86-459: Mindstream ( citta-santāna ) in Buddhist philosophy is the moment-to-moment continuum (Sanskrit: saṃtāna ) of sense impressions and mental phenomena, which is also described as continuing from one life to another. Citta-saṃtāna (Sanskrit), literally "the stream of mind", is the stream of succeeding moments of mind or awareness. It provides a continuity of the personality in the absence of
172-462: A "stream" represented a reified self. Dharmakīrti (fl. 7th century) wrote a treatise on the nature of the mind stream in his Substantiation of Other mind streams ( Saṃtãnãntarasiddhi ). According to Dharmakirti the mind stream was beginningless temporal sequence. The notion of mind stream was further developed in Vajrayāna (tantric Buddhism), where "mind stream" ( sems-rgyud ) may be understood as
258-569: A few place him earlier. Dharmakirti is credited with building upon the work of Dignāga , the pioneer of Buddhist logic , and Dharmakirti has ever since been seen as influential in the Buddhist tradition. His theories became normative in Tibet and are studied to this day as a part of the basic monastic curriculum. The Tibetan tradition considers that Dharmakīrti was ordained as a Buddhist monk at Nālandā by Dharmapāla . In his writings, we find
344-481: A finger can point at other things but not at itself, etc.). This means then, that the self could never desire to change itself and could not do so; another reason for this is that, besides Buddhism, in the orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy the unchanging ultimate self ( ātman ) is perfectly blissful and does not suffer. The historical Buddha used this idea to attack the concept of self. This argument could be structured thus: This argument then denies that there
430-593: A form of pragmatism . However, K. N. Jayatilleke argues the Buddha's epistemology can also be taken to be a form of correspondence theory (as per the Apannaka Sutta ) with elements of coherentism , and that for the Buddha it is causally impossible for something which is false to lead to cessation of suffering and evil. Gautama Buddha discouraged his disciples and early followers of Buddhism from indulging in intellectual disputation for its own sake, which
516-421: A means to liberation or salvation. It was a tacit assumption with these systems that if their philosophy were correctly understood and assimilated, an unconditioned state free of suffering and limitation could be achieved. [...] If this fact is overlooked, as often happens as a result of the propensity engendered by formal Occidental philosophy to consider the philosophical enterprise as a purely descriptive one,
602-447: A multitude of Buddhist paths to liberation ; with the expansion of early Buddhism from ancient India to Sri Lanka and subsequently to East Asia and Southeast Asia , Buddhist thinkers have covered topics as varied as cosmology , ethics , epistemology , logic , metaphysics , ontology , phenomenology , the philosophy of mind , the philosophy of time , and soteriology in their analysis of these paths. Pre-sectarian Buddhism
688-464: A permanently abiding "self" ( ātman ), which Buddhism denies. The mindstream provides a continuity from one life to another, akin to the flame of a candle which may be passed from one candle to another: William Waldron writes that "Indian Buddhists see the 'evolution' of mind i[n] terms of the continuity of individual mind-streams from one lifetime to the next, with karma as the basic causal mechanism whereby transformations are transmitted from one life to
774-450: A pragmatic point of view, it is best to abstain from these negative actions which bring forth negative results. However, the important word here is intentionally : for the Buddha, karma is nothing else but intention/volition, and hence unintentionally harming someone does not create bad karmic results. Unlike the Jains who believed that karma was a quasi-physical element, for the Buddha karma
860-463: A single religious founder. While the focus of the Buddha's teachings is about attaining the highest good of nirvāṇa , they also contain an analysis of the source of human suffering ( duḥkha ), the nature of personal identity ( ātman ), and the process of acquiring knowledge ( prajña ) about the world. The Buddha defined his teaching as " the Middle Way " ( Pāli : majjhimāpaṭipadā ). In
946-408: A slightly later period that still preceded the final redactions of the various Buddhist canons." According to some scholars, the philosophical outlook of earliest Buddhism was primarily negative, in the sense that it focused on what doctrines to reject and let go of more than on what doctrines to accept . Only knowledge that is useful in attaining liberation is valued. According to this theory,
