Two truths doctrine
Encyclopedia
The Buddhist doctrine of the two truths differentiates between two levels of truth
(Sanskrit: satya
) in Buddhist discourse
: a "relative" or commonsense truth (Pāli
: sammuti sacca), and an "ultimate" or absolute, spiritual truth (Pāli: paramattha sacca). This avoids confusion between doctrinally accurate statements about the true nature of reality
(e.g., "there is no self") and practical statements that refer to things which, while not expressing the true nature of reality, are necessary in order to communicate easily and help people achieve enlightenment
(e.g., talking to a student about "himself" or "herself").
Stated differently, the two truths doctrine holds that truth exists in conventional and ultimate forms, and that both forms are co-existent. Some schools, such as Dzogchen
, hold that the two truths are ultimately resolved into nonduality as a lived experience and are non-different. The doctrine is an especially important element of Buddhism
and was first expressed in complete modern form by Nāgārjuna
, who based it on the Kaccāyanagotta Sutta.
The Sanskrit term for relative, "samvṛti", also implies false, hidden, concealed, or obstructed, as well as other nuanced concepts. Translator Jules Levinson interprets the conventional truth as "obscurative truth" or "that which obscures the true nature" as a result.
While this division, particularly when referred to as the "satya-dvaya", is often associated with the Madhyamaka
school, its history is quite extensive. Casual readers of Buddhist thought have often used the ideas of the two truths to erroneously identify Buddhism as being transcendental
in nature, and thereby identify its doctrines with Plato
or Kant
.
In Buddhism, it is applied particularly to the doctrine of emptiness, in which objects are ultimately empty of essence, yet conventionally appear the contrary at any given moment in time, such that they neither exist nor do not exist.
In the Kaccāyanagotta Sutta, the Buddha
, speaking to the monk Kaccayana Gotta on the topic of right view, says the following:
The other pair is or (Pāli; Sanskrit: ; the Pāli and Sanskrit both mean "common consent, general opinion, convention",) and paramattha (Pāli; Sanskrit: paramārtha, "ultimate"). These are used to distinguish conventional or common-sense language, as used in metaphors or for the sake of convenience, from language used to express higher truths directly.
The term vohāra (Pāli; Sanskrit: vyavahāra, "common practice, convention, custom" is also used in more or less the same sense as samuti.
In the canon
, the distinction is not made between a lower truth and a higher truth, but rather between two kinds of expressions of the same truth, which must be interpreted differently. Thus a phrase or passage, or a whole sutta, might be classed as neyyattha or samuti or vohāra, but it is not regarded at this stage as expressing or conveying a different level of truth.
There is a canonical assertion that "truth is one". That might be held to conflict with a systematic assertion that there is a bifold distinction of truths.
commentators expanded on these categories and began applying them not only to expressions but to the truth then expressed.
school took up the distinction between the conventional and ultimate (paramārtha/), and extended the concept to metaphysical-phenomenological constituents (dharmas), distinguishing those that are real (tattva) from those that are purely conceptual, i.e., ultimately nonexistent (prajnāpti).
texts you may alternatively find discussions of the three natures.
Some presentations distinguish not only which teachings are classified as relating to the relative truth or ultimate truth, but also which kinds of knowledge or methods are for accomplishing each. In his introduction to his translation of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra
, D.T.Suzuki writes the following:
Conventional truths would be the appearances of mistaken awareness - the awareness itself when mistaken - together with the objects that appear to it. To put it another way, a conventional truth would be the appearance that includes a duality of apprehender and apprehended and objects perceived within that. Ultimate truths, then, are phenomena free from the duality of apprehender and apprehended.
's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, for example, it is used to defend the identification of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) with emptiness (śūnyatā).
of Nālandā
University in India, a position he surrendered to became a Khenpo of Samye
in Tibet at the behest of King Trisong Deutsen.
Ju Mipham (1846–1912) in his commentary to the Madhyamālaṃkāra says:
In this quotation, "primordial wisdom" is a rendering of jñāna
and "that which surpasses intellectual knowledge" may be understood as the direct perception (Sanskrit: pratyakṣa) of suchness (dharmatā). "Conviction" may be understood as a gloss of faith
(śraddhā). An effective analogue for "union", a rendering of the relationship held by the two truths, is interpenetration.
