Two Strains in Buddhist Causality

·期刊原文
Two Strains in Buddhist Causality
By Kenneth K. Inada
Journal of Chinese Philosophy
V. 12 (1985)
pp. 49-56
Copyright 1985 by Dialogue Publishing Company

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This essay will focus on the Buddhist metaphysics of experience which is generally glossed over due to the excessive concern for the ultimate goal in Buddhism, nirvaana, and in consequence of which the emphasis has been on the practice of; meditative discipline in aspiration for that goal, Yet neither nirvana nor meditative discipline can be understood properly without examining the full dimension of our ordinary experience. Such an examination should reveal to us the unique ways in which the Buddhist refers to the bounded and unbounded conditions of existence. All this is novel insofar as metaphysics goes and indeed it would have to be a unique form of meta-physics in order to accommodate the dual aspect of existence. The key to this metaphysics lodges in the Buddhist concept of experiential process,[1] technically known as pratiityasamutpaada which is variously translated as relational origination, international origination or dependent origination. It refers to the Buddhist concept of causality but, as we shall see, it is a unique concept with more than the usual Western connotation.

The concept is the deepest metaphysical penetration into the nature of experience attributed to the historical Buddha. It delineates in general terms how the presence or absence of certain relational conditions (pratyayas) will produce certain consequences. It is general enough to cover all experiential events, i.e., how each event arises, persists for a while and subsides, only to be taken over by a succeeding event. The events are like waves in the ocean, each wave appearing and disappearing in a multi-dimensional and continual sense. But in our experiential events, we are usually caught up with the elements, i.e., the observable or tangible nature of things, and thus the events are controlled and described by them. From the Buddhist point of view, this is peripheral and truncated perception of things. For, despite the fact that we heavily rely on empirical data, our experiential process is not a mere aggregation of these data nor is it limited to them.

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Aren't we being too selective and restrictive in our understanding of the whole experiential process? Aren't we merely perceiving the trees for the forest? The Buddhist view firmly advances the position that experiential process is much more comprehensive and holistic than the normal view of it. It points to the fact that the empirical data depict only an aspect of the experiential dynamics and that the dynamics is more than what is accountable to the eye or to any other sense faculty.

It should be noted that the Buddhist concept of reality makes no claims to the existence of two separate levels or two different forms of reality for regardless of whatever approach is taken, reality is reality and that its locus must reside in the experiential dynamics. Thus, whether we view reality from the standpoint of the Buddha's enlightened nature or from our clouded existence. it would have to be the self-same reality which in itself cannot change at random or transform into something other than what it is. What changes or transforms is not reality itself but the dynamics of our experience and herein lies the cogency and strength of the meditative discipline. We cannot however enter into the discussion of the discipline here, due to limitation of space, but suffice it to say that the focus of the discipline is initially on the experiential dynamics which display the empirical elements and to show up the fact that these elements are at variance with the full, unhindered flows of existence. It is the initial step in understanding, the divisive and fragmentative nature of the elements and to begin to control their ill-effects in the individual's experiential dynamics.

Simply put, the Buddhist approach thoroughly accounts for the fullness of existence in addition to incorporating the empirical elements. This is indeed an odd statement to make and needs to be expanded since ordinarily the mind finds it difficult to incorporate empirical elements within the larger and fuller context of existence. I shall utilize the metaphor of a net to illustrate the Buddhist viewpoint. In viewing the net, we are asked to see the net not only in terms of the strings that are knotted in the warp and woof structure but to include the seemingly unglimpsed and unaccounted interstitial nature of the structure itself. This is another way of saying that there are no gaps or empty spaces in the net since the interstices are part and parcel of the net itself.[2] And extending this to the nature of experiential dynamics, those seemingly unseen and intangible aspects of the dynamics are ever present and are equally, if not more, important in the dynamic process

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itself. The tangible and intangible aspects of the dynamics then are mutually bound to each other and always function conterminously. In this state of affairs, there can be no inner or outer realm of existence, nor can there be any extraneous or transcendental qualities. Buddhist reality has the basic feature of self-containment and self-fulfillment, although some interpreters have tended to inject incompatible transcendental characteristics to both the doctrines and the phases and elements of meditative discipline.