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#17327654357491032-449: A stream of succeeding moments, within a lifetime, but also in-between lifetimes. The 14th Dalai Lama holds it to be a continuum of consciousness, extending over succeeding lifetimes, though without a self or soul. Buddhist philosophy [REDACTED] Religion portal Buddhist philosophy is the ancient Indian philosophical system that developed within the religio-philosophical tradition of Buddhism . It comprises all
1118-403: A writhing of views, a fetter of views". One explanation for this pragmatic suspension of judgment or epistemic Epoché is that such questions contribute nothing to the practical methods of realizing awakeness during one's lifetime and bring about the danger of substituting the experience of liberation by a conceptual understanding of the doctrine or by religious faith. According to the Buddha,
1204-511: A “recent” teacher. Yijing also mentioned that a Chinese traveller called Wuxing, was studying Dharmakirti's teachings at the Telhara monastery which is just a short distance away from Nalanda which indicates that Dharmakīrti had attained fame as a logician in Magadha around 650–660 CE. Tibetan hagiographies suggest that Dharmakirti ( Tibetan : ཆོས་ཀྱི་གྲགས་པ་; Wylie : chos kyi grags pa )
1290-409: Is a conceptual construction overlaid upon a stream of experiences, just like a chariot is merely a conventional designation for the parts of a chariot and how they are put together. The foundation of this argument is purely empiricist , for it is based on the fact that all we observe is subject to change, especially everything observed when looking inwardly in meditation. Another argument supporting
1376-432: Is always dependent on, and caused by sensations gained by the sense organs ( āyatana ). Sensations are always dependent on contact with our surroundings. Buddha's causal theory is simply descriptive: "This existing, that exists; this arising, that arises; this not existing, that does not exist; this ceasing, that ceases." This understanding of causation as "impersonal lawlike causal ordering" is important because it shows how
1462-543: Is associated with the Yogācāra and Sautrāntika schools. He was also one of the primary theorists of Buddhist atomism . His works influenced the scholars of Mīmāṃsā , Nyaya and Shaivism schools of Hindu philosophy as well as scholars of Jainism . Dharmakīrti's Pramāṇavārttika , his largest and most important work, was very influential in India and Tibet as a central text on pramana ('valid knowledge instruments') and
1548-524: Is fruitless, and distracts one from the ultimate goals of awakening ( bodhi ) and liberation ( mokṣa ). Only philosophy and discussion which has pragmatic value for liberation from suffering is seen as important. According to the Pāli Canon , during his lifetime the Buddha remained silent when asked several metaphysical questions which he regarded as the basis for "unwise reflection". These "unanswered questions" ( avyākṛta ) regarded issues such as whether
1634-410: Is not worried about something that does not exist. Furthermore, Gautama Buddha argued that the world can be observed to be a cause of suffering ( Brahman was held to be ultimately blissful in the orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy ) and that since we cannot control the world as we wish, the world cannot be the self. The idea that "this cosmos is the self" is one of the six wrong views rejected by
1720-675: Is often rendered as sems in Tibetan and saṃtāna corresponds to rgyud . Citta-saṃtāna is therefore rendered sems rgyud. Rgyud is the term that Tibetan translators (Tibetan: lotsawa ) employed to render the Sanskrit term " tantra ". Thugs-rgyud is a synonym for sems rgyud . The Chinese equivalent of Sanskrit citta-saṃtāna and Tibetan sems-kyi rgyud ("mindstream") is xin xiangxu ( simplified Chinese : 心相续 ; traditional Chinese : 心相續 ; pinyin : xīn xiāngxù ; Wade–Giles : hsin hsiang-hsü ). According to
1806-514: Is one permanent "controller" in the person. Instead, it views the person as a set of constantly changing processes which include volitional events seeking change and an awareness of that desire for change. According to Mark Siderits: What the Buddhist has in mind is that on one occasion one part of the person might perform the executive function, on another occasion another part might do so. This would make it possible for every part to be subject to control without there being any part that always fills
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#17327654357491892-517: Is pronounced sim sangsok in Korean and shin sōzoku in Japanese. The notion of citta-santāna developed in later Yogacara-thought, where citta-santāna replaced the notion of ālayavijñāna , the store-house consciousness in which the karmic seeds were stored. It is not a "permanent, unchanging, transmigrating entity", like the atman, but a series of momentary consciousnesses. Lusthaus describes
