BUDDHIST WISDOM ON THE SOUL
Different Needs and Fulfillments
The three characteristics of Mahayana Buddhism are compassion, wisdom and emptiness -- distinct from the three characteristics of suffering, impermanence and non-self which are sometimes called the three marks of Theravada Buddhism (please see Chapter 2). These three characteristics of Mahayana Buddhism are expressed in the very first passage of the Heart Sutra: compassion in Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, wisdom in "prajna-paramita", and emptiness in the word "empty".
When the Heart Sutra was translated from Sanskrit to Chinese, instead of using the Chinese term zhi hui which means "wisdom", all translators transcribed the Sanskrit sound "prajna" into Chinese sound as ban rou, because zhi hui or wisdom as we normally understand it does not accurate convey the meaning intended by "prajna".
Similarly, "paramita", which literally means "arrived at the other shore" is transcribed as bo luo mi tuo. Figuratively it means "crossing the sea of suffering from the shore of samsara to reach the shore of nirvana". Samsara refers to the endless cycle of birth and rebirth all unenlightened sentient beings are subjected to; and nirvana refers to the attainment of perfect enlightenment where the enlightened being actualizes his (or her) cosmic reality. The result is Buddhahood, the direct experience that what one regards as his personal self is actually the infinite, eternal cosmos!
This realization of Buddhahood is what Buddhism is all about. This is the ultimate aim, the supreme achievement. What other endeavour can be more noble and meaningful? Of course not everyone is ready for this supreme achievement. For different people of different developmental levels and with different aspirations, Buddhism provides an enormous amount of theore¬tical knowledge and practical expedient means to fulfill different spiritual needs.
For those of a low spiritual level, who are not bothered whether Buddha or God or by any name the Supreme Reality is known, ever exists, or whether there is any other plane of existence besides the present physical one, Buddhism provides a practical way of living whereby they can have some moral guidance and derive some peace of mind.
The law of karma, for example, explains that even if they do not believe in reincarnation, what they think, say and do now affect their happiness or otherwise in their present life. For example, if they feel hatred towards other people, the very first persons to suffer are they themselves, as the evil mental energy of their own thought brings adverse effect on their physical and emotional health. The fundamental five precepts of not killing, not stealing, not telling lies, not involving in immoral sex, and not taking intoxication provide a simple but very effective way of moral living.
For those who are spiritually awakened, but who still have not attained the intellectual understanding or spiritual maturity for the highest truth, Buddhism provides an extensive range of expedient means to satisfy their various spiritual aspirations. For example, cultivation of blessings by doing good will enable them to be reborn at a higher station in their next human lives, or in some heavenly realms. If they also cultivate wisdom, such as by chanting and under¬standing sutras or by appropriate meditational practices, they can even decide on which of the numerous heavens they want their rebirth to be.
For the highly advanced in spiritual development, Buddhism provides both the wisdom and the methods to achieve the greatest accomplishment any being can ever attain. The hugh collection of wisdom sutras, for example, explains in astonishing detail different levels of reality concerning man and universe, and the extensive techniques of meditation enable the aspirants to directly experience these various levels of reality, ultimately leading to the supreme achievement of Buddhahood.
Various Kinds of Wisdom
The Buddha and other masters have frequently advised that we should not accept any teaching based on faith alone, but should access it to the best of our understanding and experience. Wisdom provides the understanding, and meditation opens the way to direct experience. Meditation has been described in some detail in the previous chapter; in this section we examine the Buddhist philosophy concerning various types of wisdom.
It is worthy of note that when used in Buddhism, the term "philosophy" always refers to an explanation of truth based on the direct experience of the Buddha or some masters; it never means intellectual speculation or reasoning, as is frequently meant to be among both classical and modern western philosophers. For example, if we say that according to Greek philosophy, the perfect form was a cycle, the information was derived from speculation or reasoning, not from any empirical evidence. But if we say that according to Buddhist philosophy, different forms of life exist in different realms of existence, the information is derived from the actual perception of the Buddha or other Buddhist masters, usually during deep meditation.
