- Philosophy and Psychology
- in the Abhidharma
- Dr. Peter Della Santina
One of the functions of the Abhidharma is
definition. Definition is
important because, to successfully communicate about a rather
technical subject, we must
know precisely what our terms mean. Thus I would like to look at a
number of terms used
frequently and popularly in speaking about Buddhist thought. I
would like to arrive at an
understanding of the definitions of these terms and then relate
them to the nature of the
teachings of the Buddha.
Buddhism has often been called a religion, a
philosophy, and, in recent
years, a psychology. 'Religion' refers to belief in, or
recognition of, a higher, unseen
power that controls the course of the universe. Moreover, religion
has an emotional and
moral component and has to do with rituals and worship. Because
Buddhism does not
recognize the existence of such a power and does not universally
emphasize rituals and
worship, it is difficult to categorize Buddhism in general--and
particularly the
Abhidharma--as a religion.
In its original sense, 'philosophy' means the
'love of wisdom and
knowledge.' More generally, it means investigation of the nature
of the laws or causes of
all being. This definition might apply to Buddhism except that it
remains somewhat vague,
due to the various meanings of the words 'nature' and 'being.'
This has led to two
approaches in philosophical thinking, called metaphysics and
phenomenology. Metaphysics is
the study of absolute or first principles. It is also sometimes
called the science of
ontology, which means the study of essences or, in simple terms,
the study of things in
themselves. Phenomenology, in contrast, is the description of
things as they are
experienced by the individual; it is the science of epistemology,
the study of things as
they are known, as they appear to us. Insofar as Buddhism is
philosophical, it is
concerned primarily with phenomenology.
'Psychology' is the study of the mind and
mental states. Like
philosophy, it has two aspects--pure psychology, which is the
general study of mental
phenomena, and psychotherapy, or applied psychology, which is the
application of the study
of mental phenomena to the problem of disease and cure,
disturbance and adjustment. We
might explain the difference between pure and applied psychology
by means of an analogy.
Imagine that a man climbs to the top of a hill
and surveys the
countryside without any particular purpose in mind. His survey
will take in every
detail--the hills, the woods, the rivers and streams--without
discrimination. But if he
has a purpose in mind--for instance, if he intends to reach
another hilltop in the
distance--then his survey will focus on the particular features
that will help or hinder
him in his progress toward that goal. When we speak of applied
psychology or
psychotherapy, we mean a study of the mind and mental states that
focuses on those
phenomena that will help or hinder one's progress toward mental
well-being.
Having looked briefly at the definitions of
religion, philosophy, and
psychology, we can begin to see that the phenomenological aspect
of philosophy and the
therapeutic aspect of psychology relate best to an understanding
of the Buddha's teaching.
The Abhidharma, like Buddhist thought in general, is highly
rational and logical. If we
look closely at the methods of exposition and argument in the
Abhidharma, we find the
beginning of dialectics, which is the science of debate, and also
the beginning of logical
argument and analysis. This is particularly evident in the
fourfold classification of the
nature of questions. It is said that familiarity with and ability
to use this
classification is indispensable for anyone who wants to engage
fruitfully in discussion
and debate about the Dharma, because to answer a question
correctly, one has to understand
the nature of the question.
The first class of questions is the most direct
and refers to those
that can be answered directly and categorically, such as 'Do all
living beings die?' To
this the answer is 'Yes, all living beings die.' The second class
can only be answered
with qualifications, for instance, 'Will all living beings be
reborn?' This kind of
question cannot be answered directly and categorically because it
has two possible
interpretations. Thus it must be analyzed and answered
individually, taking into account
each of the possible meanings: 'Living beings who are not free
from the afflictions will
be reborn, but those who are free from the afflictions, like the
Arhats, will not be
reborn.' The third class of questions must be answered with
counter-questions, as, for
instance, 'Is man powerful?' Here the reference point of the
question must be determined
before the question can be answered: in other words, is man
powerful with reference to the
gods or to animals? If the former, then man is not powerful; if
the latter, then man is
powerful. The aim of the counter-question is to determine the
reference point that the
questioner has in mind. The fourth class of questions are those in
which we are
particularly interested here. These are questions that do not
deserve an answer; the
famous inexpressible propositions to which the Buddha remained
silent fall into this
category. Traditionally, there are fourteen unanswerable
questions. We find them, for
instance, in the Chulamalunkya Sutta. These fourteen questions are
grouped into three
categories:
The first category contains eight questions
that concern the absolute
or final nature of the world: Is the world eternal or not eternal,
or both or neither;
finite or not finite, or both or neither? You can see that this
category includes two sets
of questions, and that both sets refer to the world. The first set
refers to the existence
of the world in time, and the second to the existence of the world
in space. The second
category contains four questions: Does the Tathagata exist after
death or not, or both or
neither? These questions refer to the nature of nirvana, or
ultimate reality. The third
category contains two questions: Is the self identical with or
different from the body?