1978-539: Is still clear that resisting and even refuting a false or slanted doctrine can be useful to extricate the interlocutor, or oneself, from error; hence, to advance in the way of liberation. Witness the Buddha's confutation of several doctrines by Nigantha Nataputta and other purported sages which sometimes had large followings (e.g., Kula Sutta, Sankha Sutta, Brahmana Sutta). This shows that a virtuous and appropriate use of dialectics can take place. By implication, reasoning and argument shouldn't be disparaged by Buddhists. After
2064-676: Is that this unease arises out of conditions, mainly craving ( taṇhā ) and ignorance ( avidyā ). The third truth is then the fact that whenever sentient beings let go of craving and remove ignorance through insight and knowledge, suffering ceases ( nirodhā ). The fourth truth is the Noble Eightfold Path , which consists of eight practices that end suffering. They are: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness , and right samādhi (concentration, mental unification, meditation). The highest good and ultimate goal taught by
2150-418: Is the inherent and eternal unsatisfactoriness of life. This unpleasantness is said to be not just physical pain and psychological distress, but also a kind of existential unease caused by the inevitable facts of our mortality and ultimately by the impermanence of all beings and phenomena . Suffering also arises because of contact with unpleasant events, and due to not getting what one desires. The second truth
2236-635: The Dharma is not an ultimate end in itself or an explanation of all metaphysical reality, but a pragmatic set of teachings. The Buddha used two parables to clarify this point, the 'Parable of the raft' and the Parable of the Poisoned Arrow . The Dharma is like a raft in the sense that it is only a pragmatic tool for attaining nirvana ("for the purpose of crossing over, not for the purpose of holding onto", MN 22); once one has done this, one can discard
2322-474: The Dharmacakrapravartana Sūtra , this is used to refer to the fact that his teachings steer a middle course between the extremes of asceticism and bodily denial (as practiced by the Jains and other Indian ascetic groups) and sensual hedonism or indulgence. Many Śramaṇa ascetics of the Buddha's time placed much emphasis on a denial of the body, using practices such as fasting , to liberate
2408-682: The Digital Dictionary of Buddhism , xīn xiāngxù means "continuance of the mental stream" (from Sanskrit citta-saṃtāna or citta-saṃtati ), contrasted with wú xiàngxù 無相續 "no continuity of the mental stream" (from asaṃtāna or asaṃdhi ) and shì xiāngxù 識相續 " stream of consciousness " (from vijñāna-saṃtāna ). This compound combines xin 心 "heart; mind; thought; conscience; core" and xiangxu "succeed each other", with xiang 相 "form, appearance, countenance, phenomenon" and xu 續 or 续 "continue; carry on; succeed". Thus it means "the continuum of mind and phenomena". Xin xiangxu
2494-521: The Kālāma Sutta the Buddha tells a group of confused villagers that the only proper reason for one's beliefs is verification in one's own personal experience (and the experience of the wise) and denies any verification which stems from a personal authority, sacred tradition ( anussava ), or any kind of rationalism which constructs metaphysical theories ( takka ). In the Tevijja Sutta (DN 13),
2580-615: The Yogacarabhumi-sastra and the Mahāyānasūtrālaṅkāra composed before the 6th century, on hetuvidyā (logic, dialectics) are unsystematic, whose approach and structure are heresiological, proselytical and apologetic. They aimed were to defeat non-Buddhist opponents ( Hinduism , Jainism , Ājīvikism , Charvaka ( materialists ), and others), defend the ideas of Buddhism, develop a line of arguments that monks can use to convert those who doubt Buddhism and to strengthen
2666-674: The Gandhāran Buddhist texts (which are the earliest manuscripts containing discourses attributed to Gautama Buddha), has confirmed that their teachings are "consistent with non-Mahayana Buddhism, which survives today in the Theravada school of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, but which in ancient times was represented by eighteen separate schools." However, some scholars such as Schmithausen , Vetter , and Bronkhorst argue that critical analysis reveals discrepancies among these various doctrines. They present alternative possibilities for what
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2752-467: The Mādhyamaka and Sautrāntika schools of Buddhist philosophy in ancient India, Peter Deller Santina writes: Attention must first of all be drawn to the fact that philosophical systems in India were seldom, if ever, purely speculative or descriptive. Virtually all the great philosophical systems of India: Sāṃkhya , Advaita Vedānta , Mādhyamaka and so forth, were preeminently concerned with providing
