encounter with reality in buddhist madhyamika philosophy

Encounter with Reality in BuddhistMadhyamika Philosophy

CLARENCE H. HAMILTON*

Athe time when I was philosophy pro-fessor at the University of Nankingin the years 1914-1927 I had natural

occasion and incentive to become acquaintedwith Buddhists and Buddhist scholars, and tolearn something of their great systems oftraditional thought. The noted lay Buddhistscholar Ou-yang Ching-wu, with his coterieof younger scholars was at that time conduct-ing his Institute of Buddhist Learning at Nan-king. In those days also, Dr. Karl Reicheltwas there beginning his famous experimentof bringing Buddhists and Christians into acommon universe of discourse about the pro-foundest themes. From Ou-yang Ching-wu'sgroup I learned of fresh investigations intoChinese texts of Buddhistic idealism, theschool which they call Wei Shih, and whichSanskrit scholars know as the Vijiianavada.From Dr. Reichelt I learned respect for his

* After twenty-one years of teaching Philosophyof Religion (including History of Religions) andChristian Missions in the Oberlin Graduate Schoolof Theology, CLARENCE H. HAMILTON be-came Emeritus in 1952. Since that time he hasserved as Florence Purington Visiting Lecturer inPhilosophy and Religion at Mount Holyoke Col-lege (1952-1953), as Visiting Lecturer in Historyof Religions at Union Theological Seminary(1953-1954), as Visiting Professor of Philosophyand Religion at Hamilton College under the JohnHay Whitney Foundation (1954-1955), and asVisiting Professor of Religion at Wheaton College(Mass.) during 1956-1957. He is spending thisyear at his home in Oberlin and preparing to at-tend the Ninth International Congress for the His-tory of Religions which will meet in Tokyo, Japan,August 28-September 8, 1958. This article wasdelivered as the presidential address at the annualmeeting of the American Theological Society atUnion Theological Seminary in New York City,April 26, 1957.

immense knowledge of Chinese Buddhistliterature, as well as for his deep faith in theEternal Logos doctrine of the Johanninetradition. I may add I respected him all themore after I had experienced what was in-volved in translating a single brief text ofthe idealistic school and having to reckonwith both Chinese and Sanskrit versions.1

Under the circumstances, my start in thestudy of Buddhist philosophy introduced meto a system of metaphysical idealism. I be-came acquainted with complex and subtle ar-guments to prove that all phenomena in theuniverse are only ideations, mental eventsso to speak, within universal mind. Outsideof consciousness there are no objects. Thesubject-object distinction within conscious-ness is itself not final. The great awakeningto reality is to realize pure consciousness initself, unstained by the deceiving appearancesof things in ordinary experience.

Metaphysical idealism, however, is onlyone branch of Buddhist philosophy, and byno means the earliest. Its definitive formu-lation came fairly late, in the fourth centuryA.D. in fact, after a considerable antecedentdevelopment. In my study I was inevitablyled to press backward in time and place, inthe first respect back through the long pe-riod preceding the fourth century to Gau-tama himself, and in the second back fromChinese Buddhism to Indian Buddhism. Itbecame clear that immediately behind theidealistic interpretation of enlightenment ex-perience lay another which arose earlier, inthe first century B.C. This was an elusive,yet widely pervasive, way of thinking whichhas ranged far among intellectuals, not onlyin India, but in China, Japan and Tibet. Intime it became articulate as the Madhyamika

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14 CLARENCE H. HAMILTON

Philosophy. Like the idealistic school it be-longs to the Mahayana division of Buddhismand is, indeed, its starting point. Earlierthan both these Mahayana philosophies,again, are other systems belonging to theHinayana Division, of which I shall havesomething to say presently. All these sys-tems are concerned with reality-encounterbut our attention on this occasion will becentered on the Madhyamika way.

