THE PATH AND THE GOAL - 4

When Buddhism declares that it is a path leading to a goal that is realizable by man, it always insists on knowledge born of the desire to cultivate and refine the personality and of the need to find deliverance, both of which go together and are deeply felt as they develop and grow in the individual. In recent times these two kinds of knowledge have been pushed more and more into the background so as to give preference to knowledge which aims at domination over external nature and at stream­

lining individual thought and action into rigidly fixed mass patterns. As a consequence, philosophers who have been fascinated by the obvious achievements of science, have felt tempted to restrict knowledge to a discursive treatment of diverse subjects and to barren statements that something is the case. Such a narrow view (narrow because there are many meanings to 'knowledge' all of which are important as they

contribute to its unique valuableness) ignores the growing sense of vital insecurity. It fails completely to account for the ever-present quest for that kind of knowledge which, even if it does not conform to the discursive pattern and to the shallow chatter by which anything can be said in such a way that nothing significant has been said, bears on human existence as a whole, makes for contentment and happiness and enables man to lead a richer life. There is certainly a good deal of feeling in this kind of knowledge, but it would be a grave mistake to dismiss it as mere 'feeling somehow'. Indeed, this would be a dangerous misinterpretation and nothing but sentimentalism and emotionalism could come out of it. Feelings are never purely subjective sensations that are pleasant or unpleasant, they are transitive in the sense that they constantly reveal the situation of which I am the centre and, above all, how it is going with me, which is so important in pursuing the path of self-development and spiritual growth. The unity of feelings and cognitions is always implied by the Buddhist 'path', where path is a comprehensive term for what in abstract language we call goal-consciousness and goal-directed

striving and development • However, as has been pointed out befor, there are considerable differences in the ideas about what the goal is to be, even if all Buddhist schools of thought agree that deliverance and the well-integrated personality are the main objectives. In Hinayana, deliverance means freedom from emotional upsets which are considered to be the main cause for man becoming involved in Sarpsara, for continuously being driven from one existence to another with no independence because he is in the grip of his passions which he cherishes instead of examining them critically. Here the integrated personality is the Arhant or saintly sage who, as the indigenous interpretation of the word shows, 'has slain the foe' of whishfulness and emotivity. As this goal-conception is extremely self-centred it has a strong quietistic, if not negative, flavour and therefore has become the target of the Mahayanist critique.

For the Mahayanist the goal is nothing less than the attainment of Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings so as to be able to help them to find their way to the goal, which always remains a personal achievement and is never a fortuitous gift or an unmerited favour. Buddhahood, negatively speaking, is the elimination of everything emotionally upsetting, not only in its actuality but, even more important, in its latency, as well as the removal of every kind of all intellectual fog. Positively speaking, it is the attainment of everything ennobling and, in particular, the realization of those existential norms which are active and dynamic ways of being, rather than determinate traits and properties fixed once for all. While the Mahayanists agree on this idea of Buddhahood, there are again considerable differences in that which is to be counted as emotional disturbances and as intellectual fog. Buddhism has always been a dynamic way of thinking and therefore has rejected any static conception of man and the universe. Throughout its history it has denied the validity of ontology because it clearly saw that, although ontology pretends to be a doctrine of being itself as such, it has always turned out to be the doctrine of a particular being within Being. Out of this recognition and conviction the Prasangikas considered that any belief in an ontological status of a self or of a thing other than

the self is an emotional disturbance, while the belief in any such ontological postulate as something existing in truth or being the last word in philosophical thinking is intellectual fog. More precisely, it is the tendency to such a belief that constitutes intellectual fog, the actual belief already 42 partaking of emotivity. For the Svatantrikas the belief in an ontological status of a self is wishfulness and emotivity, while intellectual fog is the belief in the ontological status of things other than the self, as well as the belief in anything, be this a self or an object of nature, as existing in truth. And for the Vijfianavadins belief in a self is emotivity, and belief in things as existing apart from their being experienced, constitutes intellectual fog. Whether we speak of the Hinayanists' path as travelled by Sravakas