According to Buddhist philosophy, there are three kinds of wisdom:
- wisdom of cosmic reality (shi xiang ban rou in Chinese);
- wisdom of observed illumination (guan zhao ban rou);
- wisdom of language (wen zi ban rou).
Wisdom of observed illumination is so-called because it is not the wisdom of ultimate reality, but the wisdom of an illumination of ultimate reality observed through a set of conditions. It may be sub-divided into three types:
(a) Ordinary wisdom of observed illumination, which includes all the knowledge of ordinary (i.e. unenlightened) people, including all the sciences and philosophies. Because such knowledge brings only mundane effects which may be beneficial or harmful, Mahayana Buddhists do not consider it as prajna, or the highest wisdom.
(b) External wisdom of observed illumination, which includes all the wisdom of other religions that seeks "eternal" life in heaven. Because going to heaven is not the highest goal in Buddhism as it still has not transcended the phenomenal dimension, Mahayana Buddhists do not consider this kind of wisdom as prajna.
(c) Small vehicle wisdom of observed illumination, which refers to the kind of wisdom taught in Hinayana Buddhism, which is now generally called Theravada Buddhism. Mahayanist Buddhists do not consider it prajna because it only enables aspirants to be liberated from the illusion of self, but not from the illusion of dharmas. In other words, a Hinayanist realizes that his self is an illusion, but he still thinks that dharmas, which give rise to phenomena, are ultimately real though they exist only momentarily.
The third category of wisdom, wisdom of language, refers to any wisdom expressed in spoken or written words. Words, at their best, are only an imitation of reality. Thus, any wisdom derived from words should be accepted provisionally. For example, we may read about an expedition to the South Pole, but unless we were there to experience the expedition personally, any information gathered from the reading is only an imitation of the experience, and sometimes the imitation may be very far off the real experience. Similarly we may derive much Buddhist wisdom from reading, but this wisdom, distorted through the medium of language, is only an intellectual description of reality. Hence, in the Buddhism quest for spiritual fulfillment, direct experience is always emphasized. Nevertheless, wisdom of language is very helpful in providing understanding which eventually leads the way to experience.
The Five Skandhas
According to Buddhist philosophy, i.e the Buddhist explanation of truth based on the direct experience of the Buddha or other masters, what we regard as our self or personality is actually a collection of five skandhas or aggregates. These five skandhas are form, feeling, thought, activity and consciousness.
The form of a person or self is his physical matter. It can be reduced to sub-atomic particles, which are too fine for normal eyes to see even with the aid of powerful microscopes.
Feeling is the emotional reaction this person or self experiences as a result of the interaction of his six senses (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body. intellect) and six types of consciousness (eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, nose-consciousness, tongue-consciousness, body-consciousness, intellect-consciousness) giving rise to the six defilements (sight, noise, smell, taste, feeling, phenomena). His emotion may be pleasant, like joy and attachment; unpleasant, like anger and fear; or neutral like apathy and indifference.
Thought is what the person thinks. In Buddhist philosophy, thought is extremely important, as it decides what the person will say and do, the effects of which constitute his karma. As you become more fami¬liar with Buddhist wisdom later on, you will realize that the truth of the saying "A person is what he thinks" goes beyond merely his behaviour and beliefs.
Activity represents all that the person says and does. While his thought affects his activity, his activity in return affects his thought, thus generating a complex matrix of karmic cause and effect.
His consciousness represents his awareness, not only of his situations now and here, but also of subtle mental impressions that transcend time and space, that he may not normally be aware of! Besides the six types of consciousness mentioned above in the paragraph about feeling, there are also the manas consciousness and the alaya consciousness, which may be described as the subconsciousness and the collective consciousness respectively. His mamas consciousness, for example, enables him to recall past lives; and his alaya consciousness explains why he will interpret phenomena in the same ways as others in the same class of sentient beings. For example, what appears as water to him will also appear as water to other humans, but it appears as fire to ghosts, and crystal to gods, because humans, ghosts and gods share different alaya consciousness.