In English this philosophy has been vari-ously named. It is called the Middle WayPhilosophy, which is the direct verbal equiv-alent of Madhyamika. It has been specifiedas a doctrine of Emptiness, of Original Non-Being, of the Void. Some scholars, seeking acapsule characterization, have called it Ni-hilism, or Philosophy of Vacuity. All thesenegative terms are interesting, and in vary-ing degrees relevant, but they tell us verylittle. At most they suggest to Westernminds terms in Western mystical philosophysuch as the unknowable "One" of Plotinus,the "Divine Dark" of Dionysius the Areo-pagite, the "Still Desert" of Eckhart, the"Unfathomable Abyss" of Tauler and Ruys-broeck, etc. But a quick transference ofmeanings from Oriental philosophies intoWestern terminology is always hazardous.We are likely to misrepresent the formerand simply turn to debating familiar prob-lems in terms of the latter. In the case ofthe system under consideration we need tobe particularly cautious. For the Madhy-amika claims to be an explicit recovery ofthe fundamental meaning of the Buddhahimself, and to draw out implications presentonly in germ in his original teaching. Thisclaim is usually accepted among scholars inthe lands of Northern Asia. In what senseit is valid will gradually become clear, Ihope, as we proceed.

Most Western students seeking to under-stand Madhyamika teachings are hamperedby two lacks, 1) adequate translations ofbasic texts, and 2) knowledge of Sanskritsufficient for handling original sources. Quite

recently, however, the situation has im-proved. In 1954 Edward Conze published afairly extensive series of effective transla-tions under the title Selected Sayings fromthe Perfection of Wisdom.2 And in 1955there came from the press the first reallycomprehensive study in English of the wholesystem of Madhyamika philosophy, showingits place, not only in the Buddhist develop-ment but in the total stream of Indian re-ligious thought as well. The latter book isentitled The Central Philosophy of Bud-dhism and is written by an Indian scholar ofunusual ability.3

Mr. T. R. V. Murti is of the generationof younger scholars that has grown up underthe inspiration of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan,the distinguished philosopher-statesman ofmodern India. He has the requisite Sanskritscholarship. His knowledge of both Indianand Western philosophies is ample. Hispower of statement is akin to that of Rad-hakrishnan himself. Because I have foundhis treatment more illuminating than anyother I have read, I have profited by Profes-sor Murti's fresh analyses in developing thetheme of this paper.

Historically, the Madhyamika philosophyis connected with the name of Nagarjuna, adialectician of rare genius who flourished inIndia around the middle of the second cen-tury A.D. He is the reputed founder of theschool, although there were anticipations ofthis way of thinking before his time, andextensions of his doctrine at the hands ofhis followers later. He was the first to givesystematic statement to the emergent ideasof Mahayana Buddhism, and his dialecticalmethod of exposition influenced later think-ers, Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike.Through all, his ultimate concern is with in-tuition of reality. I have ventured to call itencounter with reality, for it is an experi-ence transcending cognition in any ordinarysense.

To rightly appreciate Nagarjuna's work,we must note briefly what had happened

BUDDHIST MADHYAMIKA PHILOSOPHY 15

among Buddhistic thinkers between the timeof the founder of the religion and his own.You will readily recall how Buddha himself,concerned primarily with his message of de-liverance from suffering, did not encourageindulgence in metaphysical inquiries. Whenhis disciples came to him with such ques-tions as "Is the world eternal or not? Is itinfinite or finite? Does an Enlightened oneexist after death or not? Is the soul identi-cal with the body or not?" he set suchqueries aside, because, as he said,

They do not conduce to weariness with mundanethings, to passionlessness, to purgation, to tran-quillity, to insight, to full enlightenment and toNirvaija.*

On the positive side he said, to quote hiswords in the locus classicus,

What have I specifically taught? I have taught of111, of its origin, of its cessation, and of the paththat leads to cessation.'

Yet on one concept, commonly held, theoriginal teacher was emphatic in his denial.That was the notion of a permanent self, orchangeless soul entity. The metaphysicalreality of such an immutable substance,whether as soul of an individual being or assoul of the universe, was completely denied.This was done, Murti thinks, in the interestof that moral and spiritual discipline whichleads to full enlightenment. Ignorant cling-ing to the idea of a fixed self is the cause ofall self-centredness, "of attachment, desire,aversion and pain." To our minds this doc-trine would seem to be saying by implicationthat the real is a process of becoming and adynamic self more ethically significant inconceiving a way of life. Actually, however,the Buddha, in denying the specific soul-sub-stance theory of the Brahmins of his day wasnot making a counter metaphysical claim ofhis own. When pressed for such pronounce-ment by his disciple Vaccha, he declared"The one who has arrived (tathagata), OVaccha, is free from all theories,"6 and wasnoncommittal on all of Vaccha's conjec-

tures. In this metaphysical silence is the clueto a method in philosophy which Nagarjunaand his followers were later to make explicitand apply to all views or theories of what isultimate, a method which, in Professor Mur-ti's judgment, constituted a "Copernicanrevolution" in Indian thought.

