Buddhist philosophy
Encyclopedia
Buddhist philosophy deals extensively with problems in metaphysics
, phenomenology, ethics
, and epistemology.
Some scholars assert that early Buddhist philosophy did not engage in ontological
or metaphysical
speculation, but was based instead on empirical
evidence gained by the sense organs (ayatana). Buddha is said to have assumed an unsympathetic attitude toward speculative thought in general. A basic idea of the Buddha is that the world must be thought of in procedural terms, not in terms of things or substances. The Buddha advised viewing reality as consisting of dependently originated phenomena; Buddhists view this approach to experience as avoiding the two extremes of reification
and nihilism
. Nevertheless, Buddhist scholars have addressed ontological and metaphysical issues subsequently.
Particular points of Buddhist philosophy have often been the subject of disputes between different schools of Buddhism
. While theory for its own sake is not valued in Buddhism, theory pursued in the interest of enlightenment is consistent with Buddhist values and ethics.
lived during a time of spiritual and philosophical revival in Northern India when the established mythologies and cosmological explanations of the vedas
came under rational scrutiny. As well as the Buddha's own teachings, new ethical and spiritual philosophies such as those of Mahavira
became established during this period when alternatives to the mainstream religion arose in an atmosphere of freethought
and renewed vitality in spiritual endeavour. This general cultural movement is today known as the Sramanic tradition and the epoch of new thought as the axial era
. These heterodox groups held widely divergent opinions but were united by a critical attitude towards the established religion whose explanations they found unsatisfactory and whose animal sacrifice
s increasingly distasteful and irrelevant. In Greece, China and India there was a return to fundamental questions and a new interest in the question of how humans should live. In this atmosphere of freethought the Buddha discouraged his followers from indulging in intellectual disputation for its own sake, saying that this is fruitless and distracting from true awakening. The Buddha saw himself as a physician
rather than a philosopher. Like a doctor he was concerned with identifying the fundamental problem of human existence (diagnosis), its cause (etiology), and treatment. However, the Buddha's doctrine did have an important philosophical component: it negated the major claims of rival positions while building upon them at a new philosophical and religious level.
The Buddha's method of enquiry in disputation with others was like the Socratic method
, his approach to metaphysical questions apophatic and his attitude to the accepted pantheon of gods and goddesses somewhat iconoclastic. He asserted the insubstantiality of the ego
and in doing so countered those Upanishadic sages who sought knowledge of an unchanging ultimate self
. The Buddha created a new position in opposition to their theories, and held that attachment to a permanent self in this world of change is the cause of suffering and the main obstacle to liberation
. He broke new ground by going on to explain the source for the apparent ego: it is merely the result of identification with the temporary aggregates (skandhas) which constitute the sum total of the individual human being's experience at any given moment in time. His avoidance of theological speculation or assertions and non-assertion of the existence of any Supreme Being or essential substance may be seen as evidence of his mystical apophasis rather than skepticism or nihilism. The Buddha was concerned with advancing human happiness by teaching people the correct method of liberation.
The Buddha's teaching is rationalistic, scientific and empirical. Though he uses parables and similes in common with other religious teachers he is somewhat unique in bringing a highly logical and analytical approach to questions of ultimate significance for human beings. In this breaking down into constituent elements, the Buddha was heir to earlier element philosophies which had sought to characterize existing things as made up of a set of basic elements. The Buddha, however, eliminated mythological rhetoric, systematized world components into five groups, and used this approach not to characterize a substantial object, but to explain a delusion. He coordinated material components with psychological ones. The Buddha criticized the Brahmins' theories of an Absolute
as yet another reification
, instead giving a path
to self-perfection as a means of transcending the world of name and form
.
is the issue of epistemological justification. All schools of Indian logic
recognize various sets of valid justifications for knowledge, or pramāṇa
– Buddhism recognizes a set that is smaller than the others'. All accept perception
and inference, for example, but for some schools of Hinduism and Buddhism the received textual tradition is an epistemological category equal to perception and inference (although this is not necessarily true for some other schools).
Thus, in the Hindu schools, if a claim was made that could not be substantiated by appeal to the textual canon, it would be considered as ridiculous as a claim that the sky was green and, conversely, a claim which could not be substantiated via conventional means might still be justified through textual reference, differentiating this from the epistemology of hard science
.
Some schools of Buddhism, on the other hand, rejected an inflexible reverence of accepted doctrine. As the Buddha said, according to the canonical scriptures:
Early Buddhist philosophers and exegetes of one particular early school
(as opposed to Mahāyāna
), the Sarvāstivādins
, created a pluralist
metaphysical and phenomenological system, in which all experiences of people, things and events can be broken down into smaller and smaller perceptual or perceptual-ontological
units called "dharmas". Other schools incorporated some parts of this theory and criticized others. The Sautrāntikas, another early school, and the Theravādins
, now the only modern survivor of the early Buddhist schools, criticized the realist
standpoint of the Sarvāstivādins.
The Mahāyānist Nāgārjuna
, one of the most influential Buddhist thinkers, promoted classical Buddhist emphasis on phenomena and attacked Sarvāstivāda realism and Sautrāntika nominalism
in his magnum opus, The Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way
(Mūlamadhyamakakārikā).
, during his lifetime the Buddha remained silent when asked several metaphysical
questions
. These regarded issues such as whether the universe is eternal or non-eternal (or whether it is finite or infinite), the unity or separation of the body and the self
, the complete inexistence of a person after Nirvana and death, and others. One explanation for this silence is that such questions distract from activity that is practical to realizing enlightenment
and bring about the danger of substituting the experience of liberation by conceptual understanding of the doctrine or by religious faith. Another explanation is that both affirmative and negative positions regarding these questions are based on attachment to and misunderstanding of the aggregates and senses. That is, when one sees these things for what they are, the idea of forming positions on such metaphysical questions simply does not occur to one. Another closely related explanation is that reality is devoid of designations, or empty, and therefore language itself is a priori inadequate.
Thus, the Buddha's silence does not indicate misology
or disdain for philosophy. Rather, it indicates that he viewed these questions as not leading to true knowledge. Dependent arising provides a framework for analysis of reality that is not based on metaphysical assumptions regarding existence or non-existence, but instead on direct cognition of phenomena as they are presented to the mind. This informs and supports the Buddhist approach to liberation via the Noble Eightfold Path.
