namo dhammassa
(homage to the Way)
On the Three Marks of Existence
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. —Shakespeare (from Macbeth)
One of the basic doctrines of Buddhist philosophy is known in the Pali language as tilakkhaṇa, equivalent to Sanskrit trilakṣmaṇa or Buddhist Sanskrit trilakṣaṇa, and is known variously in English as "the three marks," "the three signs," and "the three characteristics." An intuitive understanding of the doctrine of tilakkhaṇa is called vipassanā, or "insight," and a deep, experiential realization of the truth of this doctrine is said to result in the attainment of full enlightenment. The standard Pali formula is as follows:
sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā,
sabbe saṅkhārā dukkhā,
sabbe dhammā anattā.
A common English rendering would be:
All conditioned things are impermanent,
All conditioned things are suffering,
All things are not self,
But perhaps a more accurate translation, which will be referred to throughout the following discussion, is:
All formations are inconstant,
All formations are unease,
All things as they are, are not self (and are without self).
In order to understand the doctrine of the three marks conceptually and verbally, one must have an understanding of the five philosophical terms which the formula contains, namely: anicca, dukkha, anatta, saṅkhāra, and dhamma. In an attempt to shed some light on this important doctrine from a somewhat unusual direction, so that it might be viewed with "fresh eyes," so to speak, and thus possibly be more thoroughly understood, an effort will be made to explain the philosophical terms logically, and with as small a load of preconceived dogmatic bias as possible. We will begin with anicca, or inconstancy.
First of all, it may be unnecessary to point out that in our universe every discernible thing which has a beginning must also have an end, whether it be an atom, a snowflake, a human being, a planet, or a galaxy of stars. Everything born is destined to die. The Buddhist scriptures compare a human to a clay pot that must inevitably end in breaking, and to ripe fruit for which there is continuous hazard of falling from the tree. And before the final destruction there are an infinite number of changes, many of them unwanted.
But in addition to this, there is another, deeper, more pervasive aspect of anicca that deserves consideration. It is a psychological fact, of which most people are unaware, that inconstancy, or continuous change, is absolutely necessary for the existence of consciousness in the human sense. The passing of time is not perceived due to any intrinsic, absolute passage or flow of time, such as was envisaged by Isaac Newton and countless others; rather, we perceive time's passing by perceiving change. If there is no change, there is no discernible passing of time. It is true that if one sits in a quiet room with one's eyes closed and refrains from moving about, even holding one's breath, one is still aware to some degree of the passing of time, but this is mainly because one is still perceiving changes going on within one's own mind, which may amount to little more than a sort of very subtle vital vibration. Yet if one's mind were absolutely fixed upon a single, unchanging mental state for, say, five minutes, one might still arguably be called conscious, but it would be consciousness of a single moment. The clock on the wall, if one happened to be looking in that direction, would appear instantaneously to jump ahead five minutes (assuming that the clock on the wall has some external existence independent of that person's mind). For all we know, the entire universe may somehow remain completely static for a thousand years in "absolute time" (whatever that means) after each moment of change—there is presumably no way we could possibly know this, and no way we could demonstratively prove that such is not actually the case. Every moment in which everything is exactly the same as it was in the preceding moment simply merges with the preceding moment and is not taken into account by human consciousness. No change, no passing of time. Of course, there are some things in our universe which appear to remain constant for at least two consecutive moments—a brick, a parked car, the moon—but leaving aside the scientific notion that the invisible constituent atoms of these things are in a perpetual state of invisible oscillation, there remains the fact that these things appear to persist unchanged in time only because they are perceived in relation to something else which is continuously changing, if not in relation to something perceived as external, such as a ticking clock, then in relation to the awareness of one's own thinking mind. To reiterate: Every momentary mental state, be it directed outward or inward, must differ to some degree from the immediately preceding one if it is to exist in the human universe. Otherwise, it will simply merge with its predecessor and vanish without a trace.
Thus it may be observed that continuous change is, psychologically, a practical necessity for human beings. But on the other hand it may also be seen that all temporal change, all arising and passing away, is ultimately illusory and nonexistent. For centuries philosophers, most notably Immanuel Kant, have attempted to demonstrate that time, as well as space, is purely a mental construct which has no objective reality in any external world. But even if one chooses to ignore fellows like Kant, one should consider the fact that modern science, which is generally accepted even by the most hardheaded of realists, also indicates that impermanence and the passing of time are an illusion. Modern relativity theory asserts that time is a fourth dimension, being essentially similar to the three classical dimensions of space, and merging with them in a multidimensional space-time continuum. Consequently, just as what is ten miles west of here and what is ten miles east of here are no less real than what is here, even though I cannot see them, even so, what is ten days in the past and what is ten days in the future are no less real than what is now, even though this present version of me is not experiencing them. It is as though the mind of a person is traveling down a one-way street: the tree that he passed half an hour ago, even though he no longer sees it, is just as real as the barking dog that he is passing now; and although he has not yet reached his destination, it is nevertheless also just as real as that barking dog. Again, the situation is somewhat like the events described in a novel: the entire story, from the first page to the last, is really simultaneous in the book, and it is only the imagination of a reader that conceives it as being temporally extended in a moment-by-moment sequence. Time does not flow any more than space does, and the changes of phenomena, and their arising and passing away, are no more intrinsically active than are the bends and turns in a winding country road, and the variety of trees and houses that the road passes. And so, from this point of view, although continuous change is a virtual necessity for the normal functioning of the human mind, it is nevertheless an illusion. In other words, inconstancy is an artificial product of a deluded mind.
A faithful Theravada Buddhist might object at this point that science may be wrong, and that the Pali texts, presumably the teachings of an enlightened being, assert that phenomena really do arise and pass away, and that time does flow in an absolute, essentially Newtonian manner. In response to this it must be acknowledged that science can indeed be wrong; yet the relativistic interpretation of time has been experimentally verified sufficiently well that it is no longer considered to be particularly controversial, and thus should not be summarily dismissed with a religious wave of the hand. An acquaintance with the history of Christianity ought to provide an adequate demonstration of the dangers of a religion pitting itself against modern scientific theory. It is true that many Theravadin meditators in deep meditative states have verified to their own satisfaction the ultimate reality of the dynamic arising and passing away of phenomena in time; but such yogic verification of theories has the great disadvantage that, unlike scientific verification, it is not carried out in a public and relatively objective way, but is done in the privacy of one's own mind, and is thus very subject to subjective bias, which is the inevitable result of preconceived expectation. It should also be pointed out that not all schools of Buddhism have adopted the Theravadin interpretation of time. For example, the Sarvastivadin school, which is closely related to Theravada and is based upon essentially the same core of ancient doctrine, endorsed (and presumably yogically verified) a theory of time similar in some respects to the fourth-dimensional view described above. They asserted that past, present, and future are all equally real in essence and, in a sense, simultaneous; and thus it would seem they were logically constrained to admit that anicca is, at least to some degree, an illusion. (Unfortunately for the case of the Theravadins, their most authoritative attempt to explicitly refute this tenet of Sarvastivada, which is found in the Abhidhamma text Kathāvatthu, is one of the most obvious examples of faulty reasoning in the entire book.1) The idea that change is just a subjective psychological phenomenon is definitely represented in Mahayana Buddhism: one may consider the famous Zen koan, attributed to the Chinese patriarch Hui Neng, "It is not the wind that moves; it is not the flag that moves; it is the mind that moves."2 Furthermore, the Yogacara school of Mahayana Buddhism has gone beyond Einstein and even beyond Kant by endorsing (and presumably yogically verifying) a doctrine of pure subjective idealism; thus to them time, change, and everything else are nothing but inward manifestations or creations of mind. But apparently all schools of Buddhism, and most systems that promote yogic meditative techniques, agree that the highest, most perfect state attainable by the human mind is an undeluded one in which there is no change, no impermanence, no anicca.
But in addition to this, there is another, deeper, more pervasive aspect of anicca that deserves consideration. It is a psychological fact, of which most people are unaware, that inconstancy, or continuous change, is absolutely necessary for the existence of consciousness in the human sense. The passing of time is not perceived due to any intrinsic, absolute passage or flow of time, such as was envisaged by Isaac Newton and countless others; rather, we perceive time's passing by perceiving change. If there is no change, there is no discernible passing of time. It is true that if one sits in a quiet room with one's eyes closed and refrains from moving about, even holding one's breath, one is still aware to some degree of the passing of time, but this is mainly because one is still perceiving changes going on within one's own mind, which may amount to little more than a sort of very subtle vital vibration. Yet if one's mind were absolutely fixed upon a single, unchanging mental state for, say, five minutes, one might still arguably be called conscious, but it would be consciousness of a single moment. The clock on the wall, if one happened to be looking in that direction, would appear instantaneously to jump ahead five minutes (assuming that the clock on the wall has some external existence independent of that person's mind). For all we know, the entire universe may somehow remain completely static for a thousand years in "absolute time" (whatever that means) after each moment of change—there is presumably no way we could possibly know this, and no way we could demonstratively prove that such is not actually the case. Every moment in which everything is exactly the same as it was in the preceding moment simply merges with the preceding moment and is not taken into account by human consciousness. No change, no passing of time. Of course, there are some things in our universe which appear to remain constant for at least two consecutive moments—a brick, a parked car, the moon—but leaving aside the scientific notion that the invisible constituent atoms of these things are in a perpetual state of invisible oscillation, there remains the fact that these things appear to persist unchanged in time only because they are perceived in relation to something else which is continuously changing, if not in relation to something perceived as external, such as a ticking clock, then in relation to the awareness of one's own thinking mind. To reiterate: Every momentary mental state, be it directed outward or inward, must differ to some degree from the immediately preceding one if it is to exist in the human universe. Otherwise, it will simply merge with its predecessor and vanish without a trace.
