DHAMMA & NON-DUALITY
(Part I)*
by
Bhikkhu Bodhi
BPS Newsletter Cover Essay #27 (2nd Mailing 1994)
Copyright 1994 Buddhist Publication Society
* * *
DharmaNet Edition 1994
This electronic edition is offered for free distribution
via DharmaNet by arrangement with the publisher.
DharmaNet International
P.O. Box 4951, Berkeley CA 94704-4951
* * *
One of the most challenging issues facing Theravada Buddhism in recent
years has been the encounter between classical Theravada vipassana
meditation and the "non-dualistic" contemplative traditions best
represented by Advaita Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism. Responses to
this encounter have spanned the extremes, ranging from vehement
confrontation all the way to attempts at synthesis and hybridization.
While the present essay cannot pretend to illuminate all the intricate
and subtle problems involved in this sometimes volatile dialogue, I
hope it may contribute a few sparks of light from a canonically
oriented Theravada perspective.
My first preliminary remark would be to insist that a system of
meditative practice does not constitute a self-contained discipline.
Any authentic system of spiritual practice is always found embedded
within a conceptual matrix that defines the problems the practice is
intended to solve and the goal towards which it is directed. Hence the
merging of techniques grounded in incompatible conceptual frameworks
is fraught with risk. Although such mergers may appease a predilection
for experimentation or eclecticism, it seems likely that their
long-term effect will be to create a certain "cognitive dissonance"
that will reverberate through the deeper levels of the psyche and stir
up even greater confusion.
My second remark would be to point out simply that non-dualistic
spiritual traditions are far from consistent with each other, but
comprise, rather, a wide variety of views profoundly different and
inevitably colored by the broader conceptual contours of the
philosophies which encompass them.
For the Vedanta, non-duality (//advaita//) means the absence of an
ultimate distinction between the Atman, the innermost self, and
Brahman, the divine reality, the underlying ground of the world. From
the standpoint of the highest realization, only one ultimate reality
exists -- which is simultaneously Atman and Brahman -- and the aim of
the spiritual quest is to know that one's own true self, the Atman, is
the timeless reality which is Being, Awareness, Bliss. Since all
schools of Buddhism reject the idea of the Atman, none can accept the
non-dualism of Vedanta. From the perspective of the Theravada
tradition, any quest for the discovery of selfhood, whether as a
permanent individual self or as an absolute universal self, would have
to be dismissed as a delusion, a metaphysical blunder born from a
failure to properly comprehend the nature of concrete experience.
According to the Pali Suttas, the individual being is merely a complex
unity of the five aggregates, which are all stamped with the three
marks of impermanence, suffering, and selflessness. Any postulation of
selfhood in regard to this compound of transient, conditioned
phenomena is an instance of "personality view" (//sakkayaditthi//),
the most basic fetter that binds beings to the round of rebirths. The
attainment of liberation, for Buddhism, does not come to pass by the
realization of a true self or absolute "1," but through the
dissolution of even the subtlest sense of selfhood in relation to the
five aggregates, "the abolition of all I-making, mine-making, and
underlying tendencies to conceit."
The Mahayana schools, despite their great differences, concur in
upholding a thesis that, from the Theravada point of view, borders on
the outrageous. This is the claim that there is no ultimate difference
between samsara and Nirvana, defilement and purity, ignorance and
enlightenment. For the Mahayana, the enlightenment which the Buddhist
path is designed to awaken consists precisely in the realization of
this non-dualistic perspective. The validity of conventional dualities
is denied because the ultimate nature of all phenomena is emptiness,
the lack of any substantial or intrinsic reality, and hence in their
emptiness all the diverse, apparently opposed phenomena posited by
mainstream Buddhist doctrine finally coincide: "All dharmas have one
nature, which is no-nature."
The teaching of the Buddha as found in the Pali Canon does not endorse
a philosophy of non-dualism of any variety, nor, I would add, can a
non-dualistic perspective be found lying implicit within the Buddha's
discourses. At the same time, however, I would not maintain that the
Pali Suttas propose dual//ism//, the positing of duality as a
metaphysical hypothesis aimed at intellectual assent. I would
characterize the Buddha's intent in the Canon as primarily pragmatic
rather than speculative, though I would also qualify this by saying
that this pragmatism does not operate in a philosophical void but
finds its grounding in the nature of actuality as the Buddha
penetrated it in his enlightenment. In contrast to the non-dualistic
systems, the Buddha's approach does not aim at the discovery of a
unifying principle behind or beneath our experience of the world.