While the first category of questions refers to the world and the
second to what is beyond
the world, this last refers to personal experience. Do we die with
our bodies, or are our
personalities altogether different from and independent of our
bodies? The Buddha remained
silent when asked these fourteen questions. He described them as a
net and refused to be
drawn into such a net of theories, speculations, and dogmas. He
said that it was because
he was free of the bondage of all theories and dogmas that he had
attained liberation.
Such speculations, he said, are attended by fever, unease,
bewilderment, and suffering,
and it is by freeing oneself of them that one achieves liberation.
Let us look at the fourteen questions in
general to see whether we can
understand why the Buddha took this stand. Generally, the fourteen
questions imply two
basic attitudes toward the world. The Buddha spoke of these two
attitudes in his dialogue
with Maha Kachchayana, when he said that there are two basic
views, the view of existence
and the view of nonexistence. He said that people are accustomed
to think in these terms,
and that as long as they remain entangled in these two views they
will not attain
liberation. The propositions that the world is eternal, that the
world is infinite, that
the Tathagatha exists after death, and that the self is
independent of the body reflect
the view of existence. The propositions that the world is not
eternal, that the world is
finite, that the Tathagata does not exist after death, and that
the self is identical with
the body reflect the view of nonexistence.
These two views were professed by teachers of
other schools during the
time of the Buddha. The view of existence is generally the view of
the Brahmins; that of
nonexistence is generally the view of the materialists and
hedonists. When the Buddha
refused to be drawn into the net of these dogmatic views of
existence and nonexistence, I
think he had two things in mind: (1) the ethical consequences of
these two views, and,
more importantly, (2) the fact that the views of absolute
existence and nonexistence do
not correspond to the way things really are.
For example, the eternalists view this self as
permanent and
unchanging. When the body dies, this self will not die because the
self is by nature
unchanging. If that is the case, it does not matter what this body
does: actions of the
body will not affect the destiny of the self. This view is
incompatible with moral
responsibility because if the self is eternal and unchanging, it
will not be affected by
wholesome and unwholesome actions. Similarly, if the self were
identical with the body and
the self dies along with the body, then it does not matter what
the body does. If you
believe that existence ends at death, there will be no constraint
upon action. But in a
situation where things exist through interdependent origination,
absolute existence and
nonexistence are impossible.
Another example drawn from the fourteen
unanswerable questions also
shows that the propositions do not correspond to the way things
really are. Take the
example of the world. The world does not exist absolutely or not
exist absolutely in time.
The world exists dependent on causes and conditions--ignorance,
craving, and clinging.
When ignorance, craving, and clinging are present, the world
exists; when they are not
present, the world ceases to exist. Hence the question of the
absolute existence or
nonexistence of the world is unanswerable.
The same may be said of the other categories of
questions that make up
the fourteen unanswerables. Existence and nonexistence, taken as
absolute ideas, do not
apply to things as they really are. This is why the Buddha refused
to agree to absolute
statements about the nature of things. He saw that the absolute
categories of metaphysics
do not apply to things as they really are.
As for the Buddha's attitude toward psychology,
there is no doubt that
he placed a great deal of emphasis on the role of the mind. We are
familiar with the
famous verses in the Dhammapada where the Buddha speaks of the
mind as the forerunner of
all mental states. The text says that happiness and suffering
result from acting with a
pure mind and an impure mind, respectively. We need only look at
the canonical texts to
recognize the importance of mind in Buddhist teachings. There we
find the five aggregates,
four out of five of which are mental, and the thirty-seven factors
of enlightenment, the
majority of which are mental. No matter where we look, we will be
struck by the importance
of mind in the teachings of the Buddha.