2838-564: The Vedas as providing access to truth. The historical Buddha denied the authority of the Vedas , though, like his contemporaries, he affirmed the soteriological importance of holding the right view ; that is, having a proper understanding of reality. However, this understanding was not conceived primarily as metaphysical and cosmological knowledge, but as a piece of knowledge into the arising and cessation of suffering in human experience. Therefore,
2924-421: The philosophical investigations and systems of rational inquiry that developed among various schools of Buddhism in ancient India following the parinirvāṇa of Gautama Buddha (c. 5th century BCE), as well as the further developments which followed the spread of Buddhism throughout Asia . Buddhism combines both philosophical reasoning and the practice of meditation . The Buddhist religion presents
3010-508: The Abhidharma analysis was ultimate truth (paramattha sacca), the way things really are when seen by an enlightened being. The Abhidharmic project has been likened as a form of phenomenology or process philosophy . Abhidharma philosophers not only outlined what they believed to be an exhaustive listing of dharmas (Pali: dhammas), which are the ultimate phenomena, events or processes (and include physical and mental phenomena), but also
3096-601: The Brahmanical belief expounded in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad that the unchanging ultimate self ( ātman ) was indeed the whole world, or identical with Brahman . This concept is illustrated in the Alagaddupama Sūtra , where the Buddha argues that an individual cannot experience the suffering of the entire world. He used the example of someone carrying off and burning grass and sticks from
3182-469: The Buddha a belief counts as truth only if it leads to successful Buddhist practice (and hence, to the destruction of craving). In the "Discourse to Prince Abhaya" (MN.I.392–4) the Buddha states this pragmatic maxim by saying that a belief should only be accepted if it leads to wholesome consequences. This tendency of the Buddha to see what is true as what was useful or "what works" has been called by Western scholars such as Mrs Rhys Davids and Vallée-Poussin
3268-645: The Buddha must at least have taught some of these key teachings: According to N. Ross Reat, all of these doctrines are shared by the Pāli Canon of Theravāda Buddhism and the Śālistamba Sūtra belonging to the Mahāsāṃghika school. A recent study by Bhikkhu Analayo concludes that the Theravādin Majjhima Nikāya and the Sarvāstivādin Madhyama Āgama contain mostly the same major Buddhist doctrines. Richard G. Salomon , in his study of
3354-489: The Buddha rejects the personal authority of Brahmins because none of them can prove they have had personal experience of Brahman , nor could any of them prove its existence. The Buddha also stressed that experience is the only criterion for verification of the truth in this passage from the Majjhima Nikāya (MN.I.265): Furthermore, the Buddha's standard for personal verification was a pragmatic and salvific one, for
3440-509: The Buddha's death, some Buddhists such as Dharmakirti went on to use the sayings of the Buddha as sound evidence equal to perception and inference. Another possible reason why the Buddha refused to engage in metaphysics is that he saw ultimate reality and nirvana as devoid of sensory mediation and conception and therefore language itself is a priori inadequate to explain it. Thus, the Buddha's silence does not indicate misology or disdain for philosophy. Rather, it indicates that he viewed
3526-412: The Buddha's epistemic project is different from that of modern philosophy ; it is primarily a solution to the fundamental human spiritual/existential problem. Gautama Buddha 's logico-epistemology has been compared to empiricism , in the sense that it was based on the experience of the world through the senses . The Buddha taught that empirical observation through the six sense fields ( āyatanā )
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3612-585: The Buddha's teachings as recorded in the Gandhāran Buddhist texts , we need to train the mind in meditation to be able to truly comprehend the nature of reality, which is said to have the Three marks of existence : suffering, impermanence, and non-self ( anātman ). Understanding and meditation are said to work together to clearly see ( vipassanā ) the nature of human experience and this is said to lead to liberation. Gautama Buddha argued that compounded entities and sentient beings lacked essence, correspondingly
3698-518: The Jeta grove and how a monk would not sense or consider themselves harmed by that action. In this example, the Buddha is arguing that we do not have direct experience of the entire world, and hence the self cannot be the whole world. In this Buddhist text, as well as in the Soattā Sūtra , the Buddha outlines six wrong views about self: There are six wrong views: An unwise, untrained person may think of
