2.1 Did the Buddha eschew metaphysics?

The set of ten philosophical questions posed on different occasions to the Buddha, questions which in certain instances he refrained from answering, has long been taken as evidence that the Buddha entertained no interest in philosophy or in metaphysics, or at least that he had no motivation to teach them.² At times, this shying away from answering what appear at first sight to be metaphysical questions has led scholars to regard the Buddha’s philosophical interests as wholly pragmatic.³ The Buddha is thus portrayed as a skilled teacher interested only in what will advance his disciples’ spiritual progress; this supposedly excludes philosophical speculation.

The paradigmatic example of the Buddha’s negative stance regarding the possibility of conducting metaphysical discussions is his discourse to Māluṅkya, which introduces the famous simile of the arrow.⁴ In this classic story the Buddha is challenged by his disciple Māluṅkya, who says he will not carry out his practice until the Buddha shares his understanding regarding a set of ten questions: (1–2) Is the world eternal (nicca) / not-eternal (or impermanent, anicca)? (3–4) Does the world have an end (anta) / no-end? (5–6) Are the living force (jīva) and the body (sarīra) one and the same/distinct? (7–10) Does the Tathāgata exist / not-exist / both / neither after death?⁵ The Buddha replies that he never promised answers to questions of this sort, which in no way bring a man closer to his spiritual ends. Māluṅkya is acting, the Buddha says, like a man shot by a poisoned arrow who will not allow his well-wishers to extract the arrow from his body until he is given answers to a long list of questions regarding the person who shot him, the bow and arrow he used, etc.

In this particular discourse, the Buddha avoids answering these ostensibly metaphysical questions, and the reasoning he supplies suggests that his motives are pragmatic – he only wishes to direct his student toward enlightenment. But in most other instances in which the Buddha is approached with this same set of questions, his response is different: usually he says that he does not adhere to the ten views articulated rather than refraining from answering the questions at all. In these cases it is evident that the Buddha does hold a philosophical position that has metaphysical commitments, albeit a negative one. A negative answer may be less assertive than a positive one, but it still is an answer, which evidences that the Buddha does endorse a theoretical stance regarding these ten views. His choice not to elaborate on his understanding in the particular instance of his discourse to Māluṅkya may have a pragmatic motivation, but this in no way captures the whole of his approach to philosophy or to the views expressed in the ten questions.

In the oft-quoted Aggivacchagotta-suttaof the MN⁶ the Buddha explains why he believes the views encapsulated by the ten questions are mistaken. After the Buddha states that he holds none of these views, the baffled mendicant Vacchagotta asks him how this can be. The Buddha first says:

The Buddha then repeats this same statement regarding the other nine views put forward by Vacchagotta; adhering to any of these views is definitively seen by him to be problematic in the sense that it is both painful and spiritually disadvantageous. This does not imply, however, that there is no philosophical understanding behind his position. Indeed, when the perplexed Vacchagotta continues to question if “for Gotama, sir, is there any reliance on a view?”⁹ The Buddha replies:

The Buddha describes a personal perception of impermanence, possibly a meditative one, he experienced as liberating – the five aggregates are seen to arise and cease. This statement contains both experiential and soteriological elements yet the point is squarely philosophical: no view is to be adhered to since views discord with the Buddha’s understanding, or experience, of reality. Experienced reality – that is the five aggregates (see below) – is thoroughly impermanent, coming into being and passing away incessantly. Because he has “seen” (diṭṭha, note the word play with diṭṭhi, “view”) the recalcitrant truth of impermanence, he realizes that no view can prevail.¹² This is nothing but concrete, forceful, philosophical reasoning: everything one perceives is ephemeral and hence no view can capture the nature of reality.¹³ In this sense, the Buddha denies the ten views through affirming the view of impermanence although the latter is said to be an experiential realization – it was “seen” – rather than being merely speculative.

The Buddha’s eschewal of the ten views raises other interesting philosophical questions. First, if these views are not considered to be supplanted by another that verifies impermanence, the Buddha should probably still be said to hold a philosophical position of “no-view.”¹⁴ Furthermore, the Buddha’s claim that no view can capture the truth about reality reflects an important assumption at the base of his thinking: the Buddha is certain that the way he knows and experiences the world reveals its ultimate nature. Because he has seen the evanescence of the aggregates, he knows these views are mistaken.

The Buddha therefore should not be thought to shun philosophy although he does express a conviction that the ten views are unfounded. He presents a tricky philosophical position reminiscent of classic paradoxes such as the paradox of the liar: once the Buddha’s fundamental perception of radical impermanence is accepted, there is no room for further philosophizing (unless, that is, one disagrees with the way he offers to put his philosophy into practice and by effecting radical detachment that will uproot the process of rebirth). One could still argue with the uncompromising positing of radical impermanence or with the methodological assumption that insights gained through personal reflection relate the very structure of reality. In any case, if it still be maintained that the Buddha does deny philosophy, he does so philosophically, and the dismissal of philosophy comes about only after a philosophically mature conviction regarding the truth of impermanence has been achieved.

