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The Problem of Buddhist Environmental Ethics
By Ian Harris
University College of St. Martin
ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 1 1994
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Abstract:
Environmentalist concerns have moved centre stage in most
major religious traditions of late and Buddhism is no exception to
this rule. This paper shows that the canonical writings of Indic
Buddhism possess elements that may harmonise with a de facto
ecological consciousness. However, their basic attitude towards the
causal process drastically reduces the possibility of developing an
authentically Buddhist environmental ethic. The classical treatment of
causation fails to resolve successfully the tension between symmetry
and asymmetry of relations and this has tended to mean that attempts
to inject a telos, or sense of purpose, into the world are likely to
founder. The agenda of eco-Buddhism is examined in the light of this
fact and found wanting. Published material relating to Buddhism and
environmental ethics has increased in a moderate fashion over the last
few years and may be divided into four broad categories:
1- Forthright endorsement of Buddhist environmental ethics
by traditional guardians of doxic truth, of whom HH
Ḍalai
Lama (1) is perhaps the most important representative.
2- Equally positive treatments by predominantly Japanese
and North American scholar/activists premised on an assumption that
Buddhism is blessed with the resources necessary to address current
environmental issues. Generally this material limits itself to
identifying the most appropriate Buddhist doctrinal bases from which
an environmental ethic could proceed, e.g. the doctrines of
interpenetration, tathāgatagarbha, etc., e.g., Aramaki (2), Macy (3),
and Brown (4).
3- Critical treatments which, while fully acknowledging
the difficulties involved in reconciling traditional Asian modes of
thought with those employed by scientific ecology, are optimistic
about the possibility of establishing an authentic Buddhist response
to environmental problems, e.g.. Schmithausen (5).
4- Outright rejection of the possibility of Buddhist
environmental ethics on the grounds that the otherworldliness of
"canonical " Buddhism implies a negation of the natural realm for all
practical purposes, e.g., Hakamaya (6).
In this paper I shall move backwards and forwards between
positions 3 and 4 - my heart telling me that 3 makes sense with my
mind more in tune with position 4. Category 1 material mainly relates
to dialogue with other religions and aims to paint Buddhism in a
favourable light. I shall have nothing further to say on this. I hope
to show that work belonging to the second category, while
superficially attractive, falls some way short of providing an
adequate and rigorous basis for the erection of a thorough-going
Buddhist environmental ethic. The minimum qualification for an
authentic Buddhist ethics is that it is able to construe causation in
such a way that goal-oriented activity makes sense. In other words
Buddhist causation must be shown to be teleologically meaningful. In
our context a positive moral stance towards the environment is
premised on the idea that one state of affairs can be shown to be
preferable to another; for instance, that the world will be
demonstrably worse if the black rhino becomes extinct. Now, I would
not wish to argue against this in general terms but I shall contend
that it is difficult to ground such a view on a sound Buddhist
footing, most importantly because any activity of this kind
presupposes a certain teleology and an accompanying belief in the
predictability of cause/effect relations.
Let us now examine the idea of causation in more detail.
Yamada, in an article that draws on a very substantial body of prior
Japanese scholarship, shows that the pratītyasamutpāda formula can be
read in two significantly differing ways - the so-called "reversal"
and "natural" sequences. The first he believes to be a characteristic
of the Abhidharma, with the second more closely associated with the
Buddha himself.(7) The reversal sequence, beginning with ignorance (avijjā)
and ending with becoming-old and dying (jarāmaraṇa),
is said to describe elements causally related in temporal succession.
In this manner the time-bound and soteriologically meaningful,
concepts of karma, bhava, bhāvanā, etc., so crucial to the whole idea
of Buddhist praxis are made comprehensible. The natural sequence, by
contrast, beginning with jarāmaraṇa
and ending in avijjā, stresses non-temporal relations of
interdependence, simultaneity, or mutuality. In this way the twelve
a"ngas are not so much causal chains, in which the cause precedes the
effect in rigid succession, but the factors of human existence which
are interdependent upon each other simultaneously in a structural
cross-section of human life.(8)
This typically Mahāyānist rendering, then, associates
chronological causation with the Abhidharma of the old canon, while
simultaneous relations (akālika) represent a complementary position
implicit in the teachings of the Buddha yet only made explicit in the
Mahāyāna. The implication here seems to be that the natural sequence,
while obviously present in the writings of the old canon, was either
consciously or unconsciously neglected.
For Yamada, Abhidharmic scholiasts deviated, for some
inexplicable reason, from an atemporal understanding of causation to
the extent that they came to adopt a theory of strict one-to-one
cause-effect relations "along the flow of time"(9) known in Japanese
as gookan engi setsu (=karma activated dependent origination theory?)
I shall now suggest that the Abhidharmic adherence to asymmetry, i.e.,
to a strict temporal sequencing of dharmas, is not quite as strong as
may have been expected from Yamada's treatment of the subject.
The Sarvāstivāda accepts six basic kinds of relation (hetu)
between entities. Of these six, two - the simultaneous relation (sahabhūhetu)
and the associated relation (samprayuktahetu) - suggest a roughly
similar character of mutuality. In fact, the Sarvāstivāda came under
attack from a variety of other Buddhist schools (10) under the
suspicion that these two interrelated hetu undermined the basis of
temporal causation understood as essential to the efficacy of ethical
and soteriologically meaningful activity. It is clear, for instance,
that Sa"nghabhadra was perfectly happy with the notion of mutuality in
relations to the extent that he derives his simultaneously produced
relation (sahotpannahetu) from the ancient "when this..ṭhat"
formula.(11)
Some scholars (12) have attempted to show that
simultaneous and temporal theories of causation are complementary.
While the latter represents a unidirectional flow of causes and
effects, the former points to the spatial relations that must also
hold between co-existent entities. Sahabhūhetu, then, concerns
relations in space, not in time. It indicates a principle of spatial
unity or aggregation. Of the twenty four modes of conditionality (paccaya)
recognised by the Pali Paṭṭhāna,
the sixth and seventh, in their traditional order, are closely
related. These are, respectively, the co-nascence condition (sahajātapaccaya)
and the mutuality condition (aññamaññapaccaya). The former condition
occurs in four basic kinds of relation, i.eṭhose
between mentals and mentals, mentals and physicals, physicals and
physicals and physicals and mentals. So exhaustive is this list that
we could be forgiven for thinking that the vast majority of the
possible relations between the entities envisaged by Theravāda
Buddhism may be found under this heading. In fact, relations of the
first type, i.e., mentals to mentals, are acknowledged, by a range of
Theravāda thinkers, to be
ṣymmetrical.
That is, the relation between the two terms A and B holds good as
between B and A.(13)
Karunadasa accepts that, under certain circumstances, a
relationship of pure reciprocity can apply, specifically in what he
regards to be a special case of sahajāta defined in the traditional
list of paccayas as no.7 - the mutuality condition (aññamañña).
Indeed, Ledi Sayadaw happily conflates these two paccayas and there is
a widely held view, endorsed by Karunadasa, among others, that the
aññamañña condition is "the same as the sahabhūhetu of the
Sarvāstivādins.(14)
Buddhaghosa in his Vibha"nga commentary, Sammohavinodanī,
distinguishes between a strictly sutta-based, temporal form of
causation extending over many thought-moments (nānācittakkhaṇika)
on the one hand, and an abhidhammic, non-temporal version said to
occur in a single thought-moment (ekacittakkhaṇika),
i.e. to all intents and purposes, instantaneously.(15) According
to Buddhaghosa then, the suttas favour asymmetry with the abhidhamma
plumping for a spatio-symmetric view of relations. This categorisation
differs sharply from Yamada's understanding of an Abhidhamma
unequivocally promoting uni-directional causation, and, in my opinion,
his less than enthusiastic support for non-Mahāyānist positions tends
to make him uncritically conflate a great range of sources. In fact,
the true situation on sutta and abhidhamma readings is probably
somewhere between the positions of Buddhaghosa and Yamada. It seems
that the Pali commentarial traditional never successfully managed to
reconcile these two radically divergent readings and in the final
analysis, elegant solutions to complex textual traditions are
impossible to achieve. Nevertheless, it is obvious that akālika
relations i.e. those not bound by time were not entirely overlooked by
the Theravāda even though some modern apologists have been reluctant
to admit this fact.(16)
The Sautrāntika school seems to have offered four basic
objections to the Sarvāstivādin position on mutual relations not least
because it seemed thoroughly imbued with a spirit of symmetry. The
Sautrāntika also advanced a more radical theory of momentariness (kṣaṇavāda)
by denying any element of stasis. For the Sautrāntikas, dharmas
disappear as soon as they arise though this response to the problem of
true causal efficiency is no more satisfactory than the position it
sought to replace. Nagao's rather flimsy defence of kṣaṇavāda
fails to come to terms with this fact. He argues that the doctrine
does not mean the total extinction of the world; on the contrary, it
is the way by which the world establishes itself as full of life and
spirit (my emphasis)."(17)
Now, though irresolvable differences remain, all three
early schools of Buddhism exhibited a tendency to view causation in
spatial/horizontal terms, even though this tendency was often obscured
behind the lush vegetation of temporal/vertical thinking.
It looks likely
that, as Buddhism developed, a gradual radicalisation of the concept
of impermanence occurred with rather more emphasis placed on symmetric
relations between entities. The common sense view, perhaps related to
the introspective/empirical observations of an early meditator's
tradition that set a radically impermanent mental flux against the
relative permanence of non-mental entities, was in time reformulated
and rationalised by an emerging scholastic tradition.(18) These
scholastic traditions, then, begin a process that results in the
severing of links with common sense asymmetric causation to the extent
that the temporal flow of a single chain of causes and effects was
eclipsed by the space-like aspect of symmetry. In my view, the
increasing dominance of symmetry in Buddhist thought provides a
fertile breeding ground for the development of the Avataṃsakasūtra
doctrine of the radical interpenetration of all things and this, in a
circuitous manner, undoubtedly has come to influence the writings of
many contemporary environmental thinkers.
Mahāyānists in general wish to preserve a time-like
asymmetry of causation in its common-sense form, while negating it
from the ultimate perspective. Nāgārjuna holds that four alternative
positions, the tetralemma or catuṣkoṭi,
logically exhaust the possible connections between causally related
entities. Now, the dominant view within the Mahāyānist exegetical
tradition is that Nāgārjuna's negation of the four alternatives is
absolute. In other words, relations between entities can never be
meaningfully articulated in terms of any of the four positions of the
catuṣkoṭi.
Indeed, no other position is possible. Absolute negation (prasajyapratiṣedha)
in this case results in the total denial of causal relations between
substantial entities. Using this as a starting point, Nāgārjuna moves
on swiftly to propose that entities engaged in causal relations must
be empty ("sūnya). Of course, he has already underlined the centrality
of pratītyasamutpāda as the bedrock, the central authority from which
all Buddhist thought must flow. This being so, the affirmation of
causal relations leads inexorably to a negation of substantiality.
Now, an empty entity has no distinguishing mark, its value is zero ("sūnya).
Furthermore, all conditioned entities must share this same null value
and in this sense they are equivalent. If this is accepted Charles
Hartshorne's intuition (19) that Nāgārjuna exhibits a prejudice in
favour of symmetry is confirmed and we shall expect Nāgārjuna to
experience some difficulty in accounting for any purposeful
directionality of change, or "emergence into novelty" to use the
jargon of process theology.
The earliest extant commentary on the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā,
the Akutobhayā (20), is traditionally ascribed to Nāgārjuna, though
this attribution tends to be rejected by modern scholarship.
Interestingly, the use of absolute negation (prasajyapratiṣedha)
of the four positions of the catuṣkoṭi
is not one of the obvious features of this early text. In its
treatment of MMK.XVI I I.8, the four koṭis
are said to represent a series of graded steps related to the
spiritual propensities of those engaged on the Buddhist path. This
reading, in part confirmed by the later commentaries of Buddhapālita
and Bhāvaviveka (21), singles out the fourth and final koṭi
as the closest approximation, given the constraints of language, to
the true nature of things. If we relate this to our earlier discussion
of the four possible modes of production, it is apparent that the
"neither different nor non-different" position, if is legitimate to
invoke the law of the excluded middle here, reflects a rejection of
both symmetric and asymmetric accounts of causation - a deeply
puzzling notion. We might have expected a more satisfactory resolution
of the problem, assuming of course that anyone in the early Madhyamaka
was aware of, or indeed interested, in the matter. If so, we shall be
disappointed, for the early Madhyamaka transcends, rather than
resolves the tension. By retaining his strong adherence to the
Buddha's teaching on pratītyasamutpāda, i.e. by insisting on the
objectivity of the causal process, Nāgārjuna and his followers adopt a
view of reality that, in so far as it can be articulated, is
constituted by causally related and empty entities that are neither
different nor non-different one from another. Elsewhere I have termed
this outlook "ontological indeterminacy."(22) Naturally Ruegg is
reluctant to accept that the Madhyamaka would have countenanced such
an irrational depiction of reality as coincidentia oppositorum but
what strikes one forcibly here is the parallel with the doctrine of
symmetric interpenetration characteristic of some of the later phases
of Buddhism, such as the Chinese Hua-Yen school.(23) In the Yogācāra
again we find some evidence of a distinction between akālika and
unidirectional relations, even though the precise form of the
distinction does not fully harmonise with that observed in other
strands of the Buddhist tradition. As we would expect of a
philosophical tradition with a specific interest in the mechanics of
consciousness (vijñāna), the Yogācāra treatment of causation gives
priority to the non-temporal factors that, as we have already seen in
the Pali literature, apply to relations between mental entities.
Nagao goes on to suggest that the term pratītyasamutpāda
is not intended to define causal relationships as customarily
understood for it represents "..ṭhe
realm of mutual relatedness, of absolute relativity [which]
constitutes an absolute otherness over against selfhood and
essence."(24) Chronological proliferation operates only from the
perspective of conventional understanding, for, in reality,
pratītyasamutpāda denotes "unity in a transhistorical realm."(25)
Returning now
to Nāgārjuna's picture of causation and reality at MMK. XVI I I.9, we
hear: Independent of another (aparapratyaya) (Ruegg's (26) rendering
of this difficult term]), at peace ("sānta) not discursively developed
through discursive developments, without dichotomising
conceptualisation, and free from multiplicity (anānārtha): this is the
characteristic of reality (tattva)."(27)
This verse occurs in the context of a discussion of causal
factors so we may, without doing violence to the text, conclude that
tattva is inextricably related to pratītyasamutpāda. Comparison with
the ma"ngala"sloka reveals a number of parallels. Tattva , for
instance, is said to be at peace, or still ("sānta). The term
anānārtham also occurs in MMK.XVI I I.9, although significantly tattva
is not related to the usual binegation of positive and negative
positions, i.e. neither without differentiation nor devoid of unity
(the fourth koṭi),
as one would expect by reference to the ma"ngala"sloka. A consistent
reading suggests that the quiescence and non-multiplicity of causally
related entities is a function of their entirely symmetrical relations
and one might be inclined to term this kind of relation
"interpenetration". Ruegg, of course, rejects this interpretation.
However, his treatment of the passages is ambiguous for he upholds
Candrakīrti's view that a reality devoid of differentiation has the
value of emptiness while, elsewhere in the same important article, he
also wants to maintain that the Madhyamaka understanding of causal
relations is "in a certain sense indeterminate and irrational"(28). In
the less equivocal opinion of la Vallee Poussin, Nāgārjuna holds only
to the conventional expression of temporal causation, for: "There is,
in absolute truth, no cause and effect."(29)
To
summarise, the centrality of the notion of causation is
non-negotiable, located, as it were, at the heart of the tradition.
This seems to have led some early Buddhist schools to emphasise
spatiality as against temporality, perhaps because this was perceived
as entailing fewer intractable philosophical problems. The early
Madhyamaka does not follow this lead preferring instead a transcendent
approach to the problem of causation.
Conclusion
The gulf between spatial and temporal interpretations of
causation was never satisfactorily reconciled in early Buddhism. An
obvious starting point in any theoretical construction of an authentic
Buddhist environmentalist ethic must be the doctrine of causation
understood in its temporal sense yet, though the doctrine allows for a
highly coherent account of the arising and cessation of suffering, and
in particular of the interaction of mental factors, it has rarely been
invoked as the basis of a "scientific" explanation of the natural
world. This is, in good measure, because Buddhism has regularly
embraced chronological causation at one moment only to reject it in
the next. Here is an excellent example of the corrosive character of
the "rhetoric of immediacy".
From the cosmological perspective Buddhism recognises an
ad nauseam unfolding and dissolution of worlds that act as receptacles
for countless beings yet this picture is essentially anti-evolutionary
or dysteleologic. All is in a state of flux yet all is quiescent for
all forward movement lacks a sense of purpose. As Faure has made
clear, the gulf between these two levels is not always easy to
negotiate, even given the "teleological tendencies of controlled
narrative"(30) that Buddhism has generally employed to minimise the
incongruence of its various building blocks.
The theory of karma is clearly crucial to any Buddhist
explanation of the world. On this account the "natural realm" is, at
any point in time, regarded as a direct result of Stcherbatsky's
"mysterious efficiency of past elements or deeds."(31) There is, then,
no magnet at the end of history drawing events inexorably towards
their ultimate goal, no supra-temporal telos directing events either
directly or indirectly. The narrative and soteriological structure of
Buddhism appears, despite some recent attempts to indicate otherwise,
essentially dysteleologic (32).
Now, this need not preclude the possibility of purposiveness
altogether, yet, when other available teleologies are considered,
prospects are not especially encouraging. Woodfield, in an important
study, shows that only two further positions remain for the Buddhist
and one of these, the animistic alternative premised on the notion
that entities are directed by the souls or minds that inhere within
them, cannot possibly be appropriate. We are left then with the
Aristotelian idea of immanent teleology in which objects behave
teleologically because it is in their nature to do so. In other words
the "source of a thing's end-directedness is to be found within the
nature of the thing itself, not in some external agency."(33)
It is clear that, from the Madhyamaka perspective, no
entity exists that could possibly possess a nature of this kind. The
fact of niḥsvabhāvatā
then precludes the possibility of immanent tele. The Abhidharma
position, bearing in mind our earlier discussion, is perhaps more
difficult to characterise. Dharmas are the ultimately unanalysable
constituents of nature but can dharmas, which are at least regarded as
possessing own-natures (svabhāva), also be said to act as the source
of their own end-directed movement? There is general agreement of all
of the early schools of Buddhism that dharmas are simple and discrete
entities. As such their capacity for internal relations with other
dharmas makes no sense. Relationships must be of a purely formal kind.
If this is accepted two things follow:
1- Dharmas cannot mutually cooperate to bring about events
on the macro scale - we may wish to compare this with process
theology's (34) comparatively successful attempt to account for
change, and even novelty, as the result of the prehension [i.e. serial
co-operation] of internally related simples within an overarching
Christian teleological structure.
2- Dharmas do not possess tele though, on the level of
convention, societies of such entities may be said to possess ends,
though only in the most highly provisional sense.
The theory of dharmas represents a pseudo-explanation, a reformulation
of the original insight of the Buddha into the fact that all things
change. It gives no information on how this may occur. The theories of
causation and of karma hover above all mechanical explanations and are
never successfully earthed within them. In this sense we can talk
about an "ontological indeterminacy" at the heart of Buddhist thought.
At best all we can say is that Buddhism accepts de facto change. It
cannot account for it!
If we now root our discussion in the more concrete
situation of environmental ethics we begin to see the difficulty in
determining a coherent Buddhist approach. There are difficulties in
determining how best to act with regard to the natural world, unless
that response has been specifically authorised by the Buddha. The
problem here is twofold. In the first place, few of the Buddha's
injunctions can be used unambiguously to support environmentalist ends
(35) and in the second, the dysteleological character of Buddhist
thought militates against anything that could be construed as
injecting the concept of an "end" or "purpose" into the world. It is,
for example, very hard to see how a specifically Buddhist position on
global warming or on the decrease in diversity of species can be made,
unless of course one can appeal to the supranormal intelligence of a
handful of contemporary Buddhist sages. In this connection, the
Far-Eastern appeal to the Buddhist notion of the "interpenetration of
all entities" will not do, for I hope that I have shown that the
symmetric bias of this approach cannot even satisfactorily account for
the raw fact of change itself, let alone for those aspects of change
deemed harmful to the natural environment.
Schmithausen has observed that Buddhist spiritual and
everyday practice may contribute to a sort of de facto
environmentalism, though he his careful to point out that this does
not, in itself "establish ... nature ... as a value in itself"(36). It
is worth pointing out that even in the realm of interpersonal
relations, and in relations between humans and the higher animals,
"commitment to extrapersonal welfare" is found only in a "highly
qualified and rather paradoxical sense."(37). In this light
Schmithausen's programme for a reformation of Buddhism through de-dogmatisation
of the inconvenient Buddhist teachings on animals, etc. is little more
than a bit of tinkering around on the margins. I hope that I have
beenable to show that it is the dysteleology deeply rooted within
Buddhism that is the essential problem for any future Buddhist
environmental ethic, not a bit of local difficulty with animals. It is
not so much that Buddhism has a difficulty in deriving an ought from
an is, it is that it faces the more fundamental difficulty of defining
an "is" in the first place. On the theoretical level, then, the best
Buddhism can offer at the moment is an endorsement of those aspects of
the contemporary environmentalist agenda that do not conflict with its
philosophic core. The future development of a coherent and
specifically Buddhist environmentalism, assuming that this is indeed
possible, will be fraught with many difficulties.
Notes
(1) For example, Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the 14th
Dalai Lama "A Tibetan Buddhist Perspective on Spirit in Nature" in
Rochefeller, Steven C. and John C. Elder (eds.) Spirit and Nature: Why
the Environment is a Religious Issue (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992), pp.
109-123.
(2) Noritoshi Aramaki, "Shizen-hakai kara Shizen-sasei e -
Rekishi no Tenkai ni tsuite" (From destruction of Nature to Revival of
Nature: On a Historical Conversion) Deai, 11, 1 (1992), pp.3-22.
(3) Joanna Macy, "The Greening of the Self" in A. Hunt-Badiner
(ed.) Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology
(Berkeley: Parallax, 1990), pp. 53-63. Also, Mutual Causality in
Buddhism and General Systems Theory: The Dharma of Natural Systems
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991).
(4) Brian Brown, "Toward a Buddhist Ecological Cosmology"
Bucknell Review, 37,2 (1993), pp.124-137.
(5) Lambert Schmithausen, Buddhism and Nature. The Lecture
Delivered on the Occasion of the EXPO 1990 (An Enlarged Version with
Notes) (Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1991
[Studia Philologica Buddhica, Occasional Paper Series VI I]). Also,
The Problem of the Sentience of Plants (Tokyo: The International
Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1991 [Studia Philologica Buddhica,
Occasional Paper Series VI]).
(6) Noriaki Hakamaya, "Shizen-hihan to-shite no Bukkyoo"
(Buddhism as a Criticism of Physis/Natura) Komazawa-daiguku
Bukkyoogakubu Ronshū, 21 (1990), pp.380-403. Also, "Nihon-jin to
animizmu" Komazawa-daiguku Bukkyoogakubu Ronshū, 23 (1992),
pp.351-378.
(7) I. Yamada, "Premises and Implications of
Interdependence" in S. Balasooriya, et al (eds.) Buddhist Studies in
Honour of Walpola Rahula (London: Gordon Fraser, 1980), p. 279f.
(8) Ibid., p. 271.
(9) Ibid pp. 272-273.
(10) The main opponents to this apparent notion of
simultaneous causation were the Dārṣṭāntikas
(cf. Mahāvibhāṣā
[Taishoo 27, p.79c7-8]) and the Sautrāntikas (Vasubandhu
Abhidharmako"sa 83.18-84.24). The Sautrāntika objections to the notion
of mutual causality were fourfold.
(11) See Nyāyānusāra [Taishoo 29.419b7-8] quoted in K.K.
Tanaka, "Simultaneous Relation (Sahabhū-hetu): A Study in Buddhist
Theory of Causation," Journal of the International Association of
Buddhist Studies, 8, 1 (1985), pp. 91-111; p.95.
(12) Ibid.
(13) Ledi Sayadaw "On the Philosophy of Relations I I,"
Journal of the Pali Text Society, (1915-16), pp. 21-53; p.40. This
reading is confirmed by W. M. McGovern's discussion of this matter in
A Manual of Buddhist Philosophy Vol. 1 - Cosmology (London: Kegan
Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1923), pp. 194-195.
(14) Y. Karunadasa, Buddhist Analysis of Matter (Colombo:
Dept. of Cultural Affairs, 1967), p. 131. Funnily enough Kalupahana
takes a rather different line. For him, sahajātapaccaya, not
aññamaññapaccaya is the correlate of sahabhūhetu while, on the
authority of Haribhadra, aññamañña is said to be the correlate of the
Sarvāstivāda sabhāgahetu. See David J. Kalupahana, Causality: The
Central Philosophy of Buddhism (Honolulu: University Press of Hawai'i,
1975), pp. 167-168.
(15) Sammohavinodanī pp. 199-209.
(16) It is certainly curious that Ledi Sayadaw (op cit)
fails to make any specific reference to aññamañña in his treatment of
the paccayas. Again, Nyanatiloka is extremely cautious in treatment of
simultaneity in causal relations; see Nyanatiloka Mahāthera, Guide
Through the Abhidhamma-Pitaka: Being a Synopsis of the Philosophical
Collection Belonging to the Buddhist Pali Canon (Kandy: Buddhist
Publication Society, 1971), p. 156.
(17) Gadjin Nagao, "The Logic of Convertibility" in
Madhyamaka and Yogācāra: A Study of Mahāyāna Philosophies: Collected
Papers of GṂṆagao
[Edited, collated and translated by LṢ.Kawamura
in collaboration with GṂṆagao]
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), p. 130 [first
appeared as "Tenkan no Ronri" in Tetsugaku Kenkyu (Journal of
Philosophical Studies), 35,7 (1952), p. 405ff.
(18) This distinction between cadres of spiritual praxis
and philosophical reflection builds on the distinction first made by
Lambert Schmithausen in "Spirituelle Praxis und Philosophical Theorie
im Buddhismus," Zeitschrift fur Missionswissenschaft und
Religionswissenschaft, 57,3 (1973), pp. 161-186 [Republished &
translated into English as "On the Problem of the Relation of
Spiritual Practice and Philosophical Theory in Buddhism" in German
Scholars on India, Vol.I I (New Delhi: Cultural Department of the
Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1976. pp. 235-250].
(19) Charles Hartshorne, Creative Synthesis and
Philosophic Method (London: SCM Press, 1970 [The Library of Philosophy
and Theology]), pp.205-226.
(20) On the authorship, etc., of Akutobhayā, see C.W.
Huntingdon, Jr., The Akutobhayā and Early Indian Madhyamaka,
unpublished dissertation, University of Michigan, 1986.
(21) See David S. Ruegg, "The Uses of the Four Positions
of the Catuṣkoṭi
and the Problem of the Description of Reality in Mahāyāna Buddhism",
Journal of Indian Philosophy, 5 (1977-8), pp. 37ff.
(22) Ian Charles Harris, The Continuity of Madhyamaka and
Yogācāra in Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1991);
especially see chapter 7.
(23) See my "An American Appropriation of Buddhism" in T.
Skorupski (ed.), Buddhist Forum, Vol. 3 (Tring: Institute of Buddhist
Studies, 1994), forthcoming.
(24) Gadjin M. Nagao, The Foundational Standpoint of
Madhyamika Philosophy [translated by John P. Keenan] (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1989), p. 8.
(25) Ibid p. 17.
(26) Ruegg, "The Uses of the Four Positions of the Catuṣkoṭi
and the Problem of the Description of Reality in Mahāyāna Buddhism,"
p. 10.
(27) aparapratyayaṃ
"sāntam prapañcair aprapañcitaṃ.
nirvikalpam anānārtham etat tattvasya lakṣaṇaṃ.
(28) Ruegg, "The Uses of the Four Positions of the Catuṣkoṭi
and the Problem of the Description of Reality in Mahāyāna Buddhism,"
p. 11 n. 44.
(29) Louis de la Vallee Poussin, "Identity (Buddhist)" in
J. Hastings (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics (Edinburgh: T.
& T. Clark, 1914), Vol. VI I, p. 100.
(30) Bernard Faure, The Rhetoric of Immediacy: A Cultural
Critique of Chan/Zen Buddhism (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1991), p. 4.
(31) Th. Stcherbatsky, The Central Conception of Buddhism
(Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1974), p. 31.
(32) The term "dysteleology" seems to have been coined by
the Protestant theologian E. Heckel to denote the "purposelessness of
nature".
(33) Andrew Woodfield, Teleology (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1976), p. 6.
(34) For example, David Ray Griffin, "Whitehead's Deeply
Ecological Worldview," Bucknell Review 37, 2 (1993), pp. 190-206.
(35) See my "How Environmentalist is Buddhism?" Religion,
21 (1991), pp. 101-114.
(36) Lambert Schmithausen, "How can Ecological Ethics be
Established in Early Buddhism", p. 15 (forthcoming).
(37) David Little and Sumner BṬwiss,
Comparative Religious Ethics: A New Method (San Francisco: Harper and
Row, 1978), p. 240.
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