By Ian Harris
University College of St. Martin
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 1 1994
Abstract:
Environmentalist concerns have moved centre stage in most major
religious traditions of late and Buddhism is no exception to this rule.
This paper shows that the canonical writings of Indic Buddhism possess
elements that may harmonise with a de facto ecological consciousness.
However, their basic attitude towards the causal process drastically
reduces the possibility of developing an authentically Buddhist
environmental ethic. The classical treatment of causation fails to
resolve successfully the tension between symmetry and asymmetry of
relations and this has tended to mean that attempts to inject a telos,
or sense of purpose, into the world are likely to founder. The agenda of
eco-Buddhism is examined in the light of this fact and found wanting.
Published material relating to Buddhism and environmental ethics has
increased in a moderate fashion over the last few years and may be
divided into four broad categories:
1. Forthright endorsement of Buddhist environmental ethics by
traditional guardians of doxic truth, of whom HḤḌalai Lama [1] is
perhaps the most important representative.
2. Equally positive treatments by predominantly Japanese and North
American scholar/activists premised on an assumption that Buddhism is
blessed with the resources necessary to address current environmental
issues. Generally this material limits itself to identifying the most
appropriate Buddhist doctrinal bases from which an environmental ethic
could proceed, e.g. the doctrines of interpenetration, tathāgatagarbha,
etc. (e.g., Aramaki [2], Macy [3], and Brown [4]).
3. Critical treatments which, while fully acknowledging the difficulties
involved in reconciling traditional Asian modes of thought with those
employed by scientific ecology, are optimistic about the possibility of
establishing an authentic Buddhist response to environmental problems
(e.g.. Schmithausen [5]).
4. Outright rejection of the possibility of Buddhist environmental
ethics on the grounds that the otherworldliness of "canonical " Buddhism
implies a negation of the natural realm for all practical purposes
(e.g., Hakamaya [6]).
In this paper I shall move backwards and forwards between positions 3
and 4 - my heart telling me that 3 makes sense with my mind more in tune
with position 4. Category 1 material mainly relates to dialogue with
other religions and aims to paint Buddhism in a favourable light. I
shall have nothing further to say on this. I hope to show that work
belonging to the second category, while superficially attractive, falls
some way short of providing an adequate and rigorous basis for the
erection of a thorough-going Buddhist environmental ethic. The minimum
qualification for an authentic Buddhist ethics is that it is able to
construe causation in such a way that goal-oriented activity makes
sense. In other words Buddhist causation must be shown to be
teleologically meaningful. In our context a positive moral stance
towards the environment is premised on the idea that one state of
affairs can be shown to be preferable to another; for instance, that the
world will be demonstrably worse if the black rhino becomes extinct.
Now, I would not wish to argue against this in general terms but I shall
contend that it is difficult to ground such a view on a sound Buddhist
footing, most importantly because any activity of this kind presupposes
a certain teleology and an accompanying belief in the predictability of
cause/effect relations.
Let us now examine the idea of causation in more detail. Yamada, in an
article that draws on a very substantial body of prior Japanese
scholarship, shows that the pratītyasamutpāda formula can be read in two
significantly differing ways - the so-called "reversal" and "natural"
sequences. The first he believes to be a characteristic of the
Abhidharma, with the second more closely associated with the Buddha
himself.[7] The reversal sequence, beginning with ignorance (avijjā) and
ending with becoming-old and dying (jarāmaraṇa), is said to describe
elements causally related in temporal succession. In this manner the
time-bound and soteriologically meaningful, concepts of karma, bhava,
bhāvanā, etc., so crucial to the whole idea of Buddhist praxis are made
comprehensible. The natural sequence, by contrast, beginning with
jarāmaraṇa and ending in avijjā, stresses non-temporal relations of
interdependence, simultaneity, or mutuality. In this way:
The twelve a"ngas are not so much causal chains, in which the cause
precedes the effect in rigid succession, but the factors of human
existence which are interdependent upon each other simultaneously in a
structural cross-section of human life.[8]
This typically Mahāyānist rendering, then, associates chronological
causation with the Abhidharma of the old canon, while simultaneous
relations (akālika) represent a complementary position implicit in the
teachings of the Buddha yet only made explicit in the Mahāyāna. The
implication here seems to be that the natural sequence, while obviously
present in the writings of the old canon, was either consciously or
unconsciously neglected.