If Buddhist reality is to be found in the experiential dynamics, as it should, then we must examine the nature of the dynamics itself. This is best done by re-examining the ordinary concept of causality with which we view the occurrence of events. Generally speaking, we associate it with the notion of efficient causation in the manner of a simple cause-effect relationship. Yet we know that this relationship is suspect as brilliantly analyzed by David Hume.[3] Hume denied any causal connection of two events, although man is always desirous of imposing such a connection, a cement, in the whole experiential process. In short, he recognized man's inevitable reliance on the empirical elements, the matters of facts, and the eventual enslavement to them. As disparate elements, these sense data seem to overwhelm man's perception but in the final analysis they cannot be relied upon to provide the necessary connection demanded by the mind.

The Buddhist position, like Hume's, does not rely on sense data or the empirical realm for the cause of continuity and consistency of perceptions. "Causality" in the nature of Buddhist relational origination is much more comprehensive and inclusive and will not permit the empirical elements to persist in and of themselves. Furthermore, it will not allow any dichotomous function, the subject and object relationship, to continue in the empirical realm; indeed, the dynamicity of the process of relational origination will prevent any subjective or objective component from arising. The process will go on despite the arbitrary or conventional way in which we attempt to impose a subject or an object to our perception. This process is at times graphically referred to as the Wheel of Becoming for it is exactly the way ordinary experiential process displays itself. Each and every individual is a becoming wheel unto himself from birth till death; he carves out his own life in accordance with his own "subjective" wheel. But this turning of the wheel in the conventional (non-enlightened) way is nothing but an exercise in the attachment to the ontologies or what may be referred

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to as ontological plays. That is, the turning of the wheel depicts a certain manipulation of the elements, the ontological entities, in the arbitrary subject-object relationship. The relationship will cause a certain strain to appear in the Wheel of Becoming and which phenomenon may be labeled the ontological imperative in our perceptual existence, an imperative to account for the perceptual process merely in terms of the elements. This is based on naive conception of causality, one that focuses more on the elements than the process itself. To expand on the strained or forced nature of the experiential process, incognizant for the most part, we are controlled greatly by our passionate drives (t.r.s.naa, ta.nhaa), the incessant quest for and attachment to the elements of such passions (upaadaana). Such drives belongs to basic biological process, to be sure, but in very subtle ways, they have penetrated and permeated the whole experiential process wherein the elements rather than the full force of the process have dominated and taken hold of things, thereby misrepresenting the process itself. The ontological grab for and persistence of things, physical as well as non-physical, has become a fact of our ordinary existence. Thus, seemingly innocuous ontologies in our experience have become the makings of a strain in the dynamics such that the enlightened, clear realm of existence would be foreclosed to full realization. In the strained dynamics, therefore, there is a reversion to the state of the proverbial cart before he horse.

The Wheel of Becoming, however, has another important aspect. It defies the notion of the ontological imperative as. for example, we read in the following famous but cryptic verse from Buddhaghosa's Path of purification (Visuddhimagga).[4]

Becoming's Wheel reveals no known beginning;
No maker, no experiencer there;
Void with a twelvefold voidness, and nowhere
it ever halts; forever it is spinning.

The verse clearly reveals that the turning of the Wheel of Becoming involves much more than the empirical realm framed by the elements (ontologies) and that there is another aspect, the so-called non-empirical for want of a better term, which plays a unique role in the dynamics. Thus in the infra-structural nature of relational origination, inclusive of both the

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empirical and non-empirical realms, no assertion of whatever nature is permissible. To speak of a maker or an experiencer, for example, is to resort to only the elements of the empirical realm for description and support. But the presence of the non-empirical nature in virtue of the dynamics of the wheel, prevents any advancement of its twelve components,[5] much less an aggregate that can be called the maker or experiencer. The twelve components are, on the other hand, empirically void due to the inherent dynamics, i.e., they are void because the experiencer is one and the same within the vortex of the experiential dynamics.