3784-455: The accuracy of the Tibetan hagiographies is uncertain, and scholars place him in the 7th century instead. This is because of inconsistencies in different Tibetan and Chinese texts, and because it is around the middle of 7th-century, and thereafter, that Indian texts begin discussing his ideas, such as the citation of Dharmakirti verses in the works of Adi Shankara . Dharmakīrti is placed by most scholars to have lived between 600 and 660 CE, but
3870-456: The answers to these questions as not understandable by the unenlightened. Dependent arising provides a framework for analysis of reality that is not based on metaphysical assumptions regarding existence or non-existence, but instead on direct cognition of phenomena as they are presented to the mind in meditation. The Buddha of the earliest Buddhists texts describes Dharma (in the sense of "truth") as "beyond reasoning" or "transcending logic", in
3956-407: The appearance of a permanent self in this world of change is the cause of suffering ( duḥkha ), and the main obstacle to the attainment of spiritual liberation ( mokṣa ). The most widely used argument that the Buddha employed against the idea of an unchanging ego is an empiricist one, based on the observation of the five aggregates of existence ( skandhā ) that constitute a sentient being, and
4042-487: The body, 'This is mine, this is me, this is my self'; he may think that of feelings; of perceptions; of volitions; or of what has been seen, heard, thought, cognized, reached, sought or considered by the mind. The sixth is to identify the world and self, to believe: 'At death, I shall become permanent, eternal, unchanging, and so remain forever the same; and that is mine, that is me, that is my self.' A wise and well-trained person sees that all these positions are wrong, and so he
4128-513: The causal relations between them. In the Abhidharmic analysis, the only thing which is ultimately real is the interplay of dharmas in a causal stream; everything else is merely conceptual ( paññatti ) and nominal. Dharmakirti Dharmakīrti (fl. c. 600–670 CE ; ), was an influential Indian Buddhist philosopher who worked at Nālandā . He was one of the key scholars of epistemology ( pramāṇa ) in Buddhist philosophy , and
4214-536: The cycle of philosophical upheavals that in part drove the diversification of Buddhism into its many schools and sects only began once Buddhists began attempting to make explicit the implicit philosophy of the Buddha and the early texts. The Four Noble Truths or "Truths of the Noble One" are a central feature to the teachings of the historical Buddha and are put forth in the Dharmacakrapravartana Sūtra . The first truth of duḥkha , often translated as "suffering",
4300-460: The desire to find a Middle Way between philosophical views seen as extreme. Edward Conze splits the development of Indian Buddhist philosophy into three phases: Various elements of these three phases are incorporated and/or further developed in the philosophy and worldview of the various sects of Buddhism that then emerged. Philosophy in ancient India was aimed mainly at spiritual liberation and had soteriological goals. In his study of
4386-406: The development and doctrinal relationships of the store consciousness ( ālaya-vijñāna ) and Buddha nature ( tathāgatagarbha ) in Yogācāra . To avoid reification of the ālaya-vijñāna , The logico-epistemological wing in part sidestepped the critique by using the term citta-santāna , "mind-stream", instead of ālaya-vijñāna , for what amounted to roughly the same idea. It was easier to deny that
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#17327654357494472-520: The differentiation of "my" suffering and someone else's. Instead, an enlightened person would just work to end suffering tout court , without thinking of the conventional concept of persons. According to this argument, anyone who is selfish does so out of ignorance of the true nature of personal identity and irrationality. The main Indian Buddhist philosophical schools practiced a form of analysis termed Abhidharma which sought to systematize
4558-458: The doctrine of non-self , the "argument from lack of control", is based on the fact that we often seek to change certain parts of ourselves, that the "executive function" of the mind is that which finds certain things unsatisfactory and attempts to alter them. Furthermore, it is also based on the "anti-reflexivity principle" of Indian philosophy , which states an entity cannot operate on or control itself (a knife can cut other things but not itself,
4644-446: The fact that these are always changing. This argument can be put in this way: This argument requires the implied premise that the five aggregates are an exhaustive account of what makes up a person, or else the self could exist outside of these aggregates. This premise is affirmed in other Buddhist texts , such as Saṃyutta Nikāya 22.47, which states: "whatever ascetics and brahmins regard various kinds of things as self, all regard
