Practical Ethics and Profound Emptiness Page 12
This verse focuses on abiding, saying that since a sprout can’t abide inherently, it can’t arise or cease either. If it inherently abides, it cannot arise; it would always be there. If it inherently abides, it cannot cease because it cannot change moment to moment. The sprout would be unrelated to its cause or its effect. In short, arising, abiding, and ceasing are not inherently existent because abiding does not inherently exist.
66.If always changing,
how could things be non-momentary?
And if they did not change,
how could they be altered in fact?
67.[Something is] momentary
because it either ceases partially or entirely.
Neither of these two [possibilities] makes sense
because a difference is not perceived.
A Few Related Topics
Nagarjuna goes into a few side discussions in verses 66–68 where he examines the assertions of the Vaisheshikas, members of an orthodox Hindu school that follows the Vedas, and claims of the Vaishnavas, followers of the god Vishnu.
The Vaisheshikas say, “The arguments above regarding not existing in the three times apply to those who say that functioning things arise and disintegrate. We don’t have that fault, because we accept that the tiniest particles composing all matter are inherently permanent. They are neither produced nor destroyed.”
Nagarjuna replies, “Do all things change or not? If they do, then the tiniest particles are not permanent; they are momentary, produced, and perish. If things don’t change, then how could they become different than they were? How could the natural changes from child to adolescent to adult to senior citizen occur? It would absurdly follow that they could not because our bodies would be permanent.”
Acknowledging this fault, the Vaisheshikas change their assertion, “The tiniest particles are inherently existent and inherently momentary.” Nagarjuna replies, “Do they completely change or only partially change? If a particle has one part that changes and another part that does not, then when we look at a plant, for example, we should see one part that continues on unchanged and another part that changes, either growing or dying. However, we don’t see that at all.
“On the other hand, if the tiniest particles change completely in every way, then how could they exist inherently? Inherently existent things cannot change.”
Here we see two faults of the Vaisheshikas’ position: one follows from asserting that the tiniest particles are permanent, the other from asserting that they are inherently existent yet still change.
68.If [a real thing] is momentary, then since it would cease to exist
entirely [at each moment], how could anything be old?
And if a real thing is non-momentary,
then since it would persist [without change], how could anything be old?
The Vaishnavas declare that their assertions don’t have the faults mentioned above because they assert that the person is permanent and old, old meaning primordial, without beginning or end. Nagarjuna replies that an inherently existent person that is impermanent and momentary would completely cease in each moment, and a totally new person would arise in the next moment. In that case, how could the body grow old?
On the other hand, if an inherently existent person were non-momentary and permanent, it could not change and would remain as it was before. In that case, how can it be considered old? To be old, the person must have arisen, changed, and declined, and only an impermanent person that doesn’t endure beyond its first moment does that. Therefore, the person can’t be permanent. Furthermore, if the person were permanent, someone couldn’t be unhappy in the morning and happy in the afternoon. Ten-year-old Tashi would be the exact same person as eighty-year-old Tashi. We can directly perceive that people’s moods change and that Tashi ages, thus contradicting the Vaishnavas’ assertion.
The Vaishnavas and other non-Buddhists don’t assert a permanent person for no reason; they have thought a lot about this and give reasons for their claim. Whether those reasons are good and will hold up when challenged is another matter. If the person is transitory, they say, how can the person who creates karma be the one who experiences the result? If the person who creates the karma changes moment to moment, an entirely different person would experience the result. In that case a person could experience the results of actions he did not do, and he would avoid experiencing the actions that he did do. Since that is unacceptable, the only way the Vaishnavas can understand the law of karma and its effects is to posit a permanent person. They cannot explain how a momentary person could experience the results of her karma.
Buddhists say that the person is impermanent, and the result of karma is experienced by the continuum of that person. This reasoning pacifies the above concerns, and we see that karma and its effects work very well when the person is impermanent. In fact, if the person were permanent, it would be difficult to explain how an action could produce its result in the future when a permanent person is frozen in time. The person being impermanent or permanent is one of the fundamental differences between Buddhists and non-Buddhists.
69.Just as one conceives of a moment as having a last [part],17
so too one should conceive of it as having a beginning and middle.
Since a moment has a threefold [temporal] nature,
the world does not remain for [even] a moment.
The Momentary Must Have Parts
The momentary refers to impermanent phenomena, things that do not remain in the next moment. These impermanent phenomena are the things we see around us — people, the environment, our thoughts and perceptions. Although change is the very nature of momentary phenomena, we still grasp them as inherently existent. Nagarjuna now refutes this wrong view.
Some people say that a moment is the time when something has arisen and not yet ceased. They accept that a moment does not endure for a second instant, but they assert that while it lasts it is an inherently abiding moment.
