By Ian Harris
University College
of St. Martin
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 1 1994
Abstract:
Environmentalist concerns have moved centre stage in most major religious
traditions of late and Buddhism is no exception to this rule. This paper shows
that the canonical writings of Indic Buddhism possess elements that may
harmonise with a de facto ecological consciousness. However, their basic
attitude towards the causal process drastically reduces the possibility of
developing an authentically Buddhist environmental ethic. The classical
treatment of causation fails to resolve successfully the tension between
symmetry and asymmetry of relations and this has tended to mean that attempts
to inject a telos, or sense of purpose, into the world are likely to founder.
The agenda of eco-Buddhism is examined in the light of this fact and found
wanting. Published material relating to Buddhism and environmental ethics has
increased in a moderate fashion over the last few years and may be divided into
four broad categories:
1. Forthright endorsement of Buddhist environmental ethics by traditional
guardians of doxic truth, of whom HḤḌalai Lama [1] is perhaps the most
important representative.
2. Equally positive treatments by predominantly Japanese and North American
scholar/activists premised on an assumption that Buddhism is blessed with the
resources necessary to address current environmental issues. Generally this
material limits itself to identifying the most appropriate Buddhist doctrinal
bases from which an environmental ethic could proceed, e.g. the doctrines of
interpenetration, tathāgatagarbha, etc. (e.g., Aramaki [2], Macy [3], and Brown
[4]).
3. Critical treatments which, while fully acknowledging the difficulties
involved in reconciling traditional Asian modes of thought with those employed
by scientific ecology, are optimistic about the possibility of establishing an
authentic Buddhist response to environmental problems (e.g.. Schmithausen [5]).
4. Outright rejection of the possibility of Buddhist environmental ethics on
the grounds that the otherworldliness of "canonical " Buddhism
implies a negation of the natural realm for all practical purposes (e.g.,
Hakamaya [6]).
In this paper I shall move backwards and forwards between positions 3 and 4 -
my heart telling me that 3 makes sense with my mind more in tune with position
4. Category 1 material mainly relates to dialogue with other religions and aims
to paint Buddhism in a favourable light. I shall have nothing further to say on
this. I hope to show that work belonging to the second category, while
superficially attractive, falls some way short of providing an adequate and
rigorous basis for the erection of a thorough-going Buddhist environmental ethic.
The minimum qualification for an authentic Buddhist ethics is that it is able
to construe causation in such a way that goal-oriented activity makes sense. In
other words Buddhist causation must be shown to be teleologically meaningful.
In our context a positive moral stance towards the environment is premised on
the idea that one state of affairs can be shown to be preferable to another;
for instance, that the world will be demonstrably worse if the black rhino
becomes extinct. Now, I would not wish to argue against this in general terms
but I shall contend that it is difficult to ground such a view on a sound
Buddhist footing, most importantly because any activity of this kind
presupposes a certain teleology and an accompanying belief in the predictability
of cause/effect relations.
Let us now examine the idea of causation in more detail. Yamada, in an article
that draws on a very substantial body of prior Japanese scholarship, shows that
the pratītyasamutpāda formula can be read in two significantly differing ways -
the so-called "reversal" and "natural" sequences. The first
he believes to be a characteristic of the Abhidharma, with the second more
closely associated with the Buddha himself.[7] The reversal sequence, beginning
with ignorance (avijjā) and ending with becoming-old and dying (jarāmaraṇa), is
said to describe elements causally related in temporal succession. In this
manner the time-bound and soteriologically meaningful, concepts of karma,
bhava, bhāvanā, etc., so crucial to the whole idea of Buddhist praxis are made
comprehensible. The natural sequence, by contrast, beginning with jarāmaraṇa
and ending in avijjā, stresses non-temporal relations of interdependence,
simultaneity, or mutuality. In this way:
The twelve a"ngas are not so much causal chains, in which the cause
precedes the effect in rigid succession, but the factors of human existence
which are interdependent upon each other simultaneously in a structural
cross-section of human life.[8]
This typically Mahāyānist rendering, then, associates chronological causation
with the Abhidharma of the old canon, while simultaneous relations (akālika)
represent a complementary position implicit in the teachings of the Buddha yet
only made explicit in the Mahāyāna. The implication here seems to be that the
natural sequence, while obviously present in the writings of the old canon, was
either consciously or unconsciously neglected.
