Advayavada Study Plan - week 1

Dear friends,

 

The purpose of Advayavada Buddhism is to become a true part of the whole.

 

The purpose of the autonomous Advayavada Study Plan (ASP) is that we study (and debate in a local group, the family circle or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the weekly subject, not as a formal and impersonal intellectual exercise, but in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, our place in society, etc. Advayavada Buddhism does not tell you what to do or believe, but how to make the very best of our own lives by indeed attuning as best as possible with wondrous overall existence advancing over time now in its manifest direction.

 

In this respect, my own objective for the coming weeks is to try to deepen my joyous equanimity in face of the vicissitudes of life – what is yours?

 

To commence this new series, this week we again study the impermanence of all things as thoroughly as we can.

 

This task is based on the Buddhist aniccata (Pali) or anityata (Sanskrit) doctrine. Anicca or anitya means impermanent, changeable, unstable, transitory, and is one of the three (in Advayavada Buddhism, four) signs or marks or basic facts of being: that which arises, dwells, and passes away. Buddhism teaches that impermanence or changeability is the most fundamental property of everything existing, without which existence itself (and liberation) would not be possible.

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens,

Advayavada Foundation.

@advayavada

Advayavada Study Plan - week 52

Dear friends,

 

The purpose of Advayavada Buddhism is to become a true part of the whole.

 

This week (52) we continue to develop our very best meditation towards samadhi.

 

This task is based on the 8th Step on the Noble 8fold Path: samma-samadhi (Pali), samyak-samadhi (Sanskrit); in Advayavada: our very best meditation or concentration towards samadhi.

 

Other translations are: right rapture (Arnold, Eliot, Malalasekera), right samadhi (Bahm, Dharmapala), right concentration (Bodhi, Burt, Ch’en, Conze, Dhammananda, Fernando, Gethin, Grimm, Guenther, Harvey, Horner, Karunadasa, Khemo, Narada, Nyanatiloka, Rahula, Saddhatissa, St Ruth, Takakusu, Warder), appropriate concentration (Batchelor), right meditation (David-Neel, Humphreys, Keown, Stroup), right meditating (Melamed), right illumination (Dharmapala), right awareness (Kornfield), right tranquility (Narasu), right contemplation (Rhys Davids, Watts); absolute concentration of purpose (Edwardes); correct concentration (Kloppenborg, Scheepers)

 

Samadhi (Pali and Sanskrit): total or perfect concentration (of the mind, cf. enstasy); non-dualistic state of consciousness in which the experiencing subject becomes one with the experienced object; total absorption in the object of meditation; transcendence of the relationship between mind and object; merging of subject and object; to contemplate the world without any perception of objects; suspension of judgement; turiyatita; satori; bodhi; rigpa; realization of the sameness of the part and the whole, of the identity of form and emptiness, of samsara and nirvana, of the immediate and the ultimate; mystic oneness; perfect dynamic attunement with wondrous overall existence; oceanic feeling; wonder, awe, rapture; essential purity; deep love and compassion; awareness of our common ground and the innocence of sex.

 

Kind regards and Season’s Greetings,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

The Three-Treatise School (Wing-tsit Chan)

The Three-Treatise School (from The Philosophy of Emptiness: Chi-tsang of the Three-Treatise School, in A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, by Wing-tsit Chan, Princeton 1963, 1969, 1973)

 

The Three-Treatise School and the Consciousness-Only School [Vijñanavada] represented the two major developments of Mahayana or Great Vehicle philosophy in India. The former insists that dharmas (elements of existence) and their causes are unreal and has therefore been known as the School of Non-being, while the latter insists that they are real and has therefore been known as the School of Being. Both were introduced into China by outstanding philosophers. Both had something profound and subtle to offer which China had never known. Both lasted for several centuries. But both failed to exert lasting influence on Chinese thought. It is important to understand why this has been the case.

 

The Three-Treatise School, called Madhyamika (Middle Doctrine) in Sanskrit, was founded in India by Nagarjuna (c.100-200 A.D.). Kumarajiva (344-413) introduced it into China by translating Nagarjuna's two most important treatises, the Madhyamika sastra (Treatise on the Middle Doctrine) and the Dvadasanikaya sastra (Twelve Gates Treatise) and his disciple Aryadeva's Sata sastra (One Hundred Verses Treatise). Hence the school is called the Three-Treatise School.

 

The central concept of the school is Emptiness (Sunyata) in the sense that the nature and characters of all dharmas, together with their causation, are devoid of reality. Thus all differentiations, whether being or non-being, cause or effect, or coming-into-existence or going-out-of-existence are only 'temporary names' and are empty in nature. The only reality is Emptiness itself, which is the absolute, Ultimate Void, the Original Substance, or in Chinese terminology, the correct principle (cheng-li). As such it is equivalent to Nirvana and the Dharma-body.

 

The doctrine was transmitted in China through Kumarajiva's pupil Seng-chao (384-414) and played a dominant role there from the fourth to the seventh century. It had a tremendous attraction for the Chinese because its philosophy of Emptiness suited the temper of Chinese intellectuals of Wei-Chin times (220-420), who were then propagating the Taoist doctrine of non-being. Its highly developed and systematic method of reasoning was a stimulating novelty to the Chinese. Its spirit of criticism and refutation gave the rebellious Chinese philosophers, including the Neo-Taoists, a sense of emancipation. Its nominalism reinforced the Chinese opposition to the Confucian doctrine of ranks and names, especially in the sixth century. In addition to all this, it had the great fortune [sic] of having as its systematiser the outstanding figure, Chi-tsang (549-623). […]

 

Ironically, Chi-tsang's success was at the same time the failure of his school, for it became less and less Chinese. As mentioned before, Seng-chao was still a bridge between Taoism and Buddhism. He combined the typical Chinese concept of identity of substance and function, for example, with the Buddhist concepts of temporary names and Emptiness. In Chi-tsang, substance and function are sharply contrasted instead. In that, he was completely Indian in viewpoint, although he quoted Taoists. As a systematiser and transmitter of Indian philosophy, he brought about no cross-fertilization between Buddhist and Chinese thought. And it happened that the Indian thought which he promoted was so utterly unacceptable to the Chinese that the school declined in the ninth century. […]

 

To this [the Middle Doctrine] school, refutation of erroneous views is essential for and indeed identical with the elucidation of right views. But when a right view is held in place of a wrong one, the right view itself becomes one-sided and has to be refuted. It is only through this dialectic process that Emptiness can be arrived at, which alone is free from names and character and is 'inexplicable in speech and unrealizable in thought'.  The specific method in this dialectic process is Nagarjuna's Middle Path of Eightfold Negations, which denies that dharmas come into existence or go out of existence, that they are permanent or come to an end, that they are the same or different, and that they come or go away. The basis of all arguments is the so-called Four Points of Argumentation. By the use of this method of argument, a dharma as being, as non-being, as both being and non-being, and as neither being nor non-being are all refuted and proved to be untrue. Chi-tsang illustrates this method fully in his refutation of causation.

 

It is obvious that this approach is as nihilistic as it is destructive. The school had little new substance to offer and nothing constructive. It is true that Emptiness as the Absolute is as pure and perfect as anything conceivable, but being devoid of specific characters and divorced from mundane reality, it becomes too abstract for the Chinese. It might be hoped that its novel and radical method of reasoning at least aroused the Chinese mind and led to a new approach to life and reality, but it did not. That opportunity was left to the Zen (Meditation, Ch'an) School.

Advayavada Study Plan - week 51

Dear friends,

 

The purpose of Advayavada Buddhism is to become a true part of the whole.

 

This week (51) we again make our best possible evaluation of our efforts to date.

 

This task is based on the 7th Step on the Noble 8fold Path: samma-sati (Pali) or samyak-smriti (Sanskrit); in Advayavada: our very best observation or reflection and self-correction.

 

Other translations are: right loneliness (Arnold), right alertness (Burt), right mindfulness (Bahm, Bodhi, Ch'en, Conze, Dhammananda, Dharmapala, Eliot, Fernando, Gethin, Harvey, Horner, Karunadasa, Keown, Malalasekera, Narada, Rahula, Rhys Davids, Saddhatissa, St Ruth, Takakusu), appropriate mindfulness (Batchelor), right attention (David-Neel), right recollectedness (Grimm, Watts), right inspection (Guenther), right recollection (Humphreys, Stroup), right attentiveness (Khemo, Nyanatiloka), right concentration (Kornfield), right thought (Narasu), right remembering (Melamed), right remembrance, right memory, right awareness; full understanding of action and thought (Edwardes); correct attention (Kloppenborg, Scheepers), right self-possession (Warder).