At first, however, Buddha's silence wasimperfectly understood. During the earlycenturies after his death his followers, facedwith the exigencies of debate with non-Buddhists, found it necessary to countertheir opponents' theories with positive meta-physical views which they regarded as thetruth of Buddha's teaching. There was nolack of conceptual analysis of practically ev-erything reported of his sayings. Scholasticdefinitions of terms were worked out.Subtly argued positions were taken in con-tending schools. Opposed theories appearedwith regard to the nature of the self, causal-ity, constituent elements of things, of psy-chological happenings, of the world of ma-terial atoms, of the realm of transmigratoryexistence, the nature of a Buddha, the mean-ing of Nirvana, and so on. Each school re-garded its view as the truth intended bytheir master and sought to reveal error inothers. In striving to state what is ulti-mately real two broad tendencies emerged.One was to conceive it in terms of perma-nence, unity, identity, and universality. Theother was to conceive it in terms of change,plurality, difference and particularity. De-bate was earnest, on both sides, but the argu-ments cancelled one another out. By thetime of Nagarjuna the intellectual impassehad become evident. Encounter with realitywas assumed to be a grasping of the abso-lutely true. Grasp of absolute truth was re-garded as a matter of correct definition andreasoning. But the result of the effort wasnot the calm and peace of an enlightenedwisdom, but tension and conflict among ri-valing schools of thought.

It was in the midst of this dialectical strifethat Nagarjuna appeared. Judging from the


character of the writings associated with hisname, we suspect that he rather enjoyed theintellectual sword-play, for he entered intoit vigorously. At the same time he was con-vinced that all the metaphysicians were miss-ing the mark. The silence of the Buddhawas not the withholding of a secret meta-physical view which his followers were tomake explicit. It was a deliberate suspensionof judgment with reference to what tran-scends conceptual power. The EnlightenedOne had his encounter with reality, but thatwas beyond the grasp of all words, ideas andsymbols. His wisdom was supreme and per-fect, as all schools dogmatically admitted, butit was the wisdom of direct intuition, not ofanalytical reason.

Yet for Nagarjuna, in the intellectualclimate of his day, the mere assertion of thisconviction was not enough. Regnant ideasare not to be brushed aside by waving thehand in dogmatic denial. Nor is man's in-veterate tendency to trust his ideas of ulti-mate truth to be dissolved that way. Nagar-juna undertook a method of demonstrationthat was as unique among his confreres as itwas drastic. This was to use dialectic to thelimit in order to expose the inherent conflictin reason itself, something which Kant wasto make explicit for Western philosophy ata much later date. There is some similaritybetween the two enterprises. Kant's criticalphilosophy emerged from the conflict of twodogmatisms, Rationalism and Empiricism.Nagarj una's dialectical method emergedfrom the clash between assertion and denialof the tradition of the fixed and changelessself (or atman). Both thinkers arrived atthe conclusion that speculative metaphysics(dfUi) yields not knowledge but illusion.

Nagarj una's way of showing this was toexamine each alternative of thought regard-ing any affirmation of final truth. Accordingto the traditional logic, there are four possi-ble alternatives. A view is either so, or notso, or both so and not so, or neither so nornot so. This exhausts the possibilities. In

a given case Nagarjuna draws out the impli-cations of each alternative to show its in-herent contradictions, and declares it invalid,thus rejecting each by a reductio ad ab-surdum. Yet while his rejection is completeon all sides, he advances no reality theory ofhis own. Thus the so-called "middle posi-tion" of Madhyamika philosophy, often de-scribed as a mean between extremes, is reallya no-position, a reasoned suspension of judg-ment with reference to ultimate truth andreality.

In his carefully detailed exposition, Pro-fessor Murti shows how Nagarjuna applieshis dialectic to all the ultimate concepts ofpreceding thinkers. Ideas of causality, ofmotion and rest, of elements of existence, oftheir changing combinations, and of suchconceived entities as space, time, atoms andsouls—all are mercilessly analyzed and re-jected. Even such sacred concepts as theBuddha, Buddha aspirants (Bodhisattvas),the realm of transmigration and suffering(samsdra), and the realm of final release(Nirvana) are not spared scrutiny. The re-sult of the penetrating and often highly tech-nical analyses is always the same. Every en-visaged entity is unreal, devoid of what istaken to be its own self-nature. Nothingmundane is finally real.