For Yamada, Abhidharmic scholiasts deviated, for some inexplicable
reason, from an atemporal understanding of causation to the extent that
they came to adopt a theory of strict one-to-one cause-effect relations
"along the flow of time"[9] known in Japanese as gookan engi setsu
(=karma activated dependent origination theory?) I shall now suggest
that the Abhidharmic adherence to asymmetry, i.e., to a strict temporal
sequencing of dharmas, is not quite as strong as may have been expected
from Yamada's treatment of the subject.
The Sarvāstivāda accepts six basic kinds of relation (hetu) between
entities. Of these six, two - the simultaneous relation (sahabhūhetu)
and the associated relation (samprayuktahetu) - suggest a roughly
similar character of mutuality. In fact, the Sarvāstivāda came under
attack from a variety of other Buddhist schools [10] under the suspicion
that these two interrelated hetu undermined the basis of temporal
causation understood as essential to the efficacy of ethical and
soteriologically meaningful activity. It is clear, for instance, that
Sa"nghabhadra was perfectly happy with the notion of mutuality in
relations to the extent that he derives his simultaneously produced
relation (sahotpannahetu) from the ancient "when this..ṭhat"
formula.[11]
Some scholars [12] have attempted to show that simultaneous and temporal
theories of causation are complementary. While the latter represents a
unidirectional flow of causes and effects, the former points to the
spatial relations that must also hold between co-existent entities.
Sahabhūhetu, then, concerns relations in space, not in time. It
indicates a principle of spatial unity or aggregation. Of the twenty
four modes of conditionality (paccaya) recognised by the Pali Paṭṭhāna,
the sixth and seventh, in their traditional order, are closely related.
These are, respectively, the co-nascence condition (sahajātapaccaya) and
the mutuality condition (aññamaññapaccaya). The former condition occurs
in four basic kinds of relation, i.eṭhose between mentals and mentals,
mentals and physicals, physicals and physicals and physicals and mentals.
So exhaustive is this list that we could be forgiven for thinking that
the vast majority of the possible relations between the entities
envisaged by Theravāda Buddhism may be found under this heading. In
fact, relations of the first type, i.e., mentals to mentals, are
acknowledged, by a range of Theravāda thinkers, to be:
. . ṣymmetrical. That is, the relation between the two terms A and B
holds good as between B and A.[13]
Karunadasa accepts that, under certain circumstances, a relationship of
pure reciprocity can apply, specifically in what he regards to be a
special case of sahajāta defined in the traditional list of paccayas as
no.7 - the mutuality condition (aññamañña). Indeed, Ledi Sayadaw happily
conflates these two paccayas and there is a widely held view, endorsed
by Karunadasa, among others, that the aññamañña condition is "the same
as the sahabhūhetu of the Sarvāstivādins."[14]
Buddhaghosa in his Vibha"nga commentary, Sammohavinodanī, distinguishes
between a strictly sutta-based, temporal form of causation extending
over many thought-moments (nānācittakkhaṇika) on the one hand, and an
abhidhammic, non-temporal version said to occur in a single
thought-moment (ekacittakkhaṇika), i.e. to all intents and purposes,
instantaneously.[15] According to Buddhaghosa then, the suttas favour
asymmetry with the abhidhamma plumping for a spatio-symmetric view of
relations. This categorisation differs sharply from Yamada's
understanding of an Abhidhamma unequivocally promoting uni-directional
causation, and, in my opinion, his less than enthusiastic support for
non-Mahāyānist positions tends to make him uncritically conflate a great
range of sources. In fact, the true situation on sutta and abhidhamma
readings is probably somewhere between the positions of Buddhaghosa and
Yamada. It seems that the Pali commentarial traditional never
successfully managed to reconcile these two radically divergent readings
and in the final analysis, elegant solutions to complex textual
traditions are impossible to achieve. Nevertheless, it is obvious that
akālika relations i.e. those not bound by time were not entirely
overlooked by the Theravāda even though some modern apologists have been
reluctant to admit this fact.[16]
The Sautrāntika school seems to have offered four basic objections to
the Sarvāstivādin position on mutual relations not least because it
seemed thoroughly imbued with a spirit of symmetry. The Sautrāntika also
advanced a more radical theory of momentariness (kṣaṇavāda) by denying
any element of stasis. For the Sautrāntikas, dharmas disappear as soon
as they arise though this response to the problem of true causal
efficiency is no more satisfactory than the position it sought to
replace. Nagao's rather flimsy defence of kṣaṇavāda fails to come to
terms with this fact. He argues that the doctrine:
does not mean the total extinction of the world; on the contrary, it is
the way by which the world establishes itself as full of life and spirit
(my emphasis)."[17]
Now, though irresolvable differences remain, all three early schools of
Buddhism exhibited a tendency to view causation in spatial/horizontal
terms, even though this tendency was often obscured behind the lush
vegetation of temporal/vertical thinking.
