scholars would concur with the general assessment of Luis O. Gómez:
Transmitted and edited through the oral tradition, the words of the Buddha and his imme-diate disciples had suffered many transformations before they came to be compiled, to say nothing of their state when they were eventually written down. We have no way of deter-mining which, if any, of the words contained in the Buddhist scriptures are the words of the founder. . . . Evidently, the Pali canon, like other Buddhist scriptures, is the creation, or at least the compilation and composition, of another age and a different linguistic milieu. As they are preserved today, the Buddhist scriptures must be a collective creation, the fruit of the effort of several generations of memorizers, redactors, and compilers.
(Gómez 2002, 55)
Along the same lines, Steven Collins has persuasively argued that the Pāli canon, understood as a “closed list of scriptures with a special and specific authority as the avowed historical record of the Buddha’s teaching,” did not pre-exist the Theravāda school, but was rather a product of it (Collins 1990, 72). Indeed, the creation of that canon continued at least through the fifth century CE, and “like most other religious Canons was produced in the context of dispute, here sectarian monastic rivalries” (ibid., 76–7). We might also note in this connection that a large portion of the Mahāyāna scriptures were already in circulation by the fifth century CE. All this points to a far more complicated (less linear) picture of the development of Buddhism than one might infer from the traditional Theravāda account.
Given the complex history of these texts, we should be wary of attempts to recover a more authentic or original form of Buddhism from canonical sources. This attitude has greatly influenced the presentation of Buddhism in contemporary scholarship, where it is now customary to stress the plurality of Buddhist thought and practice. In response to concerns about the perceived over-reliance on canonical writings, and in particular the narrowing effect of this textual-critical approach on research and teach-ing, scholars have increasingly begun to look to other sources, including “oral and vernacular traditions, epigraphy, ritual, patterns of social and institutional evolution, gender, lay and folk traditions, art, archeology and architecture” (Cabezón 1995, 262–3), which they believe offer a more accurate account of the actual practice of Buddhism.
Still, the gravitational pull of the canonical texts remains strong, especially in pres-entations of Buddhist philosophy. Every general survey pays close attention to the
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discourses of the sutta-piṭaka (the so-called Pāli Nikāyas) or to their counterparts in the Chinese canon (where they are called “Āgamas”). It is generally accepted that these texts are an important source for understanding how Buddhist thinkers in the early centuries of the Common Era framed their own philosophical inquiries. As Rupert Gethin observes:
The failure to appreciate this results in a distorted view of ancient Buddhism, and its sub-sequent development and history both within and outside India. From their frequent refer-ences to and quotations from the Nikāyas/Āgamas, it is apparent that all subsequent Indian Buddhist thinkers and writers of whatever school or persuasion, including the Mahāyāna – and most certainly those thinkers such as Nāgārjuna, Asaṅga, and Vasub-andhu, who became the great Indian fathers of east Asian and Tibetan Buddhism – were completely familiar with this material and treated it as the authoritative word of the Buddha.
(Gethin 1998, 44)
Gethin goes on to note that, while interpretive disagreements inevitably arose, the authority of the texts was never in question.
To recognize the teachings presented in the Nikāya/Āgama material as in some sense “foundational” to the history of Buddhist philosophy does not, of course, commit us to parochial assumptions concerning the primacy of one textual tradition relative to others, or to claims about how accurately those texts reflect the actual words of the historical teacher. Still less does it commit us to the view that Buddhist philosophy is reducible to the views presented in those texts.
Introductions to Buddhist philosophy vary a good deal in the scope and depth of the coverage they offer. Some are limited to an exposition of the discourses contained in the early canonical writings, which are commonly presented as the “basic” or “essen-tial” teachings of the Buddha (e.g., Gowans 2003), while others begin with the basic teachings, then proceed to show how these ideas were developed in later schools (e.g., Siderits 2007).
There are differences too in the way the authors approach the question of attribu-tion. In his well-known study entitled What the Buddha Taught (1959), Walpola Rahula aims to give “a faithful and accurate account of the actual words used by the Buddha as they are to be found in the original Pali texts of the Tipiṭaka” (xi). However, the approach taken by Christopher W. Gowans in Philosophy of the Buddha (2003, 14) is more circumspect:
The distance from the Buddha’s mouth to the texts we now possess is considerable . . . and there is much room for modification and misunderstanding. To a limited extent, modern scholarship may inform us when texts are more or less likely to accurately repre-sent what the Buddha really thought. But there is little prospect that we will ever know in detail how closely extant texts correspond to his actual teaching.
The question of attribution continues to be a contentious one in the secondary lit-erature. According to Richard Gombrich, the core teachings of Buddhism exhibit a coherence that compels us to see them as the work of a single mind. “One remarkable brain,” he claims, “must have been responsible for the basic ideology. The owner of that
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brain happens to be known, appropriately, as the Buddha, the ‘Awakened’” (Gombrich 2009, 17).5 This view parallels that of Étienne Lamotte, who, half a century earlier, remarked that “Buddhism could not be explained unless we accept that it has its origin in the strong personality of its founder” (Lamotte 1988, 639). Both statements are reactions to what the authors see as a facile dismissal of the textual evidence. Gombrich explains:
It should go without saying that we are not bound to take what a Pali text – or any other text in the world – says at face value. But our initial working hypothesis has to be that the text is telling the truth, and in each case where we do not believe it, or doubt it, we must produce our reasons for doing so. There will be innumerable such cases and all kinds of reasons. But if we just dismiss what the text tells us a priori, there is no subject. If there is no subject, no one should be employed to teach it – and good riddance.