For Yamada, Abhidharmic scholiasts deviated, for some inexplicable reason, from
an atemporal understanding of causation to the extent that they came to adopt a
theory of strict one-to-one cause-effect relations "along the flow of
time"[9] known in Japanese as gookan engi setsu (=karma activated
dependent origination theory?) I shall now suggest that the Abhidharmic
adherence to asymmetry, i.e., to a strict temporal sequencing of dharmas, is
not quite as strong as may have been expected from Yamada's treatment of the
subject.
The Sarvāstivāda accepts six basic kinds of relation (hetu) between entities.
Of these six, two - the simultaneous relation (sahabhūhetu) and the associated
relation (samprayuktahetu) - suggest a roughly similar character of mutuality.
In fact, the Sarvāstivāda came under attack from a variety of other Buddhist
schools [10] under the suspicion that these two interrelated hetu undermined
the basis of temporal causation understood as essential to the efficacy of
ethical and soteriologically meaningful activity. It is clear, for instance,
that Sa"nghabhadra was perfectly happy with the notion of mutuality in
relations to the extent that he derives his simultaneously produced relation
(sahotpannahetu) from the ancient "when this..ṭhat" formula.[11]
Some scholars [12] have attempted to show that simultaneous and temporal
theories of causation are complementary. While the latter represents a
unidirectional flow of causes and effects, the former points to the spatial
relations that must also hold between co-existent entities. Sahabhūhetu, then,
concerns relations in space, not in time. It indicates a principle of spatial
unity or aggregation. Of the twenty four modes of conditionality (paccaya)
recognised by the Pali Paṭṭhāna, the sixth and seventh, in their traditional
order, are closely related. These are, respectively, the co-nascence condition
(sahajātapaccaya) and the mutuality condition (aññamaññapaccaya). The former
condition occurs in four basic kinds of relation, i.eṭhose between mentals and
mentals, mentals and physicals, physicals and physicals and physicals and
mentals. So exhaustive is this list that we could be forgiven for thinking that
the vast majority of the possible relations between the entities envisaged by
Theravāda Buddhism may be found under this heading. In fact, relations of the
first type, i.e., mentals to mentals, are acknowledged, by a range of Theravāda
thinkers, to be:
. . ṣymmetrical. That is, the relation between the two terms A and B holds good
as between B and A.[13]
Karunadasa accepts that, under certain circumstances, a relationship of pure
reciprocity can apply, specifically in what he regards to be a special case of
sahajāta defined in the traditional list of paccayas as no.7 - the mutuality
condition (aññamañña). Indeed, Ledi Sayadaw happily conflates these two
paccayas and there is a widely held view, endorsed by Karunadasa, among others,
that the aññamañña condition is "the same as the sahabhūhetu of the
Sarvāstivādins."[14]
Buddhaghosa in his Vibha"nga commentary, Sammohavinodanī, distinguishes
between a strictly sutta-based, temporal form of causation extending over many
thought-moments (nānācittakkhaṇika) on the one hand, and an abhidhammic,
non-temporal version said to occur in a single thought-moment (ekacittakkhaṇika),
i.e. to all intents and purposes, instantaneously.[15] According to Buddhaghosa
then, the suttas favour asymmetry with the abhidhamma plumping for a
spatio-symmetric view of relations. This categorisation differs sharply from
Yamada's understanding of an Abhidhamma unequivocally promoting uni-directional
causation, and, in my opinion, his less than enthusiastic support for
non-Mahāyānist positions tends to make him uncritically conflate a great range
of sources. In fact, the true situation on sutta and abhidhamma readings is
probably somewhere between the positions of Buddhaghosa and Yamada. It seems
that the Pali commentarial traditional never successfully managed to reconcile
these two radically divergent readings and in the final analysis, elegant
solutions to complex textual traditions are impossible to achieve.
