An elucidation of Buddhism by Dumoulin with an assist from Peirce, Polanyi and Lonergan
JB on October 15, 2009 in Axiological, Cosmological, Methods & Approaches, Practices & Experiences, Provisional Closures & Systems, Uncategorized, the descriptive - Science, the evaluative - Culture, the interpretive - Religion, the normative - PhilosophyIn my reading of Heinrich Dumoulin’s Understanding Buddhism (Weatherhill, NY & Tokoyo, 1994) as translated and adapted from the German by Joseph S. O’Leary, I discovered possible resonances between my own Peircean-Nevillean inspired axiological epistemology, which opens to a Neo-Platonic, participatory ontology, and certain understandings of Buddhism as explicated by Dumoulin.
First, on the question of metaphysics, Dumoulin’s observations seem to concur with those of my friend Jim Arraj, who writes: “It would probably by wrong, as well, to imagine that Zen Buddhism, or even the advaitan Vedanta is making any kind of ontological nondualist claims. Rather, they are trying to take into account a nondual experience, and sometimes their post-experience reflections can leave the impression that they are creating a nondual ontology. But they are not interested in philosophy in the Western sense, but rather, leading people to the experience, itself. The real question, which we will pursue later, is whether enlightenment is nondual in itself, or is presented in a nondual way because of the very means by which the enlightenment experience is attained. There should be no rush to judgment on the part of Christians as if they need to express Christianity in some nondual ontological fashion. This is not precisely what Zen Buddhists, and advaitan Hindus are doing.” Christianity in the Crucible of East-West Dialogue
Dumoulin writes (emphasis my own): “Turning to the question of God, I shall dwell on the enigmatic silence with which the Buddha responded to metaphysical questions, and show that this can be seen as one of the several ways in which Buddhism gives witness to divine transcendence.” (pg 2) He continues in the same vein:”Worldviews described as pessimistic are of three kinds: ontological, existential and theological. Pessimistic philosophies of the first kind — nihilism or Manicheanism — declare the being as such is empty of value and meaning, that the foundations of the universe are askew. The Buddhist diagnosis does not entail anything of this sort, for it either refrains from raising questions of metaphysical ontology, or it does so only in a soteriological context, and then answers them in a way that cannot be called pessimistic.”
I have conceived of epistemology in terms of four autonomous methodologies that are otherwise integrally related axiologically: descriptive, normative, interpretive and evaluative. Preliminarily, it seems that these roughly correlate to Wim Drees’ definition of theology as a cosmology plus an axiology, where my descriptive and normative categories correspond to Drees’ cosmological category and my interpretive and evaluative roughly correspond to his axiological. These categories also roughly correlate with the traditional categories of theological apologetics: evidential, rational, presuppositional (all cosmological) and existential (axiological). We need to dutifully employ such categories as these when parsing texts in interreligious dialogue in order to avoid facilely reductive interpretations of different traditions.
In our realist approaches to reality, we can draw a further distinction, that between a methodological and pragmatic realism and a theoretical and metaphysical realism.
Even our metaphysical realisms can be further distinguished as weak, moderate and strong, or as robustly descriptive versus vaguely referential. These realisms are primarily distinguished from a nominalism, which reduces all meaningful discourse to issues of nomenclature. Polanyi critiques nominalism by advancing his notion of a tacit dimension, which I like to describe as an ineluctably unobtrusive but utterly efficacious type of causation, such a causation as complements the efficient causation of the natural sciences with the minimalistically conceived formal and final causations of modern semiotic science. Lonergan critiques nominalism, which he calls conceptualism, by drawing a distinction between our naming exercises, which correspond to his imperative to be intelligent, and our judging exercises, which follow his imperative to be reasonable. Peirce critiques nominalism with his category of thirdness, which recognizes the reality of law-like generalities (probabilities and necessities) beyond the mere categories of firstness (possibilities as predicates) and secondness (actualities as subjects). These are the types of distinctions that I sense are very much coming into play as we parse the text and disambiguate the concepts of Buddhism in order to properly engage them in comparative theology and contemplative dialogue.
If Buddhism is not doing ontology, then what exactly is it claiming, soteriologically, when invoking such ideas as nirvana and the no-self?
Dumoulin addresses both realities:
He writes of nirvana: “Such reductive interpretations [of nirvana] cannot explain the language in which nirvana is evoked in radiant images of bliss, peace, security and freedom. The literal meaning of the word nirvana is extinction, but this can give a misleading impression. When the Buddha was asked about the state of the Perfected One after death, he pointed out that even in this life his state is “deep, immeasurable, unfathomable as is the great ocean. When the fire is quenched, one does not ask in which direction it has gone, east, west, north or south. This is not because the fire no longer exists, but because, as an Indian audience would have gathered, the fire has returned to a non-manifested state as latent heat. Likewise, the nirvanic state is beyond our grasp, but it is not nothingness.” (pg 29)
He continues regarding selfhood: “Modern Theravada Buddhism adopts no single clear stance towards the question of non-self and selfhood, and the complicated development of the Abhidharma philosophies impedes an unambiguous formulation. One both finds the denial of any kind of self, and the acceptance of a self. The position attributed to the Buddha himself rejects both nihilism (uccheda-ditthi) and substantialism (sassata-ditthi). The radical deniers of any kind of self can with difficulty avoid being found in a nihilistic position in the end, while the acceptance of a self leads easily to a substantialist metaphysics of being. The Buddha avoids both by his silence.” (pg 37)
There is certainly a minimalist ontology of vague references, a phenomenology, which the Buddha employs in these soteriological and pragmatic contexts. This does not, in my view, entail a denial of the self, existentially, only a deliberate prescinding from a robust description of the essential nature of the self, metaphysically. Not even a root metaphor like being can exhaust the reality of a human being, much less God. Cosmologically, or descriptively and normatively, the Buddha desists from saying more than one can know, from proving too much, from telling an untellable story. Axiologically, or interpretively and evaluatively, there is an inchoate opening to transcendence and a conditioning and prioritization of one’s values as ordered toward both personal transformation and a profound compassion, which ensues from one’s radical awakening to a deep solidarity with reality writ large.
