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Is the study of the Two Truths done to help us in our religiousbeliefs?

Listening, contemplating and meditating of Buddhism teachings are the key in

leading us to the Truth of the Path. Through the three higher trainings

emphasized by the Mahayana Vehicle and the Eight Noble Paths by the HinayanaVehicle, any sentient beings will be able to develop skills in methods and wisdom

to deal with their obscurations to the cessation of sufferings. In developing these

skills in methods and wisdoms, one may see the importance to study the

philosophy behind the why and how the practices can help us to realize the

Truth of Cessation. For some Buddhists, they approaches dharma by practicing

joy, compassion and ethics motivated by the simple dharma wish to help others

and extend this positive energy towards surrounding environment. For others,

they require another a more systematic approach to give them a better grasp of

the Buddhism theory on a holistic view. For this reason, for these beings with

more analytical mind, the alternative way to approach Buddhism is to study theBuddhism philosophy first by interrogating the nature of reality. By reasoning

and analyzing the reality, the interwoven of the karma, compassion and ethics

will all be straightened up to one goal of attaining nirvana. So, what is real then?

Gautama Buddha sees the reality after he woke up from the dream we still

dream. What is real to us is the solidity we see, we hear, we touch and yet are

those things so real to us not being real at all? Therefore the Buddhist

philosophy has spent volumes to clarify the dualistic view of our world since the

approach to understand reality requires intellectual analysis. In the Descent into

Lanka Sutra, the Buddha says: My teaching has two modes: Advice and Tenets.

To Children I give advice, and to Yogis I give tenets. For more matured mindwith capacity to analyse the reality, understanding of the Buddhist philosophy

will help ones to sharpen their view in analyzing what is real to them while they

are still living in their dream. This dualistic view of the same entity was the key

of the analysis of the Buddhism philosophy. The conventional world likes a

dream we are still living in is not different from the world of Buddha who sees

ultimate truth. It is like a coin with two sides we are looking at the same coin but

from these two only possible perspectives. The many Buddhism schools have

thus put up their tenets in clarifying the so called Two Truths of our world. The

two truths are Conventional Truth and Ultimate Truth. Different schools have

different approaches in defining and delineating the two truths. However thetwo truths always constitute a dichotomy such that all phenomena are within

these two truths and when one phenomenon is belong to one truth it must be

exclusive to another truth. The ultimate truth is the emptiness to realize. The

conventional truth will be all phenomena other than emptiness.

For the Hinayana vehicle, the teaching is on the selflessness of persons by seeing

the emptiness of I from the aggregates. According to the Mahayana vehicle, the

realization of the reality will be more profound than the Hinayana vehicle as they

teach selflessness of all phenomena including persons. With this extended view

on selflessness, the Mahayana practitioners are able to overcome both the

obscurations to liberation and ominiscence to attain buddhahood. With ourignorance to attach and avert, and the presence of our karmic imprints, we reify


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our conventional world with the strong conviction of the I existence and the

external objects self sufficiently existing out there. The Buddhist philosophy of

the different schools attempts to eliminate this reification by progressively

refuting the externality and drawing us closer into nothingness. Being neither of

the two extremes, these schools are like a scale balancing between the

externalism and the nihilism or nothingness. With our solid feeling of I andexternal objects, the view of externalism reify our attachment and aversion to

avoid harm on our self interest and thus partiality to our surroundings. On the

other hand, if one falls into nihilism thought, it would seem that practitioners are

wasting of time and effort since there is no cause and effect to mention of their

act to improve ones condition to achieve liberation. In consideration of the

various mentality capacity and psychological issues of different sentient beings,

the different schools define the selflessness differently and delineate all

phenomena between the two truths varyingly. The progressive reduction on

reliance of the externality is observed from the two schools of Hinayana Vehicle:

Vabhashika then Sautrantika, to the two schools of Mahayana Vehicle: Citamatra

then Madhyamaka. For Madhyamaka subschool Prasangika it refutes more

subtle reification and comes closer to nihilism.