 

The Noble 8fold Path is called the Middle Way as it steers clear of the two extremes of self-mortification and sensual indulgence.

 

The purpose of the autonomous Advayavada Study Plan ASP is that we study (and debate in a local group, the family circle or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the weekly subject, not as a formal and impersonal intellectual exercise, but in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, our place in society, etc. Advayavada Buddhism does not tell you what to do or believe, but how to make the very best of our own lives by indeed attuning with wondrous overall existence advancing over time now in its manifest direction.

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

Buddhism and the Issue od Religious Fundamentalism (Y. Karunadasa)

Buddhism and the Issue of Religious Fundamentalism, from Early Buddhist Teachings, by Y. Karunadasa, Hong Kong 2013.

 

The term ‘religious fundamentalism’ embraces all religious phenomena and movements which emerge as a reaction against some kind of perceived danger, as for instance, the marginalization of religion, due to the onset of science and technology. According to Fundamentalisms Comprehended: An Anthology of Articles, edited by Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (University of Chicago Press, 2004), some of the basic ingredients that go to make religious fundamentalism are as follows:

* Ultra-orthodoxy: The recognition of the absolute inerrancy of the religious scriptures.

* Ultra-orthopraxis: The attempt to practise religious life, based almost on a literal, rather than on a hermeneutical, interpretation of the rules and regulations laid down in the religious scriptures.

* Exclusivism.

* Militant Piety.

* Fanaticism.

 

Exclusivism the Root Cause of Fundamentalism

 

There can be many reasons for the emergence and prevalence of religious fundamentalism. Nevertheless, we can identify exclusivism as its root cause. Other kinds of fundamentalism, as for instance, those arising in relation to one’s own race, nationality, ethnicity, or political ideology also have exclusivism as their root cause.

 

How the Buddha defines Exclusivism

 

As a matter of fact, the most precise, and therefore, the most acceptable, definition of exclusivism can be found in the teachings of the Buddha. Exclusivism, as defined by the Buddha, is the attitude of mind that manifests in relation to one’s own view, as “This alone is true, all else is false” (idam eva saccam; mogham aññam). This kind of dogmatic and exclusivist assertion is due to what is called “sanditthi-raga“, i.e. “infatuation with the rightness of one’s own view/dogma/ideology”. Another Pali expression with a similar connotation is “idam-saccabhinivesa“. It means “adherence to one’s view, while asserting that this [alone] is the truth”. All such categorical assertions in respect of one’s religion or ideology lead to what Buddhism calls “ditthi-paramasa“, “tenaciously grasping views”.

 

The Danger of Attachment to Views whether they are Right or Wrong

 

An attitude of mind, driven by exclusivism, can easily provide fertile ground for bigotry and intolerance, indoctrination and unethical conversion, militant piety and persecution, interpersonal conflicts and acts of terrorism. From the Buddhist perspective dogmatic attachment to views and ideologies, whether they are true or false, is very much more detrimental and fraught with more danger than our inordinate attachment to material things. A good example for this is today’s fast-growing ‘industry’ of suicide-bombing. A person committing the act of suicide-bombing is prepared to sacrifice his own life for the sake of the ideological agenda he is pursuing. Inter-religious and intra-religious wars, often referred to by the misnomer ‘holy wars’, are another case in point.

Buddhist Social Pluralism (Y. Karunadasa)

Buddhist Social Pluralism, from Early Buddhist Teachings, by Y. Karunadasa, Hong Kong 2013.

 

Another area where we find many instances of pluralism is in the Buddhist attitude to society. As a religion Buddhism does not interfere with people’s ways of living by imposing on them unnecessary restrictions. We never hear of a Buddhist Dress, Buddhist Food, or Buddhist Medicine, laid down as valid for all times and climes. For, these are things that change from place to place and from time to time, depending on the progress of our knowledge.

 

This situation is true when it comes to marriage, too. There are many forms of marriage, monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, and so on. Today in the modern world the legally recognized practice is mostly monogamy. Nevertheless, nowhere does Buddhism say that other forms of marriage are immoral. The form of marriage, too, could change from time to time, from place to place. If it changes, then there is no problem for Buddhism. For Buddhism marriage is only a social institution. It is something entirely mundane, not a religious “sacrament”. Nor does Buddhism say that marriage is an indissoluble bond. Therefore if two married partners are incompatible, they can certainly divorce, provided, of course, they follow the laws of the country as enacted for such situations.

 

Buddhism has no prohibitions against birth control. If a married couple decides to practise contraception to prevent children being born, that is entirely their private business. They are not committing anything that is morally evil. Nor will the Buddhist Sangha, whether Theravada, Mahayana, or Vajrayana ever promulgate an edict condemning and prohibiting such acts.

 

Abortion is of course a different matter. Since abortion involves taking a life, it goes against the First Precept. However, in our opinion abortion can be condoned in cases of serious [biopsychosocial] health hazards, if abortion is the lesser evil. In this connection it is instructive for us to remember two things: One is that according to Buddhism what really matters is the intention/volition (cetana). It is, in fact, intention/volition that the Buddha has identified as kamma. The other thing is that in following morality, Buddhists are not expected to do so by absolutely grasping moral precepts (aparamattham).

Advayavada Study Plan - week 50

Dear friends,

 

The purpose of Advayavada Buddhism is to become a true part of the whole.

 

This week (50) we continue to muster our very best effort to fulfil our improved objective.

 

This task is based on the 6th Step on the Noble 8fold Path: samma-vayama (Pali) or samyag-vyayana (Sanskrit); in Advayavada: our very best effort or commitment..

 

Other translations are: right thought (Arnold), right effort (Bodhi, Burt, Ch’en, Conze, David-Neel, Dhammananda, Eliot, Fernando, Gethin, Grimm, Harvey, Humphreys, Karunadasa, Keown, Khemo, Kornfield, Malalasekera, Narada, Narasu, Nyanatiloka, Rahula, Rhys Davids, Saddhatissa, St Ruth, Stroup), appropriate effort (Batchelor), right exertion (Dharmapala, Guenther), right endeavour (Bahm, Dharmapala, Horner, Takakusu), right application (Watts); proper effort in the proper direction (Edwardes); correct exertion (Kloppenborg), right striving (Melamed), correct striving (Scheepers), right exercise (Warder).

 

The Noble 8fold Path is called the Middle Way as it steers clear of the two extremes of self-mortification and sensual indulgence.

 

The purpose of the autonomous Advayavada Study Plan ASP is that we study (and debate in a local group, the family circle or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the weekly subject, not as a formal and impersonal intellectual exercise, but in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, our place in society, etc. Advayavada Buddhism does not tell you what to do or believe, but how to make the very best of our own lives by indeed attuning with wondrous overall existence advancing over time now in its manifest direction.

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

Why are the Five Aggregates of Suffering Dukkha? (Y. Karunadasa)

Why are the Five Aggregates of Grasping Dukkha? (from Early Buddhist Teachings, The Middle Position in Theory and Practice, by Y. Karunadasa, Hong Kong 2013)

 

Why are the five aggregates of grasping suffering? What we need to remember here is that it is not the five aggregates (pañca-khanda), but the five aggregates of grasping (pañca-upadanakkhandha) that are described as suffering. This distinction should show that although the five aggregates in themselves are not a source of suffering, they constitute suffering when they become objects of grasping (upadana). Strictly speaking, therefore, what Buddhism calls the individual in its samsaric dimension is not the five aggregates, but the five aggregates when they are grasped, appropriated, and clung to. That which is called individual existence can thus be reduced to a causally conditioned process of grasping. It is this process of grasping that Buddhism describes as suffering.

 

A yet another question that arises here is by whom are the five aggregates grasped? The answer to this question is that besides the process of grasping, there is no agent who performs the act of grasping. This answer may appear rather enigmatic; nevertheless it is understandable in the context of the Buddhist doctrine of not self and the Buddhist doctrine of dependent arising. What both doctrines seek to show is that the individual is a conditioning and conditioned process, without an agent either inside or outside of the process. The grasping-process manifests in three ways. This is mine (etam mama), this I am (eso'ham asmi), and this is my self (eso me atta). The first is due to craving (tanha), the second to conceit (mana), and the third is due to the mistaken belief in a self-entity (ditthi). It is through this process of the three-fold self-appropriation that the idea of "mine", "I am" and "my self" arises. If there is a phenomenon called individuality in its samsaric dimension, it is entirely due to the superimposition of these three ideas on the five aggregates.