Why is it then that the Buddha does not accept the position that “the world is non-eternal (anicca)”? Here we realize that the problem is still more subtle since the views the Buddha denies should be characterized as “speculative” only very loosely, and their refutation implies no negation of metaphysics. In this respect, it is crucial to understand that the term loka – “the world,” which is the focus of the first four questions and which elicits more conventional metaphysical meanings – is far removed from our intuitive, modernized view that must accommodate “the world” as it is seen from the outside in the weather forecast. Here “the world” is not planet earth or the universe but rather the world of human experience or the world as experienced. Thus, the “unanswered questions” are not concerned with theoretical notions regarding the nature of the external world but with questions about the possibility of life after death, most notably about the reality that the spiritually realized attain after they die. When Māluṅkya or Vacchagotta pose their inquiries, they are actually asking about the goals of the practice in which the Buddha is guiding them and about the realities they can expect after they die if they are to succeed. This is why the Buddha rejects the view that “the world is non-eternal” together with the other positions, as this view merely expresses the idea that there is absolutely nothing after death.

The question regarding the place or state one is reborn in after death was obviously of pivotal importance to the religious communities of ancient India. These interests form much of the body of Upaniṣadic doctrine and crop up many times in the Buddhist texts as well.¹⁵ Fundamental for our concerns is that the last four questions in the list of ten views – whether the Tathāgata exists, does not-exist, both or neither, after he dies – deal directly with the state that the realized ones achieve at the end of their lives. In fact, in the Aggivacchagotta-sutta, after the Buddha denies that he holds any of the ten views, the discussion continues to reflect only on these last four questions, which prove to be the heart of Vacchagotta’s inquiry. It is in this context that the Buddha introduces the well-known simile of fire, which contributes to the title of the discourse. Just like fire, which cannot be said to travel to any direction after the material that feeds it is exhausted, the Buddha has quit feeding the human fire of the aggregates and thus, after he passes away, there is no way by which he can be said to be reborn (upapajjati) / not-reborn / both / neither.¹⁶ For him the aggregates are “forsaken, their root severed, made like an uprooted palm-tree, eradicated with no future arising.”¹⁷ Therefore, he cannot be known through them (paññāpeyya), including after he dies. In this sense, he is beyond existence and non-existence and sees himself as “deep, unfathomable and difficult to penetrate – like the ocean.”¹⁸

That these last four questions form the heart of the theme of the unanswered questions is evident also from the collection of discourses in “the collection on the unanswered (questions)” (Abyākata-saṃyutta) of the SN, which assembles a number of discussions of this topic. In seven of the eleven discourses that comprise this saṃyutta, it is only the last four questions about the existence of the Tathāgata after death that are submitted to the Buddha and remain “unanswered.”¹⁹ All seven texts make no mention of any of the other questions in the set of ten questions while an eighth text, an adapted version of the Aggivacchagotta-sutta, also discusses only the question of the state liberated people attain after death.²⁰ It is only in two of the eleven discourses, both parallel versions of the Aggivacchagotta-sutta, that the questions about the nature of the world are even mentioned.²¹ Thus, it is clear that the elusive and counter-intuitive questions about the nature of the Tathāgata after death were considered by the compilers of the Abyākata-saṃyutta to express the core of the “unanswered questions” theme. The same is true regarding the Abyākata-sutta of the AN (7.54), which also deals only with these last four questions. It therefore seems that the Cūḷamāluṅkya-sutta, which introduced the simile of the poisoned arrow discussed above, is actually the only discourse that revolves around the theme of the unanswered questions that could lend itself to the interpretation of the Buddha’s teachings as shunning philosophy and metaphysics. The main point made by the vast majority of textual variations on this same theme is that the Tathāgata’s state after death cannot be put into words.²² This is what remains unexplained.

In fact, a close reading of the first six questions of the list shows that they, too, are concerned with an inquiry about the afterlife. The first four questions ask whether the world is eternal or not-eternal and whether the world has an end or has no end. Since these questions appear to reflect on the nature of the world, they have almost unanimously been regarded as metaphysical questions about the nature of reality. But the early Buddhist notion of the world does not convey metaphysical meanings of this sort. Rather, the world of these texts is the world of human experience, as we see in the Samiddhilokapañha-sutta (“The discourse on Samiddhi’s question about the world”):

The world of the Samiddhilokapañha-sutta is heavily dependent on subjectivity; indeed, it appears to be the world of subjectivity itself. Where the structural elements of perception – the senses, their objects, consciousness and the cognized – exist, that is where there is a world. No less significant, according to this discourse there is no possibility of a world that is detached from these subjective elements since the sutta explicitly states that where the eye and so forth are not, there is no world. The world of this text appears to be fully estranged from our common objectified notions of the word.

