Basics of the Buddhist Philosophy

Buddhism is the fourth largest amongst the great religions of Humanity. In this article I will be giving you a short overview of the basic philosophical ideas of Buddhist Philosophy.

Epistemology

Epistemology in Buddhist Philosophy is different from other schools of philosophy in India. This is primarily because Buddha never really focused on the metaphysical and cosmological understanding of this universe, rather his focus was more towards our suffering and how we can overcome it. Therefore, Buddhist epistemology is empirical in nature, where the focus is mostly placed on the personal experience of the subject and denies any verification which stems from personal authority, sacred tradition or any kind of rationalism which constructs metaphysical theories through logic. This is the reason why Buddhism rejects the authority of the Vedas.

Buddhism preaches that a belief should only be accepted only if it leads to practical consequences. Hence Buddhism discourages its followers from indulging in intellectual disputation for its own sake, which is fruitless, and distracts one from the goal of awakening. Only philosophy and discussion which has pragmatic value for liberation from suffering is seen as important. This attitude of Buddhism can be explained very well with the parable of poisoned arrow. Where Buddha said that if you are stuck with a poisoned arrow, then 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) is what is important. Intellectual disputation distracts one from the path of liberation just as focusing on how the arrow stuck the person distracts the physician from curing the wound.

Later on, when Buddhism came under attack from other schools of Philosophy, Buddhist philosophers did define Buddhist epistemology in terms of traditional Pramanas of Indian philosophy, and mentioned that a Buddhist only believes in Pratyaksa (Observation) and Anumana (Inference).

Four Noble Truths and Eight Fold Path

In Buddhist Philosophy to overcome the suffering in this life, Buddha talked about four noble truths:

First Noble Truth is that this life is suffering. Here there is a very important point that we must understand. Generally, when we say that this life is suffering, people come up with an exception that there are so many things which are pleasant in this world, then how can one say that this life is only suffering. The Buddha and other Indian thinkers have explained that if you think carefully you will see that even in pleasure there is suffering. This is because when we experience something pleasant, we suffer when that pleasure ends or we suffer because of the fear of losing that source of pleasure.

Second Noble Truth is that the cause of this suffering is our desires. Buddha explains it as follows. We suffer because we are born in this world with a body. This birth happens because we have a strong desire to exist. If this desire to exist is gone our birth will also stop. I get this question all the time that if we have cultivated the desire to not exist then we will dead while living and I think in my mind “exactly”. Our samskaras of the desire to exist is so strong that we always miss this subtle point and thus suffer terribly. We take up body because we have very strong desire to exist and enjoy the sense pleasures.

Third Noble Truth is that the cessation of suffering is possible. Theoretically the solution is quite simple, if sense desires are the cause of suffering then cessation of suffering will happen if all our sense desires are destroyed. Here many people get confused and think that destruction of desires means that we should stop doing anything. No that is not the case, had this been the case why did the Buddhists travelled half the world to spread the message of Buddha. The keyword to understand here is attachment. Desires inherently are not bad, there are bad desires, good desires and neutral desires. The cause of our suffering is our selfish desire that arise due to our attachment to our desires. A work done with attachment and under the influence of infatuation, hatred and anger is what leads to suffering while a work done with detachment frees us.

Fourth Noble Truth outlays 8-fold path towards liberation shown as 8 spokes of chakra of Buddhism. This include

1. Right View: All our troubles arise because of ignorance; therefore, it is important for us to develop correct outlook towards life, which you can do by understanding the four noble truths.
2. Right Resolve: Knowledge in itself is never sufficient, the practicing Buddhist must develop a resolve to live by that knowledge. Therefore, one must adopt the life of a mendicant and follow the path of Buddha.
3. Right Speech: The revolve must turn into action and should start with one’s speech. This includes: a) No lying. b) No rude talking. c) No telling one person what another says about him to cause discord or harm their relationship.
4. Right Conduct: Speech is followed by conduct which includes, refraining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct
5. Right Livelihood: Renouncing bad speech and conduct one should gain one’s livelihood only by benefiting others and refrain from a livelihood which harms others, such as selling of weapons, poisons or intoxicants
6. Right Effort: While walking on this path there is always a danger that one might lose his way. Therefore, the adherent must always make an effort to stay on the 8-fold path.
7. Right Mindfulness: Right effort can only be made when one is constantly aware of himself. The adherent should carefully observe all his sensations, thoughts and mental states. Only when lives like this does he always remain aware of the four noble truths, otherwise falls in the rut of life which leads to bondage and misery.
8. Right Samadhi: Only when a person has successfully incorporated the above-mentioned steps in this life does, he become suited to enter the state of deep concentration called samadhi, attaining which one becomes free from suffering.

Buddhist World View

Buddhist philosophy sees existence with three marks or Trilakshana, which are impermanence, suffering and non self. These three conditions apply to everyone and everything. Everything is impermanent, everyone is suffering and all phenomenon in this universe are non self (in other words no phenomenon is this universe is eternal and unchanging). This is where Buddhist teachings come in conflict with Upanishadic teaching which says Brahman is eternal and unchanging.

The Buddhists believe that events in this universe happen in an order with one following the other and followed by yet another. This is called the theory of dependent origination, which is based on the basic idea of cause and effect, that every event must have a cause behind it. This means that there is no external agent such as God who started everything. Since they believe in cause and effect the also believe in the law of karma. If something happened to us, it must have happened as a consequence of our prior action and whatever we are doing right now will have a consequence, in future also. Since they believe in the law of karma, they also believe in rebirth.