The Buddha of the earliest Buddhists texts describes Dharma (in the sense of "truth") as "beyond reasoning" or "transcending logic", in the sense that reasoning is a subjectively introduced aspect of the way humans perceive things, and the conceptual framework which underpins it is a part of the cognitive process, rather than a feature of things as they really are. Being "beyond reasoning" means in this context penetrating the nature of reasoning from the inside, and removing the causes for experiencing any future stress as a result of it, rather than functioning outside of the system as a whole.
Most Buddhists agree that, to a greater or lesser extent, words are inadequate to describe the goal of the Buddhist path, but concerning the usefulness of words in the path itself, schools differ radically.
In the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra, the Buddha insists that while pondering upon Dharma is vital, one must then relinquish fixation on words and letters, as these are utterly divorced from liberation and the Buddha-nature
. The Tibetan tantra
entitled the "All-Creating King" (Kunjed Gyalpo Tantra
) also emphasizes how Buddhist truth lies beyond the range of discursive/verbal thought and is ultimately mysterious. Samantabhadra, states there: "The mind of perfect purity ... is beyond thinking and inexplicable..." Also later, the famous Indian Buddhist practitioner and teacher, mahasiddha
Tilopa
discouraged any intellectual activity in his six words of advice.
Professor C. D. Sebastian describes the nature of enlightenment according to one Mahayana text:
The early texts, in contrast, contain explicit repudiations of attributing omniscience
to the Buddha. Furthermore, the non-duality ascribed to the nature of enlightenment in the early texts is not ontological.
Mahayana often adopts a pragmatic concept of truth
: doctrines are "true" in the sense of being spiritually beneficial. In modern Chinese Buddhism, all doctrinal traditions are regarded as equally valid.
Theravada promotes the concept of vibhajjavada
(Pāli, literally "Teaching of Analysis") to non-Buddhists. This doctrine says that insight must come from the aspirant's experience, critical investigation, and reasoning instead of by blind faith. As the Buddha said according to the canonical scriptures:
(pratītyasamutpāda). It states that events are not predetermined
, nor are they random, and it rejects notions of direct causation, which are necessarily undergirded by a substantialist metaphysics. Instead, it posits the arising of events under certain conditions which are inextricable, such that the processes in question at no time, are considered to be entities.
Dependent origination goes on to posit that certain specific events, concepts, or realities are always dependent on other specific things. Craving, for example, is always dependent on, and caused by, emotion. Emotion is always dependent on contact with our surroundings. This chain of causation purports to show that the cessation of decay, death, and sorrow is indirectly dependent on the cessation of craving.
asserted a direct connection between, even identity of, dependent origination, selflessness (anatta), and emptiness (śūnyatā). He pointed out that implicit in the early Buddhist concept of dependent origination is the lack of any substantial being (anatta) underlying the participants in origination, so that they have no independent existence, a state identified as emptiness (śūnyatā), or emptiness of a nature or essence (svabhāva).
, a Mahāyāna scripture, and its associated schools. It holds that all phenomena (Sanskrit: dharmas) are intimately connected (and mutually arising). Two images are used to convey this idea. The first is known as Indra's net
. The net is set with jewels which have the extraordinary property that they reflect all of the other jewels. The second image is that of the world text. This image portrays the world as consisting of an enormous text which is as large as the universe itself. The words of the text are composed of the phenomena that make up the world. However, every atom of the world contains the whole text within it. It is the work of a Buddha to let out the text so that beings can be liberated from suffering. The doctrine of interpenetration influenced the Japanese monk Kūkai
, who founded the Shingon
school of Buddhism. It is iconographically represented by yab-yum
.
Interpenetration and essence-function
are mutually informing in the East Asian Buddhist traditions, especially the Korean Buddhist tradition.
The purpose of living an ethical life is to escape the suffering inherent in samsara
. Skillful actions condition the mind in a positive way and lead to future happiness, while the opposite is true for unskillful actions. Ethical discipline also provides the mental stability and freedom to embark upon mental cultivation via meditation
.
Some scholars disagree, and have proposed many other theories. According to such scholars, there was something they variously call "earliest Buddhism", "original Buddhism" or "pre-canonical Buddhism". The Buddha rejected certain precepts of Indian philosophy
that were prominent during his lifetime. According to some scholars, the philosophical outlook of earliest Buddhism was primarily negative, in the sense that it focused on what doctrines to reject more than on what doctrines to accept. This dimension is also found in the Madhyamaka
school. It includes critical rejections of all views
, which is a form of philosophy, but it is reluctant to posit its own.
Only knowledge that is useful in achieving enlightenment is valued. According to this theory, the cycle of philosophical upheavals that in part drove the diversification of Buddhism into its many schools and sects only began once Buddhists began attempting to make explicit the implicit philosophy of the Buddha and the early suttas. Other scholars reject this theory. After the death of the Buddha, attempts were made to gather his teachings and transmit them in a commonly agreed form, first orally, then also in writing (the Tripiṭaka
).
schools, (particularly Theravāda
and Sarvāstivāda
), and the Mahāyāna
schools
(the latter including the Madhyamaka
, Yogācāra
, Huayan, and Tiantai
schools).
) doctrine of some schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism, the Theravāda
doctrine of bhavaṅga
, and the Yogācāra store consciousness
were all identified at some point with the luminous mind
of the Nikāyas.
The tathāgatagarbha sutras, in a departure from mainstream Buddhist language, insist that the true self lies at the very heart of the Buddha himself and of nirvana, as well as being concealed within the mass of mental and moral contaminants that blight all beings. Such doctrines saw a shift from a largely apophatic (negative) philosophical trend within Buddhism to a decidedly more cataphatic (positive) modus. The tathāgatagarbha does not, according to some scholars, represent a substantial self; rather, it is a positive language expression of emptiness and represents the potentiality to realize Buddhahood through Buddhist practices. In this interpretation, the intention of the teaching of tathāgatagarbha is soteriological
rather than theoretical. The word "self" (atman) is used in a way idiosyncratic to these sutras; the "true self" is described as the perfection of the wisdom of not-self
in the Buddha-Nature Treatise, for example. Language that had previously been used by essentialist non-Buddhist philosophers was now adopted, with new definitions, by Buddhists to promote orthodox teachings.