 

A this juncture, another question arises: why and how does the process of grasping lead to suffering? In answering this question, it is important to note here that the five aggregates that become the object of self-appropriation and grasping are in a state of constant change, in a state of continuous flux with no persisting substance. Their nature is such that they do not remain in the way we want them to remain. As such, the aggregates are not under our full control. Thus by identifying ourselves with what is impermanent (anicca), with what does not come under our full control (anatta), we come to suffering [dukkha]. This should explain why Buddhism traces the fact of suffering to the fact of impermanence (yad aniccam tam dukkham). When the process of self-appropriation and self-identification is terminated [by following the Noble Eightfold Path], suffering too comes to an end. As long as this process persists, there is suffering. The moment it stops, the samsaric process also ceases to be, and together with it all suffering comes to an end.

Advayavada Study Plan - week 49

Dear friends,

 

The purpose of Advayavada Buddhism is to become a true part of the whole.

 

This week (49) we begin to realize our improved objective as best as possible.

 

This task is based on the 5th Step on the Noble 8fold Path: samma-ajiva (Pali) or samyag-ajiva (Sanskrit); in Advayavada: our very best implementation, realization or putting into practice.

 

Other translations are: right purity (Arnold), right vocation (Burt, Watts), right livelihood (Bahm, Bodhi, Ch’en, Conze, Dhammananda, Dharmapala, Eliot, Fernando, Gethin, Harvey, Horner, Keown, Khemo, Kornfield, Malalasekera, Narada, Rahula, Rhys Davids, Saddhatissa, St Ruth, Stroup, Takakusu, Warder), appropriate livelihood (Batchelor), right living (David-Neel, Narasu, Nyanatiloka), right mode of life (Grimm), right life (Guenther, Melamed), right means of livelihood (Humphreys); proper way of earning one’s living (Edwardes); correct living (Kloppenborg), correct livelihood (Scheepers).

 

The purpose of the autonomous Advayavada Study Plan ASP is that we study (and debate in a local group, the family circle or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the weekly subject, not as a formal and impersonal intellectual exercise, but in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, our place in society, etc. Advayavada Buddhism does not tell you what to do or believe, but how to make the very best of our own lives by indeed attuning with wondrous overall existence advancing over time now in its manifest direction.

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

Advayavada Study Plan - week 48

Dear friends,

 

The purpose of Advayavada Buddhism is to become a true part of the whole.

 

This week (48) we further develop our very best attitude to carry out our improved objective.

 

This task is based on the 4th Step on the Noble 8fold Path: samma-kammanta (Pali) or samyak-karmanta (Sanskrit): in Advayavada: our very best disposition or attitude; right behaviour (Arnold), right conduct (Burt, Conze, Eliot, Malalasekera, Rhys Davids), right action (Bahm, Bodhi, Ch’en, David-Neel, Fernando, Gethin, Guenther, Harvey, Horner, Humphreys, Keown, Khemo, Kornfield, Narada, Narasu, Nyanatiloka, Rahula, Saddhatissa, St Ruth, Stroup, Takakusu, Warder, Watts), appropriate action (Batchelor), right actions (Dhammananda, Dharmapala), right acting (Grimm); proper behaviour (Edwardes); correct action (Kloppenborg, Scheepers), the right deed (Melamed).

 

The purpose of the autonomous Advayavada Study Plan ASP is that we study (and debate in a local group, the family circle or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the weekly subject, not as a formal and impersonal intellectual exercise, but in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, our place in society, etc. Advayavada Buddhism does not tell you what to do or believe, but how to make the very best of our own lives by indeed attuning with wondrous overall existence advancing over time now in its manifest direction.

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

'no cloth apart from the threads, no threads apart from the cloth'

Advayavada Buddhism is a non-dual and life-affirming philosophy and way of life that essentially proclaims that there is 'no cloth apart from the threads, no threads apart from the cloth'. What perhaps strikes some people as an unsubstantiated article of faith is our assertion that progress is inherent in existence, but what Advayavada Buddhism in fact teaches in this respect is simply that we humans experience and identify as progress (pratipada, patipada) that which follows the otherwise indifferent direction in which wondrous overall existence advances over time. There is no doubt a parallel with religion here: the religious person will probably say that what he or she experiences as progress is that which is in agreement with God's wishes and inner plan. There is also, maybe, a certain affinity with panentheism, which says that all is in God, 'somewhat as if God were the entire ocean including the fish and we were the fish'.

Advayavada Study Plan - week 47

Dear friends,

 

The purpose of Advayavada Buddhism is to become a true part of the whole.

 

This week (47) we again put our decision and objective in writing as precisely as possible.

 

This task is based on the 3rd Step on the Noble Eightfold Path: samma-vacha (Pali) or samyag-vac (Sanskrit); in Advayavada: our very best enunciation or definition of our intention (as Karl Popper says, putting our ideas into words, or better, writing them down, makes an important difference, for in this way they become objective and criticizable).

 

Other translations are: right discourse (Arnold), right speech (Bahm, Bodhi, Burt, Ch’en, Conze, David-Neel, Dhammananda, Dharmapala, Eliot, Fernando, Gethin, Guenther, Harvey, Horner, Humphreys, Keown, Khemo, Kornfield, Malalasekera, Narada, Narasu, Nyanatiloka, Rahula, Rhys Davids, Saddhatissa, St Ruth, Stroup, Takakusu, Warder, Watts), appropriate speech (Batchelor), right speaking (Grimm); proper language of definition (Edwardes); correct speech (Kloppenborg, Scheepers), the right word (Melamed).

 

The purpose of the autonomous Advayavada Study Plan ASP is that we study (and debate in a local group, the family circle or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the weekly subject, not as a formal and impersonal intellectual exercise, but in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, our place in society, etc. Advayavada Buddhism does not tell you what to do or believe, but how to make the very best of our own lives by indeed attuning with wondrous overall existence advancing over time now in its manifest direction.

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

The Descent of the Transcendent (Sibesh Bhattacharya)

The Descent of the Transcendent (from The Descent of the Transcendent: Viewing Culture with G.C. Pande, by Sibesh Bhattacharya, in Philosophy East and West, Honolulu, October 2013)

 

In [Govind Chandra] Pande's [1923-2011] theory an unresolved ambiguity vis-à-vis the issue of the decline [of culture/civilization] can be perceived. He does not overtly raise or face the issue of decay. We can extrapolate from his core concept - the vision of the transcendent - the process of decline of a culture consistent with his theory. Could it be said, in keeping with the general tenor of his theory, that the process of culture is essentially a process of decline? The ultimate truth cannot be envisioned in totality; it is beyond human capacity. The full truth cannot be received however capacious may be the vessel of the receiver. At the very moment of its birth it has become diminished. Further shrinkage takes place in the process of communication. The received truth can be expressed inadequately through symbolic metaphorical language; a great deal of it is lost already in the very first stage of its communication.

 

The very first sermon is thus limited. There is a Buddhist tradition that after his enlightenment the Buddha hesitated for some time before delivering his first sermon because he had reservations about whether people would be able to understand the truth he had realized. With each new round of communication the truth loses more and more of its authenticity and power. Thus, the process of the spread of culture is in reality a process of the loss of the purity and strength of culture. But this line of interpretation does not provide answers to all the issues related to the decline of culture. Pande does seem to accept the fact of its physical growth. In his scheme a culture spreads over the population, taking more and more people within its fold. Similarly, it spreads spatially with new areas coming within its purview. The relationship between the process of decline of the purity of the vision on the one hand and the simultaneous process of physical growth on the other, that is, a simultaneity of two apparently contradictory processes of growth and decay, is an interesting phenomenon. Spengler and Toynbee resolve this contradiction by differentiating between the apparent and the real, that is, they identify one set of markers as the real and the other as apparent. Usually they consider some characteristics of growth at the physical level as useless or even negative. In their opinion technological advancement, an increase of military power, and imperial expansion are often signs of decay rather than growth. They distinguish between the body and the soul of a culture/civilization; the state of the soul is the real indicator of growth and not the fattening of the body.

 

Pande's point of view seems different. The vision of the transcendent, enshrining the core value, loses its pristine luminescence in the very act of its transmission from the transcendent realm to the temporal, and the process of decline goes on. This happens in the case of religion: ritual, exegetical literature, philosophy, and the church and its following grow in volume and complexity, and under their mass and weight the original light becomes more and more dimmed and hidden. Pande, however, continues to emphasize that religion is not just a vision/teachings and a code delivered by a prophet; religion also is the realization of the truth in one's innermost being. It is this 'cave' that is the eternal dwelling place of religion. And it is not subject to decay. Moreover, the process of culture is not exactly the same as that of religion. Culture is the texture of values that grow from the agama [source] through paryeSaNa [inquiry, investigation, delving]. But it continues to grow in and with the process of the transmission and propagation of the envisioned truth.