The belief in dependent origination directly implies that nothing is permanent in this universe, as whatever has a beginning must also have an end. This is the Buddhist law of impermanence, which states that everything is transitory in nature, nothing is permanent. Finally, since nothing is permanent in this universe, there is no constant unchanging entity which the Upanishads call the self. This gives rise to the idea of Shunayata, that this whole existence is actually void.

The Panch(Five) Skandas

According the Buddhist Philosophy a person is made up of 5 aggregates, which we call Skandas. The Buddha explains the five aggregates from lower to higher as follows:

1. Form (Sanskrit, Pāli रूप ): This is the material form of a being, which is composed of four basic elements: earth (solidity), water (cohesion), fire (heat) and wind (motion).
2. Sensation (Sanskrit, Pāli वेदना): sensory experience as either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.
3. Perception (Sanskrit, संज्ञा, Pāli सञ्ञा): Registers and recognizes an entity and applies label to it.
4. Mental formations (Sanskrit, संस्कार, Pāli सङ्खार ): ‘Our habits and mental conditioning developed over many births
5. Consciousness (Sanskrit, विज्ञान , Pāli विञ्ञाण ): Awareness that I exist.

Buddhist Schools of Philosophy

In the interest of time I am not going to give you the details of different schools of Buddhist Philosophy as that is a quite deep topics and such a short article will not suffice to explain them properly. Here I am going to give just a brief introduction to them. If you want me to write about them in detail then let me know in the comments.

Madhyamika School of Shunyata, which takes the Buddhist law of impermanence as step further and say that this impermanence is also empty and that this universe has come from a void, which they call Shunya.

Yogachara School of Subjective idealism like the Madhyamikas consider this external world to be empty but say that the mind “chitta” is real.

Suatantrika School of Representationism believe in the mind and external world both to be real.

The Vaibhashika School also believe in the mind and external world both to be real, but add that in order to perceive the external object we need to have perceived it earlier in some form.

Religious Schools of Buddhism

The religious schools of Buddhism include, Hinayana Mahayana and Vajrayana schools, where Hinayana is the older version of Buddhism, which does not believe in any God and only considers universal moral law of Karma and Dharma as supreme. This is a difficult version of Buddhism only suitable for strong willed individuals who can really stick to the teachings of Buddha.

As the religion spread to wide areas a simpler version of Buddhism evolved for the masses which is the Mahayana Buddhism. This version of Buddhism came down to the level of a common man and accommodated the habits, beliefs and traditions of the people who accepted Buddhism. To accommodate this three important ideas were introduced. These are

1. Boddhisatva: This is the idea that after one achieves Nirvana and becomes a buddha, still does not leave the cycle of birth and death in order to help others to attain enlightenment also. This idea he helpful for those who have to stay in the world and perform their duties.
2. Buddha as God: When people suffer in life, they need something to hang on to as a source of mercy and help. This is where the idea of God is very helpful. Therefore, Gautama was turned into an incarnation of the ultimate reality or Buddha. This helped common people to deal with their everyday challenges in life.
3. Restoration of the idea of self: The idea of non self is rather difficult to grasp for a common man. There is a risk of nihilism is therefore someone who misunderstands this idea. Therefore, to dumb down the things in Mahayana Buddhism the idea of self is introduced behind which is the reality of transcendental self or Mahatma.

Vajrayana religious school is quite similar to the Mahayana religious school. It is philosophically based on Yogachara thought. The emphasis is on attaining the ultimate state of mind (nirvana), using many tools such as Tantric practice, Mantra utterances, Secret Mantras and so on. In many of the Vajrayana texts, highly symbolic language is used about inner experiences. The purpose has been to help the seekers of this method to gain such experiences within themselves.

Recently, Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar found the Navayana Buddhist sect in Maharashtra, India, where the basic principles of Buddha are followed and the relevant principles of Mahayana, Vajrayana and Hinayana sects are included. Whatever seems to be superstitious in these sects were rejected and replaced with new scientific discoveries.

Impact of Buddhism

The ideas of Buddhist Philosophy are profound and although it might seem that Buddhism is different from Hinduism, in reality that difference is very minimal. That is why I personally consider it to be the part of Sanatana Dharma. Although we say that Buddhism has died from India, the truth is that the ideas of Buddhist Philosophy still form a very important part of current Hindu thought. Huang Tsang who was a 7 thcentury Chinese visitor of India mentions that in many temples in India the idol of Hindu deities and Buddha was kept side by side. It is rather unfortunate that these days some people play dirty politics to create a picture that Buddhism died in India due to the oppressive Brahmins. People believe in such ridiculous claims because they do not understand either Hinduism of Buddhism. If they understood the two religions deeply, they would instantly understand that Buddhism never died in India, instead the ideologies merged into each other by taking the good parts of each other.

Just look the spectrum of ideas from Hinayana Buddhism to Mahayana Buddhism to Vedanta Philosophy and you can see a gradual morphing of the thought, where you find very little distinction between Mahayana Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta. It is unfortunate that people make a distinction of Hinduism and Buddhism as two different religions. Considering the sorry state of both of these philosophies right now, it is high time that both of us should unite and work towards merging them into one Dharma, the Sanatana Dharma.

Originally published at https://stoicsadhu.com on June 13, 2020.