Thus it may be observed that continuous change is, psychologically, a practical necessity for human beings. But on the other hand it may also be seen that all temporal change, all arising and passing away, is ultimately illusory and nonexistent. For centuries philosophers, most notably Immanuel Kant, have attempted to demonstrate that time, as well as space, is purely a mental construct which has no objective reality in any external world. But even if one chooses to ignore fellows like Kant, one should consider the fact that modern science, which is generally accepted even by the most hardheaded of realists, also indicates that impermanence and the passing of time are an illusion. Modern relativity theory asserts that time is a fourth dimension, being essentially similar to the three classical dimensions of space, and merging with them in a multidimensional space-time continuum. Consequently, just as what is ten miles west of here and what is ten miles east of here are no less real than what is here, even though I cannot see them, even so, what is ten days in the past and what is ten days in the future are no less real than what is now, even though this present version of me is not experiencing them. It is as though the mind of a person is traveling down a one-way street: the tree that he passed half an hour ago, even though he no longer sees it, is just as real as the barking dog that he is passing now; and although he has not yet reached his destination, it is nevertheless also just as real as that barking dog. Again, the situation is somewhat like the events described in a novel: the entire story, from the first page to the last, is really simultaneous in the book, and it is only the imagination of a reader that conceives it as being temporally extended in a moment-by-moment sequence. Time does not flow any more than space does, and the changes of phenomena, and their arising and passing away, are no more intrinsically active than are the bends and turns in a winding country road, and the variety of trees and houses that the road passes. And so, from this point of view, although continuous change is a virtual necessity for the normal functioning of the human mind, it is nevertheless an illusion. In other words, inconstancy is an artificial product of a deluded mind.
A faithful Theravada Buddhist might object at this point that science may be wrong, and that the Pali texts, presumably the teachings of an enlightened being, assert that phenomena really do arise and pass away, and that time does flow in an absolute, essentially Newtonian manner. In response to this it must be acknowledged that science can indeed be wrong; yet the relativistic interpretation of time has been experimentally verified sufficiently well that it is no longer considered to be particularly controversial, and thus should not be summarily dismissed with a religious wave of the hand. An acquaintance with the history of Christianity ought to provide an adequate demonstration of the dangers of a religion pitting itself against modern scientific theory. It is true that many Theravadin meditators in deep meditative states have verified to their own satisfaction the ultimate reality of the dynamic arising and passing away of phenomena in time; but such yogic verification of theories has the great disadvantage that, unlike scientific verification, it is not carried out in a public and relatively objective way, but is done in the privacy of one's own mind, and is thus very subject to subjective bias, which is the inevitable result of preconceived expectation. It should also be pointed out that not all schools of Buddhism have adopted the Theravadin interpretation of time. For example, the Sarvastivadin school, which is closely related to Theravada and is based upon essentially the same core of ancient doctrine, endorsed (and presumably yogically verified) a theory of time similar in some respects to the fourth-dimensional view described above. They asserted that past, present, and future are all equally real in essence and, in a sense, simultaneous; and thus it would seem they were logically constrained to admit that anicca is, at least to some degree, an illusion. (Unfortunately for the case of the Theravadins, their most authoritative attempt to explicitly refute this tenet of Sarvastivada, which is found in the Abhidhamma text Kathāvatthu, is one of the most obvious examples of faulty reasoning in the entire book.1) The idea that change is just a subjective psychological phenomenon is definitely represented in Mahayana Buddhism: one may consider the famous Zen koan, attributed to the Chinese patriarch Hui Neng, "It is not the wind that moves; it is not the flag that moves; it is the mind that moves."2 Furthermore, the Yogacara school of Mahayana Buddhism has gone beyond Einstein and even beyond Kant by endorsing (and presumably yogically verifying) a doctrine of pure subjective idealism; thus to them time, change, and everything else are nothing but inward manifestations or creations of mind. But apparently all schools of Buddhism, and most systems that promote yogic meditative techniques, agree that the highest, most perfect state attainable by the human mind is an undeluded one in which there is no change, no impermanence, no anicca.
The second mark to be discussed is dukkha, or unease. It is well known to translators that no single English word bears the same comprehensive scope of meaning as the Pali term dukkha. It represents every form of unhappiness and unpleasantness, from the slightest hint of discomfort to the most unbearable agony, both physical and emotional. "Suffering" seems somewhat too coarse and aggressive to capture the more subtle aspects of the term, whereas "unease" may be too subtle and introspective-sounding to include dukkha's more agonizing aspects. But within the context of the doctrine of the three marks "unease" appears to be about the most suitable rendering, as hopefully will be made clear in the following discussion. "Dukkha" may be interpreted as either a noun or an adjective, but as the adjectival form of "unease" is "uneasy," which bears a somewhat different set of connotations and applies more to people than to abstract marks of existence, the term "unease" in the translated formula should be regarded, at least initially, with the same ambiguity, as though it could be an adjective or a noun.
The scriptural texts of Buddhism tell us that we live in a world of suffering, a world pervaded by unease. Saying this is much more than merely pointing out the unavoidable facts that we are all born screaming, that not getting what we want is unease, that getting what we do not want is unease, that being separated from what we love is unease, that injury and pain are unease, that growing old generally involves a great deal of unease, that sickness is unease, and that, although death itself may not necessarily be unease, the few moments, or in some cases several months, immediately preceding it can be extremely unpleasant. In addition to all this, the Buddhist texts imply that even a seemingly innocent blade of grass sprouting by the side of the road, even happiness itself, falls into the category of "unease." How is this to be understood?
Orthodox tradition asserts that the mark of unease is inseparably bound up with the mark of inconstancy. It is apparently considered to be self-evident that whatever is impermanent must also be painful. The classic statement of this idea, as may be found for example in the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta, which is claimed to represent the Buddha's second formal discourse after his enlightenment, is as follows:
"What do you think about this, monks? Is form constant or inconstant?"
"Inconstant, Venerable Sir."
"And that which is inconstant, is it unease or ease?"
"Unease, Venerable Sir."
This argument is equally applied to all phenomena in the perceptible universe, and nobody among the Buddha's hearers seemed particularly inclined to disagree with it. Standing upon this, a common interpretation of sabbe saṅkhārā dukkhā runs something like, "Everything is unease because nothing has the ability to satisfy us permanently," or, similarly, "Even happiness is suffering because it does not last." But without some further clarification of terms, or some kind of elaboration or demonstrative evidence, this sort of interpretation is really not logically compelling. The statements above could easily be turned around so that they say exactly the opposite, and be just as logically valid: "Everything is ease because nothing has the power to dissatisfy us permanently." "Even misery is happiness because it does not last." On the surface of it there seems to be no logical reason why a temporary pleasure cannot be genuine. To insist that happiness must last forever in order for it to be real certainly goes against common usage, and it is unlikely that very many people nowadays would agree with this point of view. Furthermore, bearing in mind the previous discussion of the fourth-dimensionality of time, it may strike one as rather peculiar that that finiteness in time inevitably implies unhappiness, while finiteness in space does not—or at least is never asserted to do so. To affirm that, say, a flower necessarily is conducive to unease because it does not last forever would seem hardly more sensible than to affirm that it necessarily is conducive to unease because it is not infinitely large. Yet the ideas that inconstancy necessarily implies unease and that even ecstatic joy is dukkha should not be too readily dismissed; what is called for is a more subtle and introspective approach to the subject.
As has already been stated, continuous change in time is necessary for the normal functioning of the human mind, but also is merely an artificial illusion generated by the human mind. Thus the experience of inconstancy is not something passively received from outside the mind, but must be produced through some internal psychological force. This motive force of the mind is essentially volitional, and is certainly not cool rationality—as Western philosophers like Hume and Kant have shown, pure rationality lacks the power to decide, will, or do anything. All volitional actions are logically arbitrary. (To give a very elementary example of this, it is no more inherently rational to make effort to remain in existence than to allow oneself to cease to exist.) So this motivational force that relentlessly drives us forward from one moment to the next, from one feeling to the next, from one happy or miserable predicament to the next, is irrational, and at least to some degree emotional. One may say that our perceptual experience of an inconstant world is driven by a deep feeling of restless dissatisfaction with the present, by unease. All perception of the perceptible world, that is, of Samsara, is ultimately volitional and necessarily inconstant; its very fuel is unease. Thus the innocent-looking blade of grass and the flower are dukkha not so much because they are conducive to unease as because they are made by unease and of unease—all the samsaric phenomena which we experience are symptomatic manifestations of a restless, dissatisfied mind. The old proverb among artists that one must suffer to create is true in a very profound sense. In the most ancient texts this state is described as a dart or spike embedded in the heart, causing us to run about in all directions, and allowing us no true relief or rest.
This fundamental dissatisfaction or insatiability with the present moment which permeates unenlightened human experience is naturally more noticeable during moments of the relatively gross forms of unhappiness such as boredom or pain, in which one desires a substantial change in one's present situation; but even the sublimest joys are permeated by it. In these cases the desire is less for change and more for continuation along the same general theme, which is more subtle, but no less real (and of course, when the joy which began inevitably ends, the more obvious unrest of desire to regain it tends to arise). If one were to be in a completely satisfied mental state, even for a single moment, assuming for the moment that such were possible, then presumably the restless urge to move on to the next moment, the next perception, would not arise, and time as we know it would stop. The main reason why the common person is oblivious to the plain fact that he is in a continuous state of unease is because unease is really all he has ever known, and he can conceive of nothing else. His case is rather similar to that of a man who has lived his entire life at a garbage dump: although every breath he takes is suffused with the smell of rotting garbage, he usually does not notice it. It is all he has ever known, and he is simply used to it. It is only through careful attentiveness to the subtle workings of one's own mind that one can have a deep, experiential insight into the truth of the second mark. All formations really are dukkha, through and through.
The foregoing discussion is not intended to exhaust the subject of dukkha, but only to explain it in the context of the tilakkhaṇa, that is, to explain how everything in the human universe, even a flower, even joy, may be truly considered to be unease. A library of books could be written, and have been written, describing various aspects of unease, and the legion of forms it may assume in life, but this lies rather beyond the scope of the present inquiry. Yet for the benefit of the many to whom this restless unease which serves as a foundation for the world may seem so fine and inscrutable as to be negligible, dukkha will be briefly considered from another, more "macroscopic" perspective.