(Gombrich 2009, 96)6
Surely the canonical texts must be accorded some evidential weight regarding claims about the origin of their content, even if the history of their formation makes it impos-sible to distinguish precisely between what the founder actually taught and what the texts report. To suppose that the redactors and compilers of the textual tradition merely invented most or all of those ideas and put them in the mouth of a charismatic teacher is as uncharitable as it is implausible. In any event, the texts are what we have, and they have been received by the tradition as embodying the wisdom of the historical Buddha.
More important, perhaps, than the question of attribution is the originating concern from which the teachings arose. The Buddha portrayed in the canonical texts was pre-occupied with one central problem: how to overcome dukkha, the suffering or deep unsatisfactoriness that pervades human experience. This problem is the central focus of the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (“Setting in Motion of the Wheel of Dhamma”), which establishes the soteriological aim at the heart of all Buddhist thought and prac-tice. Presented as the Buddha’s first public teaching following his awakening at Bodh Gaya, this sutta lays out a conceptual framework for understanding the true causes of suffering and the path of practice that leads to the cessation of suffering. Although this teaching is said to express the profound insight into the nature of reality attained by Gotama Buddha upon his awakening – and indeed can be fully grasped only by those who have themselves attained awakening – it is elaborated in various discourses by means of key concepts such as impermanence, non-self, and conditioned co-arising. These concepts, and the contemplative path that leads to the direct awareness of the realities described by them, would become the focus of rigorous philosophical examina-tion and debate.
It is useful to bear in mind here that the Buddha of the canonical texts embraced a thoroughly pragmatic attitude regarding the value of teachings. He warned against the inherent danger of becoming attached to any teaching for its own sake. The value of the Dhamma must be understood in the context of its practical purpose: to facilitate liberation, the realization of nibbāna (Skt nirvāṇa). In this respect, the Buddha likened his Dhamma to a raft: the usefulness of the teaching lies in helping us to reach the other shore. But once there, we must let it go (MN.I.134–5).7
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In the same spirit of pragmatism, the Buddha urged others not to believe anything merely on the basis of established tradition, the presumed authority of scripture, or reason alone, but to accept only what can be confirmed by experience (see the Kālāma Sutta, AN.I.188–93). He did not invite mere intellectual assent, but encouraged instead a deeper moral, spiritual, and intellectual engagement with the existential problem of suffering. This process, if earnestly undertaken, inevitably opens the door to new ques-tions and new ways of conceptualizing both the path of Buddhist practice and its goal. Indeed, it is the history of this engagement that produced the immensely rich and diverse tradition of thought we call Buddhist philosophy.
As we noted at the outset, Buddhism is a living tradition. To take this idea seriously is to recognize that, while it has its origins in the seminal teachings attributed to the historical Buddha, those teachings have always been the subject of interpretation and analysis. Even the codified version of the teachings preserved in the textual canon is to some extent the product of a history of interpretation that had been underway for centuries before being written down. That we cannot come any closer to the mind of the historical Buddha than through this tradition of interpretation and critical engage-ment should be of little concern to those who wish to study Buddhist philosophy.
Buddhist Philosophy in Focus
The central insight attained by the Buddha can be stated briefly as follows: all phenom-ena are conditioned, transitory, and devoid of any essence or “self ” that remains unchanged over time. All phenomena arise within a complex network of mutually conditioning causes and effects. As the Buddha succinctly put the point: “When this exists, that comes to be; with the arising of this, that arises. When this does not exist, that does not come to be; with the cessation of this, that ceases’” (MN.III.64; Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi 1995, 927). According to this view, nothing in the world of our experience can be said to exist as an independent, unconditioned reality.
Applying this insight to human nature, we observe that a person is merely a collec-tion of psycho-physical elements or “aggregates” (khandhas) – body, feelings, percep-tions, volitions, consciousness – that give rise to a causal pattern we identify as a particular individual. It does not follow from the relative stability of this pattern, however, that there must be an underlying essence. When we look more closely, we see that both the mental and the physical phenomena that make up a person are constantly changing. Physical change is, of course, apparent in the natural process of aging. But careful observation of the mind, where we might hope to encounter the unifying core of personal identity, reveals nothing more than a perpetual succession of thoughts, ideas, and emotions.
This analysis is similar in some respects to the position advanced by David Hume, who reasoned that the thing we call a “self ” is
nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement. Our eyes cannot turn in their sockets without varying our perceptions. Our thought is still more variable than our sight; and all our other senses and faculties contribute to this change; nor is there any
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single power of the soul, which remains unalterably the same, perhaps for one moment. The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appear-ance; pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations. There is properly no simplicity in it at one time, nor identity in different; whatever natural propension we may have to imagine that simplicity and identity.