Nevertheless, it is obvious that akālika relations i.e. those not bound by time
were not entirely overlooked by the Theravāda even though some modern
apologists have been reluctant to admit this fact.[16]
The Sautrāntika school seems to have offered four basic objections to the
Sarvāstivādin position on mutual relations not least because it seemed
thoroughly imbued with a spirit of symmetry. The Sautrāntika also advanced a
more radical theory of momentariness (kṣaṇavāda) by denying any element of
stasis. For the Sautrāntikas, dharmas disappear as soon as they arise though
this response to the problem of true causal efficiency is no more satisfactory
than the position it sought to replace. Nagao's rather flimsy defence of kṣaṇavāda
fails to come to terms with this fact. He argues that the doctrine:
does not mean the total extinction of the world; on the contrary, it is the way
by which the world establishes itself as full of life and spirit (my emphasis)."[17]
Now, though irresolvable differences remain, all three early schools of
Buddhism exhibited a tendency to view causation in spatial/horizontal terms,
even though this tendency was often obscured behind the lush vegetation of
temporal/vertical thinking.
It looks likely that, as Buddhism developed, a gradual radicalisation of the
concept of impermanence occurred with rather more emphasis placed on symmetric
relations between entities. The common sense view, perhaps related to the
introspective/empirical observations of an early meditator's tradition that set
a radically impermanent mental flux against the relative permanence of
non-mental entities, was in time reformulated and rationalised by an emerging
scholastic tradition.[18] These scholastic traditions, then, begin a process
that results in the severing of links with common sense asymmetric causation to
the extent that the temporal flow of a single chain of causes and effects was
eclipsed by the space-like aspect of symmetry. In my view, the increasing
dominance of symmetry in Buddhist thought provides a fertile breeding ground
for the development of the Avataṃsakasūtra doctrine of the radical
interpenetration of all things and this, in a circuitous manner, undoubtedly
has come to influence the writings of many contemporary environmental thinkers.
Mahāyānists in general wish to preserve a time-like asymmetry of causation in
its common-sense form, while negating it from the ultimate perspective.
Nāgārjuna holds that four alternative positions, the tetralemma or catuṣkoṭi,
logically exhaust the possible connections between causally related entities.
Now, the dominant view within the Mahāyānist exegetical tradition is that
Nāgārjuna's negation of the four alternatives is absolute. In other words, relations
between entities can never be meaningfully articulated in terms of any of the
four positions of the catuṣkoṭi. Indeed, no other position is possible.
Absolute negation (prasajyapratiṣedha) in this case results in the total denial
of causal relations between substantial entities. Using this as a starting
point, Nāgārjuna moves on swiftly to propose that entities engaged in causal
relations must be empty ("sūnya). Of course, he has already underlined the
centrality of pratītyasamutpāda as the bedrock, the central authority from
which all Buddhist thought must flow. This being so, the affirmation of causal
relations leads inexorably to a negation of substantiality. Now, an empty
entity has no distinguishing mark, its value is zero ("sūnya). Furthermore,
all conditioned entities must share this same null value and in this sense they
are equivalent. If this is accepted Charles Hartshorne's intuition[19] that
Nāgārjuna exhibits a prejudice in favour of symmetry is confirmed and we shall
expect Nāgārjuna to experience some difficulty in accounting for any purposeful
directionality of change, or "emergence into novelty" to use the
jargon of process theology.
The earliest extant commentary on the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, the Akutobhayā[20],
is traditionally ascribed to Nāgārjuna, though this attribution tends to be
rejected by modern scholarship. Interestingly, the use of absolute negation
(prasajyapratiṣedha) of the four positions of the catuṣkoṭi is not one of the
obvious features of this early text. In its treatment of MMK.XVI I I.8, the
four koṭis are said to represent a series of graded steps related to the
spiritual propensities of those engaged on the Buddhist path. This reading, in
part confirmed by the later commentaries of Buddhapālita and Bhāvaviveka [21],
singles out the fourth and final koṭi as the closest approximation, given the
constraints of language, to the true nature of things. If we relate this to our
earlier discussion of the four possible modes of production, it is apparent
that the "neither different nor non-different" position, if is
legitimate to invoke the law of the excluded middle here, reflects a rejection
of both symmetric and asymmetric accounts of causation - a deeply puzzling
notion. We might have expected a more satisfactory resolution of the problem,
assuming of course that anyone in the early Madhyamaka was aware of, or indeed
interested, in the matter. If so, we shall be disappointed, for the early
Madhyamaka transcends, rather than resolves the tension. By retaining his
strong adherence to the Buddha's teaching on pratītyasamutpāda, i.e. by
insisting on the objectivity of the causal process, Nāgārjuna and his followers
adopt a view of reality that, in so far as it can be articulated, is
constituted by causally related and empty entities that are neither different
nor non-different one from another. Elsewhere I have termed this outlook
"ontological indeterminacy."[22] Naturally Ruegg is reluctant to
accept that the Madhyamaka would have countenanced such an irrational depiction
of reality as coincidentia oppositorum but what strikes one forcibly here is
the parallel with the doctrine of symmetric interpenetration characteristic of
some of the later phases of Buddhism, such as the Chinese Hua-Yen school.[23]
In the Yogācāra again we find some evidence of a distinction between akālika
and unidirectional relations, even though the precise form of the distinction
does not fully harmonise with that observed in other strands of the Buddhist
tradition. As we would expect of a philosophical tradition with a specific
interest in the mechanics of consciousness (vijñāna), the Yogācāra treatment of
causation gives priority to the non-temporal factors that, as we have already
seen in the Pali literature, apply to relations between mental entities.