Prior to the period of these scriptures, Mahāyāna metaphysics
had been dominated by teachings on emptiness
in the form of Madhyamaka
philosophy. The language used by this approach is primarily negative, and the tathāgatagarbha genre of sutras can be seen as an attempt to state orthodox Buddhist teachings of dependent origination using positive language instead, to prevent people from being turned away from Buddhism by a false impression of nihilism. In these sutras the perfection of the wisdom of not-self is stated to be the true self; the ultimate goal of the path is then characterized using a range of positive language that had been used previously in Indian philosophy by essentialist philosophers, but which was now transmuted into a new Buddhist vocabulary to describe a being who has successfully completed the Buddhist path.
, though he argued for the existence of a permanent reality, asserts that all phenomenal existence is transitory. In his opinion sorrow is conquered "by finding an object of knowledge which is not transient, not ephemeral, but is immutable, permanent, everlasting." Buddhism teaches that such a quest is bound to fail. David Hume
, after a relentless analysis of the mind, concluded that consciousness consists of fleeting mental states. Hume's Bundle theory
is a very similar concept to the Buddhist skandhas, though his denial of causation lead him to opposite conclusions in other areas. Arthur Schopenhauer
's philosophy had some parallels in Buddhism.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
's "word games" map closely to the warning of intellectual speculation as a red herring to understanding, in a similar fashion as the Buddhist Parable of the Poison Arrow. Friedrich Nietzsche
, although himself dismissive of Buddhism as yet another nihilism, developed his philosophy of accepting life-as-it-exists and self-cultivation, which is extremely similar to Buddhism as better understood in the West. Heidegger's ideas on being and nothingness have been held by some to be similar to Buddhism today.
An alternative approach to the comparison of Buddhist thought with Western philosophy is to use the concept of the Middle Way
in Buddhism as a critical tool for the assessment of Western philosophies. In this way Western philosophies can be classified in Buddhist terms as eternalist or nihilist. In a Buddhist view all philosophies are to be considered non-essential.
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
, phenomenology, ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
, and epistemology.
Some scholars assert that early Buddhist philosophy did not engage in ontological
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
or metaphysical
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
speculation, but was based instead on empirical
Empiricism
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...
evidence gained by the sense organs (ayatana). Buddha is said to have assumed an unsympathetic attitude toward speculative thought in general. A basic idea of the Buddha is that the world must be thought of in procedural terms, not in terms of things or substances. The Buddha advised viewing reality as consisting of dependently originated phenomena; Buddhists view this approach to experience as avoiding the two extremes of reification
Reification (fallacy)
Reification is a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction is treated as if it were a concrete, real event, or physical entity. In other words, it is the error of treating as a "real thing" something which is not a real thing, but merely an idea...
and nihilism
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
. Nevertheless, Buddhist scholars have addressed ontological and metaphysical issues subsequently.
Particular points of Buddhist philosophy have often been the subject of disputes between different schools of Buddhism
Schools of Buddhism
Buddhism is an ancient, polyvalent ideological system that originated in the Iron Age Indian subcontinent, referred to variously throughout history by one or more of a myriad of concepts – including, but not limited to any of the following: a Dharmic religion, a philosophy or quasi-philosophical...
. While theory for its own sake is not valued in Buddhism, theory pursued in the interest of enlightenment is consistent with Buddhist values and ethics.
Historical context
The historical BuddhaGautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
lived during a time of spiritual and philosophical revival in Northern India when the established mythologies and cosmological explanations of the vedas
Vedas
The Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism....
came under rational scrutiny. As well as the Buddha's own teachings, new ethical and spiritual philosophies such as those of Mahavira
Mahavira
Mahāvīra is the name most commonly used to refer to the Indian sage Vardhamāna who established what are today considered to be the central tenets of Jainism. According to Jain tradition, he was the 24th and the last Tirthankara. In Tamil, he is referred to as Arukaṉ or Arukadevan...
became established during this period when alternatives to the mainstream religion arose in an atmosphere of freethought
Freethought
Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or other dogmas...
and renewed vitality in spiritual endeavour. This general cultural movement is today known as the Sramanic tradition and the epoch of new thought as the axial era
Axial Age
German philosopher Karl Jaspers coined the term the axial age or axial period to describe the period from 800 to 200 BC, during which, according to Jaspers, similar revolutionary thinking appeared in India, China and the Occident...
. These heterodox groups held widely divergent opinions but were united by a critical attitude towards the established religion whose explanations they found unsatisfactory and whose animal sacrifice
Animal sacrifice
Animal sacrifice is the ritual killing of an animal as part of a religion. It is practised by many religions as a means of appeasing a god or gods or changing the course of nature...
s increasingly distasteful and irrelevant. In Greece, China and India there was a return to fundamental questions and a new interest in the question of how humans should live. In this atmosphere of freethought the Buddha discouraged his followers from indulging in intellectual disputation for its own sake, saying that this is fruitless and distracting from true awakening. The Buddha saw himself as a physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
rather than a philosopher. Like a doctor he was concerned with identifying the fundamental problem of human existence (diagnosis), its cause (etiology), and treatment. However, the Buddha's doctrine did have an important philosophical component: it negated the major claims of rival positions while building upon them at a new philosophical and religious level.
The Buddha's method of enquiry in disputation with others was like the Socratic method
Socratic method
The Socratic method , named after the classical Greek philosopher Socrates, is a form of inquiry and debate between individuals with opposing viewpoints based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to illuminate ideas...
, his approach to metaphysical questions apophatic and his attitude to the accepted pantheon of gods and goddesses somewhat iconoclastic. He asserted the insubstantiality of the ego
Anatta
In Buddhism, anattā or anātman refers to the notion of "not-self." In the early texts, the Buddha commonly uses the word in the context of teaching that all things perceived by the senses are not really "I" or "mine," and for this reason one should not cling to them.In the same vein, the Pali...
and in doing so countered those Upanishadic sages who sought knowledge of an unchanging ultimate self
Atman (Hinduism)
Ātman is a Sanskrit word that means 'self'. In Hindu philosophy, especially in the Vedanta school of Hinduism it refers to one's true self beyond identification with phenomena...