4730-644: The faith of Buddhists who begin to develop doubts. Around the middle of the 6th century, possibly to address the polemics of non-Buddhist traditions with their pramana foundations, the Buddhist scholar Dignāga shifted the emphasis from dialectics to more systematic epistemology and logic, retaining the heresiological and apologetic focus. Dharmakīrti followed in Dignāga footsteps, and is credited with systematic philosophical doctrines on Buddhist epistemology, which Vincent Eltschinger states, has "a full-fledged positive/direct apologetic commitment". Dharmakīrti lived during
4816-526: The five grasping aggregates, or one of them." This argument is famously expounded in the Anātmalakṣaṇa Sūtra . According to this text, the apparently fixed self is merely the result of identification with the temporary aggregates of existence ( skandhā ), the changing processes making up an individual human being. In this view, a 'person' is only a convenient nominal designation on a certain grouping of processes and characteristics, and an 'individual'
4902-466: The gradual training also requires that a disciple "investigate" ( upaparikkhati ) and "scrutinize" ( tuleti ) the teachings. The Buddha also expected his disciples to approach him as a teacher in a critical fashion and scrutinize his actions and words, as shown in the Vīmaṃsaka Sutta . Some Buddhist thinkers even argued that rational reflection and philosophical analysis was a central practice which
4988-419: The highest happiness. This perspective sees immoral acts as unskillful ( akusala ) in our quest for happiness, and hence it is pragmatic to do good. The third meta-ethical consideration takes the view of not-self and our natural desire to end our suffering to its logical conclusion. Since there is no self, there is no reason to prefer our own welfare over that of others because there is no ultimate grounding for
5074-542: The historical Buddha, along with the related monistic Hindu theology which held that "everything is a Oneness" (SN 12.48 Lokayatika Sutta ). The historical Buddha also held that understanding and seeing the truth of non-self led to un-attachment, and hence to the cessation of suffering, while ignorance ( avidyā ) about the true nature of personality ( prajña ) led to further suffering and attachment. All schools of Indian philosophy recognize various sets of valid justifications for knowledge ( pramāṇa ) and many see
5160-408: The historical Buddha, which is the attainment of nirvāṇa , literally means "extinguishing" and signified "the complete extinguishing of greed, hatred, and delusion (i.e. ignorance ), the forces which power saṃsāra ". Nirvāṇa also means that after an enlightened being 's death, there is no further rebirth. In earliest Buddhism , the concept of dependent origination ( pratītya-samutpāda )
5246-513: The middle" ( majjhena dhammaṃ desana ), which claims to be a metaphysical middle path between the extremes of eternalism and annihilationism , as well as the extremes of existence and non-existence. This idea would become central to later Buddhist metaphysics, as all Buddhist philosophies would claim to steer a metaphysical middle course. Apart from the middle way, certain basic teachings appear in many places throughout these early Buddhist texts , so older studies by various scholars conclude that
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#17327654357495332-407: The mind from the body. Gautama Buddha , however, realized that the mind was embodied and causally dependent on the body, and therefore that a malnourished body did not allow the mind to be trained and developed. Thus, Buddhism's main concern is not with luxury or poverty, but instead with the human response to circumstances. Another related teaching of the historical Buddha is "the teaching through
5418-426: The next." According to Waldron, "[T]he mind stream ( santāna ) increases gradually by the mental afflictions ( kleśa ) and by actions ( karma ), and goes again to the next world. In this way the circle of existence is without beginning." The vāsanās "karmic imprints" provide the karmic continuity between lives and between moments. According to Lusthaus, these vāsanās determine how one "actually sees and experiences
5504-417: The nirvanic life. The Buddha outlined five precepts (no killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, or drinking alcohol) which were to be followed by his disciples, lay and monastic. There are various reasons the Buddha gave as to why someone should be ethical. First, the universe is structured in such a way that if someone intentionally commits a misdeed, a bad karmic fruit will be the result. Hence, from
5590-492: The processes that give rise to suffering work, and also how they can be reversed. The removal of suffering that stemmed from ignorance ( avidyā ), then, requires a deep understanding of the nature of reality ( prajña ). While philosophical analysis of arguments and concepts is clearly necessary to develop this understanding, it is not enough to remove our unskillful mental habits and deeply ingrained prejudices, which require meditation , paired with understanding. According to