Nagao goes on to suggest that the term pratītyasamutpāda is not intended to
define causal relationships as customarily understood for it represents
"..ṭhe realm of mutual relatedness, of absolute relativity [which]
constitutes an absolute otherness over against selfhood and essence."[24]
Chronological proliferation operates only from the perspective of conventional
understanding, for, in reality, pratītyasamutpāda denotes "unity in a
transhistorical realm."[25]
Returning now to Nāgārjuna's picture of causation and reality at MMK. XVI I
I.9, we hear:
Independent of another (aparapratyaya) (Ruegg's [26] rendering of this
difficult term]), at peace ("sānta) not discursively developed through
discursive developments, without dichotomising conceptualisation, and free from
multiplicity (anānārtha): this is the characteristic of reality
(tattva)."[27]
This verse occurs in the context of a discussion of causal factors so we may,
without doing violence to the text, conclude that tattva is inextricably
related to pratītyasamutpāda. Comparison with the ma"ngala"sloka
reveals a number of parallels. Tattva , for instance, is said to be at peace,
or still ("sānta). The term anānārtham also occurs in MMK.XVI I I.9,
although significantly tattva is not related to the usual binegation of
positive and negative positions, i.e. neither without differentiation nor
devoid of unity (the fourth koṭi), as one would expect by reference to the
ma"ngala"sloka. A consistent reading suggests that the quiescence and
non-multiplicity of causally related entities is a function of their entirely
symmetrical relations and one might be inclined to term this kind of relation
"interpenetration". Ruegg, of course, rejects this interpretation.
However, his treatment of the passages is ambiguous for he upholds
Candrakīrti's view that a reality devoid of differentiation has the value of
emptiness while, elsewhere in the same important article, he also wants to
maintain that the Madhyamaka understanding of causal relations is "in a
certain sense indeterminate and irrational"[28]. In the less equivocal
opinion of la Vallee Poussin, Nāgārjuna holds only to the conventional
expression of temporal causation, for: "There is, in absolute truth, no
cause and effect."[29]
To summarise, the centrality of the notion of causation is non-negotiable,
located, as it were, at the heart of the tradition. This seems to have led some
early Buddhist schools to emphasise spatiality as against temporality, perhaps
because this was perceived as entailing fewer intractable philosophical
problems. The early Madhyamaka does not follow this lead preferring instead a
transcendent approach to the problem of causation.
Conclusion
The gulf between spatial and temporal interpretations of causation was never
satisfactorily reconciled in early Buddhism. An obvious starting point in any
theoretical construction of an authentic Buddhist environmentalist ethic must
be the doctrine of causation understood in its temporal sense yet, though the
doctrine allows for a highly coherent account of the arising and cessation of
suffering, and in particular of the interaction of mental factors, it has
rarely been invoked as the basis of a "scientific" explanation of the
natural world. This is, in good measure, because Buddhism has regularly
embraced chronological causation at one moment only to reject it in the next.
Here is an excellent example of the corrosive character of the "rhetoric
of immediacy".
From the cosmological perspective Buddhism recognises an ad nauseam unfolding
and dissolution of worlds that act as receptacles for countless beings yet this
picture is essentially anti-evolutionary or dysteleologic. All is in a state of
flux yet all is quiescent for all forward movement lacks a sense of purpose. As
Faure has made clear, the gulf between these two levels is not always easy to
negotiate, even given the "teleological tendencies of controlled
narrative"[30] that Buddhism has generally employed to minimise the
incongruence of its various building blocks.