. The Buddha created a new position in opposition to their theories, and held that attachment to a permanent self in this world of change is the cause of suffering and the main obstacle to liberation
Moksha
Within Indian religions, moksha or mukti , literally "release" , is the liberation from samsara and the concomitant suffering involved in being subject to the cycle of repeated death and reincarnation or rebirth.-Origins:It is highly probable that the concept of moksha was first developed in...
. He broke new ground by going on to explain the source for the apparent ego: it is merely the result of identification with the temporary aggregates (skandhas) which constitute the sum total of the individual human being's experience at any given moment in time. His avoidance of theological speculation or assertions and non-assertion of the existence of any Supreme Being or essential substance may be seen as evidence of his mystical apophasis rather than skepticism or nihilism. The Buddha was concerned with advancing human happiness by teaching people the correct method of liberation.
The Buddha's teaching is rationalistic, scientific and empirical. Though he uses parables and similes in common with other religious teachers he is somewhat unique in bringing a highly logical and analytical approach to questions of ultimate significance for human beings. In this breaking down into constituent elements, the Buddha was heir to earlier element philosophies which had sought to characterize existing things as made up of a set of basic elements. The Buddha, however, eliminated mythological rhetoric, systematized world components into five groups, and used this approach not to characterize a substantial object, but to explain a delusion. He coordinated material components with psychological ones. The Buddha criticized the Brahmins' theories of an Absolute
Absolute (philosophy)
The Absolute is the concept of an unconditional reality which transcends limited, conditional, everyday existence. It is sometimes used as an alternate term for "God" or "the Divine", especially, but by no means exclusively, by those who feel that the term "God" lends itself too easily to...
as yet another reification
Reification (fallacy)
Reification is a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction is treated as if it were a concrete, real event, or physical entity. In other words, it is the error of treating as a "real thing" something which is not a real thing, but merely an idea...
, instead giving a path
Noble Eightfold Path
The Noble Eightfold Path , is one of the principal teachings of the Buddha, who described it as the way leading to the cessation of suffering and the achievement of self-awakening. It is used to develop insight into the true nature of phenomena and to eradicate greed, hatred, and delusion...
to self-perfection as a means of transcending the world of name and form
Namarupa
Nāmarūpa is a dvandva compound in Sanskrit and Pali meaning "name and form ".-Nāmarūpa in Hinduism:The term nāmarūpa is used in Hindu thought, nāma describing the spiritual or essential properties of an object or being, and rūpa the physical presence that it manifests...
.
Epistemology
Decisive in distinguishing Buddhism from what is commonly called HinduismHinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
is the issue of epistemological justification. All schools of Indian logic
Indian logic
The development of Indian logic dates back to the anviksiki of Medhatithi Gautama the Sanskrit grammar rules of Pāṇini ; the Vaisheshika school's analysis of atomism ; the analysis of inference by Gotama , founder of the Nyaya school of Hindu philosophy; and the tetralemma of Nagarjuna...
recognize various sets of valid justifications for knowledge, or pramāṇa
Pramana
Pramana is an epistemological term in Hindu and Buddhist dialectic, debate and discourse.Pramāṇavāda and Hetuvidya can be glossed in English as Indian and Buddhist Epistemology and Logic, respectively.-In Hinduism:...
– Buddhism recognizes a set that is smaller than the others'. All accept perception
Perception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
and inference, for example, but for some schools of Hinduism and Buddhism the received textual tradition is an epistemological category equal to perception and inference (although this is not necessarily true for some other schools).
Thus, in the Hindu schools, if a claim was made that could not be substantiated by appeal to the textual canon, it would be considered as ridiculous as a claim that the sky was green and, conversely, a claim which could not be substantiated via conventional means might still be justified through textual reference, differentiating this from the epistemology of hard science
Scientific method
Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...
.
Some schools of Buddhism, on the other hand, rejected an inflexible reverence of accepted doctrine. As the Buddha said, according to the canonical scriptures:
Early Buddhist philosophers and exegetes of one particular early school
Early Buddhist schools
The early Buddhist schools are those schools into which, according to most scholars, the Buddhist monastic saṅgha initially split, due originally to differences in vinaya, and later also due to doctrinal differences and geographical separation of groups of monks.The original saṅgha split into the...
(as opposed to Mahāyāna
Mahayana
Mahāyāna is one of the two main existing branches of Buddhism and a term for classification of Buddhist philosophies and practice...
), the Sarvāstivādins
Sarvastivada
The Sarvāstivāda were an early school of Buddhism that held to 'the existence of all dharmas in the past, present and future, the 'three times'. Vasubandhu's states:-Name:...
, created a pluralist
Pluralism (philosophy of mind)
Pluralism is a term used in philosophy, meaning "doctrine of multiplicity", often used in opposition to monism and dualism . The term has different connotations in metaphysics and epistemology...
metaphysical and phenomenological system, in which all experiences of people, things and events can be broken down into smaller and smaller perceptual or perceptual-ontological
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
units called "dharmas". Other schools incorporated some parts of this theory and criticized others. The Sautrāntikas, another early school, and the Theravādins
Theravada
Theravada ; literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India...
, now the only modern survivor of the early Buddhist schools, criticized the realist
Philosophical realism
Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief that our reality, or some aspect of it, is ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc....
standpoint of the Sarvāstivādins.
The Mahāyānist Nāgārjuna
Nagarjuna
Nāgārjuna was an important Buddhist teacher and philosopher. Along with his disciple Āryadeva, he is credited with founding the Mādhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism...
, one of the most influential Buddhist thinkers, promoted classical Buddhist emphasis on phenomena and attacked Sarvāstivāda realism and Sautrāntika nominalism
Nominalism
Nominalism is a metaphysical view in philosophy according to which general or abstract terms and predicates exist, while universals or abstract objects, which are sometimes thought to correspond to these terms, do not exist. Thus, there are at least two main versions of nominalism...
in his magnum opus, The Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way
Mulamadhyamakakarika
The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā , or Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way, is a key text by Nagarjuna, one of the most important Buddhist philosophers.-Competing interpretations:...
(Mūlamadhyamakakārikā).
Speculation versus direct experience
According to the scripturesPāli Canon
The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the only completely surviving early Buddhist canon, and one of the first to be written down...
, during his lifetime the Buddha remained silent when asked several metaphysical
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
questions
Fourteen unanswerable questions
The phrase fourteen unanswerable questions , in Buddhism, refers to fourteen common philosophical questions that Buddha refused to answer, according to Buddhist Sanskrit texts...