It looks likely that, as Buddhism developed, a gradual radicalisation of
the concept of impermanence occurred with rather more emphasis placed on
symmetric relations between entities. The common sense view, perhaps
related to the introspective/empirical observations of an early
meditator's tradition that set a radically impermanent mental flux
against the relative permanence of non-mental entities, was in time
reformulated and rationalised by an emerging scholastic tradition.[18]
These scholastic traditions, then, begin a process that results in the
severing of links with common sense asymmetric causation to the extent
that the temporal flow of a single chain of causes and effects was
eclipsed by the space-like aspect of symmetry. In my view, the
increasing dominance of symmetry in Buddhist thought provides a fertile
breeding ground for the development of the Avataṃsakasūtra doctrine of
the radical interpenetration of all things and this, in a circuitous
manner, undoubtedly has come to influence the writings of many
contemporary environmental thinkers.
Mahāyānists in general wish to preserve a time-like asymmetry of
causation in its common-sense form, while negating it from the ultimate
perspective. Nāgārjuna holds that four alternative positions, the
tetralemma or catuṣkoṭi, logically exhaust the possible connections
between causally related entities. Now, the dominant view within the
Mahāyānist exegetical tradition is that Nāgārjuna's negation of the four
alternatives is absolute. In other words, relations between entities can
never be meaningfully articulated in terms of any of the four positions
of the catuṣkoṭi. Indeed, no other position is possible. Absolute
negation (prasajyapratiṣedha) in this case results in the total denial
of causal relations between substantial entities. Using this as a
starting point, Nāgārjuna moves on swiftly to propose that entities
engaged in causal relations must be empty ("sūnya). Of course, he has
already underlined the centrality of pratītyasamutpāda as the bedrock,
the central authority from which all Buddhist thought must flow. This
being so, the affirmation of causal relations leads inexorably to a
negation of substantiality. Now, an empty entity has no distinguishing
mark, its value is zero ("sūnya). Furthermore, all conditioned entities
must share this same null value and in this sense they are equivalent.
If this is accepted Charles Hartshorne's intuition[19] that Nāgārjuna
exhibits a prejudice in favour of symmetry is confirmed and we shall
expect Nāgārjuna to experience some difficulty in accounting for any
purposeful directionality of change, or "emergence into novelty" to use
the jargon of process theology.
The earliest extant commentary on the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, the
Akutobhayā[20], is traditionally ascribed to Nāgārjuna, though this
attribution tends to be rejected by modern scholarship. Interestingly,
the use of absolute negation (prasajyapratiṣedha) of the four positions
of the catuṣkoṭi is not one of the obvious features of this early text.
In its treatment of MMK.XVI I I.8, the four koṭis are said to represent
a series of graded steps related to the spiritual propensities of those
engaged on the Buddhist path. This reading, in part confirmed by the
later commentaries of Buddhapālita and Bhāvaviveka [21], singles out the
fourth and final koṭi as the closest approximation, given the
constraints of language, to the true nature of things. If we relate this
to our earlier discussion of the four possible modes of production, it
is apparent that the "neither different nor non-different" position, if
is legitimate to invoke the law of the excluded middle here, reflects a
rejection of both symmetric and asymmetric accounts of causation - a
deeply puzzling notion. We might have expected a more satisfactory
resolution of the problem, assuming of course that anyone in the early
Madhyamaka was aware of, or indeed interested, in the matter. If so, we
shall be disappointed, for the early Madhyamaka transcends, rather than
resolves the tension. By retaining his strong adherence to the Buddha's
teaching on pratītyasamutpāda, i.e. by insisting on the objectivity of
the causal process, Nāgārjuna and his followers adopt a view of reality
that, in so far as it can be articulated, is constituted by causally
related and empty entities that are neither different nor non-different
one from another. Elsewhere I have termed this outlook "ontological
indeterminacy."[22] Naturally Ruegg is reluctant to accept that the
Madhyamaka would have countenanced such an irrational depiction of
reality as coincidentia oppositorum but what strikes one forcibly here
is the parallel with the doctrine of symmetric interpenetration
characteristic of some of the later phases of Buddhism, such as the
Chinese Hua-Yen school.[23] In the Yogācāra again we find some evidence
of a distinction between akālika and unidirectional relations, even
though the precise form of the distinction does not fully harmonise with
that observed in other strands of the Buddhist tradition. As we would
expect of a philosophical tradition with a specific interest in the
mechanics of consciousness (vijñāna), the Yogācāra treatment of
causation gives priority to the non-temporal factors that, as we have
already seen in the Pali literature, apply to relations between mental
entities.