Such statements regarding the subjective nature of the world are voiced in other discourses of the Saḷāyatana-saṃyutta as well. The Paloka-sutta (“The discourse on disintegration”), for example, says:

This quote merely adds to the previous one that the world also includes the sensations that arise with the perceptual elements referred to in the previous sutta as their base. We again find that the central way in which the world is referred to is as the world of subjective experience.²⁵

This point is not new. A number of leading scholars have already shown that the term lokarefers not so much to the external, objective world, but first and foremost to the world of human experience. Thus says Peter Harvey:

In an important study on the treatment of the five aggregates in the early suttas and Abhidhamma, Rupert Gethin advances a similar claim:

The world and the aggregates are both terms that are used to denote human experience, or as Gethin puts it, “conditioned existence from the point of view of the experiencing subject.”²⁸ When he summarizes his analysis, Gethin identifies between the five aggregates and the world:

Although I am unaware of any explicit definition of the world as the five aggregates in the early suttas, Gethin’s position regarding the connection between the aggregates and the world is resonated in Mahāyāna treatises. Mark, for instance, the following passage from the twelfth chapter of the Aṣṭasāhsrikāprajñāpāramitā-sūtra (“The perfection of wisdom in 8000 lines”), in which the Buddha defines the term “world”: “The five aggregates, Subhūti, have been declared as ‘the world’ by the Tathāgata. Which five? Form, sensations, perceptions, formations and consciousness. These five aggregates, Subhūti, have been declared as ‘the world’ by the Tathāgata.”³⁰ While the explicit identification between the five aggregates and “the world” may not have been formulated in the Nikāyas, the materials quoted above demonstrate that this passage is not a misrepresentation of the early Buddhist approach to the subject.³¹

A final consideration regarding the nature of loka and its relationship to the aggregates comes from the Aggivacchagotta-sutta itself. The sutta introduces ten views that the Buddha rejects, including four that speak of the nature of “the world.” The Buddha’s reasoning regarding his rejection of these views is based on his perception of the aggregates. Thus, it is clear that the theories expressed by the ten views relate to the nature of the aggregates; indeed, the world is the aggregates. Since the impermanence of the aggregates teaches the Buddha about the nature of the world, we realize again that the world of the unanswered questions is primarily the world of human subjectivity. In an interesting variation on this reading of the Aggivacchagotta-sutta, the Dutiya-isidatta-sutta of the SN says that the ten “metaphysical” views are based on the view of “identity” (sakkāya); identity can be eradicated if one does not perceive a relationship between the self and the aggregates.³² Other discourses also claim that views rely on the perception of a self.³³

When we realize that the early conception of “the world” relates not to objective, external reality but to existence as perceived subjectively or to the aggregates, we may reconsider the meaning of the first four so-called “metaphysical” questions. It now appears that these questions, like the last four of the list of the ten unanswered ones, relate to the question of life after death, indeed a heavily metaphysical problem. The question is, in fact, what happens to the aggregates upon death. The two views regarding the world being eternal or without an end refer to a belief that there is some continuity of life after death; the parallel views of the world being non-eternal and with an end reflect the notion that there is no afterlife. The Buddha denies both of these options, presumably since they are all extreme views that employ the end positions of eternalism and extinction: the first, sassata, believes that the same person continues to the next life and experiences his own karma; the second, uccheda, ignores the rules of karma and severs the connection between this life and the next.³⁴

The first four of the unanswered questions regarding the nature of the world are in fact metaphysical but only in the sense that they discuss the afterlife. The Buddha denies these positions, but his denial is of no less a metaphysical nature than the views he refutes. The Buddha knows what will happen to him after he dies; the only problem with the first four views is that they fail to express what he believes he firmly knows – his own state of being in the afterlife. He does not deny metaphysics per se but the specific approaches these views are based on.³⁵

When the first four “unanswered questions” relate to notions of personal continuity after death and the last four to the continuity of a liberated being after death, it seems most reasonable to interpret the two remaining questions, numbers five and six, in the same vein. Indeed, these two questions – whether the jīva and the body are the same or distinct – can easily be seen to ask whether there is a subjective element that persists after death. The body dies, and the question is if there is anything else, any living element – a jīva – that does.³⁶