The following sentence is from Mipham's famed exegesis of Śāntarakṣita's Madhyamālaṃkāra and it highlights the relationship between the absence of the four extremes (mtha'-bzhi) and the nondual or "indivisible two truths" (bden-pa dbyer-med). This is a first English rendering by Doctor (2004: p.127). The Wylie transcription following it is from Doctor (2004: p.126). Then follows a second English translation of the same passage by Blankleder and Fletcher of the Padmakara Translation Group
(2005: p.137):
(2002) presents a case for mutual iteration and pervasion of Pyrrhonism
and Madhyamika doctrines. In the following extract containing an open quotation of Sextus
, which broaches upon paraphrase
, McEvilley (2002: p.474) frames a commonality shared by the two traditions, being a pedagogical binary division of a truth (esoterically held to be indivisible):
† = Sextus Empericus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism
‡ = Anthologia Palatina (Palatine Anthology)
¡ = Conze (1959: p.244)
¿ = Conze (1959: p.244)
Truth
Truth has a variety of meanings, such as the state of being in accord with fact or reality. It can also mean having fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal. In a common usage, it also means constancy or sincerity in action or character...
(Sanskrit: satya
Satya
Satya is a Sanskrit word that loosely translates into English as "truth" or "correct". It is a term of power due to its purity and meaning and has become the emblem of many peaceful social movements, particularly those centered on social justice, environmentalism and vegetarianism.Sathya is also...
) in Buddhist discourse
Discourse
Discourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication". The following are three more specific definitions:...
: a "relative" or commonsense truth (Pāli
Páli
- External links :* *...
: sammuti sacca), and an "ultimate" or absolute, spiritual truth (Pāli: paramattha sacca). This avoids confusion between doctrinally accurate statements about the true nature of reality
Reality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
(e.g., "there is no self") and practical statements that refer to things which, while not expressing the true nature of reality, are necessary in order to communicate easily and help people achieve 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...
(e.g., talking to a student about "himself" or "herself").
Stated differently, the two truths doctrine holds that truth exists in conventional and ultimate forms, and that both forms are co-existent. Some schools, such as Dzogchen
Dzogchen
According to Tibetan Buddhism and Bön, Dzogchen is the natural, primordial state or natural condition of the mind, and a body of teachings and meditation practices aimed at realizing that condition. Dzogchen, or "Great Perfection", is a central teaching of the Nyingma school also practiced by...
, hold that the two truths are ultimately resolved into nonduality as a lived experience and are non-different. The doctrine is an especially important element of Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
and was first expressed in complete modern form by 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...
, who based it on the Kaccāyanagotta Sutta.
Nomenclature, orthography and etymology
The two truths doctrine (Tibetan: bden-pa gnyis):- a "relative", commonsense, conventional truth (Tibetan: kun-rdzob bden-pa; Sanskrit: samvṛtisatya); and
- an "ultimate", deepest, absolute truth (Tibetan: don-dam bden-pa; Sanskrit: paramārthasatya).
The Sanskrit term for relative, "samvṛti", also implies false, hidden, concealed, or obstructed, as well as other nuanced concepts. Translator Jules Levinson interprets the conventional truth as "obscurative truth" or "that which obscures the true nature" as a result.
Exegesis
Berzin (2007) highlights the centrality of the two truths doctrine to Buddhism:While this division, particularly when referred to as the "satya-dvaya", is often associated with 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, its history is quite extensive. Casual readers of Buddhist thought have often used the ideas of the two truths to erroneously identify Buddhism as being transcendental
Transcendence (philosophy)
In philosophy, the adjective transcendental and the noun transcendence convey the basic ground concept from the word's literal meaning , of climbing or going beyond, albeit with varying connotations in its different historical and cultural stages...
in nature, and thereby identify its doctrines with Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
or Kant
KANT
KANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...
.
In Buddhism, it is applied particularly to the doctrine of emptiness, in which objects are ultimately empty of essence, yet conventionally appear the contrary at any given moment in time, such that they neither exist nor do not exist.
