To understand the nature of Buddhist belief, it is important to understand some basic claims made about the nature of existence. Just as in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam the most basic of all beliefs concerns the existence of the One God, and just as in monistic (advaita) Hinduism there is the basic belief that atman=Brahman, so too in Buddhism there are basic claims about the nature of things. Without such basic claims, it would be impossible for a religion to orient itself properly to the cosmos (as the cosmos is understood within the tradition). Within Buddhism this is the sphere of prajña, or "Right Belief" and "Right Aspiriation".
On the most basic level it must be understood that aspiring for the right things requires that one understands the nature of things one aspires to achieve. If, for example, one were to understand the nature of suffering to be tied up with whether one could get a date with Vanna White, then the appropriate aspiration would be to get that date. Or, similarly, if happiness depended on getting rich, then one had better aspire to having a big bank account. Within Buddhism, of course, the ultimate goal is to extinguish desire so as to extinguish suffering, and it becomes paramount to understand the nature of things properly so as to direct one's life in a manner that will lead to those goals.
All beings that exist within Samsara, that is, all beings that have not come to realize Nirvana, have three attributes that are directly related to the problems associated with the human condition. Buddhists hold that attachment to nonexistent entities, or to false conceptions about the nature of reality, is a main source of our suffering. They therefore recommend that we break the hold of attachment to the illusions which we typically use to understand the world. One basic way of conceptualising the nature of illusory views is in terms of The Three Flaws. The three flaws which characterize all elements of the phenomenal world are:
(1) anitya (Pali anicca) "impermanence". Impermanence has to do with the transient quality of existence. No "thing" has any lasting quality beyond the temporary qualities that arise as various constituent parts come together in the moment. Our belief that there are permanent entities of any kind (e.g., material objects, ideas, personality traits, souls, spirits, angels, and demons) is an illusion. We don't pay close enough attention to the nature of things, and we make false conclusions about their nature. Things that we believe to be permanent are not, claim Buddhists. Ideas supportive of permanence break down under close analysis.
(2) anatman (Pali anatta) "no-self, no-soul, no-ego". This truth articulates the doctrine of "impermanence" from another angle. It focuses on the nature of the "self", but not just the "self" in human beings. This refers to the absence of "self" or "substance" for any existent entity. One might conclude that there is an unchanging substance lying at the core of reality that remains unchanged in the face of apparent impermanence. The Buddha claimed (and argued) that there exists no such substance, and beliefs that such a "self" exists collapse under close scrutiny.
(3) duhkha (Pali dukka) "suffering, misery, sorrow" Suffering is the inevitable result of attaching one's self to false ideas and concepts. Just as people hope that the world is permanent, and that they have selves with an eternal quality, we also would like to believe that there is an "escape from" suffering. Buddhists argue that dukka is inevitable within the realm of samsara. The only means of overcoming suffering is through a transformation of consciousness that allows experience to be different as perceived. This transformation of consciousness does not alter, for example, the inevitability of death or loss, but it does allow one to overcome the sorrow of this loss by giving Buddhists the ability to abandon attachments to states of being that cannot continue to exist permanently.
It is generally maintained that the Buddha would not discuss metaphysical matters, since such discussions do little to help people overcome suffering, and because these discussions can themselves become objects of attachment. A classic illustration of the Buddha's thinking in this vein is Warren 1896: "Questions That Tend Not to Edification" (on-line through RELIGIO website).
Still, within Buddhism there is a long an honored history of sophisticated discussion of metaphysical matters. From my experience in the teaching and study of religion, people inevitably ask questions about the nature of existence, and these questions lead to a kind of disquiet when there is no adequate answer. When taken too far, this leads to philosophical speculation such as "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin". This sort of pointless speculation is that addressed in "Questions that Tend Not to Edification". Engaging in this sort of speculation about metaphysics and subtle questions of philosophy can detract one from the goal of religion, in the Buddha's view, which is to escape suffering. However, there are some basic questions that need to be answered if people are to have a clear orientation to life in the world according to a religious conceptuality.Among the most basic of these has to do with the nature of individual "things", particularly the "self". As we have already seen in Hinduism, the nature of the self in its ultimate aspect (atman) is that it is identical with the cosmic oneness (Brahman). In classical Christianity and Islam, the self is ultimately the Soul, and its continued existence after the death of the body was a central concern during the Medieval period, and still is for many in the modern world. Other religious views construct the nature of the problem differently, as we have seen. Within Buddhism the central claim is that there is no self any more than there is any other "thing". A classic formulation of this teaching can be read in Warren 1896: "There is No Ego" (on-line through RELIGIO website).
In the Sutra called "There is No Ego" the Buddha answers a question from one of his students concerning the question of the self. Obviously it appears to us that we are individuals, just as it appears to us that there are tables, chair, cats, and dogs. How is it that a rational person can conclude that such things do not exist? Buddhists conclude that, yes, such things certainly do exist on a provisional level. There is a usefulness in recognizing the existence of a dog, Fido, and calling him by his name. After all, he comes when he is called. But on closer scrutiny, the collection of attributes that we label as "Fido" do not really constitute an entity that has any lasting existence. The Buddha describes the nature of this problem on analogy with a chariot in "There Is No Ego". Simply put, the Buddha deconstructs the chariot by asking his student to disassemble it. After you take away the wheels, the axel, the carriage, the tongue, and the harness, what is it that is left which can be described as a "chariot"? Is not the chariot simply the collection of those things that make up the chariot? And, therefore, is not the the designation of "chariot" merely a convenience that we utilize in everyday discourse to describe a particular collection of parts, but which actually designates nothing? Similarly, we as human individuals are collections of bones, and organs, and skin, and hair, and thoughts, and emotions, and psychological predispositions. But, inasmuch as all of these things are in a constant state of flux, of disintegration and reorganization, of learning and forgetting, of ingesting and excretion, what is that permanent thing that we can point to as "me"? Is there such a thing? And, since there is not (in the Buddhist view), should we be attached to an identity that might be able to achieve a lasting form of satisfaction? No, indeed, says the Buddha. Since our self is an impermanent collection of attributes, and since all objects of our desire are themselves likewise impermanent, any hope of finding a permanent state of happiness through the objects of desire is hopeless.
The subtleties of this view are quite dazzling in Buddhist formulation, particularly within the Mahayana tradition. Though views on this differ among various Buddhist schools, it is widely held that even the "parts" that make up illusory beings have no independent existence themselves. (See more on this under shunyata and pratitya-samutpada in the section on Mahayana Buddhism.) Hence, the essence of Right Belief within Buddhism rests on the notion of impermanence and insubstantiality, and it prods Buddhists to give up the quest to grasp things that are real, permanent, and lasting, since it is a futile quest. Right Aspiration is to let go of attachment to such illusory things, not to seek to aquire them.
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William Herbrechtsmeier
Professor of Religious Studies
Humboldt State University
E-mail: wh1@humboldt.edu
Fundamentally, our experience as experienced is not different from the Zen master's. Where
we differ is that we place a fog, a particular kind of conceptual overlay onto that experience
and then make an emotional investment in that overlay, taking it to be "real" in and of itself.
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