A short look at the nature of “views” and of “the world” in the Brahmajāla-sutta (BJS),³⁷ generally considered as the locus classicus for the early Buddhist understanding of mistaken views, will shed important light on our discussion. In this text, the Buddha relates sixty-two mistaken views advocated by rival schools, some of which relate to the nature of “the self and the world.” Thus, at first sight, these views seem to express ontological positions that see the world, for example, as eternal. But upon closer inspection, we find that almost all of the sixty-two views caricatured by this text relate to the nature of the self, with specific emphasis on questions regarding the nature of personal continuity and of the afterlife. For example, the first four views (“eternalism,” sassata) understand the present person to be the same as the one in previous lives; views 4–8 (“partial eternalism,” ekaccasassata) provide variations on the previous four positions; views 19–50 (“doctrines of having perception, of having no perception, of having both perception and no perception,” saññīvāda, asaññīvāda, nevasaññīnāsaññīvāda) all speak of the nature of the being that will be reborn after this life; views 51–57 (“views of annihilation,” ucchedavāda) believe that some element of human consciousness is annihilated at death. The only exceptions to the focus on personal continuity in the afterlife are two of the views in the section on the world having an end or not (antānantavāda), which employ spatial metaphors in order to express that “the world has an end.”³⁸ This interpretation of the statement “the end of the world” differs from ours yet it too should probably be understood as part of the inquiry into the question of the afterlife, taking a stance on whether there is anything that is beyond the known world. In any case, this statement is heavily outweighed by the other views criticized by the BJS, which all concern the relationship between the human being and the reality he will attain after death or that characterized him before this life; this includes the discussion of the possible eternal nature of “the self and the world” in views 1–4, which correspond to the first two of the ten unanswered questions. Thus, the BJS supports the understandings that (a) views refer mainly to the nature of the self and to understandings regarding the afterlife, and that (b) “the world” refers primarily to subjective existence and experience.

Let us recapitulate and ask where this analysis of the “unanswered” questions leaves us. First, the arguments that the Buddha rejected philosophy and metaphysics, that he refrained from teaching metaphysics, or that his concerns were only pragmatic are misleading; the Buddha of the unanswered questions did entertain a strong interest in metaphysics, only that these relate only to the nature of selfhood. In refusing to answer the ten questions or to accept the ten views, the Buddha is indicating only that they fail to capture the subtlety of his understanding regarding the state he will be in after he passes away. The Buddha may not have put philosophical speculation at the foreground of his teaching, but at the very least his doctrines were couched in a metaphysics that relied on the acceptance of an afterlife; he was also certain he knew how the realities of the afterlife are brought into being. Most importantly, he felt he knew what his personal reality (or unreality) would be like.

The idea of liberation cannot be considered non-philosophical. Still, as the Buddha teaches Māluṅkya through the simile of the poisoned arrow, theoretical speculation is not the focal point of the teaching; theory should not replace personal realization. Realization may have deep metaphysical significance– a secure, thoroughly painless reality in the afterlife – but it must be actualized through practice. In the remaining parts of this chapter we will examine two core philosophical positions – selflessness and dependent-origination – that are meant to guide practice and to facilitate a realization with deep psychological impact. A true, concrete perception of these truths possesses distinct liberating power. We begin with a discussion of the early doctrine of selflessness.

2.2 Selflessness

The Buddhist doctrine of selflessness (anatta) has received ample scholarly attention, and I have no intention of reopening the intricate questions regarding the precise purport of this doctrine, mainly the one regarding whether the Buddha ultimately accepted or denied the existence of a S/self³⁹ (atta, Skt. ātman).⁴⁰ Rather, in line with the general thread of my discussion, my focus will be on one main point – that the early Buddhist doctrine of anatta is essentially an approach to human experience, which is to be implemented in the mind in real time as part of the path to liberation. The theoretical aspect of this doctrine is secondary and derives from the primary practical significance. This is not a general and universal denial of essence, and the teaching has little concern with the nature of external objects.⁴¹ In accord with the main focus on subjectivity, the doctrine concentrates on the concrete realization of selflessness in the sense that all things are not one’s-self, that they are “not-I” or “not-my-self.” The philosophical principle of selflessness is an abstracted expression of a particular observation regarding the nature of human existence and the character of human experience. The main import of the teaching is practical, and so is its goal – its realization is meant to facilitate a transformative and therapeutic detachment.

That being said, it is also important to pick up the metaphysical scent of the doctrine of selflessness, which lingers in the background and is perceived mainly when we read between the lines. The perception of selflessness results from more than pure, non-committed logic but relies on an intuition that once reality is not-permanent, once it is not the expression of an eternal self, it cannot express true nature and is not worth our interest. The discovery that all things, mainly the five aggregates, are not one’s self, is meant to produce intense detachment, which will presumably lead to liberation. This is a statement beyond what most people would be willing to stomach and demands some version of the preconceived assumption that saṃsārais pain in order to make sense. This idea, which is crucial for the claim that one should opt out of the system and strive toward liberation, is itself heavily laden with metaphysics. All this, is quite far from a simple, commonsensical observation of empirical reality and participates in a unique, fascinating metaphysical system.

