Buddhist Approaches to Impermanence: Phenomenal and Naumenal

The doctrine of impermanence can be called the most salient feature of the Buddha’s teaching. The early Buddhist doctrine of impermanence can be understood in four different but interrelated contexts: Buddha’s empiricism, the notion of conditioned/constituted objects, the idea of dependent arising, and the practical context of suffering and emancipation. While asserting the impermanence of all phenomena, the Buddha was silent on the questions of the so-called transcendent entities and truths. Moreover, though the Buddha described Nibbāṇa/Nirvāṇa as a ‘deathless state’ (‘amataṃ padam’), it does not imply eternality in a metaphysical sense. Whereas the early Buddhist approach to impermanence can be called ‘phenomenal’, the post-Buddhist approach was concerned with naumena (things in themselves). Hence, Sarvāstivāda (along with Pudgalavāda) is marked by absolutism in the form of the doctrines of substantial continuity, atomism, momentariness, and personalism. The paper also deals with the approaches to impermanence of Dharmakīrti and Nāgārjuna, which can be called naumenal rather than strictly phenomenal. For Dharmakīrti, non-eternality was in fact momentariness and it was not a matter of experience but derivable conceptually or analytically from the concept of real. Nāgārjuna stood not for impermanence, but emptiness (śūnyatā), the concept which transcended both impermanence and permanence, substantiality and non-substantiality.

The Dharma of Non-duality

This final chapter follows the sutra’s storyline through its best-known story, in which Vimalakirti challenges thirty-two bodhisattvas to present an articulate account of the non-dual nature of reality. Describing the primary lines of their statements, we learn of the non-duality between self and others, between purity and impurity, between us and them, between the human and the non-human, and between Mahayana and Hinayana. The Buddhist teachings on emptiness, dependent arising, and no-self are shown to account for the persistent non-duality proclaimed in the sutra. By way of these teachings, all dichotomies are declared to be empty of a permanent, essential nature. The chapter concludes with reflection on Vimalakirti’s famous silence in response to the question of non-duality.

Buddhist-Led Rural Community Rebuilding in the Republic of Korea from the Indra’s Net Perspective

This paper zeros in on Buddhist-led community rebuilding with a special reference to Sannae District in Namwon, Jeonbuk Province in the Republic of Korea (South Korea). Until the 1990s, the district witnessed the traditional sense of community rapidly disappearing along with tidal rural-urban migration and agricultural industrialisation. Since the late 1990s, Silsang-sa, an about 1200-year-old Buddhist monastery located in the rural district, has strived to help revitalise the rural community. Reverend Tobŏp, the head monk of the monastery, brought attention to the overarching Buddhist doctrines of ‘dependent arising’ and ‘Indra’s Net’ that every phenomenon arises only in relation to others. To start with, in 1998 Reverend Tobŏp set up an organic agriculture training camp on Silsang-sa Farm for prospective rural migrants. In 2001, he established Silsang-sa Small School, which is an alternative secondary school with Buddhist ecology and economics included in the curriculum. Owing to increasing in-migration, Sannae District has gradually evolved into a socially and economically vibrant and sustainable community in which a variety of social clubs and commercial cooperatives have burgeoned.

Three Turnings of the Wheel of Doctrine (Dharma-Cakra)

The three turnings of the “wheel of doctrine” (dharma-cakra) is a Buddhist concept that has its origins in the Discourse Explaining the Thought (Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra), a 3rd–4th century Indian Mahāyāna work. According to the schema described in this text, in the first turning the Buddha laid out fundamental precepts such as the four noble truths and dependent arising. The Buddha subsequently taught a second wheel, comprising the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajñā-pāramitā) discourses and related works, in which the teachings of the first wheel were subjected to the critique of emptiness (śūnyatā): the Buddha corrected the false impression some followers had developed that his words have a privileged truth status and transcend the limitations of mundane words and concepts. But in so doing he moved some followers toward an extreme of nihilism. And so in the third wheel he differentiated what is and is not being negated. This framework, only sketchily outlined in the Sūtra, was later extended and reinterpreted by Buddhist exegetes, most often as a polemical and sectarian strategy by which they valorized their own doctrines and preferred scriptures and relegated those of rivals to lower status while still acknowledging them as valid teachings of the Buddha delivered for the benefit of particular types of trainees with specific proclivities. In some tantric sources, Vajrayāna is characterized as part of the third wheel. As with the Discourse Explaining the Thought’s formulation, the tantric version of the three wheels presents them as sequential, with each requiring the others. Subsequent wheels build on and correct misconceptions in earlier ones, and the schema construes each successive dispensation as more profound than the preceding one(s) and as better representing the Buddha’s final thought.

'Going off the Map'

The early Buddhist exegetical text, the Nettippakara?a, apparently uniquely, describes the stages of the path as ‘transcendental dependent arising’ (lokuttara pa?icca-samupp?da), in contrast with the twelve nid?nas, called ‘worldly dependent arising’ (lokiya pa?icca-samupp?da). A close reading of the Nettippakara?ain relation to another, related, exegetical text, the Pe?akopadesa, reveals that the latter interprets the same stages of the path in a different way. More broadly, while the Pe?akopadesa takes pa?icca-samupp?dato refer only to the twelve nid?nas, the Nettippakara?a’s exegetical strategy takes pa?icca-samupp?dato refer to an over-arching principle of conditionality, both ‘worldly’ and ‘transcendental’. This exegesis has proved popular with modern western Buddhist exegetes.

'Going off the Map'

The early Buddhist exegetical text, the Nettippakara?a, apparently uniquely, describes the stages of the path as ‘transcendental dependent arising’ (lokuttara pa?icca-samupp?da), in contrast with the twelve nid?nas, called ‘worldly dependent arising’ (lokiya pa?icca-samupp?da). A close reading of the Nettippakara?ain relation to another, related, exegetical text, the Pe?akopadesa, reveals that the latter interprets the same stages of the path in a different way. More broadly, while the Pe?akopadesa takes pa?icca-samupp?dato refer only to the twelve nid?nas, the Nettippakara?a’s exegetical strategy takes pa?icca-samupp?dato refer to an over-arching principle of conditionality, both ‘worldly’ and ‘transcendental’. This exegesis has proved popular with modern western Buddhist exegetes.