Metaphor and Literalism in Buddhism: The ... - misterdanger.net

NIRVANA IN THE THERAVf DA BUDDHIST TRADITION
getting born again. Yet it does not know the escape from this suffering
and from decay and death. When indeed will the escape from
them be known? I then thought, oh monks, ‘From what that exists
do decay and death come to be, from which cause is there old age
and death?’ Then oh monks I had a realisation of understanding
through thinking according to the cause (yoniso manasikAra): ‘When
birth exists, decay and death come to be, with birth as condition,
there is decay and death’. 15
Here the problem of death turned out to be the crucial issue that the Buddha
before enlightenment sought to overcome. Although it was not mentioned
in this sutta, the Buddha before enlightenment could ask himself ‘What is
death?’ as against ‘What is life?’ in accordance with the ordinary way of
thinking.
The Buddha, according to Gombrich in his book How Buddhism Began,
‘was not an essentialist, and in contrast to Brahmins was interested in how
things worked rather than in what they were’. 16 From the modern terminology,
these two ways of looking at things seem to correspond to two types of
methodology suggested by Karl Popper in his book The Open Society and
Its Enemies: methodological essentialism and methodological nominalism.
Karl Popper explained the first, methodological essentialism, as to aim at
finding out what a thing really is and at defining its true nature, by asking,
for example, what movement is or what an atom is. The second, methodological
nominalism, is to aim at describing how a thing behaves in various
circumstances, by asking, for instance, how a planet moves or under what
conditions an atom radiates light. 17
His point, according to Gombrich, is that ‘knowledge and understanding
do not advance through asking for definitions of what things are, but
through asking why they occur and how they work’. 18 The content of yoniso
manasikAra could resemble modern scientific method. The question and
answer given under yoniso manasikAra focused clearly on how or why things
like old age and death occur. Late in this text, this method was regarded as
a whole new one, ‘not being heard of before’ (pubbe ananusamuppAda), 19 and
as a means through which enlightenment was possible.
We can see another aspect of this new way of questioning and answering
in the Phaggunasutta in the SaNyuttanikAya. Here the Buddha actually took
some questions from a monk, Moliya Phagguna, as unfit questions and
suggested fit questions and answers based on his new way of thinking, yoniso
manasikAra. He asked the Buddha, when the doctrine of the four foods
(AhAra) was taught, ‘Then, blessed one, who eats the consciousness-food?’ 20
The four foods (AhAra) are made up of physical food, sense-impressions,
mental volitions and consciousness, and the last food is interpreted by Warder
as ‘experience through our sentient body’. 21 This question thus means simply
‘Who is conscious?’ 22 Here is the answer from the blessed one:
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