Advayavada Study Plan - week 46

Dear friends,

 

The purpose of Advayavada Buddhism is to become a true part of the whole.

 

This week (46) we again take an appropriate and timely decision to adjust our course.

 

This task is based on the 2nd step on the Noble Eightfold Path: samma-sankappa (Pali) or samyak-samkalpa (Sanskrit), in Advayavada: our very best resolution or determination.

 

Other translations are: right purpose (Arnold, Burt, Horner), right resolve (Bahm, David-Neel, Keown), appropriate thought (Batchelor), right intentions (Bodhi, Conze), right intention (Ch’en, Gethin, Khemo, St Ruth, Warder), right thoughts (Dhammananda, Narada), right desires (Dharmapala), right aspirations (Dharmapala, Eliot, Malalasekera, Rhys Davids), right thought (Fernando, Rahula, Saddhatissa, Takakusu), right resolution (Grimm), right conception (Guenther), right directed thought (Harvey), right motives (Humphreys), right attitude (Kornfield), right attitude of mind (Stroup), right aspiration (Narasu), right mindedness (Nyanatiloka), right understanding (Watts); proper hopes (Edwardes); correct resolve (Kloppenborg), right resolving (Melamed), correct thinking (Scheepers).

 

The purpose of the autonomous Advayavada Study Plan ASP is that we study (and debate in a local group, the family circle or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the weekly subject, not as a formal and impersonal intellectual exercise, but in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, our place in society, etc. Advayavada Buddhism does not tell you what to do or believe, but how to make the very best of our own lives by indeed attuning with wondrous overall existence advancing over time now in its manifest direction.

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

Advayavada Study Plan - week 45

Dear friends,

 

The purpose of Advayavada Buddhism is to become a true part of the whole.

 

This week (45) we again honestly review and take stock of our personal situation.

 

This task is based on the 1st step on the Noble Eightfold Path: samma-ditthi (Pali) or samyag-dristi (Sanskrit), in Advayavada Buddhism: our very best comprehension or insight.

 

Other translations are: right doctrine (Arnold), right view (Bahm, Bodhi, Ch’en, Gethin, Grimm, Guenther, Harvey, Horner, St Ruth, Takakusu, Watts), appropriate vision (Batchelor), right understanding (Burt, Dhammananda, Fernando, Humphreys, Keown, Kornfield, Narada, Nyanatiloka, Rahula, Saddhatissa, Stroup), right views (Conze, David-Neel, Dharmapala, Eliot, Malalasekera, Rhys Davids), right knowledge (Dharmapala, Khemo), right belief (Melamed, Narasu); proper views (Edwardes); correct insight (Kloppenborg), correct faith (Scheepers), right theory (Warder).

 

The purpose of the autonomous Advayavada Study Plan ASP is that we study (and debate in a local group, the family circle or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the weekly subject, not as a formal and impersonal intellectual exercise, but in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, our place in society, etc. Advayavada Buddhism does not tell you what to do or believe, but how to make the very best of our own lives by indeed attuning with wondrous overall existence advancing over time now in its manifest direction.

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

 @advayavada

More Questions and Answers

question I wonder what your support for this interpretation of humans experiencing Nature as progress might be. There’s abundant evidence in media of various sorts — good, bad, or indifferent in quality — of people who contrarily do not experience the overall course of Nature as progressive at all, but instead as destructive and teleologically negative, especially today in conditions of global warming, cyclones, tornados, earthquakes, oceans rising, meteorites, and so on.

 

answer If you look closely, all those unpleasantnesses you mention do not pertain to overall existence at all but are the result of mistaken views, immorality and mismanagement. When we say how man experiences the course of Nature we of course mean man unencumbered by these contingent shortcomings and mistakes that impair his vision, understanding and accomplishments – the reference standard is overall existence and not failing mankind.

 

question I would agree with you that the objective of the Middle Way is to reconcile us with existence. Or to be more precise, it helps to understand life as it is. This is a condition for being to go forwards. However we are influenced by many things like greed, hatred and ignorance. These can take us backwards. The way to go forwards then is to develop the Eightfold Path. Or rather the Eightfold Path develops when there are conditions for its development. These conditions are the intellectual understanding of the Eightfold Path.

 

answer You are asked to accept the preeminence of existence over mankind, and that existence cannot, by definition, be anything but just right as it is, and that the Eightfold Path is an ongoing reflexion at the level of our personal lives of existence as a whole becoming over time. We must not see the Buddha’s Middle Way devoid of extremes as an attitude or method that will enable us e.g. ‘to escape from the realities of life’ or ‘to make it somehow in spite of things’, but we must understand the Buddha’s most fundamental teaching correctly as the means to reconnect and reconcile us with wondrous overall existence as a whole as it truly is. We must, in fact, accept that to live the way existence as a whole is, and not some idealized form of humanity, is what is to be sought after by men.

 

question I am not familiar with the term Advayavada.

 

answer We gave the name Advayavada Buddhism to the radical non-dual standpoint of the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhism to which we specifically adhere. A sound explanation of the term ‘advayavada’ can be found in for instance professor T.R.V. Murti’s The Central Philosophy of Buddhism: “The sole concern of the Madhyamaka advaya-vada is the purification of the faculty of knowing. The primordial error consists in the intellect being infected by the inveterate tendency to view Reality as identity or difference, permanent or momentary, one or many etc. These views falsify reality, and the dialectic [of the Madhyamaka] administers a cathartic corrective. With the purification of the intellect, Intuition emerges; the Real is known as it is, as Tathata [advayata; non-dual suchness] or bhutakoti [reality-limit; the extreme limit beyond which there is nothing which can be known]. The emphasis is on the correct attitude of our knowing..” It is in this sense that we use the term ‘advayavada’.

 

question What you say seems to me to be an essential teaching of the Mahayana in its complete form. The Unborn Infinite Reality can never be less than Perfect and Whole, and is the True Essence of all Beings, and is ever present. All that is needed is that, in perfect simplicity, we turn to That, and realize that the human manifestation of life is just an imperfect reflexion of That. Simple! but not easy. That is the problem. If we realize what we are, how do we remember to continue to realize it moment by moment, rather than seeking to hold on to the vision of the past?

 

answer Everything is, indeed, as right as it can be, and the Middle Way devoid of extremes is a perfect reflexion of it at the human level. As for your question, our answer would be that you must see that ‘vision of the past’ for what it really is: a highly selective subjective recollection in the present of things no longer there – please understand that life only happens Now.

Advayavada Study Plan - week 44

Dear friends,

 

This week (44) we again closely survey the path that eliminates the causes of suffering studied last week. The third truth of Buddhism is the noble truth of the extinction of suffering and the fourth truth of Buddhism is the noble truth of the path that leads to the extinction of suffering, i.e. the Noble Eightfold (or Middle) Path.

 

In Advayavada Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path is understood dynamically as an ongoing and fully autonomous, non-prescriptive, investigative and creative process of progressive insight, reflecting in human terms wondrous overall existence becoming over time, and is composed of (1) our very best (Pali: samma, Sanskrit: samyak) comprehension or insight followed by (2) our very best resolution or determination, (3) our very best enunciation or definition (of our intention), (4) our very best disposition or attitude, (5) our very best implementation or realization, (6) our very best effort or commitment, (7) our very best observation, reflection or evaluation and self-correction, and (8) our very best meditation or concentration towards an increasingly real experience of samadhi, which brings us to a yet better comprehension or insight, and so forth.

 

The Noble Eightfold Path in Advayavada Buddhism is fully personalized: it is firmly based on what we increasingly know about ourselves and our world, and trusting our own intentions, feelings and conscience. Adherence to the familiar Five Precepts (not to kill, not to steal, sexual restraint, not to lie, and refraining from alcohol and drugs) and a well-considered understanding of the Four Signs of Being and the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths suffice to start off on the Path at any time. Nirvana is, in Advayavada Buddhism, the total extinction of suffering as a result of our complete reconciliation with reality as it truly is.

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

What is Reality? (Jeff Hawkins with Sandra Blakeslee)

What is Reality? (adapted from Consciousness and Creativity, in On Intelligence, by Jeff Hawkins with Sandra Blakeslee, New York 2004)

 

People are real, trees are real, my cat is real, the social situations you find yourself in are real. But your understanding of the world and your responses to it are based on predictions coming from your internal model. At any moment in time, you can directly sense only a tiny part of your world. That tiny part dictates what memories will be invoked, but it isn't sufficient on its own to build the whole of your current perception. … Most of what you perceive is not coming through your senses; it is generated by your internal memory model. So the question 'What is reality?' is largely a matter of how accurately our cortical model reflects the true nature of the world.