Nagarjuna asks, “Since a moment has a last part, it must also have a middle part and a beginning part. A moment is always changing because it has these three parts; thus it cannot inherently abide and cannot inherently exist.”
A moment depends on its three parts. Being dependent in this way, it cannot inherently exist because an inherently existent thing cannot depend on anything else, including parts.
When we apply this reasoning to the world — the environment and its inhabitants — we see that the world cannot abide for even a moment. To say this in the form of a syllogism: the subject, the world with its environment and inhabiting sentient beings, doesn’t abide inherently for a moment, because a moment has parts — its beginning, middle, and last part.
70.As with a moment, one should also consider
the [tripartite nature of its] beginning, middle, and last [part].
There is no beginning, middle, or last [that arises]
either from itself or something else.
Refuting the Inherent Existence of That Which Has Parts
Somebody now says, “Although one moment has a beginning, middle, and last part, the beginning abides inherently as do the middle and the last part.”
Nagarjuna counters this by explaining that the beginning, middle, and last part do not abide inherently. Just as one moment has three parts, each part also has a beginning, middle, and last part. Each of those parts also has beginning, middle, and last parts. Because it is dependent on other factors — in this case its parts — time does not inherently abide.
Just as a moment of time can be mentally broken down into parts, all phenomena — whether they are large objects such as the universe, or miniscule ones such as subatomic particles — are made of parts. Anything that has parts — whether these parts are directional, material, or temporal parts — cannot exist inherently because it depends on its parts.
The people asking questions in these debates are rational individuals; if we state something that isn’t reasonable, they won’t accept it. But if we point something ou
t with correct reasoning, they are able to see that what they believe is incorrect and change their minds. They are not closed-minded or stubborn. When Buddhists debate together, we clarify points using both reasoning and scriptural quotations. But when discussing with non-Buddhists, we must depend solely on reasoning because they do not accept our scriptures as reliable sources of knowledge.
71.No [material thing] is a unitary whole, because it has many directional parts,
and there is no [material thing] that does not have directional parts.
Further, without there being one, there cannot be many;
without the existent, there cannot be the nonexistent.
The Reasoning of Not Being One and Many
Now someone says that things exist inherently, and Nagarjuna asks them, “Does a thing inherently exist as one, meaning one sole thing?” If he says yes, Nagarjuna responds, “Take a material object, such as this page, for example. It is not an inherently existing one (thing) because it has many directional parts — its front, back, right, and left; its north, south, east, and west parts.”
There is nothing that cannot be physically or mentally broken down into its various parts. If something has directional parts, it cannot be an inherently existent one; it would not inherently be one thing. Something that is an inherently existent one cannot be analyzed into directions and parts; it would be just one thing and have no parts whatsoever.
The person sees that is correct, so he changes his approach and says, “There are inherently existent many — many meaning more than one.” To this Nagarjuna counters, “Since there is no inherently existent one, there cannot be inherently existent many or several, because inherently existent many is a collection of inherently existent ones.” To have many, first there needs to be one, and there is no inherently existent one. In short, things are not truly existent, because they do not inherently exist either as one or many.
If you can see that material things do not inherently exist because of not being one or many, you will be able to use that same reason to understand that phenomena without form, such as consciousness, are also not inherently existent. Is there inherently one moment of consciousness? No, there isn’t, because each moment has a beginning, middle, and last part. If there is not one inherently existent moment of consciousness, there cannot be many inherently existent moments of consciousness, because in order to have many, there must be a collection of inherently existent ones.
The line without the existent, there cannot be the nonexistent refutes the claim that a thing’s emptiness is truly existent. Here existent refers to that which is conventionally existent — for example, a table — and nonexistent refers to the emptiness of true existence18 — in this case the table’s emptiness. The table is the basis of its emptiness of true existence. Since the basis — the table — lacks true existence, an attribute or property of that basis — in this case the emptiness of true existence of the table — cannot be truly existent.
An object and its emptiness are posited in dependence on each other. If there is not a table, we cannot talk about the emptiness of true existence of the table. The fact that an object and its emptiness are mutually dependent means neither of them is an independent entity. Thus neither of them inherently exists.
72.The existent becomes nonexistent
because it either ceases naturally or is counteracted [by something else].
But since the existent is impossible,
how could there be [its] cessation or counteragent?
73.Therefore, ultimately the world is not lessened
by [someone] attaining nirvana.
When asked whether there is any end to the world,
the Victor remained silent.
On the gross level, a thing can be destroyed in two ways: it either ceases naturally because its causes have been exhausted, or it is counteracted by something else. A peach rotting and a person growing old are examples of things ceasing naturally. No outside force is exerted to make them deteriorate. To be counteracted means to be destroyed by a separate agent, such as a clay pot smashed by a hammer. If things were inherently existent, neither of those two ways of becoming nonexistent could occur because an inherently existent object cannot be affected by other conditions; it would be a permanent, self-enclosed entity that remains unchanged forever. However, since inherently existent things do not exist to begin with, they cannot be destroyed in either of the two ways.
