Common Ground - Islam and Buddhism
Common Ground - Islam and Buddhism
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 />
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