For defining the conventional truths, the four schools adopt different meanings

of the Sanskritword samvrti which could be interpreted as either concealer of

truth, interdependent or convention. By using the definition of interdependence

on others, Vabhashika asserted that the conventional truth refers to objects

building on causes and conditions and thus their changing on a moment by a

moment depend on the varying causes and conditions during that moment. The

solidity of permanent object projecting out there was thus reduced to something

less solid in appearance and replaced by momentarily changing nature. Theobjects are also not nothingness under the Vabhashika view since they are

reducible to the smallest partless particles which are asserted as substantially

existed. The ontology of this school helps to re-establish our permanent view of

external objects as something less solid but still existed on its own. Based on the

definition of convention by imputation, Sautrantika school asserted objects exist

only due to imputation by conceptual thought upon some valid base and noted

that the imputedly existent do exist conceptually as referents to the imputation

to avoid nihilism. This school as compared to Vabhashika noted that not only

being molecules of this atomic substantially existed particles, the reference for

ultimate is by convention on how the mind perceive the objects directly or

conceptually. In relation of external objects to mind i.e epistemology, the

philosophy schools have approached differently too. The Sautrantika school has

approached this by establishing the direct perception and conceptual

consciousness which is later adopted by the Madhyamaka as well. For all

objects imputed by conceptual are conventional truth according to the school

since these appearing objects are not functioning and the meaning generality

image of the objects does not fully reflect to the mind of the specific

characteristics of the object engaged in the mind. For Mind-only school or

Cittramatra, there are the additional seventh consciousness mind-basis-of-all

and eighth consciousness afflictive mind on top of the five senses

consciousnesses and mental consciousness as propounded by the other threeschools, to describe the carry-on of karmic imprints and the influence of these on


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our daily activities. For this school the objects appears to us as cut off from our

consciousness apprehending them and this happens due to our mind-basis-of-all

mind to perceive the objects in that manner being a separate entity from the

consciousness apprehending it. According to this school this is false and

concealing the truth. The ultimate truth is thus asserted being the thorough

established nature of all phenomena which are empty of the difference of theseparate entity between the external objects and the consciousness

apprehending them. The school also highlighted the conventional truth of the

objects do exist due to their imputation nature by labeling them thus rejecting

nihilism. For the highest tenet school, Prasangika Madhyamaka also adopted the

definition of concealer truth for the conventional truth. But in such case, the fact

is that the ultimate truth that nothing is truly existed is being concealed and this

avoids the extremism of externalism. However, all phenomena do exist

conventionally and this avoids nihilism. In this school, the two truths exist

conventionally and neither exist ultimately. Moreover, the ultimate truth is the

lacking ultimate existence and thus knowing this help us in refuting the

reification of the world we dream. By understanding the conventional truth we

know how the three parties, person, action and results are related and

conventionally existent.

These schools have attempted to illustrate the two truths for different beings

made of different receptiveness. They are not ranked to illustrate their

superiority but importantly the proponent of any school is to realize the

selflessness taught by the system. By learning through these schools and

contemplating their gradual progress by delineating the two truths, this will help

the Buddhism practice along the path of meditation. While one is searching the

highest view of selflessness one has the capacity to develop, one should also notfall into the brink of nihilism to hold flimsy view on cause and effect. Knowing

how the conventional truth exists, it makes one confident in following the

dharma teachings and practicing accordingly to generate compassion and avoid

the ten non-virtuous. With the understanding of wisdom through realizing

emptiness of persons, actions and results, the practicing of generosity,

compassion, ethics, patience become perfected and the altruistic mind is

developed and stabilised. Thus the understanding of the two truths allows the

practitioner to achieve skills of developing wisdom and methods to collect

wisdom and merits. With these two collections of wisdom and merits, one will

realize the truth body and form body of Buddha.

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