(pious listeners) and Pratyekabuddhas (self-styled Buddhas), or of the Mahayanist's one as traversed by the superior type of man, the path begins when the need to find deliverance and sainthood or Buddhahood, as the case may be, is really felt by the individual. In Mahayana the path opens simultaneously with the development of an enlightened attitude, rooted in unbounded compassion or the intention that all sentient beings may be freed from suffering. Such an attitude reflects the beginning of a marked change in the personality as it indicates the shift from selfcentred isolation to wider communication with others. Above all it is the decision to follow a human and humane road. In Hinayana the path unfolds when the individual begins to detach himself from his preoccupation with worldly (and transworldly) affairs by having seen all these projects to be like a blazing fire that threatens to consume the last trace of his humanity. This Buddhist path of self-development, which culminates in an integrated personality and in the deliverance from outer and inner obstacles, comprises five stages, each of which is termed a 'path', because it leads to and merges in the subsequent phase as its goal. The path is therefore not an inert rod linking two equally inert terms, but a pervasive process. The first four phases or 'paths' are called 'the path of learning'. Its first two stages, 'the preparatory path' and 'the connecting path', belong to the level of the ordinary person, while the third and fourth stages, 'the path of seeing' and 'the path of attending to the seen', can only be travelled by the advanced person who ultimately sets out on the 'path of no more learning' and realizes his goal. Learning begins with the acquisition of knowledge, which is always knowledge as it bears on human existence. This implies the use of one's intelligence (though not in the sense of an ability to perform tests that can be measured quantitatively and expressed as a percentage. Such a conception of intelligence ranks very low because, more often than not, persons with a high IQ are utterly unintelligent where there humanity is involved). 'Existential' knowledge is acquired in a social environment, 43

and this social aspect is indicated by the 'acquisition of merits'. Both merits and existential knowledge reinforce each other and are futile if the individual who stores them fails to gain insight and understanding of his humanity. The moment when we feel goal-conscious and become aware of our humanity is called 'the preparatory path', because we are ready to respond, perceive, think and feel in a rather persistent and particular way towards an object. In other words, since in mapping out the road of our becoming we do not become aware of objects but of projects, we are ready to deal with these projects in which we objectify ourselves as we are going to be, while at the same time being aware of ourselves as acting and thinking. As a deeply felt concern with a value it is an incentive to sustained action and this leads to the second stage, 'the connecting path'. This second stage is so called because it connects the initial readiness to attain a goal with the actual approach to it, which is a growing insight the object of which varies according to the goal-conception of Sravakas, Pratyekabuddhas and Bodhisattvas. This 'connecting path' is marked by a release of 'warmer' feelings which serve to reinforce mental life and conduct. Although it is here that the elimination of wishfulness and emotivity, and in the case of the Mahayanists also of intellectual fog, begins in the sense that these dominating forces lose strength, this loss does not, as is often assumed, lead to a state of emotional undernourishment and intellectual blankness. Rather it produces a heightened perceptivity and responsiveness which is all the more satisfactory because the disturbing and upsetting elements are in the course of being eliminated. Four degrees of intensity are distinguished and its comparison with fire shows that the warmer feelings that are released give added

strength to the process already under way. As a pervasive process this 'connecting path' initiates 'the path of seeing' which is the most decisive event in the course of development. The four intensity degrees of the 'connecting path' are called 'warmth' because the frozenness of one's self-centredness is gradually melting and, as the texts declare, warmth is the sign that fire has been kindled. 'Before this warmth sets in, whatever there may be of the good and wholesome is likely to be destroyed by anger and emotional outbreaks, but when the 'peak value' (the second intensity degree) of this fire has been reached no good can be destroyed. One speaks of a 'peak value' because like a fire the good and wholesome leaps up into a tapering flame. This is also said to be the attainment of a level which is beyond the hazard of good being destroyed. The newly won acceptance of reality which is not afraid 44 of its being no-thing-ness, the profound nature of reality, is called 'patient acceptance'. It is also said to be the attainment of a state beyond the misery of passing through unhappy forms of life which are created by the power of actions and emotional states. 'Sublimity' is so called because it is the most exalted kind of worldly good" , and it is from here that the individual who has set out on the path, is lifted from the status of an ordinary person to that of an advanced one.