The metaphysical assumptions marked, we turn to the main focus of the doctrine, which is an analysis of human subjectivity. As we enter our discussion, we should notice that the Nikāyas express almost no interest in the nature of “all things.” The statement in which the Buddha characterizes “all things” as impermanent, painful, and selfless,⁴² for example, appears in remarkably few places in the central four Nikāyas. At times, when the Buddha does say that “all things are not-the-self” (sabbe dhammā anattā), he does so immediately after listing the five aggregates,⁴³ defined above, following Gethin, as “conditioned existence from the point of view of the experiencing subject.” In fact, there are very few cases in which the Buddha refers to “all things” in any way at all.⁴⁴ When he makes a general statement such as sabbe dhammā anattā, the Buddha only describes dhammas as selfless, intending probably to describe first and foremost the nature of mental events and subjective realities.⁴⁵ He is not thinking about things in an abstract sense but about experiential reality.

My discussion of selflessness in the following pages will rely on Steven Collins’s (Reference Collins1982: ch. 3) classification of the basic arguments formulated in the early Buddhist texts in favor of the position of selflessness. Collins outlines four main arguments: (1) the argument from lack of control, (2) the argument of the “three characteristics,”⁴⁶ (3) the argument that the self has no intelligible relationship to the aggregates,⁴⁷ and (4) the argument of dependent-origination. Since this last argument will be treated separately in the next section, I will confine myself here to a short analysis of the first three items.

The main point I wish to establish regarding the arguments in favor of anatta is that they only make sense if they are understood to be part of an inquiry into the nature of subjective reality. Not only are the claims remarkably weak otherwise, but the texts clearly state that this is their main interest. The arguments against the reality of the self are intended to analyze whether the person conducting the analysis is correct in seeing different elements of his reality, primarily the five aggregates, as his self. Once the claim that they are not the self is established, the main significance of the analysis manifests: the goal of the inquiry is to cause a perceptual transformation in the experiencing subject, who will quit seeing all elements of his reality – his personal reality – as his self. This perceptual transformation will then lead to an emotional reorganization that generates dispassion toward and detachment from the “not-my-self” objects of perception.

The central way in which the Buddha teaches the doctrine of selflessness in the Nikāyās is through identifying objects of reflection, primarily the five aggregates, as impermanent, painful, and not-the-self.⁴⁸ These items were eventually termed “the three characteristics” (tilakkhaṇā), a definition which does not appear in the Nikāyas. This argument often comes together with another one regarding the lack of control over the aggregates. The locus classicus for both these arguments is the Anattalakkhaṇa-sutta – “The discourse on the characteristics of not-being-the-self”⁴⁹ – reported to be the second discourse preached by the Buddha and later duplicated or reworked in many additional discourses. Here the Buddha, as he addresses his first group of five disciples, begins with the less frequently applied argument regarding the lack of control:

The Buddha then proceeds to make the same claim regarding the other four aggregates. We see, first, that this argument is made regarding the aggregates, which we have defined as the constituents of subjective reality. Therefore, the type of self that is refuted refers to an element of subjective reality. Next, the argument is that the aggregates are selfless in the sense that they are “not-I,” “not-myself,” and “not what I really am.” It is not said that the aggregates lack a self of their own, that is that they lack essence, but that they cannot be seen as the self of the subject conducting the analysis. This conclusion is inevitable under a simple examination of the argument, which says that a person cannot command the aggregates to behave or exist in a certain way. It must be clear as daylight that no claim is being made with regard to the nature of external objects, but only regarding the character of subjective elements of the body, feelings, etc. The self who cannot control the aggregates and who is denied by the text is the self as the essence of subjectivity.

It should also be noted that the argument regarding the lack of control over the aggregates makes best sense as a denial of Upaniṣadic notions of the ātman.⁵² If the self that is denied is not the ātman, why must he have absolute control over the aggregates? Although a more comprehensive analysis of the relationship between the early Buddhist doctrines and Upaniṣadic metaphysics would surely be beneficial to understanding this claim, here we may remain content only to mark the most salient Upaniṣadic ideas in this passage. First, the basic intuition that the ātman is related to the deathless (amṛta), the blissful nectar of the gods, seems to be at the base of the idea that if form were the Self it should be characterized by permanent bliss and “would not be plagued by affliction.” Second, the heart of the Upaniṣadic metaphysics is that reality is comprised of structural relationships – bandhus or upaniṣads – and thus that reality is an embodiment of these metaphysical correspondences.⁵³ Therefore, if the Self is bliss, its manifestation in the aggregates must ultimately be bliss as well. Finally and most importantly, the notion of control, supposedly possessed by the ātman or the adept who knows the ātman, appears to be at work in the idea that if the aggregates were the self, one could effect full control over them.⁵⁴ The consideration of the Upaniṣadic background thus leads to an improved appreciation of the Buddhist argument, and it strengthens the claim that the discussion regarding the lack of selfhood involves questions of personal identity.