. These regarded issues such as whether the universe is eternal or non-eternal (or whether it is finite or infinite), the unity or separation of the body and the self
Atman (Buddhism)
The word Ātman or Atta refers to a self. Occasionally the terms "soul" or "ego" are also used. The words ātman and atta derive from the Indo-European root *ēt-men and are cognate with the Old English æthm and German Atem....
, the complete inexistence of a person after Nirvana and death, and others. One explanation for this silence is that such questions distract from activity that is practical to realizing enlightenment
Bodhi
Bodhi is both a Pāli and Sanskrit word traditionally translated into English with the word "enlightenment", but which means awakened. In Buddhism it is the knowledge possessed by a Buddha into the nature of things...
and bring about the danger of substituting the experience of liberation by conceptual understanding of the doctrine or by religious faith. Another explanation is that both affirmative and negative positions regarding these questions are based on attachment to and misunderstanding of the aggregates and senses. That is, when one sees these things for what they are, the idea of forming positions on such metaphysical questions simply does not occur to one. Another closely related explanation is that reality is devoid of designations, or empty, and therefore language itself is a priori inadequate.
Thus, the Buddha's silence does not indicate misology
Misology
Misology is defined as the hatred of reasoning; the revulsion or distrust of logical debate, argumentation or the Socratic elenchus. As such, it can also be used to mean anti-intellectualism in general....
or disdain for philosophy. Rather, it indicates that he viewed these questions as not leading to true knowledge. Dependent arising provides a framework for analysis of reality that is not based on metaphysical assumptions regarding existence or non-existence, but instead on direct cognition of phenomena as they are presented to the mind. This informs and supports the Buddhist approach to liberation via the Noble Eightfold Path.
The Buddha of the earliest Buddhists texts describes Dharma (in the sense of "truth") as "beyond reasoning" or "transcending logic", in the sense that reasoning is a subjectively introduced aspect of the way humans perceive things, and the conceptual framework which underpins it is a part of the cognitive process, rather than a feature of things as they really are. Being "beyond reasoning" means in this context penetrating the nature of reasoning from the inside, and removing the causes for experiencing any future stress as a result of it, rather than functioning outside of the system as a whole.
Most Buddhists agree that, to a greater or lesser extent, words are inadequate to describe the goal of the Buddhist path, but concerning the usefulness of words in the path itself, schools differ radically.
In the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra, the Buddha insists that while pondering upon Dharma is vital, one must then relinquish fixation on words and letters, as these are utterly divorced from liberation and the Buddha-nature
Buddha-nature
Buddha-nature, Buddha-dhatu or Buddha Principle , is taught differently in various Mahayana Buddhism traditions. Broadly speaking Buddha-nature is concerned with ascertaining what allows sentient beings to become Buddhas...
. The Tibetan tantra
Tantra
Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....
entitled the "All-Creating King" (Kunjed Gyalpo Tantra
Kunjed Gyalpo Tantra
The Kulayarāja Tantra is a Buddhist Tantra extant in Tibetan which centers upon the direct teachings of the primordial, ultimate Buddha , Samantabhadra...
) also emphasizes how Buddhist truth lies beyond the range of discursive/verbal thought and is ultimately mysterious. Samantabhadra, states there: "The mind of perfect purity ... is beyond thinking and inexplicable..." Also later, the famous Indian Buddhist practitioner and teacher, mahasiddha
Mahasiddha
Mahasiddha is a term for one who cultivates those teachings that lead to becoming perfect. They are a type of eccentric yogini/yogi in both Sanatan Dharma and Vajrayana Dharma, given by Siddhartha. Mahasiddhi are those practitioners, or tantrikas who have gained sufficient understanding and are so...
Tilopa
Tilopa
Tilopa was born in either Chativavo , Bengal or Jagora, Bengal in India. He was a tantric practitioner and mahasiddha. He developed the mahamudra method, a set of spiritual practices that greatly accelerates the process of attaining bodhi...
discouraged any intellectual activity in his six words of advice.
Professor C. D. Sebastian describes the nature of enlightenment according to one Mahayana text:
The early texts, in contrast, contain explicit repudiations of attributing omniscience
Omniscience
Omniscience omniscient point-of-view in writing) is the capacity to know everything infinitely, or at least everything that can be known about a character including thoughts, feelings, life and the universe, etc. In Latin, omnis means "all" and sciens means "knowing"...
to the Buddha. Furthermore, the non-duality ascribed to the nature of enlightenment in the early texts is not ontological.
Mahayana often adopts a pragmatic concept of truth
Pragmatism
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition centered on the linking of practice and theory. It describes a process where theory is extracted from practice, and applied back to practice to form what is called intelligent practice...
: doctrines are "true" in the sense of being spiritually beneficial. In modern Chinese Buddhism, all doctrinal traditions are regarded as equally valid.
Theravada promotes the concept of vibhajjavada
Vibhajjavada
Vibhajyavāda was an early Buddhist school or a group of early Buddhist schools.-Nomenclature and etymology:The word Vibhajyavāda may be parsed into vibhajya, loosely meaning "dividing", "analyzing" and vāda holding the semantic field: "doctrine", "teachings". According to Andrew Skilton, the...
(Pāli, literally "Teaching of Analysis") to non-Buddhists. This doctrine says that insight must come from the aspirant's experience, critical investigation, and reasoning instead of by blind faith. As the Buddha said according to the canonical scriptures:
Dependent origination
What some consider the original positive Buddhist contribution to the field of metaphysics is dependent originationPratitya-samutpada
Dependent origination or dependent arising is a cardinal doctrine of Buddhism, and arguably the only thing that holds every Buddhist teaching together from Theravada to Dzogchen to the extinct schools. As a concept and a doctrine it has a general and a specific application, both being integral to...
(pratītyasamutpāda). It states that events are not predetermined
Predestination
Predestination, in theology is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God. John Calvin interpreted biblical predestination to mean that God willed eternal damnation for some people and salvation for others...
, nor are they random, and it rejects notions of direct causation, which are necessarily undergirded by a substantialist metaphysics. Instead, it posits the arising of events under certain conditions which are inextricable, such that the processes in question at no time, are considered to be entities.