Nagao goes on to suggest that the term pratītyasamutpāda is not intended
to define causal relationships as customarily understood for it
represents "..ṭhe realm of mutual relatedness, of absolute relativity
[which] constitutes an absolute otherness over against selfhood and
essence."[24] Chronological proliferation operates only from the
perspective of conventional understanding, for, in reality,
pratītyasamutpāda denotes "unity in a transhistorical realm."[25]
Returning now to Nāgārjuna's picture of causation and reality at MMK.
XVI I I.9, we hear:
Independent of another (aparapratyaya) (Ruegg's [26] rendering of this
difficult term]), at peace ("sānta) not discursively developed through
discursive developments, without dichotomising conceptualisation, and
free from multiplicity (anānārtha): this is the characteristic of
reality (tattva)."[27]
This verse occurs in the context of a discussion of causal factors so we
may, without doing violence to the text, conclude that tattva is
inextricably related to pratītyasamutpāda. Comparison with the
ma"ngala"sloka reveals a number of parallels. Tattva , for instance, is
said to be at peace, or still ("sānta). The term anānārtham also occurs
in MMK.XVI I I.9, although significantly tattva is not related to the
usual binegation of positive and negative positions, i.e. neither
without differentiation nor devoid of unity (the fourth koṭi), as one
would expect by reference to the ma"ngala"sloka. A consistent reading
suggests that the quiescence and non-multiplicity of causally related
entities is a function of their entirely symmetrical relations and one
might be inclined to term this kind of relation "interpenetration".
Ruegg, of course, rejects this interpretation. However, his treatment of
the passages is ambiguous for he upholds Candrakīrti's view that a
reality devoid of differentiation has the value of emptiness while,
elsewhere in the same important article, he also wants to maintain that
the Madhyamaka understanding of causal relations is "in a certain sense
indeterminate and irrational"[28]. In the less equivocal opinion of la
Vallee Poussin, Nāgārjuna holds only to the conventional expression of
temporal causation, for: "There is, in absolute truth, no cause and
effect."[29]
To summarise, the centrality of the notion of causation is
non-negotiable, located, as it were, at the heart of the tradition. This
seems to have led some early Buddhist schools to emphasise spatiality as
against temporality, perhaps because this was perceived as entailing
fewer intractable philosophical problems. The early Madhyamaka does not
follow this lead preferring instead a transcendent approach to the
problem of causation.
Conclusion
The gulf between spatial and temporal interpretations of causation was
never satisfactorily reconciled in early Buddhism. An obvious starting
point in any theoretical construction of an authentic Buddhist
environmentalist ethic must be the doctrine of causation understood in
its temporal sense yet, though the doctrine allows for a highly coherent
account of the arising and cessation of suffering, and in particular of
the interaction of mental factors, it has rarely been invoked as the
basis of a "scientific" explanation of the natural world. This is, in
good measure, because Buddhism has regularly embraced chronological
causation at one moment only to reject it in the next. Here is an
excellent example of the corrosive character of the "rhetoric of
immediacy".
From the cosmological perspective Buddhism recognises an ad nauseam
unfolding and dissolution of worlds that act as receptacles for
countless beings yet this picture is essentially anti-evolutionary or
dysteleologic. All is in a state of flux yet all is quiescent for all
forward movement lacks a sense of purpose. As Faure has made clear, the
gulf between these two levels is not always easy to negotiate, even
given the "teleological tendencies of controlled narrative"[30] that
Buddhism has generally employed to minimise the incongruence of its
various building blocks.