These same considerations regarding the subjective nature of the early Buddhist theory of selflessness apply to the argument that what is impermanent must be seen as painful and as not-the-self. In the Anattalakkhaṇa-sutta, this argument follows immediately after the previous one regarding the lack of control:

The Buddha then subjects the remaining four aggregates to the same analysis. As has been noted by a number of scholars, this argument is most appealing when it is seen to refer to the Upaniṣadic notion of a permanent and blissful Self – there is no inherent reason why what is impermanent must be suffering or why what is impermanent and suffering must not be my-self.⁵⁶ A Buddhist monk suffering from a headache, like anyone else, will see the passing of his headache as pleasure, and in no way should his headache’s impermanence suggest to him that he has no self. It is only when impermanence equals pain and non-selfhood by an a priori definition that this argument is strong. At times, a similar but more forceful argument is presented, when the Buddha argues directly for the lack of a self from the initial observation of impermanence. That a permanent self cannot underlie an impermanent reality should indeed be seen as the principal Buddhist conceptual argument against the reality of selfhood.

We see once again that this central argument about “the three characteristics” is made in relation to the five aggregates and hence that it teaches a human subject that he lacks a self or that his aggregates are not his self. The specific wording of the discourse makes this point yet clearer: one is not to see “this is mine, this I am, this is my self” (etaṃ mama, esoham asmi, eso me attā). Selflessness is obviously a personal realization that makes a claim about human subjectivity. Notice also that it is of no significance for our analysis whether the Buddha affirmed or denied the atmān; for us it is only important that in making his claim for selflessness the Buddha was speaking about the structure of subjective reality.

The third argument for anatta, best defined as “there is no coherent relation between the self and the aggregates,” is on par with the other two arguments just outlined. Collins alludes to a statement in the DN’s Mahānidāna-sutta, which denies three ways of understanding the relationship between the self and feelings – as one and the same, as different, or as the self possessing the attribute of feelings. Collins explains that if the self and feelings were equal, then the self must be transient and conditioned; if they are different – “where there is no feeling at all, is it possible that one may say ‘I am?’”⁵⁷ Finally, if the self possesses feelings as attributes, a transient self is once again implied. Other texts may represent this style of argument somewhat differently, mainly through the claim that the self cannot be equal to or different from the aggregates.⁵⁸ For our concerns, what is of central importance is again that here too it is evident that the argument is targeted against the existence of a personal, subjective self.

It is worth noting that the subjective emphasis of the teaching of selflessness is evident also in the early notion of “emptiness” (suññata), which means only that the aggregates are devoid of all relation to the self.⁵⁹ The same is true in relation to the well-known poem that says that “form is like a ball of foam, sensations are like a bubble, perceptions like a mirage, formations like a banana-tree, consciousness like an illusion.”⁶⁰ Here too there is no doctrine of ubiquitous essencelessness, certainly not in the sense that all is illusion, but rather there is a statement regarding the impermanent, fleeting nature of the aggregates. There are indeed no true reasons to assume that the Buddha taught selflessness as a universal denial of essence.

We have seen that in the Nikāyas selflessness means “not-my-self” or “not-I” and that its main claim regards the nature of subjectivity. The object of analysis is the aggregates, and the discovery that they are not-the-self says something mainly about the nature of individual existence. Returning to the Anattalakkhaṇa-sutta, we can observe a second fundamental point: the doctrine of selflessness is not merely a philosophical or psychological principle but rather functions as part of the Buddhist transformative enterprise; the vision of selflessness has a practical, concrete end of facilitating liberation. Following the articulation of the argument regarding the three characteristics in the sutta, the Buddha says:

Again, we see vividly that the realization of selflessness is personal and involves knowing that the five aggregates are not one’s-self (the Buddha repeats this statement regarding each of the aggregates). More specifically, the point is about how things “should be observed” (daṭṭhabbam). Indeed, the text points to a perceptual change that is meant to occur, when one will begin to observe the contents of experience “through correct wisdom.” This perceptual transformation is, however, only the first step, as it aims to direct the practitioner much farther along the path, all the way to liberation:

The perception of selflessness is not an end in itself. Rather, it is meant to lead to the cherished goal of liberation. We need not concern ourselves with the precise vision of liberation offered here, what for example the verbs nibbindati – “he detaches,” or virajjati – “he becomes dispassionate” precisely intend; they obviously imply a very serious disengagement. More important is that such intense emotional, and possibly cognitive, disengagement is defined as the goal of philosophical analysis and is to be brought about by the fact that one observes reality in correct fashion. The ideal monk’s perception of selflessness involves his knowing that the elements of his reality are not his self, a knowledge which stimulates a new emotional stance in relation to all elements of his experience. The monk has diminished his previous excitement and interest in all aspects of his being since he realizes that they are not himself. He then grows detached and dispassionate in a way that naturally effects his liberation.