There is already a good deal of psychological insight in that which is called 'the connecting path' ; as a matter of fact, to deal with the Buddhist path from any other point of view than a psycholocial one is bound to make it unintelligible. It is a recognized fact that 'warmer' feelings have a wide range of effects upon the ideas, attitudes and habits of the indi­ vidual and above all serve to facilitate all sorts of learning processes. Thereby they provide a solid basis for further goal-directed activity. The 'colder' feelings of anger and hatred are definitely associated with a frustration of the impulse towards a goal and they block any on-going activity so that the individual is thrown back and has to start all over again. 'Acceptance' is a further step in the direction of the goal, although it is not yet an intimately felt experience which evolves out of the 'sublimity' stage of the 'connecting path', and only happens on the 'path of seeing'. It is by the 'path of seeing' that one experiences no-thing-ness directly and it is its vision that releases a series of psychological processes. This no-thing-ness, which can be known by experiencing it, has been given

different qualifications by the various Buddhist schools of thought in their attempt to convey its meaning to those who would like to have the experience. In so doing they all agree that this can be done only negatively; one can tell what it is not ; but one cannot tell what it is. Actually, one cannot even say what it is not, because this might suggest that even after all determinate qualifications have been negated, something determinate is left. Not to be this or that is, as most Buddhists would assert, a sort of half-hearted negation which comes dangerously close to a clandestine reintroduction of ontology into Buddhism. That such an interpretation of no-thing-ness has happened is shown by the writings of Jo-nang-pa Dol-po Shes-rab rgyal-mtshan (rzgz-r36r A.D.) and his successors • While this interpretation has been accepted by the later bKa' -brgyud-pas and some of the Sa-skya-pas, such as Shakya 45 mchog-ldan (1428-I507 A.D.), generally it has been rejected by the dGelugs-pas. (The rNying-ma-pas also did not favour this interpretation, but since their philosophy shows individual traits no generalization is possible.) Because of the difficulty of conceptualizing that which can be known only by direct experience, although the concept must enter in

any discussions, I have rendered the technical term siinyata (Tibetan : stong-pa-nyid) by 'no-thing-ness' and hyphenated the word so as to point to its being no thing and hence nothing from our ordinary mode of thinking which moves in terms of things. The attempts to convey something of its significance are as varied as the various schools of thought in Buddhism. For the Prasangikas no-thing-ness is the non-existence of a self and of a thing except for the christening ceremony which is not the use of the name for the thing or self at all, but merely the way in which we give it a use. The Svatantrikas were divided into the YogacaraMadhyamika-Svatantrikas (starting from the phenomenalistic-mentalistic interpretation of the Vijfianavadins disclaiming the existence of objects external to the observer) and the Sautrantika-Madhyamika-Svatantrikas (basing themselves on the critical realism of the Sautrantikas who had criticized the naive realism of the Vaibha$ikas). The former declared that a Sravaka realizes the 'subtle' non-existence of a self, the Pratyekabuddha the 'coarse' non-existence of the things other than the self, and the Bodhisattvas or Mahayanists the non-existence of a self and of things as being something existing in truth. The latter declared that Sravakas and Pratyekabuddhas both realize the subtle nature of a self (and since they accepted things as existing apart from their being experienced, though not as true existents, Mahayanists followed the general Svatantrika doctrine). According to the Vijfianavadins both Sravakas and Pratyekabuddhas realize the subtle non-existence of the self, while Mahayanists realize the non-existence of things apart from their being experienced 1.

The distinction between a 'coarse' and 'subtle' non-existence of a self or of a thing is a carry-over from the distinction into a 'coarse' and 'subtle' idea of the existence of a self or a thing. In order to account for Buddhist Ontologists According to the Grub mtha' sel gyi me lon (JAOS, vol. 83, 1 Tskhp VII r, srb seq. The interpretation of no-thing-ness by Shin-ichi Risamatu, The Characteristics of Oriental Nothingness (in Philosophical Studies of] apan· Compiled by Japanese National Commission for Unesco. Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, 1960, vol. II, pp. 66 seq.) brings several aspects, which are clearly separated in the Tibetan tradition, together.

the unity of a mind (or a self) two great groups of theories have been developed, namely, Centre-Theories and Non-centre-Theories. According to C.D. Broad, "By a centre-theory I mean a theory which ascribes the unity of the mind to the fact that there is a certain particular existent - a Centre - which stands in a common asymmetrical relation to all the mental events which would be said to be states of a certain mind, and does not stand in this relation to any mental events which would not be said to be states of this mind. By a non-centre theory I mean one which denies the existence of any such particular Centre, and ascribes the unity of the mind to the fact that certain mental events are directly inter-related in certain characteristic ways, and that other mental events are not related to these in the peculiar way in which these are related