To wit, per Dumoulin:
“The true self, as my act of existence, is trans-categorical, not graspable in concepts, ineffable. To actualize the true self, one must undergo a dying of one’s ego. Such an experience of self is an experience of transcendence, an opening to absolute reality, though the transcendence is represented in an impersonal, cosmological language rather than a personal theological one.” (pg 43)
“This down-to-earth faith is far removed from the abstract pessimism which Westerners often associate with Buddhism. Thus the basic human experience, whereby one breaks through the bounds of the ego to open oneself to an all-embracing, protecting, and helping Power, works itself out in Buddhism in a distinctive style. Knowledge and nescience, transcendent faith and this-worldly confirmation, blend here in a rich varioety of forms.” (pg. 63)
“This defining ideal of Buddhism [compassion] is embodied in the Buddha, the bodhisattvas, and the Buddhist saints. The philosophical systems developed in Mahayna Buddhism were unable to provide a satisfactory philosophical illumination of this topic. Christian love, which has also found a convincing embodiment in countless lives, cannot be explained in philosophical terms either, though its foundations in divine transcendence are clear.” (pg 86)
Is Buddhism, then, transcending nominalist tendencies or reinforcing them?
In my view, Buddhism, transcends nominalism pragmatically. First, there is a mountain, in its Peircean secondness, in actuality, in Lonergan’s imperative to be attentive. Then, there is no mountain, as Lonergan’s imperative to be intelligent critiques our conceptual formulations and choice of predicates as referenced in Peircean firstness or possibilities. Then, there is, once again, a mountain, pragmatically and phenomenologically, as we enjoy our second naivete’ following Lonergan’s imperative to be reasonable in our judgments of fact, as we affirm the Peircean thirdness in what Lonergan has called emergent probabilities. This reasonableness moves forward with the recognition that we do not have to have the essential nature of reality fleshed out in robustly metaphysical terms in order to navigate through reality realizing its manifold and multiform values, but can enjoy our value-realization pursuits with provisional closures and a contrite fallibilism. Buddhism honors Polanyi’s tacit dimensionality in its affirmation of an ineffable transcendent reality.
Perhaps no word better captures the Buddhist conception of our human relationship to transcendent reality than participatory? While there can be no robust description of either the self or of transcendent reality in an unambiguous ontological language or system, both per Buddhism and my own take on metaphysics, neither can there be any doubt that the self is caught up in a universal relationality, extending beyond the empirical ego to the dimensions of the cosmos (pg 38). Dumoulin writes: “Interpreted thus [Great Self as no-self], the sense of being one with the cosmos is an acceptance of one’s relative place in the total web of things.” (pg 39)
This participatory realization, however, does not grow out of a Buddhist cosmology, descriptively and normatively. It is, rather, an interpretive stance toward an experience, which conditions one’s outlook on reality, evaluatively. Existentially and axiologically, then, one opens oneself to one’s place in the web of existence and approaches reality with a radical acceptance, a deep okayness, a willingness to participate on reality’s terms in order to further realize one’s solidarity with the One and to express the profound compassion that necessarily ensues from this experience.
Dumoulin discusses an East-West convergence of apophatic mysticism. It raises my own suspicions about a possible convergence of these participatory ontologies, both conceived vaguely:”Speaking of Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa and John Chrysostum: These great theologians provided a solid basis for the thought of Psuedo-Dionysius, who also drew heavily on the thought of the Neo-Platonist philosopher Proclus. Are the similarities between Eastern and Western mysticism due exclusively to a convergence on the level of spiritual experience, or was Christian negative theology prompted by an encounter with Asia? There has been much discussion of possible Indian influences on the Middle Platonic and Neo-Platonic ideas which these theologians had absorbed, particularly in connection with Plotinus’s mysticism of the One. Emile Brehier spoke of the orientalism of Plotinus and of deep affinities between certain aspects of Plotinian doctrine and the Upanishads. It is hard to dismiss the belief that the stream of negative theology, preserved and expanded in Christian mystical thought down to the present time, has one of its sources in that distant encounter with a form of Indian spirituality closely related to Buddhism. Though the channels of interactions remain obscure, these early interactions between Eastern and Western spirituality are a haunting theme in the history of religions and loom in the background of the present encounter between Buddhism and Christianity.” (pp. 5-6)
Dumoulin closes: The Christian sees ultimate reality revealed in the personal love of God as shown in Christ, the Buddhist in the silence of the Buddha. Yet, they agree on two things: that the ultimate mystery is ineffable, and that it should be manifest to human beings. The inscription on a Chinese stone figure of the Buddha, dated 746, reads:
The highest truth is without image.
If there were no image at all, however, there would be no way for truth to be manifested.
The highest principle is without words.
But if there were not words at all, how could principle possibly be revealed?
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our symbols reveal what they conceal
&
conceal what they reveal
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