MAN-HIS UNIQUENESS AND OBLIGATION

Throughout its history Buddhism has claimed to be a path ; and since it is the nature of a path to begin and to lead somewhere, its starting point and goal are of equal importance, although it is the goal that exerts a dynamic effect upon man's actions and in so doing directs his path or

course of becoming. This goal is known by various names such as 'detachment from worldly and transworldly concerns', 'enlightenment', 'Nirvana', 'Buddhahood', and 'deliverance'. No doubt, these terms are ambiguous and what is to be understood by them may be considered from various angles. The goal may be seen on the one hand as something static and to be approached in a sense of possessiveness or, on the other, as a way of being which is active and dynamic. It is this difference in the goal-conception, the one static and the other dynamic, that marks the first great division in Buddhism : Hinayana and Mahayana. It, further, would be a great error if we were to assume that apart from this distinction the goal is something uniform. There are considerable differences of opinion and expression concerning the nature of the goal,

i.e., enlightenment, freedom, Buddhahood, in particular. In one instance deliverance means freedom from emotionally tainted responses which are felt to be the main cause for being tied to the world and for experiencing all kinds of hardships, disappointments and misery. In another case it is, in addition to the elimination of these emotional states and forces, an emancipation from the grosser forms of intellectual fog. Such a goal­

conception is, more specifically, the recognition of the idealistic premise that things external to the observer do not exist apart from his experi­ encing them. Lastly, the goal is not only freedom from emotionally upsetting states but also from all forms of intellectual fog. In its most subtle form this is the belief that things really exist instead of recognizing that the notion of things, or a thing, is something defined by a set of propositions, and that to name is not to define them but is merely a way in which we assign and use meaning-terms. This difference in the goalconception marks the second great division in Buddhism, that between Sravakayana, Pratyekabuddhayana, and Bodhisattvayana, the spiritual courses of (r) the pious listeners, (z) of the self-styled Buddhas, and (3) of those ;.vho pass beyond the turbulence of worldliness and a static transworldly quietude respectively. In philosophical terms Buddhism turns out to be a discipline that begins with a naive realism and passes through idealism to a point of view which is beyond determinate assumptions and qualifications.

This difference in the nature of the goal reflects on the starting point of the path, that is, the concrete human individual who travels the path in the light of his ideas about the goal to be attained which, on the one hand, tells him what he should be and, on the other, is nothing that he cannot be and become. The fact that the goal is not some vague abstraction which ultimately cannot mean anything, demands a new interpretation of the 'path'. The path is not a being-in-itself, something which connects two terms from which it is quite distinct, rather it is a going-to which pervades the whole of a complex manifold, from its foundation to its end. In other words, the path is a name for man's oriented becoming. This pervasiveness brings us close to the concrete, man himself. But here we face the same problem as we did when discussing the goal. Man, too, may be viewed from various angles.

It has become customary to see man as a link in the chain of living things, one among many, and to concentrate on the question of his origin, which has resulted in a mass of far-fetched hypotheses with but few isolated facts. However absorbing these speculations may be they lead away from man and avoid facing the immediately present fact of his uniqueness which cannot be derived from something else and which is at the base of his humanity, in comparison to which every other form of life seems to be a degeneration from man. Buddhism recognizes six forms of life: denizens of hell, spirits, and animals as its negative features, and men, demons, and gods as its positive ones. Even if we are reluctant to accept such a conception of life, because apart from men and animals the other forms are not physically true, they are nevertheless psychologically so, and whether we still believe in heaven and hell, man himself remains the abiding centre of interest. It is man who at any moment may degenerate into unadulterated brutishness, create hells for himself and others, and lead a shadowy existence of spiritual starvation, or may overreach himself into a state of godhood and the demoniac.

To concentrate on man in the concrete is therefore to see him in his body as he expresses himself through it. I deliberately avoid speaking of man's physical aspect in this connection, although the Buddhist texts seem to make the same distinction as we do when we speak of the physical and the mental. Such distinctions, valuable as they are for particular disciplines, more often than not blur the differences in conception which occur in various cultural settings. They tend to make us overlook the uniqueness of man, his humanity which is essentially of a psychological order because it is defined by references to certain kinds of mental processes, attitudes and actions prompted by them. Thought and action go