 

Many aspects of the world around us are so consistent that nearly every human has the same internal model of them. … The simple physical properties of the world are learned by all people. But much of our world model is based on custom, culture, and what our parents teach us. These parts of our model are less consistent and might be totally different for different people. … Much of psychology is based on the consequences of early life experience, attachment, and nurturance because that is when the brain first lays down its model of the world.

 

Your culture thoroughly shapes your world model. For example, studies show that Asians and Westerners perceive space and objects differently. Asians attend more to the space between objects, whereas Westerners mostly attend to objects - a difference that translates into separate aesthetics and ways of solving problems. … Different religious beliefs learned in early life can lead to completely different models of morality, how men and women are to be treated, and even the value of life itself. Clearly these differing models of the world can't all be correct in some absolute, universal way, even though they may seem correct to an individual. Moral reasoning, both the good and the bad, is learned.

 

Your culture (and family experience) teaches you stereotypes, which are unfortunately an unavoidable part of life. Throughout this book, you could substitute the word stereotype for invariant memory (or invariant representation) without substantially altering the meaning. Prediction by analogy is pretty much the same as judgment by stereotype. Negative stereotyping has terrible social consequences. If my theory of intelligence is right, we cannot rid people of their propensity to think in stereotypes, because stereotypes are how the cortex works. Stereotyping is an inherent feature of the brain.

 

The way to eliminate the harm caused by stereotypes is to teach our children to recognize false stereotypes, to be empathetic, and to be skeptical. We need to promote these critical-thinking skills in addition to instilling the best values we know. Skepticism, the heart of the scientific method, is the only way we know how to ferret out fact from fiction.

Advayavada Study Plan - week 43

Dear friends,

 

The purpose of Advayavada Buddhism is to become a true part of the whole.

 

This week (43) we further deepen our understanding that ignorant craving is the real cause of existential suffering.

 

According to Advayavada Buddhism, it is indisputable that the Buddha did not believe in Brahman (God, transcendent and immutable Absolute) or in the atta or atman (soul, immortal self) and taught that man suffers because he does not understand and accept that all things in life are instead utterly changeable and transitory; if the Buddha had ever expressed belief in Brahman and the atta or atman, such a fact would have been unequivocally recorded in History. Man is prone to existential suffering (dukkha, duhkha) quite simply because he wrongly strives after and tries to hold on to things, concepts and situations which he believes to be permanent, but are not.

 

Man’s mistaken view of things is produced by a thirst or craving (called tanha in Pali and trishna in Sanskrit) which is in turn caused by his fundamental ignorance (avijja, avidya) of the true nature of reality. And this thirst or craving can easily take on a more unwholesome form: already as sensuous desire, ill-will, laziness, impatience or distrust will it seriously hinder any efforts to better his circumstances.

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

Advayavada Study Plan - week 42

Dear friends,

 

The purpose of Advayavada Buddhism is to become a true part of the whole.

 

This week (42) we again study the ubiquity of existential suffering as thoroughly as possible.

 

This task is based on the concept of dukkha (Pali) or duhkha (Sanskrit). Dukkha or duhkha means undergoing suffering, sorrow; dissatisfaction; frustration, stress; pervasive unsatisfactoriness; gnawing unease; the existential distress nonliberated human beings are prone to. It is one of the three (in Advayavada Buddhism, four) signs or marks or basic facts of being and the first of the four noble truths of Buddhism.

 

In Advayavada Buddhism dukkha or duhkha does not include emotional grief or physical pain and is not a permanent feature of reality; it is ‘only admitted and entertained as a possible contingency in life as it is generally lived’ (B.C. Law). It is rather a suffering in the sense of a basic frustration, even suffocation, caused by the feeling that ‘reality does not conform to our innermost desires’ (Loy).

 

The purpose of the autonomous Advayavada Study Plan ASP is that we study (and debate in a local group, the family circle or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the weekly subject, not as a formal and impersonal intellectual exercise, but in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, our place in society, etc. Advayavada Buddhism does not tell you what to do or believe, but how to make the very best of our own lives by indeed attuning with wondrous overall existence advancing over time now in its manifest direction.

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

About Giving and Receving Feedback.

The contemplative Practice of Giving and Receiving Feedback (A handout at the Psychology of Awakening course, at the Schumacher College, Devon, November 1998)

 

In meditative practice, we become mindful of our own experience, on our own, in the receiving and giving of feedback, we have the opportunity to become mindful of how our behaviour is perceived by others and to let others know how we perceive theirs. We can bring the same attitudes to the sharing of feedback that are recommended for our meditation practice: gentleness, precision and openness.

 

The following guidelines are intended to help you give and receive feedback in a way which makes both the receiving and giving of feedback mindful practices. The purpose of these practices is to enable us to become more aware. Their purpose is not to get ourselves or another person to change in accordance with our desires and preconceptions.

 

In general, if a person is able to make use of feedback, then he or she is able to learn. If a person consistently discounts or rejects feedback, he or she is not able to benefit fully from learning in a community context. It is the single most important skill to develop in training to be a person who can be of service to others.

 

Guidelines for the Recipient of Feedback:

 

1. Have an open mind. Pay attention to simply hearing what is said. Do not assume you already know what the person means. If you need to, ask for clarification.

 

2. Do not explain. Your job is to hear how the other person experiences you. Resist the impulse to justify, defend or explain yourself.

 

3. Be curious about your own state of mind. Notice what arises in your mind as you listen to feedback, both to positive feedback and negative feedback.

 

4. Regard all feedback as an offering. In the Mahayana tradition, there is a slogan which says: “Be grateful to everyone”. The idea is to appreciate the opportunity to learn and develop which the generosity of the other person is providing for you.

 

5. Contemplate what you have heard. Bring your basic intelligence to what you have heard. Do not assume that the other person’s view is more or less accurate than your own. Neither grasp onto nor reject what you have heard. Discover what is useful for you in the feedback. Do not quickly change your behaviour based on what you have heard.

 

6. Practice the slogan: “Three objects, three poisons, three virtuous seeds”. Recognise that whatever feelings arise in you are your own. Free them from the object and work with them mindfully.

 

Guidelines for the Giver:

 

1. Have the intention to be of benefit. Wrong intention is: a) Giving feedback as a way of getting rid of your own discomfort. Do not use feedback as a way to dump your negativity on someone else. b) “Therapeutic aggression”: the tendency to try to change another person. It is based on rejecting the other person as he or she is. Its intention is usually to make the giver him or herself feel better. c) Giving positive feedback so the person will like you.

 

2. Be a clean mirror. Be descriptive, not interpretive. Giving feedback is like holding up a mirror for someone else. Try to keep your personal opinions and concerns out of your message. Do not give advice in the guise of feedback. Emphasise ‘what’ rather than ‘why’. Describe behaviour, speech, your own reactions. Do not be judgmental.

 

3. Present a balanced view. Pay attention to giving both positive and negative feedback.

 

4. Put yourself in the other person’s place. Consider the readiness of the other person to make use of what you have to say. Pick your time and place in a way which shows respect to the other person.

 

5. Be specific rather than general. Describe specific behaviour, not your general impression of the person. Refer to specific instances whenever possible. Don’t get diverted into unrelated matters.

 

6. Own your own experience. Describe your reaction to the other person’s behaviour, acknowledging it as your own. Do not blame. Share your reaction as information, not as pressure to make the other person change.

 

7. Be direct and fearless. You may feel uncomfortable to say something unpleasant to the person. Remember your intention to be helpful. Keeping information from the person may be more harmful than telling them.

 

8. Say your piece and let it go. Do not be attached to what the person does with your feedback. Let it be an offering.

 

Mindfulness of Speech:

 

Obstacles: Embarrassment and pride.

 

Antidotes:

 

1. Listen to oneself. Listen to your speech: the way you speak, the way you use words.

 

2. Listen to the speech of others. Listen to the vowels, the consonants and the speed.

 

3. Make a conscious effort to slow down speaking.

 

4. Enunciate clearly. Respect the words you use.

 

5. Simplicity. Choose words well. Avoid unnecessary words. Minimize.

 

6. Silence. Regard silence as part of speech. Don’t be afraid to wait before speaking.

Advayavada Study Plan - week 41

Dear friends,

 

The purpose of Advayavada Buddhism is to become a true part of the whole.

 

This week (41) we again study the selflessness and finitude of all things as thoroughly as possible.