For convenience, the five skandhas may be divided into two main groups: matter and mind. Form is matter, whereas feeling, thought, activity and consciousness belong to mind. Modern physicists, physiologists, psychologists and other scientists can learn a great deal from this Buddhist philosophy of the making of a person. Quantum physicists, for instance, may have a better understanding why the external world, which they now know is a creation of the mind, always manifests in the same ways to all people although they have their individual minds -- a problem that has puzzled many great scientists. Biologists and psychologists who, in their eagerness to be objective like Newtonian physicists, have been shy of such inevitable terms like mind and consciousness, and prefer to call them brain functions and nervous system, may be astonished to learn that the brain and the nerves constitute only the gross matter of a person.
The Buddha advises that while we are a collection of five skandhas, we must not be mistaken that we are the five skandhas! This teaching has been interpreted at different levels by different people, and is the cause of much controversy between the Theravadins and the Mahayanists. Theravadins maintain that there is no self or soul because none of the five skandhas is the self; that everything is impermanent because all the skandhas change or transform; and that there is suffering because of the transformation of the skandhas. Mahayanists maintain that this Theravada teaching is the result of failing to understand prajna, or the transcendental wisdom. Non-self, impermanence and suffering occur only at the phenomenal dimension; at the transcendental dimension of cosmic reality, there is Universal Self, permanence and bliss.
What the Buddha Has Taught about the Skandhas
Let us examine what the Buddha himself has said about these five skandhas as recorded in the Samyutta Nikaya, which is a fundamental collection of Theravadin scriptures. The text below is a verbatim record of the Buddha's words spoken to disciples who listened to, not read from, the Buddha's teaching: hence, there is much repetition of both factual information and sentence structure for the listeners' ease of comprehension. Because of the linguistic difference between English and Pali, the translated language produced below and the original language the teaching was spoken in, the text may appear circumlocutory; in its original the Buddha's speech is both poetic and dialectical. Secondly, the two skandhas translated as "thought" and "activity" in this book, are translated as "perception" and "formations" below.
Herein, householder, the untaught average person, taking no account of the noble ones, unskilled in the doctrine of the noble ones, untrained in the doctrine of the noble ones, taking no account of the good men, unskilled in the doctrines of the good men, untrained in the doctrine of the good men, regards form as self, or self as form, or form as being in self or self as being in form. "I am form" says he; "form is mine", and is obsessed with that idea. Even as he is so obsessed, that form changes, becomes otherwise, and owing to the change and transformation of form, there arise in him sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair.
He regards feeling as self, or self as feeling, or feeling as being in self or self as being in feeling. "I am the feeling" says he; "feeling is mine", and is obsessed with that idea. Even as he is so obsessed, that feeling changes, becomes otherwise, and owing to the change ad transformation of feeling, there arise in him sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair.
He regards perception as self, or self as perception, or perception as being in self or self as being in perception. "I am perception" says he; "perception is mine", and is obsessed with that idea. Even as he is so obsessed, that perception changes, becomes otherwise, and owing to the change and transformation of perception, there arise in him sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair.
He regards formations as self, or self as formations, or formations as being in self or self as being in formations. "I am formations" says he; "formations are mine", and is obsessed with that idea. Even as he is so obsessed, that formations change, becomes otherwise, and owing to the change and transformation of formations, there arise in him sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair.
He regards consciousness as self, or self as consciousness, or consciousness as being in self or self as being in consciousness. "I am consciousness" says he; "consciousness is mine", and is obsessed with that idea. Even as he is so obsessed, that consciousness changes, becomes otherwise, and owing to the change and transformation of consciousness, there arise in him sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair.
The sutra that is frequently quoted by Theravadins to support their claim that "there is no soul" is the Anattalakkhana Sutta, which records the Buddha's second sermon to humans. The crucial part is quoted below.
The body (rupa), O Bhikkhus, is souless (anatta). If, O Bhikkhus, there were in this a soul then this body would not be subject to suffering. "Let this body be thus, let this body be not thus," such possibilities would also exist. But inasmuch as this body is souless, it is subject to suffering, and no possibility exists for (ordering): "Let this be so, let this be not so."