The theory of karma is clearly crucial to any Buddhist explanation of the
world. On this account the "natural realm" is, at any point in time,
regarded as a direct result of Stcherbatsky's "mysterious efficiency of
past elements or deeds."[31] There is, then, no magnet at the end of
history drawing events inexorably towards their ultimate goal, no
supra-temporal telos directing events either directly or indirectly. The
narrative and soteriological structure of Buddhism appears, despite some recent
attempts to indicate otherwise, essentially dysteleologic [32].
Now, this need not preclude the possibility of purposiveness altogether, yet,
when other available teleologies are considered, prospects are not especially
encouraging. Woodfield, in an important study, shows that only two further
positions remain for the Buddhist and one of these, the animistic alternative
premised on the notion that entities are directed by the souls or minds that
inhere within them, cannot possibly be appropriate. We are left then with the
Aristotelian idea of immanent teleology in which objects behave teleologically
because it is in their nature to do so. In other words the "source of a
thing's end-directedness is to be found within the nature of the thing itself,
not in some external agency."[33]
It is clear that, from the Madhyamaka perspective, no entity exists that could
possibly possess a nature of this kind. The fact of niḥsvabhāvatā then
precludes the possibility of immanent tele. The Abhidharma position, bearing in
mind our earlier discussion, is perhaps more difficult to characterise. Dharmas
are the ultimately unanalysable constituents of nature but can dharmas, which
are at least regarded as possessing own-natures (svabhāva), also be said to act
as the source of their own end-directed movement? There is general agreement of
all of the early schools of Buddhism that dharmas are simple and discrete
entities. As such their capacity for internal relations with other dharmas
makes no sense. Relationships must be of a purely formal kind. If this is
accepted two things follow:
1. dharmas cannot mutually cooperate to bring about events on the macro scale -
we may wish to compare this with process theology's [34] comparatively
successful attempt to account for change, and even novelty, as the result of
the prehension [i.e. serial co-operation] of internally related simples within
an overarching Christian teleological structure.
2. dharmas do not possess tele though, on the level of convention, societies of
such entities may be said to possess ends, though only in the most highly
provisional sense.
The theory of dharmas represents a pseudo-explanation, a reformulation of the
original insight of the Buddha into the fact that all things change. It gives
no information on how this may occur. The theories of causation and of karma
hover above all mechanical explanations and are never successfully earthed
within them. In this sense we can talk about an "ontological
indeterminacy" at the heart of Buddhist thought. At best all we can say is
that Buddhism accepts de facto change. It cannot account for it!
If we now root our discussion in the more concrete situation of environmental
ethics we begin to see the difficulty in determining a coherent Buddhist
approach. There are difficulties in determining how best to act with regard to
the natural world, unless that response has been specifically authorised by the
Buddha. The problem here is twofold. In the first place, few of the Buddha's
injunctions can be used unambiguously to support environmentalist ends [35] and
in the second, the dysteleological character of Buddhist thought militates
against anything that could be construed as injecting the concept of an
"end" or "purpose" into the world. It is, for example, very
hard to see how a specifically Buddhist position on global warming or on the
decrease in diversity of species can be made, unless of course one can appeal
to the supranormal intelligence of a handful of contemporary Buddhist sages. In
this connection, the Far-Eastern appeal to the Buddhist notion of the
"interpenetration of all entities" will not do, for I hope that I
have shown that the symmetric bias of this approach cannot even satisfactorily
account for the raw fact of change itself, let alone for those aspects of
change deemed harmful to the natural environment.
Schmithausen has observed that Buddhist spiritual and everyday practice may
contribute to a sort of de facto environmentalism, though he his careful to
point out that this does not, in itself "establish ... nature ... as a
value in itself"[36]. It is worth pointing out that even in the realm of
interpersonal relations, and in relations between humans and the higher
animals, "commitment to extrapersonal welfare" is found only in a
"highly qualified and rather paradoxical sense."[37]. In this light
Schmithausen's programme for a reformation of Buddhism through de-dogmatisation
of the inconvenient Buddhist teachings on animals, etc. is little more than a
bit of tinkering around on the margins. I hope that I have beenable to show
that it is the dysteleology deeply rooted within Buddhism that is the essential
problem for any future Buddhist environmental ethic, not a bit of local
difficulty with animals. It is not so much that Buddhism has a difficulty in
deriving an ought from an is, it is that it faces the more fundamental
difficulty of defining an "is" in the first place. On the theoretical
level, then, the best Buddhism can offer at the moment is an endorsement of
those aspects of the contemporary environmentalist agenda that do not conflict
with its philosophic core. The future development of a coherent and
specifically Buddhist environmentalism, assuming that this is indeed possible,
will be fraught with many difficulties.