Various religions and philosophies have their
particular starting
points. The theistic religions begin with God. Ethical teachings
like Confucianism begin
with man as a social entity. Buddhism begins with the mind. It is
therefore not surprising
that we often choose to describe the Buddha's teaching as a
psychological one, and that we
also describe it as psychotherapy, since the symbolism of disease
and cure is prominent in
the teaching of the Buddha. The Four Noble Truths are a reflection
of the ancient scheme
of disease, diagnosis, cure, and treatment used in early medical
science, and we might
also recall that the Buddha was called the king of physicians.
The Buddha was interested in cure, not in
metaphysical categories. We
find his use of various techniques of cure throughout the
discourses in the Sutra Pitaka.
For instance, take the Buddha's teaching about the self. In the
Dhammapada the Buddha
taught that the wise man can attain happiness by disciplining
himself, and yet in other
places in the discourses, we find the Buddha expounding the
doctrine of not-self, the idea
that nowhere in the psycho-physical components of experience is
the permanent self to be
found. For the explanation of this apparent contradiction, we need
to look at the Buddha's
dialogue with Vachchhagotta, who asked the Buddha whether or not
the self existed. The
Buddha remained silent, and after a time Vachchhagotta left.
Ananda, who happened to be
nearby, asked the Buddha why he had not replied. The Buddha
explained that if he had said
that the self existed, he would have been siding with those
Brahmins who believed in the
absolute existence of the self, but if he had told Vachchhagotta
that the self did not
exist, it would have been confusing for Vachchhagotta, who would
have thought,
'Previously I had a self, but now I no longer
have one.' The Buddha
chose to remain silent because he knew Vachchhagotta's
predicament. Similarly, when
confronted by those who did not believe in rebirth, he taught the
existence of the self,
whereas to those who believed in the reality of karma, in the
fruit of good and bad
actions, he taught the doctrine of not-self. This is the Buddha's
skill in the means of
instruction. We can see how this ties in with the Buddha's
rejection of absolute
categories when we look at his use of the symbol of the
water-snake. Here we find the
Buddha saying that the factors of experience are similar to a
water-snake. When a person
capable of handling a water-snake and knowledgeable in the method
of capturing one
attempts to catch one, he will do so successfully. But when a
person unaccustomed to
handling a water-snake and ignorant of how to capture one attempts
it, his attempt will
end in lamentation and pain. Similarly, phenomena--the factors of
experience--are nothing
in themselves. They are not absolutely existent or absolutely
nonexistent, neither
absolutely good nor absolutely bad; rather, they are relative.
Whether they result in
happiness or pain, in progress along the path or in retrogression,
depends not on the
phenomena themselves but on how we handle them.
If things are handled in the right way, through
a conscious and
deliberate adjustment of the mind, phenomena can be used for one's
progress along the
path. A knife, for instance, is neither true nor false, yet
someone who grasps it by the
blade is surely in error. When we relate to phenomena in terms of
craving, ill-will, and
ignorance, this results in suffering. When we take them otherwise,
this results in
happiness.
To summarize, we can use terms like
'philosophy' and 'psychology' in
relation to the Buddhist tradition as long as we remember that we
are interested in
philosophy not as it concerns essences and absolute categories but
as a description of
phenomena, and that we are interested in psychology insofar as it
concerns psychotherapy.
These qualities of the philosophy and psychology of the Abhidharma
are unique in the
history of human thought. Nowhere else, in the ancient or modern
world, in Asia or the
West, has such a phenomenology and psychotherapy evolved.
What is unique about Buddhist phenomenology and
psychotherapy is its
rejection of the idea of a permanent self and its affirmation of
the possibility of
liberation. In all other systems, even those of western
philosophical phenomenology and
psychotherapy, we find an inability to reject the idea of a
permanent self--the very
rejection so characteristic of the teaching of the Buddha and of
the Abhidharma. And
nowhere within modern psychology do we find that possibility of
ultimate and absolute
freedom so central to the teachings of Buddhism.
-oOo-
[Taken from Peter Della Santina., The
Tree of Enlightenment. (Taiwan:
The Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation, 1997),
pp. 276-283].