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Common Ground - Islam and Buddhism

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c o m m o n g r o u n d between i s l a m a n d b u d d h i s m<br />

the soul exists after death, according to these annihilationists,<br />

it dies with the body. 5<br />

As the following citation from a Chinese text from the Middle<br />

Way school 6 tells us, it is not a question of asserting one position to<br />

the exclusion of the other, but rather seeking to discover a ‘middle<br />

way’ between the two:<br />

Only seeing that all are empty without seeing the non-empty<br />

side — this cannot be called Middle Way. Only seeing that<br />

all have no self without also seeing the self — this cannot<br />

be called Middle Way. 7<br />

Nāgārjūna explains the fundamental distinction between the two<br />

different planes of reality <strong>and</strong> the truths proportioned thereto, a distinction<br />

which helps us to decipher the Buddha’s paradoxical, apparently<br />

contradictory, statements about the soul, <strong>and</strong> indeed about<br />

Reality: ‘The teaching of the doctrine by the Buddhas is based upon<br />

two truths: truth relating to worldly convention <strong>and</strong> truth in terms<br />

of ultimate fruit.’ 8 It is on the level of conventional truth (samvrtisatyam)<br />

that one can assert the relative reality of the individual soul,<br />

<strong>and</strong> it is likewise on this level of reality that one can situate the processes<br />

of dependent origination, clinging, delusion <strong>and</strong> suffering.<br />

However, completely transcending this level of explanation, <strong>and</strong><br />

the world (loka) proportioned to it, is the truth or reality pertaining<br />

to ‘ultimate fruit’ (paramārtha). On the level of ultimate Reality—<br />

which is seen only upon enlightenment, <strong>and</strong>, prior to enlightenment,<br />

glimpsed through intuitions—the individual soul is itself perceived<br />

as an illusion, <strong>and</strong> all that pertains to the world within which the soul<br />

apparently exists is illusory. That which is permanent is alone real.<br />

However, this does not prevent suffering from being what it is for<br />

5. For a detailed presentation of the Buddha’s religious environment <strong>and</strong> the views<br />

of the ‘eternalists’ (sassata-ditthiyo) <strong>and</strong> annihilationists’ (uccheda-ditthiyo), see K.N.<br />

Jayatilleke, Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge (London: George Allen & Unwin,<br />

1963), pp. 21–168; <strong>and</strong> for a concise summary of the speculative views not held by<br />

the Buddha, see the dialogue between the Buddha <strong>and</strong> the w<strong>and</strong>erer Vacchagotta in<br />

Sutta 72 (Aggivacchagotta) of The Middle Length Discourses, op. cit., pp. 590–594.<br />

6. Mādhyamika, the school founded by Nāgārjūna, referred to in the introduction.<br />

7. Taisho shinshū daizokyo 12, 374: 523b, cited by Youru Wang in Linguistic<br />

Strategies in Daoist Zhuangzi <strong>and</strong> Chan <strong>Buddhism</strong> (London & New York: RoutledgeCurzon,<br />

2003), p. 61.<br />

8. From his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, 24:8, cited by David Kalupahana,<br />

Nāgārjūna—The Philosophy of the Middle Way, op. cit., p. 331.<br />

34

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