In view of the universal devastationwrought among ideas previously taught as"the truth" in Indian philosophy, it is notdifficult to see why Madhyamika philosophyis open to the charge of being logically de-structive and sterile in the field of metaphys-ics. Showing the futility of all views, whatroom does it leave for any clear object forhope or faith or devotion ? Are not the oldercharacterizations of it as Nihilism or Nega-tivism essentially just?

The answer is both Yes and No; Yes, ifwe are thinking of the relativity of all con-cepts framed by finite human intelligence;No, if we are thinking of the religious en-counter with reality. For it is part ofMadhyamika teaching that genuine realiza-


tion of the emptiness and unreality of ourphenomenal world as apprehended is at thesame time an awakening. Dialectical criti-cism is severe, but it is in the service of ahigher end, what the Ratnakuta Sutra calls"the vision of the Real in its true form."7

All constructs in sense and intellect must becleared away so that direct intuition (pra-jna-paramita, or perfection of wisdom) mayarise. This intuition is "non-dual knowl-edge," i.e. coincidence of knowledge and thereal in such a way that there is negation ofall opposites or, in Murti's words "abolitionof all particular viewpoints which restrictand distort reality" (p. 214). Such intuitionis supra-rational and contentless, inexpress-ible, free from all illusion. This is thefamous Sunyata, voidness of the conceptualfunction of the mind.

Such negative statements, however, arenot intended to imply unreality in the Ab-solute, or That-which-is-as-it-is (Tathata).They simply mean that in its ultimate truththe Absolute is unconditioned and indeter-minate, void only from the standpoint of ourconventional determinations. These latterare only "covered or apparent truth" (sam-vrti-satya). In itself the Absolute is the ul-timate truth and reality of the world, whichwe in our ignorance apprehend in terms ofappearances only. It is in the interest of thisrealization that Nagarjuna criticizes all sup-posedly empirical distinctions. To be bound,attached to the world of empirical particu-lars, is samsdra. To be released from thisbondage is spiritual freedom, or nirvana. Itis awakening to the realization that the Ab-solute is the implicate of all phenomena,their final Reality, even if no affirmation isvalid as to its nature in itself.

At this point a practical question arises.How can Absolute Truth which transcendsall appearances be communicated to finitebeings, persons immersed in such appear-ances? Here we are told that while Abso-lute Truth (Tathata) is not constituted byany act of knowing in empirical terms, it

does become freely manifest as a Personthrough an intermediary. Such an inter-mediary is a Buddha, who through directencounter with the Truth is one with it andtherefore free of all illusions. He is still aperson, living in the phenomenal world but,in Murti's language, he is "a free phenom-enal being," partaking of both noumenal andphenomenal realms. A Buddha, therefore,is able to teach and lead others to the truth.Thus in him impersonal truth becomes per-sonalized.

A Western reader senses here a logicaldifficulty. For if Absolute Truth transcendsall intellectual categories, it would seem, onMadhyamika principles, to transcend thecategory of impersonality as well. In usingthe word "impersonal" Mr. Murti is ap-parently influenced at this point by Vedantaphilosophy, for he notes the similarity offunction between the Isvara or PersonalLord in that system, and the Perfectly En-lightened One in Buddhist thought. Bothare mediators, revealers of the AbsoluteTruth, but through them the Truth takes onpersonal form.

We need not pause to discuss this com-parison. It would take us too far afield. Itis sufficient to note the point that, whateverthe difficulty for philosophy, for purposesof religion appeal is made to the need ofpersonal mediation of truth through aBuddha. Accordingly, we now turn to con-sider the role in religion of the Buddha'sown encounter with reality. The encountertook place, of course, in the moment of en-lightenment. According to the traditionalpattern, a Buddha experiences what is called"the supreme intuition of perfect wisdom,"or prajna-paramita. As a result he becomesone possessed of omniscience, freedom fromall defects, and a great compassion (maha-karuna) for all suffering beings. Such anoutcome yields, in Mahayana religion, theBuddhist conception of Godhead. What isthe clue for this understanding? It is thehistorical fact of Gautama's own great en-


lightenment (Bodhi) and his later long min-istry of teaching motivated by his compas-sion for others. In Mahayana religion,however, which Madhyamika philosophy up-holds, Gautama is but one of what Mr.Murti calls "innumerable acts of divinedispensation." Other Buddhas and Buddhaaspirants (Bodhisattvas) are also manifesta-tions of God, conceived as the great CosmicBuddha whom we see portrayed with lavishsymbolic imagery in such extensive scrip-tures as the Saddharma-Pundarika, or Lotusof the True Law, the Avatamsaka Sutra,and others.

