Buddhism
“What are you?”
“I am awake.”
Buddha (-563 - -483)
Four Passing Sights
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Old age
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Disease
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Death
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Monk
Quest for fulfillment
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Self-indulgence (path of desire)
Asceticism (path of renunciation)
No Self
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There is no self to fulfill
No-self (anatman, anatta): there is no self
Idea of self —> desire —> suffering
Absent self
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Introspect: what do you see?
Thoughts, feelings, perceptions. . . .
You don’t find anything else
You don’t find yourself
There is no self or soul
A person is just a bundle of thoughts. . . .
Absent Self
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Self-knowledge?
Knowledge of others?
No self: no essence
within me to know
The best I can do is
understand patterns
in bundle of thoughts
Buddhaghosa (-400)
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There are 89 kinds of
consciousness
Nothing unifies them
There are only
streams of
consciousness
Nothing unites past,
present, and future
Buddhaghosa
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A living being lasts
only as long as one
thought
People, minds,
objects are only ways
of speaking
People and passengers
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Jane flies from Austin to Houston and
back <———————————>
She is one person
She is two passengers
‘Passenger’ is just a way of counting
Buddhaghosa: every noun is like
‘passenger’
Questions to King Milinda
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“there is no ego here to be found”
“there is no chariot here to be found”
No one element is the whole
The combination isn’t the whole; parts
could change while object remains the
same
Reincarnation?
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There is no soul to
occupy a different
mind or body
But there is a cycle of
birth and death
Reincarnation?
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There are
connections between
lives through cause
and effect, similarity,
etc.
We construct people
(like “passengers”)—
we can do so across
bounds of death
Buddhist self
Consciousness-only
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Vasubandhu’s idealism
—> Dharmapala —>
Xuanzong (596-664)
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Idealism: Everything
depends on mind
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No-self: There is no mind
Xuanzong’s mind
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Five senses
Sight
 Hearing
 Touch
 Taste
 Smell
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Sense-center consciousness
Thought-center
consciousness
Storehouse consciousness
Arguments vs. unified self
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Universal, “extensive as
empty space”
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Perception: How can it be
happy or suffer?
Mental causation: How
can it cause the body to
act?
Individuation: How can
you and I differ?
Arguments vs. unified self
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Coextensive with the
body
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If I gain weight, does
my soul expand?
If I cut my hair, do I
lose part of my self?
Inside the body
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Then the self is neither
one nor eternal
Arguments vs. aggregate self
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The self is neither one nor eternal
An aggregate of what?
Thoughts, feelings, etc.? But these can
change while I remain myself
 Matter?
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But thoughts are intentional: they are about things.
 Matter isn’t about anything.
 So, thoughts aren’t matter.
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David Hume (1711-1776)
Hume’s Argument vs. Self
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Source of idea of self?
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We do not find it in
experience
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All identity through change is
imposed by us, not there in
the world
Heraclitus
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Example:
Heraclitus: can’t
step in same river
twice
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Example: ship of
Theseus
Imposed identity
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Mental states link to other mental states:
memory, intention, desire, similarities
We construct the idea of self
Self as Commonwealth
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Self is not a unified thing— best compared to a
commonwealth
Questions about identity aren’t about the world,
but about language
Buddhist ethics
Four noble truths: 1
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Life is painful (dukkha)
 “Now
this, O monks, is the noble truth of pain:
birth is painful, old age is painful, sickness is
painful, death is painful, sorrow, lamentation,
dejection, and despair are painful. Contact
with unpleasant things is painful, not getting
what one wishes is painful. In short the five
khandhas of grasping are painful.”
Four Noble Truths: 2
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Desire (tanha) causes pain
 “Now
this, O monks, is the noble truth of
the cause of pain: that craving which
leads to rebirth, combined with pleasure
and lust, finding pleasure here and
there, namely, the craving for passion,
the craving for existence, the craving for
non-existence.”
Four Noble Truths: 3
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Eliminating desire can eliminate pain
 “Now
this, O monks, is the noble truth of
the cessation of pain: the cessation
without a remainder of that craving,
abandonment, forsaking, release,
nonattachment.”
Four Noble Truths: 4
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The Eightfold Noble Path (the
Middle Way) eliminates desire:
Right
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Thought
Intention
Speech
Conduct
Livelihood
Effort
Concentration
Meditation
Right Thought, Intention
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Right Thought:
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Dhammapada: “Everything
you are is the result of what
you have thought.”
You must know the Four
Noble Truths
You must avoid harmful
thoughts
Right Intention:
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You must try to eliminate
selfish desire
Right Speech, Conduct
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Right Speech
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Avoid saying harmful
things
Right Conduct
Avoid harming others
 Obey the five restraints
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Ethical restraints
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Do not kill
Do not steal
Do not lie
Do not be
unchaste
Do not ingest
intoxicants
Right Livelihood, Effort
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Right Livelihood
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You must enter the right
career
Avoid what requires you,
or even tempts you, to
harm others
Right Effort
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You must work constantly
to avoid selfish desire
Right Concentration, Meditation
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Right Concentration
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You must develop mental
powers to avoid desire
“binding mind to a single
spot”, as in Hindu meditation
Right Meditation
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Like Hindu meditation
cessation of fluctuations
illumination of object as
object, empty of what it is
Two kinds of Buddhism
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Theravada
Buddhism
Southern Canon,
early writings
 Southeast Asia
 Ideal: arhat
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Mahayana Buddhism
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Northern Canon,
later writings
China, Korea,
Japan
Ideal: bodhisattva
Two ideals
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Arhat: saint who attains enlightenment,
experiences nirvana. Chief virtue: wisdom
Mahayana Ideal
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Bodhisattva: one who postpones his/her own
enlightenment to promote the enlightenment of
others. Chief virtue: compassion
Six perfections of the
bodhisattva
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Charity
Good moral character
(concern for others)
Patience
Energy
Deep concentration
Wisdom
Arguments for the arhat ideal
The goal is to eliminate suffering; the
means, enlightenment
 If bodhisattvas help others to
enlightenment, they help them become
arhats
 If it is good to help others to
enlightenment, it is because
enlightenment is the goal
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Theravada Temple, Laos
Theravada temple, Burma
Theravada temple, Mandalay
Temples, Bagan, Burma
Theravada temple, Thailand
Arguments for the
bodhisattva ideal
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If your ideal is the arhat, you seek your
own enlightenment
That is a selfish desire; it leads to suffering
Concern for self presupposes that you
have a separate self
Only bodhisattva ideal leads you beyond
yourself
Mahayana temples
Mahayana Temples