 

This task is based on the Buddhist anatta (Pali) or anatmata (Sanskrit) doctrine. Anatta or anatman means that no self exists in the person in the sense of a permanent, eternal, integral, and independent substance. It is one of the three (in Advayavada Buddhism, four) signs or marks or basic facts of being. In Mahayana Buddhism, the nisvabhava (Sanskrit) doctrine teaches further that in fact ‘all things are empty (shunya) of self-nature (svabhava), i.e. devoid of self-sufficient, independent existence or lasting substance’; everything, indeed, arises, abides, changes, and extinguishes according to the universal process of interdependent origination or pratityasamutpada (understood as in Madhyamaka philosophy, where ‘all causes are effects and all effects are causes’).

 

The purpose of the autonomous Advayavada Study Plan ASP is that we study (and debate in a local group, the family circle or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the weekly subject, not as a formal and impersonal intellectual exercise, but in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, our place in society, etc. Advayavada Buddhism does not tell you what to do or believe, but how to make the very best of our own lives by indeed attuning with wondrous overall existence advancing over time now in its manifest direction.

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens,

Advayavada Foundation.

@advayavada

Karma Involves Descriptive and Normative Claims (MacKenzie)

The Theory of Karma Involves Descriptive and Normative Claims (from Enacting Selves, Enacting Worlds: On the Buddhist Theory of Karma, by Matthew MacKenzie, in Philosophy East and West, Honolulu, April 2013)

 

Another key point to recognize about the theory of karma is that it involves both descriptive and normative claims. There is no fact/value dichotomy in the Buddhist tradition, and the theory of karma is meant to provide a framework for interpreting the complex relations between the moral dynamics of human experience and the larger causal order [cf. Advayavada Buddhism]. Specifically, Indian Buddhists understand sentient beings and their world in terms of dependent origination (pratityasamutpada). The focus, then, is on patterns of dependence between events or processes, rather than on, for instance, the operation of external forces on ontologically independent objects. The world is understood as a dynamic network of interdependent events, and the sentient beings within it are understood in the same terms. Karma, then, is a mode (niyama) or special case of dependent origination and is not [sic] co-extensive with it. Indian Buddhists identify five modes or domains (niyama) of dependent origination: physical (utu-niyama), biological (bija-niyama), mental (mano-niyama), ethical (karma-niyama), and spiritual (dharma-niyama). The proper understanding of an event may involve some or all of the modes, and it would be a mistake, on this account, to assume that everything that happens to a person is determined by his or her karma.

 

Moreover, one may interpret the theory of karma, in addition to positing certain kinds of causal connections, as expressing a commitment to a fundamental, internal relation between virtuous action and genuine well-being. The specifics of this connection may rest on empirical claims about human action and psychology, but commitment to the internal relation itself will not be a merely empirical generalization. In the final analysis, then, the general theory of karma expresses a regulative normative commitment to the idea that, as Aristotle put it, “activities in accord with virtue control happiness, and the contrary activities control the contrary”. According to the doctrine of karma virtues are both means to the end of genuine happiness or well-being (sukha) and partly constitutive of the end itself. Thus vices are harmful to oneself in that they detract from one’s objective well-being. In addition, vices will tend to undermine one’s ability to enjoy other things of value, such as worldly happiness or wealth.

Advayavada Study Plan - week 40

Dear friends,

 

The purpose of Advayavada Buddhism is to become a true part of the whole.

 

The purpose of the autonomous Advayavada Study Plan ASP is that we study (and debate in a local group, the family circle or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the weekly subject, not as a formal and impersonal intellectual exercise, but in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, our place in society, etc. Advayavada Buddhism does not tell you what to do or believe, but how to make the very best of our own lives by indeed attuning as best as possible with wondrous overall existence advancing over time now in its manifest direction.

 

This week (40) we again study the impermanence of all things as thoroughly as we can.

 

This task is based on the Buddhist aniccata (Pali) or anityata (Sanskrit) doctrine. Anicca or anitya means impermanent, changeable, unstable, and is one of the three (in Advayavada Buddhism, four) signs or marks or basic facts of being; Buddhism teaches that impermanence or changeability is one of the fundamental properties of everything existing, without which existence (and liberation) would not be possible.

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens,

Advayavada Foundation.

@advayavada

Advayavada Study Plan - week 39

Dear friends,

 

The purpose of Advayavada Buddhism is to become a true part of the whole.

 

This week (39) we continue to practice our very best meditation towards samadhi.

 

This task is based on the 8th Step on the Noble 8fold Path: samma-samadhi (samyak-samadhi); in Advayavada: our very best meditation or concentration towards samadhi.

 

Other translations: right rapture (Arnold, Eliot, Malalasekera), right samadhi (Bahm, Dharmapala), right concentration (Bodhi, Burt, Ch’en, Conze, Dhammananda, Fernando, Gethin, Grimm, Guenther, Harvey, Horner, Khemo, Narada, Nyanatiloka, Rahula, Saddhatissa, St Ruth, Takakusu, Warder), appropriate concentration (Batchelor), right meditation (David-Neel, Humphreys, Keown, Stroup), right meditating (Melamed), right illumination (Dharmapala), right awareness (Kornfield), right tranquility (Narasu), right contemplation (Rhys Davids, Watts); absolute concentration of purpose (Edwardes); correct concentration (Kloppenborg, Scheepers)

 

samadhi (Skt.): total or perfect concentration (of the mind, cf. enstasy); non-dualistic state of consciousness in which the experiencing subject becomes one with the experienced object; total absortion in the object of meditation; transcendence of the relationship between mind and object; merging of subject and object; to contemplate the world without any perception of objects; suspension of judgement; turiyatita; satori; bodhi; rigpa; realization of the sameness of the part and the whole, of the identity of form and emptiness, of samsara and nirvana, of the immediate and the ultimate; mystic oneness; perfect dynamic attunement with wondrous overall existence; oceanic feeling; wonder, awe, rapture; essential purity; deep love and compassion; awareness of our common ground and the innocence of sex.

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

Advayavada Study Plan - week 37

Dear friends,

 

This week (37) we continue to muster our very best effort to fulfil our objective.

 

The 6th Step on the Noble 8fold Path: samma-vayama (samyag-vyayana); in Advayavada: our very best effort or commitment: right thought (Arnold), right effort (Bodhi, Burt, Ch’en, Conze, David-Neel, Dhammananda, Eliot, Fernando, Gethin, Grimm, Harvey, Humphreys, Keown, Khemo, Kornfield, Malalasekera, Narada, Narasu, Nyanatiloka, Rahula, Rhys Davids, Saddhatissa, St Ruth, Stroup), appropriate effort (Batchelor), right exertion (Dharmapala, Guenther), right endeavour (Bahm, Dharmapala, Horner, Takakusu), right application (Watts); proper effort in the proper direction (Edwardes); correct exertion (Kloppenborg), right striving (Melamed), correct striving (Scheepers), right exercise (Warder).

 

Remember: Week 38 = week 25, week 39 = week 26, etc.

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

Dharma of part and whole the same.

Firstly, we must agree that wondrous overall existence cannot, by definition, but be just right as it is and, secondly, that the objective of the Middle Way devoid of extremes, propounded by the Buddha as the correct existential attitude, must be to reconnect and reconcile us with existence as a whole - we can safely assume that the Buddha did not teach that there were two sets of rules at play, one for existence and one for its 'by-product' people! Therefore, because, in other words, the dharma of the part is not different from the Dharma of the whole, the Buddha's Middle Way, in its dynamic Eightfold Path form, must be understood as an ongoing reflexion at the level of our personal lives of wondrous overall existence becoming over time. Now, as the Eightfold Path leads us towards better and better, it follows, inductively if you will, that, expressed purely in human terms, existence as a whole progresses over time as well. By the same logic, it also becomes quite clear that, inversely, we experience as good, right or wholesome, indeed as progress, those events which are in agreement with the overall pattern and direction of existence, that it is for this reason that they are experienced thus. (from http://www.advayavada.org/qanda.htm)

Advayavada Study Plan - week 36

Dear friends,

 

This week (36) we begin to realize our improved objective as best as possible.

 

The 5th Step on the Noble 8fold Path: samma-ajiva (samyag-ajiva); in Advayavada: our very best implementation, realization or putting into practice; right purity (Arnold), right vocation (Burt, Watts), right livelihood (Bahm, Bodhi, Ch’en, Conze, Dhammananda, Dharmapala, Eliot, Fernando, Gethin, Harvey, Horner, Keown, Khemo, Kornfield, Malalasekera, Narada, Rahula, Rhys Davids, Saddhatissa, St Ruth, Stroup, Takakusu, Warder), appropriate livelihood (Batchelor), right living (David-Neel, Narasu, Nyanatiloka), right mode of life (Grimm), right life (Guenther, Melamed), right means of livelihood (Humphreys); proper way of earning one’s living (Edwardes); correct living (Kloppenborg), correct livelihood (Scheepers).