Notes
[1] For example, Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama "A
Tibetan Buddhist Perspective on Spirit in Nature" in Rochefeller, Steven
C. and John C. Elder (eds.) Spirit and Nature: Why the Environment is a
Religious Issue (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992), pp. 109-123. Return
[2] Noritoshi Aramaki, "Shizen-hakai kara Shizen-sasei e - Rekishi no
Tenkai ni tsuite" ( From destruction of Nature to Revival of Nature: On a
Historical Conversion) Deai, 11, 1 (1992), pp.3-22. Return
[3] Joanna Macy, "The Greening of the Self" in A. Hunt-Badiner (ed.)
Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology (Berkeley: Parallax,
1990), pp. 53-63. Also, Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems
Theory: The Dharma of Natural Systems (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1991). Return
[4] Brian Brown, "Toward a Buddhist Ecological Cosmology" Bucknell
Review, 37,2 (1993), pp.124-137. Return
[5] Lambert Schmithausen, Buddhism and Nature. The Lecture Delivered on the
Occasion of the EXPO 1990 (An Enlarged Version with Notes) (Tokyo: The
International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1991 [Studia Philologica
Buddhica, Occasional Paper Series VI I]). Also, The Problem of the Sentience of
Plants (Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1991 [Studia
Philologica Buddhica, Occasional Paper Series VI]). Return
[6] Noriaki Hakamaya, "Shizen-hihan to-shite no Bukkyoo" (Buddhism as
a Criticism of Physis/Natura) Komazawa-daiguku Bukkyoogakubu Ronshū, 21 (1990),
pp.380-403. Also, "Nihon-jin to animizmu" Komazawa-daiguku
Bukkyoogakubu Ronshū, 23 (1992), pp.351-378. Return
[7] I. Yamada, "Premises and Implications of Interdependence" in S.
Balasooriya, et al (eds.) Buddhist Studies in Honour of Walpola Rahula (London:
Gordon Fraser, 1980), p. 279f. Return
[8] Ibid., p. 271. Return
[9] Ibid pp. 272-273. Return
[10] The main opponents to this apparent notion of simultaneous causation were
the Dārṣṭāntikas (cf. Mahāvibhāṣā [Taishoo 27, p.79c7-8]) and the Sautrāntikas
(Vasubandhu Abhidharmako"sa 83.18-84.24). The Sautrāntika objections to
the notion of mutual causality were fourfold. Return
[11] See Nyāyānusāra [Taishoo 29.419b7-8] quoted in K.K. Tanaka,
"Simultaneous Relation (Sahabhū-hetu): A Study in Buddhist Theory of
Causation," Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies,
8, 1 (1985), pp. 91-111; p.95. Return
[12] Ibid. Return
[13] Ledi Sayadaw "On the Philosophy of Relations I I," Journal of
the Pali Text Society, (1915-16), pp. 21-53; p.40. This reading is confirmed by
W. M. McGovern's discussion of this matter in A Manual of Buddhist Philosophy
Vol. 1 - Cosmology (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1923), pp.