It appears to be a law, perhaps more psychological than physical, that within any closed system, such as a universe or an individual perceiving mind, positive and negative must ultimately balance out to zero. Positive without corresponding negative with which to compare it, or negative without corresponding positive, would simply be regarded as neutral, if indeed one bothered to regard it at all. In accordance with this principle, it is the way of human nature to draw an invisible grey line, which may be quite broad, through the middle of one's world, and to consider the more pleasant half of the non-neutral experiences "good," and thus conducive to happiness, and the less pleasant half "bad," and thus conducive to unhappiness. Consequently, even if a person were somehow able to eliminate all that he considered bad from his life, all that would result from it, assuming that an entirely new set of evils were not simply conjured up to replace the old, would be a compensatory shift of the invisible line, causing the lower range of what had been deemed acceptable to change its aspect and become seen as conducive to suffering, and he would wind up with no more positive well-being than he had before—possibly less. A familiarity with this "principle of subjective equilibrium" should be sufficient to undermine one's faith in the great modern Western ideal of hedonistic materialism, which may be summed up in the credo, "If one remains young as long as possible, acquires as much money as possible, has as much fun as possible, and accumulates as many state-of-the-art electronic gadgets as possible, then one may be truly happy." Some careful scrutiny would most likely reveal that the average American surrounded by luxurious digital appliances experiences at least as much dukkha as does the average Burmese villager living in a bamboo hut with no electricity and no running water. Any attempt to have more positive ease than negative unease in one's life is ultimately futile, creating a disequilibrium that is not stable, and general, overall happiness is a myth. And of course, there are still the unavoidable facts that we are all born screaming, and so forth.
The scriptural texts of Buddhism tell us that we live in a world of suffering, a world pervaded by unease. Saying this is much more than merely pointing out the unavoidable facts that we are all born screaming, that not getting what we want is unease, that getting what we do not want is unease, that being separated from what we love is unease, that injury and pain are unease, that growing old generally involves a great deal of unease, that sickness is unease, and that, although death itself may not necessarily be unease, the few moments, or in some cases several months, immediately preceding it can be extremely unpleasant. In addition to all this, the Buddhist texts imply that even a seemingly innocent blade of grass sprouting by the side of the road, even happiness itself, falls into the category of "unease." How is this to be understood?
Orthodox tradition asserts that the mark of unease is inseparably bound up with the mark of inconstancy. It is apparently considered to be self-evident that whatever is impermanent must also be painful. The classic statement of this idea, as may be found for example in the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta, which is claimed to represent the Buddha's second formal discourse after his enlightenment, is as follows:
"What do you think about this, monks? Is form constant or inconstant?"
"Inconstant, Venerable Sir."
"And that which is inconstant, is it unease or ease?"
"Unease, Venerable Sir."
This argument is equally applied to all phenomena in the perceptible universe, and nobody among the Buddha's hearers seemed particularly inclined to disagree with it. Standing upon this, a common interpretation of sabbe saṅkhārā dukkhā runs something like, "Everything is unease because nothing has the ability to satisfy us permanently," or, similarly, "Even happiness is suffering because it does not last." But without some further clarification of terms, or some kind of elaboration or demonstrative evidence, this sort of interpretation is really not logically compelling. The statements above could easily be turned around so that they say exactly the opposite, and be just as logically valid: "Everything is ease because nothing has the power to dissatisfy us permanently." "Even misery is happiness because it does not last." On the surface of it there seems to be no logical reason why a temporary pleasure cannot be genuine. To insist that happiness must last forever in order for it to be real certainly goes against common usage, and it is unlikely that very many people nowadays would agree with this point of view. Furthermore, bearing in mind the previous discussion of the fourth-dimensionality of time, it may strike one as rather peculiar that that finiteness in time inevitably implies unhappiness, while finiteness in space does not—or at least is never asserted to do so. To affirm that, say, a flower necessarily is conducive to unease because it does not last forever would seem hardly more sensible than to affirm that it necessarily is conducive to unease because it is not infinitely large. Yet the ideas that inconstancy necessarily implies unease and that even ecstatic joy is dukkha should not be too readily dismissed; what is called for is a more subtle and introspective approach to the subject.
As has already been stated, continuous change in time is necessary for the normal functioning of the human mind, but also is merely an artificial illusion generated by the human mind. Thus the experience of inconstancy is not something passively received from outside the mind, but must be produced through some internal psychological force. This motive force of the mind is essentially volitional, and is certainly not cool rationality—as Western philosophers like Hume and Kant have shown, pure rationality lacks the power to decide, will, or do anything. All volitional actions are logically arbitrary. (To give a very elementary example of this, it is no more inherently rational to make effort to remain in existence than to allow oneself to cease to exist.) So this motivational force that relentlessly drives us forward from one moment to the next, from one feeling to the next, from one happy or miserable predicament to the next, is irrational, and at least to some degree emotional. One may say that our perceptual experience of an inconstant world is driven by a deep feeling of restless dissatisfaction with the present, by unease. All perception of the perceptible world, that is, of Samsara, is ultimately volitional and necessarily inconstant; its very fuel is unease. Thus the innocent-looking blade of grass and the flower are dukkha not so much because they are conducive to unease as because they are made by unease and of unease—all the samsaric phenomena which we experience are symptomatic manifestations of a restless, dissatisfied mind. The old proverb among artists that one must suffer to create is true in a very profound sense. In the most ancient texts this state is described as a dart or spike embedded in the heart, causing us to run about in all directions, and allowing us no true relief or rest.
This fundamental dissatisfaction or insatiability with the present moment which permeates unenlightened human experience is naturally more noticeable during moments of the relatively gross forms of unhappiness such as boredom or pain, in which one desires a substantial change in one's present situation; but even the sublimest joys are permeated by it. In these cases the desire is less for change and more for continuation along the same general theme, which is more subtle, but no less real (and of course, when the joy which began inevitably ends, the more obvious unrest of desire to regain it tends to arise). If one were to be in a completely satisfied mental state, even for a single moment, assuming for the moment that such were possible, then presumably the restless urge to move on to the next moment, the next perception, would not arise, and time as we know it would stop. The main reason why the common person is oblivious to the plain fact that he is in a continuous state of unease is because unease is really all he has ever known, and he can conceive of nothing else. His case is rather similar to that of a man who has lived his entire life at a garbage dump: although every breath he takes is suffused with the smell of rotting garbage, he usually does not notice it. It is all he has ever known, and he is simply used to it. It is only through careful attentiveness to the subtle workings of one's own mind that one can have a deep, experiential insight into the truth of the second mark. All formations really are dukkha, through and through.
The foregoing discussion is not intended to exhaust the subject of dukkha, but only to explain it in the context of the tilakkhaṇa, that is, to explain how everything in the human universe, even a flower, even joy, may be truly considered to be unease. A library of books could be written, and have been written, describing various aspects of unease, and the legion of forms it may assume in life, but this lies rather beyond the scope of the present inquiry. Yet for the benefit of the many to whom this restless unease which serves as a foundation for the world may seem so fine and inscrutable as to be negligible, dukkha will be briefly considered from another, more "macroscopic" perspective.
It appears to be a law, perhaps more psychological than physical, that within any closed system, such as a universe or an individual perceiving mind, positive and negative must ultimately balance out to zero. Positive without corresponding negative with which to compare it, or negative without corresponding positive, would simply be regarded as neutral, if indeed one bothered to regard it at all. In accordance with this principle, it is the way of human nature to draw an invisible grey line, which may be quite broad, through the middle of one's world, and to consider the more pleasant half of the non-neutral experiences "good," and thus conducive to happiness, and the less pleasant half "bad," and thus conducive to unhappiness. Consequently, even if a person were somehow able to eliminate all that he considered bad from his life, all that would result from it, assuming that an entirely new set of evils were not simply conjured up to replace the old, would be a compensatory shift of the invisible line, causing the lower range of what had been deemed acceptable to change its aspect and become seen as conducive to suffering, and he would wind up with no more positive well-being than he had before—possibly less. A familiarity with this "principle of subjective equilibrium" should be sufficient to undermine one's faith in the great modern Western ideal of hedonistic materialism, which may be summed up in the credo, "If one remains young as long as possible, acquires as much money as possible, has as much fun as possible, and accumulates as many state-of-the-art electronic gadgets as possible, then one may be truly happy." Some careful scrutiny would most likely reveal that the average American surrounded by luxurious digital appliances experiences at least as much dukkha as does the average Burmese villager living in a bamboo hut with no electricity and no running water. Any attempt to have more positive ease than negative unease in one's life is ultimately futile, creating a disequilibrium that is not stable, and general, overall happiness is a myth. And of course, there are still the unavoidable facts that we are all born screaming, and so forth.
Before moving on to the mark of anattā it seems expedient at this point to discuss the philosophical term which explicitly applies to the first two marks but not to the third: namely, saṅkhāra, which translated quite literally into English (or, rather, Anglicized Latin) is "construct."
In the foregoing attempt to describe the first two marks much has already been said which anticipates a definition of saṅkhāra. This information may be clarified somewhat by considering two questions. First, where is the only place in the universe where inconstancy, continuous change in time, exists? The answer is, as was previously explained, only in the perceptions of a deluded mind. Second, where is the only place in the universe where suffering or unease exists? Certainly, since unease is a mental state, it could occur only in a mind—if a brick or a snowflake suffers, then it would necessarily have to be conscious. And, as the Buddhist texts assert, the eradication of unease immediately results from the eradication of delusion. So it necessarily follows that unease too exists only in a deluded mind. It must be admitted that there are many who interpret dukkha in the formula of the tilakkhaṇa more as an adjective, in the sense of painful or conducive to suffering, and thus applying to physical as well as mental phenomena. But to whom is anything conducive to suffering? Only to a deluded mind. A pebble buried under a layer of dust on the back side of the moon, which nobody will ever see, could hardly be called painful or conducive to unease. Only by being perceived by a deluded mind can anything cause suffering. It is not things that are conducive to suffering, but unenlightened perceptions or ideas about things. And, in a sense, these very ideas are themselves unease. Hence it is reasonable to conclude that the term saṅkhāra in the context of the doctrine of tilakkhaṇa is meant to refer exclusively to an unenlightened mental state.
