From scepticism to dependent origination:
Ethical frameworks for ending suffering:
Buddhist philosophy deals extensively with problems in metaphysics, phenomenology, ethics, and epistemology. The Buddha’s general outlook has been described as neither ontological nor metaphysical but empirical. He assumed an unsympathetic attitude toward speculative and religious thought in general. A fundamental concept in Buddhism is that the world should be conceived in procedural terms rather than in terms of things or substances. The Buddha advised viewing reality as composed of dependently originated phenomena; Buddhists perceive this approach to experience as avoiding the extremes of ratification and nihilism.
Particular points of Buddhist philosophy have often been the subject of disputes between different schools of Buddhism. While philosophical speculation for its own sake is not valued in Buddhism, speculation pursued in the interest of enlightenment is consistent with Buddhist values and ethics.
Early Buddhism exhibited a strong scepticism; the Buddha cautioned his followers to refrain from engaging in intellectual disputation for its own sake, stating that it is fruitless and diverts attention from practices leading to enlightenment. However, the Buddha’s doctrine did have a significant philosophical component: it negated the central claims of rival positions while building upon them at a new philosophical and religious level.
Establishing new perspectives
In a sceptical vein, he asserted the insubstantiality of the ego, countering the Upanishadic sages who sought knowledge of an unchanging ultimate self. The Buddha created a new position in opposition to their theories and held that attachment to a permanent self in this world of change is the cause of suffering and the main obstacle to liberation. The same sceptical approach negates the existence of any high god or spiritual substance, undercutting both traditional and unorthodox spiritual goals. He broke new ground by explaining the source of the apparent ego: it is merely the result of the aggregates (skandhas) that make up experience.
In this breakdown into constituent elements, the Buddha was heir to earlier element philosophies that sought to characterize existing things as composed of a set of essential elements. The Buddha, however, eliminated mythological rhetoric, systematized world components into five groups, and used this approach not to characterize a substantial object but to explain a delusion. He coordinated material components with psychological ones. The Buddha criticized the religious sages’ theories of an Absolute as yet another reification, instead giving a path to self-perfection as a means of transcending the world of name and form.
Decisive in distinguishing Buddhism from what is commonly called Hinduism is the issue of epistemological justification. All schools of Indian logic recognize various sets of valid justifications for knowledge, or pramana – Buddhism recognizes a set smaller than the others’. All accept perception and inference, for example. Still, for some schools of Hinduism and Buddhism, the received textual tradition is considered an epistemological category equal to perception and inference (although this is not necessarily true for some other schools).
On the other hand, some schools of Buddhism rejected an inflexible reverence for accepted doctrine. According to the canonical scriptures, the Buddha said, “Do not accept anything by mere tradition… Do not accept anything just because it accords with your scriptures… Do not accept anything merely because it agrees with your preconceived notions… But when you know for yourselves – these things are moral, these things are blameless, these things are praised by the wise, these things, when performed and undertaken, conduce to well-being and happiness – then do you live acting accordingly.”
Evolution of thought
Early Buddhist philosophers and exegetes of one particular early school, the Sarvastivadins (as opposed to Mahayana), created a pluralist metaphysical and phenomenological system. In this system, all experiences of people, things, and events can be broken down into smaller perceptual or perceptual-ontological units called Dharmas. Other schools incorporated some parts of this theory and criticized others. The Sautrantikas, another early school, and the Theravadins, the only surviving early Buddhist school, criticized the realist standpoint of the Sarvastivadins.
The Mahayanist Nagarjuna, one of the most influential Buddhist thinkers, promoted the classical Buddhist emphasis on phenomena and attacked Sarvastivada realism and Sautrantika nominalism in his magnum opus, “The Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way.”
What some consider the original positive Buddhist contribution to the field of metaphysics is pratityasamutpada. It states that events are not predetermined or random, rejecting notions of direct causation based on substantial metaphysics. Instead, it posits the arising of events under certain inextricable conditions, such that the processes in question are never considered entities.
Pratitya-samutpada posits that certain specific events, concepts, or realities are always dependent on other specific things. Craving, for example, is always dependent on and caused by emotion. Emotion is always reliant on contact with our surroundings. This chain of causation purports to show that the cessation of decay, death, and sorrow indirectly depends on the cessation of craving.
Ethical frameworks
Nagarjuna asserted a direct connection between, even identity of, dependent origination, anatta, and sunyata. Implicit in the early Buddhist concept of dependent origination is the lack of any substantial being (anatta) underlying the participants in origination, identified as emptiness (sunyata) or emptiness of a nature or essence (sva-bhava).
This doctrine comes from the Avatamsaka Sutra, a Mahayana scripture, and its associated schools. It holds that all ‘phenomena’ (Sanskrit: Dharmas) are intimately connected and mutually arising. The upaya doctrine of interpenetration influenced the Japanese monk Kukai, founder of the Shingon school of Buddhism. Interpenetration and Essence-Function mutually inform East Asian Buddhist traditions, especially Korean ones.
Although many ethical tenets in Buddhism differ depending on whether one is a monk or a layperson and depending on individual schools, the Buddhist system of ethics can be summed up in the Eightfold Path.
“And this, monks, is the noble truth of the way of practice leading to the cessation of suffering—precisely this Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.”
The purpose of living an ethical life is to escape the suffering inherent in samsara. Skilful actions positively condition the mind and lead to future happiness, while the opposite is true for unskilful actions. Ethical discipline also provides the mental stability and freedom to embark upon mental cultivation via meditation.
Dr Senarath Tennakoon