In verse 73, world refers to samsara or cyclic existence. When someone attains nirvana, an inherently existent samsara does not disappear or become nonexistent. If it did, then before someone attained nirvana, an inherently existent samsara would have existed. However, cyclic existence arises dependently, as illustrated by the twelve links of dependent origination. Samsara has never been inherently existent.
Furthermore, an inherently existent samsara would be permanent and could not cease. In that case, when someone attains liberation her inherently existent samsara could not disappear. However, when someone attains nirvana, her samsara becomes nonexistent. The samsara that ceases at liberation is conventionally existent samsara. Samsara does not become nonexistent by natural means, however. A counterforce — the wisdom realizing emptiness — must be applied to cut its continuum.
Although many of these points are aimed mainly at refuting the ideas of non-Buddhists, we should use them in our own meditation to uncover how we think of the world as inherently existent. Perhaps we hold concepts about permanent subatomic particles, a permanent person, or an inherently existent person with an unchanging personality. We ordinary beings grasp inherent existence, so the arguments refuting this are very helpful to us. We should investigate whether material objects, minds and mental factors, and so on have parts or not. If they do, why does that preclude their being inherently existent one or many and thus their being inherently existent? Whether you analyze gross objects or tiny ones, the arguments work equally on both.
You may wonder, “The person is momentary and disintegrates moment by moment. How can someone who creates destructive or constructive karma ever experience the result?” This question resembles that of the non-Buddhists refuted above, and it is helpful to use the same reasoning to refute your own misconceptions. Reflect that if a person is momentary, there isn’t the fault of an effect being experienced without its cause having first been created. Also reflect that if a person is impermanent, there is not the fault of the result being experienced by a person who didn’t create the cause. Both of these faults would occur, however, if a person were unchanging. Contemplate the continuum of the person — one moment of the person gives rise to another. The later moments are dependent on the former ones but are not exactly the same as them. Such a continuum enables a cause to bear its result later on. However, this isn’t possible if the person is permanent and static.
The line When asked whether there is any end to the world, the Victor remained silent introduces the following verse, which deals with the Buddha declining to respond to particular questions.
74.Because he did not teach the profound Dharma
to beings who were not [suitable] vessels,
the wise understand that the Omniscient One
is indeed omniscient.
The Reason for Not Saying Whether the World Has an End
When the Buddha was asked if the self and world had an end or not, he didn’t reply. Here, self refers to the person, and world refers to the aggregates, both the internal aggregates that are the basis of designation of a person and external forms and so forth in the surrounding environment. Because the Buddha did not reply, the people who asked the question thought he was not omniscient.
These people believed the person was permanent, unitary, and independent, whereas the Buddha stated that such a self could not exist. According to the Buddha, there is no person who can be the basis for the attributes of permanent, unitary, and independent, nor can there be any aggregates that a permanent, unitary, independent person depends on. However, the people asking th
is question assumed the existence of such a self and world. For this reason, it was inappropriate for the Buddha to answer one way or the other, because both would be incorrect according to their way of thinking. If he said, “Yes, there is an end to the aggregates,” they would have thought that there is no continuity of the mind or of the person after death. If he answered, “No, there is no end to the aggregates,” they would have thought that an inherently existent person continued on to the next life. Both are incorrect.
If he said the self has an end, they would have thought a permanent, unitary, independent person has an end, and thus such a person exists now. However, no permanent, unitary, independent person exists at all. If he said that it does not end, that would only reinforce their wrong conception that a permanent person exists. Either way their view of the person would become firmer. If he told them such a person didn’t exist at all, they would either get angry or think that no person whatsoever exists. Although well meaning, these people were not suitable vessels for learning selflessness because they would misunderstand selflessness to mean nonexistence, and that would not help them at all.
For example, let’s say someone has made up his mind to steal a car. He then asks you, “Should I steal it today or tomorrow?” Neither response is right. There is also no use telling him not to steal because he won’t listen to you. His mind is completely set on stealing the car. Whatever answer you give won’t suit the situation.
The very fact that the Buddha did not answer the question is the answer to their question. Because the Buddha is omniscient, he knows their disposition and the best way to guide them. The wise understood why the Buddha did what he did and, to them, the Buddha’s silence confirmed that he was indeed omniscient.
In general, there are four ways to reply to different types of questions. (1) Some questions can be answered straightforwardly. If someone asks, “Is sound permanent or impermanent?” we can clearly say that it is impermanent. (2) Some answers require qualifications. If someone asks, “Are all sentient beings who die born under the control of afflictions and karma?” we would say that sentient beings who have abandoned afflictions and karma won’t be born under their influence, while those who haven’t abandoned afflictions and karma will.