As has already been stated, all formations are inconstant, all inconstancy is basically a form of unease, and this unease is volitional. Thus it logically follows, assuming the above to be correct, that all formations are volitional. This notion should not seem too far-fetched, as it enjoys a very authoritative precedent—of the three main contexts in which the word saṅkhāra is found in the ancient texts, one is the context presently in question, and the other two are without question considered to refer to volitional states. In the doctrine of pañcakkhandha, or the five aggregates which constitute the totality of a human being, the "aggregate of formations" is stated in the early texts to mean essentially cetanā, or volition3; and in the doctrine of paṭicca-samuppāda, or the dependent co-origination of life and of unease, the term saṅkhāra is generally understood to mean "karma formations," that is, acts of volition which lead to further samsaric existence. So interpreting saṅkhāra in the present context as a volitional state does no violence at all to the usual meaning of the word, and anyhow appears to be justified by critical examination of the first two marks.
But as the literal rendering of "construct" or "formation" suggests, saṅkhāra should not necessarily be regarded as pure volition; both inconstancy and unease clearly involve an element of perception as well. This does not imply, however, that a single, simple formation is some sort of compound of fundamentally different mental states, because volition and perception are actually just two incomplete aspects of the very same phenomenon—perception, in a manner of speaking, being the "form" or quasi-spatial aspect of volition, and volition likewise being the "function" or temporal aspect of perception. One of the peculiar symptoms of unenlightened human psychology is the artificial separation of space and time, and thus of form and function, subject and predicate, (a) being and (the act of) being. Consequent to this apparently dual nature of saṅkhāra, in the context of the tilakkhaṇa at least, the term may be said to represent—mark this—the artificially constructed aspect, in its totality, of an unenlightened mind. It represents all that is mere seeming, all that is imaginary, all that is delusion.
In the foregoing attempt to describe the first two marks much has already been said which anticipates a definition of saṅkhāra. This information may be clarified somewhat by considering two questions. First, where is the only place in the universe where inconstancy, continuous change in time, exists? The answer is, as was previously explained, only in the perceptions of a deluded mind. Second, where is the only place in the universe where suffering or unease exists? Certainly, since unease is a mental state, it could occur only in a mind—if a brick or a snowflake suffers, then it would necessarily have to be conscious. And, as the Buddhist texts assert, the eradication of unease immediately results from the eradication of delusion. So it necessarily follows that unease too exists only in a deluded mind. It must be admitted that there are many who interpret dukkha in the formula of the tilakkhaṇa more as an adjective, in the sense of painful or conducive to suffering, and thus applying to physical as well as mental phenomena. But to whom is anything conducive to suffering? Only to a deluded mind. A pebble buried under a layer of dust on the back side of the moon, which nobody will ever see, could hardly be called painful or conducive to unease. Only by being perceived by a deluded mind can anything cause suffering. It is not things that are conducive to suffering, but unenlightened perceptions or ideas about things. And, in a sense, these very ideas are themselves unease. Hence it is reasonable to conclude that the term saṅkhāra in the context of the doctrine of tilakkhaṇa is meant to refer exclusively to an unenlightened mental state.
As has already been stated, all formations are inconstant, all inconstancy is basically a form of unease, and this unease is volitional. Thus it logically follows, assuming the above to be correct, that all formations are volitional. This notion should not seem too far-fetched, as it enjoys a very authoritative precedent—of the three main contexts in which the word saṅkhāra is found in the ancient texts, one is the context presently in question, and the other two are without question considered to refer to volitional states. In the doctrine of pañcakkhandha, or the five aggregates which constitute the totality of a human being, the "aggregate of formations" is stated in the early texts to mean essentially cetanā, or volition3; and in the doctrine of paṭicca-samuppāda, or the dependent co-origination of life and of unease, the term saṅkhāra is generally understood to mean "karma formations," that is, acts of volition which lead to further samsaric existence. So interpreting saṅkhāra in the present context as a volitional state does no violence at all to the usual meaning of the word, and anyhow appears to be justified by critical examination of the first two marks.
But as the literal rendering of "construct" or "formation" suggests, saṅkhāra should not necessarily be regarded as pure volition; both inconstancy and unease clearly involve an element of perception as well. This does not imply, however, that a single, simple formation is some sort of compound of fundamentally different mental states, because volition and perception are actually just two incomplete aspects of the very same phenomenon—perception, in a manner of speaking, being the "form" or quasi-spatial aspect of volition, and volition likewise being the "function" or temporal aspect of perception. One of the peculiar symptoms of unenlightened human psychology is the artificial separation of space and time, and thus of form and function, subject and predicate, (a) being and (the act of) being. Consequent to this apparently dual nature of saṅkhāra, in the context of the tilakkhaṇa at least, the term may be said to represent—mark this—the artificially constructed aspect, in its totality, of an unenlightened mind. It represents all that is mere seeming, all that is imaginary, all that is delusion.
An assertion of the third mark, of anattā or not-self, is a characteristic tenet of Buddhist philosophy, being common to perhaps not all, but certainly most schools of Buddhism. Its interpretation, however, has evolved somewhat over time, and differs between one school and another. This indicates, among other things, that historically the essential meaning of this basic principle of not-self has been difficult to understand. A rough sketch of the evolution of the mark's interpretation may help to elucidate the problem.
In what Western Buddhistic scholars consider to be unquestionably some of the most ancient existing Buddhist texts, it is apparently implied that a sage would harbor no belief in self or in not-self.4 The word in these discourses rendered as "not-self" is niratta, not anattā, and it could be argued validly on philological grounds that the words atta and niratta in these texts do not signify "self" and "not-self," but are irregular past participles of the verbs ādeti and nirassati, which mean "to acquire" and "to discard," respectively; thus, by the sage there would be nothing acquired and nothing discarded. But this group of texts makes abundant use of puns and other plays on words, and it is very likely that the case under consideration is a prime example of such multidimensional wordplay. Even very orthodox Theravadin commentators and translators have interpreted niratta in these discourses to mean "not-self." It is characteristic of the oldest Buddhist literature that terms are not explicitly defined, but the context is relatively clear: the sage believes in neither self nor not-self because both are nothing more than artificial constructions of the mind, mere concepts. These teachings, although included in the Pali Canon, are really not in accord with the developed realism of orthodox Theravadin philosophy—not, that is, without some liberal commentarial stretching and twisting.
The mainstream of early, properly Theravadin philosophy, however, emphatically denies the existence of self and affirms the doctrine of anattā, primarily following the idea that any true self would necessarily be eternally unchanging and devoid of suffering, and/or completely under one's control. Since there is nothing at all within a human being that meets these qualifications, there is nothing within a human that can be truly called a self. The passage from the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta quoted above in the discussion of the mark of dukkha continues as follows:
"And that which is inconstant, unease, and subject to change, is it right to regard it as 'This is mine, I am this, this is my self'?"
"Indeed not, Venerable Sir."
Another portion of the same discourse states:
In what Western Buddhistic scholars consider to be unquestionably some of the most ancient existing Buddhist texts, it is apparently implied that a sage would harbor no belief in self or in not-self.4 The word in these discourses rendered as "not-self" is niratta, not anattā, and it could be argued validly on philological grounds that the words atta and niratta in these texts do not signify "self" and "not-self," but are irregular past participles of the verbs ādeti and nirassati, which mean "to acquire" and "to discard," respectively; thus, by the sage there would be nothing acquired and nothing discarded. But this group of texts makes abundant use of puns and other plays on words, and it is very likely that the case under consideration is a prime example of such multidimensional wordplay. Even very orthodox Theravadin commentators and translators have interpreted niratta in these discourses to mean "not-self." It is characteristic of the oldest Buddhist literature that terms are not explicitly defined, but the context is relatively clear: the sage believes in neither self nor not-self because both are nothing more than artificial constructions of the mind, mere concepts. These teachings, although included in the Pali Canon, are really not in accord with the developed realism of orthodox Theravadin philosophy—not, that is, without some liberal commentarial stretching and twisting.
The mainstream of early, properly Theravadin philosophy, however, emphatically denies the existence of self and affirms the doctrine of anattā, primarily following the idea that any true self would necessarily be eternally unchanging and devoid of suffering, and/or completely under one's control. Since there is nothing at all within a human being that meets these qualifications, there is nothing within a human that can be truly called a self. The passage from the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta quoted above in the discussion of the mark of dukkha continues as follows:
"And that which is inconstant, unease, and subject to change, is it right to regard it as 'This is mine, I am this, this is my self'?"
"Indeed not, Venerable Sir."