The theory of karma is clearly crucial to any Buddhist explanation of
the world. On this account the "natural realm" is, at any point in time,
regarded as a direct result of Stcherbatsky's "mysterious efficiency of
past elements or deeds."[31] There is, then, no magnet at the end of
history drawing events inexorably towards their ultimate goal, no
supra-temporal telos directing events either directly or indirectly. The
narrative and soteriological structure of Buddhism appears, despite some
recent attempts to indicate otherwise, essentially dysteleologic [32].
Now, this need not preclude the possibility of purposiveness altogether,
yet, when other available teleologies are considered, prospects are not
especially encouraging. Woodfield, in an important study, shows that
only two further positions remain for the Buddhist and one of these, the
animistic alternative premised on the notion that entities are directed
by the souls or minds that inhere within them, cannot possibly be
appropriate. We are left then with the Aristotelian idea of immanent
teleology in which objects behave teleologically because it is in their
nature to do so. In other words the "source of a thing's
end-directedness is to be found within the nature of the thing itself,
not in some external agency."[33]
It is clear that, from the Madhyamaka perspective, no entity exists that
could possibly possess a nature of this kind. The fact of niḥsvabhāvatā
then precludes the possibility of immanent tele. The Abhidharma
position, bearing in mind our earlier discussion, is perhaps more
difficult to characterise. Dharmas are the ultimately unanalysable
constituents of nature but can dharmas, which are at least regarded as
possessing own-natures (svabhāva), also be said to act as the source of
their own end-directed movement? There is general agreement of all of
the early schools of Buddhism that dharmas are simple and discrete
entities. As such their capacity for internal relations with other
dharmas makes no sense. Relationships must be of a purely formal kind.
If this is accepted two things follow:
1. dharmas cannot mutually cooperate to bring about events on the macro
scale - we may wish to compare this with process theology's [34]
comparatively successful attempt to account for change, and even
novelty, as the result of the prehension [i.e. serial co-operation] of
internally related simples within an overarching Christian teleological
structure.
2. dharmas do not possess tele though, on the level of convention,
societies of such entities may be said to possess ends, though only in
the most highly provisional sense.
The theory of dharmas represents a pseudo-explanation, a reformulation
of the original insight of the Buddha into the fact that all things
change. It gives no information on how this may occur. The theories of
causation and of karma hover above all mechanical explanations and are
never successfully earthed within them. In this sense we can talk about
an "ontological indeterminacy" at the heart of Buddhist thought. At best
all we can say is that Buddhism accepts de facto change. It cannot
account for it!
If we now root our discussion in the more concrete situation of
environmental ethics we begin to see the difficulty in determining a
coherent Buddhist approach. There are difficulties in determining how
best to act with regard to the natural world, unless that response has
been specifically authorised by the Buddha. The problem here is twofold.
In the first place, few of the Buddha's injunctions can be used
unambiguously to support environmentalist ends [35] and in the second,
the dysteleological character of Buddhist thought militates against
anything that could be construed as injecting the concept of an "end" or
"purpose" into the world. It is, for example, very hard to see how a
specifically Buddhist position on global warming or on the decrease in
diversity of species can be made, unless of course one can appeal to the
supranormal intelligence of a handful of contemporary Buddhist sages. In
this connection, the Far-Eastern appeal to the Buddhist notion of the
"interpenetration of all entities" will not do, for I hope that I have
shown that the symmetric bias of this approach cannot even
satisfactorily account for the raw fact of change itself, let alone for
those aspects of change deemed harmful to the natural environment.
Schmithausen has observed that Buddhist spiritual and everyday practice
may contribute to a sort of de facto environmentalism, though he his
careful to point out that this does not, in itself "establish ... nature
... as a value in itself"[36]. It is worth pointing out that even in the
realm of interpersonal relations, and in relations between humans and
the higher animals, "commitment to extrapersonal welfare" is found only
in a "highly qualified and rather paradoxical sense."[37]. In this light
Schmithausen's programme for a reformation of Buddhism through de-dogmatisation
of the inconvenient Buddhist teachings on animals, etc. is little more
than a bit of tinkering around on the margins. I hope that I have
beenable to show that it is the dysteleology deeply rooted within
Buddhism that is the essential problem for any future Buddhist
environmental ethic, not a bit of local difficulty with animals. It is
not so much that Buddhism has a difficulty in deriving an ought from an
is, it is that it faces the more fundamental difficulty of defining an
"is" in the first place. On the theoretical level, then, the best
Buddhism can offer at the moment is an endorsement of those aspects of
the contemporary environmentalist agenda that do not conflict with its
philosophic core. The future development of a coherent and specifically
Buddhist environmentalism, assuming that this is indeed possible, will
be fraught with many difficulties.