together, although it is the latter that is more easily perceived as it occurs in a physical setting. Hence in order not to read our categories of the mental and physical into Buddhism and then rashly judge that after all everything is the same, it is better to refer to that which would look like the physical aspect as man's active aspect as it manifests itself in his being with others. In this way we focus not so much upon what man is as how he acts. At the same time we recognize his obligation to act as a human being. Of course, he may not fulfil his obligation because to do so would necessitate a thorough awareness of his being human and it is much easier to avoid such an awareness and its inherent responsibility by seeking to justify and cling to outworn schemes of values which are assumed to have been fixed once for all by divine sanction. But this is precisely to lose one's uniqueness, to miss one's chance of being human and to succumb to the dehumanizing forces of un-knowing. However, once the awareness of being man and of the obligation it entails is awakened, we find a value that is relevant to our concrete existence here and now. This value reinforces action and binds us to it. The intimate connection between fact and value and its relation to action in the framework of human existence is clearly stated by Tsong-kha-pa who, following an old tradition, demands that eighteen qualities and conditions must be fulfilled before man can be considered a human being. Of these eight relate to the uniqueness of his being man, while the remaining ten indicate the nature of his response to stimuli in connection with his spiritual growth and development 1• Tsong-kha-pa's words are 2: "The eighteen qualities and conditions which constitute man's uniqueness and fortune must be complete, because those who live in evil forms of life are tormented by unbearable suffering and those who are among the

1 These eighteen qualities have been explained in detail in note I, p. 78 and note 3, p. 8o.

2 Tskhp II z, 84a seq. As this passage is extremely concise and as a purely literal translation (a 'crib') would not convey the meaning, the latter has been supplied from Zhdm 33b-36b, which comments on Tsong-kha-pa's dissertation. gods and in the realm of the blessed have little to be dissatisfied with. For this reason I must realize enlightenment at a time when I have the above eighteen qualities and conditions. The basis for winning enlightenment is the presence of these conditions which constitute my uniqueness and fortune. If I were to think that I could win this enlightenment when I find this unique occasion in another, future existence, I must think how hard it is to find it. "The difficulty relates both to the effect and to the cause. As to the effect, i.e., my present unique occasion, I have to think of it in relation to the different kinds of living beings and of how difficult it is to find it among those who are similar to me. In the former case, the very body of a human being appears to be a sport in comparison to the multitude of animal forms, and in the latter even among men themselves, the presence of the eighteen qualities and conditions is something exceptional.

"As to the cause of my uniqueness I have to think of the difficulty in general and in particular. In the first case it means that in order to find a human body it is necessary to store powerful, wholesome Karma, and this is very rare. In the latter case, impeccable ethics and manners as the motivating power for winning enlightenment must be present as a solid foundation, liberality and other virtues as its companions, and proper resolutions as the connecting links. And these also are something very rare.

"If I were to think that, although this human life is difficult to win, it has been achieved and will last, I have to consider its transitoriness which involves three premises: the certainty of death, the uncertainty of the hour of death, and the danger of death coming any moment without delay." With singular insight Tsong-kha-pa exposes the attitude of escape and evasion that underlies most of man's actions. Man is afraid to face the facts and prefers to think of Utopian schemes in which he will be relieved of responsibility. Tsong-kha-pa also formulates the inescapable facts and limits of our existence which, as a rule, man tries to dismiss from his considerations. He challenges the unqualified assumption that suffering achieves dignity and is a road to godhead. No doubt, suffering often acts as a powerful stimulus, but there is a limit to it. Once it passes beyond endurance it breaks man and dehumanizes him; and the infliction of suffering on others in the belief that it has a chastening effect, is an equally perverse notion. On the other hand, absence of suffering is no

stimulus to action. If there is nothing to interfere with my comfort I have no incentive to act. Moreover, as Tsong-kha-pa points out 1, this leads to a degeneration of all cognitive functions. First, all one's senses become blunted and like a fool one is unable to use one's intelligence and to discriminate. Then, in abject stupidity, one is unable to see below the surface. Therefore man is superior to each form of life, hell and heaven, by virtue of that which is lacking in the one or the other, but which he possesses by himself.

Although man is in constant danger of becoming dehumanized and of being hemmed in by death, these forces need not shatter him. It is a fallacy to think that man has been cast into the world without rhyme and reason, and that his humanity is a random happening and a sad mischance, as some Continental existentialist thinkers hold. But it is equally abortive to attempt to explain away these forces and to imagine that he lives in a friendly universe and merges his finitude with the infinity of an absolute spirit in the manner of the idealists. Both ways commit violence to man's uniqueness. The existential limits clamour for an understanding and stir us to immediate action and thereby, so to speak, enable us to transcend them.