An important question arises here, anticipated by our discussion of Bronkhorst’s views of liberation discussed in the opening section of the previous chapter. Could it be that the transformation described takes place outside of meditation, in a mind that has not entered samādhi? Is this actually an intellectual conception of liberation? Likewise, is it possible that a vision such as the one described in this last passage occurs in a quieted samādhi-ed mind that has transcended conceptuality?

We are not yet in a position to offer full solutions to these questions, but some remarks are in order. First, it appears that this realization is not a truly intellectual one; the transformation involved does not focus on a theoretical understanding but on the emotional responses that result from a full internalization of the intellectual stance. The main impact of the realization thus does not appear to be theoretical. This process of the internalization of philosophy and its transformation into an immediate perceptual and emotional attitude will form the core of our discussion of the concept of mindfulness (sati) in the following chapter.

Second, although one can imagine that perceptions of the sort that have been related by the Anattalakkhaṇa-sutta could take place in the ordinary mind of any human being, it appears more reasonable that if they are to be liberating in any real sense, they must demand a more sustained form of reflection. Such intensified reflection is afforded by an awareness of the type that is said to occur in concentrated meditation. Liberation – if this term is to mean anything – demands a full harnessing of all psychological faculties; the whole of one’s being must know, in the logic of the Anattalakkhaṇa-sutta, “this is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.” If we wish to take these statements seriously and to allow them to represent a different reality than the one we are familiar with, a reality that may reflect the world of dedicated Indian yogis practicing in the wilderness beyond the realms of society, we should appreciate that the event of liberation is more than an intellectual understanding and that it is naturally connected to meditative contemplation. Whether such a meditative mind must technically be said to be in samādhi or in a state that is beyond conceptuality is still open, but the connection to meditation seems evident.

There is one last consideration that supports the notion that the liberation described here is more than an intellectual understanding and probably involves concentrated meditation. The fact that the Buddha goes through each of the five aggregates or through the six senses in each of the passages we read suggests that the disciple who takes the instruction to heart carries them out in a focused state of contemplation. While the Buddha’s teaching style here surely expresses pedagogical, mnemonic, or narrative concerns as well, this presentation cannot be reduced to these aspects of the text. If the main point was that the five aggregates are impermanent and selfless, for instance, it would surely be simpler to retain this simple statement in one’s memory rather than to go through a long list of elements. This elaborate presentation fits well into the picture that realization occurs in its richest varieties when the visualization outlined by the texts is practiced in concentrated meditation.⁶⁴

We can even go one step further: these considerations recommend that the so-called intellectualist approach to liberation is related to meditative practice and probably is meant to take place as part of meditative observation. We have yet to explain, however, how what appears as a conceptual understanding can be experienced in samādhi. But must we? It seems that when philosophy has become a way of seeing, which has turned into an emotional stance, the transformation intended involves little, if any, conceptuality. When one observes the contents of his experience in the correct manner – not when he understands them conceptually – he is liberated.

2.3 Dependent-origination (Paṭiccasamuppāda)

Dependent-origination is widely acknowledged by students of all schools of Buddhism as one of the tradition’s most fundamental principles.⁶⁵ The idea that things arise in dependence on their conditions is understood to be central to Buddhist philosophy, psychology, and soteriology. Nonetheless, as will become evident in the following pages, we still lack a clear definition of what dependent-origination actually means. Different understandings, representing distinct uses of the concept by numerous Buddhist teachers and schools, are grouped together so as to cloud our view of the development of the teaching.