In like manner feelings (vedana), perceptions (sanna), mental states (samkhara), and consciousness (vinnana), are souless.
What think ye, O Bhikkhus, is this body permanent or impermanent?
Impermanent (anicca), Lord.
Is that which is impermanent happy or painful?
It is painful (dukkha), Lord.
Is it justifiable, then, to think of that which is impermanent, painful and transitory: "this is mine; this am I; this is my soul"?
Certainly not, Lord.
Similarly, O Bhikkhus, feelings, perceptions, impermanent, mental states and consciousness are impermanent and painful.
Does the Soul Exist?
Actually in the original words spoken by the Buddha, there is some fine shades of difference between the self, which is pudgala in Sanskrit, and the soul, which is atman. But for our purpose here, we may use the terms interchangeably without much affecting the main meaning. It is clear from the two sutras above that the Buddha says that form is not the self or soul, feeling is not the self or soul, thought (or perception as described above) is not the self or soul, activity (described as formations or mental states above) is not the self or soul, and consciousness is not the self or soul. Yet, and this is a very important point that Theravadins seem to have overlooked, nowhere in the above sutras or anywhere in any sutras, the Buddha has said that there is no self or soul, or any term with a similar concept, although there were actually many occasions the Buddha would have done so if he wanted to indicate that the self or soul did not exist.
To say that none of the skandhas is the soul, or even that the skandhas taken collectively is not the soul, is not the same as saying there is no soul. For example, we may correctly say that right understanding (by itself) is not Enlightenment (because even if a person has right understanding, it does not necessarily mean he is Enlightened); similarly, every tenet of the Noble Eightfold Path is not Enlightenment, and even practising all the eight tenets of the Eightfold Path is not necessarily attaining Enlightenment. But this does not mean that Enlightenment does not exist, nor that practising the Eightfold Path cannot lead to Enlightenment!
It is true that the Buddha did not emphatically state that the soul existed. This was because the existence of the soul was accepted for granted. As an analogy, when we describe a person, we do not normally mention that he has two eyes, as this is taken for granted; it is only when he has only one eye or no eyes that we mention the odd situation.
There is a lot of evidence to show that during the Buddha's time, the question of the self or soul is frequently debated. The relevant passage from the Pancattaya Sutta, a basic Theravada scripture, is quoted fully below, showing the Buddha enumerating the sixteen popular views regarding the self and the world at that time -- these views are also mentioned by the Buddha in other sutras. It is significant that the Buddha does not say there is no self, instead he says that having transcendental wisdom, he "has gone beyond" all those views. In other words these views are relevant only at the phenomenal level, at the transcendental level of ultimate reality they become irrelevant; hence, if a person clings to any one of these views he would not be able to transcend the phenomenal to attain nirvana.
Bhikkhus, there are some recluses and brahmins who speculate about the past and hold views about the past, who assert various doctrinal propositions concerning the past.
(1) Some assert thus: "The self and the world are eternal: only this is true, anything else is wrong."
(2) Some assert thus: "The self and the world are not eternal: only this is true, anything else is wrong."
(3) Some assert thus:"The self and the world are both eternal and not eternal: only this is true, anything else is wrong."
(4) Some asset thus: "The self and the world are neither eternal nor not eternal: only this is true, anything else is wrong."
(5) Some assert thus: "The self and the world are finite: only this is true, anything else is wrong."
(6) Some assert thus: "the self and the world are infinite: only this is true, anything else is wrong."
(7) Some assert thus: `"The self and the world are both finite and infinite: only this is true, anything else is wrong."
(8) Some assert thus: "The self and the world are neither finite nor infinite: only this is true, anything else is wrong."
(9) Some assert thus: "The self and the world are percipient of unity: only this is true, anything else is wrong."
(10) Some assert thus: "The self and the world are percipient of diversity: only this is true, anything else is wrong."
(11) Some assert thus: "The self and the world are percipient of the limited: only this is true, anything else is wrong."