In the Kaccāyanagotta Sutta, the Buddha
Gautama 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...
, speaking to the monk Kaccayana Gotta on the topic of right view, says the following:
Canonical use
Two pairs of terms are used in the Pāli Tipiṭaka. One pair is nītattha (Pāli; Sanskrit: nītārtha, "of plain or clear meaning") and neyyattha (Pāli; Sanskrit: neyartha, "[a word or sentence] having a sense that can only be guessed"). These terms were used to identify texts or statements that either did (as neyartha) or did not (as nītattha) require additional interpretation in order to be made clear and/or non-contradictory and/or doctrinally accurate in a strict sense. A nītattha text required no explanation, while a neyyattha one might mislead some people unless properly explained.The other pair is or (Pāli; Sanskrit: ; the Pāli and Sanskrit both mean "common consent, general opinion, convention",) and paramattha (Pāli; Sanskrit: paramārtha, "ultimate"). These are used to distinguish conventional or common-sense language, as used in metaphors or for the sake of convenience, from language used to express higher truths directly.
The term vohāra (Pāli; Sanskrit: vyavahāra, "common practice, convention, custom" is also used in more or less the same sense as samuti.
In the canon
Canon law
Canon law is the body of laws & regulations made or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Catholic Church , the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of...
, the distinction is not made between a lower truth and a higher truth, but rather between two kinds of expressions of the same truth, which must be interpreted differently. Thus a phrase or passage, or a whole sutta, might be classed as neyyattha or samuti or vohāra, but it is not regarded at this stage as expressing or conveying a different level of truth.
There is a canonical assertion that "truth is one". That might be held to conflict with a systematic assertion that there is a bifold distinction of truths.
Theravāda commentarial tradition
The TheravādinTheravada
Theravada ; literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India...
commentators expanded on these categories and began applying them not only to expressions but to the truth then expressed.
Further developments in Nikāya Buddhism
The PrajnāptivādaPrajnaptivada
The Prajñaptivāda was one of the early Buddhist schools in India, and part of the Mahāsāṃghika branch of Buddhism. They were also known as the Bahuśrutiya-Vibhajyavādins.- History :...
school took up the distinction between the conventional and ultimate (paramārtha/), and extended the concept to metaphysical-phenomenological constituents (dharmas), distinguishing those that are real (tattva) from those that are purely conceptual, i.e., ultimately nonexistent (prajnāpti).
Mahāyāna philosophy
The two truths are central to many Mahāyāna texts. In YogācāraYogacara
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...
texts you may alternatively find discussions of the three natures.
Some presentations distinguish not only which teachings are classified as relating to the relative truth or ultimate truth, but also which kinds of knowledge or methods are for accomplishing each. In his introduction to his translation of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra
Lankavatara Sutra
The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra is a sutra of Mahāyāna Buddhism. The sūtra recounts a teaching primarily between the Buddha and a bodhisattva named Mahāmati...
, D.T.Suzuki writes the following:
Phenomena
Within the Mahāyāna presentation, the two truths may also refer to specific perceived phenomena instead of categorizing teachings.Conventional truths would be the appearances of mistaken awareness - the awareness itself when mistaken - together with the objects that appear to it. To put it another way, a conventional truth would be the appearance that includes a duality of apprehender and apprehended and objects perceived within that. Ultimate truths, then, are phenomena free from the duality of apprehender and apprehended.
Madhyamaka
The distinction between the two truths (satyadvayavibhāga) is of great importance for the Madhyamaka school, as it forms a cornerstone of their beliefs; in NāgārjunaNagarjuna
Nāgārjuna was an important Buddhist teacher and philosopher. Along with his disciple Āryadeva, he is credited with founding the Mādhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism...
's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, for example, it is used to defend the identification of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) with emptiness (śūnyatā).