This unique turning of the wheel also denies another important facet of ordinary causation theory, i.e., determinism. There can be no straight deterministic principle in function because the wheel has no beginning, i.e., no antecedent state of being in the strictest sense as well as no end or consequent state, for it is forever spinning. It is our minds that impose a beginning and an end to things in order to perceive them all together, coherently and symmetrically. Moreover, Buddhaghosa goes on to say that the roots of the turning of the Wheel of Becoming lodge in two of the components ignorance (avijjaa, avidyaa) and craving (ta.nhaa, t.r.s.na).[6] Craving is a general term for the thirst of life, the basic drives as seen earlier, but ignorance is a special term for the unenlightened existence where false views of the past or antecedent states of existence are adhered to. Ignorance in this sense does not take on a strictly epistemic character, i.e., it has very little, if any, to do with ordinary forms of knowledge. It has to do instead with the basic ontological nature of reaching out for the elements of existence and attaching to them--the ontological imperative. So; in the strictest sense, it refers to the devious manner in which the present moment is said to come into being in the turning of the Wheel of Becoming.

Although it was stated earlier that the concept of relational origination speaks of the presence or absence of antecedent conditions which give rise to certain consequences, this does not infer simple determinism. The conditions are basically and dynamically relational. They impose certain factors necessary and sufficient for the occurrence of an event but as the wheel is an sever turning or moving phenomenon, the factors are always potentially present and do not become necessary and sufficient until they are actually involved in the process itself. This means that, more importantly, the Wheel of Becoming or relational origination is actually the expression of a novel

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creative process. It reveals not only the causal characteristics relative to the empirical realm but also the non-empirical nature disguised in the causal characteristics of the experiential process. The inter-fusion of the causal and non-empirical natures, cryptic as it is, must be the source of freedom so important to the creative process. Or, the process is creative only to the extent that the non-empirical nature is not engulfed by the empirical elements or causally oriented characteristics. That is to say, the Buddhist seeks to bring about a creative nature despite the overwhelming forces of attachment to the elements of the empirical realm. These forces are causally productive and fruitful, to be sure, but they depend on the senses for their functional sustenance and are thereby, in the final analysis, uncreative.

Relational origination functions then with both the empirical and non-empirical natures intersecting, so to speak, at every momentary experiential arising. They are the two strains of the self-same experiential process, one "impure" and the others "pure." Where causality holds true in the empirical realm. the way out of this causally bound situation is to seek the deeper infra-structural nature that involves the non-empirical nature whose integrated presence will issue forth in an intimation with the holistically and creatively moving realm. In this vein, we are one with Charles Hartshorne's great insight: "freedom is causality in the making."[7]

What has been discussed so far can be boiled down to the simple ontological parity principle enunciated by Nagarjuna in which the realms of samsaara (empirical) and nirvaa.na (non-empirical) are coterminously equal.[8] There is a collapse or coalescence of the two realms when the empirical natures do not dominate, i.e., when the ontological imperative ceases, and at Which point the uniqueness of experience becomes a fact.

Nagarjuna's principle had been quite implicit in the early teachings of the Buddha. Methodologically speaking, the Buddha had expounded the anaatman ("non-self') view in countering the prevailing aatman ("self') view in order to advance his middle way doctrine but, however clear and revolutionary the distinction may have been, it was not until the dawn of the Mahayana movement, i.e., the Praj~naparamita Period and thinkers such as Nagarjuna and Asanga, that a truly philosophic treatment of the distinction came about. Still, in their rudiments, the aatman view was seen as bound to the empirical realm and the anaatman view as a resolution of that realm. It would be too sweeping and simplistic to say that the free and creative

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realm belongs exclusively to the anaatman or non-empirical realm because the empirical aspect, as seen earlier, is very much a part of the whole experiential process. It would seem however that we are perennially confronted with the paradox of both resolving and perpetuating the situation. That is to say, the experiential process is real but we demand to know (or to see) clearly the elements at play; yet the play, not the elements, is the important thing.