The present analysis of dependent-origination intends to cut through the later layers of these developments so as to reveal the earlier, perhaps original uses of the concept. The prevalent understanding of paṭiccasamuppāda is that all factors of existence depend on other factors in order to exist, nothing exists on its own, and no-thing possesses independent identity. This principle is said to apply to all mental as well as material phenomena and is summarized in the following abstract formulation:

Commonly, this formula is read as a characterization of all that exists. This view is adhered to by the vast majority of modern scholars writing on the subject as well as by traditional Buddhist teachers both ancient and modern. Specifically, it is accepted by authors who discuss early Buddhist doctrine. Many agree that Buddhism is not an ontological teaching, or was not so initially, and that its doctrinal emphasis is on the workings of the mind.⁶⁶ Nonetheless, it is generally believed that the Buddha described all things as paṭiccasamuppanna – dependently-originated. A good example is Steven Collins’s Selfless Persons, referred to above in the discussion of selflessness: “In considering the teaching of dependent origination, which Buddhism used to oppose Brahmanism on the conceptual level, it is crucially important to distinguish between the general idea of conditionality, and the 12-fold series that has come to be the traditional way in which the teaching is expressed.” Collins quotes the abstract formula and continues: “This general principle is idappaccayatā, ‘the fact of things having a specific cause,’ which is said always to be the case even when there is no Buddha to penetrate it in depth and teach the full sequence.⁶⁷ Collins’s words offer an example of the understanding that all “things” exist dependently. Many other examples can be supplied in which leading modern scholars support such a claim.⁶⁸

Another representative case is Sue Hamilton’s Early Buddhism: A New Approach, mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. As part of her claim that early Buddhism is interested in how things work, Hamilton says:

Hamilton highlights the central “subject-focused” meaning of the early Buddhist teachings. But like so many other scholars, she accepts what has become the standard presentation of dependent-origination – the doctrine is just as much about chairs and stars as about the mind. In what follows I will show that this view is misguided with regard to the earlier developmental stages of this doctrine.

The quote from Collins exemplifies a more subtle, but no less common, error: The twelve links are seen as a particular case of the more general law regarding the dependent nature of all that exists; they are taken as an expression of the abstract formula quoted above, which applies to all phenomena. In contrast, the discussion here will demonstrate that the early Buddhist texts have no concern with a general theory of “existence in dependence” or of relativity but only with conditionality as (1) the most basic feature of mental life and (2) the main determining factor in the process of rebirth. Early Buddhism was concerned with identifying the processes of conditioning as they operate in the mind, an identification that was supposed to allow for a severance of all conditioning influence, which itself was thought to equal liberation. That is, early Buddhist thought took an interest in dependent-origination as an aspect of subjective existence and as part of the broader perspective that sought liberation. Viewing paṭiccasamuppāda as a description of the nature of reality in general means investing the words of the earlier teachings with meanings derived from later Buddhist discourse.

2.4 Summary

This chapter aimed to provide an overall framework for the study of early Buddhist philosophy. It discussed three central teachings that sketch the basic contours of the early Buddhist system of thought – the unanswered questions, selflessness, and the notion of conditionality expressed through the concept of dependent-origination. While specific arguments were made regarding the way all three of these teachings have been understood in modern scholarship, it would be useful as a summary to focus on the general picture they portray and on the way they relate to the broader concerns of this study. Simply put, the discussion demonstrated that early Buddhist philosophy had little interest in abstract theory but rather concerned itself with an analysis of human existence and with the dynamics of human subjectivity. This scrutiny of mental life was embedded in a metaphysical position that accepted the reality of rebirth and believed that liberation from the round of rebirths is possible through a correct approach to mental contents; one way to do this is not to regard them as one’s self or as belonging to one’s self. This philosophy had a practical aim of leading its students to liberation by generating an attitude of detachment.

We have treated here early Buddhist philosophical doctrines that do not necessarily relate to samādhimeditation; early Buddhist philosophy was plainly not only about meditative visions. But we can easily see how experiences of Buddhist truth in samādhi are natural to the concerns of the tradition whose doctrines we discussed. Buddhist thought was interested mainly in human existence, and its main venue of inquiry was into the working of the mind. This inquiry was couched in a powerful metaphysical framework, but the analysis itself did not require belief (although Māluṅkya’s questions that lead up to the simile of the arrow hint that it was difficult to conduct with no belief). Ultimately or ideally, engagement with the philosophy was supposed to allow the people practicing it to experience liberating events. In order to produce these deeply significant moments, a profound intimacy with the observations that are at the base of the philosophical truths was required. Samādhi meditation was apparently one particularly important ground where such an acquaintance could have been cultivated and where transformative events could take place. Meditation corresponds in this case to what we would normally consider as intense study. Whatever the verdict regarding the precise role of samādhi, an extreme ideal of a lived philosophy seems to be at work.

In order to better appreciate the manner in which Buddhist philosophy is meant to be liberating, we must now begin to penetrate the world of early Buddhist meditation. This we will do in the next chapter, which focuses on the early Buddhist notion of “mindfulness,” sati. There we will see how philosophy can be integrated into one’s vision so that it becomes a spontaneous form of perception. Only a mind that has become fully receptive to Buddhist truth will be prepared to attain awakening in samādhi.