(Hume 1978, 252–3)8
While Hume was concerned primarily to make a theoretical point, the Buddha’s analy-sis has a therapeutic and soteriological purpose. The doctrine of non-self (anattā) is key to understanding the causes of dukkha and its cessation.
A principal cause of the suffering or unsatisfactoriness denoted by dukkha is “thirst” (taṇhā), the endless craving or desire that shapes our self-centered pursuit of happiness in the world. “Thirst” accounts for a wide range of physical, emotional, and psychologi-cal ills. According to the Buddha, these ills are the inevitable result of the desire to cling to things that are, by their very nature, impermanent and changing.
We experience dukkha most immediately in the form of aging, sickness, and death. But everything in the world of human experience – including our thoughts and feel-ings, the people and things we cherish, the myriad situations and events that occur in the course of our lives – is conditioned in this way: it arises interdependently, undergoes a process of change, and passes away. By clinging to these things we only renew the conditions of our own suffering, thereby perpetuating the samsaric cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. To escape suffering, one must abandon the “identity view” (MN.I.434).
The path that leads to the cessation of dukkha is a threefold practice involving the cultivation of wisdom, moral training, and concentration (meditation). This practice prepares the way for direct insight into the causes of suffering:
Whatever exists therein of feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness, he sees those states as impermanent, as suffering, as a disease, . . . as not self. He turns his mind away from those states and directs it towards the deathless element thus: “This is the peace-ful, this is the sublime, this is the stilling of all formations, the relinquishing of all attach-ments, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation, Nibbāna.”
(MN.I.437; Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi 1995, 541)
Though this insight clearly reflects a deeper metaphysical understanding of the mental and physical processes that condition sentient experience, the Buddha does not explicitly draw any ontological conclusions regarding the ultimate nature of those phenomena. In fact, as he is portrayed in the discourses, the Buddha is notably reluc-tant to engage in purely theoretical inquiries, as he seems to regard these as a diversion from useful discussion and analysis, and possibly even a hindrance to the pursuit of liberation.9
That the Buddha does not venture into questions of an ontological nature indicates how closely his interest in metaphysical and epistemological issues is tied to soteriologi-cal ends. In this regard, his approach to philosophy is similar to that of the ancient Hellenistic philosophers, for whom there was no point to philosophical discourse if it did not “expel the suffering of the soul.”10 The similarities between Buddhist and Hellenistic thought have been well noted by contemporary writers.11
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Nevertheless, as we noted earlier, critical engagement with the ideas presented in the discourses produced a vigorous tradition of philosophical inquiry, which, though motivated by the same soteriological goal, is broader in its scope and analytical methods.12 This began with the Abhidhamma movement and was developed further by way of critical reactions to the Abhidhamma in diverging schools of Buddhist thought. In this vast and varied body of writings we find rigorous conceptual analyses of reality, truth, and knowledge; detailed investigations of the nature of mind and consciousness; reflections on ethics and moral psychology; and ideas about the state and the conditions for flourishing in society.
Aim and Structure of the Volume
An exhaustive account of our subject would fill perhaps several volumes of a compa-rable size. However, in keeping with the general aim of the Companion series we have endeavored to present a broad survey of the most important ideas, problems, and debates in the history of Buddhist philosophy.
The volume is arranged in five parts. Part I features three introductory chapters on the conceptual foundations of Buddhist philosophy, beginning with a discussion of the intellectual context of Gotama’s thought. This sets up a presentation both of the Bud-dha’s foundational teachings on dukkha and the path that leads to liberation and of the closely related doctrine of conditioned co-arising. We depart here from the customary practice of beginning with an account of Buddha’s life, partly because our focus is philosophical and partly because these accounts are readily available in electronic and printed sources.13
Part II presents a general survey of the three living traditions of Buddhist thought: Theravāda, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna. Focusing mainly on bringing out key philo-sophical differences, these discussions provide a useful overview of the major figures and texts associated with the various schools.
The chapters comprising Part III are organized by section under topical headings familiar to students of Western philosophy. It should be noted, however, that Buddhist philosophy is not as neatly delineated as this taxonomy would suggest. For example, Buddhist thinkers do not in practice distinguish between epistemology and logic, since they treat inference as one of two sources of knowledge (the other being percep-tion). We have introduced a soft division between these sections for the purpose of isolating more specific questions about both the role that meaning plays in inference and how Buddhist logicians might have conceived of a philosophy of logic. Other chap-ters in the “Language and Logic” section explore Buddhist reflections on the limits of language.
Our purpose in presenting the material this way is not to divest Buddhist thought of its native idioms, but rather to help readers understand the characteristic ways in which Buddhist thinkers have addressed issues of perennial concern to Western philosophers. There is a conscious attempt throughout the volume to create a mainstream bridge between the Buddhist and Western traditions. To this end, many chapters in the volume are written from a comparative perspective. It is hoped that this approach will not only