Another portion of the same discourse states:
|
"Form, monks, is not self. For if this form, monks, were self, then this form would not be conducive to affliction, and it could be (said and) had of form, 'Let my form be thus, let my form not be thus.' But since, monks, form is not self, form is conducive to affliction, and it cannot be (said and) had of form, 'Let my form be thus, let my form not be thus.'…"
|
and so also for all of the conceivably perceptible constituent parts of a human being. Letting slide the fact that these two arguments, as they stand in the text, appear to be mutually contradictory (any true self must be eternally unchanging and must change in accordance with one's wishes), it is evident that this line of argumentation does not apply to what the average modern person would consider to be his or her "self," but rather is directed toward certain theories of soul held by philosophers and priests in northern India more than two thousand years ago. Certainly, almost everybody nowadays believes that he or she has a self; but almost nobody would insist that that self is eternally unchanging, perfectly blissful, and completely under one's control. The argument in the scripture is based upon a largely arbitrary assumption.5
Later Theravadin tradition, presumably aware of the limitations of the course of reasoning presented in the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta, placed greater emphasis upon a different, more comprehensive refutation of the theoretical existence of self. According to this argument nothing can truly be called a self if it is divisible, spatially or temporally, into constituent parts. The classic illustration of this theory is the famous Simile of the Chariot, utilized as a teaching tool by both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhists: The true entity or "self" of a chariot cannot be identified with any of its component parts, such as a floorboard or an axle; nor can it be identified with a mere heap or collection of any number of parts; nor can it exist independently of these parts. "Chariot" is nothing more than a conventional designation for a vaguely-defined temporary configuration of component parts. It may be observed that this approach defines attā or "self" not so much as "soul," but in a radically different way, as any intrinsically real and distinct entity or being. It is no less applicable to a human "self" than it is to the existence of a chariot, a water pot, a snowflake, an atom, or a state of mind. Also it may be seen that the logical conclusion of this line of reasoning is that anything which is not divisible into parts could validly be called a self, or an intrinsically real entity or being. In fact, later Theravadin realist philosophy did and does postulate the existence of this kind of absolutely (but not infinitely) small, elemental components of the world; but as they are submicroscopic and may last only about a trillionth of a second they evidently are too far removed from the ordinary conception of self to be generally regarded as such. Nevertheless, the logical conclusion remains valid; and some polemical works of Mahayana Buddhism, such as a Chinese texts known in English as The Awakening of Faith, describe two kinds of belief in self—that of common people who believe in a soul, or at least in a real and distinct personal individuality; and that of the Buddhists of the "Lesser Vehicle" who have abandoned the common view, but who persist in asserting the real and distinct individuality of elemental qualities. It would seem that the later Theravadin view described above, taken in isolation, might effectively refute the notion of a single personal soul or entity, but would lead to the rather odd result of a human being (not to mention a water pot) consisting of countless quadrillions of tiny, ephemeral elemental selves.
One point of view adopted by the Mahayanists was the denial of an absolute minimum size or duration of samsaric phenomena. Every component part could itself be regarded as being divisible into smaller component parts, at least conceptually, ad infinitum; so long as a particle has a size greater than zero, that is to say, so long as the particle could be considered to exist in any but a purely abstract sense, then its top, for instance, would be different (and conceptually divisible) from its bottom, and so long as an element has a duration greater than zero, then its beginning would be different (and likewise divisible) from its end. Thus, based upon the aforementioned assumption that divisibility implies no self and only conventional reality, nothing in the entire phenomenal universe has a self or an intrinsically real individual being. It may as well be noted here that the Theravadins undermined their own position somewhat by allowing the validity of purely conceptual divisibility, as many of their postulated distinct elemental qualities cannot possibly exist separately from certain other distinct elemental qualities—solidity and cohesion, for example, or perception and volition.
Another line of reasoning adopted by Mahayana may be said to have come full circle and to have returned, more or less, to the attitude of the "most ancient texts" briefly described above: There is no self because "self," no matter how the concept is defined, is nothing more than a mere concept, an artificial mental construct, a figment of the imagination. This is the deepest, the most comprehensive, and perhaps the most irrefutable interpretation of the mark of not-self.
In order to understand conceptually (assuming that anything can really be understood conceptually) why it is that nothing in the universe can truly be called a soul, a self, or a distinct individuality, it is necessary to have some understanding of the phenomenon of perception. The very nature and purpose of the act of perceiving is to attribute significance, or meaning, to the world. It does this primarily by differentiating the world into separate parts, and secondarily by identifying the parts by superimposing designations upon them, which bestow meaning through chains of association with other perceptions. In the ancient Pali texts this process is called papañcasaṅkhā, or "diversifying designation"; and in the Upanishadic literature of Hinduism the analogous term is nāmarūpa, or "name and form," "name" corresponding to the aspect of designation, and "form" corresponding to the aspect of discriminated appearance.6 The experience of volitional perception may be very subtle, especially initially, appearing as hardly more than a vague sense of "this" as opposed to "that"; but without it the world would be completely empty of meaning, meaning itself being essentially just the association or identification of one perception with one or more other perceptions. Meaning, and of course designation, are symbolic, and symbolism is assuredly a psychological phenomenon—a symbol that is not being perceived is not being a symbol. Even wordless separation of the world into a plurality of nameless parts does not occur without a perceiving mind, as any distinction of anything from anything else requires a selective emphasis or focusing of attention upon one thing at the expense of another, and selecting and attending are volitional, and thus also perceptual. So an unperceived universe would be the same as an unconditioned Void. Even perceptions themselves as they actually are, not merely as they are perceived to be, are to be seen as effectively Void. Samsaric perceptions are somewhat like virtual statues or "images" contained within an uncarved block of stone—the substance may be called "real," but the form is quite imaginary. The psychology of the human ape was never designed to understand this, and human language was never designed to describe it.
Presumably, anything considered to be a self would have to be some kind of more or less distinct entity; and, as has just been explained, all distinction is merely an artifact of perception. Furthermore, as has been explained, all artifacts of perception are saṅkhāras; therefore anything that could be viewed as a self is a saṅkhāra, or formation, and so necessarily marked with the characteristics of inconstancy and unease. Nevertheless, it has already been pointed out that popular modern usage does not require that a self or even a soul be eternally unchanging and blissful. So at this point one could almost say sabbe saṅkhārā attā, "All formations are self." The problem lies in the obvious fact that anything that is really a self must be real—that is, it must have some intrinsic, absolute reality, not just an apparent or symbolic one. It is at this point that the validity of the notion of self falls to the ground.
One way of viewing the unreality of formations is to adopt a relative approach closely akin to the aforementioned Simile of the Chariot: The apparent reality of a perceptual formation is not so much dependent upon an object's component parts, however, as it is upon a body of other perceptual formations, a context, without which it could not exist. The separate individuality of a formation requires a differentiation of figure from ground; its identity requires equating it, identifying it, with at least one other, symbolic, perceptual formation; and the full range of its significance involves an extensive network of associations which are themselves perceptual formations. Furthermore, this constellation of conditioning formations is continuously changing, in accordance with the principle of inconstancy, and as the context of perceptual background, designations, and associations change, the central formation changes also—sometimes radically. And if a deluded mind stops attending to a formation it simply collapses without support and merges back into the unthinkable Void. Thus the reality of a formation or a self is relative, not intrinsic.
Yet it may also be shown that what is only relatively true is absolutely false. Relation, association, comparison, contrast, differentiation, generalization, symbolization are essentially mediating psychological phenomena which necessarily separate themselves from immediate Reality in order to superimpose an interpretation upon it "from above," so to speak. No scientist will ever isolate from a sample of matter a Different From, Greater Than, Less Than, or Equal To. They are pure abstractions of mind which function at a different level from that of the world as it actually is. The immediate world just is what it is; it makes no assertions, no comparisons. If it were to be described in terms more positive than "unthinkable Void" one might simply call it "Thus," or "Such." But a formation is differentiation and identification, through and through; it is completely relative, and cannot possibly know anything otherwise, including "Such." Although its purpose is ostensibly to interpret Reality it knows only the interpretation, not the Reality. Truly, even though a perceptual formation is itself ultimately and necessarily based upon, and thus an aspect of, Reality (for even the wildest illusion presumably must be based upon something real), it cannot see even itself as it really is. A formation as it really is is not a formation. The entire samsaric world of formations is ape psychology superimposed upon a supposed external universe; it is an epiphenomenal self-perpetuating illusion, a very complicated mirage, or dream. But since it is all our "selves" can know, since its very nature is meaningfulness and its purpose practicality, and perhaps also since, as was previously mentioned, it is generated by complete irrationality, we generally presume it to be absolutely real, perhaps even the only Reality. This presumption is the ultimate foundation for all philosophical and scientific realism.
A brief summary of the preceding somewhat long and involved argument may be in order here: Any personal self must be a distinct entity; any distinct entity is a volitional/perceptual construction; any volitional/perceptual construction is an irrationally generated illusion. Therefore, any personal self is an illusion. Or, more briefly: There is no self because there is no difference.7 On the other hand, "no self" is also a relative, volitional/perceptual construction, and therefore also an illusion. For that matter, so are "unthinkable Void," "Such," "ultimate Reality," and "full enlightenment." So one would do well to return to the beginning—the sage believes in neither self nor not-self. Even so, although (or because) any statement about self is ultimately invalid, for a non-sage who is psychologically compelled to believe something it would seem that the denial of self would be a view less grossly in error and less troublesome to entertain than its assertion; thus Buddhist philosophy from early on emphasized the negative aspect.
Before concluding this discussion of anattā there is a certain peculiarity of traditional Buddhist belief that is worthy of consideration. It is commonly assumed, even taken for granted, that ultimately there is no self or soul, and that relatively and conventionally there is a self--but still no soul. This assumption is not necessarily warranted. A hypothetical soul need not be anything metaphysically divine; it may be, rather, a more comprehensive aspect of a samsaric being than that of which this particular level of illusion is aware. For example, if Einstein were correct and the physical universe, including people, were four-dimensional, then the four-dimensional person might be called a kind of "soul" for the three-and-a-fraction-dimensional one of which pretty much everybody at this level is aware. The conventional universe might be said to consist of, say, seven dimensions, and there may be a higher aspect of us that is aware of all seven (or at least of six and a fraction), and functions at that level, despite the fact that at this level we cannot even begin to imagine a seven-dimensional entity. For all practical purposes we might as well ignore such hypothetical "super selves," but it would be vanity and arrogance, or perhaps just dogmatic narrow-mindedness, to summarily deny the possibility of that which we cannot imagine. It would be like a person blind from birth contemptuously dismissing the notion of color. At any rate, even a multidimensional soul or entity would still be a formation, and an illusion.