Dependent origination goes on to posit that certain specific events, concepts, or realities are always dependent on other specific things. Craving, for example, is always dependent on, and caused by, emotion. Emotion is always dependent on contact with our surroundings. This chain of causation purports to show that the cessation of decay, death, and sorrow is indirectly dependent on the cessation of craving.
Nagarjuna
Nāgārjuna was an important Buddhist teacher and philosopher. Along with his disciple Āryadeva, he is credited with founding the Mādhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism...
asserted a direct connection between, even identity of, dependent origination, selflessness (anatta), and emptiness (śūnyatā). He pointed out that implicit in the early Buddhist concept of dependent origination is the lack of any substantial being (anatta) underlying the participants in origination, so that they have no independent existence, a state identified as emptiness (śūnyatā), or emptiness of a nature or essence (svabhāva).
Interpenetration
The doctrine of "interpenetration" or "coalescence" (Wylie: zung-'jug; Sanskrit: yuganaddha; Chinese: 通達) comes from the Avataṃsaka SūtraAvatamsaka Sutra
The is one of the most influential Mahayana sutras of East Asian Buddhism. The title is rendered in English as Flower Garland Sutra, Flower Adornment Sutra, or Flower Ornament Scripture....
, a Mahāyāna scripture, and its associated schools. It holds that all phenomena (Sanskrit: dharmas) are intimately connected (and mutually arising). Two images are used to convey this idea. The first is known as Indra's net
Indra's net
Indra's net is a metaphor used to illustrate the concepts of emptiness, dependent origination, and interpenetration in Buddhist philosophy...
. The net is set with jewels which have the extraordinary property that they reflect all of the other jewels. The second image is that of the world text. This image portrays the world as consisting of an enormous text which is as large as the universe itself. The words of the text are composed of the phenomena that make up the world. However, every atom of the world contains the whole text within it. It is the work of a Buddha to let out the text so that beings can be liberated from suffering. The doctrine of interpenetration influenced the Japanese monk Kūkai
Kukai
Kūkai , also known posthumously as , 774–835, was a Japanese monk, civil servant, scholar, poet, and artist, founder of the Shingon or "True Word" school of Buddhism. Shingon followers usually refer to him by the honorific titles of and ....
, who founded the Shingon
Shingon Buddhism
is one of the mainstream major schools of Japanese Buddhism and one of the few surviving Esoteric Buddhist lineages that started in the 3rd to 4th century CE that originally spread from India to China through traveling monks such as Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra...
school of Buddhism. It is iconographically represented by yab-yum
Yab-Yum
Yab-yum is a common symbol in the Buddhist art of India, Bhutan, Nepal, and Tibet representing the male deity in sexual union with his female consort...
.
Interpenetration and essence-function
Essence-Function
Essence-Function is a key concept in Korean Buddhism. The Awakening of Mahayana Faith, attributed to Aśvaghoṣa , employs Essence-Function. Essence-Function forms a fundamental syncretic and ecumenical application in the philosophy of Wonhyo...
are mutually informing in the East Asian Buddhist traditions, especially the Korean Buddhist tradition.
Ethics
Although there are many ethical tenets in Buddhism that differ depending on whether one is a monk or a layman, and depending on individual schools, the Buddhist system of ethics can be summed up in the eightfold path.The purpose of living an ethical life is to escape the suffering inherent in samsara
Samsara
thumb|right|200px|Traditional Tibetan painting or [[Thanka]] showing the [[wheel of life]] and realms of saṃsāraSaṅsāra or Saṃsāra , , literally meaning "continuous flow", is the cycle of birth, life, death, rebirth or reincarnation within Hinduism, Buddhism, Bön, Jainism, Sikhism, and other...
. Skillful actions condition the mind in a positive way and lead to future happiness, while the opposite is true for unskillful actions. Ethical discipline also provides the mental stability and freedom to embark upon mental cultivation via meditation
Buddhist meditation
Buddhist meditation refers to the meditative practices associated with the religion and philosophy of Buddhism.Core meditation techniques have been preserved in ancient Buddhist texts and have proliferated and diversified through teacher-student transmissions. Buddhists pursue meditation as part of...
.
Early development
Certain basic teachings appear in many places throughout the early texts, so most scholars conclude that the Buddha must at least have taught something of the kind:- the three marks of existenceThree marks of existenceThe Three marks of existence, within Buddhism, are three characteristics shared by all sentient beings, namely: impermanence ; suffering or unsatisfactoriness ; non-self .According to Buddhist tradition, a full understanding of these three can bring an end to suffering...
- the five aggregatesSkandhaIn Buddhist phenomenology and soteriology, the skandhas or khandhas are any of five types of phenomena that serve as objects of clinging and bases for a sense of self...
- dependent arising
- karmaKarma in BuddhismKarma means "action" or "doing"; whatever one does, says, or thinks is a karma. In Buddhism, the term karma is used specifically for those actions which spring from the intention of an unenlightened being.These bring about a fruit or result Karma (Sanskrit, also karman, Pāli: Kamma) means...
and rebirthRebirth (Buddhism)Rebirth in Buddhism is the doctrine that the evolving consciousness or stream of consciousness upon death , becomes one of the contributing causes for the arising of a new aggregation... - the four noble truthsFour Noble TruthsThe Four Noble Truths are an important principle in Buddhism, classically taught by the Buddha in the Dharmacakra Pravartana Sūtra....
- the eightfold pathNoble Eightfold PathThe Noble Eightfold Path , is one of the principal teachings of the Buddha, who described it as the way leading to the cessation of suffering and the achievement of self-awakening. It is used to develop insight into the true nature of phenomena and to eradicate greed, hatred, and delusion...
- nirvana
Some scholars disagree, and have proposed many other theories. According to such scholars, there was something they variously call "earliest Buddhism", "original Buddhism" or "pre-canonical Buddhism". The Buddha rejected certain precepts of Indian philosophy
Indian philosophy
India has a rich and diverse philosophical tradition dating back to ancient times. According to Radhakrishnan, the earlier Upanisads constitute "...the earliest philosophical compositions of the world."...
that were prominent during his lifetime. According to some scholars, the philosophical outlook of earliest Buddhism was primarily negative, in the sense that it focused on what doctrines to reject more than on what doctrines to accept. This dimension is also found in the Madhyamaka
Madhyamaka
Madhyamaka refers primarily to a Mahāyāna Buddhist school of Buddhist philosophy systematized by Nāgārjuna. Nāgārjuna may have arrived at his positions from a desire to achieve a consistent exegesis of the Buddha's doctrine as recorded in the āgamas...
school. It includes critical rejections of all views
View (Buddhism)
View or position is a central idea in Buddhism. In Buddhist thought, in contrast with the commonsense understanding, a view is not a simple, abstract collection of propositions, but a charged interpretation of experience which intensely shapes and affects thought, sensation, and action...