The religious imagery is impressive andhas had immense influence on Far Easternliterature, painting and sculpture. It hasgiven rise to devotional hymns and liturgies.It has multiplied the images of saviors andhelpers. It has pictured paradises and hells.But all this personal imagery had alreadybeen evaluated by Nagarjuna, whom wemight well call the great demythologizer.However edifying and necessary imagery isfor devotions of the faithful, from the Mad-hymika standpoint it is a veiled apprehen-sion of the Absolute in terms of the rela-tivities of conventional experience. It is inthe same case as efforts on the philosophicallevel to define the Absolute in set terms ofmetaphysical theories. All alike are of alower order than the encounter with Realityitself. The Enlightened Ones make use ofthem, indeed, to lead others in the upwardway; but a Buddha's own encounter withReality is an unutterable, ultimate experiencein which, as Murti puts it, "the intellect be-comes so pure (atnala) and transparent(bhasvara) that no distinction can possiblyexist between the Real and the intellect ap-prehending it."8 This non-dual, contentlessintuition is the supreme realization. It is theunclouded awareness of reality by identifica-tion with it. But of the nature of the Abso-lute thus realized there can be no statement.Silence is the highest wisdom as Gautamahad shown by example. If a name is called

for, Emptiness, or Sunyatd, is the least ob-jectionable verbal symbol.

We are now in position to see how Nagar-juna has been credited with rediscoveringBuddha's original and direct meaning. Hemarks a return to the latter's no-positionand silence on metaphysical affirmations. Thiscannot be called ontological agnosticism, forthere is always the omniscience of the su-preme intuition in the background. It is,rather, a recognition of the limitation ofreason and of ordinary cognitive understand-ing. Dialectic has its value, but only as amethod for clearing the mind of all thoughtconstructs that bar the way to the final goal.

As Westerners who have grown up in thetraditions of another religion, we are apt tofind Nagarj una's negative way to encounterwith Reality difficult to assess. We naturallyquestion whether it does not devaluate ourordinary experience through sense and in-tellect completely. Where the pearl of greatprice transcends the whole world of empir-ical particulars, a world-fleeing pessimismand ascetic rejection would appear to be theappropriate attitude toward life. It recallsto mind the image of the western medievalmonk striving toward the mystic beatific vi-sion in his lonely cell.

In this impression, however, our Westernhabits of thought lead us astray. The Mad-hyamika philosophers do not draw this kindof conclusion for the conduct of life. Theyrecognize that short of ultimate destiny, be-ings have to live in this world of relativetruths and phenomenal appearances, whereall the laws of empirical understanding, in-cluding the law of moral retribution orkarma still hold good. For even though theseempirical determinations obscure ultimatetruth they are important for practical life.A Buddha, of course, is aware of their ul-timate unreality. Yet he freely makes use ofthem in teaching others the way to finaldeliverance. The scriptures show that Gau-tama taught things differently at differenttimes, affirming in some situations what he


denied in others. In this he was simply us-ing relative truths as devices to meet theneeds of hearers on different levels of under-standing.

Another value for the relative world of thecommon man appears likewise in the person-ality of the Buddha himself. A fully enlight-ened one who has awakened to ultimatereality lives and moves freely in the worldof changing phenomenal appearances. He isinwardly free and serene, for through theveil of phenomena he is aware of the Abso-lute continuously. Released from the delu-sions of existence, he is moved by profoundcompassion for his fellows still sufferingfrom their dominance. Feeling his onenesswith them as well as with the Truth, he actsto lead them toward the spiritual liberationhe has himself experienced. United withhighest truth through the encounter inenlightenment he is its revelation in person-alized form to the finite understanding ofthe multitude. Through him, devout follow-ers in all lands of Mahayana Buddhism pic-ture the Ultimate Being as a heavenlyBuddha, boundless in wisdom and compas-sion, "prepared," as Murti has put it, "forany sacrifice, for any one, and for all time."9

Bodhisattvas are the glorified followers onearth of this ideal. In this connection, it isworthy of note that Santi-deva, the mostwarmly devout exponent of the bodhisattvaway of life, with its selfless devotion to thegood and happiness of others, was in philoso-phy a thinker of the Madhyamika school wholived in the seventh century A.D. For him,evidently, Nagarjuna's way of thinking hadgenuine value for religious life.