Later Theravadin tradition, presumably aware of the limitations of the course of reasoning presented in the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta, placed greater emphasis upon a different, more comprehensive refutation of the theoretical existence of self. According to this argument nothing can truly be called a self if it is divisible, spatially or temporally, into constituent parts. The classic illustration of this theory is the famous Simile of the Chariot, utilized as a teaching tool by both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhists: The true entity or "self" of a chariot cannot be identified with any of its component parts, such as a floorboard or an axle; nor can it be identified with a mere heap or collection of any number of parts; nor can it exist independently of these parts. "Chariot" is nothing more than a conventional designation for a vaguely-defined temporary configuration of component parts. It may be observed that this approach defines attā or "self" not so much as "soul," but in a radically different way, as any intrinsically real and distinct entity or being. It is no less applicable to a human "self" than it is to the existence of a chariot, a water pot, a snowflake, an atom, or a state of mind. Also it may be seen that the logical conclusion of this line of reasoning is that anything which is not divisible into parts could validly be called a self, or an intrinsically real entity or being. In fact, later Theravadin realist philosophy did and does postulate the existence of this kind of absolutely (but not infinitely) small, elemental components of the world; but as they are submicroscopic and may last only about a trillionth of a second they evidently are too far removed from the ordinary conception of self to be generally regarded as such. Nevertheless, the logical conclusion remains valid; and some polemical works of Mahayana Buddhism, such as a Chinese texts known in English as The Awakening of Faith, describe two kinds of belief in self—that of common people who believe in a soul, or at least in a real and distinct personal individuality; and that of the Buddhists of the "Lesser Vehicle" who have abandoned the common view, but who persist in asserting the real and distinct individuality of elemental qualities. It would seem that the later Theravadin view described above, taken in isolation, might effectively refute the notion of a single personal soul or entity, but would lead to the rather odd result of a human being (not to mention a water pot) consisting of countless quadrillions of tiny, ephemeral elemental selves.
One point of view adopted by the Mahayanists was the denial of an absolute minimum size or duration of samsaric phenomena. Every component part could itself be regarded as being divisible into smaller component parts, at least conceptually, ad infinitum; so long as a particle has a size greater than zero, that is to say, so long as the particle could be considered to exist in any but a purely abstract sense, then its top, for instance, would be different (and conceptually divisible) from its bottom, and so long as an element has a duration greater than zero, then its beginning would be different (and likewise divisible) from its end. Thus, based upon the aforementioned assumption that divisibility implies no self and only conventional reality, nothing in the entire phenomenal universe has a self or an intrinsically real individual being. It may as well be noted here that the Theravadins undermined their own position somewhat by allowing the validity of purely conceptual divisibility, as many of their postulated distinct elemental qualities cannot possibly exist separately from certain other distinct elemental qualities—solidity and cohesion, for example, or perception and volition.
Another line of reasoning adopted by Mahayana may be said to have come full circle and to have returned, more or less, to the attitude of the "most ancient texts" briefly described above: There is no self because "self," no matter how the concept is defined, is nothing more than a mere concept, an artificial mental construct, a figment of the imagination. This is the deepest, the most comprehensive, and perhaps the most irrefutable interpretation of the mark of not-self.
In order to understand conceptually (assuming that anything can really be understood conceptually) why it is that nothing in the universe can truly be called a soul, a self, or a distinct individuality, it is necessary to have some understanding of the phenomenon of perception. The very nature and purpose of the act of perceiving is to attribute significance, or meaning, to the world. It does this primarily by differentiating the world into separate parts, and secondarily by identifying the parts by superimposing designations upon them, which bestow meaning through chains of association with other perceptions. In the ancient Pali texts this process is called papañcasaṅkhā, or "diversifying designation"; and in the Upanishadic literature of Hinduism the analogous term is nāmarūpa, or "name and form," "name" corresponding to the aspect of designation, and "form" corresponding to the aspect of discriminated appearance.6 The experience of volitional perception may be very subtle, especially initially, appearing as hardly more than a vague sense of "this" as opposed to "that"; but without it the world would be completely empty of meaning, meaning itself being essentially just the association or identification of one perception with one or more other perceptions. Meaning, and of course designation, are symbolic, and symbolism is assuredly a psychological phenomenon—a symbol that is not being perceived is not being a symbol. Even wordless separation of the world into a plurality of nameless parts does not occur without a perceiving mind, as any distinction of anything from anything else requires a selective emphasis or focusing of attention upon one thing at the expense of another, and selecting and attending are volitional, and thus also perceptual. So an unperceived universe would be the same as an unconditioned Void. Even perceptions themselves as they actually are, not merely as they are perceived to be, are to be seen as effectively Void. Samsaric perceptions are somewhat like virtual statues or "images" contained within an uncarved block of stone—the substance may be called "real," but the form is quite imaginary. The psychology of the human ape was never designed to understand this, and human language was never designed to describe it.
Presumably, anything considered to be a self would have to be some kind of more or less distinct entity; and, as has just been explained, all distinction is merely an artifact of perception. Furthermore, as has been explained, all artifacts of perception are saṅkhāras; therefore anything that could be viewed as a self is a saṅkhāra, or formation, and so necessarily marked with the characteristics of inconstancy and unease. Nevertheless, it has already been pointed out that popular modern usage does not require that a self or even a soul be eternally unchanging and blissful. So at this point one could almost say sabbe saṅkhārā attā, "All formations are self." The problem lies in the obvious fact that anything that is really a self must be real—that is, it must have some intrinsic, absolute reality, not just an apparent or symbolic one. It is at this point that the validity of the notion of self falls to the ground.
One way of viewing the unreality of formations is to adopt a relative approach closely akin to the aforementioned Simile of the Chariot: The apparent reality of a perceptual formation is not so much dependent upon an object's component parts, however, as it is upon a body of other perceptual formations, a context, without which it could not exist. The separate individuality of a formation requires a differentiation of figure from ground; its identity requires equating it, identifying it, with at least one other, symbolic, perceptual formation; and the full range of its significance involves an extensive network of associations which are themselves perceptual formations. Furthermore, this constellation of conditioning formations is continuously changing, in accordance with the principle of inconstancy, and as the context of perceptual background, designations, and associations change, the central formation changes also—sometimes radically. And if a deluded mind stops attending to a formation it simply collapses without support and merges back into the unthinkable Void. Thus the reality of a formation or a self is relative, not intrinsic.
Yet it may also be shown that what is only relatively true is absolutely false. Relation, association, comparison, contrast, differentiation, generalization, symbolization are essentially mediating psychological phenomena which necessarily separate themselves from immediate Reality in order to superimpose an interpretation upon it "from above," so to speak. No scientist will ever isolate from a sample of matter a Different From, Greater Than, Less Than, or Equal To. They are pure abstractions of mind which function at a different level from that of the world as it actually is. The immediate world just is what it is; it makes no assertions, no comparisons. If it were to be described in terms more positive than "unthinkable Void" one might simply call it "Thus," or "Such." But a formation is differentiation and identification, through and through; it is completely relative, and cannot possibly know anything otherwise, including "Such." Although its purpose is ostensibly to interpret Reality it knows only the interpretation, not the Reality. Truly, even though a perceptual formation is itself ultimately and necessarily based upon, and thus an aspect of, Reality (for even the wildest illusion presumably must be based upon something real), it cannot see even itself as it really is. A formation as it really is is not a formation. The entire samsaric world of formations is ape psychology superimposed upon a supposed external universe; it is an epiphenomenal self-perpetuating illusion, a very complicated mirage, or dream. But since it is all our "selves" can know, since its very nature is meaningfulness and its purpose practicality, and perhaps also since, as was previously mentioned, it is generated by complete irrationality, we generally presume it to be absolutely real, perhaps even the only Reality. This presumption is the ultimate foundation for all philosophical and scientific realism.
A brief summary of the preceding somewhat long and involved argument may be in order here: Any personal self must be a distinct entity; any distinct entity is a volitional/perceptual construction; any volitional/perceptual construction is an irrationally generated illusion. Therefore, any personal self is an illusion. Or, more briefly: There is no self because there is no difference.7 On the other hand, "no self" is also a relative, volitional/perceptual construction, and therefore also an illusion. For that matter, so are "unthinkable Void," "Such," "ultimate Reality," and "full enlightenment." So one would do well to return to the beginning—the sage believes in neither self nor not-self. Even so, although (or because) any statement about self is ultimately invalid, for a non-sage who is psychologically compelled to believe something it would seem that the denial of self would be a view less grossly in error and less troublesome to entertain than its assertion; thus Buddhist philosophy from early on emphasized the negative aspect.
Before concluding this discussion of anattā there is a certain peculiarity of traditional Buddhist belief that is worthy of consideration. It is commonly assumed, even taken for granted, that ultimately there is no self or soul, and that relatively and conventionally there is a self--but still no soul. This assumption is not necessarily warranted. A hypothetical soul need not be anything metaphysically divine; it may be, rather, a more comprehensive aspect of a samsaric being than that of which this particular level of illusion is aware. For example, if Einstein were correct and the physical universe, including people, were four-dimensional, then the four-dimensional person might be called a kind of "soul" for the three-and-a-fraction-dimensional one of which pretty much everybody at this level is aware. The conventional universe might be said to consist of, say, seven dimensions, and there may be a higher aspect of us that is aware of all seven (or at least of six and a fraction), and functions at that level, despite the fact that at this level we cannot even begin to imagine a seven-dimensional entity. For all practical purposes we might as well ignore such hypothetical "super selves," but it would be vanity and arrogance, or perhaps just dogmatic narrow-mindedness, to summarily deny the possibility of that which we cannot imagine. It would be like a person blind from birth contemptuously dismissing the notion of color. At any rate, even a multidimensional soul or entity would still be a formation, and an illusion.
The fifth and last philosophical term in the formula of the tilakkhaṇa is dhamma, or in Anglo-Sanskrit, "dharma." It is possibly the most ambiguous word in the Pali language, bearing a broad spectrum of meanings, and its correct interpretation in any particular case must be deduced as well as possible from the surrounding context. The literal meaning of the word is "bearing" or "bearer," in the sense of "holding up"; and it may be in this literal sense that the correct interpretation of sabbe dhammā may be found.
It was stated above that the first two marks of inconstancy and unease, plus the antimark of self, are characteristics of perceptually constructed delusional states; but, conveniently overlooking the awkward fact that anything describable is likewise delusional, not-self is apparently described as being otherwise. It is evident that "not self" is an attempt to describe things as they really are, not as they seem. Consequently, dhammā has been interpreted as "things as they are," not simply as "things," which is the more usual rendering in this context. So the literal sense of "bearing," if it has any direct application at all in this case, may be construed as "that which supports the appearance of a thing," "that which bears discernible qualities"—not the appearance or the qualities themselves, but the Kantian thing-in-itself which underlies them. Thus another rendering could be "that which is Real," that is, that which is not merely an illusory construct.