Nyingma view of the two truths doctrine
Within the Madhyamālaṃkāra (8th century) of Śāntarakṣita (725–788) is enshrined the epitome of Indian Buddhism prior to its decline in the land of its origin. Śāntarakṣita was a khenpoKhenpo
The term khenpo is a spiritual degree given in Tibetan Buddhism. In the Nyingma, Kagyu, and Sakya traditions, the title is awarded usually after a period of 3 years of intensive study after secondary school level studies, and is considered much like a spiritual Bachelor's. Similar titles of lower...
of Nālandā
Nalanda
Nālandā is the name of an ancient center of higher learning in Bihar, India.The site of Nalanda is located in the Indian state of Bihar, about 55 miles south east of Patna, and was a Buddhist center of learning from the fifth or sixth century CE to 1197 CE. It has been called "one of the...
University in India, a position he surrendered to became a Khenpo of Samye
Samye
The Samye Monastery or Samye Gompa is the first Buddhist monastery built in Tibet, was most probably first constructed between 775 and 779 CE under the patronage of King Trisong Detsen of Tibet who sought to revitalize Buddhism, which had declined since its introduction by King Songtsen Gampo in...
in Tibet at the behest of King Trisong Deutsen.
Ju Mipham (1846–1912) in his commentary to the Madhyamālaṃkāra says:
In this quotation, "primordial wisdom" is a rendering of jñāna
Jnana
Jñāna or gñāna is a Sanskrit and Pali word that means knowledge. It has various nuances of meaning depending on the context. The idea of jnana centers around a cognitive event which is recognized when experienced...
and "that which surpasses intellectual knowledge" may be understood as the direct perception (Sanskrit: pratyakṣa) of suchness (dharmatā). "Conviction" may be understood as a gloss of faith
Faith in Buddhism
Faith is an important constituent element of the teachings of the Buddha for all traditions of Buddhism, though the kind and nature of faith changes in the different schools...
(śraddhā). An effective analogue for "union", a rendering of the relationship held by the two truths, is interpenetration.
The following sentence is from Mipham's famed exegesis of Śāntarakṣita's Madhyamālaṃkāra and it highlights the relationship between the absence of the four extremes (mtha'-bzhi) and the nondual or "indivisible two truths" (bden-pa dbyer-med). This is a first English rendering by Doctor (2004: p.127). The Wylie transcription following it is from Doctor (2004: p.126). Then follows a second English translation of the same passage by Blankleder and Fletcher of the Padmakara Translation Group
Padmakara Translation Group
Padmakara was founded in 1987, in Dordogne, France and is directed by Tsetul Pema Wangyal Rinpoche and Jigme Khyentse Rinpoche. As a department of SONGTSEN, Padmakara is responsible for the preservation, translation and publication of Tibetan texts...
(2005: p.137):
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Cross-cultural correlate
McEvilleyThomas McEvilley
Thomas McEvilley is an American art critic, poet, novelist and scholar, who was a distinguisted lecturer in art history at Rice University and founder and former chair of the Department of Art Criticism and Writing at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.-Biography:Thomas McEvilley studied...
(2002) presents a case for mutual iteration and pervasion of Pyrrhonism
Pyrrhonism
Pyrrhonism, or Pyrrhonian skepticism, was a school of skepticism founded by Aenesidemus in the 1st century BCE and recorded by Sextus Empiricus in the late 2nd century or early 3rd century CE. It was named after Pyrrho, a philosopher who lived from c. 360 to c. 270 BCE, although the relationship...
and Madhyamika doctrines. In the following extract containing an open quotation of Sextus
Sextus
Sextus is a common ancient Roman praenomen. It probably means "sixth" . Parallel praenomina are Secundus, Tertius, Quintus, Septimus, Octavius and Decimus...
, which broaches upon paraphrase
Paraphrase
Paraphrase is restatement of a text or passages, using other words. The term "paraphrase" derives via the Latin "paraphrasis" from the Greek , meaning "additional manner of expression". The act of paraphrasing is also called "paraphrasis."...
, McEvilley (2002: p.474) frames a commonality shared by the two traditions, being a pedagogical binary division of a truth (esoterically held to be indivisible):
Legend
♦ = Conze (1959: pp.140-141)† = Sextus Empericus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism
‡ = Anthologia Palatina (Palatine Anthology)
¡ = Conze (1959: p.244)
¿ = Conze (1959: p.244)