So far we have been considering Mad-hyamika teaching in the light of history. Wemay now ask concerning its significance to-day. How do contemporary Buddhists re-gard Nagarjuna's central intuition and hisno-position answer to the metaphysical ques-tion? Answers come from both India andJapan.

We note first Professor Murti's answer,

given in the light of his systematic study.He is aware of common charges made againstMadhyamika procedure—that its dialectic iswholly negative, metaphysically sterile, in-tolerant, and destructive of other sincere re-flective efforts. Nagarjuna's sharp pointingup of contradictions in every positive meta-physical affirmation would seem to sustainthese. The charges rest, however, on a mis-apprehension. The real drive of dialecticalcriticism, Murti thinks, is against dogmatismasserting finality. It is not against usingreason as far as we are able within its ap-propriate sphere. The main thing is that weshould bear in mind the limitations of re-flective reason even while we are using it.

By way of bringing the Madhyamika sys-tem into sharper definition Mr. Murti com-pares it with other systems, Indian andWestern, that show a generic affinity ofstandpoint. His analyses of the Vedanta andVijflanavada systems are significant, but wehere omit his treatment of these in order topass directly to the dialectical procedures ofKant, Hegel and F. H. Bradley which aremore familiar to us.

In the Transcendental Dialectic passagesof his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant alsodenied the competence of speculative reasonto reach reality in itself, and exposed theillusory character of metaphysics by showingthe inevitable conflicts of its opposing con-structions. In this he is like Nagarjuna, buthe differs in that he does not recognizethe possibility of non-conceptual intuitionalknowledge, although such knowledge wouldseem to be implied in his notion of "tran-scendental illusion." For how can illusion berecognized without some kind of intuition ofthe truth with reference to which reason isillusory ?

In the philosophy of Hegel, as in Mad-hyamika, dialectic is the consciousness of op-position in reason. Concepts in thesis andantithesis negate one another, for reasonworks through opposites. For Hegel, how-ever, they are negated only in their exclu-


siveness. They are affirmed when taken upinto the synthesis or more inclusive reality.Ultimate reality is the synthesis of all op-posites, thus preserving the partial views ofthesis and antithesis, and overcoming theironesided exclusiveness. Madhyamika dialec-tic, on the other hand, is completely non-affirmative. It rejects all alternatives, allviews, reaching the real through negation,and not by adding views together to makeup a wider view. Such wider view, fromthe angle of Madhyamika method, lies stillwithin the realm of relativity and phenom-ena. It is still adding to appearances, butsuch addition is not the final encounter withreality.

In F. H. Bradley, the Neo-Hegelian, wehave a thinker who uses a dialectical criti-cism of the categories of experience thatcomes close to the method of Nagarjuna.Both thinkers agree that all phenomena areinfected with relativity. Both admit thatonly in the Absolute can reality be consistentand self-contained. Yet Bradley, like Hegel,gives a certain affirmative status to appear-ances. They are real as appearances in theAbsolute. But such a position, Murti holds,"can only result in the Absolute being butthe totality of all appearances."10 Nagarjunaand his followers, he believes, are more con-sistent in holding strictly to the relativity ofappearances, denying them status in theAbsolute, though saying that the Absoluteis their reality and truth, at once immanentand transcendent. In other words, throughappearances we behold reality as through aglass darkly, but in the intuition of supremewisdom appearances vanish and there iscoalescence with the truth. In this experi-ence neither a dialectic of opposites nor asynthesis of them has any function. AsNagarjuna says at the beginning of hisMadhyamika Sastra,

There nothing disappearsNor anything appears.Nothing has an endNor is there anything eternal

Nothing is identical with itselfNor is there anything differentiated.Nothing moves,Neither hither nor thither."