It may seem rather unsystematic for two illusions and one reality to be combined together in a list of marks of existence, but such apparently unsystematic systematology is common to the philosophy of the Pali texts; and anyhow, they do have one useful and important common feature: The serious contemplation of any of them is very conducive to disenchantment with this so-called "phenomenal world," alias "Samsara," and may lead to the cultivation of wisdom, perhaps even to enlightenment. Usefulness, not elegance of form, is really the main point of Buddhist philosophy.
It was stated above that the first two marks of inconstancy and unease, plus the antimark of self, are characteristics of perceptually constructed delusional states; but, conveniently overlooking the awkward fact that anything describable is likewise delusional, not-self is apparently described as being otherwise. It is evident that "not self" is an attempt to describe things as they really are, not as they seem. Consequently, dhammā has been interpreted as "things as they are," not simply as "things," which is the more usual rendering in this context. So the literal sense of "bearing," if it has any direct application at all in this case, may be construed as "that which supports the appearance of a thing," "that which bears discernible qualities"—not the appearance or the qualities themselves, but the Kantian thing-in-itself which underlies them. Thus another rendering could be "that which is Real," that is, that which is not merely an illusory construct.
It may seem rather unsystematic for two illusions and one reality to be combined together in a list of marks of existence, but such apparently unsystematic systematology is common to the philosophy of the Pali texts; and anyhow, they do have one useful and important common feature: The serious contemplation of any of them is very conducive to disenchantment with this so-called "phenomenal world," alias "Samsara," and may lead to the cultivation of wisdom, perhaps even to enlightenment. Usefulness, not elegance of form, is really the main point of Buddhist philosophy.
The foregoing explanation of terms in the doctrine of the three marks may appear to give rise to a strange problem. If, as is said, change and inconstancy are an illusion, and past, present, and future are all equally real or valid, and thus every moment is, in a sense, eternal, then the attainment of full enlightenment would seem to be a very sorely limited attainment, as all the suffering and delusion experienced before one's final emancipation would persist forever and ever. It would seem to be a kind of Eternal Damnation. For the moment of enlightenment really to be the terminus of unenlightenment in the dimension of time would be no more consolation than the fact that an agonizing toothache is limited in the dimensions of space to the volume of a tooth. What consolation would there be for a person in a state of abject despair to be reminded that his misery did not extend upwards beyond the top of his own head? The ridiculousness of the statement might distract him perhaps.
An easy answer to this problem is to say, as has already been suggested, that suffering and delusion themselves are ultimately illusory and so never existed from the beginningless beginning, and that enlightenment is the realization of this, or, in other words, that enlightenment is the cessation of false belief in the false reality of Samsara. But it could be argued with equal facility that to seem real is bad enough. To tell the man with the toothache that his suffering is ultimately illusory would probably be as little consolation as to remind him of the spatial limitations of the tooth. It would seem that Einstein and the Sarvastivadins have effectively condemned us all, including the Buddha himself, to everlasting purgatory, virtual though it may be.
One way of looking at the situation is to consider that not only is "unease" unreal—that is, ultimately Void, devoid of significance—but the person to whom it seems real is also unreal, and the very notion that it seems real (not to mention the irritation at the silly fellow who says that toothaches are not real) is also not real. The entire mutually-conditioning context is not real; and things are simply not as they seem. Many people during moments of extreme emotion get some insight into this fact. It is like a very realistic and perhaps even beautiful painting of, say, King Lear going mad with grief. Or, more appositely, it is like an extremely intricate and lifelike statue of a suffering being virtually contained in the aforementioned uncarved block of stone: The affected form is unease, but the true substance is only undifferentiated Void, or "Such." Thus, in a sense, even unease and delusion, as they really are, are consummate perfection itself. Hence perfect agony, the perfect fool. From an "enlightened point of view," if that makes any sense, it is all perfect. This is one reason why Mahayana Buddhist philosophy claims that Samsara is really the same as Nirvana, and that everybody is already a Buddha. Conversely, from the point of view of a samsaric individual even a fully enlightened sage would appear to be unenlightened, that is, to discriminate, to attribute significance to his or her experiences, to perceive a sequential flow of time and inconstancy, even to experience unease to some extent. Yet subjectively, regardless of all phenomenal appearances, he or she would be completely merged in Void, being no more deluded or motivated by restless dissatisfaction than a roaring fire or a raging stormy sea: they may appear to be quite active, possibly even violently forceful; but inwardly, as they really are, they are simply and peacefully "Such." It is said that the mind of a mature Zen master remains perfectly still, though the hall may be resounding with his shouts and blows from his stick may be falling like rain. It is not wind that moves; it is not flag that moves; it is not mind that moves. Even seeming is not as it seems.
All of this is certainly not to suggest that one should not bother to strive for enlightenment. So long as one prefers bliss to agitation in this world one would do well to live one's life in accordance with Dhamma. Nevertheless, the difference between the uneasy fool and the blissful sage is purely relative, purely samsaric, and thus purely illusory; and, although there are other ways of describing it, it is the transcendence of relativity, including this kind of relativity, that a life of Dhamma leads toward, and that enlightenment finally is.
Another way of looking at the predicament of virtual Eternal Damnation is to consider that Things As They Really Are just cannot be understood conceptually. The problem is a paradox, a koan, and it may be best not to stew over it overly much. One will find that as one's spiritual practice progresses and one's insight develops the problem will naturally evaporate of its own accord.
An easy answer to this problem is to say, as has already been suggested, that suffering and delusion themselves are ultimately illusory and so never existed from the beginningless beginning, and that enlightenment is the realization of this, or, in other words, that enlightenment is the cessation of false belief in the false reality of Samsara. But it could be argued with equal facility that to seem real is bad enough. To tell the man with the toothache that his suffering is ultimately illusory would probably be as little consolation as to remind him of the spatial limitations of the tooth. It would seem that Einstein and the Sarvastivadins have effectively condemned us all, including the Buddha himself, to everlasting purgatory, virtual though it may be.
One way of looking at the situation is to consider that not only is "unease" unreal—that is, ultimately Void, devoid of significance—but the person to whom it seems real is also unreal, and the very notion that it seems real (not to mention the irritation at the silly fellow who says that toothaches are not real) is also not real. The entire mutually-conditioning context is not real; and things are simply not as they seem. Many people during moments of extreme emotion get some insight into this fact. It is like a very realistic and perhaps even beautiful painting of, say, King Lear going mad with grief. Or, more appositely, it is like an extremely intricate and lifelike statue of a suffering being virtually contained in the aforementioned uncarved block of stone: The affected form is unease, but the true substance is only undifferentiated Void, or "Such." Thus, in a sense, even unease and delusion, as they really are, are consummate perfection itself. Hence perfect agony, the perfect fool. From an "enlightened point of view," if that makes any sense, it is all perfect. This is one reason why Mahayana Buddhist philosophy claims that Samsara is really the same as Nirvana, and that everybody is already a Buddha. Conversely, from the point of view of a samsaric individual even a fully enlightened sage would appear to be unenlightened, that is, to discriminate, to attribute significance to his or her experiences, to perceive a sequential flow of time and inconstancy, even to experience unease to some extent. Yet subjectively, regardless of all phenomenal appearances, he or she would be completely merged in Void, being no more deluded or motivated by restless dissatisfaction than a roaring fire or a raging stormy sea: they may appear to be quite active, possibly even violently forceful; but inwardly, as they really are, they are simply and peacefully "Such." It is said that the mind of a mature Zen master remains perfectly still, though the hall may be resounding with his shouts and blows from his stick may be falling like rain. It is not wind that moves; it is not flag that moves; it is not mind that moves. Even seeming is not as it seems.
All of this is certainly not to suggest that one should not bother to strive for enlightenment. So long as one prefers bliss to agitation in this world one would do well to live one's life in accordance with Dhamma. Nevertheless, the difference between the uneasy fool and the blissful sage is purely relative, purely samsaric, and thus purely illusory; and, although there are other ways of describing it, it is the transcendence of relativity, including this kind of relativity, that a life of Dhamma leads toward, and that enlightenment finally is.
Another way of looking at the predicament of virtual Eternal Damnation is to consider that Things As They Really Are just cannot be understood conceptually. The problem is a paradox, a koan, and it may be best not to stew over it overly much. One will find that as one's spiritual practice progresses and one's insight develops the problem will naturally evaporate of its own accord.
It was stated above that conduciveness to practical benefit is the main point of Buddhist philosophy; but it could be the case for many good people that the foregoing discussion serves more to baffle than to instruct. Even so, there may still be some benefit to be had from it, as it is better to be deeply baffled than dogmatically to believe that one knows the truth. Yet, it is proper for any discourse on Dhamma to contain some practical instruction expressed in plain language. So: Be Mindful—that is, attend to the here and now with an unclouded mind, while attributing as little significance to it as possible. And may all beings be well and peaceful.
Beholding nothingness, possessing mindfulness,
Relying upon "It is not," cross over the flood.
(—from the Upasīvamānavapucchā, Sutta Nipāta)
Look upon the world as Void,
Mogharāja, always being mindful.
Dispelling the view of self
One would thus be a crosser of death.
One looking upon the world thus
The king of death does not see.
(—from the Mogharājamānavapucchā, Sutta Nipāta)
written by Paññobhāsa Bhikkhu
Wun Bo Wildlife Refuge Monastery, Upper Burma
10th day of the waxing moon of Māgha (old style),
2547 B.E.
(1 March 2004)
Notes
Beholding nothingness, possessing mindfulness,
Relying upon "It is not," cross over the flood.
(—from the Upasīvamānavapucchā, Sutta Nipāta)
Look upon the world as Void,
Mogharāja, always being mindful.
Dispelling the view of self
One would thus be a crosser of death.
One looking upon the world thus
The king of death does not see.