194-195. Return
[14] Y. Karunadasa, Buddhist Analysis of Matter (Colombo: Dept. of Cultural
Affairs, 1967), p. 131. Funnily enough Kalupahana takes a rather different
line. For him, sahajātapaccaya, not aññamaññapaccaya is the correlate of
sahabhūhetu while, on the authority of Haribhadra, aññamañña is said to be the
correlate of the Sarvāstivāda sabhāgahetu. See David J. Kalupahana, Causality:
The Central Philosophy of Buddhism (Honolulu: University Press of Hawai'i,
1975), pp. 167-168. Return
[15] Sammohavinodanī pp. 199-209. Return
[16] It is certainly curious that Ledi Sayadaw (op cit) fails to make any
specific reference to aññamañña in his treatment of the paccayas. Again,
Nyanatiloka is extremely cautious in treatment of simultaneity in causal
relations; see Nyanatiloka Mahāthera, Guide Through the Abhidhamma-Pitaka:
Being a Synopsis of the Philosophical Collection Belonging to the Buddhist Pali
Canon (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1971), p. 156. Return
[17] Gadjin Nagao, "The Logic of Convertibility" in Madhyamaka and
Yogācāra: A Study of Mahāyāna Philosophies: Collected Papers of GṂṆagao
[Edited, collated and translated by LṢ.Kawamura in collaboration with GṂṆagao]
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), p. 130 [first appeared as
"Tenkan no Ronri" in Tetsugaku Kenkyu (Journal of Philosophical
Studies), 35,7 (1952), p. 405ff. Return
[18] This distinction between cadres of spiritual praxis and philosophical
reflection builds on the distinction first made by Lambert Schmithausen in
"Spirituelle Praxis und Philosophical Theorie im Buddhismus,"
Zeitschrift fur Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft, 57,3 (1973),
pp. 161-186 [Republished & translated into English as "On the Problem
of the Relation of Spiritual Practice and Philosophical Theory in
Buddhism" in German Scholars on India, Vol.I I (New Delhi: Cultural
Department of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1976. pp.
235-250]. Return
[19] Charles Hartshorne, Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method (London: SCM
Press, 1970 [The Library of Philosophy and Theology]), pp.205-226. Return
[20] On the authorship, etc., of Akutobhayā, see C.W. Huntingdon, Jr., The
Akutobhayā and Early Indian Madhyamaka, unpublished dissertation, University of
Michigan, 1986. Return
[21] See David S. Ruegg, "The Uses of the Four Positions of the Catuṣkoṭi
and the Problem of the Description of Reality in Mahāyāna Buddhism",
Journal of Indian Philosophy, 5 (1977-8), pp. 37ff. Return
[22] Ian Charles Harris, The Continuity of Madhyamaka and Yogācāra in Indian
Mahāyāna Buddhism (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1991); especially see chapter 7. Return
[23] See my "An American Appropriation of Buddhism" in T. Skorupski
(ed.), Buddhist Forum, Vol. 3 (Tring: Institute of Buddhist Studies, 1994),
forthcoming. Return
[24] Gadjin M. Nagao, The Foundational Standpoint of Madhyamika Philosophy
[translated by John P. Keenan] (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1989), p. 8. Return
[25] Ibid p. 17. Return
[26] Ruegg, "The Uses of the Four Positions of the Catuṣkoṭi and the
Problem of the Description of Reality in Mahāyāna Buddhism," p. 10. Return
[27] aparapratyayaṃ "sāntam prapañcair aprapañcitaṃ. nirvikalpam
anānārtham etat tattvasya lakṣaṇaṃ. Return
[28] Ruegg, "The Uses of the Four Positions of the Catuṣkoṭi and the
Problem of the Description of Reality in Mahāyāna Buddhism," p. 11 n. 44.
Return
[29] Louis de la Vallee Poussin, "Identity (Buddhist)" in J. Hastings
(ed.), Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark,
1914), Vol. VI I, p. 100. Return
[30] Bernard Faure, The Rhetoric of Immediacy: A Cultural Critique of Chan/Zen
Buddhism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 4. Return
[31] Th. Stcherbatsky, The Central Conception of Buddhism (Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 1974), p. 31. Return
[32] The term "dysteleology" seems to have been coined by the
Protestant theologian E. Heckel to denote the "purposelessness of
nature". Return
[33] Andrew Woodfield, Teleology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976),
p. 6. Return
[34] For example, David Ray Griffin, "Whitehead's Deeply Ecological
Worldview," Bucknell Review 37, 2 (1993), pp. 190-206. Return
[35] See my "How Environmentalist is Buddhism?" Religion, 21 (1991),
pp. 101-114. Return
[36] Lambert Schmithausen, "How can Ecological Ethics be Established in
Early Buddhism", p. 15 (forthcoming). Return
[37] David Little and Sumner BṬwiss, Comparative Religious Ethics: A New Method
(San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978), p. 240. Return
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Source: http://jbe.gold.ac.uk/