Here, evidently, we are at the end of ourtether. When perfection of wisdom is at-tained, the last expression can only be si-lence. But how can this be of use in ourworld of relative truths and experience?The main thing, Mr. Murti assures us, is tobear in mind the limitation of reason and allforms of apprehending. Then positions maybe taken and pictures or symbols of realityaccepted, while humility is retained beforethe fact that no concept, image or symbolcan be taken as the ultimate truth towardwhich it points. The Real (Sunya) is al-ways transcendent to thought, but for thatvery reason, says Mr. Murti, "it can be'freely' phenomenalised, and one need notrestrict oneself to any particular mode ofsynthesis to serve for all time and for allpeople."12 Thus being a no-position philoso-phy, the Madhyamika can accommodate andgive significance to all systems and shadesof view. As such, Mr. Murti would place itamong today's competing systems of thought,religious and otherwise, as a necessary so-bering recognition for each but making forgood-will among them all. So functioning,he thinks, it should prove of value as em-phasizing spiritual unity, and so provide abasis for a possible world culture. "Whatwe need," he says, "is the realisation of thespiritual which is the bed-rock of all our en-deavour. Only mystical religion, which emi-nently combines the unity of Ultimate Be-ing with the freedom of different paths forrealising it, can hope to unite the world."13

In these sentiments Mr. Murti evidentlyshares an attitude toward the inter-relationsof religions freshly expressed in our time bySarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Arnold Toyn-bee. The implication is that encounter withreality may take place along more than onepath, but that the means of thought and


practice used are relative matters, dependentupon cultural heritage and personal spiritualgrowth.

Professor Murti's answer to our questionregarding present-day significance of theMadhyamika method is given in terms ofthe reflective interest. For an answer interms of life practice we turn to Japan. Herethe outcome is best seen in the modern formof Buddhism known as Zen. The word Zenitself simply means meditation; but the med-itative disciplines as practiced by Zen monksemphasize living experience rather thanwords and letters of scriptures. Strictlyspeaking, they regard the sutras as means toenlightenment as the end, simply as the fin-ger that points to the moon. Among theirpreferred readings, however, are the Su-preme Wisdom scriptures whose teachingsNagarjuna systematized in his philosophy.The Zen teachers, true to the spirit of Mad-hyamika dialectic, make use of bewilderingparadoxes in order to arouse realization oftranscendent truth. As Professor Reiho Ma-sunaga of Komozawa University, a SotoZen institution, has put it,

Paradoxes are used because it is difficult to expresspure experience by ordinary objective logic. Ulti-mately, religion is nothing but a way of living anddying, an experience which cannot be describedlogically. The best way to express our deepest ex-periences is by the use of paradoxes which tran-scend the opposites. For example these are typicalparadoxes to be used for meditation:

Where there is nothing, there is all.To die the great death is to gain the great life.Drop into a deep chasm and live again after your

death.We have been separated for a long time and have

never been apart."

Through such paradoxes, according to Mr.Masunaga, the mind is freed from depend-ence on objective logic and one learns to livefreely in the present moment.

According to Junjiro Takakusu, long-time Professor of Sanskrit at Tokyo Im-perial University, Zen is a meditative intui-tionism which issues in simplicity, purity and

sincerity, practiced in life and the creativearts.15

For Western readers, the best-knownwriter on Zen is Dr. Daisetz Teitaro Suzukiwhose numerous books in English have hadserious attention in Europe and America.For him, the primary experience of realityis "living in the light of eternity." In hisrecent book Mysticism, Christian and Bud-dhist, he writes:

Eternity is the absolute present and the absolutepresent is living a sono-mama life [i.e. a life ofsuchness], where life asserts itself in all its full-ness."

"Suchness" is the rather awkward Englishequivalent in common use for the Sanskritword Tathata. In Chinese the term is Chen-ju, which Arthur Waley has translated morehappily, I think, as "the Truly So," meaning"that-which-is-as-it-is." Dr. Suzuki para-phrases it as the "as-it-is-ness" of things.On Madhyamika principles, any verbal defi-nition here is necessarily false, but relativelyspeaking a life of Suchness or the Truly Sowould seem to be an open, sensitive, recep-tive way of taking things which at the sametime finds in them profound, if inexpressible,significance. To give Westerners some indi-cation of what is meant in this experience,Mr. Suzuki refers to Western mystical ut-terances. He quotes the well-known lines ofWilliam Blake:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand,And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your handAnd Eternity in an hour.