(—from the Mogharājamānavapucchā, Sutta Nipāta)
written by Paññobhāsa Bhikkhu
Wun Bo Wildlife Refuge Monastery, Upper Burma
10th day of the waxing moon of Māgha (old style),
2547 B.E.
(1 March 2004)
Notes
- See Appendix I.
- The most well-known commentary on this koan goes further to say, "It is not the wind that moves; it is not the flag that moves; it is not the mind that moves." (Wu-men Kuan, case 29)
- The fact that later exegetic tradition made extensive additions to the meaning of the term need not detain us here.
- See, for example, the Duṭṭhaṭṭhaka Sutta, verse 8, Purābheda Sutta, verse 11, and Tuvaṭaka Sutta, verse 5, all in the Sutta Nipāta, the entire fourth chapter of which is well worth special attention.
- It may be noted with regard to the notion of self as "that which is controlled" that one translation of anattā that is occasionally met with in English Dhamma books is "ownerless" or "ownerlessness." One could hardly be considered to own something over which one has no control. Yet if one were completely devoid of control over one's mind and body, then presumably one would be devoid of free will, and be a helpless slave of blind, deterministic Cause and Effect (if not of even blinder Chance). The possibility that we may actually be such slaves is a plausible consideration, and one that receives much support from modern philosophy and science; but despite the great emphasis in the Pali texts on the universality of cause and effect, spiritual determinism is heartily denounced in these same texts as wrong view and heresy, and apparently none of the major schools of Buddhism endorse it. Consequently, it would seem that we fall somewhere in between the two extremes of complete control and complete helplessness, and since we have some control it could reasonably be argued that we have some self. But this view also is not supported by the texts. Apparently the supposition is that only if there is complete and absolute power over some general aspect of mind or body could that aspect truly be a self or soul, or possessed of a self or soul. In passing, it is somewhat remarkable that self or "ownership" in this context is described primarily in terms of that which is controlled, and not in terms of that which actually does the controlling.
- There is some evidence which suggests that nāmarūpa was employed in this sense in very early Buddhism also.
- It should perhaps be added here that this epistemological attempt to refute the intrinsic reality of self-difference would equally apply to the supposed reality of inconstancy, or temporal difference, thus supplementing or rather supplanting the quasi-Einsteinian refutation of change in time previously given.
Appendix I
An Attempted Theravadin Refutation of the Sarvastivadin Conception of Time
In the Pali Abhidhamma text Kathāvatthu there is a lengthy section entitled Sabbamatthītikathā, or "The Debate on 'All Exists,'" which is dedicated primarily to a refutation of the Sarvastivada Buddhist doctrine of the essential coexistence of past, present, and future. After a brief introductory subsection finding fault with the vague assertion "all exists," the debate over time proceeds as follows:
An Attempted Theravadin Refutation of the Sarvastivadin Conception of Time
In the Pali Abhidhamma text Kathāvatthu there is a lengthy section entitled Sabbamatthītikathā, or "The Debate on 'All Exists,'" which is dedicated primarily to a refutation of the Sarvastivada Buddhist doctrine of the essential coexistence of past, present, and future. After a brief introductory subsection finding fault with the vague assertion "all exists," the debate over time proceeds as follows:
|
Reference to Time
Theravadin: The past exists? Sarvastivadin: Yes. Th: But is not the past what has ceased, disappeared, passed away, come to an end, completely come to an end? S: Yes. Th: Well then, if the past is what has ceased, disappeared, passed away, come to an end, completely come to an end, it certainly should not be said that the past exists. The future exists? S: Yes. Th: But is not the future what has not arisen, not become, not happened, not come forth, not come into being, not become manifest? S: Yes. Th: Well then, if the future is what has not arisen, not become, not happened, not come forth, not come into being, not become manifest, it certainly should not be said that the future exists. The present exists, the present being what has not ceased, not disappeared, not passed away, not come to an end, not completely come to an end? S: Yes. Th: Then the past exists, the past being what has not ceased, not disappeared, not passed away, not come to an end, not completely come to an end. S: It should not be said like that…. Th: The present exists, the present being what has arisen, become, happened, come forth, come into being, become manifest? S: Yes. Th: Then the future exists, the future being what has arisen, become, happened, come forth, come into being, become manifest. S: It should not be said like that…. Th: The past exists, the past being what has ceased, disappeared, passed away, come to an end, completely come to an end? S: Yes. Th: Then the present exists, the present being what has ceased, disappeared, passed away, come to an end, completely come to an end. S: It should not be said like that…. Th: The future exists, the future being what has not arisen, not become, not happened, not come forth, not come into being, not become manifest? S: Yes. Th: Then the present exists, the present being what has not arisen, not become, not happened, not come forth, not come into being, not become manifest. S: It should not be said like that…. |
The debate continues mainly along these lines, becoming more specific with hypothetical applications to form, mental states, and so forth, with the addition of some appeals to scriptural authority made on behalf of both sides of the controversy, the entire polemic being gratuitously drawn out to almost twenty folio pages in the Burmese Sixth Council edition. It may be observed that the above excerpt, which contains, aside from appeals to authority, the kernel of the Theravadins' case, consists of two separate arguments. The first argument interprets past and future in accordance with the Theravadin (and commonsense) conception of time, and then attempts to refute the Sarvastivadins by pointing out the contradiction between the Sarvastivadin existence of past and future and the Theravadin (and commonsense) nonexistence of same. It appears that the Sarvastivadin represented in the Theravadin text defeats his own cause by accepting without qualification the Theravadin definitions of past and future. The second argument, on the other hand, is simply a blatant exercise of logically invalid reasoning. The first part of the argument, which is structurally similar to the remaining three parts, may be schematized as follows: The present exists (all A is P); the present is what has not ceased, etc. (all A is Q); therefore if the past also exists (if all B is P), then the past also is what has not ceased, etc. (then all B is Q—but all B is not Q, therefore all B is not P). The invalidity of this deduction may be made more clear by the following obviously false deduction, which has exactly the same structural pattern: Tortoises are reptiles; tortoises have shells; therefore if lizards also are reptiles, then lizards also have shells—but lizards do not have shells, therefore lizards are not reptiles. And thus, supposedly, the past does not exist. It is evident that at the time of the composition of the Kathāvatthu formal logic in India was still at a rudimentary stage of development. But setting aside this second argument, the first argument, although more rational, is also not necessarily conclusive, as the Sarvastivadin could, and probably should, have either rejected the Theravadin's definitions of past and future, or else accepted them with some qualification, for example: "The past appears to have passed away, but nevertheless persists in some way" (whereupon the onus would be upon the Sarvastivadin to explain how this is so. If commonsense realist refutations, which are based on superimposing human psychological traits upon the Universe, were sufficient to kill a theory on the nature of Reality, then modern physics (not to mention ancient meditative insight) would not have a leg to stand on. A certain amount of uncommon sense is called for.
Appendix II
A Classical Pali Exposition of the Three Marks: The Vajirā Sutta
Thus have I heard…in Sāvatthi…Now Vajirā the nun, having dressed in the morning time and having taken her bowl and outer robe, entered Sāvatthi for alms. Having gone for alms in Sāvatthi, after her meal, returning from alms round she went to the Dark Forest for the day's abiding. Having entered the Dark Forest she sat at the root of a certain tree for the day's abiding. Now Māra the Evil One, desiring to cause fear, alarm, and panic in Vajirā the nun, desiring to distract her from concentration, approached Vajirā the nun. Having approached Vajirā the nun he addressed her with a verse:
By who was this being made?
Where is the being's maker?
Where has the being arisen?
Where does the being cease to be?
Now it occurred to Vajirā the nun, "Who is this? Did a human or a nonhuman speak the verse?" Then it occurred to Vajirā the nun, "This is Māra the Evil One who speaks the verse, desiring to cause fear, alarm, and panic in me, desiring to distract me from concentration." Then Vajirā the nun, having realized "This is Māra the Evil One," answered Māra the Evil One with verses:
What, do you believe in a "being,"
Māra, have you fallen into views?
This is purely a heap of formations;
There is no being to be had here.
Just as from a combination of parts
There derives the word "chariot,"
Even so, from aggregates being present
There derives the convention of "a being."
It is just unease that arises,
Unease that endures and passes away;
Nothing other than unease arises,
Nothing other than unease ceases to be.
Then Māra the Evil One, thinking, "Vajirā the nun has found me out," full of unease and unhappy, disappeared right then and there.
(--Saṁyutta Nikāya, Sagāthā Vagga, Bhikkhunī Saṁyutta, Sutta 10)
A Classical Pali Exposition of the Three Marks: The Vajirā Sutta
Thus have I heard…in Sāvatthi…Now Vajirā the nun, having dressed in the morning time and having taken her bowl and outer robe, entered Sāvatthi for alms. Having gone for alms in Sāvatthi, after her meal, returning from alms round she went to the Dark Forest for the day's abiding. Having entered the Dark Forest she sat at the root of a certain tree for the day's abiding. Now Māra the Evil One, desiring to cause fear, alarm, and panic in Vajirā the nun, desiring to distract her from concentration, approached Vajirā the nun. Having approached Vajirā the nun he addressed her with a verse:
By who was this being made?
Where is the being's maker?
Where has the being arisen?
Where does the being cease to be?
Now it occurred to Vajirā the nun, "Who is this? Did a human or a nonhuman speak the verse?" Then it occurred to Vajirā the nun, "This is Māra the Evil One who speaks the verse, desiring to cause fear, alarm, and panic in me, desiring to distract me from concentration." Then Vajirā the nun, having realized "This is Māra the Evil One," answered Māra the Evil One with verses:
What, do you believe in a "being,"
Māra, have you fallen into views?
This is purely a heap of formations;
There is no being to be had here.
Just as from a combination of parts
There derives the word "chariot,"
Even so, from aggregates being present
There derives the convention of "a being."
It is just unease that arises,
Unease that endures and passes away;
Nothing other than unease arises,
Nothing other than unease ceases to be.
Then Māra the Evil One, thinking, "Vajirā the nun has found me out," full of unease and unhappy, disappeared right then and there.
(--Saṁyutta Nikāya, Sagāthā Vagga, Bhikkhunī Saṁyutta, Sutta 10)