to each other "1• Now it is obvious that Buddhism has always been favouring a noncentre theory. However, since Buddhism, did not develop in a vacuum but was confronted by other philosophical systems, its critique of these other theories regarding the unity of the mind was based on the subdivision of centre theories into Pure Ego theories and theories which do not assume a Pure Ego. Here, too, I quote C.D. Broad, as he gives the most lucid account of the possible divisions : ((By a Pure Ego I understand a particular existent which is of a different kind from any event ; it owns various events, but it is not itself an event. No doubt the commonest form of the Centre theory has involved a Pure Ego. But it seems conceivable that this unity of the mind might be due to the existence of a Centre, and yet that this centre might itself be an event " 2• Such a central-event theory is ua kind of half-way between Pure Ego theories and Non-Centre theories of the mind. They resemble Pure Ego theories in the fact that the unity of the total mental state at any moment depends on a common relation in which all its differentiations stand to a common Centre. They resemble Non-Centre theories in the fact that this Centre is itself an event and not a peculiar kind of existent substantive; it is of the same nature as the events which it unifies 3• This distinction is at the bottom of the Buddhist differentiation into a 'coarse' and a 'subtle' theory about the self. The 'coarse' one is the assumption of a Pure Ego or the belief in a centre as being different from

1 C.D. Broad, The 1\-1ind and Its Place in Nature. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. (Sixth Impression), p. 558. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid., p. 566. 47 the events which it unites, while the 'subtle' one is the belief in such a centre as being an event of a 'self-sufficient substance', as this event is termed in the original texts. This latter belief was held by the Vatsiputriyas, who were a sub-division of the Sarvastivadins out of whom the Vaibha$ikas developed. Although they believed in a centre they were still counted as Buddhists because they, too, rejected a Pure Ego or Atman theory. Moreover, their conception of the centre as an event did not contradict the general Buddhist conception of the transitoriness of everything determinate.

The 'coarse' non-existence of things is their non-existence apart from their being experienced, which was the thesis of the Vijfianavadins who, of course, did not call this idea a 'coarse' one. The 'subtle' one is the non-existence of things in truth, as professed by the Prasangikas and Svatantrikas. Regardless of whatever meaning may be given to no-thing-ness, its immediate experience on the 'path of seeing' initiates the elimination of emotionally upsetting factors which in Mahayana is supplemented by the elimination of intellectually-cognitively disturbing ones as well. The 'path of seeing' is a complex psychological process and its beginning is marked by a 'composure awareness' which is concentrated on no-thing­ ness. This clearly shows that the 'path' in Buddhism as a cognitive process has an intentional structure, no-thing-ness being the intentional object of the knowing agent who in the act of knowing achieves cognitive union with this object. This composure awareness brings about the elimination of the disturbing factors by means of its 'obstacle-removing' phase which

is followed by a 'free-moving' one in which the elimination has been effected. Both phases are accompanied by a psychological process which cannot be determined as either obstacle-removing or freemoving. It is, however, this process which guarantees its continuity by letting the 'composure awareness' pass into its subsequent 'continual awareness' which, in turn, is followed by a phase which is neither composure nor continual and thereby merges into the 'path of attending to the seen'. This latter 'path' is as complex a process as the 'path of seeing'. In its last phase it merges into the 'path of no more learning' by which the goal has been attained. The emotivity which is eliminated by the obstacle-removing phase and which is no longer a danger when the free-moving phase has been reached (the first phase is likened to the catching of a thief and the second one to throwing him out of the house and locking the door) bears on the four truths in Buddhism which, by seeing no-thing-ness, can be accepted

whole-heartedly. These four truths are those of misery and of the origin of misery (which are emotively toned responses and karmic actions) and their countering truths of the end of all misery and the way to it. Each pair stands in the relation of cause and effect, but the order has been reversed for a special reason. Unless the fact is brought home to us that all that to which we are accustomed and take for granted is unsatisfactory, we will never feel called upon to do something in order to end this state of affairs. The Fifth Dalai Lama illustrates the four truths as follows : ((When one stands in a dry place and it should happen that one's body, clothes and other belongings get drenched by water and one shivers with cold, this is the truth of misery. The certainty that this water has come from a certain place, when one has investigated its approach, is the truth of the origin of misery. Ridding oneself of the feeling of cold is the truth of the end of misery. The work of diverting the flow of the water, as a means of getting rid of the feeling of cold, is the truth of the path (to the end of misery) .