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

Advayavada Study Plan - week 35

Dear friends,

 

This week (35) we further develop our very best attitude to carry out our objective.

 

The 4th Step on the Noble 8fold Path: samma-kammanta (samyak-karmanta): in Advayavada: our very best disposition or attitude; right behaviour (Arnold), right conduct (Burt, Conze, Eliot, Malalasekera, Rhys Davids), right action (Bahm, Bodhi, Ch’en, David-Neel, Fernando, Gethin, Guenther, Harvey, Horner, Humphreys, Keown, Khemo, Kornfield, Narada, Narasu, Nyanatiloka, Rahula, Saddhatissa, St Ruth, Stroup, Takakusu, Warder, Watts), appropriate action (Batchelor), right actions (Dhammananda, Dharmapala), right acting (Grimm); proper behaviour (Edwardes); correct action (Kloppenborg, Scheepers), the right deed (Melamed).

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

The Term Shunyata (Zimmer)

The Term Shunyata (from Philosophies of India, by Dr. Heinrich Zimmer, edited by Prof. Joseph Campbell, 1952, London 1967)

 

The term shunyata, as applied to the metaphysical reality, insists on the fact that reason and language apply to only the finite world; nothing can be said of the infinite. But the term is applied also to all things of the phenomenal sphere, and here is the great stroke of Shunyavada. “As applied to the world of experience,” writes Dr. Radakrishnan in his Indian Philosophy, “shunyata means the ever-changing state of the phenomenal world. In the dread waste of endlessness man loses all hope, but the moment he recognizes its unreality he transcends it and reaches after the abiding principle. He knows that the whole is a passing dream, where he may sit unconcerned with the issues, certain of victory.”

 

In other words, the concept of emptiness, the void, vacuity, has been employed in the Madhyamika teaching as a convenient and effective pedagogical instrument to bring the mind beyond that sense of duality which infects all systems in which the absolute and the world of relativity are described in contrasting, or antagonistic terms. In the Vedanta Gitas, as we have seen, the non-duality of Nirvana and Samsara, release and bondage, is made known and celebrated in rhapsodic verses; but in this Buddhist formula, one word, shunyata, bears the entire message, and simultaneously projects the mind beyond any attempt to conceive of a synthesis. Philosophically, as a metaphysical doctrine, the formula conduces to a thoroughgoing Docetism: the world, the Buddha, and Nirvana itself become no more than the figments of an absolutely empty dream. This is the point that has been attacked, always, in argument, and, of course, it is an easy point to make seem absurd if one takes absolutely the usual categories of reason. But the circumstance to be borne in mind is that this Buddhist philosophy is not primarily an instrument of reason but an instrument to convert reason into realization; one step beyond the term is the understanding of what it really means. And as a device to effect such a transformation of knowledge – first standing between all the contrarities of ‘the world’ and ‘release from the world’, then standing between the moment of preliminary comprehension and that of realized illumination – it would be difficult indeed to find a more apt and efficient term.

 

This is why the doctrine is called Madhyamika, the ‘Middle Way’. And actually, it brings, as far as possible, into systematic philosophical statement the whole implication of the ‘Middle Doctrine’ of the Buddha himself. For as we read in the orthodox Pali Samyutta-Nikaya: “That things have being, O Kaccana, constitutes one extreme of doctrine; that things have no being is the other extreme. These extremes, O Kaccana, have been avoided by the Tathagata, and it is a middle doctrine that he teaches.” The Buddha continually diverted the mind from its natural tendency to posit an abiding essence beyond, or underlying, the endless and meaningless dynamism of the concatenation of causes. And this is the effect also of Nagarjuna’s metaphysical doctrine of the void.

Advayavada Study Plan - week 34

Dear friends,

 

This week (34) we again put our decision and objective in writing as precisely as possible.

 

The 3rd Step on the Noble Eightfold Path: samma-vacha (samyag-vac); in Advayavada: our very best enunciation or definition (as Karl Popper says, putting our ideas into words, or better, writing them down, makes an important difference, for in this way they become objective and criticizable); right discourse (Arnold), right speech (Bahm, Bodhi, Burt, Ch’en, Conze, David-Neel, Dhammananda, Dharmapala, Eliot, Fernando, Gethin, Guenther, Harvey, Horner, Humphreys, Keown, Khemo, Kornfield, Malalasekera, Narada, Narasu, Nyanatiloka, Rahula, Rhys Davids, Saddhatissa, St Ruth, Stroup, Takakusu, Warder, Watts), appropriate speech (Batchelor), right speaking (Grimm); proper language of definition (Edwardes); correct speech (Kloppenborg, Scheepers), the right word (Melamed).

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

Contradictions to be taken literally... (Deguchi c.s.)

Contradictions meant to be taken literally, be accepted, and as unambiguous (from The Way of the Dialetheist: Contradictions in Buddhism, by Yasuo Deguchi, Jay L. Garfield and Graham Priest, in Philosophy East and West, Honolulu, July 2008)

 

We have seen that there are various ways in which apparent contradictions in Buddhist discourses may be defused. And some contradictions, as we have seen, are best defused in this way. But we have also seen that contradictions may not always be defused by these mechanisms. Indeed, the discussion has taken us to the point of seeing why some contradictions in some Buddhist texts cannot be defused. To suppose that one ought to defuse them would be to misunderstand.

 

There are no ultimate truths. As we have put is before [elsewhere]: “Ultimate truths are those about ultimate reality. But since everything is empty, there is no ultimate reality. There are, therefore, no ultimate truths. We can get at the same conclusion another way. To express anything in language is to express truth that depends on language, and so this cannot be an expression of the way that things are ultimately. All truths, then, are merely conventional.”

 

If Buddhists were content merely to point mutely to ultimate reality, there would be nothing more to be said. But they are not. They explain how conventional reality is simply the imposition of conventional conceptual categories on ultimate reality, and they explain the delusion about the nature of ultimate reality to which this gives rise. In the very process, they describe certain things about ultimate reality. The indescribable is described; indeed, even to say that is is indescribable is to describe it. In this respect, Buddhism is akin to any of a number of positions that claim that there is an ineffable reality, and then go on to explain why this is so, in the process, saying things about that reality. The phenomenon is to be found, for example, in Neoplatonism, in Advaita Vedanta, and in Heidegger on Being.

 

It could be said that such descriptions are simply upaya, to be jettisoned as soon as one can appreciate the nature of ultimate reality directly. Although they might be seen in this way, this would not do justice to the texts. The texts in question are simply too carefully reasoned and too explicit, and are read by their commentators as correct. There is indeed a difference recognized in all Mahayana Buddhist traditions between, on the one hand, the conceptually mediated, and hence indirect, apprehension of ultimate reality that one obtains through reasoning and discursive practices, and, on the other hand, the immediate, direct, perception of emptiness that is the goal of meditative practice. However, the object of these two modes of apprehension is the same: emptiness, which is identical with [inter]dependent origination – the ultimate truth, which is in turn identical with the conventional truth properly understood. The descriptions of ultimate reality, however thin they may be, and however imperfectly they capture the object of yogic direct perception, are, nonetheless, taken to be veridical. And again, since the things claimed about ultimate reality are often contradictory to things claimed about conventional reality, if these two things are ultimately the same reality is is a contradictory one.

 

It might be suggested that although such contradictions are true, their truth is incomprehensible. Such truths, in this view, have the deictic function of ostending the incomprehensibility of ultimate reality, but cannot themselves be understood. This view concedes our point that such contradictions are intended as true, but we do not concede the view that they are incomprehensible. Those who hold that contradictions are always and obviously only false will of course find supposing them to be true incomprehensible. However, despite various orthodoxies, East and West, the view that some contradictions are true is a perfectly coherent and intelligible view, as modern studies in dialetheism and paraconsistency have established.

Advayavada Study Plan - week 33

Dear friends,

 

This week (33) we again take an appropriate and timely decision to adjust our course.

