A Pause for Metaphysics

Last updated on: October 5, 2009 at 3:45 am by Justin Whitaker

A Pause for Metaphysics 2009-10-05T03:45:00-06:00 Justin Whitaker

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Some people like to say the Buddha didn’t do metaphysics. Or that he did ontology instead of metaphysics, with some idea that ontology is necessary and useful while metaphysics is just a bunch of empty speculation.

So I open up a couple dictionaries of philosophy to ontology and get the following entry: see metaphysics. Granted, other dictionaries do define ontology as a subfield of metaphysics, but even then the definition doesn’t support the idea that ontology is inherently useful and metaphysics is mere abstractions. Rather, the fine points suggest that ontology is the study of what is and is not real in the nature of things and metaphysics is, more broadly, the study of the ultimate nature of things.

Was the Buddha concerned with what is and is not real? Yes. Was he concerned with the ultimate nature of things? Double-yes. Of course there ARE things that are unwise to speculate about, as evidenced by the Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta, where we find the famous Parable of the Arrow. The positions in question there are:

‘The cosmos is eternal,’ ‘The cosmos is not eternal,’
‘The cosmos is finite,’ ‘The cosmos is infinite,’
‘The soul & the body are the same,’ ‘The soul is one thing and the body another,’
‘After death a Tathagata exists,’ ‘After death a Tathagata does not exist,’
‘After death a Tathagata both exists & does not exist,’ ‘After death a Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist’

I think there was also one about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but that must have been edited out at some point.

The Buddha says that these things are “undeclared” by him because: “they are not connected with the goal, are not fundamental to the holy life. They do not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, calming, direct knowledge, self-awakening, Unbinding. That’s why they are undeclared by me.”

The Buddha also at many times states that he teaches “suffering and the end of suffering.” But, we cannot simply run with those and believe that the Buddha never discussed things like magical abilities, cosmology, the soul or “Self” and so on. He did. He just did so in a way that was useful (for the alleviation of suffering).

So, with such odd things (for us) as karma, the Buddha said that the path begins with Right View and “Right view on this level means believing in the principle of kamma and trusting that those who have practiced properly truly understand the workings of kamma in this life and the next.” (from here) And from kamma we move to ideas of Buddhist cosmology and so on…

To me this all points to the need to understand the nature of things as they truly are, “ti yathābhūtam pajānāmi.” While for many this points to the Buddha and his life primarily and his teachings only secondarily, for me it points very clearly at the Dhamma, which could mean simply “teachings” but could go further to mean the nature of things or reality writ large. As stated in the Saṃyutta Nikāya II 25ff:

‘…whether there is an arising of Tathāgatas or no arising of Tathāgatas, that element still persists, the stableness of the Dhamma, the fixed course of the Dhamma, specific conditionality. A Tathāgata awakens to this and breaks through to it. Having done so, he explains it, teaches it, proclaims it, establishes it, discloses it, analyses it, elucidates it.’

So this speculation on or pointing toward the immensity of the regularity of the Dhamma itself, of conditionality specifically, is very much a Buddhist teaching. It’s definitely abstract – at least at first – but it’s also definitely important.

The above, nearly verbatim, is restated in the “Dhamma-niyama Sutta: The Discourse on the Orderliness of the Dhamma.” Interestingly, this is picked up in Nyanatiloka Thera’s Buddhist Dictionary under the entry for

* ti-lakkhana

the ‘3 characteristics of existence’, or signata, are impermanency (anicca), suffering or misery (dukkha; s. sacca, dukkhatā), not-self (anattā).

“Whether Perfect Ones appear in the world, or whether Perfect Ones do not appear in the world, it still remains a firm condition, an immutable fact and fixed law: that all formations are impermanent, that all formations are subject to suffering, that everything is without a self” (A. III, 134).

“What do you think, o monks: Is corporeality (rūpa) permanent or impermanent? – Impermanent, o Venerable One. – Are feeling (vedanā), perception (saññā), mental formations (sankhāra) and consciousness (viññāna), permanent or impermanent? – Impermanent, o Venerable One.

“But that which is impermanent, is it something pleasant or painful? – It is painful, o Venerable One.

“But, of what is impermanent, painful and subject to change, could it be rightly said, ‘This belongs to me, this am I, this is my ego’? – No, Venerable One.

“Therefore, whatever there is of corporeality, feeling, perception, mental formations and consciousness, whether past, present or future, one’s own or external, gross or subtle, lofty or low, far or near, of all these things one should understand, according to reality and true wisdom: ‘This does not belong to me, this am I not, this is not my ego’ ” (S. XXII, 59).

“In one who understands eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and all the remaining formations as impermanent, painful and not-self, in him the fetters (samyojana, q.v.) are dissolved” (S. XXXV, 53).

It is the full comprehension of the 3 characteristics by direct meditative experience which constitutes liberating insight. About their relation to the three gateways ot liberation’, s. vimokkha I .

For further details, s. anicca, dukkha, anattā, vipassanā.

Literature:

* The Three Signata, by Prof. O. H. de A. Wijesekera (WHEEL 20). –

* The Three Basic Facts of Existence: I-III (WHEEL BPS),

* Vis.M. XX, 13ff. 18ff; XXI, 47f, 67f.

So…. while questions of the (in)finitude of the cosmos and the continuation of the Tathāgata (and perhaps some others here and there) may be deemed inappropriate speculation, other, equally metaphysical questions are indeed addressed (to the benefit of all….).

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