The whole-hearted acceptance of these truths eliminates the emotively toned responses to that which they sum up. These responses comprise both feeling-emotional and intellectual-emotional ones such as passion and hatred, feeling of superiority and preconceived ideas about that which we encounter. Through the elimination of these emotional responses the <acceptance' of the truths becomes a directly felt cognition'. This is indicated by the statement that the <acceptance' of the truths happens on the obstacle-removing path and their cognition' on the free-moving one • There is a marked difference between the first phase or <composure awareness' of the <path of seeing' and its subsequent one or continual awareness'. The former is an immediate apprehension of no-thing-ness, while the latter is a judgment of perception. However, this difference holds only for the learner' who still has to travel the 'path of attending to the seen' and 'the path of no more learning'. For him who is on the Buddha level from where he sees reality as it is, both phases, composure awareness and continual awareness, are of the same nature. This means chat the vividness of the experience of seeing is kept alive throughout. Only when this happens should one speak of the indivisibility of nothing-ness and apparitionalness. Things are nothing in themselves, but this does not imply that there is nothing. Furthermore, for the Prasan- 49 gikas, judgment of perception is a valid cognition ; not so for the Svatantrikas who relegate all such judgments to the realm of an erring mind. The intellectual fog which has to be eliminated by a Mahayanist in addition to that of emotivity and wishfulness, relates to the subjectobject mode of thinking which prevents us from apprehending things directly as they are in and for themselves, because this mode of thinking is always mixed up with appetance and with purposefulness. Things or persons, here, are not ends in themselves, but are there for a purpose, for use (and misuse) for a definite (and mostly absurd) end. In this subjectobject dichotomy the subject and object are bound together in such a way that the one cannot be without the other. Hence whatever I experience resides in the whole of this subject-object dichotomy, never only in one term. Ordinarily we are always involved in the objects of our thoughts and in the projects which relate to how we are going to be. These projects are never without alternatives. There is that which arouses emotively toned responses directly or indirectly. For this reason the objective pole of this subject-object structure is divided into two alterna­

tives, one of which brings about an emotional situation immediately and one which remedies it. In order to go beyond the subject-object dichotomy and to become free from the involvements in one's projects one first has to bring the biased project clearly before one's eyes or, in psychological terms and as detailed by C.G. Jung in his many writings, to tackle the disturbing emotional situation and, in its cognition for what it is, to be freed from the hold it has over us. This, in most cases, first means a resort to the antidote of the existing emotional situation. The antidote, however, if not recognized for what it is, may become an emotional situation as fatal as the one it attempts to combat. Therefore both aspects of the objective pole have to be recognized in their relation to each other. In becoming aware of our projects with their alternatives we are also aware of ourselves as projecting. That is, we can distinguish between our projects and our conceiving and judging them. The subjective pole is therefore subdivided also into two projecting modes, the one concretizing and substantializing, the other conceptualizing and abstracting.

The elimination of wishfulness and emotivity as well as that of intellectual fog is effected by the 'path of seeing' and the 'path of attending to the seen'. By means of the former those disturbing elements are removed which are rather extraneous inasmuch as they are those to which we have been 'conditioned' by our up-bringing, while by the latter those which are co-emergent with the developing subject-object dichotomy so are abolished. With the complete removal of everything preventing the immediate apprehension of reality and of keeping its vivid experience alive, be this emotional or intellectual, the 'path of no more learning' has been reached and the goal attained.

The 'path' in Buddhism is essentially the account of man's growth, one important feature of which is the integration of the personality. The path depends on the concept which the individual has of himself, and so does the development of character, of religious, moral and social values, because that which a person thinks of himself cannot fail to affect his level of aspiration and his interaction with others at every turn. This goal-consciousness must be reinforced by a constantly growing appreciation of values in terms of which the worth-whileness of certain experiences and the superficial character of others can be estimated. This happens by developing the capacity to 'see' from a point of view which is removed from all presuppositions. This view realizes that things are not entities fixed once for all, that there is not an essence through which something is what it is ; and in this realization it also abolishes the last trace of the belief in something as existing in truth. As Tsong-khapa declares : ((In order to abolish the tendency to believe in something as existing in truth, which is the root of Sa:rrsara, not only must one intuit no-thing-ness by which one understands that the psycho-physical constituents of our being have no being of their own, there also must be present the intellectual acumen which understands this non-existence of an essence, in order to cut the fetters of emotional responses and karmic actions that tie us to Sa:rrsara" 1. Thus, the 'path' leads to self-realization, to Buddhahood as the highest and most sublime idea of man (not an ideal because ideals may break), and the vision of no-thing-ness, the 'middle view', takes the sting out of Sa:rrsara.