Instead it takes the concrete fact of living experience, with all its
buzzing confusion of contrasts and tensions, as its starting point and
framework, within which it attempts to diagnose the central problem at
the core of human existence and to offer a way to its solution. Hence
the polestar of the Buddhist path is not a final unity but the
extinction of suffering, which brings the resolution of the
existential dilemma at its most fundamental level.
When we investigate our experience exactly as it presents itself, we
find that it is permeated by a number of critically important
dualities with profound implications for the spiritual quest. The
Buddha's teaching, as recorded in the Pali Suttas, fixes our attention
unflinchingly upon these dualities and treats their acknowledgment as
the indispensable basis for any honest search for liberating wisdom.
It is precisely these antitheses -- of good and evil, suffering and
happiness, wisdom and ignorance -- that make the quest for
enlightenment and deliverance such a vitally crucial concern.
At the peak of the pairs of opposites stands the duality of the
conditioned and the Unconditioned: samsara as the round of repeated
birth and death wherein all is impermanent, subject to change, and
liable to suffering, and Nibbana as the state of final deliverance,
the unborn, ageless, and deathless. Although Nibbana, even in the
early texts, is definitely cast as an ultimate reality and not merely
as an ethical or psychological state, there is not the least
insinuation that this reality is metaphysically indistinguishable at
some profound level from its manifest opposite, samsara. To the
contrary, the Buddha's repeated lesson is that samsara is the realm of
suffering governed by greed, hatred, and delusion, wherein we have
shed tears greater than the waters of the ocean, while Nibbana is
irreversible release from samsara, to be attained by demolishing
greed, hatred, and delusion, and by relinquishing all conditioned
existence.
Thus the Theravada makes the antithesis of samsara and Nibbana the
starting point of the entire quest for deliverance. Even more, it
treats this antithesis as determinative of the final goal, which is
precisely the transcendence of samsara and the attainment of
liberation in Nibbana. Where Theravada differs significantly from the
Mahayana schools, which also start with the duality of samsara and
Nirvana, is in its refusal to regard this polarity as a mere
preparatory lesson tailored for those with blunt faculties, to be
eventually superseded by some higher realization of non-duality. From
the standpoint of the Pali Suttas, even for the Buddha and the
Arahants suffering and its cessation, samsara and Nibbana, remain
distinct.
Spiritual seekers still exploring the different contemplative
traditions commonly assume that the highest spiritual teaching must be
one which posits a metaphysical unity as the philosophical foundation
and final goal of the quest for enlightenment. Taking this assumption
to be axiomatic, they may then conclude that the Pali Buddhist
teaching, with its insistence on the sober assessment of dualities, is
deficient or provisional, requiring fulfillment by a nondualistic
realization. For those of such a bent, the dissolution of dualities in
a final unity will always appear more profound and complete.
However, it is just this assumption that I would challenge. I would
assert, by reference to the Buddha's own original teaching, that
profundity and completeness need not be bought at the price of
distinctions, that they can be achieved at the highest level while
preserving intact the dualities and diversity so strikingly evident to
mature reflection on the world. I would add, moreover, that the
teaching which insists on recognizing real dualities as they are is
finally more satisfactory. The reason it is more satisfactory, despite
its denial of the mind's yearning for a comprehensive unity, is
because it takes account of another factor which overrides in
importance the quest for unity. This "something else" is the need to
remain grounded in actuality.
Where I think the teaching of the Buddha, as preserved in the
Theravada tradition, surpasses all other attempts to resolve the
spiritual dilemmas of humanity is in its persistent refusal to
sacrifice actuality for unity. The Buddha's Dhamma does not point us
towards an all-embracing absolute in which the tensions of daily
existence dissolve in metaphysical oneness or inscrutable emptiness.
It points us, rather, towards actuality as the final sphere of
comprehension, towards things as they really are (//yathabhuta//).
Above all, it points us towards the Four Noble Truths of suffering,
its origin, its cessation, and the way to its cessation as the
liberating proclamation of things as they really are. These four
truths, the Buddha declares, are //noble// truths, and what makes them
noble truths is precisely that they are actual, undeviating,
invariable (//tatha//, //avitatha//, //anannatha//). It is the failure
to face the actuality of these truths that has caused us to wander for
so long through the long course of samsara. It is by penetrating these
truths exactly as they are that one can reach the true consummation of
the spiritual quest: making an end to suffering.
* Part II of this essay will appear in the next BPS Newsletter.
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TITLE OF WORK: Dhamma & Non-duality -- Part I (BPS Newsletter Cover
Essay, No. 27, 2nd Mailing 1994)
FILENAME: ESSAY_27.ZIP
AUTHOR: Bhikkhu Bodhi
AUTHOR'S ADDRESS: Buddhist Publication Society
P.O. Box 61
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