Advayavada Study Plan - week 5

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 (5) we again closely survey the Noble Eightfold Path (the Buddha's fourth noble truth) that eliminates the cause of suffering.

 

In Advayavada Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path 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 three (in Advayavada Buddhism, four) signs of being and the Buddha’s four noble truths suffice to start off on the Path at any time.

 

The Path is understood dynamically in Advayavada Buddhism, i.e. 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. It 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.

 

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

Het concept Leegte (Blum)

Geen begrip beschrijft het unieke van het Mahayana denken beter dan shunyata of  'leegte', een concept dat tegelijkertijd verontrustend, verwarrend en mysterieus is. Het concept ontstaat in het vroege boeddhisme met de doctrine van het niet-zelf, of anatman, die zegt dat de mens verstoken is van een permanente, onveranderlijke identiteit. In het Mahayana heeft het bijvoeglijk naamwoord shunya of  'leeg' een uitgebreidere betekenis en wordt beschouwd als een religieuze kwaliteit op zichzelf, die wordt uitgedrukt door het abstracte achtervoegsel ta. Men kwam tot de diepgaande conclusie dat alle fenomenen worden gekenmerkt door deze eigenschap van het ontbreken, het verstoken zijn, van een ondubbelzinnig, permanent en herkenbaar element. En dit 'ontbreken' is de feitelijke sleutel tot het begrip van de religieuze waarheid over alle fenomenen. Zo ontstond Leegte, een nieuwe uitdrukking van de ultieme waarheid van het bestaan.

 

Het concept van Leegte werd voor het eerst ontwikkeld in de Prajnaparamita sutra's van de Volmaakte Wijsheid, waar wordt gesteld dat de waarheid van de wereld boven elk dualistisch onderscheid verheven is. De teksten weerlegden de positie die in de canonieke Abhidharma wordt ingenomen, die het gebrek van een onveranderlijke zelf in de mens verklaarde met de gedachte van een tijdelijke bundeling van individuele elementen die op zichzelf wezenlijk en herkenbaar zijn. De conceptuele fout van de Abhidharmisten was dat ze het wezen of zelf van een persoon [enkel] vervingen door een groter aantal [vijf] onbeduidende elementen, wat nog steeds impliceerde dat de wereld zoals die wordt waargenomen werkelijk is. Voor Mahayana-geleerden zijn deze specifieke elementen, dharma's genoemd (niet te verwarren met de Dharma, de leer van de Boeddha), net zo verstoken van een onveranderlijk wezen als de mens zelf. (hertaald uit Leegte, door Mark C. Blum, in Boeddhisme, red. Kevin Trainor, p.140, Kerkdriel 2012)

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.