Another way to illustrate the paradox is a return to Cartesian dichotomy. Once the mind is set up, just as the atman is, there would be no end to the demands in perceptual clarity. The Buddha recognized this dilemma, a self-imposed phenomenon, and resolved it by introducing a revolutionary no-self doctrine. In doing so, he recalled an old concept, pratiitya-samutpaada, and pointed out the dual strains in it, that one must move away from the captivity of ontological entities to the wider and open structure of experience. In consequence of which there is a blend in the self-same reality of things the impure and pure, the bound and unbound, the uncreative and creative. The two strains in the experiential process are thus always openly present and challenge man to seek his own release (enlightenment) by providing the necessary ingredients for it.[9]

NOTES
1. The general "formula" for the experiential process is the following: "If this is, that comes to be; from the arising of this, that arises; if this is not, that does not come to be; from the stopping of this, that is stopped." See I.B. Horner (trans.), The Collection of the Middle Length Sayings (Majjhimaa-nikaaya; II, 32) (London: Luzac & Co., Ltd., 1957), Vol. II, p. 229

2. It is to be recalled that in Taoism the interstitial nature becomes the most significant and valuable source of "power" and utility as, for example, in the so-called "empty" portion of the drinking glass or a bucket; likewise in man's experiences, it is not the outward, visible acts that are to weigh heavily but the restful "empty" nature from which those acts spring forth.

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3. See his A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part III (Edited by L.A. Selby-Bigge, Oxford, 1888) for his classic repudiation of cause and effect in events, and his introduction of the concepts of contiguity, succession and constant conjunction to treat those events, plus the notion of necessary connection. Needless to say, Hume was frustrated with his analysis of empirical elements and searched for other means of explaining the necessary connection but was never successful since he remained a child of the mechanistic universe grounded in Newtonian physics. Since Hume, of course, the rapid rise of science made way for the accommodation of elements on the run, so to speak, expressed for example by Einsteinian physics and Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle in the scientific world and by Hegelian/Marxian dialectics and Bergsonian/Whiteheadian process metaphysics in the philosophic world. Both contemporary science and philosophy are now touching bases in many respects, though not completely, in the analysis and understanding of man and the world around him. In Western philosophy we have bad leading thinkers making significant and fruitful probes into man's nature of experience . . . such thinkers as Ludwig Wittgenstein whose brilliance in logical atomism and language games still looked to the aesthetic realm to supplement experience, Martin Heidegger whose restructuring of philosophy called for the understanding of existence as more than the analysis of being per se, indeed beyond it to a more fluid and fuller nature, Karl Jaspers whose starting point in philosophic perception had to dismiss the Cartesian dichotomy and replace it by an all-encompassing reality of experience and, finally, Alfred. Whitehead whose metaphysics penetrated deeply into ordinary experience, involving a unique cosmology of experience which incorporates the valuational dynamics of actualities.

4. Translated by Bhikkhu ~Naanamoli, The Path of Purification (Colombo: Ceylon: R. Semage, 1956), p. 666

5. The twelve components of the wheel are: ignorance, karmic formation, consciousness, subjectivity-corporeality, sense bases, contact, feeling, craving, clinging, becoming, rebirth, decay-death. They will continue to assert themselves so long as the empirical realm rules supreme in the experiential dynamics.

6. The Path of Purification, Op. cit.; p. 668

7. Charles Hartshorne, the Logic of Perfection (LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Co., 1962), pp. 233, 307

8. Muulamadhyamakakaarikaa, XXV, 19, 20

9. A most unique break in aesthetic development occurred in the Buddhist search for release by focussing on the interplay of the empirical and non-empirical modes of existence. The development came rather late, not in India but in China already impregnated with sound indigenous ideas of Confucianism and Taoism. The Chinese Buddhist success with the aesthetic experience secured Buddhism as a vital cultural entity and in many respects guaranteed its spread beyond the Chinese borders. The aesthetic nature of the interplay of the two strains is yet another complex metaphysics of experience which must be dealt with but will be postponed for now.