5676-429: The raft. It is also like medicine, in that the particulars of how one was injured by a poisoned arrow (i.e. metaphysics, etc.) do not matter in the act of removing and curing the arrow wound itself (removing suffering). In this sense, the Buddha was often called "the great physician" because his goal was to cure the human condition of suffering first and foremost, not to speculate about metaphysics. Having said this, it
5762-408: The real significance of Indian and Buddhist philosophy will be missed. For the Indian Buddhist philosophers, the teachings of Gautama Buddha were not meant to be taken on faith alone, but to be confirmed by logical analysis and inquiry ( pramāṇa ) of the world. The early Buddhist texts mention that a person becomes a follower of the Buddha's teachings after having pondered them over with wisdom and
5848-422: The role of the controller (and so is the self). On some occasions, a given part might fall on the controller side, while on other occasions it might fall on the side of the controlled. This would explain how it's possible for us to seek to change any of the skandhas while there is nothing more to us than just those skandhas. As noted by K.R. Norman and Richard Gombrich, the Buddha extended his non-self critique to
5934-475: The self is without essence ( anātman ). This means there is no part of a person which is unchanging and essential for continuity, and it means that there is no individual "part of the person that accounts for the identity of that person over time". This is in opposition to the Upanishadic concept of an unchanging ultimate self ( ātman ) and any view of an eternal soul . The Buddha held that attachment to
6020-441: The sense that reasoning is a subjectively introduced aspect of the way unenlightened humans perceive things, and the conceptual framework which underpins their cognitive process, rather than a feature of things as they really are. Going "beyond reasoning" means in this context penetrating the nature of reasoning from the inside, and removing the causes for experiencing any future stress as a result of it, rather than functioning outside
6106-1013: The statement that no one will understand the value of his work and that his efforts would soon be forgotten, but history proved his fears wrong. Confucianism Persons Topics Neo Confucianism New Confucianism Daoism Persons Topics Legalism Mohism Military and Strategy Han Buddhism Tibetan Buddhism Maoism General topics Vedic philosophy Mimamsa Vedanta Samkhya Yoga Nyaya Navya-Nyāya Vaisheshika Nāstika (heterodox) Tamil Other General topics Jainism Buddhism Traditions Topics Japanese Buddhism Japanese Confucianism Kokugaku Modern Thought Statism Kyoto School Korean Buddhism Korean Confucianism Persons Topics Donghak Modern Thought Persons Topics The Buddhist works such as
6192-539: The subject of disputes between different schools of Buddhism, as well as between representative thinkers of Buddhist schools and Hindu or Jaina philosophers. These elaborations and disputes gave rise to various early Buddhist schools of Abhidharma , the Mahāyāna movement , and scholastic traditions such as Prajñāpāramitā , Sarvāstivāda , Mādhyamaka , Sautrāntika , Vaibhāṣika , Buddha-nature , Yogācāra , and more. One recurrent theme in Buddhist philosophy has been
6278-575: The system as a whole. The Buddha's ethics are based on the soteriological need to eliminate suffering and on the premise of the law of karma . Buddhist ethics have been termed eudaimonic (with their goal being well-being) and also compared to virtue ethics (this approach began with Damien Keown). Keown writes that Buddhist Nirvana is analogous to the Aristotelian Eudaimonia , and that Buddhist moral acts and virtues derive their value from how they lead us to or act as an aspect of
6364-441: The teachings of the early Buddhist discourses (sutras). Abhidharma analysis broke down human experience into momentary phenomenal events or occurrences called " dharmas ". Dharmas are impermanent and dependent on other causal factors, they arise and pass as part of a web of other interconnected dharmas, and are never found alone. The Abhidharma schools held that the teachings of the Buddha in the sutras were merely conventional, while
6450-475: The universe is eternal or non-eternal (or whether it is finite or infinite), the unity or separation of the body and the self ( ātman ), the complete inexistence of a person after death and nirvāṇa , and others. In the Aggi-Vacchagotta Sutta , the historical Buddha stated that thinking about these imponderable issues led to "a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views,