 

The 2nd step on the Noble Eightfold Path: samma-sankappa (samyak-samkalpa); in Advayavada: our very best resolution or determination; right purpose (Arnold, Burt, Horner), right resolve (Bahm, David-Neel, Keown), appropriate thought (Batchelor), right intentions (Bodhi, Conze), right intention (Ch’en, Gethin, Khemo, St Ruth, Warder), right thoughts (Dhammananda, Narada), right desires (Dharmapala), right aspirations (Dharmapala, Eliot, Malalasekera, Rhys Davids), right thought (Fernando, Rahula, Saddhatissa, Takakusu), right resolution (Grimm), right conception (Guenther), right directed thought (Harvey), right motives (Humphreys), right attitude (Kornfield), right attitude of mind (Stroup), right aspiration (Narasu), right mindedness (Nyanatiloka), right understanding (Watts); proper hopes (Edwardes); correct resolve (Kloppenborg), right resolving (Melamed), correct thinking (Scheepers)

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

Nirvana truly realized is Samsara properly understood (Iyer)

Nirvana truly realized is Samsara properly understood (from Buddha and the Path to Enlightenment, by Raghavan Iyer, Theosophy Library Online, Internet 1986)

 

The Madhyamika school traces its origin to Nagarjuna, the brilliant philosopher and formidable dialectician who flourished in the late second century A.D. Taking Buddha’s advocacy of the Middle Way between harmful extremes, between avid indulgence and austere asceticism, and between sterile intellectualization and suffocating mental torpor, Nagarjuna developed a rigorous dialectical logic by which he reduced every philosophical standpoint to an explosive set of contradictions. This did not lead to the closure of scepticism, as the less vigorously pursued pre-Socratic philosophies did, but rather to the elusive standpoint that neither existence nor non-existence can be asserted of the world and of everything in it. The Madhyamikas, therefore, refused to affirm or deny any philosophical proposition. Nagarjuna sought to liberate the mind from its tendencies to cling to tidy or clever formulations of truth, because any truth short of shunyata, the voidness of reality, is inherently misleading. Relative truths are not like pieces of a puzzle, each of which incrementally adds to the complete design. They are plausible distortions of the truth and can seriously mislead the aspirant. They cannot be lightly or wholly repudiated, however, for they are all the seeker has, and so he must learn to use them as aids whilst remembering that they are neither accurate nor complete in themselves.

 

By the fifth century two views of Nagarjuna’s work had emerged. The followers of Bhavaviveka thought that Madhyamika philosophy had a positive content, whilst those who subscribed to Buddhapalita’s more severe interpretation said that every standpoint, including their own, could be reduced to absurdity, which fact alone, far more than any positively asserted doctrine, could lead to intuitive insight (Prajña) and Enlightenment. Chandrakirti’s remarkable defence of this latter standpoint deeply influenced Tibetan Buddhist traditions as well as those schools of thought that eventually culminated in Japan in Zen. Nagarjuna’s dialectic revealed the shunya or emptiness of all discursive, worldly thought and its proliferating categories.

 

For the Madhyamikas, whatever can be conceptualized is therefore relative, and whatever is relative is shunya, empty. Since absolute inconceivable truth is also shunya, shunyata or the void is shared by both Samsara and Nirvana. Ultimately, Nirvana truly realized is Samsara properly understood. The fully realized Bodhisattva, the enlightened Buddha who renounces the Dharmakaya vesture to remain at the service of suffering beings, recognizes this radical transcendental equivalence. The Arhant and the Pratyeka Buddha, who look to their own redemption and realization, are elevated beyond any conventional description, but nonetheless do not fully realize or freely embody this highest truth. Thus for the Madhyamikas, the Bodhisattva ideal is the supreme wisdom, showing the unqualified unity of unfettered metaphysics and transcendent ethics, theoria and praxis, at the highest conceivable level.

Advayavada Study Plan - week 32

Dear friends,

 

This week (32) we again honestly review and take stock of our personal situation.

 

The 1st step on the Noble Eightfold Path: samma-ditthi (samyag-dristi); in Advayavada: our very best comprehension or insight; right doctrine (Arnold), right view (Bahm, Bodhi, Ch’en, Gethin, Grimm, Guenther, Harvey, Horner, St Ruth, Takakusu, Watts), appropriate vision (Batchelor), right understanding (Burt, Dhammananda, Fernando, Humphreys, Keown, Kornfield, Narada, Nyanatiloka, Rahula, Saddhatissa, Stroup), right views (Conze, David-Neel, Dharmapala, Eliot, Malalasekera, Rhys Davids), right knowledge (Dharmapala, Khemo), right belief (Melamed, Narasu); proper views (Edwardes); correct insight (Kloppenborg), correct faith (Scheepers), right theory (Warder).

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

To become a true part of the whole

To realize what in Advayavada Buddhism we term 'to become a true part of the whole' one must follow the Eightfold Path. In Advayavada Buddhism the Path is interpreted dynamically as a fully autonomous process of progressive insight and, let us clarify further here, as strictly non-dual and non-comparative, this in the sense that it bears no reference at all to anything predetermined by others or oneself. A prescriptive method with preset demands and expectations is antithetical to all progress, both of the individual and the group to which he or she belongs. The Path is moreover not seen in Advayavada Buddhism as a means to become something in the future, but as the way to become as something rightaway in the herenow. It is seen as the way to become oneself herenow as existence interdependently becoming over time now in its overall right direction - it is by becoming herenow as the whole of existence as it is beyond our commonly limited and biased personal experience of it, that we free ourselves from suffering. Nirvana is when we experience our own existence as being completely in harmony with existence as a whole becoming over time, with natura naturans - Nirvana is, if you wish, the ultimate reconciliation with his or her Buddha-nature achievable by man.

Advayavada Study Plan - week 31

Dear friends,

 

This week (31) we again closely survey the 8fold path that eliminates the cause of suffering.

 

In Advayavada Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path is understood dynamically as an ongoing and fully autonomous, non-prescriptive, investigative and creative process of progressive insight, reflecting in human terms wondrous overall existence becoming over time, and is composed of (1) our very best (Pali: samma, Sanskrit: samyak) comprehension or insight followed by (2) our very best resolution or determination, (3) our very best enunciation or definition (of our intention), (4) our very best disposition or attitude, (5) our very best implementation or realization, (6) our very best effort or commitment, (7) our very best observation, reflection or evaluation and self-correction, and (8) our very best meditation or concentration towards an increasingly real experience of samadhi, which brings us to a yet better comprehension or insight, and so forth.

 

The Noble Eightfold Path in Advayavada Buddhism is fully personalized: it is firmly based on what we increasingly know about ourselves and our world, and trusting our own intentions, feelings and conscience. Adherence to the familiar Five Precepts (not to kill, not to steal, sexual restraint, not to lie, and refraining from alcohol and drugs) and a well-considered understanding of the Four Signs of Being and the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths suffice to start off on the Path at any time. Nirvana is, in Advayavada Buddhism, the total extinction of suffering as a result of our complete reconciliation with reality as it truly is.

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

Advayavada Study Plan - week 30

Dear friends,

 

This week (30) we further deepen our understanding that ignorant craving is the real cause of suffering.

 

According to Advayavada Buddhism, it is indisputable that the Buddha did not believe in Brahman (God, transcendent and immutable Absolute) or in the atman or atta (soul, immortal self) and taught that man suffers because he does not understand and accept that all things in life are instead utterly changeable and transitory; if the Buddha had ever expressed belief in Brahman and the atman or atta, such a fact would have been unequivocally recorded in History. Man is prone to suffering (duhkha, dukkha) quite simply because he wrongly strives after and tries to hold on to things, concepts and situations which he believes to be permanent, but are not.

 

Man’s mistaken view of things is produced by a thirst or craving (called trishna in Sanskrit and tanha in Pali) which is in turn caused by his fundamental ignorance (avidya, avijja) of the true nature of reality. And this thirst or craving can easily take on a more unwholesome form: already as sensuous desire, ill-will, laziness, impatience or distrust will it seriously hinder any efforts to better his circumstances.

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

Advayavada Study Plan - week 29

Dear friends,

 

This week (29) we again study the ubiquity of suffering (dukkha/duhkha) as thoroughly as possible.

 

duhkha (Skt.) undergoing suffering, sorrow; dissatisfaction; frustration, stress; pervasive unsatisfactoriness; gnawing unease; the existential distress nonliberated human beings are prone to, one of the three (in Advayavada Buddhism, four) signs or marks or basic facts of being (anitya, anatman, duhkha and pratipada); suffering in the sense of suffocation: 'the state of the Infinite delusionally imprisoned in the finite, that manifests as human suffering' (Kimura); in Advayavada Buddhism does not include emotional grief or physical pain; suffering is 'not a permanent feature of reality' and is 'only admitted and entertained as a possible contingency in life as it is generally lived' (B.C. Law); 'basic frustration that reality does not conform to our innermost desires' (Loy); the first noble truth.

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada