Buddhism that started as Tera Vada Buddhism, evolved into many more forms over a period of time. Adherents to each form claimed authority from Buddha himself. There was Mahayana, Vajrayana, Zen and so on.
One interesting development that revolved around the Mind, which is the topic of interest to us, is the so called Vijnyana Vada that got developed as an offshoot of Mahayana Buddhism sometime around 4th century A.D. They had some interesting views about the Mind.
Their views were in some way similar to the ‘idealism’ of the western philosophers especially the Greeks. This idealism grew further and became a prominent thought even in the 18th century A.D.
These Vijnyana Vadis have a point in the sense that the world as we see is decided by how we think. Someone may appear to be beautiful to someone. But ugly to someone else. So, does beauty or ugliness real or unreal?
It is also true that we cannot separate what we perceive from what may actually exist. We see a colorful world with hundreds of colors each color being a combination of 3 different basic colors. But an animal like a cow for example, can only see shades of grey. So, is the world colorful or just black and white? What is the real color of the world?
In the same way, what we perceive in the world is relative to our thoughts. When we are happy, the entire world looks pleasant to us. But the same world appears scaring when we are depressed. That is true for most of us.
But can we conclude that the world does not exist and it is just a creation of the Mind?
This was exactly the counter to these Vijnyana Vadis by later Vedic philosophers. For example, the 7th century Vedic philosopher Sankara, ridicules the Vijnyana Vadis by saying that their theories are full of contradictions.
Sankara asks –
“How did the Mind imagine something that never existed, that was never perceived before?”
Our perceptions can be wrong. But that does not mean that there is no object that corresponds to whatever we perceived. It can’t be totally a mental creation. Our thoughts are after all based on what we previously perceived, even if it is a complete modification of it.
Sankara makes fun of these Buddhist philosophers by saying that their ideas are so self-contradicting like calling someone as a son of a barren woman! Sankara asks
“If the woman is barren, then how did she beget a son? If she gave birth, then she is no more barren. And there cannot be anyone who is her son and at the same time be called son of a barren woman!
What we see may not be exactly as we perceive it. It may not be what we think it is. But surely there is something that we saw. If we had never seen anything, then there is no way we can think about it or something similar to it”
These Vedic philosophers who adore Buddha as an incarnation of God, have severe disagreement with the Buddhists. They say that the Buddhists have either wrongly understood Buddha or are misinterpreting his words.
Sankara’s Grand Guru namely Gaud pada wrote a detailed composition refuting this Mind only theory of the Vijnyana Vadis. According to him, Buddha never said what these people are saying. He has his own version of what Buddha probably said.
That work of Gaud pada later became the basis of Sakara’s well known Advaita philosophy. What exactly were Gaud pada’s views? We will discuss that in the next episode.
A series revolving around Mind – Science of Mind, Philosophy of Mind, Notions of reality, Mind modulation, Domains beyond Mind, and so on. © Dr. King 2019
The analogy of a dream to life,makes Buddhist views of life easier to understand...
ReplyDeleteBut hope your are going to give equal weight age to the views of other religions/ cultures regarding mind.otherwise it may feel like you are critical of their beliefs.
I never write based on secondary tertiary sources. What i normally write is based on tipitaka compiled 2000 yrs ago as well as commentary of sankara written 1300 yrs ago. So anybody can challenge and correct me. I have great respect for Buddha.
ReplyDeleteBTW Comparing life to dream was Gaudapada's view and not Buddhist view.