6536-476: The world in certain ways, and one actually becomes a certain type of person, embodying certain theories which immediately shape the manner in which we experience." Citta mean "that which is conscious". Citta has two aspects: "...Its two aspects are attending to and collecting of impressions or traces (Sanskrit: vāsanā ) cf. vijñāna ." Saṃtāna or santāna (Sanskrit) means "eternal", "continuum", "a series of momentary events" or "life-stream". Citta
6622-482: Was a later addition. according to Vetter and Bronkhorst, dhyāna constituted the original "liberating practice", while discriminating insight into transiency as a separate path to liberation was a later development. Scholars such as Bronkhorst and Carol Anderson also think that the Four Noble Truths may not have been formulated in earliest Buddhism but as Anderson writes "emerged as a central teaching in
6708-514: Was a volitional mental event, what Richard Gombrich calls "an ethicised consciousness". This idea leads into the second moral justification of the Buddha: intentionally performing negative actions reinforces and propagates mental defilements which keep persons bound to the cycle of rebirth and interfere with the process of liberation, and hence intentionally performing good karmic actions is participating in mental purification which leads to nirvana ,
6794-477: Was based on empirical evidence gained by the sense organs (including the mind ), and the Buddha seems to have retained a skeptical distance from certain metaphysical questions , refusing to answer them because they were not conducive to liberation but led instead to further speculation. However he also affirmed theories with metaphysical implications, such as dependent arising , karma , and rebirth . Particular points of Buddhist philosophy have often been
6880-598: Was born into a Brahmin family born in South India and was the nephew of the Mīmāṃsā scholar Kumārila Bhaṭṭa . When he was young, Kumārila spoke abusively towards Dharmakirti as he was taking his Brahminical garments. This led Dharmakirti to take the robes of the Buddhist order instead, resolving to "vanquish all the heretics." As a student of Buddhism, he first studied under Isvarasena, and later moved to Nalanda where he interacted with 6th century Dharmapala. However,
6966-471: Was engaged in philosophical inquiry. Siddartha Gautama (c. 5th century BCE) was a north Indian Śramaṇa (wandering ascetic), whose teachings are preserved in the Pāli Nikayas and in the Āgamas as well as in other surviving fragmentary textual collections, collectively known as the early Buddhist texts . Dating these texts is difficult, and there is disagreement on how much of this material goes back to
7052-424: Was most likely limited to processes of mental conditioning and not to all physical phenomena. Gautama Buddha understood the world in procedural terms, not in terms of things or substances. His theory posits a flux of events arising under certain conditions which are interconnected and dependent, such that the processes in question at no time are considered to be static or independent. Craving ( taṇhā ), for example,
7138-498: Was necessary for the attainment of insight in meditation. Thus, Mahayana philosophers like Prajñakaragupta argue that one is not a yogi "merely because of meditation ", rather, one must meditate, listen to the teachings and understand them by "reflecting through rational inquiry" (yukti-cintāmaya). Only through this method which combined rational reflection and meditation will the wisdom that leads to enlightenment arise. Scholarly opinion varies as to whether Gautama Buddha himself
7224-429: Was taught in earliest Buddhism and question the authenticity of certain teachings and doctrines. For example, some scholars think that the doctrine of karma was not central to the teachings of the historical Buddha, while others disagree with this position. Likewise, there is scholarly disagreement on whether insight into the true nature of reality ( prajña ) was seen as liberating in earliest Buddhism or whether it
7310-518: Was the proper way of verifying any knowledge claims. Some Buddhist texts go further, stating that "the All", or everything that exists ( sabbam ), are these six sense spheres (SN 35.23, Sabba Sutta ) and that anyone who attempts to describe another "All" will be unable to do so because "it lies beyond range". This text seems to indicate that for the Buddha, things in themselves or noumena are beyond our epistemological reach ( avisaya ). Furthermore, in
7396-441: Was widely commented on by various Indian and Tibetan scholars. His texts remain part of studies in the monasteries of Tibetan Buddhism . Little is known for certain about the life of Dharmakirti. As per John Taber, the only reliable information that we have about his life was that he was a teacher at Nalanda . The Chinese monk, Yijing , who was a resident at Nalanda between the years of 675 and 685 CE, refers to Dharmakirti as
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