Therefore, the contemplation of death, which is insisted upon in the texts after they have stated man's uniqueness, is not some morbid preoccupation. This would be the case if it were an end in itself. This is not so, but it serves as a reminder that it will never do for man to postpone his decisions, that any hesitation to fulfil his obligation is to lose his humanity. At the same time this contemplation challenges our tendency to consider death as something universal which, because of its universality, we avoid considering as something that might concern us now. This is but another way to escape facing our humanity and the responsibilities that go with it. Facing this problem and being aware of our obligations, in short, moral integrity, is closely connected with the thought of death. Yet death does not point to the futility of life, but to its intrinsic importance and value. Man's active aspect on the basis of the Buddhist texts therefore can be summed up as follows :

I. Man must decide here and now;

2. Man's humanity is not a mischance but the outcome of his actions;

3· Man is under obligation to act in such a way that his humanity is preserved; and

4· This is only possible if he is reminded of his humanity at every moment. Any postponement therefore may be his undoing.

Closely related to this active side of man is the intentionality of all

1 Tskhp IV r, qb.

his experiences. That is to say, in acting we are conscious of our actions as they proceed towards the goal. The end is always intentionally present before our minds and directs our actions. So also in planning and deliberating, in mapping out the course of our becoming, we are aware of the end in view and of the way to it. Here it will be important to distinguish between two kinds of knowledge and awareness which we will call the practical-theoretical and the mystic-intuitive one.

We are familar with the former and have developed it to the degree that it unites with our active tendencies. Much of that which many of us regard as guaranteed, as pure fact, is but the contribution of theory. Most of our concepts relate to a certain purpose or the thing intended, and even our sensations and feelings are full of craving and desire. This practicaltheoretical awareness is engaged in ordering a world of things and artifacts. It is not concerned with things as they are in themselves, but only with them as they are for a purpose. It is obvious that the horizon of such an awareness is necessarily restricted and its points of view rather biased.

The second kind of awareness is grounded in the conviction that we can know the real nature of the world we live in without distortion. It holds that if reality is in any sense 'behind' the appearance, there is still nothing concealed from us. We may have a direct perception of reality as it is, and since reality must appear to us if we are to know it, its appearance is exactly as it is and not a mere shadow or semblance of something unknowable in itself. Thus there is a tremendous difference between the

conception of the function of this mystic-intuitive awareness and the doctrine of the Unknowable. This direct knowledge of the real, which is claimed both by intuitionism and mysticism (which has nothing to do with mystification and the occult of the mystery-monger), is gained only after arduous practice, when detachment from all practical concerns and situations has been achieved and an unrestricted perspective been won. However, its attainment is of primary importance, because its insights give us more accurate and adequate knowledge of the thing in question than the practical awareness with its relation to a restricted purpose is ever able to do. In the last analysis even the development of practical awareness does not aim at the ownership or possession of things, rather it seeks an intentional union with them. Therefore to pursue this knowledge does not mean to realize one's oneness with the Absolute, since the Absolute is not known objectively but is the subject of the knower. Certainly such self-union does not involve any knowledge, because knowledge implies a known and a knower. The mystic-intuitive awareness, however, involves an object and always includes an aspect of duality which is transcended in what is called the noetic union. This means that the noetic act which is grounded in the knowing agent and exists as an indeterminate relational form is terminated by the object having its own ground, with which formal identity is achieved. The mystic-intuitive

awareness is and remains relational in structure. What these two types of knowledge give us is called the 'conventionally true' and the 'ultimately true' respectively. They never occur in isolation and, in a sense, are the beginning of the noetic enterprise of man. However

unless fully developed their union is vague and confused. It is only by knowing the real through the mystic-intuitive knowledge that we can know the conventionally true which may enable us to act in a proper way. In other words, intuition and practical thought must go together. In Buddhism, unlike in Kantianism and certain trends in modern existentialism, the development of the mystic-intuitive knowledge is of primary importance and that of the practical awareness is subordinate to it. The development of the former has its effect on the latter, and it is in the area concerned with an understanding of that which is meant by the conventionally true that we meet with different interpretations according to the different philosophical trends in Buddhism. There have been four great philosophical schools, all of which are still