, which is a form of philosophy, but it is reluctant to posit its own.
Only knowledge that is useful in achieving enlightenment is valued. According to this theory, the cycle of philosophical upheavals that in part drove the diversification of Buddhism into its many schools and sects only began once Buddhists began attempting to make explicit the implicit philosophy of the Buddha and the early suttas. Other scholars reject this theory. After the death of the Buddha, attempts were made to gather his teachings and transmit them in a commonly agreed form, first orally, then also in writing (the Tripiṭaka
Tripiṭaka
' is a traditional term used by various Buddhist sects to describe their various canons of scriptures. As the name suggests, a traditionally contains three "baskets" of teachings: a , a and an .-The three categories:Tripitaka is the three main categories of texts that make up the...
).
Later developments
The main Buddhist philosophical schools are the AbhidharmaAbhidharma
Abhidharma or Abhidhamma are ancient Buddhist texts which contain detailed scholastic and scientific reworkings of doctrinal material appearing in the Buddhist Sutras, according to schematic classifications...
schools, (particularly Theravāda
Theravada
Theravada ; literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India...
and Sarvāstivāda
Sarvastivada
The Sarvāstivāda were an early school of Buddhism that held to 'the existence of all dharmas in the past, present and future, the 'three times'. Vasubandhu's states:-Name:...
), and the Mahāyāna
Mahayana
Mahāyāna is one of the two main existing branches of Buddhism and a term for classification of Buddhist philosophies and practice...
schools
(the latter including the Madhyamaka
Madhyamaka
Madhyamaka refers primarily to a Mahāyāna Buddhist school of Buddhist philosophy systematized by Nāgārjuna. Nāgārjuna may have arrived at his positions from a desire to achieve a consistent exegesis of the Buddha's doctrine as recorded in the āgamas...
, Yogācāra
Yogacara
Yogācāra is an influential school of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing phenomenology and ontology through the interior lens of meditative and yogic practices. It developed within Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism in about the 4th century CE...
, Huayan, and Tiantai
Tiantai
Tiantai is an important school of Buddhism in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. In Japan the school is known as Tendai, and in Korea it is known as Cheontae. Tiantai is also called the "Lotus School", due to its emphasis on the Lotus Sūtra as its doctrinal basis...
schools).
Cataphatic presentations
The tathāgathagarbha (or Buddha-natureBuddha-nature
Buddha-nature, Buddha-dhatu or Buddha Principle , is taught differently in various Mahayana Buddhism traditions. Broadly speaking Buddha-nature is concerned with ascertaining what allows sentient beings to become Buddhas...
) doctrine of some schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism, the Theravāda
Theravada
Theravada ; literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India...
doctrine of bhavaṅga
Bhavanga
Bhavanga is the most fundamental aspect of mind in Theravada Buddhism. It is an exclusively Theravada doctrine that differs from Sarvastivadin and Sautrantika theories of mind, and has been compared to the Mahayana concept of store-consciousness...
, and the Yogācāra store consciousness
Store consciousness
The Eight Consciousnesses are concepts developed in the tradition of the Yogacara school of Buddhism...
were all identified at some point with the luminous mind
Luminous mind
Luminous mind is a term attributed to the Buddha in the Nikayas...
of the Nikāyas.
The tathāgatagarbha sutras, in a departure from mainstream Buddhist language, insist that the true self lies at the very heart of the Buddha himself and of nirvana, as well as being concealed within the mass of mental and moral contaminants that blight all beings. Such doctrines saw a shift from a largely apophatic (negative) philosophical trend within Buddhism to a decidedly more cataphatic (positive) modus. The tathāgatagarbha does not, according to some scholars, represent a substantial self; rather, it is a positive language expression of emptiness and represents the potentiality to realize Buddhahood through Buddhist practices. In this interpretation, the intention of the teaching of tathāgatagarbha is soteriological
Soteriology
The branch of Christian theology that deals with salvation and redemption is called Soteriology. It is derived from the Greek sōtērion + English -logy....
rather than theoretical. The word "self" (atman) is used in a way idiosyncratic to these sutras; the "true self" is described as the perfection of the wisdom of not-self
Anatta
In Buddhism, anattā or anātman refers to the notion of "not-self." In the early texts, the Buddha commonly uses the word in the context of teaching that all things perceived by the senses are not really "I" or "mine," and for this reason one should not cling to them.In the same vein, the Pali...
in the Buddha-Nature Treatise, for example. Language that had previously been used by essentialist non-Buddhist philosophers was now adopted, with new definitions, by Buddhists to promote orthodox teachings.
Prior to the period of these scriptures, Mahāyāna metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
had been dominated by teachings on emptiness
Emptiness
Emptiness as a human condition is a sense of generalized boredom, social alienation and apathy. Feelings of emptiness often accompany dysthymia, depression, loneliness, despair, or other mental/emotional disorders such as borderline personality disorder...
in the form of Madhyamaka
Madhyamaka
Madhyamaka refers primarily to a Mahāyāna Buddhist school of Buddhist philosophy systematized by Nāgārjuna. Nāgārjuna may have arrived at his positions from a desire to achieve a consistent exegesis of the Buddha's doctrine as recorded in the āgamas...
philosophy. The language used by this approach is primarily negative, and the tathāgatagarbha genre of sutras can be seen as an attempt to state orthodox Buddhist teachings of dependent origination using positive language instead, to prevent people from being turned away from Buddhism by a false impression of nihilism. In these sutras the perfection of the wisdom of not-self is stated to be the true self; the ultimate goal of the path is then characterized using a range of positive language that had been used previously in Indian philosophy by essentialist philosophers, but which was now transmuted into a new Buddhist vocabulary to describe a being who has successfully completed the Buddhist path.