Notes
[1] For example, Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama "A
Tibetan Buddhist Perspective on Spirit in Nature" in Rochefeller, Steven
C. and John C. Elder (eds.) Spirit and Nature: Why the Environment is a
Religious Issue (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992), pp. 109-123. Return
[2] Noritoshi Aramaki, "Shizen-hakai kara Shizen-sasei e - Rekishi no
Tenkai ni tsuite" ( From destruction of Nature to Revival of Nature: On
a Historical Conversion) Deai, 11, 1 (1992), pp.3-22. Return
[3] Joanna Macy, "The Greening of the Self" in A. Hunt-Badiner (ed.)
Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology (Berkeley:
Parallax, 1990), pp. 53-63. Also, Mutual Causality in Buddhism and
General Systems Theory: The Dharma of Natural Systems (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1991). Return
[4] Brian Brown, "Toward a Buddhist Ecological Cosmology" Bucknell
Review, 37,2 (1993), pp.124-137. Return
[5] Lambert Schmithausen, Buddhism and Nature. The Lecture Delivered on
the Occasion of the EXPO 1990 (An Enlarged Version with Notes) (Tokyo:
The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1991 [Studia
Philologica Buddhica, Occasional Paper Series VI I]). Also, The Problem
of the Sentience of Plants (Tokyo: The International Institute for
Buddhist Studies, 1991 [Studia Philologica Buddhica, Occasional Paper
Series VI]). Return
[6] Noriaki Hakamaya, "Shizen-hihan to-shite no Bukkyoo" (Buddhism as a
Criticism of Physis/Natura) Komazawa-daiguku Bukkyoogakubu Ronshū, 21
(1990), pp.380-403. Also, "Nihon-jin to animizmu" Komazawa-daiguku
Bukkyoogakubu Ronshū, 23 (1992), pp.351-378. Return
[7] I. Yamada, "Premises and Implications of Interdependence" in S.
Balasooriya, et al (eds.) Buddhist Studies in Honour of Walpola Rahula
(London: Gordon Fraser, 1980), p. 279f. Return
[8] Ibid., p. 271. Return
[9] Ibid pp. 272-273. Return
[10] The main opponents to this apparent notion of simultaneous
causation were the Dārṣṭāntikas (cf. Mahāvibhāṣā [Taishoo 27, p.79c7-8])
and the Sautrāntikas (Vasubandhu Abhidharmako"sa 83.18-84.24). The
Sautrāntika objections to the notion of mutual causality were fourfold.
Return
[11] See Nyāyānusāra [Taishoo 29.419b7-8] quoted in K.K. Tanaka,
"Simultaneous Relation (Sahabhū-hetu): A Study in Buddhist Theory of
Causation," Journal of the International Association of Buddhist
Studies, 8, 1 (1985), pp. 91-111; p.95. Return
[12] Ibid. Return
[13] Ledi Sayadaw "On the Philosophy of Relations I I," Journal of the
Pali Text Society, (1915-16), pp. 21-53; p.40. This reading is confirmed
by W. M. McGovern's discussion of this matter in A Manual of Buddhist
Philosophy Vol. 1 - Cosmology (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner &
Co., 1923), pp. 194-195. Return
[14] Y. Karunadasa, Buddhist Analysis of Matter (Colombo: Dept. of
Cultural Affairs, 1967), p. 131. Funnily enough Kalupahana takes a
rather different line. For him, sahajātapaccaya, not aññamaññapaccaya is
the correlate of sahabhūhetu while, on the authority of Haribhadra,
aññamañña is said to be the correlate of the Sarvāstivāda sabhāgahetu.
See David J. Kalupahana, Causality: The Central Philosophy of Buddhism
(Honolulu: University Press of Hawai'i, 1975), pp. 167-168. Return
[15] Sammohavinodanī pp. 199-209. Return
[16] It is certainly curious that Ledi Sayadaw (op cit) fails to make
any specific reference to aññamañña in his treatment of the paccayas.