(or were) studied in Tibet. They are the Vaibha!?ikas representing a naive realism, the Sautrantikas with a critical realism, the Vijfianavadins who are very similar to the idealistic-mentalistic thinkers in Western philosophy, and the Madhyamikas. The latter divide into two groups, the Svatantrikas who still upheld the idea of an essence, and the Prasangikas who instead advocated a philosophy which superficially looks like nominalism. The three latter trends have, each in its own way, been favoured by the four great Tibetan schools. The dGe-lugs-pas adopted the viewpoint of the Prasangikas as did the early bKa' -brgyud-pas ; the Sa-skya-pas favoured the Svatantrikas and on the whole became very eclectic; and the rNying-ma-pas attempted a harmonious unity of the Vijfianavada and the Madhyamika philosophies. According to this division, for the Prasangikas to understand the conventionally true means to comprehend that the things we encounter do not exist apart from our giving them names in the manner which L. Wittgenstein would call the 'language game'. For the Svatantrikas it means that although things do not really exist, they have a sort of apparitional existence and quality; and for the Vijfianavadins it means that things do not exist as objects external to the observer but experientially-propositionally. Such a variety

of conceptions cannot but have a strong effect on the way we deal with 'things', and naturally on the idea we have of ourselves. This noetic enterprise, which aims at finding an unbiased point of view and therefore is essentially important for man's acting as a human being instead of floundering along among ideas about what might be, and so doing himself more harm than good, consists of three major steps. Tsong-kha-pa declares : "The noetic enterprise is subsumed under the topics of (r) detachment from practical concerns, (z) the development of an enlightened attitude, and (3) an unbiased outlook.

"That which is the positive factor for attaining deliverance and omniscience must be considered as constituting these three topics or as being supported by them. Although the two last are the motivating powers for winning omniscience, one speaks of three such powers by assigning them, too, a certain power. This is so because once detachment is in the process of being effected all the elements forming the causal situation of winning supreme enlightenment are forthwith understood. If there is no feeling of disgust, overpowering the addiction to the pleasures and riches of the world, there will be no active interest in deliverance, and hence detachment has to be practised; and if there is no concern for others, although there be detachment and an active interest in deliverance, it will not become the motivating power of winning enlightenment. Hence an enlightened attitude has to be developed. Although these two direct the mind towards omniscience and deliverance, they are unable to break the belief in an ego, and hence an unbiased outlook has to be won. But since there is no certainty about the mental level of individuals, there is also none about the order of these topics.

"In addition to this consideration of the reason for practising these three topics, detachment, first of all, consists in finding fault with the desire for self-assertion, since this is the root of all fancies. Then, in order to banish the desire for the world, one has to think of the misery of the world in general by taking into account two kinds, that of potential misery and that of change, and in particular that of misery itself; one has to feel that about which one thinks. Lastly, in order to apply oneself to good and avoid evil, one must consider the fact that happiness and sorrow derive from good and bad actions, and in direct experience one must understand the infallible relation between the cause and effect of one's actions. By practising this for a long time, one will feel disgusted

with the world in the sense that one wants to be separated from it; and once this feeling is present, detachment as the desire for deliverance comes by itself." Two points have to be noted in particular. An 'enlightened attitude' is qualified as 'supreme'. This is to emphasize the Mahayanist conception of enlightenment as an active and dynamic way of being, and not the static ideal of the Sravakas and Pratyekabuddhas who each have their own idea of what enlightenment may mean, namely the expulsion of all that obstructs integration and the attainment of all that furthers it. In a very restricted sense, to develop an enlightened attitude means to become and remain goal-conscious.

The other point to note is the rejection of any belief in an ego or self. The Tibetan term (bdag-med) is more comprehensive as it relates to any form of ontological ideas, be they in connection with a personal self or objects of nature. The rejection of an individual self or a Pure Ego is common to all the philosophical schools mentioned above, for whom, with the exception of the Prasangikas, the belief in a Pure Ego is the coarse or crude form of the belief in a self, while the subtle one is belief in a self inseparably connected with a person as a sort of self-sufficient substance holding together the various constituents of an individual's body-mind. This subtle belief is for the Prasangikas a coarse one, because they reject any ontological conception. In order to achieve all this man needs 'spiritual friends', who are any persons from whom we can learn. It is important that we meet true friends who set us on a positive way so that we walk towards a positive goal that promises to help and benefit others. To follow spiritual friends presupposes a trust, which implies on the one hand that it is the Buddha who speaks through them and that the more we learn and understand the more we share their favours. To be favoured by Buddhas means to gain deeper understanding of reality. It is never an unmerited favour or grace. On the other hand, this trust is also a readiness and willingness to follow the advice of spiritual friends in a sort of thanksgiving for all that they have done and are still doing for us •