Comparison with other philosophies
Baruch SpinozaBaruch Spinoza
Baruch de Spinoza and later Benedict de Spinoza was a Dutch Jewish philosopher. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death...
, though he argued for the existence of a permanent reality, asserts that all phenomenal existence is transitory. In his opinion sorrow is conquered "by finding an object of knowledge which is not transient, not ephemeral, but is immutable, permanent, everlasting." Buddhism teaches that such a quest is bound to fail. David Hume
David Hume
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
, after a relentless analysis of the mind, concluded that consciousness consists of fleeting mental states. Hume's Bundle theory
Bundle theory
Bundle theory, originated by the 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume, is the ontological theory about objecthood in which an object consists only of a collection of properties, relations or tropes....
is a very similar concept to the Buddhist skandhas, though his denial of causation lead him to opposite conclusions in other areas. Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
's philosophy had some parallels in Buddhism.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...
's "word games" map closely to the warning of intellectual speculation as a red herring to understanding, in a similar fashion as the Buddhist Parable of the Poison Arrow. Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
, although himself dismissive of Buddhism as yet another nihilism, developed his philosophy of accepting life-as-it-exists and self-cultivation, which is extremely similar to Buddhism as better understood in the West. Heidegger's ideas on being and nothingness have been held by some to be similar to Buddhism today.
An alternative approach to the comparison of Buddhist thought with Western philosophy is to use the concept of the Middle Way
Middle way
The Middle Way or Middle Path is the descriptive term that Siddhartha Gautama used to describe the character of the path he discovered that led to liberation. It was coined in the very first teaching that he delivered after his enlightenment...
in Buddhism as a critical tool for the assessment of Western philosophies. In this way Western philosophies can be classified in Buddhist terms as eternalist or nihilist. In a Buddhist view all philosophies are to be considered non-essential.
See also
- Critical BuddhismCritical BuddhismCritical Buddhism is a trend in Japanese Buddhist scholarship, associated primarily with the works of Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shirō. According to Lin Chen-kuo, Hakamaya's view is that "Critical Buddhism sees methodical, rational critique as belonging to the very foundations of Buddhism...
- God in BuddhismGod in BuddhismThe refutation of the notion of a supreme God or a prime mover is seen by many as a key distinction between Buddhism and other religions. In Buddhism the sole aim of spiritual practice is the complete alleviation of stress in samsara, called nirvana...
- List of Buddhist terms and concepts
- List of Buddhist topics
- List of sutras
- MadhyamakaMadhyamakaMadhyamaka refers primarily to a Mahāyāna Buddhist school of Buddhist philosophy systematized by Nāgārjuna. Nāgārjuna may have arrived at his positions from a desire to achieve a consistent exegesis of the Buddha's doctrine as recorded in the āgamas...
- MindstreamMindstreamMindstream in Buddhist philosophy is the moment-to-moment "continuum" of awareness. There are a number of terms in the Buddhist literature that may well be rendered "mindstream"...
- Reality in BuddhismReality in BuddhismBuddhism evolved a variety of doctrinal/philosophical traditions, each with its distinct ideas of reality. The following are still regularly studied in some branches of the Buddhist tradition: Theravada, Vaibhashika, Sautrantika, Jojitsu, Madhyamika, Yogacara, tiantai, Huayan...
- ThoughtformThoughtformA thoughtform is a manifestation of mental energy, also known as a tulpa in Tibetan mysticism. Its concept is related to the Western philosophy and practice of magic. links mantras and yantras to thoughtforms:...
Buddhist philosophers
- AsangaAsangaAsaṅga was a major exponent of the Yogācāra tradition in India, also called Vijñānavāda. Traditionally, he and his half-brother Vasubandhu are regarded as the founders of this school...
- BuddhaGautama BuddhaSiddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
- Chandrakirti
- DignagaDignagaDignāga was an Indian scholar and one of the Buddhist founders of Indian logic.He was born into a Brahmin family in Simhavakta near Kanchi Kanchipuram), and very little is known of his early years, except that he took as his spiritual preceptor Nagadatta of the Vatsiputriya school, before being...
- DharmakirtiDharmakirtiDharmakīrti , was an Indian scholar and one of the Buddhist founders of Indian philosophical logic. He was one of the primary theorists of Buddhist atomism, according to which the only items considered to exist are momentary states of consciousness.-History:Born around the turn of the 7th century,...
- DogenDogenDōgen Zenji was a Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher born in Kyōto, and the founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan after travelling to China and training under the Chinese Caodong lineage there...
- FazangFazangFazang was the third of the five patriarchs of the Huayan school. He is said to have authored over a hundred volumes of essays and commentaries. He is famed for his empirical demonstrations in the court of Empress Wu Zetian. His essays "On a Golden Lion" and "On a Mote of Dust" are among the most...
- JinulJinulChinul or Jinul was a Korean monk of the Goryeo period, who is considered to be the most influential figure in the formation of Korean Seon Buddhism....
- JizangJizangJizang was a Chinese Buddhist monk and scholar who is often regarded as the founder of the Three Treatise School. He is also known as Jiaxiang or Master Jiaxiang , because he acquired fame at the Jiaxiang Temple.-Biography:...
- NagarjunaNagarjunaNāgārjuna was an important Buddhist teacher and philosopher. Along with his disciple Āryadeva, he is credited with founding the Mādhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism...
- VasubandhuVasubandhuVasubandhu was an Indian Buddhist monk, and along with his half-brother Asanga, one of the main founders of the Indian Yogācāra school. However, some scholars consider Vasubandhu to be two distinct people. Vasubandhu is one of the most influential figures in the entire history of Buddhism...
- WonhyoWonhyoWonhyo was one of the leading thinkers, writers and commentators of the Korean Buddhist tradition. Essence-Function , a key concept in East Asian Buddhism and particularly that of Korean Buddhism, was refined in the syncretic philosophy and worldview of Wonhyo.As one of the most eminent...
External links
- Sarunya Prasopchingchana & Dana Sugu, 'Distinctiveness of the Unseen Buddhist Identity' ([1]International Journal of Humanistic Ideology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, vol. 4, 2010)
- Buddhism in a Nutshell
- The story of Sengé Dradrok
- 2500 Years of Buddhism by Prof. P.Y. Bapat (1956) at archive.org