(12) Some assert thus: "The self and the world are percipient of the immeasurable: only this is true, anything else is wrong."
(13) Some assert thus: "The self and the world [experience] exclusively pleasure: only this is true, anything else is wrong."
(14) Some assert thus: "The self and the world [experience] exclusive pain: only this is true, anything else is wrong."
(15) Some assert thus: "The self and the world [experience] both pleasure and pain: only this is true, anything else is wrong."
(16) Some assert thus: "The self and the world [experience] neither pleasure nor pain: only this is true, anything else is wrong."
Therein, bhikkhus, as to those recluses and brahmins who hold such a doctrine and view as this: "The self and the world are eternal: only this is true, anything else is wrong," that apart from faith, apart from approval, apart from oral tradition, apart from reasoned cogitation, apart from reflective acceptance of a view, they will have any pure and clear personal knowledge of this -- that is impossible. Since they have no pure and clear personal knowledge, even the mere fragmentary knowledge that those good recluses and brahmins clarify [about their view] is declared to be clinging on their part. That is conditioned and gross, but there is cessation of formations. Having known "There is this," seeing the escape from that, the Tathagata has gone beyond that.
Two other points are worth noting. The Buddha usually refers to himself as the Tathagata, which means Suchness or Supreme Reality. In other words, once Siddhartha Guatama or any being has attained nirvana, he is the Supreme Reality, for he has realized that there is actually no boundary separating him and anything else. This cosmic truth will be explained later in this book. Secondly the Buddha insists that knowledge should not merely be derived from faith, approval, tradition, reasoning or reflection -- the five common ways ordinary people derive their knowledge -- but from "pure and clear personal knowledge", i.e. from direct experience.
There are also many instances in many sutras, including basic Theravadin sutras, where the existence of the self or soul is clearly implied. The following are just two examples from Theravada sources.
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Thro' many birth in existence wandered I,
Seeking, but not finding, the builder of this house.
Sorrowful is repeated birth.
O housebuilder, thou art seen. Thous shall build no house again.
All thy rafters are broken. Thy ridge-pole is shattered.
Mind attains the Unconditioned.
Achieved is the End of Craving.
In the following quotation taken from the Anguttara Nikaya, a fundamental collection of Theravada scriptures, the Buddha mentioned his former lives as gods. The concept of a "permanent self" that transmigrates from one life to another is clearly implied in the sutra. Those who think that Theravada Buddhism does not entertain any metaphysics must be very surprised to find this Theravadin scripture:
For seven years I cultivated thoughts of loving-kindness. Having cultivated a heart full of loving-kindness for seven years, I did not return to this world for seven cyclic aeons of world-destructions and world-originations. Whenever a world was destroyed, I entered by way of rebirth the realm of the Radiant Gods; and when the world unfolded again, I was reborn in an empty Brahma palace. And there I was the Great Brahma, the unvanquished victor, all-powerful. And thirty-six times I was Sakka, ruler of gods, and many hundred times I was a world-ruling king, a just and righteous king.
The quotation below is taken from a Mahayana source, but the same sutra, Brahmajala Sutra, is also found in Digha Nikaya, another important collection of Theravada sutras which discuss many metaphysical topics, including the question of the soul.
If someone says: the soul if permanent; the world is also permanent -- this is perverse view. The soul is impermanent; the world is impermanent -- this is also perverse view. The soul and the world are both permanent and impermanent; the soul and the world are neither permanent nor impermanent -- these are also perverse views. Hence, knowing that all phenomena are empty, is the ultimate reality.
Although many readers may be unaware, the above quotation contains a great cosmic truth taught in Mahayana Buddhism. The existence of the soul is accepted for granted: the question is not whether the soul exists or does not exist, but whether it is permanent or impermanent. The Buddha teaches that to say the soul is permanent, or impermanent, both permanent and impermanent, neither permanent nor impermanent, are all perverse views. Readers familiar with the latest science may be amazed at how similar is the Buddha's teaching with the language of quantum physics. Why are all these views considered perverse, and why knowing phenomena are empty is the ultimate reality, will be explained in the next chapter.
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