He mentions also Spinoza's seeing the world"sub specie aeternitatis." Likewise the fol-lowing words from Meister Eckhart:

[If you can take] what comes to you throughhim, then whatever it is, it becomes divine in it-self; shame becomes honor, bitterness becomessweet, and gross darkness, clear light. Everythingtakes its flavor from God and becomes divine;everything that happens betrays God when a man'smind works that way; things all have this onetaste; and therefore God is the same to this man


alike in life's bitterest moments and sweetestpleasures."

Further, as an example of the unbifurcatedsense of identity with reality, Mr. Suzukiquotes from Thomas Traherne's Centuriesof Meditations:

Your enjoyment of the world is never right, tillevery morning you awake in Heaven; see yourselfin your Father's palace; and look upon the skies,the earth, and the air as Celestial Joys; havingsuch a reverend esteem of all, as if you wereamong the Angels."

Dr. Suzuki recognizes the necessarilysymbolic character of these statements, andalso the fact that similar Japanese statementswhich he quotes naturally use Buddhist sym-bols. His conclusion is quite in accord withthe Madhyamika conception of encounterwith reality:

The truth is that symbols are after all symbolsand when this inner signification is grasped theycan be utilized in any way one may choose. First,we must see into the meaning and discard all thehistorical or existential encumbrances attached tothe symbols and then we all, Christians as well asBuddhists, will be able to penetrate the veil.™

These present-day evaluations of the Ma-dhyamika tradition from India and Japantend to emphasize its possible contributionto a higher spiritual unity in our danger-ously inter-related yet inwardly dividedmodern world. We are asked to maximize acommon devotion to truth and to recognizethat encounter with reality may occur alongmany paths. The ancient Mahayana ideal isalso renewed that out of compassion for thesufferings of the world the perfection of wis-dom when realized should be utilized for thewelfare of all the living, an ideal which Bud-dhists feel is pertinent in an atomic age.Whether Nagarjuna would recognize hisown encounter with reality in these modernforms of statement, I do not know. I aminclined to think he would say that they tooare but "fingers pointing to the moon."However, one final judgment appears to bevalid. By stressing the relativity of every

expressive concept, image or symbol, theMadhyamika dialectic opens a wide doorfor every actual encounter with reality,whether in the East or in the West.

In the meantime we are left with a ques-tion. In the midst of all the relativities ofexpression in all the religions and their phi-losophies, does mankind have any criterionas to what is better or what is best ?

REFERENCES1 Wei Shih Er Shih Lun, or The Treatise in

Twenty Stanzas on Representation-Only. By Va-subandhu. New Haven: American Oriental Soci-ety, 1938. A selection from this is given in C. H.Hamilton's Buddhism, a Religion of Infinite Com-passion, pp. 126-132. New York: The Liberal ArtsPress, 1952.

'Selected Sayings from the Perfection of Wis-dom. Chosen, arranged, and translated by EdwardConze. London: The Buddhist Society, 195S.

I The Central Philosophy of Buddhism. ByT. R. V. Murti. London: George Allen and Un-win, Ltd., 1955.

lMajjhima NikSya, Sutta No. 63. Tr. by Lord[Sir Robert] Chalmers, in Further Dialogues ofthe Buddha, Vol. I, p. 306.

'Ibid., p. 307.'Majjhimo NikSya, Sutta No. 72. Cf. Henry

Clarke Warren: Buddhism in Translations, p. 125.* As quoted by Murti, Central Philosophy, p. 210.'Idem, p. 212.'Idem, p. 289."Idem, p. 310.II As translated by T. I. Stcherbatsky in his The

Conception of Buddhist Nirvina, p. 69."Murti, op. cit., p. 336."Idem, p. 340 f." See The Path of the Buddha, Ed. by Kenneth

W. Morgan. New York: The Ronald Press Com-pany, 1956, p. 341 f.

"Takakusu, Junjiro: The Essentials of BuddhistPhilosophy, Ch. XI.

" Suzuki, D. T.: Mysticism; Christian and Bud-dhist. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1957, p.112.

" Idem, p. 145. Quoted from Raymond B. Blak-ney's Meister Eckhart. New York: Harper andBrothers, 1941, p. 17.

"Traherne, Thomas, 1636-1674: Centuries ofMeditations. London: P. J. & A. E. Dobell, p. 19.As quoted by Suzuki on p. 104.

"Suzuki, op. cit., p. 112.

encounter with reality in buddhist madhyamika philosophy

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