Again, Nyanatiloka is extremely cautious in treatment of simultaneity in
causal relations; see Nyanatiloka Mahāthera, Guide Through the
Abhidhamma-Pitaka: Being a Synopsis of the Philosophical Collection
Belonging to the Buddhist Pali Canon (Kandy: Buddhist Publication
Society, 1971), p. 156. Return
[17] Gadjin Nagao, "The Logic of Convertibility" in Madhyamaka and
Yogācāra: A Study of Mahāyāna Philosophies: Collected Papers of GṂṆagao
[Edited, collated and translated by LṢ.Kawamura in collaboration with
GṂṆagao] (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), p. 130
[first appeared as "Tenkan no Ronri" in Tetsugaku Kenkyu (Journal of
Philosophical Studies), 35,7 (1952), p. 405ff. Return
[18] This distinction between cadres of spiritual praxis and
philosophical reflection builds on the distinction first made by Lambert
Schmithausen in "Spirituelle Praxis und Philosophical Theorie im
Buddhismus," Zeitschrift fur Missionswissenschaft und
Religionswissenschaft, 57,3 (1973), pp. 161-186 [Republished &
translated into English as "On the Problem of the Relation of Spiritual
Practice and Philosophical Theory in Buddhism" in German Scholars on
India, Vol.I I (New Delhi: Cultural Department of the Embassy of the
Federal Republic of Germany, 1976. pp. 235-250]. Return
[19] Charles Hartshorne, Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method
(London: SCM Press, 1970 [The Library of Philosophy and Theology]),
pp.205-226. Return
[20] On the authorship, etc., of Akutobhayā, see C.W. Huntingdon, Jr.,
The Akutobhayā and Early Indian Madhyamaka, unpublished dissertation,
University of Michigan, 1986. Return
[21] See David S. Ruegg, "The Uses of the Four Positions of the
Catuṣkoṭi and the Problem of the Description of Reality in Mahāyāna
Buddhism", Journal of Indian Philosophy, 5 (1977-8), pp. 37ff. Return
[22] Ian Charles Harris, The Continuity of Madhyamaka and Yogācāra in
Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1991); especially see
chapter 7. Return
[23] See my "An American Appropriation of Buddhism" in T. Skorupski
(ed.), Buddhist Forum, Vol. 3 (Tring: Institute of Buddhist Studies,
1994), forthcoming. Return
[24] Gadjin M. Nagao, The Foundational Standpoint of Madhyamika
Philosophy [translated by John P. Keenan] (Albany: State University of
New York Press, 1989), p. 8. Return
[25] Ibid p. 17. Return
[26] Ruegg, "The Uses of the Four Positions of the Catuṣkoṭi and the
Problem of the Description of Reality in Mahāyāna Buddhism," p. 10.
Return
[27] aparapratyayaṃ "sāntam prapañcair aprapañcitaṃ. nirvikalpam
anānārtham etat tattvasya lakṣaṇaṃ. Return
[28] Ruegg, "The Uses of the Four Positions of the Catuṣkoṭi and the
Problem of the Description of Reality in Mahāyāna Buddhism," p. 11 n.
44. Return
[29] Louis de la Vallee Poussin, "Identity (Buddhist)" in J. Hastings
(ed.), Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark,
1914), Vol. VI I, p. 100. Return
[30] Bernard Faure, The Rhetoric of Immediacy: A Cultural Critique of
Chan/Zen Buddhism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 4.
Return
[31] Th. Stcherbatsky, The Central Conception of Buddhism (Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1974), p. 31. Return
[32] The term "dysteleology" seems to have been coined by the Protestant
theologian E. Heckel to denote the "purposelessness of nature". Return
[33] Andrew Woodfield, Teleology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1976), p. 6. Return
[34] For example, David Ray Griffin, "Whitehead's Deeply Ecological
Worldview," Bucknell Review 37, 2 (1993), pp. 190-206. Return
[35] See my "How Environmentalist is Buddhism?" Religion, 21 (1991), pp.
101-114. Return
[36] Lambert Schmithausen, "How can Ecological Ethics be Established in
Early Buddhism", p. 15 (forthcoming). Return
[37] David Little and Sumner BṬwiss, Comparative Religious Ethics: A New
Method (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978), p. 240. Return
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Source: http://jbe.gold.ac.uk/
Update: 01-12-2004
